After some 23 or 24 Sundays, our Church is suddenly decked out in white! It couldn’t be more appropriate; we had a Wedding here last Thursday, and today is the Baptism of Zackary Hans Sethi Todd. White for celebration and the feeling that we’re getting ready for something new; we have had all our Sundays of green; green for learning and growth and now white on this ‘Stir-up Sunday’ - just before we are plunged into the darkness of purple for the more serious season of Advent. Although you might think it, there are never two Sundays the same. The whole Church year is, as life is itself, a roller coaster of sadness and joy; of grief and exhilaration. So, we’re on a high today. After the feeding of the five thousand, the people exclaimed, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is come into the world’. Things are looking up! Are you ready for something new?

If you look at the papers recently, you might see that the Roman Catholic Church is perhaps about to debate an issue which can hardly be called new, but it’s certainly stirring up deliberation. The whole controversy about the priest who has left his position because of a relationship with a woman has sparked off another contentious issue within the Church. A priest from Holy Family Church in Derry announced to his congregation about his departure. He was hugely popular and many travelled across the border to hear him speak. It said in the papers, “After a large gasp, the stunned congregation rose to their feet and applauded”.

He had just announced that he was leaving the priesthood for the woman he loved! Now that’s something new!

I heard the well-known Fr. Brian D’Arcy in an interview say recently that since the day he was ordained, he has advocated that RC priests should have the option to celibacy and should be allowed to marry if they wanted to. A while ago, I was given a book of his entitled, ‘A different Journey’. In 1969, Brian D’Arcy entered a Church that had not changed in 300 years. Vatican 2 had brought promise of renewal – but Archbishop John Charles McQuaid declared, ‘Nothing has changed’. Brian D’Arcy’s book chronicles those many turbulent years, enduring many controversies and often forcing out many of its ablest priests to leave the priesthood – their only crime to have fallen in love with a woman.

On a lighter note, perhaps there may be other ways to celibacy such as the one I read about recently. Celibacy, the story goes, can be a choice in life, or a condition imposed by environmental factors.

While attending a marriage Encounter Weekend, Tony and Julie listened to the instructor declare, ‘It is essential that husbands and wives know the things that are important to each other.’

He addressed the men, ‘Can you each name and describe your wife’s favourite flower?’ Tony leaned over to Julie; he touched Julie’s arm gently and whispered, ‘Self-raising, isn’t it?’

Thus began Tony’s life of celibacy.

I do not wish to trivialise the call to celibacy; that really is an entirely different thing and I have nothing but huge respect for the young priests I have met who I know have taken celibacy as part of their calling to the priesthood. It has been an age-old debate, but for a congregation to stand up and applaud a priest for leaving the Church over the issue is something very new; to me at least.

Over all the centuries there have been so many litigious issues which have divided and sub-divided the Church. Fences are being erected to divide us all up. Traditionalists are holding on to what has always been, by tradition, because the church has become a myriad of different types of worship styles, doctrine, music, tradition and all the rest; we seem to be in a whirl of ever decreasing circles, and yet; and yet, each and every one of those churches within Christianity claim Christ as King!

Can we really cope with things new? Every day of life, science and medicine and art and philosophy throw out new ideas and concepts that the Church has to deal with. Social issues, cultural issues constantly challenge our church and our leaders. Now more than ever, because there are just so many concerns to deal with, I wonder how can we ever hold our church together and send out a unified message to a mystified and unbelieving world.

I don’t want us to get bogged down in controversy; busy answering questions that no-one is really asking – that’s just a waste of time. I welcome debate always, but it has to relevant and stimulating. Remember we’re in a time of the Church’s year when things are looking up and we are ready for something new! Are you ready for a new hymn that we are meant to be singing on Sunday week, a ‘modern’ hymn because it is only 8 years old and not 108!

Advent begins the Church’s New Year, and the purple of Advent is for Preparation – it’s about getting ready for something new; a new commitment to our church, to our faith, to each other, to our Lord in this New Year.

There was a group of soldiers in World War Two who wanted to find a church graveyard to bury a friend and comrade who had died in battle. They found a church with a graveyard behind it surrounded by a white fence. They asked the parish priest could their friend be buried there. ‘Was he Catholic?’ the Priest asked. ‘No he was not’, the soldiers answered’. ‘Our graveyard is really reserved for members of our church’, said the priest, ‘but you can bury your friend outside the fence. I will see that the gravesite is cared for.’ And so they duly buried their friend.

When the war finally ended, and before the soldiers returned home, they decided to visit the graveside of their friend. They went to search for the grave just outside the fence, but they could not find it. Finally, they went to the priest to enquire as to its location. The priest replied, ‘Well, after you buried your fallen friend, it didn’t seem right that he should be buried there, outside the fence.’ ‘So you moved his grave?’ asked the soldiers. ‘No,’ said the priest. ‘I moved the fence.’

If the entire Christian Church proclaim Christ as King,

then we need to show that kind of unity in a fellowship of love and understanding, even with all our differences and hues; we need to be prepared to move the fence! It’s the only thing an unbelieving world should see. We can even happily celebrate our diversity and still claim Christ as King and shout it out that, “Surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world”, this prophet who is our Lord and King.