Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe

The Love of the Heart of God (Pentecost Sunday)

Let’s talk about the Sacred Heart devotion really quickly. I realise that it is the great feast of Pentecost, but it is impossible to separate the love of the heart of Christ for His Church from the gift of the Holy Spirit that proceeds from that love. So, here, at some length, is what Our Lord said to the Visitation Sister S. Marguerite-Marie Alacoque in the seventeenth century, when He appeared to her and appointed her the Apostle of His Sacred Heart. He said (and we visualise a typical depiction of the Sacred Heart),

‘Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to consuming itself to witness its love. And in return, I receive from most of them only ingratitude from their irreverences and their sacrileges and by the coldness and contempt that they have for Me in this sacrament of love.’

He declared that the greatest hurt He experienced was from those who are His own – His Christians, His Catholics – and yet have done these things. The heart of this devotion of the Church is therefore reparation – making personal offerings to Christ in an effort to console Him for this devastating response to His Sacrifice on the Cross. I and the Father are one, He had once said, they who reject Me reject not only me but Him Who sent Me. This devotion and its respective offerings are therefore given to both the Father and the Son.

So, let us participate to the greatest extent that we are able in this effort, that has been lauded and recommended to us by popes, Saints, and saintly popes. There is this excellent litany of the Sacred Heart, one of the approved litanies of the Church, which we tend to recite in the month of June: the month of the Sacred Heart. I encourage all of you to seek out this litany, either in old books or on the internet. I’ve put it up on this parish website. It addresses the Sacred Heart in many ways, begging the Lord for His mercy upon us and upon those who have so offended Him.

We in England have had the good fortune to be among the first to honour the Sacred Heart, for the confessor of S. Marguerite-Marie, the French Jesuit Blessed Claude de la Colombière, carried this devotion to us when he became chaplain and confessor to the Duchess of York (the king’s sister-in-law) in her London chapel at London S. James (AD 1676). Let us restore to prominence in this country the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Our gospel reading this weekend demonstrates the relationship of love between Christ and the Church, here represented by the Twelve Apostles at the Last Supper.

“‘If you have any love for Me, you must keep the commandments which I give you; and then I will ask the Father, and He will give you another to befriend you, One Who is to dwell continually with you for ever. It is the truth-giving Spirit, for Whom the world can find no room, because it cannot see Him, cannot recognize Him. But you are to recognize Him; He will be continually at your side, nay, He will be in you. I will not leave you friendless; I am coming to you. It is only a little while now, before the world is to see Me no more; but you can see Me, because I live on, and you too will have life. When that day comes, you will learn for yourselves that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. The man who loves Me is the man who keeps the commandments he has from Me; and he who loves Me will win My Father’s love, and I too will love him, and will reveal Myself to him.‘ Here Judas, not the Iscariot, said to Him, ‘Lord, how comes it that Thou wilt only reveal Thyself to us, and not to the world?’ Jesus answered him, ‘If a man has any love for Me, he will be true to My word; and then he will win My Father’s love, and We will both come to him, and make Our continual abode with him; whereas the man who has no love for Me, lets My sayings pass him by. And this word, which you have been hearing from Me, comes not from Me, but from My Father Who sent Me. So much converse I have held with you, still at your side. He Who is to befriend you, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send on My account, will in His turn make everything plain, and recall to your minds everything I have said to you.”
Gospel of S. John, 14: 15-26 [link]

Christ says that, to demonstrate that we love Him, we should follow His commandments. He Himself would demonstrate His love for us the next day, in His death upon the Cross. The whole goal and direction of the Christian life is the establishment of this relationship of love between us and Christ, individually and as a community. Pentecost is the result of this love between Christ and His Church, for it is via the gift of the Holy Spirit that God the Father and Christ our Lord, in the words of this Gospel, come to us and dwell with us and make us their own.

In the runup to Pentecost, as described by the first reading (the narrative of the Pentecost story from Acts), we find the Apostles gathered together in prayer before the grand event. Set aside the miraculous gift of tongues that they immediately received; these gifts are given as they are required, for the building up of the Church, and we shall ourselves probably not be able to talk to every tribe of mankind in their own languages after we are confirmed by the Bishop. What is more important about living this Christian life – living in the Holy Spirit – is what S. Paul describes in the second reading: it is the purifying of our attachments, and the establishing of our priorities in life.

“Those who live the life of nature cannot be acceptable to God; but you live the life of the spirit, not the life of nature; that is, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. A man cannot belong to Christ unless he has the Spirit of Christ. But if Christ lives in you, then although the body be a dead thing in virtue of our guilt, the spirit is a living thing, by virtue of our justification. And if the Spirit of Him Who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He Who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead will give life to your perishable bodies too, for the sake of His Spirit Who dwells in you. Thus, brethren, nature has no longer any claim upon us, that we should live a life of nature. If you live a life of nature, you are marked out for death; if you mortify the ways of nature through the power of the Spirit, you will have life. Those who follow the leading of God’s Spirit are all God’s sons; the spirit you have now received is not, as of old, a spirit of slavery, to govern you by fear; it is the spirit of adoption, which makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself thus assures our spirit, that we are children of God; and if we are His children, then we are His heirs too; heirs of God, sharing the inheritance of Christ; only we must share His sufferings, if we are to share His glory.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Romans, 8: 8-17 [link]

If we are to obey the commandments of Christ and remain in His love, the things of this world cannot be for us an end in themselves, but they should be a means and be carefully chosen so as to lead us to God. If they do not, put them away. If they are sinful and we recognise them as destructive of our relationship with Christ, push them far away.

For if we are truly the children of a heavenly Father, we shall seek always, not to hurt His Sacred Heart, but to honour His great love for us.

Novena to the Holy Ghost (9/9)

At the recommendation of the Bishop, I shall be posting the following novena to the Holy Spirit daily until the great feast of Pentecost in just over a week’s time. It was written specifically for PrayMoreNovenas.com and it is based on the Fruits of the Holy Spirit and a desire for sainthood.

Day IX: Goodness

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us bow down in humility at the power and grandeur of the Holy Spirit. Let us worship the Holy Trinity and give glory today to the Paraclete, our Advocate.

O Holy Spirit, by Your power, Christ was raised from the dead to save us all. By Your grace, miracles are performed in Jesus’ name. By Your love, we are protected from evil. And so, we ask with humility and a beggar’s heart for Goodness within us.

We want to be like Your Saints in heaven. Holy Spirit, renew us by Your power with Your Goodness that we may bring the Good News to the world.

O Holy Spirit, we ask for the grace to persevere in Charity until the end. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Novena to the Holy Ghost (8/9)

Day VIII: Self-control

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us bow down in humility at the power and grandeur of the Holy Spirit. Let us worship the Holy Trinity and give glory today to the Paraclete, our Advocate.

Your Martyrs had the overwhelming self-control to go joyfully to a painful death without shrinking from the opportunity to join You in heaven. Give us this self-control to have command over our emotions and desires that we may serve You more fully.

O Holy Spirit, we ask for the grace to grow in the virtue of fortitude. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Novena to the Holy Ghost (6/9, 7/9)

Day VI: Faithfulness

Day VII: Gentleness

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us bow down in humility at the power and grandeur of the Holy Spirit. Let us worship the Holy Trinity and give glory today to the Paraclete, our Advocate.

You, O Lord, are ever faithful. You are faithful until the end. Though we are weak and distracted, please give us the grace to be faithful to You as you are to us!

Despite the gravity of our sins, O Lord you treat us with Gentleness. Dear Holy Spirit, give us your power to treat all in our lives with the Gentleness of the Saints.

O Holy Spirit, we ask for the grace to maintain the virtues of faithfulness and charity in our daily lives. Amen.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Novena to the Holy Ghost (5/9)

Day V: Kindness

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us bow down in humility at the power and grandeur of the Holy Spirit. Let us worship the Holy Trinity and give glory today to the Paraclete, our Advocate.

O Holy Spirit, by Your power, Christ was raised from the dead to save us all. By Your grace, miracles are performed in Jesus’ Name. By Your love, we are protected from evil. And so, we ask with humility and a beggar’s heart for Your gift of Kindness within us. Jesus approached sinners with immense kindness. Holy Paraclete, please treat us humble sinners with the same kindness and give us the ability to treat all others with that kindness as well.

Holy Spirit we ask for the grace to be charitable, to love even those who despise us. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Novena to the Holy Ghost (4/9)

Day IV: Patience

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us bow down in humility at the power and grandeur of the Holy Spirit. Let us worship the Holy Trinity and give glory today to the Paraclete, our Advocate.

O Holy Spirit, You give lavishly to those who ask. Please give us the patience of the Saints who are now with You in heaven. Help us to endure everything with an eternal patience that is only possible with Your help.

Holy Spirit we ask for the grace of perseverance in the Holy Faith until the end. Amen.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Novena to the Holy Ghost (3/9)

Day III: Peace

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us bow down in humility at the power and grandeur of the Holy Spirit. Let us worship the Holy Trinity and give glory today to the Paraclete, our Advocate.

O Holy Spirit, by Your power, Christ was raised from the dead to save us all. By Your grace, miracles are performed in Jesus’ Name. By Your love, we are protected from evil. And so, we ask with humility and a beggar’s heart for Your gift of Peace within us. The Saints were tempted, attacked and accused by the devil who is the destroyer of peace. When we are accused by the devil, come to our aid as our Advocate and give us Peace that lasts through all trials!

O Holy Spirit we ask for the grace to remain at peace in every circumstance of life. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Come, Lord Jesus (Sunday VII of Easter)

I wanted to say a few words this weekend about singing at the Mass, because I know that some people have difficulty singing even the ordinary of the Mass – that is, the ordinary prayers and hymns of the Mass, such as the Gloria and the Sanctus.

I want to say to begin with that we have a long tradition of the Mass being sung in at least some of its parts on Sundays and holy days. Among the first historical witnesses to the Catholic liturgy was the presentation by the pagan scientist Pliny the Younger, a second-century Roman governor, who reported that the Christians gathered and sung hymns to the man Christ, as to a god. Long before this, S. Paul had recommended in his letter to the church at Ephesus that the Church be built up through the communal singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual canticles. An ancient adage, sometimes attributed to the great bishop S. Augustine of Hippo, also declares that to sing is to pray twice.

All of this doesn’t mean that we are to be great singers; some of us certainly may be, the rest of us are assuredly not. But early on, music in worship became for us a sign of solemnity, a sort-of joining in with the angels in the heavenly Temple. The chorus of those angels became ours, and we still call any kind of Christian group of singers a chorus, or in English choir. So, we must sing, no matter how badly.

The tradition of the Church has given us the most extravagant developments in polyphonic chant; some of you know of the venerable Elizabethan Thomas Tallis. While beautiful, this needs a degree of professionalism that our parishes cannot easily acquire. We remain with the bare bones of Latin and English chant, and popular hymns, all of which are handily printed in our hymn books.

Some of my fellow priests in other parts of England sing the entire Eucharistic prayer and many parishes sing the Our Father. I’ve decided that’s too much even for me, but I have for the last several years tried to preserve decent hymns, and the very basics of the Missal on Sundays and great feast days, and I would like to ask that you forgive my poverty of skill and persevere with me in singing with the angels.

“But he, full of the Holy Spirit, fastened his eyes on heaven, and saw there the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand; ‘I see heaven opening,’ he said, ‘and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ Then they cried aloud, and put their fingers into their ears; with one accord they fell upon him, thrust him out of the city, and stoned him. And the witnesses put down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. Thus they stoned Stephen; he, meanwhile, was praying; ‘Lord Jesus,’ he said, ‘receive my spirit;’ and then, kneeling down, he cried aloud, ‘Lord, do not count this sin against them.’ And with that, he fell asleep in the Lord. Saul was one of those who gave their voices for his murder.”
Acts of the Apostles, 7: 55-60 [link]

This first reading of ours this weekend, as we prepare for the great feast of Pentecost next weekend, is about a landmark event in the early history of the Church, for it was through the witness of this great deacon S. Stephen, our very first Christian martyr, and through the following persecution of the Church that missionaries flowed in strength from Jerusalem in every direction, establishing great Christian centres, such as Damascus and Antioch in Syria and Alexandria in Egypt.

Note the marks of the Holy Spirit at this end of Stephen’s earthly life: he looks heavenward and sees the glory of the Holy One, and when the his fellow Jews stoned him in their rage he repeated the prayer of his Lord upon the Cross: forgive them, for they know not what they do. The Church has always been harassed by the people of this world and always will be, because (as Christ said) she is not of this world and her priorities are not of this world. Stephen’s perseverance until death must be ours, by the grace of God and in the Holy Spirit. Pray for this constantly. The reward of perseverance is mentioned in the second reading this weekend, from the end of the book of Apocalypse, where Christ declares His victory and bids us wash our robes clean.

“‘Patience, I am coming soon; and with Me comes the award I make, repaying each man according to the life he has lived. I am Alpha, I am Omega, I AM before all, I AM at the end of all, the beginning of all things and their end. Blessed are those who wash their garments in the blood of the Lamb; so they will have access to the tree which gives life, and find their way through the gates into the city. No room there for prowling dogs, for sorcerers and wantons and murderers and idolaters, for anyone who loves falsehood and lives in it. I, Jesus, have sent My angel to give you the assurance of this in your churches; I, the root, I, the offspring of David’s race, I, the bright star that brings in the day. The Spirit and My Bride bid me come; let everyone who hears this read out say, Come. Come, you who are thirsty, take, you who will, the water of life; it is My free gift.’ To all who hear the words of prophecy this book contains, I give this warning. If anyone adds to them, God will add to his punishment the plagues which this book threatens; and if anyone cancels a word in this book of prophecy, God will cancel his share in the book of life, in the holy city, in all that this book promises. And he who gives this warning says, ‘Indeed I am coming soon.’ Be it so, then; come, Lord Jesus.”
Book of Apocalypse, 22: 12-20 [link]

We wash our robes clean constantly through the Sacraments of the Church, by which we who are thirsty come to the source of the water of life, which is Christ. And as the Bride of Christ, we call with the Holy Spirit, Maran-atha! Come, Lord Jesus. Return to us from behind the veil! That’s what Apocalypse means – ‘revelation’ – ‘unveiling.’ He is behind the veil of the heavenly Temple, and He prays there (as here in our gospel reading) that we be one in our faith, our communion, our prayer, a great light in a world of darkness, shining with the glory of Christ our Lord. A glory that we have not earned but which has been given us as a gift by Him Who loved us and desired that we should be His.

“‘It is not only for them that I pray;
I pray for those who are to find faith in Me through their word;
that they may all be one;
that they too may be one in us, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee;
so that the world may come to believe that it is Thou Who hast sent Me.
And I have given them the privilege which Thou gavest to Me,
that they should all be one, as We are one;
that while Thou art in Me, I may be in them,
and so they may be perfectly made one.
So let the world know that it is Thou Who hast sent Me,
and that Thou hast bestowed Thy love upon them,
as Thou hast bestowed it upon Me.
This, Father, is My desire,
that all those whom Thou hast entrusted to Me may be with Me where I am,
so as to see My glory, Thy gift made to Me,
in that love which Thou didst bestow upon Me before the foundation of the world.
Father, Thou art just;
the world has never acknowledged Thee,
but I have acknowledged Thee,
and these men have acknowledged that Thou didst send Me.
I have revealed, and will reveal, Thy Name to them;
so that the love Thou hast bestowed upon Me may dwell in them,
and I, too, may dwell in them.'”
Gospel of S. John, 17: 20-26 [link]

Novena to the Holy Ghost (2/9)

Day II: Joy

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us bow down in humility at the power and grandeur of the Holy Spirit. Let us worship the Holy Trinity and give glory today to the Paraclete, our Advocate.

All of the Saints are marked with an uncompromisable Joy in times of trial, difficulty and pain. Give us, O Holy Spirit, the Joy that surpasses all understanding that we may live as a witness to Your love and fidelity!

O Holy Spirit, we ask for the grace of perseverance in Joy, no matter the circumstances. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Novena to the Holy Ghost (1/9)

Day I: Charity

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us bow down in humility at the power and grandeur of the Holy Spirit. Let us worship the Holy Trinity and give glory today to the Paraclete, our Advocate.

The great charity of all the host of Saints is only made possible by your power, O Divine Spirit. Increase in me the virtue of charity that I may love as God loves with the selflessness of the Saints.

O Holy Spirit, we ask for the grace to persevere in the virtue of holy Charity until the end. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O, God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Apostolic Church (Sunday VI of Easter)

With one last Sunday of May, I wondered if I should end my survey of Marian devotions with the Brown Scapular of the Carmelites, or with the Miraculous Medal of S. Catherine Labouré. I thought I’d spend more time with the Scapular in October and remain this weekend with the Medal, because of the complex of imagery that this rather simple device includes.

It was in the 1830s that the Charity Sister, S. Catherine, saw the visions of Our Lady in the chapel of her community house on the Rue de Bac, near central Paris. She saw a vision of the Immaculate standing upon a globe, with rays of light streaming from her hands. And she saw the words, O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. She was to put this image onto a cast medal, and you can see how the typical medal looks from the picture above. All who wear this medal are to receive signal graces through the hands of OL. It is my belief that the figure on the medal is a very pregnant Lady, and the graces that flow from her hands have their source in the Child Who lives within her.

When the promises associated with this medal began to be fulfilled, the French began calling it the Miraculous Medal, and the name has stuck. Those words (above) associated with the medal are similar to the Hail Mary, and are reputedly very powerful. On the reverse side of the medal, we find that the intercession of our Lady for us is intertwined as a great letter M with the cross of her Son. Her ministry is intertwined with His. Below this symbol we see the Sacred Heart of our Lord – which demonstrates the intense love of God for mankind – set beside the Immaculate Heart of our Lady – which brought that Sacred Heart into this world, and works together with it to bring about our eternal salvation. The twelve stars that enclose this whole refer to the vision of S. John in the book of Apocalypse, when the Lady appeared to him crowned with twelve stars. This medal is a compact summary of the mission of OL within the Church, upon which we as Catholics wonderfully rely. I recommend it for wide use, as I recommend also the Rosary of our Lady.

Our readings at Mass this weekend give us a picture of the Apostolic ministry of the early Church, which has come down to us through the work of the bishops of the Church. The second reading from the book of Apocalypse demonstrates the holy city of Jerusalem, which I shall call a temple of living stones – the Church – descending from heaven.

“And he carried me off in a trance to a great mountain, high up, and there shewed me the holy city Jerusalem, as it came down, sent by God, from heaven, clothed in God’s glory. The light that shone over it was bright as any precious stone, as the jasper when it is most like crystal; and a great wall was raised high all round it, with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel carved on the lintels; three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, three on the west. The city wall, too, had twelve foundation-stones; and these, too, bore names, those of the Lamb’s twelve Apostles. The angel who was speaking to me had a rod of gold for a rule, to measure the city, and its gates, and its wall. The city lies foursquare, the same in its length as in its breadth, and when he measured it with his rod, he counted twelve thousand furlongs. Length and breadth and height are everywhere equal. And when he measured its wall, he counted a hundred and forty-four cubits, reckoned by the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. The fashioning of its wall was of jasper, but the city itself was pure gold, that seemed to have the purity of glass. And the foundations of the city wall were worked in every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was a jasper, the second a sapphire, the third a chalcedony, the fourth an emerald; the fifth a sardonyx, the sixth a sardius, the seventh a chrysolite, the eighth a beryl; the ninth a topaz, the tenth a chrysoprase, the eleventh a jacynth, the twelfth an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve single pearls, one pearl for each gate; and the street of the city was of pure gold, that seemed like transparent glass. I saw no temple in it; its temple is the Lord God Almighty, its temple is the Lamb. Nor had the city any need of sun or moon to shew in it; the glory of God shone there, and the Lamb gave it light.“
Book of Apocalypse, 21: 10-23 [link]

This city has no temple, as S. John says, for its temple is God and the Lamb – the city is the temple, where God dwells. There are twelve gates to access the city and those are the twelve tribes of Israel. When we are baptised, we are joined to the twelve tribes of the Hebrews. There are twelve foundations stones upon which the Church here described stands, and those are the twelve apostles, minus Judas, plus S. Matthias. It is a marvellous picture of the Church, and we can see in the first reading today something of the ministry of the Apostles, for when some renegades went around places like Antioch without the Apostolic authority, suggesting that all of us should become Jews before we can be baptised Christians, the Apostles and the other leaders of the Church in Jerusalem had a bit of a council and decided that, No, Christians need not be inducted into Judaism before they are baptised.

“Thereupon it was resolved by the Apostles and presbyters, with the agreement of the whole church, to choose out some of their own number and despatch them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas who was called Barsabas, and Silas, who were leading men among the brethren. And they sent, by their hands, this message in writing; ‘To the Gentile brethren in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, their brethren the Apostles and presbyters send greeting. We hear that some of our number who visited you have disquieted you by what they said, unsettling your consciences, although we had given them no such commission; and therefore, meeting together with common purpose of heart, we have resolved to send you chosen messengers, in company with our well-beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have staked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have given this commission to Judas and Silas, who will confirm the message by word of mouth. It is the Holy Spirit’s pleasure and ours that no burden should be laid upon you beyond these, which cannot be avoided; you are to abstain from what is sacrificed to idols, from blood-meat and meat which has been strangled, and from fornication. If you keep away from such things, you will have done your part. Farewell.'”
Acts of the Apostles, 15: 22-29 [link]

Notice how the Apostles and bishops boldly declare in this apostolic exhortation that this decision of their Council was both of the Holy Spirit and theirs too. This is the authority of Christ the Head of the Church, being exercised by the men He appointed to do it. Interestingly, also, we see in this fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles some more of the organisation of the early hierarchy: (i) the Apostle S. Peter stepping aside to allow the council to be chaired by the bishop of Jerusalem, S. James, (ii), the missionary priests S. Paul and S. Barnabas needing the Apostolic authority to secure their own work in the north, in Antioch, (iii) and this last requiring the Apostles in Jerusalem to send delegates (or envoys, legates, ambassadors) along with Paul and Barnabas, named here as Judas Barsabbas and Silas.

And as we get closer to Pentecost, we shall consider more and more the work of the Holy Spirit within the Church, exercising His divine power through the appointed men, our bishops and priests. The gospel story tells of the promise of Christ, that the Holy Spirit would continue to teach the Apostles (and by extension their successors the bishops), remind them of the gospel message which they are to bring to the rest of us, and pour out peace and unity within the body of the Church. I am going, Christ seems to say, but I’m not really going at all, for you shall have My Holy Spirit.

“Jesus answered him, ‘If a man has any love for Me, he will be true to My word; and then he will win My Father’s love, and We will both come to him, and make our continual abode with him; whereas the man who has no love for Me, lets My sayings pass him by. And this word, which you have been hearing from Me, comes not from Me, but from My Father Who sent Me. So much converse I have held with you, still at your side. He who is to befriend you, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send on My account, will in His turn make everything plain, and recall to your minds everything I have said to you. Peace is My bequest to you, and the peace which I will give you is Mine to give; I do not give peace as the world gives it. Do not let your heart be distressed, or play the coward. You have heard Me say that I am going away and coming back to you. If you really loved Me, you would be glad to hear that I am on My way to My Father; My Father has greater power than I. I have told you of this before it happens, so that when it happens you may learn to believe.”
Gospel of S. John, 14: 23-29 [link]

Prayer and fasting (Sunday V of Easter)

I thought I’d end my quick survey of the Rosary this weekend. I had intended to talk generally about Marian devotion, and I think that I have so far, because the Rosary is the devotion that comes to our minds when we think of Marian devotion.

I thought I would end with practical suggestions about the Rosary:

First of all, taking the time, and regularity – the requirement of our Lady was commitment. When the fifteen decades of the rosary every day seemed too long for us, she permitted a division into three thirds of five decades each, which we have distributed over a week: the joyful, the sorrowful and the glorious. But she calls ideally for at least the daily five decades.
Second, do not leave the Rosary to the end of the day, for when we are tired, even acts of love become a chore.
Third: everybody prays differently, so don’t feel that you have to say the Rosary on your knees before the crucifix, take it to the road, to the garden, wherever you can find a prayerful moment.
Fourth, use images and music to assist you, for we as humans are a sensory species and we can better focus our minds with a good picture or some nice churchy music; use technology, these telephones with the internet on them to find classical paintings of the mysteries of the Rosary by Christian artists.
Fifth, again following on from the suggestion about images and music, you can possibly do other things while saying the Rosary; I have looked through the illustrations of books on biblical archeology and even a child’s picture Bible while saying my daily Rosary. Television and the internet have trained us to do multiple things at once, and we should be able to use that to our spiritual advantage.
Sixth, use the Rosary as an intercessory prayer: many of you are extremely prayerful and have prayer intentions for family members and friends, and other people in need of prayer – you may dedicate every decade of your Rosary, or every Hail Mary of every decade for a different prayer intention. Wonders may follow, for our Lady is very attentive.
Seventh (and it’s nice to end on seven), I shall tell you of a personal practice. My life is a life of interruptions, one of the reasons why I cannot do anthing really well. So, I say the rosary sometimes not all at once within an hour, but gradually during the day in bits and pieces. I can then begin with the Annunciation at seven in the morning and end with the Coronation of the Virgin at eleven at night.

