“O God, Thou art my God; how eager my quest for Thee, body athirst and soul longing for Thee, like some parched wilderness, where stream is none! So in the holy place, I contemplate Thee, ready for the revelation of Thy greatness, Thy glory.”
I wonder sometimes if we as a people actually seek out wisdom, or truth, if we are generally thirsting after it, as in our psalm above. Are we thirsting after God, like in a parched wilderness? The first reading this weekend is about wisdom, and has put into my mind that famous story of the Hebrew king Solomon, a distant ancestor of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the story, the king is asked by God to name a blessing that God could give to him. And what could a man who is king – and has everything laid out for him by his father David – what more could he ask for? Solomon asked for the wisdom to act well as a king. According to the story, God replies with great joy by granting the king great wisdom, and wealth and fortune to go with it. A great story, and let us be encouraged by it. The Christian religion, as much as the Hebrew religion, is a pursuit of truth, a pursuit of wisdom, and as the psalm tells us this is a pursuit of God Himself.
“The bright beacon of Wisdom, that never burns dim, how readily seen by eyes that long for it, how open to their search! Nay, she is beforehand with these her suitors, ready to make herself known to them; no toilsome quest is his, that is up betimes to greet her; she is there, waiting at his doors. Why, to entertain the very thought of her is maturity of the mind; one night’s vigil, and all thy cares are over. She goes her rounds, to find men worthy of her favours; in the open street unveils that smiling face of hers, comes deliberately to meet them.”
Christ declared once to His apostles that He was the Way, the Truth and the Life. Come to me all you who thirst, He cried out elsewhere, and you shall receive your fill. To the Samaritan woman He said, If you knew Who it was asking you for water, you would ask Him for living water, and you would never again be thirsty. So there is a water that we should be filled with, and that water can be nothing else but the Holy Spirit of God, among Whose several gifts to human souls is knowledge and wisdom. And that puts in my mind the day of that first Christian Pentecost, when a small band of people frightened and hiding in prayer in Jerusalem were suddenly filled with a startling fire and burst out into the streets to begin the long history of the Church. As the first reading says, Wisdom is searching for us too – quick to anticipate those who desire her, she makes herself known to them; she herself walks about looking for those who are worthy of her. If you seek after the Lord, you shouldn’t have to wait long before you are filled with His Spirit.
“The very first step towards wisdom is the desire for discipline, and how should a man care for discipline without loving it, or love it without heeding its laws, or heed its laws without winning immortality, or win immortality without drawing near to God?”
This above is the immediate continuation of our first reading this weekend, and is sadly left out. I cannot think why, because it joins nicely with the gospel message, in which Christ adds another dimension to the thirsting after God, the waiting for Him, and this has everything to do with the Commandments, with discipline and laws, which are at the core of the Hebrew Bible.
“…the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins, who went to bring the bridegroom and his bride home, taking their lamps with them. Five of these were foolish, and five were wise; the five foolish, when they took their lamps, did not provide themselves with oil, but those who were wise took oil in the vessels they carried, as well as the lamps…”
Those who are seeking after God, searching for wisdom, should also have welcomed the wisdom that has already been given and profited from it. They are like the wise virgins of the parable, carefully keeping their lamps lit. This wisdom (and perhaps the oil for the lamps) is contained in Scripture, and in the Tradition of the Church, and has been distilled for us and applied to our present situation by the teaching authority of the Church in numerous catechisms. You and I know then that the wisdom of God is not always welcome, and there are many even of the Church who are looking for other wisdom, desperate to continue to live lives at odds with the Commandments and still somehow claim the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That seems more like the foolish virgins who left their spare oil (wisdom and discipline) behind and so let their lamps go out.
We must be careful, so careful – the traps are many, the temptations without bound, and Christ calls us to be vigilant and wakeful. And yet, He would that we not lose hope. For Wisdom is on the move, graciously showing herself to us we go, in every thought of ours coming to meet with us.
Above is Michelangelo’s version of the prophet from the heights of the Sistine chapel at S. Peter’s on the Vatican hill. Zecharyah, or Zacharias as he is in the old Catholic bibles, was a later prophet, who lived only a few hundred years before Christ, in the Jewish period of Sacred Scripture. The Israelite kingdoms having been destroyed and the people exiled from a fairly deserted Holy Land, the histories of Esdras, in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, tell of the return of a small band of the exiles to Juda, now in a condition of semi-independance – self-rule under a Jewish governor, but under the oversight and supra-governance of the Persian empire – and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and a smaller and more humble Temple. In these reduced circumstances of a humiliated and humbled people, the prophets of almighty God reappeared. One of these was Haggai (or Aggaeus in the Latin bibles), and Zacharias was a contemporary of Haggai; Zacharias is very significant for Christians because several of his lines were used by the Gospel-writers and in the rest of the New Testament, as pointing towards the late Jewish period and Christ, before the final destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. So, let’s have a look at those.