“In that city too [Paul and Barnabas] preached, and made many disciples; then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, where they fortified the spirits of the disciples, encouraging them to be true to the faith, and telling them that we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven without many trials. Then, with fasting and prayer, they appointed presbyters for them in each of the churches, and commended them to the care of the Lord in whom they had learned to believe. So they passed through Pisidia, and reached Pamphylia. They preached the word of the Lord in Perge, and went down to Attalia, taking ship there for Antioch, where they had been committed to God’s grace for the work they had now achieved. On their arrival, they called the Church together, and told the story of all God had done to aid them, and how, through faith, he had left a door open for the Gentiles. And they stayed there a considerable time with the disciples.”
Acts of the Apostles, 14: 20-27 [link]

Speaking of not being able to work well for interruptions, I find the pursuits of these Apostolic figures in our first reading to be heartening. Not because I could ever be a Paul or a Barnabas, but because these extraordinary men were able to encourage people like you and me, whom they were visiting to faith and perseverance. Note their recommendations to the local churches: prayer and fasting. Let us take our Marian and other devotions in the circumstance of that prayer and fasting, which was recommended to the Church by the Apostles. Paul and Barnabas also prayed for the local Christians to commend them to Christ, and may they pray for us too. And let us pray for each other, and encourage each other in the difficult task of building up our faith in a faithless world.

“Then I saw a new heaven, and a new earth. The old heaven, the old earth had vanished, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw in my vision that holy city which is the new Jerusalem, being sent down by God from heaven, all clothed in readiness, like a bride who has adorned herself to meet her husband. I heard, too, a voice which cried aloud from the throne, ‘Here is God’s tabernacle pitched among men; He will dwell with them, and they will be His own people, and He will be among them, their own God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or cries of distress, no more sorrow; those old things have passed away.’ And He Who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new…'”
Book of Apocalypse of S. John, 21: 1-5 [link]

We are a holy community, sanctified by Christ to be a fitting dwelling place for His Holy Spirit. This second reading of ours (above) pictures our community in the universal Church as an actual building of living stones descending from God out of heaven, the Bride of Christ. And the angel cries out, ‘Behold the Church, where God lives among men, making His home among them, His name forever being God-with-them’ – this is a variant of Emmanuel, which means God-with-us. For when the Church has descended out of heaven through the preaching of the Apostles, the bishops and the priests and through the Sacramental system established by Christ, as the Holy One says, He has made the whole of creation new again.

As He says in the gospel extract (below), His glory began with the completion of His consecrated life on earth: it was completed in His death upon that cross. He ended His life in the way He lived it, in a great gesture of self-sacrificial love. He expects us to do the same with our lives, so that all know that we belong to Him.

“When [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has achieved His glory, and in His glory God is exalted. Since, in His glory, God is exalted, it is for God to exalt Him in His own glory, and exalt Him without delay. It is only for a short time that I am with you, My children. You will look for Me, and now I have to tell you what I once told the Jews, you cannot reach the place where I am. I have a new commandment to give you, that you are to love one another; that your love for one another is to be like the love I have borne you. The mark by which all men will know you for My disciples will be the love you bear one another.”
Gospel of S. John, 13: 31-35 [link]

The Lord rules me (Sunday IV of Easter)

I began talking about the Rosary last weekend, and I described the literal string of prayers that we say as flowers in a crown that we present to our Blessed Lady. There is a type of satisfaction we gain from simply getting through these prayers as a gift to our Lady (because of our affection for her as her sons and daughters), and in fulfilling her desire that we meditate as we do so on the several mysteries of the life she shared with her Son. This is not quite so easy as it sounds, especially if you leave the rosary for the end of the day, as I sometimes do.

Today, I thought I’d also run through some of the original promises made by her through S. Dominic and Blessed Alan to all those who would take up her Rosary. I already mentioned last week that the Rosary gradually destroys vice and sin within us and increases virtue, and those are some of the promises. Our Lady also said that those who say the Rosary recommend themselves to her in a particular way and she would defend them from misfortune and eternal death. Moreover, she said that they would not die without receiving the Sacraments, such as when death occurs suddenly, which we all hope will not happen to us. She said she would personally retrieve from purgatory those who made the Rosary a particular devotion of theirs, and that those who preached it or spread it to others in any way would be helped by her in necessity and would acquire the patronage of multiple Saints and angels.

When I was looking through these promises again this last week, I was thinking of S. Bernadette of Lourdes and the little shepherd Saints of Fátima and considering that these simple children and their parents and family who taught them basic devotion got it right, and that it was their very simplicity that won them the graces of God, by which they were able to receive the visions of our Lady and becomes apostles of the Rosary. Lots of us today say the Rosary because of the inspiration of these quite recent visionaries of Lourdes and Fátima.

Encouragingly, among the final assertions of our Lady to S. Dominic was that those who recite the Rosary are her beloved children and the brothers and sisters of her divine Son.

This fourth Sunday of Easter is what we have come to call Good Shepherd Sunday, because of the Gospel reading, and what I shall now say I have said many times before. If we go back to the Garden of Eden, we may remember that the great sin of Adam and Eve, beyond disobedience, was their determination to be their own moral guides, to decide for themselves, to shake off the rule of God over their hearts. Through the Old Testament, through Moses the Law-giver and the several prophets, God our Lord sought to restore that rule of His over the hearts of a chosen people, which rule would one day extend to the ends of the earth through the ministry of the Church.

“The Lord is my Shepherd; how can I lack anything?
He gives me a resting-place where there is green pasture,
leads me out to the cool water’s brink,
refreshed and content.
As in honour pledged, by sure paths He leads me;
dark be the valley about my path,
hurt I fear none while He is with me;
Thy rod, Thy crook are my comfort.
Envious my foes watch,
while Thou dost spread a banquet for me;
richly Thou dost anoint my head with oil, well-filled my cup.
All my life Thy loving favour pursues me;
through the long years
the Lord’s house shall be my dwelling-place.”
Psalm 22 (23) [link]

The first line of this psalm in the Latin and the early English translations is ‘the Lord rules me,’ which we now often read as ‘the Lord is my Shepherd.’ In the life, sufferings and death of our Lord, we are given to see the Heart of God, the Sacred Heart, Which does not wish for men and women to die, but to live forever with Him. He invites us then to respond in love to His invitation, that we may permit Him to rule over our hearts again, to direct us. He doesn’t take away our freedom – He respects us too much to do that – rather, He invites us to choose Him freely, and so to choose eternal life. He seeks to draw us away from the fatal choice that Adam and Eve made and towards the one that was made instead by our blessed Lady and her divine Son.

All the preachings of the teachers of the Church since the early days of the Apostles and men like Paul and Barnabas in our first reading were intended to do this. In effect, the Church as our mother, through the Sacraments, seeks to dress us all in the white garments of baptism described in our second reading today and stand us before the throne of God and the Lamb in innocence and purity. All of this begins with a first effort on our part to follow after Christ, the Good Shepherd, Whose voice we know, under Whose rule we rejoice, to Whom we hope to forever belong.

“My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them everlasting life, so that to all eternity they can never be lost; no one can tear them away from My hand. This trust which My Father has committed to Me is more precious than all else; no one can tear them away from the hand of My Father. My Father and I are one.”
Gospel of S. John, 10: 27-30 [link]

Bearing witness (Sunday III of Easter)

It’s the month of May and I thought I would talk a little about the Rosary. I shall use the contents of a book called the Secret of the Rosary by the French priest S. Louis-Marie de Montfort. We don’t always remember why this great prayer of the Church is called ‘the rosary.’ It has also been called a coronet or crown, so our strings of beads may also be called coronets. And we traditionally crown our Lady with flowers in the month of May, don’t we? At least, we used to. Some parishes still do.

S. Louis-Marie called the beads of the rosary ‘roses,’ and his book is built from 53 sections, just like the 53 beads on our coronets with which we say the Ave Maria (Hail Mary). The Rosary as a prayer focuses upon the life of Christ as it was shared with our Lady, and S. Louis-Marie therefore called the Rosary a mystical rose tree. Mysticism involves spiritual union with the Holy One, acquired through prayer and meditation. The Rosary, you see, is not only about saying strings of Paters (Our Fathers) and Aves (Hail Marys), but more importantly about meditating on and imitating the lives of Christ and His mother, and to thus acquiring salvation through lives of virtue. Specifically, we are taught through the regular use of the Rosary the virtues of humility, obedience and charity.

Our Saint is determined to show us, through a quick history, both the divine origins of the Rosary and the beneficial effect it has had in the lives of Christian men and women, especially when it was recited in community. Because of the grace of God that flows through the Rosary from the lives of our Lord and His holy Mother, the Rosary then becomes a ‘battering ram’ against sin and temptation, and brings with it conversion and sanctification. Those of us who say the Rosary regularly know that it is a rather simple prayer, quickly learnt, and that is a great blessing, for it allows every type of person to make use of it, from the eminent scholastic to the humble labourer. What is more difficult than the words and the system of the Rosary is establishing the regular commitment of time and building the focus required to best say the Rosary.

We may remember how as children when the world seemed too large and frightening, we felt a great comfort in holding on to Mum’s hand, or indeed Dad’s. And here, we do the same again, for as we go through the difficulties of this life on earth, we have the comforting presence of the holy Mother.

Today is the memorial day of the English Martyrs. In these countries, when the Catholic Church came under enormous attack from the sixteenth century onwards, it is interesting to see how the Saints hung on to their rosaries. The rosary became one of the principal ways by which the government could arrest our priests and basically smoke out secret Catholics. When the Irish were attacked by their anti-Catholic rulers, men like Cromwell would talk about being unable to pry the rosaries out of the hands of the stubborn Catholics.

“…and they brought [the Apostles] in and bade them stand before the Council, where the high priest questioned them. ‘We warned you in set terms,’ he said, ‘not to preach in this Man’s Name, and you have filled all Jerusalem with your preaching; you are determined to lay this Man’s death at our door.’ Peter and the other Apostles answered, ‘God has more right to be obeyed than men. It was the God of our fathers that raised up Jesus, the Man you hung on a gibbet to die. It is God that has raised Him up to His own right hand, as the Prince and Saviour Who is to bring Israel repentance, and remission of sins. Of this, we are witnesses; we and the Holy Spirit God gives to all those who obey Him.’ On hearing this they were cut to the quick, and designed to kill them… so they sent for the Apostles and, after scourging them, let them go with a warning that they were not on any account to preach in the Name of Jesus. And they left the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer indignity for the sake of Jesus’ Name.”
Acts of the Apostles, 5: 27-33, 40-41 [link]

In this first reading of ours this weekend, we see the Apostles being harangued by the high-priest Caiaphas, who had thought that he was finished with this annoying Jewish sect when he had got the Roman governor to execute our Lord a few weeks earlier. Now, he was unable to contain even His Apostles, who had suddenly become very bold indeed. He couldn’t pry their rosaries from out of their hands, so to speak. For they answered, as our glorious martyrs did during the Reformation, Obedience to God comes before obedience to men. S. Thomas More had an excellent variant on this when he said, I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first.

We shall have newer and newer opportunities to say similar things in our own times, for it is never comfortable to be a Catholic in this world. We too, like the Apostles and the English and Irish martyrs, should be glad to have the honour to suffer humiliation and indignity for the sake of the Name of Christ. For there are always people in this world who will ask us to bow down to them and their new ideas, but as in the second reading, we Christians are ranged around the throne of God, rosaries in hand, crying out…

“Then I heard, in my vision, the voices of a multitude of angels, standing on every side of the throne, where the living figures and the elders were, in thousands of thousands, and crying aloud, ‘Power and Godhead, wisdom and strength, honour and glory and blessing are His by right, the Lamb that was slain.’ And every creature in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all that is in it, I heard crying out together, ‘Blessing and honour and glory and power, through endless ages, to Him Who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ Then the four living figures said, ‘Amen;’ and the twenty-four elders fell prostrate, worshipping Him Who lives for ever and ever.”
Book of Apocalypse (aka. Revelation), 5: 11-14 [link]

Our gospel story as well as being a post-Resurrection appearance of Christ is also a type of parable, even a Eucharistic parable. Because there are the golden shores of Holy Mass, where we are often fed by Christ after a long and seemingly futile struggle. If Holy Church is the barque of Peter, as we still say, and we are all in the boat with the Apostles, sailing the choppy waters of this world with difficulty, and with little reward (catching nothing all night), we still see the Holy One beckoning to us from the sacred shores of an eternal morning, where we shall one day wearily reach, and hear with joy the words, ‘Come and have breakfast.’

“Jesus appeared to His disciples again afterwards, at the sea of Tiberias, and this is how He appeared to them. Simon Peter was there, and with Him were Thomas, who is also called Didymus, and Nathanael, from Cana of Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two more of His disciples. Simon Peter told them, ‘I am going out fishing;’ and they said, ‘We, too, will go with thee.’ So they went out and embarked on the boat, and all that night they caught nothing. But when morning came, there was Jesus standing on the shore; only the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. ‘Have you caught anything, friends,’ Jesus asked them, ‘to season your bread with?’ And when they answered ‘No,’ He said to them, ‘Cast to the right of the boat, and you will have a catch.’ So they cast the net, and found before long they had no strength to haul it in, such a shoal of fish was in it. Whereupon the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord.’ And Simon Peter, hearing him say that it was the Lord, girded up the fisherman’s coat, which was all he wore, and sprang into the sea. The other disciples followed in the boat (they were not far from land, only some hundred yards away), dragging their catch in the net behind them. So they went ashore, and found a charcoal fire made there, with fish and bread cooking on it…”
Gospel of S. John, 21: 1-9 [link]

Confession, reconciliation and Divine Mercy (Sunday II of Easter)

At the very beginning of Holy Week, I had said that I wanted to talk about Marian devotion, and I introduced the Blessed Virgin as the Davidic queen-mother, the advocate who traditionally sat on the right hand side of the King of Judah. When we approach our Lady in prayer, asking for her intercession and for her assistance, we may keep this image of the royal court of Christ in mind.

It reminds me of that episode in the gospels, when two of our Lord’s cousins, the Apostles S. James and S. John, brothers and sons of Zebdai/Zebedee, asked for places one on the left and the other on the right of Christ in His glory. Considering Christ’s reply that they didn’t know what they were asking for – because His glory arrived upon the Cross on Good Friday – and that those places belonged to others, we remember that James was the first of the Apostles to be martyred, and we remember that John suffered the pain of standing at the foot of the Cross, as he supported the Blessed Virgin in her great distress as Our Lady of Sorrows. And she, standing at the foot of the Cross, is usually pictured on the right of her Son, and S. John on the left.

Most of us men whose mothers still live (and those of us who remember our mothers) know the power they have over us. For my part, although my mother died many years ago… the mother of the parish priest often has a powerful presence in his parish, if she chances to live there. The mother of a bishop would be more powerful still. Because anybody who wanted something from me would have a better chance going to my mum about it. There is that interesting episode in the legend of King Solomon, when one of his (older) half-brothers, a man called Adoniyah, seeking to supplant Solomon, sought the indulgence of the queen mother. He ultimately failed, but he made his best try – he tried to get her on his side. The king listens to his mother…

“As for Adonias, son of Haggith, he gained access to Bethsabee, king Solomon’s mother, telling her that he came on a peaceful errand; there was a matter he would confide to her. So she bade him speak out, but still he hesitated; ‘Once,’ said he, ‘the throne was mine, and all Israel had chosen me for their king; now the royal power has changed hands, and gone to my brother; it was God’s will. There is only one request now that I would make of thee; pray do not disappoint me.’ And still she bade him speak out. ‘My request is,’ said he, ‘that thou wouldst say a word for me to king Solomon; there is nothing he can refuse thee. Bid him give me Abisag the Sunamite for my wife.’ ‘Why, yes,’ answered Bethsabee, ‘I will speak to the king on thy behalf.’ Bethsabee, then, made her way to king Solomon, to prefer Adonias’ request; the king rose to meet her and bowed low, then he sat down on his throne again, and a throne was brought for her, the king’s mother, to sit down at his right hand. ‘There is a light request,’ she told him, ‘that I would make of thee; pray do not disappoint me.’ ‘Make thy request, mother,’ said he; ‘I will not turn a deaf ear to it.’“
Third book of the Kings (aka. I Kings), 2: 13-20 [link]

We are all of us sinners, some of us greater sinners than others. We cannot do much better than to approach the Lady standing at the foot of the Cross, who received us as her children as her Son was in great distress and dying. For His sake she will hear us and present our case to Him.

In the next few weeks, I shall speak about the Holy Rosary and one or two other Marian devotions. Since May is the month of our Lady, that would be most appropriate.

This second Sunday of Easter the Holy Father John Paul II named for us Divine Mercy Sunday, and this year we would do well to lean against that promise of Divine Mercy, for it is a Jubilee year, and from the most ancient times in the Old Testament, jubilees was connected with restitution, with restoration. We are best restored as Christians when we regularly undergo the rites of holy religion, by receiving the Sacraments. The two Sacraments we regularly receive are Confession and Holy Communion. Unless, of course, we are very ill and have received the Sacrament of the Sick often.

If we are going to Confession very irregularly or not at all, we really must do something about it; it is precisely through regular confession that we lay our sinful behaviours and habits before the throne of the Holy One and remake our commitment to Him – our commitment in love to do good and avoid evil. And it is this that restores us regularly, not only in jubilee years. But jubilee years do serve to focus our minds further upon restoration in Christ.

In our gospel reading this weekend, S. John gives us the origins of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as Christ gives His Apostles the authority to forgive sin, an authority they later handed down to their bishops, and the bishops to their priests.

“And now it was evening on the same day, the first day of the week; for fear of the Jews, the disciples had locked the doors of the room in which they had assembled; and Jesus came, and stood there in their midst; ‘Peace be upon you,’ He said. And with that, He shewed them His hands and His side. Thus the disciples saw the Lord, and were glad. Once more Jesus said to them, ‘Peace be upon you; I came upon an errand from My Father, and now I am sending you out in My turn.’ With that, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit; when you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven, when you hold them bound, they are held bound.’“
Gospel of S. John, 20: 19-23 [link]

We see the authority of the Apostles to forgive sins in the first reading, where the very shadow of the Apostle S. Peter was sought as a means of curing illness.

“And there were many signs and miracles done by the Apostles before the people. They used to gather with one accord in Solomon’s porch. No one else dared to join them, although the people held them in high honour, and the number of those who believed in the Lord, both men and women, still increased; they even used to bring sick folk into the streets, and lay them down there on beds and pallets, in the hope that even the shadow of Peter, as he passed by, might fall upon one of them here and there, and so they would be healed of their infirmities. From neighbouring cities, too, the common people flocked to Jerusalem, bringing with them the sick and those who were troubled by unclean spirits; and all of them were cured.”
Acts of the Apostles, 5: 12-16 [link]

In the Jewish mind, we know that physical illness was connected with sin, so that a sick person was thought to be suffering the consequences of sin. We might as well say that the people being laid before the Apostles in the streets of Jerusalem for healing were penitents who were looking not only for physical healing but for the forgiveness of Christ and His healing, administered through these Twelve ordained men.

So, let us meditate today on the power of Divine Mercy, Christ’s call to repentance, the agency of the Christian priesthood in this, and the endless love of the heart of God our Lord.

The Bishop expresses his sorrow following the death of Pope Francis

In a statement earlier today, Bishop McKinney said: “I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of the Holy Father, Pope Francis. The Pope has left an indelible mark on the Church and the world, as a man of great warmth and humility who made use of his global prestige to highlight and to listen to the concerns of the poorest and most marginalised people across the world. The loss of the Holy Father will be deeply felt in all of our diocesan communities and well beyond, but I believe his legacy will live on.

“I was very privileged to meet Pope Francis in Rome on two occasions — first, upon my appointment as Bishop of Nottingham in May 2015, and once again during the ad limina visit of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales to Rome in 2018. Each time I was struck by his humility and warm welcome, deep love of Christ Jesus, desire to engage in dialogue, and his profound commitment to the Church and her mission. He will be greatly missed.

“The Holy Father once said, that ‘it is only through faith in the resurrection that we can face the abyss of death without being overwhelmed by fear.’ It is so poignant that Pope Francis has died this Easter Monday just one day after wishing the world a ‘Happy Easter’. May the Crucified and Risen Lord reward him for his valiant labours. He named this year, a Jubilee Year of Hope. So, In the face of his death and our experience of grief and loss, I would encourage all Catholics to continue to journey as Pilgrims of Hope trusting in Christ’s promise of eternal life to those who are faithful to his teaching, and to commend our prayers for the Holy Father to the intercession of St Ignatius, St Francis of Assisi and Our Lady, Queen of Heaven.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.”

The Vatican will announce details of Pope Francis’ Funeral arrangements in due course, and details of Masses and Services across the Diocese of Nottingham will be soon be shared on the diocesan website (dioceseofnottingham.uk).

Click for a message from the Conference of Bishops of England and Wales (PDF)

And the drama begins again… (Palm Sunday)

I shall say today what I wanted to last week, when we had a letter from the cardinal archbishop. After several weeks of talking about the Catholic Mass, I have wanted to introduce another significant element of the devout lives of Catholics: the devotion to Our Lady. If we peer into the chronicles of the Hebrew nation in the old testament, we shall quickly see the honour that was given to the mother of the Jewish king, who was called the great lady. In one instance, this great lady even seized control of the kingdom and ruled like a tyrant.

But, centuries before, King Solomon himself greatly loved his mother Bat’sheva, and even gave her a throne upon his right hand (III Kings, 3:13-20). Everything changes with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the most beautiful of the children of Adam and the masterpiece of all the perfections wrought by the Holy One, created Immaculate and without sin, prepared from her beginning to be the mother of the Holy One Himself. It is her humility and determined purity that wins God’s heart for her, and she soon becomes the Help of Christians and the Mother of the Church.

The Church has often called our Lady a co-redemptrix to Christ our Redemptor (Redeemer), for she has always worked with Him for the mending of the rift between God and men. Therefore, she is also called the new Eve, who in her humility reverses the sin of the old Eve in the garden of Eden. She has a martial aspect in the tradition of the Latin Church, because she has proved in her humility to be a powerful force against the evil spirits who too often infest our lives. If we in this life are the Church Militant – in a constant war against the enemy of our souls, the devil – she has always been a great captain of ours, and our great guiding light, the Stella Maris, who brings us from the choppy waters of this life into the peaceful harbour of her Son.

In the next few days of Holy Week, I shall be mentioning in some way the role in the Passion of our Lord of the Immaculate Lady – whom we shall then call Our Lady of Sorrows, the afflicted soul, faithful in all things, and thus refusing to despair – who watched the Light of her life be seemingly extinguished by human malice.

In today’s events of Palm Sunday, we see the Christ entering into His own City as the Son of David, the descendant of that king, long expected by the Jews. S. Matthew’s version of this event is the most detailed, for it talks not of one colt, but of two animals, an ass together with her colt.

“When they were near Jerusalem, and had reached Bethphage, which is close to mount Olivet, Jesus sent two of His disciples on an errand; ‘Go into the village that faces you,’ He told them, ‘and the first thing you will find there will be a she-ass tethered, and a foal at her side; untie them and bring them to Me. And if anyone speaks to you about it, tell him, The Lord has need of them, and he will let you have them without more ado.’ All this was so ordained, to fulfil the word spoken by the prophet: ‘Tell the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King is coming to thee, humbly, riding on an ass, on a colt whose mother has borne the yoke.’ The disciples went and did as Jesus told them; they brought the she-ass and its colt, and saddled them with their garments, and bade Jesus mount. Most of the multitude spread their garments along the way, while others strewed the way with branches cut down from the trees.”
Gospel of S. Matthew, 21: 1-8 [link]

If we picture that as a mobile throne, where the larger animal is the seat and the smaller a footrest, we may better understand the prophecy made by Zechariah (9:9) hundreds of years before, about the humility of the Servant-King. If the King is entering His city, the Queen Mother is not far behind. We may pictures her with her sisters and her nephews in the train (many of whom remained with her at the foot of the cross), rejoicing with the people as they cried out what we do in our Sanctus during the Mass, Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord. And she must have known, as vividly as He did, how quickly this welcome would end and how soon the mob that pressed around them would either desert Him, or howl for His crucifixion and death.

Remember the beautiful tunic He wore as he carried that cross through the same streets a few days later, in agony. The beautiful tunic woven without seam that was so precious that instead of ripping it from Him before His crucifixion, the Roman soldiery gambled to possess. Would this not have been the garment of the King, which he wore now on Palm Sunday – the day of His welcome into Jerusalem? Tradition makes the Blessed Virgin something of a weaver. Could she have made Him the tunic that would bring Him into the City and out of it, to the Cross? But would He not have sat nobly upon his momentary throne, dressed as the successor of David, as the people waved branches and strewed the streets leading to the Temple with garments.

Hosanna, they cried, and that word has the same root as the Hebrew name of our Lord. It refers to salvation, and they don’t quite know what they are asking for. Save us, they cried, perhaps from the tyranny of foreign rule by the Romans. And save them He will, within a week, but from every sin and from eternal death, when from the height of the Cross He will declare, It is accomplished…

…and all things are made new again, when humanity once more enters the Garden of Eden.

Confessions during Holy Week

Aside from the morning of Holy Saturday at Louth (the day before Easter Sunday), confessions will be heard for at least half an hour before every parish Mass, from Monday of Holy Week down to the Easter vigil. Please come as early as possible, in case there is difficulty with queueing.

This will be attempted even on the Sundays, but logistics may make that more difficult than on weekdays.

The programme of planned Masses and other services is on the front page of the parish website.

Pastoral Letter on the Terminally-ill adults (aka. End-of-life) bill

To be read at all Masses on the Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passion Sunday)
the 5th and 6th of April, 2025

“My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I wish to speak with you today about the process in which our Parliament is currently considering legalising assisted suicide through the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. As I have made clear earlier in this debate, as Catholics we have maintained a principled objection to this change in law recognising that every human life is sacred, coming as a gift of God and bearing a God-given dignity. We are, therefore, clearly opposed to this Bill in principle, elevating, as it does, the autonomy of the individual above all other considerations.

“The passage of the Bill through Parliament will lead to a vote in late April on whether it progresses further. This will be a crucial moment and I, together with all the Bishops of England and Wales, am writing to ask your support in urging your MP to vote against this Bill at that time.

“There are serious reasons for doing so. At this point we wish not simply to restate our objections in principle, but to emphasise the deeply flawed process undergone in Parliament thus far. We wish to remind you that it is a fundamental duty of every MP to ensure that legislation is not imposed on our society which has not been properly scrutinised and which will bring about damaging consequences.

“The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will fundamentally change many of the key relationships in our way of life: within the family, between doctor and patient, within the health service. Yet there has been no Royal Commission or independent inquiry ahead of its presentation. It is a Private Member’s Bill. The Bill itself is long and complex and was published just days before MPs voted on it, giving them inadequate time to consult or reflect upon it. The time for debate was minimal. The Committee examining the Bill took only three days of evidence: not all voices were heard, and it comprises an undue number of supporters of the Bill. In short, this is no way to legislate on such an important and morally complex issue.

“One consequence of this flawed process is that many vital questions remain unanswered. Can MPs guarantee that the scope of the Bill will not be extended? In almost every country where assisted suicide has been introduced the current scope is wider than was originally intended. What role, if any, will the judiciary have in theprocess? We were told that judicial oversight was a necessary and vital part of the process; now we are told it isn’t needed at all. What will protect the vulnerable from coercion, or from feeling a burden on family? Can the National Health Service cope with assisted suicide or will it, as the Health Secretary has warned, cause cuts elsewhere in the NHS? Can MPs guarantee that no medical practitioner or care worker would be compelled to take part in assisted suicide? Would this mean the establishment of a ‘national death service’?

“In contrast to the provisions of this Bill, what is needed is first-class, compassionate palliative care at the end of our lives. This is already provided to many in our society but, tragically, is in short supply and underfunded. No-one should be dispatched as a burden to others. Instead, a good society would prioritise care for the elderly, the vulnerable, and the weak. The lives of our families are richer for cherishing their presence.

“It is sad reflection on Parliament’s priorities that the House of Commons spent far more time debating the ban on fox hunting than it is spending debating bringing in assisted suicide.

“I am sure that you will share these concerns. It is now clear that this measure is being rushed without proper scrutiny and without fundamental questions surrounding safeguards being answered. This is a deeply flawed Bill with untold unintended consequences.

“Every MP, and Government, has a solemn duty to prevent such legislation reaching the statute book. This, tragically, is what may happen. So I appeal to you: even if you have written before, please make contact now with your MP and ask them to vote against this Bill not only on grounds of principle but because of the failure of Parliament to approach this issue in an adequate and responsible manner.

“In his Letter to the Philippians, from which we heard in the Second Reading, St Paul reflects on the difficulties and responsibilities of life. He speaks of ‘pressing on’ and ‘striving’ for the fulness of life promised in Christ Jesus. Yet he is totally confident in his struggles because, as he says, ‘Christ Jesus has made me His own.’

“We too have many struggles. We too know that Christ Jesus has made us His own. So we too press on with this struggle, so important in our times. May God bless you all.”

Cardinal Vincent Nichols
President of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales

This letter is published with the full support of Bishop Patrick McKinney, Bishop of Nottingham.

Taste and see (Sunday IV of Lent)

I shall end today with my descriptions of the Mass, and next weekend, I shall begin with the Rosary. The Mass, as the second Vatican Council said, is the source and summit of our lives. It is our nearest encounter with the Holy One, the moment when heaven touches earth, and we stand among angels and Saints around the throne of God as a worshipping community. In the past, I have portrayed the various parts of the Mass as an ascent on a holy mountain and as an entry into a sacred space – a sanctuary. I have tried to say how everything prepares us for the Consecration at Mass – when we first adore Christ-made-Present – and for Holy Communion immediately afterwards – when we physically receive Christ-made-Present.

The parallel to this Holy Communion made from the very pages of the New Testament is the exit of the Hebrews from Egypt – their Passover – before they began their long trek towards their Promised Land. As I have said repeatedly, our Egypt is this world and our Promised Land is eternal happiness with God in heaven. That’s why we call Christ our Passover Lamb, and we say Lamb of God, Lamb of God, just before we receive Holy Communion. In the story of the Hebrew Passover and the trek through the desert, the people grew hungry and thirsty, and ached to go back to the comforts of Egypt, and they were fed by God with a ‘bread from heaven.’ Our first reading this weekend is about this coming to an end, when the Promised Land had been acquired. Similarly, in our trek through the desert of this life, we grow spiritually hungry and thirsty and ache far too often to return to the pleasures of this world, and we are fed by God with the true ‘bread from heaven,’ the Blessed Sacrament.

And so we descend from our holy mountain of the Mass, and we leave the blessed sanctuary behind, fed through Holy Communion by God with God. And to what end? What is the point of Mass? Simply, and in a word – holiness. We are to become holy, shorn of sin and evil, we are to be as Adam and Eve were before their Fall. Having become holy, we are also supposed to make the world holy, by drawing other men and women to Christ, thus becoming ministers of God, ambassadors of Christ. And so, when the priest comes to the end of Mass, he says, Go in peace, glorifying God with your lives, to love and serve the Lord, etc.

And our readings this weekend are providentially about Passover, Holy Communion, and participating in Christ’s new Creation. Taste and see that the Lord is good. In our second reading, S. Paul says that the new Creation is in the hearts of men and women.

“…when a man becomes a new creature in Christ, his old life has disappeared, everything has become new about him. This, as always, is God’s doing; it is He Who, through Christ, has reconciled us to Himself, and allowed us to minister this reconciliation of His to others. Yes, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, establishing in our hearts His message of reconciliation, instead of holding men to account for their sins. We are Christ’s ambassadors, then, and God appeals to you through us; we entreat you in Christ’s name, make your peace with God. Christ never knew sin, and God made him into sin for us, so that in him we might be turned into the holiness of God.”
Second letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 5: 17-21 [link]

Remember that Christ said to His adversaries that the Kingdom of God was already among the crowds of people listening to Him. He, the King of Hearts, was already receiving the allegiance of thousands before the Crucifixion – we know, because He was feeding them miraculously in the desert. In so far as we go away after Mass in peace, glorifying the Lord by our lives, we should endeavour constantly to spread the knowledge of Christ and of the commandments of Christ to others, bringing them to Him and so enlarging His Kingdom.

“This day, the Lord said to Josue, ‘I have reversed the lot that made you slaves in Egypt;’ and so the place came to be called Galgal, Turning Round, the name it still bears.”
Book of Joshua, 5: 9 [link]

What is the ‘shame of Egypt’ or the ‘slavery of Egypt’ that is mentioned here, at the top of the first reading this weekend? It is idolatry, and the worship of false gods, that is, evil spirits. We know how contagious idolatry is. The moment the Hebrews thought they had lost Moses, because he was too long up the mountain, they tried to establish an Egyptian fertility religion with the golden calf. And we know that the moment the people we know and love forsake Christ, they find some other object of devotion to replace Him. Turning around from idolatry and back to God is so significant that when the people have made the pledge in the newly-attained Promised Land, their very camp is named Galgal – literally, turning around.

“‘And when the son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee; I am not worthy, now, to be called thy son, the father gave orders to his servants, Bring out the best robe, and clothe him in it; put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. Then bring out the calf that has been fattened, and kill it; let us eat, and make merry; for my son here was dead, and has come to life again, was lost, and is found. And so they began their merry-making. The elder son, meanwhile, was away on the farm; and on his way home, as he drew near the house, he heard music and dancing; whereupon he called one of the servants and asked what all this meant. He told him, Thy brother has come back, and thy father has killed the fattened calf, glad to have him restored safe and sound. At this he fell into a rage, and would not go in. When his father came out and tried to win him over, he answered his father thus, Think how many years I have lived as thy servant, never transgressing thy commands, and thou hast never made me a present of a kid, to make merry with my friends; and now, when this son of thine has come home, one that has swallowed up his patrimony in the company of harlots, thou hast killed the fattened calf in his honour. He said to him, My son, thou art always at my side, and everything that I have is already thine; but for this merry-making and rejoicing there was good reason; thy brother here was dead, and has come to life again; was lost, and is found.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 15: 21-32 [link]

Those of us who are still attached to Christ are like the older brother in this gospel story, for we have not left the Father’s house. But we know others who have. We have to work to bring them back. The Holy Father John Paul II called this the ‘new evangelisation’ – bringing back former Christians to the practice of religion. These may have squandered the graces they had in Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Communion, and we could understand perhaps the indignation of the older brother in the story. It is not unlike the indignation of the Pharisees and scribes, who were struggling to perfect their observance of the Law of Moses, and were seeing public sinners entering into the promises of Christ right before them.

Remember the parable of the shepherd who would leave ninety-nine sheep in safety to rescue the one truant. W should always marvel at the heart of God – the Sacred Heart – Who looks at all repentant hearts with great joy, calls His angels and Saints and all His Church to Him and says, Rejoice with me, for they were dead, and are now alive.

Burning bushes (Sunday III of Lent)

I thought we could make an end of my descriptions of the Eucharistic prayer this weekend. I had mentioned from the very beginning of my short theology of the Mass (from January) that entering into the Mass means remaking a very intimate covenant with God that we entered into on the day of our baptism. A covenant that requires making peace with God constantly, and therefore entering His presence in holiness. The readings assist this, the homily assists this, and so we make our offerings before God. The Eucharistic Prayer then ushers us into the presence of God, surrounded by His angels and Saints.

After the consecration, by which the bread and the wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, we find further and repeated references to the offering of the Church, which is nothing more than the self-offering of Christ made together with the offerings of all the rest of us. Then we find ourselves making a memorial of the dead, whom we call the Church Suffering, the Holy Souls in purgatory. We add these very important souls to the worshipping community of the Saints in heaven and the Church living in this world to complete the overall picture of the Church.

Then we have a second long list of Saints on this other side of the Eucharistic prayer, and it’s worth looking through it: there are

the important New Testament martyrs John the Baptist and Stephen (the first deacon),
there are the Apostles Matthias (who replaced Judas the traitor) and Barnabas (the associate of Paul),
there is the martyr bishop Ignatius of Antioch, and there are several martyrs of the early Roman Church…
men like Alexander, the priest Marcellinus and the exorcist Peter, and
women like the mothers Felicity and Perpetua,
and the virgins Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia and Anastasia.

We end with the great doxology at the end: for all glory and praise is due to God the Father through, with and in Our Lord Jesus Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

It’s difficult to hear the story of Moses and the Burning Bush (the subject of the first reading) and not think of our experience at Mass. For if we accept the Church’s teaching of Mass as a divine encounter and communion with God then we are obviously standing before a quite different type of burning bush, but a Burning Bush nevertheless, and it would be surprising if we were not given a mission, as Moses was.

“Let me remind you, brethren, of this. Our fathers were hidden, all of them, under the cloud, and found a path, all of them, through the sea; all alike, in the cloud and in the sea, were baptized into Moses’ fellowship. They all ate the same prophetic food, and all drank the same prophetic drink, watered by the same prophetic rock which bore them company, the rock that was Christ. And for all that, God was ill pleased with most of them; see how they were laid low in the wilderness. It is we that were foreshadowed in these events. We were not to set our hearts, as some of them set their hearts, on forbidden things. You were not to turn idolatrous, as some of them did; so we read, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to take their pleasure. We were not to commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, when twenty-three thousand of them were killed in one day. We were not to try the patience of Christ, as some of them tried it, the men who were slain by the serpents; nor were you to complain, as some of them complained, till the destroying angel slew them. When all this happened to them, it was a symbol; the record of it was written as a warning to us, in whom history has reached its fulfilment; and it means that he who thinks he stands firmly should beware of a fall.”
First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 10: 1-12 [link]

In this second reading, S. Paul talks about the sequel to the burning-bush episode – about the baptism of the people into Moses when they were guided by God through the sea and the desert, eating the spiritual food and drinking the spiritual drink during that great pilgrimage from Egypt towards the Holy Land. Paul wants us to be extremely careful during our own great pilgrimage from this world (our Egypt) towards Heaven (our Holy Land), he wants us to learn from the mistakes of those Hebrews, and not fall into sin as so many of them did. When he talks about the baptism of the people into Moses, Paul surely means their baptism into the way of God as given to them by Moses, just as we are baptised into the way of God as given us by OLJC. In each case commandments are issued and a spiritual government of priests is established, by which we should be able to live lives acceptable to God.

The same warning that Paul issues is given by our Lord in our gospel reading as well this weekend – the warning of care in our dealing with temptation and sin, and care in our observance of the commandments. At first Christ treats of some Galileans who were massacred by the Roman procurator Pilate at the Temple (‘mingled their blood with their sacrifice’) and still others who died when the tower of Siloam fell upon them. Whether killed by human hands or killed by accident, Christ declares that they did not necessarily so die because they were greater sinners like everybody else. More important than the way we die is how we live our lives, in repentance and building virtue.

So, our Lord speaks in parable of God planting us as fig trees in his vineyard (the Church) and then perhaps being dismayed when we do not produce the fruit He is expecting; God may then wish to cut down the fruitless trees, for their being useless. The merciful heart of Christ here steps forth as the keeper of the trees and speaks for us, saying, Leave it another year and let’s see if things improve. This is the season of grace, the time of mercy, and we must make avail of this extra time given us by Christ to build virtue and produce fruit – fruit that will last.

“At this very time there were some present that told Him the story of those Galileans, whose blood Pilate had shed in the midst of their sacrifices. And Jesus said in answer, ‘Do you suppose, because this befell them, that these men were worse sinners than all else in Galilee? I tell you it is not so; you will all perish as they did, if you do not repent. What of those eighteen men on whom the tower fell in Siloe, and killed them; do you suppose that there was a heavier account against them, than against any others who then dwelt at Jerusalem? I tell you it was not so; you will all perish as they did, if you do not repent.’ And this was a parable He told them; ‘There was a man that had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard, but when he came and looked for fruit on it, he could find none; whereupon he said to his vine-dresser, See now, I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig-tree for three years, and cannot find any. Cut it down; why should it be a useless charge upon the land? But he answered thus, Sir, let it stand this year too, so that I may have time to dig and put dung round it; perhaps it will bear fruit; if not, it will be time to cut it down then.”
Gospel of S. Luke, 13: 1-9 [link]

When God tabernacles with men (Sunday II of Lent)

I’m not in a hurry to finish talking about the Mass, and we’re at the summit of it, where time and clocks don’t matter. Because at Mass we kneel among angels, in an eternity of time.

There is a beautiful church that was built for us in Derby city in the nineteenth century called S. Mary’s, and one of its most memorable features is its windows; in one of them, in the Lady chapel, there are angels dressed as Roman clerics: priests and deacons.

When Moses established the tabernacle religion at Mount Sinai, he was following a plan he saw of the heavenly temple, which is staffed by angel-priests. Before Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, King David his father established a liturgy, complete with musicians and various orders of deacons, again with a mind to replicating a heavenly model. And shortly after our Lord established the divine liturgy of the Mass, the Apostle S. John saw the visions of the book of Apocalypse (aka. Revelation), the last book of the Bible.

The book of Revelation is a complex picture of the Church at worship in the first century, in the midst of the turmoil of on-and-off persecution. S. John was a bit of a Padre Pio at least with these visions – he saw angels everywhere. He saw what we cannot ourselves – that as the Church lives her life on this earth, and especially when she is at worship, she walks with the angels. The church in Derby tries to make that visible. We know that we all have guardian angels (somebody at some point taught us that) and we get used to the priest saying in the preface to the Eucharistic prayer, ‘…with angels and archangels, thrones, and dominations, etc…,’ but we still usually think that these kindly spirits, shining with the Eternal light, are somewhere up there, and not down here.

So… if we think the Eucharistic prayer too boring – same old words, every Sunday of every week of every month of every year – I suggest that we listen for keywords. Some of these keywords I’ve been calling out for several Sundays now are ‘offering,’ and ‘we offer.’ For it is in offering constantly throughout our lives as Christians that we are a priestly people. So, let’s keep our ears out now for every mention of ‘offering,’ and also for every mention of the angels, as archangels, thrones, dominations, powers of heaven, etc. We shall find that when the angels are not filling the heavenly Temple with the smoke of incense, they are carrying our prayers and offerings (signified by that smoke of incense) up to the altar in that Temple.

Now, what would a crowd of angels be doing in our little parish churches in the countryside? They are here for us, yes, but far more than us, they are here for Him. If we take His presence in our churches for granted, they never do. In our gospel story today, the three cardinal Apostles catch a glimpse of Christ as the angels behold Him.

“It was about a week after all this was said, that He took Peter and John and James with Him, and went up on to the mountain-side to pray. And even as He prayed, the fashion of His face was altered, and His garments became white and dazzling; and two men appeared conversing with Him, Moses and Elias, seen now in glory; and they spoke of the death which He was to achieve at Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Peter and His companions were sunk in sleep; and they awoke to see Him in His glory, and the two men standing with Him. And, just as these were parting from Him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is well that we should be here; let us make three arbours in this place, one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.’ But he spoke at random: and even as he said it, a cloud formed, overshadowing them; they saw those others disappear into the cloud, and were terrified. And a Voice came from the cloud, ‘This is My beloved Son; to Him, then, listen.’ And as the Voice sounded, Jesus was discovered alone. They kept silence, and at the time said nothing of what they had seen to anybody.”
Gospel of S. Luke, 9: 28-36 [link]

As the glory of the Holy One flashes forth on the mountain, the law-giver and judge Moses appears and the prophet and moralist Elijah appear alongside. They were talking about the point where Law and prophecy come together, where justice and righteousness are fulfilled, where heaven touches earth and angels walk among men. They are talking about the Passion of Christ, His death and His resurrection. They are therefore talking about the Mass.

The terrified Apostle S. Peter says an odd thing – he wants to erect three tabernacles (arbours, or tents), one for each heavenly figure. This was about the time of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles, the time of year when Jews remember how their forefathers wandered through the desert with Moses as judge, when they lived in tabernacles (tents) and grew in their knowledge of God and their intimacy with Him, and received His promises. For He journeyed with them, and dwelt in a tabernacle just outside their camp.

And here’s where we can link the story of the Transfiguration to the season of Lent, for as we give up our usual sources of comfort in food and drink and other things we enjoy, we walk away from the flesh-pots of Egypt and through the wilderness, giving up the stability of stone and brick homes (worldly security) for the transitory nature of tents (greater dependence on God), putting ourselves at the mercy of nature, and at the mercy of God. Taking risks for Him. Abandoning to an extent our reliance on ourselves and trusting to a ministry of angels.

This will always be a challenge, for we are accustomed to relying for the most part upon ourselves and the systems of our society and culture. On the security of Egypt, let’s say. But S. Peter seems to have been hoping to keep heaven open a little longer, by keeping the presence of God (as presented by the heavenly figures) tabernacled with the people of Israel, as in the time of Moses perhaps. And so should we wish to preserve the desert experience constantly, with our lives of continued prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

And by walking with the angels.

Priestly offerings (Sunday I of Lent)

Last week, I mentioned the reality of the Blessed Sacrament, and how we are to behave when the very Body and Blood of Christ – Christ Himself – lies upon the altar. But why is it that this should be? Why have Christ upon an altar at all? As we continue with the frame of the Mass, we find that after a quick memorial of the suffering, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven of Christ, the Eucharistic Prayer gives us the answer, for it calls the now-consecrated bread and wine a pure victim, a holy victim, a spotless victim.

This throws us all the way back into the Old Testament, when the victims of the Temple sacrifices of the Hebrew nation were animals. And those sacrifices were intended to purify the people so that they could approach the holiness of God. The Church, looking upon that situation, would tell us that those animal sacrifices had no power of their own; rather, what God has looked for always is a humble and contrite heart, a repentant sinner, one who goes far enough in seeking God’s forgiveness as to seek the priesthood of the Jerusalem Temple. The Church also tells us that it is the great Sacrifice of Christ that truly redeems, and that the animal sacrifices looked forward to Calvary and Good Friday. They had no power of themselves then.

To return to our question, why should the Body and Blood of Christ be lying upon an altar in a Catholic Church…? Because the Mass is a Temple liturgy which echoes the worship of the heavenly Temple, and this presence of Christ upon our altars forms the greatest part of the offertory of the Church – our joint offering to God the Father of ourselves is made together with Christ’s offering of Himself. So, the next time we make a big sacrifice (or a little one) – and Lent is a season of personal sacrifices made – we mustn’t forget to offer it up, and bring it to Mass, where it can lie upon the altar with Christ.

Finally, to hammer in the unity of the Sacrifice of the Mass with the sacrifices of the Hebrews, the Eucharistic prayer also mentions three ancient priests – Abel the son of Adam, the patriarch Abraham and the mysterious priest-king Melchizedek – asking God to accept our offering, as He once accepted theirs.

Let’s continue with this theme of priesthood and offering as we look at our readings this weekend. In the first reading from Deuteronomy, we find what we could call the Creed of the Hebrew nation.

“Thereupon the priest will take the basket from thy hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God. In that divine presence, thou wilt continue thy protestation: My fathers were wanderers, hunted to and fro in Syria, when they made their way into Egypt and began to dwell there, only a handful of them; but they grew to be a great people, hardy and numerous. Whereupon the Egyptians treated us ill and persecuted us, and the burden we must bear was insupportable; so we cried out to the Lord God of our fathers, and he listened to our plea, and took pity on our affliction, the toil and oppression we suffered; rescued us from Egypt by force, with his arm high uplifted to strike great terror, and perform great wonders and portents, and brought us here, where he has given us a land that is all milk and honey. That is why I am offering first-fruits, now, out of the land which the Lord has given me. So leave them there, in the presence of the Lord thy God, and when thou hast paid worship to this Lord and God of thine…”
Book of Deuteronomy, 26: 4-10 [link]

Remember our own Creed – I believe in the Father, I believe in the Son, I believe in the Holy Spirit, etc. which we have as part of the Mass on Sundays and holy days. The setting of the Hebrew Creed in the reading is also a divine liturgy, with a priest offering a sacrifice of first-fruits on behalf of the people. We could take the frame of this Hebrew Creed: Abraham our father, enslavement in Egypt, rescue by God with great miracles, the promise of the Holy Land, and behold we make these offerings… and we could give it a Christian aspect: God our Creator, Adam our father, enslavement to sin and death, rescue by Christ with His life-death-resurrection-ascension, the promise of Heaven, and behold we make these offerings at Mass…

Our gospel story carries us out into the wilderness with Christ, as He endures His forty days and forty nights of preparation for ministry. Let us approach our Lenten observances in the spirit of offertory. Giving up even small things is difficult. There are Eastern Catholics who give up not only sweets and alcohol but all animal products – including dairy products – for the duration of Lent. Now, that is very difficult, and even scary. And just as with every other privation we may suffer during the rest of the year, we had best offer up the Lenten sacrifices we make. And there’s no better time to make that offering in prayer than at Mass, on Sunday or during the week.

We can be sure that the enemy of our souls will not only come to ruin our Lent at the end of it, just as he probably tempted Christ through all of His forty days, and not just with this parting salvo in our gospel story today. If we maintain our discipline and are hungry, we will be tempted to take liberties; if we give up our devotion to things other than God during Lent, we will be tempted to return to them.

But, we shall be strong and persevere, eyes fixed upon Christ, and the serpent will have to leave in frustration, to perhaps return at a later time.

“Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit, and by the Spirit He was led on into the wilderness, where He remained forty days, tempted by the devil. During those days He ate nothing, and when they were over, He was hungry. Then the devil said to Him, ‘If Thou art the Son of God, bid this stone turn into a loaf of bread.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, Man cannot live by bread only; there is life for him in all the words that come from God.’ And the devil led Him up on to a high mountain, and shewed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; ‘I will give Thee command,’ the devil said to Him, ‘over all these, and the glory that belongs to them; they have been made over to me, and I may give them to whomsoever I please; come then, all shall be Thine, if Thou wilt fall down before me and worship.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God; to Him only shalt thou do service.’ And he led Him to Jerusalem, and there set Him down on the pinnacle of the temple; ‘If Thou art the Son of God,’ he said to Him, ‘cast thyself down from this to the earth; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee safe, and they will hold thee up with their hands, lest thou shouldst chance to trip on a stone.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘We are told, Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the proof.’ So the devil, when he had finished tempting Him every way, left Him in peace until the time should come.”
Gospel of S. Luke, 4: 1-13 [link]

Quiet, and blessed silence (Sunday VIII of Ordered time)

I shall continue with my description of the Mass next Sunday. But while still on the subject of the Consecration during the Eucharistic prayer of the Mass, I thought I’d talk this weekend about reverence for the Blessed Sacrament.

Let’s look at our foundations. I have been talking about building a relationship of marital give-and-take with Christ to the extent that Christ gives Himself entirely for us as the Church and each one of us individually… and then we make an equally personal donation of ourselves to Him. And then, with the institution of the Mass, Christ literally and practically puts Himself into our hands. And this is how…

Christ tells us in the Gospel that the only way that we can break the bonds of mortality and live forever is by eating Him. This confused His Jewish hearers, who asked themselves (as per the Apostle S. John’s account) what this apparent madness could mean. They are probably concerned about cannibalism, which Judaism along with almost every other human tradition abhors. And during that episode of the gospel, and at that very point, many of Christ’s followers left Him. He looked at His Apostles and asked if they would leave also. S. Peter stood up and declared that there was nowhere else for them to go. And the Catholic Church has always stood behind the Apostle.

How do we eat Christ? A Catholic will answer that without missing a beat: in the Eucharist. And if receiving Holy Communion means eating Christ, the consecrated bread upon the altar is Christ Himself. And the consecrated bread that goes into the tabernacle at the end of Mass is Christ Himself. If Christ is king of all things, and Lord of lords, that makes our churches into throne-rooms.

If we were to peek into His Majesty King Charles’ throne room in one of his palaces when the king was present, what should we find? Respectful courtiers perhaps, and detailed and quasi-ritual ceremonial, and undoubtedly a general hush? This wouldn’t surprise us. And if somebody were for some reason to draw a curtain before the throne of the king, everybody in the room would still know that he was there, although they couldn’t see him, and not cease from the customary honours. They wouldn’t at once begin to talk loudly or turn on some music, or look at their phones instead.