The Book of Zacharias is quite hard to understand, because it doesn’t seem to have a single form, but seems to be a stitching together of several prophecies, that speak sometimes of widely different time periods. In addition to that, Zacharias was a bit of a visionary, in the manner of the prophet Ezechiel; the things he sees in vision are supposed to be evident in meaning, but for us millenia in the future things are rather obscure. The book speaks of the new situation in post-exilic Judaea, with the small band of Jews returned from Babylon, under the Successor of David called Zorobabel – now a Persian-appointed governor, rather than a king of Juda – assisted by a Sadocite high-priest called Josue; these two are addressed more plainly by Haggai. And the Lord declares Himself for the restoration of Jerusalem and the Jewish people:
“…the Lord answered him; gracious His words were, gracious and full of comfort. ‘Cry it abroad, now,’ my monitor said to me, ‘this message from the Lord of hosts: Jealous, right jealous My love for Sion’s hill, deep, full deep My anger against the heathen that are so well content! I would have punished Jerusalem but lightly, it was these drove home the blow. And now, the Lord says, I am for Jerusalem again, bringing pardon with Me; Temple shall be built there for the Lord of hosts, Jerusalem shall see mason’s plummet busy once again. And this, too: A promise from the Lord of hosts! Yonder towns shall yet overflow with riches; Sion shall yet receive comfort, Jerusalem be the city of My choice.”
Zacharias, 1: 13-17
The nations in comfort are possibly those old neighbours of Juda and Jerusalem who had profited from the destruction of the Hebrew nation. These first visions of Zacharias are well populated with angelic figures, such as the prophet’s monitor. Another figure, in chapter two, performs the same service as Ezechiel’s angel companion – he prepares at first to measure the newly-restored City, still in the building. But then God interrupts to say that the City will be filled beyond measure and then, gasp, that He Himself will come to dwell among the people, and the Gentiles (other nations) will join sides with the people of God – no, they would also become the people of God!
“When next I looked up, I saw a man there that carried a measuring-line; so I asked him, whither he was bound? ‘For Jerusalem,’ said he, ‘to measure length and breadth of it.’ And at that, my angel monitor would have gone out on his errand, but here was a second angel come out to meet him. ‘Speed thee,’ said he, ‘on thy way, and tell that pupil of thine: So full Jerusalem shall be, of men and cattle both, wall it shall have none to hedge it in;’ ‘I Myself,’ the Lord says, ‘will be a wall of fire around it, and in the midst of it, the brightness of My presence… Sion, poor maid, break out into songs of rejoicing; I am on My way, coming to dwell in the midst of thee,’ the Lord says. ‘There be nations a many that shall rally that day to the Lord’s side; they, too, shall be people of Mine, but with thee shall be My dwelling.’ Doubt there shall be none it was the Lord of hosts sent me to thy aid. Juda the Lord shall claim for His own, His portion in a holy land; still Jerusalem shall be the city of His choice. Be silent, living things, in the Lord’s presence; yonder in His holy dwelling all is astir.”
Zacharias, 2: 1-5, 10-13
Chapter three describes the recommissioning of the Sadocite priesthood in the high-priest Josue (aka. Joshua), because the continuation of that line of priesthood was still important to the service of the new Temple. But what I find interesting there is the mention of the Dayspring, God’s Servant, the stumbling-block for the Temple authorities in the New Testament that becomes the corner-stone of a new foundation, complete with seven eyes, like the Lamb of God in the book of Apocalypse who brings forgiveness (aka. Revelation, chapter five).
“This for the hearing of the high priest Josue, and others his co-assessors, names of good omen all. Time is I should bring hither My servant, that is the Dayspring. Stone is here I will set before yonder Josue; a stone that bears seven eyes, device of my own carving, says the Lord of hosts. All the guilt of this land I will banish in a single day. That shall be a day of good cheer, the Lord of hosts says, friend making glad with friend under vine and under fig-tree.”