And yet, we have forgotten to treat our churches similarly. There are some quite simple means of demonstrating respect for the Holy One in His churches, especially when He is exposed for veneration during the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament: (i) we could take care to not turn our backs upon the tabernacle in the sanctuaries, if we can help it, (ii) we could attempt to maintain silence for as much as possible in His presence, and (iii) we could pay some respect to others in church who are struggling to pray in that presence of Christ. If we could manage at least these, we could perhaps show a greater courtesy to the presence of the Him Who loves us, and has given Himself thus into our hands in our churches.

Our readings at Mass this weekend have to do with moral instruction, and the first reading just makes me laugh, because it’s so blunt. We know that some people can and will change their ways under the influence of grace, but we all know that other people are more ingrained in their bad habits and careless manner. And some of us can be quite obtuse and annoying to be around. The Wisdom books, such as this Sirach/Ecclesiasticus, say wonderful things like, A fool reveals himself when he talks. And today’s reading is like that: we demonstrate our personal faults when we speak, we demonstrate our mind by what we say and do.

“The sieve shaken, nothing is left but refuse; so thou wilt find a man’s poverty in his thought. Pottery is tested in the furnace, man in the crucible of suffering. Good fruit comes from a tree well dressed, and a man will be in word what he is in thought; do not give thy opinion of a man till he has spoken; there lies the proof.”
Book of Ecclesiasticus, 27: 5-8 [link]

And so, according to that last line of the reading – even if famous people, politicians and celebrities do not agree – we should be very careful about writing autobiographies and giving interviews. Similarly, we could say that the cleverest (or most pious) of men and women have concealed themselves in monasteries and hermitages. And that this is the reason why several church communities still have the good sense to appoint their bishops not from the chattering classes of clergy but from the monasteries.

For wisdom is gained in silence and listening, rather than in speech, and as the Lord says in our gospel reading today, a foolish man will lead everybody who follows him into the pit he’s digging for himself. Once more, blindness here refers to spiritual blindness, so that the ungodly and impious man will make all who look up to him godly and impious, for the student becomes his teacher (as Christ here says). And that’s how we shall be able to tell who a good teacher is – from his students, and from his students’ students. For rot spreads easily, and produces rotten fruit.

To end on a pleasant note: for centuries, the Church has identified saintly men and women who have produced good fruit in abundance, often with miracles added on, often in the silence of the monasteries and convents, whose wisdom has come down to us either in their writing or in the stories written about them by their confreres. They are models for us, good teachers who show us the good way to Christ, and how to trace the narrow road with all its joys and sorrows that will eventually place us in the eternal embrace of Christ.

“And He told them this parable, ‘Can one blind man lead another? Will not both fall into the ditch together? A disciple is no better than his master; he will be fully perfect if he is as his master is. How is it that thou canst see the speck of dust which is in thy brother’s eye, and art not aware of the beam which is in thy own? By what right wilt thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me rid thy eye of that speck, when thou canst not see the beam that is in thy own? Thou hypocrite, take the beam out of thy own eye first, and so thou shalt have clear sight to rid thy brother’s of the speck. There is no sound tree that will yield withered fruit, no withered tree that will yield sound fruit. Each tree is known by its proper fruit; figs are not plucked from thorns, nor grapes gathered from brier bushes. A good man utters what is good from his heart’s store of goodness; the wicked man, from his heart’s store of wickedness, can utter nothing but what is evil; it is from the heart’s overflow that the mouth speaks.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 6: 39-45 [link]

Love even your enemies (Sunday VII of Ordered time)

I’m getting to the very centre now of my my short descriptions of the Catholic Mass. I have called it a festival of divine love, specifically the love that dies in order that the Beloved may live. The Mass requires a relationship of intimate love with the Holy One, which is likened to marital love, so that God in Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride. Any marital relationship, as most of us know, requires an active spirit of reconciliation between spouses, and unsurprisingly the Mass has a penitential rite at the beginning.

Then having divined a little of the mind of the Bridegroom in the readings from Scripture, and in the homily, we declare our faith in Him in the lengthy formula we call the Creed. And then we offer our heart to Him, for He has given us His own. And then we arrive at the foot of the Cross, where the Sacred Heart is indeed bared in His great love for mankind, whom He raised up from the dust of the earth. We sing the Holy-Holy-Holy of the angels at the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer and gather together around the names of the Holy Father and the Bishop and a number of Saints.

Something I sometimes say is that the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and indeed the Resurrection, although they took place across a series of consecutive days, are really one great event. So, as we kneel before the altar and hear the words of Christ – ‘…this is My Body, this is My Blood…’ – from the Last Supper, we are simultaneously watching that Body heaving upon the Cross as the Holy One struggled to sustain His torturous breathing, we are simultaneously watching that blood pour down and stain the blessed wood. And then, beyond the horror of the Crucifixion, we see (also simultaneously) that Body now gloriously risen and walking out of the tomb on Easter Sunday.

Our next move will be to take up this glorious Body and Blood of Christ and offer it back to God the Father – His gift to us, so cruelly treated by sinful mankind, we offer back to Him. It is our best possible offering, the most pure, most holy, most spotless.

What makes the Sacrifice of our Lord upon the Cross so perfect? In a single word, His humility, which perfectly reverses the pride of mankind and negates the punishment due to that pride. Humility creates the locus for that self-sacrificing love we always talk about. Without pride, the command of the gospel story this weekend is not just possible but becomes probable. It is a message of perfect love, even for enemies, and of endless generosity.

“‘And now I say to you who are listening to Me, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you, and pray for those who treat you insultingly. If a man strikes thee on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too; if a man would take away thy cloak, do not grudge him thy coat along with it. Give to every man who asks, and if a man takes what is thine, do not ask him to restore it. As you would have men treat you, you are to treat them; no otherwise. Why, what credit is it to you, if you love those who love you? Even sinners love those who love them. What credit is it to you, if you do good to those who do good to you? Even sinners do as much. What credit is it to you, if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much in exchange. No, it is your enemies you must love, and do them good, and lend to them, without any hope of return; then your reward will be a rich one, and you will be true sons of the most High, generous like Him towards the thankless and unjust. Be merciful, then, as your Father is merciful. Judge nobody, and you will not be judged; condemn nobody, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be yours; good measure, pressed down and shaken up and running over, will be poured into your lap; the measure you award to others is the measure that will be awarded to you.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 6: 27-38 [link]

The corresponding illustration from the old testament, given by our first reading, is the story of King David, not yet a king, and fleeing from persecution by the legitimate king who had grown to hate David and envy David’s relationship with God, a relationship Saul himself had briefly enjoyed but had lost. David’s companion Abishai suggests to him that he dispatch the king his enemy, who has fallen so marvellously into his hands.

“So, at dead of night, David and Abisai passed through into the Israelite lines, and found Saul asleep in his tent, with his spear driven into the ground by his pillow; all around him, Abner and the rest of his army lay sleeping too. ‘Now,’ said Abisai, ‘the Lord has left thy enemy at thy mercy! Let me pin him to the ground as he lies with one thrust of yonder spear; there will be no need for a second.’ ‘Nay,’ answered David, ‘kill him thou must not; none can lay hands on the king whom the Lord has anointed but he incurs guilt.'”
First book of the Kings (aka. I Samuel), 26: 7-9 [link]

David, although a seasoned warrior, would not sink as low as to kill the anointed king, his enemy, and centuries later his Successor, hanging upon the cross with all the power of God Himself, would only bow His head and ask His Father to forgive His enemies, for they did not know what they were doing. Give, He says to us in the gospel reading, until you can give no more, and do not hope for a return. Give your very life for even your enemy, and you will show the world the heart of God, because you are compassionate/merciful as your Father in heaven is compassionate/merciful. Unusually, the second reading has a common message, asking us who share the humanity of Adam to take upon ourselves the Humanity of Christ…

“Mankind begins with the Adam who became, as Scripture tells us, a living soul; it is fulfilled in the Adam who has become a life-giving spirit. It was not the principle of spiritual life that came first; natural life came first, then spiritual life; the man who came first came from earth, fashioned of dust, the Man who came afterwards came from heaven, and His fashion is heavenly. The nature of that earth-born man is shared by his earthly sons, the nature of the heaven-born Man, by His heavenly sons; and it remains for us, who once bore the stamp of earth, to bear the stamp of heaven.”
First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 15: 45-49 [link]

Now, that is the humility of Christ. In humility, as per the gospel reading, neither shall we judge, for humility does not take upon itself the mantle of a judge. If we didn’t have two thousand years of church history, we would think all of this impossible for the human heart. Most people today will still have an eye for every eye taken from them, a tooth for every tooth knocked out of their mouths. Vengeance lives wonderfully in the human heart.

But through long centuries, saintly Christian men and women have given and given beyond human ability, have knelt before cruel torturers in superhuman endurance and, hanging from their own crosses, they have spoken the message of their Lord, a message of undying love for fallen men, whom He would like to raise despite everything to eternal life.

Trust in God alone (Sunday VI of Ordered time)

I shall continue this weekend with my short trip through the Mass. I have so far described our Sunday experience as a walk from the gateway of a Temple in the penitential rites at the beginning, to the several atriums of memory in the readings from the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible, to the doorway of the confession of belief in the Creed (where we are invited also to make an offering of ourselves, in the Offertory). The door to the inner sanctum is opened and we are greeted with the song of the angels, the Holy-Holy-Holy, as we arrive at the foot of the Cross and the holiest part of the Mass – the Eucharistic prayer.

At the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer, the priest takes up the narrative of the offerings made a little earlier (principally, the offering of ourselves) and requests that these be received and blessed, and he prays for the Church and her centre of unity – the Holy Father in Rome – and our local leader, the Bishop in Nottingham. There comes a moment then at the beginning of the first Eucharistic Prayer when we pray for the living, just as nearer its end when we pray for the dead. As you may have heard me do, it is at one or both of these two points that I bring in the intention of the Mass, or any prayers people ask of me, and we pray for these in particular and for ‘all those gathered in the church, whose faith and devotion are known’ to God already.

It is for all these that the priests offer the ‘sacrifice of praise,’ and indeed this sacrifice of praise is offered by all the people present, for themselves and those they love. Now, we come to a moment when we reflect again on the nature of the Church, which is not only a community of us here on earth, but a community of all the living, even those Saints in heaven. We cannot name every one of those thousands of Saints, but we name the few who are primary to the Roman Church, namely, the Holy Mother, her spouse S. Joseph, the eleven Apostles and S. Paul, several of the early Successors of Peter (Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius), the great bishop Cyprian, and several martyrs (Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian).

In effect, what we do as Christians in walking thus into the heart of the Mass is we put our hearts and minds in trust into the hands of God. We trust then in Him alone, and (as above, in the Eucharistic prayer) we have just made a first listing of the one Lady and the several men who did the same thing – they gave their lives, especially the martyr Saints, for Christ and for His Church. In the witness of their lives, today’s first reading comes alive, for we are called as Christians to set aside any reliance on the fickle people of this world, and indeed the more untrustworthy among them, who have themselves turned away from God. With no knowledge of Him, these who have turned from God would be the blind leading the blind, having no eyes for what is good (as the prophet says), if we were to be foolish enough to put ourselves into their hands.

“Cursed shall he be, the Lord says, that puts his trust in man, and will have flesh and blood to aid him, his thoughts far from God. Never shall the sight of better times greet him; forlorn as some bush of tamarisk out in the desert, he dwells in a parched waste, the salt plains for all his company. Blessed shall he be that puts his trust in the Lord, makes the Lord his refuge. Not more favoured is tree planted by the water’s edge, that pushes out its roots to catch the moisture, and defies the summer heat; its green leaves careless of the drought, its fruit unfailing.”
Prophecy of Jeremias, 17: 5-8 [link]

Rather, as the prophet suggests, and as our Lord Himself once said when He was talking about building upon solid rock rather than on sand, if we were to rely on the Holy One, God our Lord, being sure of His protection, we would have fewer worries, even when suffering and distress comes upon us. And so therefore, we have had the first psalm of the Book of Psalms this weekend: Blessed is he (or indeed, she) who places trust in God alone.

“Blessed is the man
who does not guide his steps by ill counsel,
or turn aside where sinners walk,
or, where scornful souls gather, sit down to rest;
the man whose heart is set on the Law of the Lord,
on that Law, day and night, his thoughts still dwell.
He stands firm as a tree planted by running water,
ready to yield its fruit when the season comes,
not a leaf faded;
all that he does will prosper.
Not such, not such the wicked;
the wicked are like chaff the wind sweeps away.
Not for the wicked, when judgement comes,
to rise up and plead their cause;
sinners will have no part in the reunion of the just.
They walk, the just, under the Lord’s protection;
the path of the wicked, how soon is it lost to sight!”
Psalm I [link]

For our gospel reading, we for the first time in a while have an accurate translation of what we call the Beatitudes. Some of us may remember that for a few decades, we have heard that they are happy who are poor, who mourn, who weep, etc. Rather, now, blessed are they who are poor of spirit, who are hungry for God and His justice, who weep at primarily the state of mankind in this ‘vale of tears,’ as we sometimes call our short lives of strife in this world of sin and death. For we shall one day find riches in God, rejoice in His reign and witness His renewal of the world. If we truly walk in faithful trust in God, we shall find ourselves occupied somehow with the things that are His: simplicity of heart (poverty of spirit), justice, union of all men and women with Him, etc. And significantly – for Christ makes loud mention of this – we shall find merit in our attachment to Him in spite of everything while we still suffer the indignities of this world, for then we should be like the Saints of God who suffered for Christ, and our reward (He says) will be great in heaven.

“With them He went down and stood on a level place; a multitude of His disciples was there, and a great gathering of the people from all Judaea, and Jerusalem, and the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon. These had come there to listen to Him, and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled by unclean spirits were also cured; so that all the multitude was eager to touch Him, because power went out from Him, and healed them all. Then He lifted up His eyes towards His disciples, and said; ‘Blessed are you who are poor; the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are hungry now; you will have your fill. Blessed are you who weep now; you will laugh for joy. Blessed are you, when men hate you and cast you off and revile you, when they reject your name as something evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. When that day comes, rejoice and exult over it; for behold, a rich reward awaits you in heaven; their fathers treated the prophets no better. But woe upon you who are rich; you have your comfort already. Woe upon you who are filled full; you shall be hungry. Woe upon you who laugh now; you shall mourn and weep. Woe upon you, when all men speak well of you; their fathers treated the false prophets no worse.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 6: 17-26 [link]

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts (Sunday V of Ordered time)

In the last several weeks, I have been describing the Mass we attend weekly (or some of us more often) as a celebration of our union with the Holy One, God our Lord, our divine Spouse. We often hear of the Church called the Bride of Christ in the New Testament of the Bible, but every human soul is also a bride of Christ. One of the reasons the Church takes marriage so seriously is because of the comparison of Christian marriage to this marriage of Christ to the Church, and of God to each human soul.

Last week, I drew a picture of us being invited to a type of dinner party and being drawn into a dining room which is also the sacred space within a large Temple. But, when we get to that sacred space, we find ourselves at the foot of a cross, twenty centuries ago, outside Jerusalem. Standing near us is the Blessed Virgin, leaning in distress upon the support of her nephew S. John the Evangelist, surrounded by her sisters, her cousins and friends. For her Son is dying upon the Cross.

As we kneel before the vision of the Holy One in His agony, other Christians of all ages, all assisting at Mass also appear around us, until countless men and women of all places and all times are gathered before the Cross. The Holy One says to His Christians, Behold, I have given My life for you, now give yourselves to Me. Then comes the ninth hour, 3.00 in the afternoon, and He has completed His work for the destruction of sin and death, and He says, It is accomplished. And within this sacred space in the Temple into which we at Mass have been drawn, the ministerial priest begins the words of the Eucharistic Prayer.

Remember our gift of bread and wine at the offertory, as well the gift of ourselves. So the priest says, To you, therefore, dear Father, we humbly ask through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, that you accept and bless these gifts, these offerings, praying at the first for your holy Catholic Church, in her chief governor Francis our Pope and in our local governor Patrick our Bishop, and all the others who cooperate with them in handing on the Catholic faith.

All this is recited soon after the song of the angels, the Holy, Holy, Holy. And perhaps those of us who read the first reading this weekend will be putting things together. The prophet Isaiah was probably a priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, and had entered to offer incense there – one of the primary duties of the Hebrew priests – for the narrative talks for the Temple being filled with smoke. All of a sudden Isaiah who had entered a stone Temple on the mountain in Jerusalem finds himself in the heavenly Temple, with the angels singing the Holy-Holy-Holy.

“In the year of king Ozias’ death, I had a vision. I saw the Lord sitting on a throne that towered high above me, the skirts of His robe filling the temple. Above it rose the figures of the seraphim, each of them six-winged; with two wings they veiled God’s face, with two His feet, and the other two kept them poised in flight. And ever the same cry passed between them, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.’ The lintels over the doors rang with the sound of that cry, and smoke went up, filling the temple courts. ‘Alas,’ said I, ‘that I must needs keep silence; my lips, and the lips of all my countrymen, are polluted with sin; and yet these eyes have looked upon their King, the Lord of hosts.’ Whereupon one of the seraphim flew up to me, bearing a coal which he had taken with a pair of tongs from the altar; he touched my mouth with it, and said, ‘Now that this has touched thy lips, thy guilt is swept away, thy sin pardoned.’ And now I heard the Lord say, ‘Who shall be My messenger? Who is to go on this errand of Ours?’ And I said, ‘I am here at Thy command; make me Thy messenger.'”
Prophecy of Isaias, 6: 1-8 [link]

Again, remember where we are when at Mass. Isaiah may as well have been kneeling before the Cross at this moment, and his words could be ours at Mass, Wretched am I, a sinner, for here I am in the presence of the Holy One. Again, as in the gospel story, when S. Peter falls before the Holy One now clothed in human flesh, Who tells him that grace brings great things from humble souls. The same glory that shone upon Isaiah, that shone upon S. Peter, now shines upon us as well, at Mass.

“…He said to Simon, ‘Stand out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered Him, ‘Master, we have toiled all the night, and caught nothing; but at Thy word I will let down the net.’ And when they had done this, they took a great quantity of fish, so that the net was near breaking, and they must needs beckon to their partners who were in the other boat to come and help them. When these came, they filled both boats, so that they were ready to sink. At seeing this, Simon Peter fell down and caught Jesus by the knees; ‘Leave me to myself, Lord,’ he said; ‘I am a sinner.’ Such amazement had overcome both him and all his crew, at the catch of fish they had made; so it was, too, with James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. But Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; henceforth thou shalt be a fisher of men.’“
Gospel of S. Luke, 5: 4-10 [link]

And we begin the Eucharistic Prayer to thank God for His generosity to us, baffled in a way that the Ancient of Days should trouble Himself with little old us, overcome like the Fisherman was by the extraordinary miracle of the fish. So we huddle around the Bishop, and around the Successor of that Fisherman, the Holy Father in Rome, whose names we mention, and we ask God to accept the poor offerings we have just made. And (as we shall see when we talk about the end of the Mass) He has a mission for us, poor sinners though we are.

We might as well use S. Paul’s words in the second reading this weekend: I am the least of the people to be sent out by You, Lord, for I have been a great sinner, and I hardly deserve the name Apostle, but by your grace I shall be fruitful, by your grace I shall be an apostle. Then, as per the first reading, we continue: You have cleansed me of my sins, as the angel touches the coal to my lips.

And the Sacred Heart looks upon us and says, Be not afraid, you are to be apostles of My love, and through your love, you will catch and bring souls to Me.

“Of all the apostles, I am the least; nay, I am not fit to be called an apostle, since there was a time when I persecuted the Church of God; only, by God’s grace, I am what I am, and the grace He has shewn me has not been without fruit; I have worked harder than all of them, or rather, it was not I, but the grace of God working with me. That is our preaching, mine or theirs as you will; that is the faith which has come to you.”
First letter of the Apostle S. Paul to the Corinthians, 15: 9-11 [link]

The Lord will enter His Temple (Sunday IV of Ordered time)

In the last few weeks, I presented the Liturgy of the Word, together with the Penitential Rite and the recitation of the Creed as a sort of introductory session in the ‘marriage feast of the Lamb,’ which is an early description of the Mass. It’s like when you’re invited to a dinner party, but in a larger home you are led from the front door through hallways and ante-rooms before you arrive at the set table. In like fashion, the Mass is ordered in time as a dinner party is ordered in space.

So, here we are, having been led through the doorway of penitence and so being of readiness for union with God, and having been walked progressively through the ante-rooms of the Old Testament reading and the writings of S. Paul and others, and then the parlour of the gospel reading, a deacon (which is Greek for ‘servant’) stands before you and bids you prepare for your meeting with the Host of the event, the great King. He has offered you His heart, now you are to offer Him yours. So you recite the Creed, I believe in God the Father, I believe in God the Son, I believe in God the Holy Spirit, and you place your heart upon the altar, so-to-speak.

And then you hear the ministerial priest declare, Pray brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father… and the veil is lifted before the door into the dining room, and before you is the High King, Who stands to greet His guests. In our ears are the words of the priest as he calls out, Lift up your hearts, and we reply, We lift them up to the Lord. Soon afterwards, we are singing the song of the angels, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Ancient One, Hosanna in the Highest, and our gaze settles upon the familiar face of Christ as we say, Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord. Thus have we fully entered into the heavenly Temple, and are prepared for the heart of the Mass: the Eucharistic prayer.

And this idea of entry into a temple may be an interesting way to introduce today’s festival, insofar as the Holy One enters His own Temple in Jerusalem, which was a facsimile of the heavenly Temple; and He enters to establish forever the locus of divine worship. The Holy Family honours their ancient religion with its Temple ritual on the eve of its transformation, which would happen on the hill of the Crucifixion. The Apostle S. John says in his gospel that the true Temple – the true Shrine – is the body of Our Lord. When that new Shrine hung dead upon the cross, a dreadful earthquake shook the old shrine and its veil was torn asunder. When that Body rose gloriously on Easter Sunday, true worship could only again take place through it. One of the principal points of the old Sacred Heart devotion was and is entering into the heart of Christ. As we say at the end of the Eucharistic prayer, Through Him, with Him, and in Him…

The Presentation of the Lord in the Temple comes precisely forty days after Christmas and is also connected with the Hebrew tradition of the purification of the mother after the birth of her son, which gives us some of our old Christian traditions of the ‘churching of women.’ This is very much a festival of both Our Lord and of His holy Mother. The prophet Malachi in our first reading looks forwards centuries before the event to the entry of the Holy One into His Temple in Jerusalem.

“See where I am sending an angel of Mine, to make the way ready for My coming! All at once the Lord will visit His temple; that Lord, so longed for, welcome herald of a divine covenant. Ay, says the Lord of hosts, He is coming; but who can bear the thought of that advent? Who will stand with head erect at His appearing? He will put men to a test fierce as the crucible, searching as the lye that fullers use.”
Prophecy of Malachias, 3: 1-2 [link]

Those of you who listen to or read my ramblings about the Old Testament know that Solomon’s great Temple was destroyed in 587BC and a second Temple was built, which still stood in the first century. Malachi lived in the time of the second Temple, which was notably without the supernatural effects of Solomon’s Temple, which had had mysterious clouds and smoke, flashings of light, etc. The prophet looked into the future and saw when these supernatural effects would return, when the God of Israel would enter once more into His sanctuary in Jerusalem. The second reading this weekend tells us how the God of Israel took His descent as a human being from those very Hebrews whom Malachi was prophesying to, from the stock of Father Abraham. And the gospel story tells us of the circumstances of this extraordinary figure of the God-man being carried into the second Temple by His Mother Mary, closely followed by their guardian S. Joseph, who made the requisite sacrifice of four birds for the ‘churching’ of his wife.

The old priest Simeon was waiting for them. He was a prophet, not unlike Malachi, and he knew that he before he died would see the Holy One enter His Temple, as Malachi had foretold. With a joy that has echoed down to us in his famous words, Now, Master, you can let your servant depart in peace, S. Simeon returns the Child to Our Lady, saying to her that she would have to suffer much on the Child’s behalf, but through it all would Judgement come upon mankind, and Salvation to all who believe.

“At this time there was a man named Simeon living in Jerusalem, an upright man of careful observance, who waited patiently for comfort to be brought to Israel. The Holy Spirit was upon him; and by the Holy Spirit it had been revealed to him that he was not to meet death, until he had seen that Christ Whom the Lord had anointed. He now came, led by the Spirit, into the Temple; and when the Child Jesus was brought in by His parents, to perform the custom which the law enjoined concerning Him, Simeon too was able to take Him in his arms. And he said, blessing God, ‘Ruler of all, now dost Thou let Thy servant go in peace, according to Thy word; for my own eyes have seen that saving power of Thine which Thou hast prepared in the sight of all nations. This is the light which shall give revelation to the Gentiles, this is the glory of Thy people Israel.‘ The father and Mother of the child were still wondering over all that was said of Him, when Simeon blessed them, and said to his Mother Mary, ‘Behold, this Child is destined to bring about the fall of many and the rise of many in Israel; to be a sign which men will refuse to acknowledge; and so the thoughts of many hearts shall be made manifest; as for thy own soul, it shall have a sword to pierce it.”
Gospel of S. Luke, 2: 25-35 [link]

Reading and understanding (Sunday III of Ordered time)

To recap my little descriptions of the Mass on the last three Sundays, I called the Mass a celebration of the self-sacrificing love of God, as given by the Man on the cross. I might as well also call it a celebration of the human community that that Love has established – the Church, in all its hierarchical splendour. I don’t mean only the hierarchy of bishops and priests; every one of us is a member of the hierarchical constitution of the Church. As a human community, we have a history, and as a human community we have a code of conduct and rule of life, and a government also. S. Paul compared this communal aspect of the Church to the way parts of the animal body (we all have) work together to form a whole. We actually have this as our second reading this weekend. It is rather long for a second reading, but we priests like to hammer in a point, don’t we? Here’s a short extract…

“A man’s body is all one, though it has a number of different organs; and all this multitude of organs goes to make up one body; so it is with Christ. We too, all of us, have been baptised into a single body by the power of a single Spirit, Jews and Greeks, slaves and free men alike; we have all been given drink at a single source, the one Spirit.”
First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 12: 12-13 [link]

The readings and the homily at Mass serve the upkeep of our social fabric, by preserving the stories of the founding of our community or family and the consequent social rule of Christ that is exercised in our midst. And then, this family of ours (around the world) approaches the heart of the Mass, the ‘source and summit of our lives’ (as the second Vatican council called it), when the community approaches physical union with Christ her Lord. But before this feast of faith, there are the Offertory rites, when we make our offering of ourselves to our divine Spouse. Remember my frequent mention of our individual relationship with God (as well as the communal relationship of the Church with Christ) as spousal.

In the Offertory, we may as well be making our vows to Him (He having made His own already) – in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, etc. – and the Eucharistic Prayer that follows is a great vote of thanksgiving and praise to the Holy One, of remembering His favours to us and asking for more. In the next few weeks, I shall be running slowly through the first Eucharistic Prayer – the Roman canon – which I have chosen because it is our most ancient Eucharistic Prayer, already in evidence over 1,500 years ago and traditionally much older. In looking at it, I hope to draw us into the Jewish Temple of ancient times, where our holy religion began in its essentials, and where (as per the book of Revelation) it will end.

And speaking of the Jewish Temple where our religion began, we have a narrative in our first reading this weekend of a religious service that was conducted after the second Jewish Temple was built, several decades after King Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonian empire (586 BC).

“…on the first day of the seventh month, the priest Esdras fetched out the book, in the presence of a great throng of men and women, with such children as were old enough to understand it. And there in the open space before the Water-gate he proclaimed the Law, before men and women and such younger folk as could take it in, from daybreak to noon, and all listened attentively while the reading went on. A wooden pulpit had been erected to carry the sound better, and at this the scribe Esdras stood; with him were Mathathias, Semeia, Ania, Uria, Helcia and Maasia on his right, Phadaia, Misael, Melchia, Hasum, Hasbadana, Zacharia and Mosollam on his left. Esdras was plainly seen, as he opened the book, by all the people underneath. When he had opened it, all rose; and when he blessed the Name of the Lord, the great God, all lifted their hands and answered, ‘Amen, amen’; and with that they bowed down and worshipped with their faces close to the ground. Then the Levites came forward, Josue, Bani, Serebia, Jamin, Accub, Sebthai, Odia, Maasia, Celita, Azarias, Jozabed, Hanan and Phalaia; these enjoined silence on the people, as they stood there in their places for the reading of the Law. And they read out the book of the law, clear and plain to give the sense of it, so that all could understand the reading.”
Book of II Esdras (aka. Nehemiah), 8:2-8 [link]

Nehemiah, the author of this book, was the Jewish governor of his time and it had been his task to restore the security of Jerusalem by rebuilding its encircling wall. But in our story here, let’s find a liturgical structure that we might find familiar. The priest Ezra brings together a congregation of men, women and children – so do we. He reads to them from the book from morn ’til noon – we thankfully don’t have readings that long at Mass. When he reads from his wooden dais or pulpit, probably from a lectern, everybody stands up – we still do that for the gospel. Ezra blesses the Holy One and everybody answers Amen, Amen – we do this at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer. And Ezra translates the Hebrew of the book and explains it – that sounds suspiciously like a homily to me, except much longer.

And it all ends with a bit of a feast – I needn’t mention Holy Communion. Historically, in the time of Ezra and from the time before the destruction of King Solomon’s Temple, the Jewish people had been scattered throughout the known world. Wherever they went, they already began to establish what we would recognise as synagogues to serve their national culture and identity, even as they do today. It was at one of these synagogues in the Greek area of Galilee in the north of the Holy Land that our Lord stood up, according to the gospel story, to tell His Jewish brothers and sisters that their long wait for a Messiah and the Successor of King David was over. That what Moses and the prophets, what Ezra and Nehemiah had established was being fulfilled. That Love had finally arrived and was standing before them.

“And Jesus came back to Galilee with the power of the Spirit upon Him; word of Him went round through all the neighbouring country, and He began to preach in their synagogues, so that His praise was on all men’s lips. Then He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and He went into the synagogue there, as His custom was, on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. The book given to Him was the book of the prophet Isaias; so He opened it, and found the place where the words ran: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; He has anointed me, and sent me out to preach the gospel to the poor, to restore the broken-hearted; to bid the prisoners go free, and the blind have sight; to set the oppressed at liberty, to proclaim a year when men may find acceptance with the Lord, a day of retribution.’ Then He shut the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. All those who were in the synagogue fixed their eyes on Him, and thus He began speaking to them, ‘This scripture which I have read in your hearing is to-day fulfilled.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 4: 14-21 [link]

Sunday of the Word of God

As if we needed a particular Sunday for this… every Sunday is a Sunday of the Word of God.

But Rome is making a point, and the Dicastery for Evangelisation is serious about this, as we can see from their website. If you click the button below, you can download a short PDF file about this weekend’s feast day and celebration.

Download the PDF file

The wedding at Cana and the other Wedding (Sunday II of Ordered time)

“Two days afterwards, there was a wedding-feast at Cana, in Galilee; and Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus Himself, and His disciples, had also been invited to the wedding. Here the supply of wine failed; whereupon Jesus’ mother said to Him, ‘They have no wine left.’ Jesus answered her, ‘Nay, Woman, why dost thou trouble Me with that? My time has not come yet.’ And His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever He tells you.’“
Gospel of S. John, 2: 1-5 [link]

In the last two weeks, I called the Mass a festival or celebration of love, and specifically of the type of love which sacrifices itself for the sake of the person or persons loved, and a love that is demonstrated by the man on the Cross, which is why the crucifix has come to become a common feature of our churches and altars. The Mass is then a participation in the wedding feast of the Lamb, as is mentioned in the book of Revelation and in the gospels as the feast given by the high king to which many are invited. I also spoke of the purification of our own reciprocal love for God through penitence and confession, and I then described the readings as a memorial of the work of God throughout the history of the Hebrew and Jewish nation and the Church – what we call ‘salvation history.’ A sort of family history.

But I shall say today that the readings are also moral lessons. In fact, before the liturgical changes of the 70s, we used to call at least the first reading at Mass ‘the Lesson.’ So, we had the lesson and the Gospel. The Holy Father Paul VI decided that we should have a greater dose of S. Paul every Sunday and on holy days, and we received a second reading. Another lesson. So, we have two lessons and the gospel, and all of these give us moral and spiritual guidance. How we are to live our lives. The Hebrews/Jews have another word for that – ‘Torah,’ which we translate in English as Law. The Law of Moses.

And the Church declares that this Law of God became flesh and dwelt among us, and that the Word of God – the Guidance of God for our lives – took on a human face. And now we’re going to come back around to the subject of self-sacrificial love. Because that is the undergirding and the foundation of the Law of Moses of the Old Testament and the Law of Christ in the New Testament – the love for God and the consequent love for neighbour. That is what we are taught in the readings, and hopefully in the homily that follows them: how it is that we are to bring to bear practically this self-sacrificial love in our lives today. The Church uses Scripture – the Bible – and the wisdom she receives constantly through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to produce for us such guidances – in the catechisms – which enable us to fulfil the Law of God in our own time.

And it is this type of self-sacrificial love that turns water into wine.

The beauty of this story of the wedding at Cana that we’ve had in our gospel reading this weekend is in Christ’s devotion to His holy Mother. When she said, Do something about that wine situation, He responded and said, But, Mother, my hour has not yet come. What hour is that? I’ve heard it said often that Christ’s hour was His crucifixion. Now, if the crucifixion was the extraordinary self-emptying and sacrifice of Christ, by which the divine love of God was finally made manifest in all its glory, then this excruciating torment of Christ’s is here connected with the wedding at Cana.

Christ says to His Mother, If I do this thing for you – if I bring them the wine they need – you know what comes next, you know that I shall next walk up to Jerusalem and be tortured and killed. So, this is not necessarily a smiling and cheerful Mary asking for this miracle at the wedding, but a sorrowful mother preparing with her request to offer her Son for the salvation of the world. When the master steward declared that the water drawn out was the best wine he had ever tasted, the Immaculate Heart looked forward to the Cross of her Son. And it is apparent to me that this is where the Catholic tradition of intercession to the Holy Mother begins. She can obtain the impossible from her Son, because of His extraordinary devotion to her.

And now, why this Sacrifice on the Cross? Could not humanity have been saved by God without this horrible blood-letting? We do not quite understand why blood sacrifice is required by God, but we know from Scripture that it is, and that this requirement is so serious that God Himself will undergo the pain of it, in order that the men and women He loves will not suffer eternal death. So, He says through Isaiah in our first reading, For Jerusalem’s sake, I will not be silent, I shall not weary, until her integrity shines forth in Christ My beloved Son, until her salvation – her Jesus – flames forth like a torch. And that torch has never burned brighter than from the Cross, not only for the benefit of the Jews but all the nations. And the new community – the new family – that is born out of that burning love of the Sacred Heart, the heart of God bared upon the Cross, would have a new name. This the prophet says. The new congregation would be named after her Lord, she would be called Christian.

“For love of Sion I will no more be silent,
for love of Jerusalem I will never rest,
until He, the Just One, is revealed to her like the dawn,
until He, her deliverer, shines out like a flame.
All the nations, all the kings of the nations, shall see Him,
the Just, the glorious,
and a new name shall be given thee by the Lord’s own lips.
The Lord upholds thee, His crown, His pride;
thy God upholds thee, His royal diadem.”
Prophecy of Isaias, 62: 1-3 [link]

‘Behold, My Servant, in Whom I am pleased…’ (Sunday I of Ordered time)

I had begun to speak about the Mass last week, and I called it the festival (or feast) of love. I described this marital type of love as a total mutual self-giving between the Church and God her Lord, and said that such a love requires frequent purification, so that it can be perfected. Hence the penitential ritual at the beginning of every Mass.

Now we can talk about the readings that we have at Mass, something that the Church has inherited from the synagogues of the first-century Jews. As with any other people, the Jews are a people of memory and tradition. They remember in particular the promises made by God to their patriarchs Abraham, Isaac in Jacob. When they wrote that down, it became the book of Genesis. They remember their extraordinary rescue from Egypt under Moses. When they wrote that down it became the book of Exodus. Moses gave them an elaborate religious ritual and an equally elaborate legal code, or (we might say) a guidance for right living in the presence of God. When they wrote all that down, it became the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Much of the rest of the Old Testament is a narrative history of this nation of Jews, how they repeatedly fell out of their relationship with God, and how they recovered by the guiding hands of priests, prophets, and kings. And they waited (and many of them still wait) for the arrival of a Messiah, Who would tie up all the loose ends and draw them and with them all the rest of mankind into a right relationship with God.

In the New Testament, a remnant of this Jewish nation describes how that was accomplished in the person of the God-man Jesus Christ. Just as the synagogue remembered Moses and the prophets, the Church remembers Moses and the prophets, Christ and His Apostles. Think of this part of the Mass as a family get-together, where stories may be told of the origins of the family, the traditions of the family, how the family honoured God in the past and still honours Him today. Of the very essence of Holy Mass, and one of the most significant properties of the Catholic Church, is tradition, by which we perform the rituals that were given to the Apostles at the beginning and have been hallowed by the centuries.

And, on this feast day of the baptism of OLJC, we must bring to our minds that long history of the Jewish nation, for God Himself in becoming a Jew honoured that history and tradition. The rituals of purification and washing away of sins were given to the people by Moses as a symbol of the setting-aside of the filth of sin, so that the people could make a suitable offering of themselves to God. They belonged to Him by His own election – He had declared them to be His – and for that offering to be perfect they had to set aside every other item that dominated their lives and distracted them from Him.

Baptism is like the penitential rite at the beginning of Mass, which recognises sin and wipes the slate clean, allowing the offering of the rest of our lives to God to be more beautiful, more pure, more single-minded. Baptism is the preliminary to a daily consecration of our lives to God. And Christ Himself goes through the motion of purification at the hands of his cousin John. Did He need to do so – He Who remained without sin? Of course not. But when John protested, He replied and said that it was necessary to do all that Righteousness demands.

Righteousness according to Scripture is the fulfilment of the commandments of God. Christ wished in His sacred humanity to be a righteous Jew, to carry out perfectly the very same Law that He had given to Moses after He spoke to him from the burning bush. For the same reason, the Immaculate one, His mother, also obeyed every command of the Jewish Law, undergoing the rites of purity, when she was always without sin. It is in humility that Christ thus bows His head and takes up the yoke that is laid upon the shoulders of sinful and mortal humanity, living every aspect of human life perfectly, and raising human life thereby to the heights of sanctity and immortality. So the sinless One must needs undergo a ritual purification, and suffer and die for sin, for He takes upon Himself our sins, and is then sealed in the tomb of death designed for mortal men and women. But then, unexpectedly He walks out of it, walks out of the clutches of death, and in so doing carries mankind with Him.

“It was while all the people were being baptised that Jesus was baptised too, and stood there praying. Suddenly heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit came down upon Him in bodily form, like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, which said, ‘Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 3: 21-22 [link]

Hail to the Lord’s anointed (Epiphany day)

Just over a year ago, the Bishop had suggested that I should include a little bit more of catechesis in homilies, in addition to anything on the Scripture readings at Mass. So, for Sundays this year I shall include a short discourse on the common Catholic experience before I get to the readings. You may have heard this countless times before, but let’s begin with the Mass.

The Mass is the festival of love – and I am clearly not talking about erotic or sexual love. This love of ours is the agape of the Greeks that becomes the caritas (charity) of the Latins. The love that gives of itself for the sake of the beloved, that when taken to its extreme dies upon a cross for the sake of the beloved. If you’re a spouse and certainly if you’re a parent, you have an idea of what agape is, of what supreme charity is. And yes, this is what the Mass is all about. That’s why the Holy One hangs crucified above our heads. He would have us learn how to love as He does.

Over the next few weeks, I shall go through the Mass in sections. Today we begin with the penitential rite: the first bit, where we call to mind our sins and make an act of contrition (the Confiteor, or I Confess) and ask for mercy with the Greek words Kyrie Eleison – Lord, have mercy. Charity is a love which is complete, given entirely. It is a love that needs to be purified constantly, so that it can be given entirely. Just as those of us who are married choose to periodically make acts of charity/love to our spouses, and many Catholic spouses arrange to remake or renew their marriage vows now and again in a semi-ritualistic manner… similarly, we call to mind even our smallest sins during the penitential rite, sins by which we have betrayed God’s love, and prepare to remake/renew our promises to Him. Remember when Christ said in the gospel that the angels in heaven greatly rejoice over a single repentant sinner. This is therefore a fitting moment for us to add the great Gloria, using the words of the angels to the shepherds on Christmas Day: Glory to God in the highest, and peace to all of good will.

“‘If any of you owns a hundred sheep, and has lost one of them, does he not leave the other ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders, rejoicing, and so goes home, and calls his friends and his neighbours together; Rejoice with me, he says to them, I have found my sheep that was lost. So it is, I tell you, in heaven; there will be more rejoicing over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine souls that are justified, and have no need of repentance. Or if some woman has ten silver pieces by her, and has lost one of them, does she not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls her friends and her neighbours together; Rejoice with me, she says, I have found the silver piece which I lost. So it is, I tell you, with the angels of God; there is joy among them over one sinner that repents.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 15: 4-10 [link]

And speaking of Christmas, we cannot end our celebrations before the great festival of the kings from the east. The word we may read out as ‘mayjai’ is a plural of the Latin magus. So, magi. These were a species of learned men and even sorcerors, whether or not they were kings, and certainly knowledgeable enough about astronomy to know when a new light had appeared in the heavens. And when they had appeared in Jerusalem to find the Child, Jewish heads would have looked up at the mention of a new light shining out in the heavens, because of such prophecies as we have from Isaiah in our first reading today.

“Rise up, Jerusalem, and shine forth; thy dawn has come, breaks the glory of the Lord upon thee! What though darkness envelop the earth, though all the nations lie in gloom? Upon thee the Lord shall dawn, over thee His splendour shall be revealed. Those rays of thine shall light the Gentiles on their path; kings shall walk in the splendour of thy sunrise. Lift up thy eyes and look about thee; who are these that come flocking to thee? Sons of thine, daughters of thine, come from far away, or rising up close at hand. Heart of thee shall overflow with wonder and gratitude, to see all the riches of ocean, all the treasure of the Gentiles pouring into thee! A stream of camels thronging about thee, dromedaries from Madian and Epha, bringing all the men of Saba with their gifts of gold and incense, their cry of praise to the Lord!”
Prophecy of Isaias, 60: 1-6 [link]

Why else would Herod go with his sword for the innocent young boys of Bethlehem, seeking to destroy Christ? He, Herod, in his pride may have thought that he and his dynasty and nobody else was the light of Jerusalem, and the glory of the Israel. Herod was an Idumaean, not a Jew, but had contrived with the Romans to be called the king of the Jews. And the people disliked him for it. And suddenly, here are foreigners from the East, asking where the new King of the Jews is. Foreigners! What else does Isaiah say in our reading? Foreign nations (Gentiles) will come to Jerusalem, foreign kings to her growing light.

This was always the promise of the prophets: that the coming of the Messiah would bring non-Jews and people from other nations into covenant with the God of Israel. Hence the response to our psalm today: All nations on earth shall fall prostrate before you, O Lord. And S. Paul would obviously have taken this message to the Church in Ephesus with its growing number of Gentile Christians, for we have in our second reading his assertion that the pagans (non-Jews, Gentiles) now share the inheritance of the Jews, being welcomed into a Jewish covenant by the Apostles and their associates.

And so when we look upon a nativity scene with the Child and His mother and S. Joseph and the shepherds – all Jews – and then we see with them the three kings – all Gentiles – bent in adoration, we should see the Child look upon us as if to say, You are not Jews, but even so, you are Mine.

“You will have been told how God planned to give me a special grace for preaching to you; how a revelation taught me the secret I have been setting out briefly here; briefly, yet so as to let you see how well I have mastered this secret of Christ’s. It was never made known to any human being in past ages, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets, and it is this: that through the gospel preaching the Gentiles are to win the same inheritance, to be made part of the same body, to share the same divine promise, in Christ Jesus.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Ephesians, 3: 2-6 [link]

And you, Bethlehem-Ephratha (Sunday IV of Advent)

“Bethlehem-Ephrata! Least do they reckon thee among all the clans of Juda? Nay, it is from thee I look to find a Prince that shall rule over Israel. Whence comes He? From the first beginning, from ages untold! Marvel not, then, if the Lord abandons His people for a time, until she who is in travail has brought forth her Child; others there are, brethren of His, that must be restored to the citizenship of Israel. Enabled by the Lord His God, confident in that mighty protection, stands He, our Shepherd, and safely folds His flock; fame of Him now reaches to the world’s end…”
Prophecy of Michaeas, 5: 2-4 [link]

We can tell that we are near Christmas at last, because we have very unusually a bit of the prophecy of Micah (Greek, Michaeas), which is very significant to the Christmas story. If you remember, when those wise men of the East arrived in Jerusalem, expecting to find the newborn King of the Jews in Herod’s palace, a very confused Herod asked his scribes where the Child was to be born. They, just as confused, reached for this prophecy of Micah.

The reading is quite clear. Ephratha was the old name of Bethlehem – the ancestral home of King David. Writing long after the time of David, Micah is talking about God’s promise of a new David, Who would be born at the original David’s home town. And yet, shockingly, the new David has a more ancient origin, a very ancient origin. This new David is the moment when God enters history powerfully after a long period of abandonment – centuries of a prophet-less Israel. But then God arrives as a shepherd to reunite the separated clans of the nation – for Micah says that the remnant of the Jews will gather around him – and the Shepherd-King would even draw non-Jews into his union – for Micah says that he will extend his power to the ends of the earth and bring peace. It is no wonder Herod panicked and killed every young boy his soldiers could get their hands on – a worldly king with a limited rule under Rome like him could not tolerate being removed and replaced by a high-king of all Israel and of all mankind, born only a few miles down the road in Bethlehem.

“Give audience, Thou that art the Guide of Israel,
that leadest Joseph with a shepherd’s care.
Thou Who art enthroned above the Cherubim,
reveal thyself to Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasses;
exert Thy sovereign strength, and come to our aid.
O God, restore us to our own;
smile upon us, and we shall find deliverance…
Long ago, Thou didst bring a vine out of Egypt,
rooting out the heathen to plant it here;
Thou didst prepare the way for its spreading,
and it took root where Thou hadst planted it,
filled the whole land.
How it overshadowed the hills,
how the cedars, divinely tall,
were overtopped by its branches!
It spread out its tendrils to the sea,
its shoots as far as the great river.
Why is it that in these days Thou hast levelled its wall,
for every passer-by to rob it of its fruit?
See how the wild boar ravages it,
how it gives pasture to every beast that roams!
God of hosts, relent, look down from heaven,
look to this vine, that needs thy care.”
Psalm 79 [link]

The psalm this weekend is an ancient song of Israel, for the nation was the vine planted by the God the Shepherd and requiring His protection. Centuries later, He would stand among the people in the person of Christ and say, I AM the vine and My heavenly Father is the vinedresser, so stay attached to Me. The Gospel reading is extraordinary because the pre-born S. John the Baptist dances at the sound of the voice of the Holy Mother, just as we Catholics tend to dance with joy at news from the Blessed Virgin. Yes, of course, she was visiting S. Elisabeth pregnant and we have always spoken of S. John leaping at the presence of his pre-born Lord. But it is striking, that Luke speaks of Mary’s greeting, which at once furnishes us with some words for our Hail Marys, as Elisabeth exclaims aloud, Blessed art thou, and blessed the fruit of thine womb.

“In the days that followed, Mary rose up and went with all haste to a town of Juda, in the hill country where Zachary dwelt; and there entering in she gave Elizabeth greeting. No sooner had Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, than the child leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth herself was filled with the Holy Ghost; so that she cried out with a loud voice, ‘Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb. How have I deserved to be thus visited by the mother of my Lord? Why, as soon as ever the voice of thy greeting sounded in my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed art thou for thy believing; the message that was brought to thee from the Lord shall have fulfilment.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 1: 39-45 [link]

That’s all I have for this weekend. I wish you the very best for holy festival of the Nativity of our Lord. I pray that you will deepen your prayer, join your heart to His Sacred Heart, and let Him be born anew in the depths of your heart, making His home within you, and establishing peace with you forever.

Pastoral letter from the Bishop

The following letter will be read at all Sunday Masses across the weekend of the 28th and the 29th of December for the feast day of the Holy Family.

“Hope does not disappoint,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
(St Paul, Romans 5:5)

“Hope is the central message of the Jubilee Year 2025 which today, the Feast of the Holy Family, now formally begins in our diocese and every Catholic diocese throughout the world. Our schools, presently on holiday, will have their special start to the Jubilee Year on 24th January. Pope Francis’ prayer for us all, young and not so young, is that this Jubilee Year might be a time of renewed personal encounter with Christ Jesus and an opportunity to be renewed in our Christian hope. Our Holy Father is very aware that, in these uncertain times across our world, hope feels under attack and many people feel very anxious. He encourages us to find in God’s Word reasons why our Christian hope will never deceive or disappoint us. That hope is, of course, grounded in the certainty that nothing and no-one can ever separate us from God’s love. Saint Paul can certainly testify to a life of faith that suffered many trials but in which hope endured: ‘We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.’ (Romans 5: 3-4)

“Ordinary Jubilees now take place across the Catholic Church every twenty-five years; the previous one, in the year 2000, was to celebrate two thousand years since the birth of Jesus Christ. More recently, in 2015, Pope Francis proclaimed an extra-ordinary Jubilee of Mercy to encourage each of us to encounter the merciful face of God, and then to share that mercy with others. Throughout this Ordinary Jubilee Year 2025, Pope Francis is inviting us to open ourselves to what he calls ‘an intense experience of the love of God that awakens in hearts the hope of our salvation in Christ.’ We are to set out on this Jubilee Year, ‘firm in our faith, active in charity and steadfast in hope.’ He encourages us to be Pilgrims of Hope, putting our Christian faith into action in our relationships with those around us who are experiencing hardships: the sick, the elderly, people with disabilities, the poor, the homeless, those in prison, and migrants and refugees. He invites us to give special encouragement to the young because as he says, ‘they are the joy and hope of the Church and of the world.’ As a practical example of hope, he asks that the more affluent countries cancel the debts of countries that will never be able to repay them.

“In Rome, all the Holy Doors of the Basilicas of Saint Peter, Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary Major, and Saint Paul Outside the Walls, will be opened to pilgrims as particular places of pilgrimage during the Jubilee Year; here a special indulgence may be received under the usual conditions of sacramental confession, reciting the creed and receiving Holy Communion. Many people will be unable to visit these Basilicas in Rome, so here in our diocese I have designated nine churches as Jubilee Churches, one in each deanery: the Cathedral Church of Saint Barnabas; Good Shepherd, Woodthorpe; Saint Philip Neri, Mansfield; Our Lady of Lincoln, Lincoln; Our Lady and Saint Norbert, Spalding; Saint Mary, Derby; Saint Joseph, Matlock; Holy Cross, Leicester; and Saint Mary of the Annunciation, Loughborough. The Jubilee indulgence can be received in these churches under the same conditions when people visit them on pilgrimage. My hope is that parishes across each deanery will make a special effort to journey as Pilgrims of Hope to the local Jubilee Church; deaneries might also like to make a collective Jubilee Pilgrimage to our diocesan Cathedral.