Zacharias, 3: 8-10
Chapter four demonstrates the work of the building of the second Temple under Zorobabel, and the growth of two dynasties, one the Davidic which would bring the Messiah, and the other the Sadocite which would provide high-priests for the Temple – both here seem to be represented by olive trees. Both are begun by anointed ones, or christs, namely Zorobabel and Josue. Chapter five describes the imprisonment of godlessness, as the two christs are crowned in chapter six. And then there’s more talk about the Dayspring who would rebuild the Temple – this may describe Zorobabel in that time, but consider also that Christ would rebuild the Temple in three days (and Saint John says in the his Gospel that Christ was speaking of the Temple that was His body, that is, a third Temple, chapter two):
“Gold and silver thou must take from them, and make crowns, to crown the high priest, Josue son of Josedec… This message thou shalt give him from the Lord God of hosts: ‘Here is one takes his name from the Dayspring; where his feet have trodden, spring there shall be. He it is shall rebuild the Lord’s temple; builder of the Lord’s temple, to what honours he shall come! On princely throne he sits, throne of a priest beside him, and between these two, what harmony of counsel!’“
Zacharias, 6: 11-13
So, that might indicate the two offices of king and high-priest existing in harmony with Zorobabel and Josue, but the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews might say to us that the harmony of the kingship of the line of King David and the high-priesthood of the Temple is brought about by none other but Christ, Who has entered once and for all into the Holy of Holies to make plea for His Church. The prophecies now moves again towards the restoration of Jerusalem (no need to continue to mourn for the City any longer, a tradition of the last seventy years of exile that the people can now let go of, chapter seven), and the renewed promise to the people (a new stability, renewed prosperity and security, restored morality, chapter eight). In the midst of all this, the people will finally rest in peace through the coming of a new ruler, a new king. And here’s some familiar language from the Gospels:
“Glad news for thee, widowed Sion; cry out for happiness, Jerusalem forlorn! See where thy king comes to greet thee, a trusty deliverer; see how lowly he rides, mounted on an ass, patient colt of patient dam! Chariots of thine, Ephraim, horses of thine, Jerusalem, shall be done away, bow of the warrior be unstrung; peace this king shall impose on the world, reigning from sea to sea, from Euphrates to the world’s end. How should they be ransomed, but by the blood of thy covenant with me, those thy fellow-countrymen, in waterless dungeons bound?”
Zacharias, 9: 9-11
A new king and possibly a new covenant, or perhaps a restoration or rewriting of an old covenant. And yet, the next few verses, and in chapter ten speak of the military success of the Jews, and perhaps hint at the military success of the priest-warriors called the Maccabees in the face of a future treacherous ruling class in Jerusalem and a cowardly priesthood there in the face of aggression against the Jewish religion by the Greeks of the remnants of Alexander the Great’s later empire. Chapter eleven is endlessly confusing, unless it refers also to the failure of the twin institutions of governor and high-priest (that Zacharias had originally set up) in the face of the Greek aggression of later times, attached to a new and Greek idolatry that overtook many among the Jewish community. This failure would have prompted a new anger on God’s part. But we’re coming to the end of the book and things are getting Messianic again. Here’s this interesting bit, where God is pierced:
“When that day comes, the men of Jerusalem shall have the Lord for their stay; the lowest fallen among them shall seem royal as David’s self, and David’s clansmen a race divine, as though an angel of the Lord marched at their head. Never a nation that marched on Jerusalem but I will hunt it down, when that day comes, and make an end of it. On David’s clan, on all the citizens of Jerusalem, I will pour out a gracious spirit of prayer; towards Me they shall look, Me Whom they have pierced through. Lament for him they must, and grieve bitterly; never was such lament for an only son, grief so bitter over first-born dead. When that day comes, great shall be the mourning in Jerusalem, great as Adadremmon’s mourning at Mageddo; the whole land in mourning, all its families apart.”
Zacharias, 12: 8-12
This is, of course, what the Apostle Saint John speaks of to great effect when he portrays the Crucifixion of Christ and the piercing of the Body of Christ (Gospel of S. John, 19:37). John, of course, had immediately before this spoken of the blood and the water that burst forth from the side of Christ, an eruption that Holy Church has often seen as her birth in the Lord. We can be sure that the prophecy of Zacharias was in the mind of Saint John, because the very next words in Zacharias are these:
“When that day comes, clansmen of David and citizens of Jerusalem shall have a fountain flowing openly, of guilt to rid them, and of defilement. A time shall come, says the Lord of hosts, when I will efface the memory of the false gods; the very names of them shall be forgotten; banish, too, the false prophets, and the unclean spirit they echo. Dares one of them prophesy again, all men will turn against him, even the parents that begot him; Still at thy lying, and in the Lord’s name? Thou shalt die for it! And with a javelin’s thrust father and mother will take the life they gave.”
Zacharias, 13: 1-3
Of course, false prophets would continue, as Christ Himself said. But the people would no longer be taken in by them, for they would themselves henceforth be guided by the Holy Spirit and by the ministerial priesthood of the Apostles, bishops and priests. Here in this chapter is the line used by Christ after the Last Supper, when the Apostles promise to remain true to Him, but He tells them that they will all lose faith in Him at once and have to rediscover that faith:
“Up, sword, and attack this shepherd of mine, neighbour of mine, says the Lord of hosts. Smite shepherd, and his flock shall scatter; so upon the common folk my vengeance shall fall. All over this land, the Lord says, two thirds of them are forfeit to destruction, only a third shall be left to dwell there; and this third part, through fire I will lead them; purged they shall be as silver is purged, tried as gold is tried. Theirs on My Name to call, their plea Mine to grant; My own people, so I greet them, and they answer, The Lord is my own God.“
Zacharias, 13: 7-9
And how they would regain that faith! Martyrs would bend head before the sword and go to the gallows thenceforth for the sake of the Shepherd, once fallen. Through great suffering they would be tried as silver and gold is tried, as the Shepherd had said they would, and reply to magistrates and rulers that the Lord is their own God. And this brings us to the last chapter, where the Lord is given to take his stand upon the Mount of Olives, as Christ did do in those last few days after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem as Messiah.