“There is a special Jubilee Prayer which I would encourage you to pick up from church this weekend; please take two, one for yourself and one for someone you know who may not be a regular church-goer but who might appreciate receiving it. Why not agree to pray it for each other! A Jubilee hymn has been composed which, in our diocese, has been set to a well-known tune so as to encourage it to be sung throughout the year. Rather than try to do too many extra things in the course of the Jubilee Year, I suggest that what we already do be badged up as Jubilee events. For example we can speak of people ‘baptised in the Jubilee Year’ or ‘getting married in the Jubilee Year’. Parishes might decide to have a Jubilee Summer Fete with the Jubilee logo on a special cake. Each parish, school and chaplaincy is encouraged to be as creative as it wishes in integrating the Jubilee Year into existing activities.

“During Lent I will celebrate a Jubilee Deanery Station Mass in each of our Jubilee Churches. The Deans will advertise the details of these Masses where there will also be an opportunity for Confessions, Eucharistic Adoration, and to receive the Jubilee indulgence. I very much look forward to meeting many of you on these occasions. Throughout the year special days have been set aside to celebrate particular Jubilees. An impressive list of these has been put up on the diocesan website, included in the Ordo, the diocesan Liturgical Calendar, and has been distributed to parishes, schools and chaplaincies. During the Jubilee Year we will also be celebrating, on 29th September, the 175th anniversary of the creation of our diocese.

“In the midst of the troubles in life that besiege us, may this Jubilee Year help us all to deepen still more our relationship with Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, whose birth we are celebrating this Christmastide. May we recognise Him more and more as our steadfast hope and firm anchor in life, and may He send us out into our wider communities to be the living signs of hope He desires us to be. So, as we set out to be Pilgrims of Hope this Jubilee Year, may I encourage you with these words of the Psalmist, ‘Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord.’ (Psalm 27:4)

“With prayer for the New Year, and good wishes on this special Feast of the Holy Family,

+ Patrick
Bishop of Nottingham.“

Christmas Day! At last…

I have determined to not prepare any homilies for the Christmas Masses, for it would be far too tedious considering the long list of readings the Church has prepared for us. So, I thought for a Christmas post, I would simply drift through some of these readings.

Many families will turn up for the first Mass of Christmas this evening, which is the vigil Mass, which anticipates the great festival. If you attend this Mass, you will suffer through the long genealogy of our Lord given at the top of S. Matthew’s gospel. For priests, this is mostly a stumbling through mostly unfamiliar Hebrew names. Matthew, writing for a Jewish audience, begins with the first Jewish patriarch, Abraham, and omits several levels to flatten the whole into three sets of fourteen: from Abraham to David (I), from David to the deportation of the people to Babylon (II), and from the deportation to Christ (III).
I: Abraham – Isaac – Jacob – Juda – Phares – Esron – Aram – Aminadab – Naasson – Salmon – Booz – Obed – Jesse – king David –
II: Solomon – Roboam – Abias – Asa – Josaphat – Joram – Ozias – Joatham – Achaz – Ezechias – Manasses – Amon – Josias – Jechonias –
III: Salathiel – Zorobabel – Abiud – Eliacim – Azor – Sadoc – Achim – Eliud – Eleazar – Mathan – Jacob – Saint Joseph, spouse of the BVM – Christ.

I’ve highlighted some of these great ancestors of Christ in His humanity. Abraham, of course, is the father of the nation. His son Isaac and his grandson Jacob are normally named with him as the great patriarchs, so that when the Holy One appears to the law-giver Moses in the Exodus story, He identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob’s son Juda is significant for the Jews and Christians because his is the tribe from which came the great shepherd-king David, and the prophets of old Israel promised repeatedly that a new king David, the Successor of David, would one day return to bless the nation. Booz, or Boaz, is significant in joining the bloodline of Juda with that of the Moabites from the East of the Jordan, for he married the widowed wife of a cousin of his, the Moabitess Ruth. Decades later, King David would find this link useful, when he was fleeing for his life and sent his family for protection to the king of Moab. David received the promise that the Salvation (Hebrew, Yehoshuah, Greek, Jesus) of God would emerge from his own descendants, which is why such people as the blind beggar of the gospel stories called Christ Jesus, Son of David. Solomon, the son of David, would upgrade the religion of the people by building a stone Temple in Jerusalem and activating his father’s detailed liturgical preparations for it. Centuries later, Achaz received the promise of the virgin birth of Christ, as given by chapter seven of the prophecy of Isaiah. Ezechias and Josias are the most highly regarded of the kings of Judah, who restored and preserved the ancient religion before the kingdom was destroyed and the Temple levelled in 587 BC. Seventy years later, Zorobabel built a second Temple and restored the old religion, and his family carefully preserved for the remaining centuries the promise once made to King David, that his Successor would arrive as the anointed (Greek, Christ) king of the Jews. For as God says through the prophet Isaiah in the first reading at the vigil Mass,

“For love of Sion I will no more be silent, for love of Jerusalem I will never rest, until He, the Just One, is revealed to her like the dawn, until He, her Deliverer, shines out like a flame. All the nations, all the kings of the nations, shall see Him, the Just, the Glorious, and a new name shall be given thee by the Lord’s own lips.”
Prophecy of Isaias, 62: 1-2 [link]

The Just One we know as Christ and the people receives a new name in Him. They are called after Him. Once the children of Adam and (as Jews by blood) of Abraham, once reborn in Christ they are His children. And that brings us to the night Mass, which many of us will celebrate as a midnight Mass. Our readings day begin with Isaiah’s several names for the Successor of David.

“For our sakes a Child is born, to our race a son is given, whose shoulder will bear the sceptre of princely power. What name shall be given Him? Peerless among counsellors, the mighty God, Father of the world to come, the Prince of peace. Ever wider shall His dominion spread, endlessly at peace; He will sit on David’s kingly throne, to give it lasting foundations of justice and right; so tenderly He loves us, the Lord of hosts.”
Prophecy of Isaias, 9: 1-19 [link]

So, the Child bears a sceptre of princely power, great counsellor, unsurprisingly He is mighty God and Father of the future world, and Prince of Peace. Having received this wonderful prophecy, the midnight Mass now presents us with the circumstances of Christ’s birth in the gospel narrative. Joseph is given to be a son of David himself, and tradition tells us that Mary his wife was as well. The very reason they went to Bethlehem was to honour the census command of the Roman governor Quirinius in Antioch, and every man had to return to his home country for it, so Joseph headed for the traditional home town of shepherd-king David – Bethlehem – where he must have had family property. But why did angels send a message only to the shepherds on the hills about the birth of Christ? Perhaps they were the only ones awake at that hour. And perhaps it was because they were shepherds, and were being summoned to receive their own Shepherd, Who is God in the flesh.

The sequel to the call of the shepherds is their arrival at the crib, and that takes us to the dawn Mass, which gives us the reaction of the shepherds. Neither Mary nor Joseph were expecting visitors so very early, but the shepherds described the astonishing angel choirs on the hills, and Mary promptly stored the information away so she could later tell S. Matthew about it. The shepherds had more to rejoice about than simply proving the words of the angels on the hills. As religious Jews, they may have remembered the lines of Isaiah, given us by the first reading at the dawn Mass, which were coming to fruition before their eyes. Here the Deliverer is God Almighty Who brings His labour or task of redemption to completion in His birth as a human child. By innocent humanity is fallen and sinful humanity restored. Such is His plan. So, the sinful are no longer forsaken.

“Out, out through the city gates! Give My people free passage; a road, there, a smooth road, away with the boulders on it! Raise a signal for all the nations to see. To the furthest corners of the earth the Lord proclaims it, A message to queen Sion: Look, where thy Deliverer comes, look, how they come with Him, the reward of His labour, the achievement of His task! A holy people they shall be called, of the Lord’s ransoming, and thou the city of His choice, no more forsaken.”
Prophecy of Isaias, 62: 9-12 [link]

And, with the day Mass, we set aside the history of the Nativity of Christ and rejoice and marvel in the reality of it. So, Isaiah sings for joy in the first reading that first Jerusalem – the Jewish nation, that is – is renewed and then she becomes a beacon to the rest of the world. For Salvation comes from God through the Jewish nation, through the little Jewish boy lying in the manger in the Bethlehem stable. And the Church has no better song for this than the great hymn at the top of the Gospel of S. John, with which I shall end this post.

“At the beginning of time the Word already was;
and God had the Word abiding with Him,
and the Word was God.
He abode, at the beginning of time, with God.
It was through Him that all things came into being,
and without Him came nothing that has come to be.
In Him there was life, and that life was the light of men.
And the Light shines in darkness,
a darkness which was not able to master it.
A man appeared, sent from God, whose name was John.
He came for a witness, to bear witness of the light,
so that through him all men might learn to believe.
He was not the Light;
he was sent to bear witness to the Light.
There is One Who enlightens every soul born into the world;
He was the true Light.
He, through Whom the world was made, was in the world,
and the world treated Him as a stranger.
He came to what was His own,
and they who were His own gave Him no welcome.
But all those who did welcome Him,
He empowered to become the children of God,
all those who believe in His Name;
their birth came, not from human stock,
not from nature’s will or man’s,
but from God.
And the Word was made flesh,
and came to dwell among us;
and we had sight of His glory,
glory such as belongs to the Father’s only-begotten Son,
full of grace and truth.“
Gospel of S. John, 1: 1-14 [link]

John the Priest (Sunday III of Advent)

Let’s talk about John the Baptist. We don’t tend to see him as much more than the herald of Christ, and some of us may remember that he baptised our Lord in the Jordan river. We know that he had a particular ministry to the people, and his own baptismal rite for a spiritual washing to accompany their repentance and desire to return to God. But we know from S. Luke’s narratives that his father Zecharyah and his mother Elisabeth were both of the priestly family of Aaron the brother of Moses, and so John would have been destined from his birth for the priestly work of the Temple in Jerusalem. And he was dedicated from his birth to the Holy One in a special way.

And yet, he did not train for the Temple, and seems to have avoided the Temple to the point of fleeing into the wilderness of Judah, where he conducted his ministry. And it was a truly priestly ministry, even if it was ordered away from the Temple. What was a Hebrew priest? First, of course, there was the priest’s Temple ministry of offering divine worship, and conducting the sacrificial rites. But the priest was also a teacher and a ruler of the people. We call John ‘the baptist,’ the Jews who knew him would have called him John the son of Zecharyah the priest. He would have had a considerable following as a Jewish rabbi, and we see glimmers of that in the gospel, when for example we hear that many of his disciples became followers of Christ.

“And the multitudes asked him, ‘What is it, then, we are to do?’ He answered them, ‘The man who has two coats must share with the man who has none; and the man who has food to eat, must do the like.’ The publicans, too, came to be baptized; ‘Master,’ they said to him, ‘what are we to do?’ He told them, ‘Do not go beyond the scale appointed you.’ Even the soldiers on guard asked him, ‘What of us? What are we to do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not use men roughly, do not lay false information against them; be content with your pay.’ And now the people was full of expectation; all had the same surmise in their hearts, whether John might not be the Christ. But John gave them their answer by saying publicly, ‘As for me, I am baptizing you with water; but One is yet to come Who is mightier than I, so that I am not worthy to untie the strap of His shoes. He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. He holds His winnowing-fan ready, to purge His threshing-floor clean; He will gather the wheat into His barn, but the chaff He will consume with fire that can never be quenched.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 3: 10-17 [link]

It is obvious from our reading above that John had a moral authority, and his message came from the Law of Moses, a law that was designed above all to teach charity; hence the command to share, for tax-collectors and soldiers to not extort or exploit. But this was still not an ordinary teacher of the Law; there was something different about this consecrated soul, and I am certain it was his thorough dedication to God that was made at the time of his conception, when the angel appeared to his father Zecharyah. People don’t seize upon just any teacher and wonder if he may be the promised Messiah.

But they saw in John a teacher unlike other teachers; they heard prophecy once more, after hundreds of prophet-less years. And the holy man, with fire in his eyes, declared that his baptism was inferior, that he had only come to bring about repentance, and that the Holy One Himself was imminent, for only God Himself could bring judgement as John describes: gathering the wheat and burning the chaff. John practically uses the words of our first reading today, from the royal prophet Zephanyah: the Lord is in your midst as a victorious warrior, He will exult over you and renew you with His love.

“Break into song, fair Sion, all Israel cry aloud; here is joy and triumph, Jerusalem, for thy royal heart. Thy doom the Lord has revoked, thy enemy repulsed; the Lord, there in the midst of thee, Israel’s King! Peril for thee henceforth is none. Such is the message yonder day shall bring to Jerusalem: Courage, Sion! What means it, the unnerved hand? Thou hast one in the midst of thee, the Lord thy God, Whose strength shall deliver thee. Joy and pride of His thou shalt be henceforward; silent till now in His love for thee, He will greet thee with cries of gladness. Truants that were lost to the covenant I will reclaim; of thy company they are, thou shalt be taunted with them no longer…”
Prophecy of Zephonyah, 3: 14-15 [link]

We do not know how long John’s ministry was; the gospel narrative can make us think it was for only a few weeks or months before the arrival of Christ. But consider that it might have been a work of years, so that when Christ did arrive John’s handing over of the baton was a great act of humility of the servant for his Master. Or rather, in John’s own words from the gospel, as the best-man making way for the Bridegroom to take up His Bride, which is the Church of God.

What does a prophet do, when the glory of God manifests to the people? He steps aside. What is the prophet’s ultimate desire, aside from that the will of God be done? He wants the best for the people. That’s why he serves. That’s why our priests serve us today, not for themselves or their own glory, but for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Whose souls? Ours. The second reading gives us another window into the soul of the priest of Christ’s church. The priest here is S. Paul, a man who suffered very much for the many small churches he had erected everywhere. And he says here to his Philippians that he wants their ultimate happiness, which they will only find in God. He wants to see the love, the charity of God manifest in them. He wants them to trust God entirely and not worry. And he wants them to pray, especially for peace of heart in every circumstance, good or bad.

“Joy to you in the Lord at all times; once again I wish you joy. Give proof to all of your courtesy. The Lord is near. Nothing must make you anxious; in every need make your requests known to God, praying and beseeching him, and giving him thanks as well. So may the peace of God, which surpasses all our thinking, watch over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
The letter of S. Paul to the Philippians, 4: 4-7 [link]

Humanity renewed (Sunday II of Advent)

I had said last weekend that Advent is both remembering the preparations for the First Coming of Christ in Bethlehem and the preparations for the Second Coming of Christ in glory, on the clouds of heaven, with angelic assistants, etc. I had suggested that our vigil for the Second Coming could take example from the vigil of the Jewish people for their Messiah, more than two thousand years ago and more. The first reading this weekend is about the glorification of Jerusalem, which takes place in Christ and His Church.

“Enough, Jerusalem; lay aside now the sad garb of thy humiliation, and put on bright robes, befitting the eternal glory God means for thee; cloak of divine protection thrown about thee, thy temples bearing a diadem of renown. In thee God will manifest the splendour of His presence, for the whole world to see; and the name by which He will call thee for ever is, Loyalty rewarded, Piety crowned. Up, Jerusalem, to the heights! Look to the sun’s rising, and see if thy sons be not coming to thee, gathered from east to west, joyfully acknowledging God’s holy will! Afoot they were led off by the enemy; it is the Lord that shall lead them home, borne aloft like royal princes. He will have the ground made level; high mountain must stoop, and immemorial hill, and the valleys be filled up, for Israel’s safe passage and God’s glory; spinneys of every scented tree shall grow, by His divine command, to give Israel shade. So merciful He is, and so faithful! In great content, their journey lit by the majesty of His presence, Israel shall come home.”
Prophecy of Baruch, 5: 1-9 [link]

The prophet Baruch was a scribe working alongside the prophet Jeremiah, the both more often than not thinking with one mind, and Baruch acting as Jeremiah’s spokesman when Jeremiah was imprisoned or otherwise unable to function as prophet. The prophets usually saw Jerusalem the Holy City as dressed by God in glorious vestment, prepared as a bride for her Husband, Who is God. The vestment assumes an integrity and a purity, especially from idolatry, and God honours that purity and dresses the pure one – here Jerusalem – with glory. When the people fell into sin and idolatry, they lost their purity. When they pretended to serve God in holiness while they were fallen deep into vice and the degradation of sin, they lost their integrity.

Jerusalem in this reading represents the people of God. God had made the Hebrew people glorious and a sign to every other nation of the earth, and they had failed to be faithful as a nation, and been humiliated in their pride by the great powers of the time, the Assyrians and the Babylonians. The prophet is here calling the people to repentance and atonement with God. Arise, he says, stand upon the heights, take up your mantle of purity once more and the splendour that God once gave you and which is yours.

Baruch and Jeremiah lived through two successive exiles of the Jewish people from Jerusalem and Judah to Mesopotamia and other countries. Writing now, in the period between the first exile and the destruction of Jerusalem and the second exile, Baruch is calling upon the people to return to God, and if they do, the captives of the first exile would be returned. A beautiful hope, especially when we know that the people did not repent, and there was a second exile after the City was destroyed. Bondage came, the Jewish kingdom was destroyed.

But Jerusalem would be glorified as the dazzling bride of the Holy One, in mercy and integrity, centuries later. And the beginning of that glorification is what we honour particularly this weekend. For the eighth day of December is the day Catholics remember the Immaculate Conception, when the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in the womb of her mother S. Anna. The bishops have delayed the liturgical observance to Monday, to preserve the second Sunday of Advent, but Sunday is still the calendar day. The significance of this conception of Our Lady should be obvious to us, in so far as we human beings in a very real way are our parents, in that we take our humanity and our human traits materially from them.

And when God decided that He would be a man, and that He would be born of a Virgin, He proposed to take His humanity materially from this beautiful woman, the purest of all created things, conceived without sin – as we Latins say, conceived immaculate – sine macula, without stain of sin. In the Blessed Virgin Mary at the moment of her conception in the womb of S. Anna mercy and integrity begin to return to the human race in this daughter of Adam, and we are left to marvel at the miracle. In the words of the psalm, When God finally delivered Sion or Jerusalem – the Hebrew nation – from bondage to sin – in Mary – He had finally prepared all things for the glorification of Jerusalem that was to follow, in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. What a marvel the Lord worked for the Hebrew nation!

“It was in the fifteenth year of the emperor Tiberius’ reign, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea, when Herod was prince in Galilee, his brother Philip in the Ituraean and Trachonitid region, and Lysanias in Abilina, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiphas, that the word of God came upon John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he went all over the country round Jordan, announcing a baptism whereby men repented, to have their sins forgiven, as it is written in the book of the sayings of the prophet Isaias, ‘There is a voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, straighten out his paths. Every valley is to be bridged, and every mountain and hill levelled, and the windings are to be cut straight, and the rough paths made into smooth roads, and all mankind is to see the saving power of God.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 3: 1-6 [link]

The link of our gospel story to Baruch’s prophecy is clearly in the levelling of mountains and filling in of valleys, in order to allow Jerusalem and Judah to be more quickly restored, as per Baruch. But S. John the Baptist has a greater vision: it isn’t only the Hebrew nation returning to God in the Messiah, but all nations of the earth – all mankind. But this reading also begins the ministry of S. John (and so of Christ), with as historical a circumstance as was possible to a writer from the first century (S. Luke, that is), naming the Roman emperor, the Roman governor of the Levant, the Jewish rulers in place, and the chief priests of the Temple in Jerusalem.

For God called His people historically in Moses, and built the Temple in Solomon, and now prepares to fulfil all the promises He had made long ago to Adam to finally remake/sanctify humanity, in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory and praise for all ages.

Awaiting the King (Sunday I of Advent)

Having last Sunday celebrated the triumph of the Son of David, the Sovereign King of all things, we cycle around again this Sunday to the centuries of expectation of the Messiah. This is what Advent is – a means of stepping into the shoes of those Jewish men and women of the late Jewish period in the last few decades before Christ.

Following the destruction of the Jewish kingdom in the sixth century BC, and the several attempts of great kings and rulers to break the spirit of the Jewish nation, prophets predicted the restoration of the Davidic monarchy in the son of David, and the prophet Daniel, a Jewish captive of the Babylonian empire, predicted with some precision when this would happen. As that moment appeared, the people looked here and looked there for the promised King of the Jews. We know how anxiously they looked from the gospel account of the anxiety of the Idumaean king Herod when the magi from the east appeared and suggested that the child had already been born and Herod was afraid that the new Jewish king (however young) could supplant him, for he – Herod – was a foreigner.

But let’s come back to the heightened expectation as the prophet Daniel’s predicted moment approached. Our first reading gives us the prophet Jeremiah’s mention of the promise made to the nation of Israel concerning the house of Judah, and the prophet speaks of the Branch (here ‘scion’).

“‘Behold,’ [the Lord] says, ‘a time is coming when I will make good My promise to Israel and Juda; the day will dawn, the time be ripe at last for that faithful scion to bud from David’s stock; the land shall have a king to reign over it, giving just sentence and due award. When that time comes, Juda shall find deliverance, none shall disturb Jerusalem’s rest; and the name given to this king shall be, The Lord vindicates us.'”
Prophecy of Jeremias, 33: 14-16 [link]

Now, we might think that this is a branch of a great tree, perhaps the tree of Israel. But remember that Jeremiah was prophesying the destruction of the Jewish kingdom, and the destruction of Jerusalem, and that he lived through the same in the sixth century before Christ. He knew that the tree of David – the Davidic monarchy – was about to be felled or had been felled. Jeremiah was speaking of a branch sprouting from the stump of the felled dynasty of David. The Hebrew root for the word ‘branch’ is nzr, nazara. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is the root of the name Nazareth.

It is a Christian tradition that both the families of the Blessed Virgin and of S. Joseph came from the area of Nazareth in the Galilee, at some distance from Jerusalem. In the first century, it would have been common knowledge that descendants of the House of Judah and the family of David were living in that place; it may be the reason it got its name – it was the place of the Branch. Those who studied their Scriptures in the first century, and knew of the promises, would have had their eyes on Nazareth.

How would they have prepared themselves for the imminent arrival of the Branch, of the Son of David, of the Messiah? In the Roman tradition of the Catholic Church, before a great festival, such as Christmas or Easter, there has always been a period of vigil, characterised by the colour purple. Those of us who remember the liturgical dispensation before the changes in the late 1960s will know that some lesser feast days also had a vigil day before, such as the feast of S. Lawrence in August. A vigil is a period of prayerful waiting. It is a time of penitence, which is indicated by the purple. It is a time of purification, and greater commitment to the setting aside of sin. Our gospel story is of Christ telling us that our whole lives should be a vigil in preparation for His return in glory.

“‘Only look well to yourselves; do not let your hearts grow dull with revelry and drunkenness and the affairs of this life, so that that day overtakes you unawares; it will come like the springing of a trap on all those who dwell upon the face of the earth. Keep watch, then, praying at all times, so that you may be found worthy to come safe through all that lies before you, and stand erect to meet the presence of the Son of Man.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 21: 34-36 [link]

Let’s pick out some ideas for a vigil from His words, so that we can characterise our Advent vigil… we are to watch ourselves, take up self-control to avoid possible drunkenness and debauchery, we are to stay awake, praying for the strength to survive every threat to our perseverance and faithfulness to God, and to stand confidently in all purity before the Son of Man. And what can S. Paul say to help us in the second reading from Thessalonians this weekend?

“…may the Lord give you a rich and an ever richer love for one another and for all men, like ours for you. So, when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all His Saints, may you stand boldly before the presence of God, our Father, in holiness unreproved. Amen. And now, brethren, this is what we ask, this is our appeal to you in the Name of the Lord Jesus. We gave you a pattern of how you ought to live so as to please God; live by that pattern, and make more of it than ever. You have not forgotten the warnings we have handed on to you by the command of the Lord Jesus.”
First letter of S. Paul to the Thessalonians, 3: 12 – 4: 2 [link]

So… our vigil this Advent should confirm us in love for each other and for the whole human race. Paul also talks about purity, and blamelessness before Christ and he ends with a call to make progress in the life of holiness, according to the traditions handed on by Apostles like himself. Here are our instructions for Advent; let us commit to them, and do well.

All hail the King (last Sunday of Ordered time)

On the last Sunday of the liturgical year we honour the High King and track His progress from Old Testament prophecy, through the witness of the Gospel and unto the apocalyptic fulfilment in the book of Revelation. First, consider that at the beginning God was named sovereign over His Creation, but the sins of humanity attempted to acquire freedom from the reign of God over the hearts of men and women. Thus the sin of our first parents, and every successive evil in the Bible. When God chose the Hebrew people for Himself, He elected prophets like Abraham, Moses and Samuel to act as His regents, He still being King. But the Israelites wanted to be like the other nations and have human kings, so Samuel gave them first King Saul, then King David. When the dynasty of King David failed to be faithful to God, the prophets foretold that God would be King once more, and that a Successor of David would return.

“Then I saw in my dream, how one came riding on the clouds of heaven, that was yet a son of man; came to where the Judge sat, crowned with age, and was ushered into his presence. With that, power was given him, and glory, and sovereignty; obey him all must, men of every race and tribe and tongue; such a reign as his lasts for ever, such power as his the ages cannot diminish.”
Prophecy of Daniel, 7: 13-14 [link]

This Successor of David is described by the prophet Daniel in the first reading as a Son of Man, and also as a divine figure, given kingship over all things. In the fullness of time, God would bring this to fruition. The people wanted a human king, and they should have Him. God however would be king once over His people and over His Creation. Thus in a stable in Bethlehem there appeared the wondrous spectacle of a human Child before Whom not just one nation (Israel) but all nations and the Creation itself bowed the knee. A human Child Who would call Himself the Son of Man, the Son of God, and (in our gospel reading) a King.