“And then the Lord will go out to battle against those nations, as He did ever in the decisive hour. There on the mount of Olives, that faces Jerusalem on the east, His feet shall be set; to east and west the mount of Olives shall be cloven in two halves, with a great chasm between, and the two halves shall move apart, one northward, one southward.”
Zacharias, 14: 3-4
On that day, on that day, on that day, living water will flow forth from the Temple in Jerusalem and God will be acclaimed King by all, a King reigning from a Cross. The evangelists all speak of a dreadful darkness that crowned the land of Juda that day, when Christ cried aloud from the Cross and the veil of the Temple was torn in two.
“Light there shall be none that day, all shall be frost and cold; one day there shall be, none but the Lord knows the length of it, that shall be neither daylight nor dark, but when evening comes, there shall be light. Then a living stream will flow from Jerusalem, half to the eastern, half to the western sea, winter and summer both; and over all the earth the Lord shall be king, one Lord, called everywhere by one name.“
Zacharias, 14: 6-9
And all the people that previously warred against Jerusalem and the Jews will fall into a single worship of the one God, Whom alone they will recognise as able to control their destinies, rule their lives, and above all forgive their sins. The feast of Tent-dwelling, Tabernacles, is associated with the day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, and comes around every year in about September. And there, with the arrival of the Gentiles into the Church of Christ, I shall end this post.
“Yet of all the nations that sent their armies against Jerusalem there shall be some remnant left; and these, year by year, shall make pilgrimage, to worship their King, the Lord of hosts, and keep his feast of Tent-dwelling. Come and worship their King they must, the Lord of hosts; else no rain shall fall on them, all the world over.“
We all know what damage bad and corrupted leaders can cause generally – how they can ruin not just a community but also the work of that community. But today we can talk about corruption among leaders of a religious community, because the readings of the Sunday give us the opportunity. And this is not only about condemning the sin and corruption of our leaders, but also about the survival of that community – for a community with bad leaders must survive them and continue on its mission, continue with its work. The prophet Malachi was brilliant at giving the Hebrew priests in Jerusalem a bit of a rap on the knuckles. These men were not only to offer sacrifices for the people, they were also to teach and demonstrate a strong moral character. Not unlike our own Catholic priests. And they failed.
“‘It is for you, priests, to see that this Law of Mine is obeyed. Give Me neither heed nor hearing,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘let My Name go unhonoured, and with sore distress I will visit you; falls My curse on all the blessings you enjoy, falls My curse …, to the punishing of your heedlessness. Arm of yours I will strike motionless, bury your faces in dung, ay, the dung of your own sacrifices, and to the dung-pit you shall go. So you shall learn your lesson; My Law I gave you,’ says the Lord of hosts, in token of My covenant with Levi’s family. Live they should and thrive, but the fear of Me I enjoined upon them; none but should fear, and hold My Name in reverence. Faithfully they handed on tradition, the lie never on their lips; safe and straight was the path they trod at My side, and kept many from wrong-doing. No utterance like a priest’s for learning; from no other lips men will expect true guidance; is he not a messenger to them from the Lord of hosts? That path you have forsaken; through your ill teaching, how many a foothold lost! Nay,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘you have annulled My covenant with Levi altogether. What wonder if I have made you a laughing-stock, a thing contemptible in all men’s sight, priests that so ill kept my command, gave award so partially? Have we not all one Father, did not one God create us all? No room, then, for brother to despise brother, and unmake the covenant by which our fathers lived. Here is great wrong in Juda, here are foul deeds done by Israel and Jerusalem! Juda, that was once content to be set apart for the Lord, has profaned that holy estate, has taken wives that worship a god he knew not. Doer of such a deed, set he or followed the ill example, shall be lost to the dwelling-place of Jacob, for all his offerings made to the Lord of hosts.”
The Holy One speaks through the prophet (here, in our first reading) to say that he is prepared to curse the Hebrew priesthood because of its waywardness and its corruption. And Malachi was a later prophet, living only a few hundred years before our Lord. There is something about religious leaders appointed by God that makes many of them prone to an abuse of their elevated social position, if not of their God-given moral authority. We can see from the Gospel reading that the religious leader of our Lord’s time – the Pharisees and scribes – experts in the moral law, of course – these men taught the Law as of old, but by their own lives had become a scandal before the Holy One, now walking as a man among them.
“Jesus addressed Himself to the multitudes, and to His disciples; ‘the scribes and Pharisees,’ He said, ‘have established themselves in the place from which Moses used to teach; do what they tell you, then, continue to observe what they tell you, but do not imitate their actions, for they tell you one thing and do another. They fasten up packs too heavy to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; they themselves will not stir a finger to lift them. They act, always, so as to be a mark for men’s eyes. Boldly written are the texts they carry, and deep is the hem of their garments; their heart is set on taking the chief places at table and the first seats in the synagogue, and having their hands kissed in the market-place, and being called Rabbi among their fellow men.”
Here He condemns them roundly for their hypocrisy, their selfishness, their self-seeking. Obey their teaching, Christ says, because they have the teaching authority of Moses, but do not copy the way they live. Do not call them Father, or Rabbi, or Teacher, because their authority is at an end; the authority of God Himself has arrived with Christ, so that there is now only one Father (in heaven) and one Teacher and Rabbi (Christ Himself). No other was at that moment worthy of these titles; the authority of the Church had not yet been established, the Holy Spirit had not yet descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost.
“‘You are not to claim the title of Rabbi; you have but one Master, and you are all brethren alike. Nor are you to call any man on earth your father; you have but one Father, and He is in heaven. Nor are you to be called teachers; you have one teacher, Christ. Among you, the greatest of all is to be the servant of all; the man who exalts himself will be humbled, and the man who humbles himself will be exalted.”
We have seen massive corruption in the Church in the last sixty years or so, when a relative handful of wretched men have committed such hideous sin as to grievously harm the people, and to forever damage the moral authority of the Church. And we still hear about other priests and bishops who despite everything have been and still are shielding the guilty and protecting them. And beyond this, the teaching office of the Church has almost dissolved, for we are often in many places not given the substance of the Faith as we were in the past. Catechesis, as many say, has suffered massively across at least two generations, so the younger among us often don’t know how to live the Christian life, if they even attend Sunday Mass. It seems that the warning of the prophet Malachi to priests is as much ours today, as it was Israel’s in the prophet’s own time, or Jerusalem’s in the time of our Lord. And now a quick word on survival. In our time, the moral authority of the Church is daily compromised in the eyes of society as a whole. I’ve just heard of a new report on sexual abuse of minors in the Spanish Church that is beyond belief. Why would anybody today want to trust the priests of the Church? Why believe what they say, when they are collectively tarnished by the deeds of a relative few?
Because there is an ideal that was established by the Holy One in His Apostles at the Last Supper, before His great sacrifice. His priests were to be like Him, being His face to the people, becoming moral fathers for them in His stead. And we know that what these wicked priests who have done so much to abuse so many people is not the ideal. And you will find the ideal of the Christian priesthood in a few words in the second reading today, from S. Paul, one of our first priests, a man who took the place of God for his people and so could be called (by the grace of God) Father, Teacher and Rabbi: he and his associates were like a mother feeding and caring for her children, willing to give their lives for them, hard workers, and evangelists. May Paul inspire new generations of priests and leaders to rebuild and revitalise the Church in our times.
“We have passed God’s scrutiny, and He has seen fit to entrust us with the work of preaching; when we speak, it is with this in view; we would earn God’s good opinion, not man’s, since it is God Who scrutinises our hearts. We never used the language of flattery, you will bear us out in that; nor was it, God knows, an excuse for enriching ourselves; we have never asked for human praise, yours or another’s, although, as apostles of Christ, we might have made heavy demands on you. No, you found us innocent as babes in your company; no nursing mother ever cherished her children more; in our great longing for you, we desired nothing better than to offer you our own lives, as well as God’s gospel, so greatly had we learned to love you.“
First letter of S. Paul to the Thessalonians, 2: 4-8 [link]
Yesterday was All Souls day, and as I was walking through the cemeteries, I thought often about why our race buries their dead, and why particularly those of Jewish and Catholic communities use such elaborate ceremonial for funeral and burial/cremation. And I remembered Tobias (Hebrew, Tobi-yah), a short story in our Old Testaments that is little used, and little known. And I thought it would be nice to walk through. Every good story is based on a real figure, even if that figure is lost in the mists of history, and Tobias was a displaced Jew from among the northern tribes, whose kingdom based at the Hebrew city of Samaria had been been destroyed by the Assyrian empire and the people dispersed. Tobias was a religious man and particularly known for burial of dead bodies that the Assyrians commanded be left to carrion birds and animals. This was a particular mark of disrespect that even Hebrews paid to foreigners they themselves disliked (such as the Phoenician princess Jezebel, who married the Israelite king Achab, and who not long before the story of Tobias had been murdered and her body left to the dogs). Not a very nice thing to do, but Tobias was different; at great risk and in defiance of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, he buried the dead…
“…it was Tobias’ daily task to visit his own clansmen, comforting them and providing for each of them as best he could, out of what store he had; it was for him to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to honour with careful burial men that had died of sickness, and men slain. When Sennacherib came home from Judaea, escaping while he might from the divine vengeance his blasphemies had brought upon him, he killed many an Israelite in his anger; and these too Tobias would bury. When this came to the king’s ears, he gave orders that Tobias should be put to death, and seized all his property; but he escaped, with his wife and son, into safe hiding; destitute as he was, he had many friends…”
And so, Tobias became an enemy of the state. But he persisted, but however accidentally lost his sight. Even his wife cursed him for his persistence in virtue, although he had apparently lost the favour of God, since he was now blind. But he, now dependent on his wife’s earnings, counselled patience and perseverance, for the Hebrews although living in exile were of ‘a holy stock.’