“So Pilate went back into the palace, and summoned Jesus; ‘Art thou the king of the Jews?’ he asked. ‘Dost thou say this of thy own accord,’ Jesus answered, ‘or is it what others have told thee of Me?’ And Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? It is Thy own nation, and its chief priests, who have given Thee up to me. What offence hast Thou committed?’ ‘My kingdom,’ said Jesus, ‘does not belong to this world. If My kingdom were one which belonged to this world, My servants would be fighting, to prevent My falling into the hands of the Jews; but no, My kingdom does not take its origin here.’ ‘Thou art a king, then?’ Pilate asked. And Jesus answered, ‘It is thy own lips that have called Me a king. What I was born for, what I came into the world for, is to bear witness of the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth, listens to My voice.'”
Gospel of S. John, 18: 33-37 [link]

The readings now speak for themselves: the Hebrew King – the King of the Jews – reigns supreme over all the kings of men, as given by the second reading, from the book Revelation. His rule is over the hearts of men and women, and may many more answer His call.

“Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, first-born of the risen dead, Who rules over all earthly kings. He has proved His love for us, by washing us clean from our sins in His own blood, and made us a royal race of priests, to serve God, His Father; glory and power be His through endless ages, Amen. Behold, He comes with clouds about Him, seen by every eye, seen by those who wounded Him, and He shall bring lamentation to all the tribes of earth. So it must be, Amen. I am Alpha, I am Omega, the beginning of all things and their end, says the Lord God, He Who is, and ever was, and is still to come, the Almighty.”
Book of Apocalypse (aka. Revelation), 1: 5-8 [link]

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Here above is an image of the west window of our Cathedral in Nottingham, where two English kings lay their crowns at their feet, being as they are in the presence of the High King – to Whom be glory and praise both now and forever.

‘Lo, He comes with clouds descending…’ (Sunday XXXIII of Ordered time)

Once more, as we come to the end of the liturgical year, in these last Sundays before Advent, our readings become apocalyptic and speak of the end of all things. This sort of thing can be frightening to the people of this world – those who have set their hearts upon the things of this world. When we have invested very much upon material things, we don’t like to hear that the material world is doomed to pass away. So, the prophet Daniel speaks in our first reading of a great distress.

“Time, then, that Michael should be up and doing; Michael, that high lord who is guardian of thy race. Distress shall then be, such as never was since the world began; and in that hour of distress thy fellow-countrymen shall win deliverance, all whose names are found written when the record lies open. Many shall wake, that now lie sleeping in the dust of earth, some to enjoy life everlasting, some to be confronted for ever with their disgrace. Bright shall be the glory of wise counsellors, as the radiance of the sky above; starry-bright for ever their glory, who have taught many the right way.”
Prophecy of Daniel, 12: 1-3 [link]

But Daniel says of the Jews that a remnant of that people will be spared distress, that is, whose names are written down in the book of life (‘the record,’ above). The prophet speaks of a general resurrection of some to eternal life, and others to eternal disgrace – virtue will live forever, vice will not survive. Note that these last things: death, judgement, heaven and earth are all in the first reading. These are not Christian items per se, but Jewish ones.

Now, when we look upon the gospel reading for this weekend, our Lord uses the same words as Daniel, but He is more graphic in His description of the end. All the things we take for granted, sun and moon, stars in the firmament… everything will be shaken when the great Judge arrives to gather up His Elect (those whose names are written in the Book, or Record) – His Chosen – separating them out for eternal life from everybody else. So, again, death, judgement, heaven, hell. And we cannot know when this will happen, so we should always be prepared, as if it were to happen within the day, or perhaps within the hour.

“‘In those days, after this distress, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will refuse her light; and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers that are in heaven will rock; and then they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds, with great power and glory. And then He will send out His angels, to gather His Elect from the four winds, from earth’s end to heaven’s. The fig-tree will teach you a parable; when its branch grows supple, and begins to put out leaves, you know that summer is near; so you, when you see all this come about, are to know that it is near, at your very doors. Believe Me, this generation will not have passed, before all this is accomplished. Though heaven and earth should pass away, My words will stand. But as for that day and that hour you speak of, they are known to nobody, not even to the angels in heaven, not even to the Son; only the Father knows them.'”
Gospel of S. Mark, 13: 24-32 [link]

There are two dimensions to this theme of the end of all things: there is (i) the living of a life of virtue in the present, and (ii) the living in expectation of the second coming of Christ. And Christ’s continual warning to be prepared is meant for both: we are to live in the today, doing good, avoiding evil; and if we manage, then we shall be well-prepared for when He returns. And that bit about the fig tree in the gospel story is therefore about discernment, about discovering both good and evil, and maintaining self-control in the present, and perseverance in the Christian religion in the darkest hour. And it does also indicate the discernment of good and evil in the state of the world we live in, that we may safely attach ourselves to Christ in the midst of great turmoil.

The second reading, from the letter to the Hebrews, speaks of the same period of distress as the other readings, but describing it as a moment during which all the enemies of Christ are put under His feet, the last enemies being sin and death. In His great sacrifice on the cross, He has ended sin and death in His elect, those within whose hearts He has engraved His laws, and who therefore naturally follow His rule and are attached to His Sacred Heart.

“…He sits for ever at the right hand of God, offering for our sins a Sacrifice that is never repeated. He only waits, until all His enemies are made a footstool under His feet; by a single offering He has completed His work, for all time, in those whom He sanctifies. And here the Holy Spirit adds His testimony. He has been saying, ‘This is the covenant I will grant them,’ the Lord says, ‘when that time comes; I will implant My laws in their hearts, engrave them in their innermost thoughts.’ And what follows? I will not remember their sins and their transgressions any more. Where they are so remitted, there is no longer any room for a sin-offering.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Hebrews, 10 [link]

And, thus attached to Him, He has put away forever our past sin and transgression, and we need fear no long. When sun fails and moon dies, and all about us is quaking in terror, we shall stand up and look towards the heavens, for our Salvation – our long-awaited Jesus – will finally have arrived

Supplying divine worship (Sunday XXXII of Ordered time)

One of my favourite Christmas carols is In the bleak mid-winter, and I can’t easily sing the last bit without choking up. If you know it, it is the song of the Christian soul before the Christmas crib, saying, ‘What can I give to You, poor though I am? if I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; if I were a wise man, I would do my part; but what I can I give to You, I give to You my heart.’

What does the Holy One ask of us, really? We hear Him sometimes in the gospels say things like, He who is not prepared to hate his parents, his children and his friends for My sake is not worthy of Me. Doesn’t that sound awful, coming from the King of kings? But, of course, what He means is that we should be prepared (if we are asked) to lay aside everything, even the people most dear to us, for His sake. On this weekend, when in memorial services, we remember the ultimate sacrifice paid by so many soldiers for the sake of their countrymen and for the peace of their families and communities, it is providential that the readings at Mass have to deal with two poor women, who gave everything they had for the service of God and for love of Him. Literally for that.

“As He was sitting opposite the treasury of the temple, Jesus watched the multitude throwing coins into the treasury, the many rich with their many offerings; and there was one poor widow, who came and put in two mites, which make a farthing. Thereupon He called His disciples to Him, and said to them, ‘Believe Me, this poor widow has put in more than all those others who have put offerings into the treasury. The others all gave out of what they had to spare; she, with so little to give, put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.'”
Gospel of S. Mark, 12: 41-44 [link]

What was the function of the Jerusalem Temple, supported by its treasury, as mentioned in the gospel story? The function was the sacrifice of animals, in reparation for sin and worship of God. The worship of God requires purity and freedom from grave sin. This is true of both Jewish and Christian worship. By putting her last two pennies into the Temple coffers, the woman was giving her life to provide for the daily offerings at the Temple, for the forgiveness of her sins and the sins of her nation, so that divine worship could continue.

In the first reading, we have the story of an Old Testament Saint, the miracle-working Elijah. This man was like John the Baptist, living in the desert, and he evidently had not in this story found his diet of locusts and wild honey, and was desperately hungry. Everybody knew Elijah, that he was a man of God, and carrying out the crucial ministry of prophet in Israel, at a time when it was prohibited for prophets of God to work. The cruel Phoenician queen of the Israelite king Achab – the well-known Jezebel – had put prophets of the Hebrew religion to death about this time. In giving everything she had to provide a meal for the hungry prophet, the woman did something similar to what the woman of the gospel story did, to preserve what remained of the Hebrew religion in Israel. And she receives an extraordinary miracle for her efforts, and probably never again went hungry.

“So he rose up and went to Sarephtha, and he had but reached the city gate when he met a woman gathering fire-wood; whereupon he called out to her, asking her to give him a cup of water to drink. And as she went to fetch it, he cried after her, ‘And when thou dost bring it, bring me, too, a mouthful of bread.’ ‘Why,’ she told him, ‘as surely as the Lord thou servest is a living God, I have no food except a handful of flour at the bottom of a jar, and a drop of oil left in a cruet. Even now I am gathering a stick or two, to serve my son and me for our last meal.’ ‘Have no fear,’ Elias said; ‘go home on this errand of thine; only use the flour to make me a little girdle-cake first, and bring it me here; cook what is left for thyself and thy son. This message the Lord God of Israel has for thee: There shall be no lack of flour in the jar, nor shall the oil waste in the cruet, till the Lord sends rain on this parched earth.’ At that, she went and did Elias’ bidding, and there was a meal for him and for her and for all her household; and from that day onwards there was still flour in the jar, still oil left in the cruet, as the Lord’s message through Elias had promised her.”
III Kings (also called I Kings), 17: 10-16 [link]

What shall we say for the woman of the gospel? Can we doubt that, once she was indicated to the Apostles by Christ as in this story, that she was taken under the wing of the early Church and never again went hungry? These two women remind of the great English women of the reign of Queen Elisabeth I, who at great risk to their lives harboured and cared for the priests of the Church, who travelled the country at a time when it was illegal to be a Catholic priest in England. Three of them we know well, for they payed for it with their lives: S. Margaret Clitheroe, S. Anne Line, S. Margaret Ward. They gave everything to preserve the Old Catholic religion of England, and to preserve the Holy Mass, in the face of the Protestant opposition.

They preserved however briefly the vision of our second reading this weekend, which is the vision of Holy Mass as the Church has always taught it: Christ entering the sanctuary on high, to appear before God the Father to plead on our behalf. There He is still now behind the veil of the heavenly Temple, and the Mass in part is a memorial of when Christ prepared to enter behind that veil in the Passion and Death and Resurrection, and when He did vanish behind it in His Ascension. One day the veil will part once more and He will return with shining face, as Moses did when he came down mount Sinai, forgiveness found, reparation completed, mankind joined once more to God, peace abounding, joy eternal.

“The sanctuary into which Jesus has entered is not one made by human hands, is not some adumbration of the truth; He has entered heaven itself, where He now appears in God’s sight on our behalf. Nor does He make a repeated offering of Himself, as the high priest, when he enters the sanctuary, makes a yearly offering of the blood that is not his own. If that were so, He must have suffered again and again, ever since the world was created; as it is, He has been revealed once for all, at the moment when history reached its fulfilment, annulling our sin by His sacrifice. Man’s destiny is to die once for all; nothing remains after that but judgement; and Christ was offered once for all, to drain the cup of a world’s sins; when we see Him again, sin will play its part no longer, He will be bringing salvation to those who await His coming.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Hebrews, 9: 24-28 [link]

True sacrifice (Sunday XXXI of Ordered time)

We have something of an identity statement of the Hebrew religion in our first reading today, which you can still hear Jewish people using today, several times weekly, if not daily. They call it the Sh’ma (pictured above in the Hebrew Bible), which is the Hebrew word for ‘hear,’ the first word of the statement which addresses God in the third person. Hear, o Israel, the Lord your God is one God, and you shall love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

“‘Go in fear of the Lord thy God; here is a lifelong task for thee, and thy sons and thy grandsons after thee, to observe all the laws and decrees I here make known to thee; so thou wilt keep what thou hast won. The Lord thy God, Israel, has promised thee a land that is all milk and honey; but if thou art to prosper and multiply there, thou must needs listen to His commands, and mark them well, and live by them. Listen then, Israel; there is no Lord but the Lord our God, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with the love of thy whole heart, and thy whole soul, and thy whole strength. The commands I give thee this day must be written on thy heart…”
Book of Deuteronomy, 6: 2-6 [link]

A close enough statement for the Christian is the minor Gloria, which reveals that the one God of the Hebrews is a Trinity of persons. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. Both statements define their respective religious community. Both are associated with a covenantal requirement: obedience of the commandments of God. The one in Deuteronomy immediately precedes the Sh’ma. But this theological basis for the commandments is revealed also by our Lord in the gospel story when He attaches to the Sh’ma the requirement that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. This is the point of the commandments, it is their inner logic – the love of God and the love of neighbour. At another point in the gospel, the smart-aleck lawyer who posed the question to Christ dared to ask who the neighbour was, and received as a reply the marvellous story of the Good Samaritan, where love/charity once more triumphs over legalities.

“One of the scribes heard their dispute, and, finding that He answered to the purpose, came up and asked Him, ‘Which is the first commandment of all?’ Jesus answered him, ‘The first commandment of all is, Listen, Israel; there is no God but the Lord thy God; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with the love of thy whole heart, and thy whole soul, and thy whole mind, and thy whole strength. This is the first commandment, and the second, its like, is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these.’ And the scribe said to Him, ‘Truly, Master, Thou hast answered well; there is but one God, and no other beside Him; and if a man loves God with all his heart and all his soul and all his understanding and all his strength, and his neighbour as himself, that is a greater thing than all burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ Then Jesus, seeing how wisely he had answered, said to him, ‘Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.’ And after this, no one dared to try Him with further questions.”
Gospel of S. Mark, 12: 28-34 [link]

The command to love neighbour as self is not an innovation of our Lord; it already existed in the Old Testament; the innovation of Christ is that we must love not only our friends and those who love us, but our enemies as well. Perfect love, perfect charity is given to absolutely everyone who needs it. As the second reading from the letter to the Hebrews declares, perfect love (as demonstrated by Christ our High-priest) pours itself out entirely for the sake of sinners, that is, those people who have lived in enmity towards God. And, to return to the story of the Good Samaritan, Jews and Samaritans were traditional enemies and so the impossible became possible in that parable.

There is a great mystery in this, because it does not come naturally to the human heart to sacrifice itself for its enemies. Throughout the history of the Church, the great martyrs were treated by their persecutors with surprise and a derision born of incomprehension. What is this strange love that sacrifices itself for strangers, persecutors and enemies? But the wise scribe of the gospel story correctly notes that this great love is more important than holocausts or sacrifice, which is a significant admission by a Jewish teacher who lived constantly in the shelter of the Jerusalem Temple and its conveyor belt system of animal sacrifices.

What was the purpose of the holocausts and sacrifices of the Temple? It was the forgiveness or putting away of sin, in order that the person offering the Sacrifice could draw nearer in purity to God. If love/charity is greater than the sacrifices, then love/charity has the ability to itself effect the putting away of sin. And indeed, Christ said of the woman who washed His feet with her tears that her great charity had led Him to forgive her sins. Again, as S. Peter says in the first of the two letters of his that we have towards the end of the Bible, love covers over a multitude of sins. The Apostle then continues to speak of hospitality given ungrudgingly, and of dealing mercifully in the way that God is merciful with us.

So then, the true sacrifice is not an animal sacrifice, but a sacrifice of self – a sacrifice of our personal prejudices and dislikes, in order to offer charity even to those we may dislike or who may dislike us. And again, this is not easy, it is not in our nature. But if we are to be perfect, we shall build our natures up with the grace of Christ, thus becoming more like Him, and more able to offer a sacrifice like unto His own. And in this love of ours for our neighbour and our observance of the commandments of Moses is revealed our love for the God Who gave us those commandments – the one God Who is three, Who is our strength in all things, our refuge and our stronghold (in the words of our psalm), and to Whom be glory and praise both now and always.

“Shall I not love thee, Lord, my only Defender?
The Lord is my rock-fastness,
my stronghold, my rescuer;
to God, my hiding-place, I flee for safety;
He is my shield, my weapon of deliverance, my refuge.
Praised be the Lord!
When I invoke His name,
I am secure from my enemies.
All about me surged the waves of death,
deep flowed the perilous tide, to daunt me;
the grave had caught me in its toils,
deadly snares had trapped my feet.
One cry to the Lord in my affliction,
one word of summons to my God,
and He, from His sanctuary, listened to my voice;
the complaint I made before Him found a hearing…”
Psalm 17(18) – the Song of David [link]

The light of Faith (Sunday XXX of Ordered time)

Let’s attempt to establish a timeframe for our readings this weekend. Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed calamitously twice, once in 587 BC by the Chaldeans and the second time in AD 70 by the Romans. So, the first time was a little less than 600 years before our Lord, and the second time about 40 years after the Resurrection and the Ascension of our Lord.

“Rejoice, the Lord says, at Jacob’s triumph, the proudest of nations greet with a glad cry; loud echo your songs of praise, Deliverance, Lord, for Thy people, for the remnant of Israel! From the north country, from the very ends of earth, I mean to gather them and bring them home; blind men and lame, pregnant women and women brought to bed, so great the muster at their home-coming. Weeping they shall come, and I, moved to pity, will bring them to their journey’s end; from mountain stream to mountain stream I will lead them, by a straight road where there is no stumbling; I, Israel, thy Father again, and thou, Ephraim, My first-born son.”
Prophecy of Jeremiah, 31: 7-9 [link]

Jeremiah, the prophet of our first reading this weekend, witnessed the first destruction, but as everything was falling into ruin, the dynasty of David was effectively destroyed and the people of Juda dispersed, the prophet saw a bright light in the future. This is the substance of the reading above, and the people of the city would have thought Jeremiah mad. But hear him cry out here, Shout for joy (in the midst of ruin), hail the Chief of heaven (although He seems to have abandoned His city and His Temple), proclaim that God has saved the people (although they are being dispersed throughout the known world).

But, the prophet is talking of a remnant of the people. The Hebrew nation had been chosen by God out of all humanity, but had failed to fulfil their destiny as a people of God, and from within that Elect nation, a smaller subset of people would be chosen and elect, drawn together from every part of the known world that they had once been dispersed to. For God did not wish to abandon the children of Abraham, among whom within a few short centuries His Son would appear in the flesh. Ephraim, the prophet proclaims, is God’s first-born. The Hebrew nation – called her Ephraim, after the patriarch Joseph’s son – was birthed by God at Mount Sinai, under the regency of Moses.

The restoration of the nation, as foretold by Jeremiah and other prophets, centred around the successor of King David. And although successors of David appeared soon after to lead the Jews out of the desolation caused by the Chaldeans, there was the great expectation of a particular Son of David, the Messiah, who would restore the relationship of the people with God, the relationship that had been destroyed by national sins, such as idolatry. And that introduces our gospel reading.

“And now they reached Jericho. As He was leaving Jericho, with His disciples and with a great multitude, Bartimaeus, the blind man, Timaeus’ son, was sitting there by the way-side, begging. And, hearing that this was Jesus of Nazareth, he fell to crying out, ‘Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.’ Many of them rebuked him and told him to be silent, but he cried out all the more, ‘Son of David, have pity on me.’ Jesus stopped, and bade them summon him; so they summoned the blind man; ‘Take heart,’ they said, ‘and rise up; He is summoning thee.’ Whereupon he threw away his cloak and leapt to his feet, and so came to Jesus. Then Jesus answered him, ‘What wouldst thou have Me do for thee?’ And the blind man said to Him, ‘Lord, give me back my sight.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away home with thee; thy faith has brought thee recovery.’ And all at once he recovered his sight, and followed Jesus on His way.”
Gospel of S. Mark, 10: 46-52 [link]

The Messiah was expected to come with the power of God in his right hand, as Moses had done. And when people like this blind beggar of our story heard of the profusion of miracles that surrounded our Lord and His apostles, Bar-Timaeus was convinced that here was the expected Son of David, and so that the restoration of the people was at hand. So he calls out what every one of us should call out regularly, especially in great need, ‘Son of David, have mercy, have pity.’ See this, for example. The world that we live in frowns at us and scolds us and may tell us to be quiet, but we must shout out even louder, ‘Son of David, most Holy One, have mercy, have pity.’ And He stops, having heard our voices, and He calls for us and asks us what He can do for us.

He’s really asking us, Do you believe that I can do this thing that you wish, that I can do it for you? Do you understand Who and What I am? And, if we make the correct reply, we may hear Him say, ‘Your faith has saved you.’ Bar-Timaeus recovered his physical sight, but when we hear of sight healings in the gospels, the evangelists are always trying to tell us that unfaith and irreligion is itself a blindness – a spiritual blindness to the being of God, and if there is an understanding of God a despair of His ability to help us. Faith is the antidote, and faith is a gift from God. Faith we should constantly pray for, always more faith. Even if we cannot have our physical or mental ailments relieved, our faith and our vision of God our loving Father will have saved us out of this world by making us believers, and by drawing us into a relationship with God that survives suffering and death. The relationship God had called the Hebrews to centuries before Christ, is the one He calls us to today. Trust Me, He says to us, beyond the evils of this current world, beyond the death that all men and women are heir to. For I am the Resurrection and the Life; I live, and you shall live because of me.

Churches together on All Hallows

A quick notification about an All Saints event that didn’t get into the newsletter this weekend. Please spread the word if you see this…

On the first of November,
at 18.00
at Louth S. James (the parish church),
an ecumenical Churches Together event
to which all are invited.

To reign from a Cross (Sunday XXIX of Ordered time)

“But the souls of the just are in God’s hands, and no torment, in death itself, has power to reach them. Dead? Fools think so; think their end loss, their leaving us, annihilation; but all is well with them. The world sees nothing but the pains they endure; they themselves have eyes only for what is immortal; so light their suffering, so great the gain they win! God, all the while, did but test them, and testing them found them worthy of Him. His gold, tried in the crucible, His burnt-sacrifice, graciously accepted, they do but wait for the time of their deliverance; then they will shine out, these just souls, unconquerable as the sparks that break out, now here, now there, among the stubble. Theirs to sit in judgement on nations, to subdue whole peoples, under a Lord Whose reign shall last for ever.”
Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, 3: 1-8 [link]

This is part of one of the most memorable parts of the Old Testament for me, and one we almost routinely have for our funeral services; it could be subtitled the Reward of the Righteous. It tells us that those men and women who have loved God and have struggled hard to do His will, and have suffered grievously in this life, are yet at peace. And then it says, they will judge the nations of the earth and subdue them, under the reign of the universal King, Who is God.

And so, we may ask, of those of us who (as S. Paul says) win the race and receive the crown at the end of these lives on earth, how would we rule? Would we sit upon thrones, wear crowns, hold an orb and a sceptre, have a government? Surely, the worldly man or woman imagines this, for it is our picture here in the west of kings and queens, reigning in splendour. And, as our gospel story demonstrates, there was something similar in the minds of the Apostles of Christ. Remember that Christ had told these Twelve men that they would sit on Twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. But then, in that memorable episode at Caesarea Philippi, He had singled out one of them for primacy, saying to S. Peter that he would receive the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Surely it is very human for these Twelve men to vie with one another for favour with Christ. We hear sometimes of how they tried to decide among themselves who was the greatest among them – whence Christ had said that the leaders of the Church would not domineer over the community, rather that they should be like little children. And now, two of the three principal Apostles have a special request.

“Thereupon James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him and said, ‘Master, we would have thee grant the request we are to make.’ And He asked them, ‘What would you have me do for you?’ They said to Him, ‘Grant that one of us may take his place on Thy right and the other on Thy left, when Thou art glorified.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what it is you ask. Have you strength to drink of the cup I am to drink of, to be baptised with the baptism I am to be baptised with?’ They said to Him, ‘We have.’ And Jesus told them, ‘You shall indeed drink of the cup I am to drink of, and be baptised with the baptism I am to be baptised with; but a place on My right hand or My left is not mine to give you; it is for those for whom it has been destined. The ten others grew indignant with James and John when they heard of it. But Jesus called them to Him, and said to them, ‘You know that, among the Gentiles, those who claim to bear rule lord it over them, and those who are great among them make the most of the power they have. With you it must be otherwise; whoever has a mind to be great among you, must be your servant, and whoever has a mind to be first among you, must be your slave. So it is that the Son of Man did not come to have service done Him; He came to serve others, and to give His life as a ransom for the lives of many.”
Gospel of S. Mark, 10: 35-45 [link]

James and John we know from tradition were related to Christ on His mother’s side. S. Mark tells us that they came directly to Christ with their request, S. Matthew and S. Luke tell us that they got their mother Salome to ask Him on their behalf. I call her the Holy Aunty. But the response is the same. They do not know what they are asking for. What is it for the Christian soul to reign, or to judge? We jump over to the first reading, and we have a tiny portion of this excellent chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah, which is all about the Passion of our Lord.

“Ay, the Lord’s will it was, overwhelmed he should be with trouble. His life laid down for guilt’s atoning, he shall yet be rewarded; father of a long posterity, instrument of the divine purpose; for all his heart’s anguish, rewarded in full. The Just One, My servant; many shall he claim for his own, win their acquittal, on his shoulders bearing their guilt.”
Prophecy of Isaias, 53: 10-11 [link]

This is the Passion of Christ the King. How does He acquire dominion over all things? Isaiah says that He was crushed/overwhelmed with suffering, that He offered His life humbly to join mankind to God, and Isaiah suggests that a long life still awaits Him beyond the crucible of suffering. It is because of His suffering for the life of others that He was glorified by God the Father. So He says to James and John, You don’t know what you are asking for by requesting thrones at my side. And they also don’t know what they mean when they say in reply, Yes, we can drink of Your cup and be baptised with you baptism.

A baptism of blood… S. James at least would drink it quickly; he was the first of the Apostles to be martyred, as we know from the book of the Acts of the Apostles. And S. John, the only one of the Apostles to not be martyred, nevertheless suffered much persecution especially in old age from Roman governors and heretical opponents.