“Kinsman and clansman might taunt him, as Job was taunted by his fellow chieftains; might call him a fool for his pains, and ask whether this was the reward he had hoped for when he gave alms, and went a-burying; Tobias took them up short. ‘Nay,’ said he, ‘never talk thus; we come of holy stock, you and I, and God has life waiting for us if we will but keep faith with Him.’ His wife Anna went every day to work at the loom, bringing home what earnings she could; and one day it was a kid that was given her for her wages. When she brought this home, and its bleating reached her husband’s ears, he made great ado for fear it had been stolen; ‘Nay,’ he said, ‘this must be restored to its owner; never shall it be said that we ate stolen food, or soiled our hands with theft!’ ‘Fine talk,’ said she, ‘but the like hopes have played thee false already; what hast thou to shew, now, for all thy almsgiving?’ With such taunts as these even his wife assailed him.”
And so, Tobias called upon the Name of the Most High, with a wonderful little prayer that has entered into the divine office of the Church’s prayer. But Tobias is convinced that his blindness is permanent, and life has become a burden for him, and he calls for God to bring him home. And he mourns the state of his exiled people, the Hebrews, calling this exile a fitting punishment for their infidelity.
“‘Lord,’ he said, ‘Thou hast right on Thy side; no award of Thine but is deserved, no act of Thine but tells of mercy, of faithfulness, and of justice. Yet bethink Thee, Lord, of my case; leave my sins unpunished, my guilt, and the guilt of my parents, forgotten. If we are doomed to loss, to banishment and to death, if Thou hast made us a by-word and a laughing-stock in all the countries to which Thou hast banished us, it is because we have defied Thy commandments; it was fitting punishment, Lord, for the men who neglected Thy bidding, and were half-hearted followers of Thine. And now, Lord, do with me as Thy will is, give the word, and take my spirit to Thyself in peace; for me, death is more welcome than life.'”
And the prayer is heard, and the story proceeds, for an angel arrives and solves many problems for the family of Tobias, including a cure for his blindness. And the angel reminds him that he buried the dead, and that the Holy One had marked that carefully and sent the angel to him on account of it.
“‘Come, let me tell you the whole truth of the matter, bring the hidden purpose of it to light. When thou, Tobias, wert praying, and with tears, when thou wert burying the dead, leaving thy dinner untasted, so as to hide them all day in thy house, and at night give them funeral, I, all the while, was offering that prayer of thine to the Lord. Then, because thou hadst won His favour, needs must that trials should come, and test thy worth. And now, for thy healing, for the deliverance of thy son’s wife Sara from the fiend’s attack, He has chosen me for His messenger. Who am I? I am the angel Raphael, and my place is among those seven who stand in the presence of the Lord.'”
I shouldn’t end this short description of the Hebrew custom of burying the dead without mentioning the other Jewish custom of praying for the dead, a custom the Church inherited from her very Jewish Lord and His apostles. For evidence of this, we shall look to the second book of Maccabees, where the priest-warrior Judas Maccabeus encourages this custom among his soldiers. Again, the question is the burial of bodies, this time of Jewish soldiers. Unfortunately, those men seem to have fallen to the old sin of idolatry, greatly deplored. Martyrs for the nation, but fallen as sinners! What should their brother soldiers still living do for them…? Pray for their forgiveness and then lay up money for a sacrifice to be made at the Temple, for the sake of dead sinners. A pious wish, with the resurrection of those sinners in mind!
“Next day, with Judas at their head, they went back to recover the bodies of the slain, for burial among their own folk in their fathers’ graves; and what found they? Each of the fallen was wearing, under his shirt, some token carried away from the false gods of Jamnia. Here was defiance of the Jewish law, and none doubted it was the cause of their undoing; none but praised the Lord for His just retribution, that had brought hidden things to light; and so they fell to prayer, pleading that the sin might go unremembered. Judas himself, their gallant commander, gave public warning to his men, of fault they should evermore keep clear, with the fate of these transgressors under their eyes. Then he would have contribution made; a sum of twelve thousand silver pieces he levied, and sent it to Jerusalem, to have sacrifice made there for the guilt of their dead companions. Was not this well done and piously? Here was a man kept the resurrection ever in mind; he had done fondly and foolishly indeed, to pray for the dead, if these might rise no more, that once were fallen! And these had made a godly end; could he doubt, a rich recompense awaited them? A holy and wholesome thought it is to pray for the dead, for their guilt’s undoing.”
We Catholics would call the same offering (here described) a Mass for the eternal repose of the deceased. For it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, for their guilt’s undoing.
“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.”
Above is the call of the Hebrew and the Jew, and the Catholic, from the book of Deuteronomy. We shall hear much of it in our gospel reading this weekend, for Christ used it at this point in the Gospel of S. Matthew to emphasise His identification as an Orthodox Jew, in the face of the attacks of the Pharisees and the Sadducees (the party of the Temple priests in Jerusalem).
Here again is my usual comparison of the Church of the New Testament and the Old Testament People of God. God elected the children of our Father Abraham as His Chosen people, gathered several thousands of them working as slaves in Egypt and drew them under the leadership of the prophet Moses through the depths of the sea, through forty long years in the desert and through the waters of the river Jordan into the Holy Land, which He had promised Abraham would belong to his descendants. We know that the Jewish people claim this land today, which we call Palestine. But we Christians claim no land on this earth in the same way. Because our Holy Land is happiness with God in heaven. The long walk through the desert to the Holy Land for the Hebrews is for a Christian soul her passage through this life on earth. The waters through which the Hebrews passed to acquire their inheritance of land are for the Christian the waters of baptism. And the wretched (although comfortable) land of slavery which for the Hebrews was the Egypt of the Pharaohs is for the Christian the wretched (although usually comfortable) world that we live in. Christ and His Apostles called us out of the world to be a new Elect people, on the way to the eventual possession of heaven. Now, let us look at our readings, and find further comparisons.
“There must be no harrying or oppression of the aliens that dwell among you; time was when you too dwelt as aliens in the land of Egypt. You must not wrong the widow and the orphan; wronged, they will cry out to Me for redress, and their cry will be heard. My anger will blaze out against you, and I will smite you with the sword, making widows of your own wives, orphans of your own children. If thou dost lend money to some poorer neighbour among my people, thou shalt not drive him hard as extortioners do, or burden him with usury. If thou takest thy neighbour’s garment for a pledge, thou shalt give it back to him by set of sun; it is all he has to cover himself with, his body’s protection, all he has to sleep under. He has but to cry for redress, and I, the ever Merciful, will listen to him.”
Exodus, 22: 21-27
Moses tells the people in the first reading that they must not despise or oppress non-Hebrews, rather show them hospitality, for they were themselves outsiders and foreigners in Egypt; and so, let us not despise in any way non-Christians who do not share with us the promises of Christ. Moses tells the Hebrews to not be harsh with widows and orphans – that is, the dispossessed and vulnerable; and so, let us Christians be as charitable as we can with anybody in our experience who is dispossessed and vulnerable. The rest of the reading needs no comparisons. The law of Christian charity (as much as the Law of Moses) obliges us to not charge interest on loans to the poor and destitute, and to return quickly what was borrowed or taken as a pledge, if the loss of it were to seriously inconvenience the other. In fact, Christ requires us to give without hope of return, for giving is far better than receiving. In all things, after all, as Christ makes clear in the gospel story, the law is charity and endless charity. First, we owe a debt of charity, a debt of love, to the Holy One, Who created us and has blessed us and desires with a burning Heart (a furnace of love we call the Sacred Heart) to draw us to Himself. He describes this Himself in the reading, using the words of Deuteronomy at the top of this post.
“And now the Pharisees, hearing how He had put the Sadducees to silence, met together; and one of them, a lawyer, put a question to try Him: ‘Master, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and thy whole soul and thy whole mind. This is the greatest of the commandments, and the first. And the second, it’s like, is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments, all the Law and the prophets depend.'”
Gospel of S. Matthew, 22: 34-39
And so, the Law and the Prophets point to Charity, to love. Christ declares that charity to our neighbour, to those who require it – the poor, the destitute, the dispossessed – resembles the charity we owe to God Himself. We cannot declare a love for God and treat our neighbour like so much rubbish. This deep sense of charity is not common to human nature. It is taught us first by the Holy Spirit, and then learnt at the feet of Christ and of His Saints – men and women who are an example to us. Even in the New Testament, as the second reading indicates, the Church was instructed and given the example of Apostles like S. Paul and his cooperators. And love/charity is the only way to be Christian, despite persecutions of every sort.