And we are called to suffer also, and to suffer for others. If we recall the story of Fátima, the Lady of the Rosary asked those little shepherd children to suffer for the sake of sinners, and gave them that little prayer we have in the Rosary: O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, and save from the fires of hell especially those most in need. How old were the children? Seven to ten years old? And they accepted the task of expiatory sacrifice from our Lady. Christ will have said to these small children, The cup that I have drunk you shall drink, and even little Jacinta accepted. Are we up to doing something similar? Can we make small sacrifices and large ones, offer up our sufferings for the sake of poor sinners, to rescue their souls from the fires of hell. Yes, it’s difficult to make sacrifices – even small ones. But as S. Paul tells us in the second reading, we are not without a high-priest Who understands well the weakness of our humanity, has been tempted as we are and yet without sin. He will help us drink the bitter chalice of suffering, and drink it with joy in our hearts.

“Let us hold fast, then, by the faith we profess. We can claim a great High-priest, and One Who has passed right up through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. It is not as if our High-priest was incapable of feeling for us in our humiliations; He has been through every trial, fashioned as we are, only sinless. Let us come boldly, then, before the throne of grace, to meet with mercy, and win that grace which will help us in our needs.”
Letter to the Hebrews, 4: 14-16 [link]

The true measure of holiness (Sunday XXVIII of Ordered time)

There’s something I mention reasonably often: integrity and sincerity. Let us define religion as rite and ritual: the ceremonies that walk us from soon after we are born, through the period of adolescence and early adulthood, that sanctify our ordinary life throughout and that then finally carry us into the tomb. Why do people who believe in God seek after religion? It perhaps is because they are seeking to please Him and enter into holiness. But many of us walk into the sacramental life of the church almost as automatons, going through the motions because that’s what’s done in a society that still has some sentiment of its Catholic routes.

But for the few now who still take religion seriously, holiness is crucial. ‘Holiness’ is a set-apartness, and it is not something we acquire for ourselves, but which is given us by the Holy One as we strive to approach Him. But how do we so strive? As heirs of the ancient covenants God made with the Hebrews, and the great new covenant He made upon the cross, we know that we are to keep His commandments to demonstrate our love for Him. He made us and knows how we should ideally live to fulfil His plan for us, and He desires to guide us towards that end. With His commandments. We see this striving after holiness through the keeping of the commandments in the heart of the young man of the gospel story.

“Then He went out to continue his journey; and a man ran up and knelt down before Him, asking Him, ‘Master, Who art so good, what must I do to achieve eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why dost thou call Me good? None is good, except God only. Thou knowest the commandments, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not wrong any man, Honour thy father and thy mother.’ ‘Master,’ he answered, ‘I have kept all these ever since I grew up.’ Then Jesus fastened His eyes on him, and conceived a love for him; ‘In one thing,’ He said, ‘thou art still wanting. Go home and sell all that belongs to thee; give it to the poor, and so the treasure thou hast shall be in heaven; then come back and follow Me.’ At this, his face fell, and he went away sorrowing, for he had great possessions. And Jesus looked round, and said to His disciples, ‘With what difficulty will those who have riches enter God’s kingdom!’ The disciples were amazed at His words; but Jesus gave them a second answer, ‘My children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter God’s kingdom! It is easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye, than for a man to enter the kingdom of God when he is rich.’ They were still more astonished; ‘Why then,’ they said to themselves, ‘who can be saved?’ Jesus fastened His eyes on them, and said, ‘Such things are impossible to man’s powers, but not to God’s; to God, all things are possible.'”
Gospel of S. Mark, 10: 17-27 [link]

I’ve done it all, says the rich young man to Christ, I have obeyed the Law of God, is there anything else I should do? The Law of Moses doesn’t answer that question. Even today, a typical rabbi will tell his disciples that they are to keep as many as possible of the 613 or so commandments of the ancient Law to be a good Jew. The radical demand Christ makes – to give everything up for His sake – is new to the common Jewish understanding, and it raises the bar ever higher. We could say that holiness – true and perfect holiness – is always beyond our reach. We are to strive after it, and seek to complete the sacrifice of who we are to God, and pray for Him to grant us His good graces, to make us holy.

We know from the history of the Church that some of the greatest Saints whose names we can remember – Lawrence, Agatha, Benedict, Dominic, Teresa, Francis, Rita, etc. – were men and women who did just what Christ asked of this young man of the gospel: they sought the desert experience, giving away family and wealth, giving away everything for the sake of Christ and the gospel. They tend in general to be martyrs for the faith, or confessing monks and nuns, or otherwise clergymen who lived common lives in colleges and convents. I do not mean that we who live in the world cannot acquire holiness, but you will perhaps admit that it is much harder for us, surrounded as we are by worldliness and temptations, and distractions of every sort.

Would that we could be carried away from this world of comfort and diversion into a wilderness, if only for a time, as Moses carried the people away from Egypt into the barrenness of Sinai. How hard it is, our Lord says, for the man rich in pocket and so anchored to this world to look beyond this world – how hard it is for him to acquire holiness – to draw near to God. But, then He goes on, it is not impossible, by the grace of God. Difficult, but not impossible. It needs a little effort on our part, and God will carry us the rest of the way. S. Peter takes up the plaintive note of the martyrs of every century, and the monks, the nuns, the hermits, as he asks, What about us, who have left all for Your sake and the sake of the Gospel?

“Jesus fastened His eyes on them, and said, ‘Such things are impossible to man’s powers, but not to God’s; to God, all things are possible.’ Hereupon Peter took occasion to say, ‘What of us, who have forsaken all, and followed thee?’ Jesus answered, ‘I promise you, everyone who has forsaken home, or brothers, or sisters, or mother, or children, or lands for My sake and for the sake of the gospel, will receive, now in this world, a hundred times their worth, houses, sisters, brothers, mothers, children and lands, but with persecution; and in the world to come he will receive everlasting life.'”
Gospel of S. Mark, 10: 27-30 [link]

And so Peter receives for all of these holy men and women the promise of Christ of due compensation in a world beyond this one. But meanwhile, living this life of consecration to God – a life we Christians are all called to – is to be accompanied by persecution from a world that doesn’t understand it and often sees it as a threat. How could men and women treasure divine Wisdom and understanding more than winning a lottery or driving expensive cars and living in large houses? But King Solomon would say (in our first reading)…

“Whence, then, did the prudence spring that endowed me? Prayer brought it; to God I prayed, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me. This I valued more than kingdom or throne; I thought nothing of my riches in comparison. There was no jewel I could match with it; all my treasures of gold were a handful of dust beside it, my silver seemed but base clay in presence of it. I treasured wisdom more than health or beauty, preferred her to the light of day; hers is a flame which never dies down. Together with her all blessings came to me; boundless prosperity was her gift.”
Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, 7: 7-11 [link]

As given by this reading from Wisdom, this necessary abandonment of or detachment from the world by Christians living in the world, and the seeking after God alone, is the pursuit of divine Wisdom that is sung about in the Old Testament. Obviously the ‘radical’ call of the Gospel is not entirely new at all, for it is buried within the Old Testament and needs to be drawn out and brought to our attention, as here. The sage says (in this reading), I held riches as nothing, nay, I valued divine Wisdom to be greater than such wealth.

We may end this post with the second reading from the letter to the Hebrews, which now calls the Wisdom of God His word. This word of God is alive and active, and it sifts men and women, dividing them between those who would reach after God and those who would not bother, and between those who have a lukewarm approach to religion and holiness and those who strive after it in all sincerity. That is how divine Wisdom knifes through so finely, judging between our most private thoughts and emotions. As God once said to Moses, and He does to us, we are to choose good and avoid evil, follow His commandments, and then He will be with us always, yes, until the very end.

“God’s word to us is something alive, full of energy; it can penetrate deeper than any two-edged sword, reaching the very division between soul and spirit, between joints and marrow, quick to distinguish every thought and design in our hearts. From Him, no creature can be hidden; everything lies bare, everything is brought face to face with Him, this God to Whom we must give our account.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Hebrews, 4: 12-13 [link]

Marriage: in the fire of love (Sunday XXVII of Ordered time)

With our readings this weekend we drift into a new meditation on human marriage. Those of you who hear me regularly know that I talk a great deal about marriage in passing, because one of the grand themes of Holy Scripture is the marriage of God to His chosen people. The Jews dwelt a great deal upon this, for it made them a very special possession of God, in the same way that a husband is the very special possession of his wife, and she a very special possession of his. It is this mutual self-giving that is the inner strength of every strong marriage.

The Church was established by a very Jewish Christ and governed at first by His very Jewish Apostles, so inevitably when they welcomed non-Jews (like ourselves) into the Church, they extended to us this belonging to God. So – and this is very clear in the New Testament – the Church considers herself the Bride of Christ, and the Church very carefully guards sacramental marriage as unbreakable, insoluble. God calls us to love each other in this respect with a love akin to His own for us. And so, with that as an introduction, let’s have a look at these readings.

“But the Lord God said, ‘It is not well that man should be without companionship; I will give him a mate of his own kind.’ And now, from the clay of the ground, all the beasts that roam the earth and all that flies through the air were ready fashioned, and the Lord God brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them; the name Adam gave to each living creature is its name still. Thus Adam gave names to all the cattle, and all that flies in the air, and all the wild beasts; and still Adam had no mate of his own kind. So the Lord God made Adam fall into a deep sleep, and, while he slept, took away one of his ribs, and filled its place with flesh. This rib, which he had taken out of Adam, the Lord God formed into a woman; and when He brought her to Adam, Adam said, ‘Here, at last, is bone that comes from mine, flesh that comes from mine; it shall be called Woman, this thing that was taken out of Man.’ That is why a man is destined to leave father and mother, and cling to his wife instead, so that the two become one flesh. Both went naked, Adam and his wife, and thought it no shame.”
Book of Genesis, 2: 18-25 [link]

This Genesis reading is quite obvious and needs no elaboration. God sees that the man He has built needs assistance in his lonely task of governing and shaping the garden of Creation and, when this gardener Adam cannot find the companionship he needs in the beasts and the fowl brought before him, the Holy One gives him the greatest blessing yet: woman. Woman who can complete him, not only assisting in the work of creation and in providing companionship, but also in uniting intimately with him in a symphony of love that finds its source in the love of God Himself. A love which then bears fruit in the birth of children and therefore the further blessing of this race of men.

But the heart of man can corrupt anything, of course, and over the course of time we know of the historical degradation of woman, that continues today despite the advances we have made over the last two hundred years in the west. Woman became and remains in many ways a possession to facilitate the lusts of man, and even among the sanctified people of God – the Jews – we hear of how easy it had become for a husband to divorce his wife, and put her away in perpetual disgrace. And these pharisees of the Gospel story dared to parade their divorce (as permitted by Moses, they said) before the Holy One, Who had given woman to man in the beginning.

“Then the Pharisees came and put Him to the test by asking Him, whether it is right for a man to put away his wife. He answered them, ‘What command did Moses give you?’ And they said, ‘Moses left a man free to put his wife away, if he gave her a writ of separation.’ Jesus answered them, ‘It was to suit your hard hearts that Moses wrote such a command as that; God, from the first days of creation, made them man and woman. A man, therefore, will leave his father and mother and will cling to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. Why then, since they are no longer two, but one flesh, what God has joined, let not man put asunder.’ And when they were in the house, His disciples asked Him further about the same question. Whereupon He told them, ‘If a man puts away his wife and marries another, he behaves adulterously towards her, and if a woman puts away her husband and marries another, she is an adulteress.’ Then they brought children to Him, asking Him to touch them; and His disciples rebuked those who brought them. But Jesus was indignant at seeing this; ‘Let the children come to Me,’ He said, ‘do not keep them back; the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you truthfully, the man who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a child, will never enter into it.’ And so He embraced them, laid His hands upon them, and blessed them.”
Gospel of S. Mark, 10: 2-16 [link]

Our Lord is obviously not amused with the question about divorce and immediately instructs them about what marriage was when Eve had been created. The Church has continued this instruction ever since, notoriously in our own country, when the English church was divided off from the Successor of S. Peter primarily over the new controversies over marriage created by the protestant rebels. Why would it occur to King Henry that he could be divorced from his first wife, if such ideas were not placed before him by his protestant advisors?

It is interesting indeed that what remains central – the rejection of Sacraments like marriage – in the feud between the Apostolic churches and the protestant communities has to deal with unity in general. Part of what fractured the Western church (and continues to fracture the separated communities) and has divided her ever since is a Sacrament that was intended to unite husband and wife forever. Today, marriage and family life is the battleground in which we may perceive the armies of light and the armies of darkness fighting for human souls. Those of us who are old enough to have watched this train crash actually progress in our own lifetimes know best what has been lost – how stability and strength in our families declined within a hundred years as a result of persistent attacks on marriage and family life.

So, these readings are perennial, and the Holy One continues to invite spouses to commitments to each other and blesses their little children. Our second reading from the letter to the Hebrews demonstrates to us that He Himself made His commitment to His bride the Church, bowing His eternal head before her in humility, making perfect His devotion to her in sacrifice and suffering. She has always replied with tears, blessing Him to Whom she owes everything, her holy Spouse, her Lord and God.

“But we can see this; we can see one who was made a little lower than the angels, I mean Jesus, crowned, now, with glory and honour because of the death He underwent; in God’s gracious design He was to taste death, and taste it on behalf of all. God is the last end of all things, the first beginning of all things; and it befitted His majesty that, in summoning all those sons of His to glory, He should crown with suffering the life of that Prince who was to lead them into salvation. The Son Who sanctifies and the sons who are sanctified have a common origin, all of them; He is not ashamed, then, to own them as His brethren.”
Letter to the Hebrews, 2: 9-11 [link]

Treasuring divine Wisdom (Sunday XXVI of Ordered time)

Our readings this weekend begin with the delegation of apostolic authority for ministry within the Church. Remember that the Greek word ‘apostle’ simply refers to somebody who is sent, but in the Christian context that refers to a very particular missionary with extraordinary delegated power and responsibility to govern and sanctify. We’re talking here about sacramental power, and associated powers to heal and to chase away demonic forces. If we look closely in the New Testament, the word ‘apostle’ seems almost synonymous with the early Christian priests, who were to bring the Holy Eucharist – the Mass – to the new communities formed or being formed around the Roman Empire, and beyond. Among these many early apostles, there was the closed group of the Twelve, whose we know so well, and whose number had to be restored after the betrayal of Judas, which was one by election.

So, what are these delegated powers and responsibility of the Christian apostle? Let’s have a look at the original story of the appointment by Moses of seventy elders to share his responsibility for the government of the people, in the first reading today.

“And when the Lord came down, hidden in the cloud, to converse with him, He took some of the spirit which rested upon Moses and gave it to the seventy elders instead; whereupon they received a gift of prophecy which never left them. This same spirit rested even upon two men, Eldad and Medad, who were still in the camp; their names were enrolled among the rest; but they had never gone out to the tabernacle. There in the camp they fell a-prophesying, and a messenger ran to bring Moses tidings of it. At this, Josue the son of Nun, that was Moses’ favourite servant, cried out, ‘My lord Moses, bid them keep silence.’ ‘What,’ said he, ‘so jealous for my honour? For myself, I would have the whole people prophesy, with the spirit of the Lord resting on them too.'”
Book of Numbers, 11: 25-29 [link]

The theme of government in this reading (the Seventy were meant to act as judges assisting Moses as supreme judge) is a sure indication that one of the powers and responsibilities of the seventy was indeed to govern the sacred community: to administer justice according to the Law of God, to maintain peace within that community, and to bring the Law to the people. Such an act – of bringing the word of God to the people – is precisely what prophecy means. A prophet is primarily a go-between, who draws the minds of men and women nearer to the mind of the Holy One. So, we see the Seventy of Moses prophesying almost immediately. Even when two of the appointed elders of the people had not attended the solemn commissioning, they received on account of their appointment the gift of interpreting the Law in the camp, and Moses declared, How I wish that everybody could so be inspired as to become an oracle of divine Wisdom.

This is a wish we should all have. We all yearn to know the will of God, we know that great men and women whom we call Saints became oracles of God in their own lifetimes, and we pray for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we too could be like them: Saints in a world of sin and darkness. For this is all about understanding the will of God as given by his commandments and testimonies, and communicating it to every last person in this world. Why? Because, as we dutifully responded to the psalm, The precepts of the Lord gladden the heart. Not just my heart, or your heart, or a generic Christian heart. No, they are meant to gladden every human heart, to draw all men and women eventually to their source, in the bosom of the God Who created them and loves them beyond all telling.

This is our true wealth, as King Solomon once realised: the divine Wisdom, by which we live well and live for others. So the Apostle S. James lands a bit of a diatribe in the second reading against those who treasure the passing goods of this world – gold and silver, etc. – all gathered at the expense of the happiness and well-being of others.

“Come, you men of riches, bemoan yourselves and cry aloud over the miseries that are to overtake you. Corruption has fallen on your riches; all the fine clothes are left moth-eaten, and the gold and silver have long lain rusting. That rust will bear witness against you, will bite into your flesh like flame. These are the last days given you, and you have spent them in heaping up a store of retribution. You have kept back the pay of the workmen who reaped your lands, and it is there to cry out against you; the Lord of hosts has listened to their complaint. You have feasted here on earth, you have comforted your hearts with luxuries on this day that dooms you to slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent man, while he offered no resistance.”
Letter of S. James, 5: 1-6 [link]

Let us then treasure not wealth and status, but divine Wisdom, let us seek to learn it from our Christian sources: from Scripture and tradition, and from the Lives of the Saints. For are we not all in some way apostles? If sacramental power is delegated to a handful of select men, the rest of us are a type of missionary disciple, bringing the precepts and judgements of God to the rest of mankind, bringing the word of God to a world that doesn’t have it and sorely needs it. We, having acquired a measure of Christian charity, must teach others of our families and friends and those within our social circles how to do the same. If we see Christian charity at work near us, we should cheer it on even when it exists beyond the bounds of the Apostolic Church, as the Lord says in the Gospel, for nobody who works great miracles of faith in His Name can in any way curse Him. And anybody who gives a Christian man or woman at least a glass of refreshment for the good that they have done is marked down for reward by the Holy One.

“And John answered Him, ‘Master, we saw a man who does not follow in our company casting out devils in Thy Name, and we forbade him to do it.’ But Jesus said, ‘Forbid him no more; no one who does a miracle in My Name will lightly speak evil of Me. The man who is not against you is on your side. Why, if anyone gives you a cup of water to drink in My Name, because you are Christ’s, I promise you, he shall not miss his reward. And if anyone hurts the conscience of one of these little ones, that believe in Me, he had better have been cast into the sea, with a millstone about his neck. If thy hand is an occasion of falling to thee, cut it off; better for thee to enter into life maimed, than to have two hands when thou goest into hell, into unquenchable fire; the worm which eats them there never dies, the fire is never quenched. And if thy foot is an occasion of falling to thee, cut it off; better for thee to enter into eternal life lame, than to have both feet when thou art cast into the unquenchable fire of hell; the worm which eats them there never dies, the fire is never quenched. And if thy eye is an occasion of falling, pluck it out; better for thee to enter blind into the kingdom of God, than to have two eyes when thou art cast into the fire of hell; the worm which eats them there never dies, the fire is never quenched.'”
Gospel of S. Mark, 9: 37-47 [link]

So, just as the young men in the first reading apparently did not receive sanction for prophesying but were still given power by the Holy Spirit, so here a figure not linked to the Apostolic Church is working miracles with the authority of Christ’s Name. And the Holy Spirit works where He will. The reading ends with a warning about sin, to avoid which we must be prepared to end all relationships with other people that we know can destroy our souls spiritually. This can be very painful and a true martyrdom, for deep friendships we have cherished may have to be ended, because to continue them would be to risk committing sin and the consequent damnation. For we have a responsibility to acquire virtue and demonstrate it to all around us, for if we instead bring scandal to the Church with sin and vice – having become thereby bad or ineffective apostles – well, according to that gospel reading, there is a fire that is never quenched and a rotting that never ends.

Christian leadership (Sunday XXV of Ordered time)

As with last weekend, we meditate upon the suffering of our Lord in the course of His great Sacrifice, so let’s again try to unite all three of our Mass readings together to establish a common message. Remember that September is traditionally the month of our Lady of Sorrows, when we stand with our blessed Mother at the foot of the Cross and attempt to participate in her great distress as she watched her Son be humiliated and brutalised, and then die upon that cross. Whenever I say the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary, it always strikes me that the most painful both for Him and for her was the third sorrowful mystery – the Crowning with thorns. Why that one? Because that is where the mocking was at its high point.

The Old Testament rings with the promise of the coming of the Messiah, the Son of David, the heir of that great King. This was central to the Jewish hopes of the first century. And our Lord took great pride in this human lineage, as we can perceive in His attention to detail, for example, with the arrangement of the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He knew, of course, that the humiliation was coming, but it would have been painful nonetheless to see and feel the people whom He had cared for for centuries and centuries reject Him, mock Him and hand Him over to non-Jews, who crowned Him with thorns in mockery.

And His poor mother, herself of the house and family of David… knowing better than anybody else that the tortured Body on the Cross belonged to both that much looked-for Messianic king and to God Himself. But, looking at it from the perspective of the corrupt priesthood of the Temple… weren’t they somehow justified (in their minds) in their hatred? We see their point of view in our first reading today, written in prophecy long before the Passion of our Lord.

“Where is he, the just man? We must plot to be rid of him; he will not lend himself to our purposes. Ever he must be thwarting our plans; transgress we the law, he is all reproof, depart we from the traditions of our race, he denounces us. What, would he claim knowledge of divine secrets, give himself out as the son of God? The touchstone, he, of our inmost thoughts; we cannot bear the very sight of him, his life so different from other men’s, the path he takes, so far removed from theirs! No better than false coin he counts us, holds aloof from our doings as though they would defile him; envies the just their future happiness, boasts of a divine parentage. Put we his claims, then, to the proof; let experience shew what his lot shall be, and what end awaits him. If to be just is to be God’s son indeed, then God will take up his cause, will save him from the power of his enemies. Outrage and torment, let these be the tests we use; let us see that gentleness of his in its true colours, find out what his patience is worth. Sentenced let him be to a shameful death; by his own way of it, he shall find deliverance.”
Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, 2: 12-20 [link]

The sage here calls the enemies of our Lord godless in their absolute lack of charity for the virtuous man, the Just Man who pricks their consciences simply by Himself being without sin. Without a word, the sinless Man condemns the lives of the wicked; without a word, He calls out their corruption. So, they reason, let us torture the Man and if God really loves Him, God will look after Him. Didn’t they actually say that at the foot of the cross, again in mockery? ‘If you are the Son of God, come down, come down and we shall believe in you…’ Mockery, mockery, all He receives is mockery. But, as we all replied to the psalm, God does uphold the life of the Just Man. And so, He says to us His Christians, acquire Righteousness before the throne of God through lives of virtue, and they will hate you and scorn you and mock you, as they did Me, but I will uphold your life.

“Then they left those parts, and passed straight through Galilee, and He would not let anyone know of His passage; He spent the time teaching His disciples. ‘The Son of Man,’ He said, ‘is to be given up into the hands of men. They will put Him to death, and He will rise again on the third day.’ But they could not understand His meaning, and were afraid to ask Him.

So they came to Capharnaum; and there, when they were in the house, He asked them, ‘What was the dispute you were holding on the way?’ They said nothing, for they had been disputing among themselves which should be the greatest of them. Then He sat down, and called the Twelve to Him, and said, ‘If anyone has a mind to be the greatest, he must be the last of all, and the servant of all.’ And He took a little child, and gave it a place in the midst of them; and He took it in His arms, and said to them: ‘Whoever welcomes such a child as this in My Name, welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes, not Me, but Him that sent Me.'”
Gospel of S. Mark, 9: 29-36 [link]

As this Gospel story tells us, the Apostles did not understand and they were afraid to ask Him. How would they survive His torture and death? How would they survive their own persecution and martyrdoms? There are two points to be made in answer: the gospel tells us about true charity and Christian leadership, and the second reading tells us about compassion and peace-making. Christian leadership, particularly in the hierarchical governors – priests and bishops – but generally in all aspects of the Christian life, such as in the home and within social circles… Christian leadership is based on humility, and although it may involve a type of domination, it can never be domineering. This level of charity and humility is modelled for us by Christ Himself, Who was willing to suffer mockery and humiliation in order that charity and humility may prevail. Christian leadership suffers for the truth as its Lord did. And that carries us to the second reading.

“Where there is jealousy, where there is rivalry, there you will find disorder and every kind of defect. Whereas the wisdom which does come from above is marked chiefly indeed by its purity, but also by its peacefulness; it is courteous and ready to be convinced, always taking the better part; it carries mercy with it, and a harvest of all that is good; it is uncensorious, and without affectation. Peace is the seed-ground of holiness, and those who make peace will win its harvest. What leads to war, what leads to quarrelling among you? I will tell you what leads to them; the appetites which infest your mortal bodies. Your desires go unfulfilled, so you fall to murdering; you set your heart on something, and cannot have your will, so there is quarrelling and fighting. Why cannot you have your will? Because you do not pray for it, or you pray, and what you ask for is denied you, because you ask for it with ill intent; you would squander it on your appetites.”
Letter of S. James 3: 16 – 4: 3 [link]

Christian leadership must have nothing to do with jealousy or ambition/rivalry, which (S. James says) creates disharmony, disorder and wickedness, and breeds argument and infighting. We know this from experience, don’t we? We see it often, at home perhaps, but certainly at work, and in political and business governance. James is very down-to-earth here: if we don’t get what we selfishly want, we fight for it, and cause war and dissension. We may pray for peace, but if we don’t pray for it sincerely with a mind to leave off own desires and make self-sacrifices, we may not find peace.

If only we could learn to see the world and live in simplicity, as a child does, helping and being helped, we shall be able to make ourselves last, and servants of all.