“Our preaching to you did not depend upon mere argument; power was there, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, and an effect of full conviction; you can testify what we were to you and what we did for you. And on your side, you followed our example, the Lord’s example. There was great persecution, and yet you welcomed our message, rejoicing in the Holy Spirit…”
First letter of S. Paul to the Thessalonians, 1: 5-6
This is an interesting inheritance that Christians have from Jewish theology: the יֵצֶר הַרַע. The evil inclination. It is given by S. Paul in our reading at Mass this morning, from his letter to the Romans:
“My own actions bewilder me; what I do is not what I wish to do, but something which I hate. Why then, if what I do is something I have no wish to do, I thereby admit that the Law is worthy of all honour; meanwhile, my action does not come from me, but from the sinful principle that dwells in me. Of this I am certain, that no principle of good dwells in me, that is, in my natural self; praiseworthy intentions are always ready to hand, but I cannot find my way to the performance of them; it is not the good my will prefers, but the evil my will disapproves, that I find myself doing. And if what I do is something I have not the will to do, it cannot be I that bring it about, it must be the sinful principle that dwells in me. This, then, is what I find about the Law, that evil is close at my side, when my will is to do what is praiseworthy. Inwardly, I applaud God’s disposition, but I observe another disposition in my lower self, which raises war against the disposition of my conscience, and so I am handed over as a captive to that disposition towards sin which my lower self contains. Pitiable creature that I am, who is to set me free from a nature thus doomed to death? Nothing else than the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.“
Here’s a Wikipedia article on the evil inclination. At the very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis, when God makes the first covenant with men, with Noah specifically, He acknowledges this, when He says that mankind ‘…has all the thoughts and imaginations of his heart, even in youth, so bent towards evil,’ but nevertheless determines that ‘never again will I send affliction such as this upon all living creatures.’ [link] The affliction referred to is, of course, the flood. It is, I suppose, when evil continues to flourish after the flood that the Holy One (in the words of the liturgy) determines to fashion a remedy for mortality out of mortality itself, to bring life to the children of men from within mankind itself – by arriving Himself in the form of a man.
It may seem that S. Paul is being negative, even dismal, in the appraisal of himself here in Romans. I believe that he is showing the great virtue of humility, and himself countering the pride of our race. The perfect Law of God draws us to virtue in spite of ourselves, but does not make us virtuous of itself. That is in small part our own effort, and in greater part the action of the Holy One within us. But the Lives of the Saints demonstrate to us a constant effort on their part to overcome the ‘other disposition in my lower self,’ as Paul calls it. It takes humility to recognise that lower nature of ours that wars against our higher calling, and because it puts throws us into the hands of our Redeemer it is that humility that will be our first rescue.
This morning, we had the ordinary weekday readings, with a strong message from S. Paul on the observance of ritual purity, which is to remain within the Christian Church as it did within the Temple Judaism of Paul’s day.
“I am speaking in the language of common life, because nature is still strong in you. Just as you once made over your natural powers as slaves to impurity and wickedness, till all was wickedness, you must now make over your natural powers as slaves to right-doing, till all is sanctified. At the time when you were the slaves of sin, right-doing had no claim upon you. And what harvest were you then reaping, from acts which now make you blush? Their reward is death. Now that you are free from the claims of sin, and have become God’s slaves instead, you have a harvest in your sanctification, and your reward is eternal life.”
This was to a non-Jewish community in the capital of the Empire, in Rome. They had been called through baptism out of their ancestral religion and the immorality that implied into the Judaism of the Apostolic Church, and old habits die hard. The slavery S. Paul refers to is a voluntary slavery of the heart, and he is anxious that the hearts of the Roman Christians be given to Christ, and not to something lower and more base. They are to be not the slaves to sin, but slaves to the Holy One, Who had purchased them from the powers of darkness through the sacrifice of Christ, and named them His sons and daughters. Many centuries ago, the Holy Father S. Gregory the Great had initiated a mission to the new Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain, anxious to draw these Germanic tribes into the Catholic Church. Slowly, Christendom came to birth in Britain, and among the first flowerings of the Faith in these countries were the two brothers, Ceadda and Cedd, both made bishops.
Here’s a short life from the Catholic Encyclopaedia. Ceadda, or Chad, was a seventh-century abbot at Lastingham (Cedd, his brother, was also an abbot there, and later bishop in Essex) and named bishop first of York, and later of Lichfield. Chad was educated at Lindisfarne under S. Aidan, then went to Ireland. Cedd and Chad then established Lastingham in Yorkshire. Chad’s appointment by King Oswiu of Northumbria as bishop at York was challenged by the rather unpleasant S. Wilfrid, and Chad was asked by the archbishop of Canterbury, S. Theodore, to vacate York in Wilfrid’s favour. Theodore did not wish Chad to vanish into the obscurity of the cloisters and appointed him bishop of Mercia in AD 669. Chad built the cathedral church and monastery of Lichfield, where he lived in monastic community, while performing his episcopal duties. The relics of S. Chad were moved in the twelfth century to Lichfield, but were hurriedly removed by the Catholics following King Henry’s reformation in the sixteenth century; they are now enshrined at the cathedral church of S. Chad, seat of the archbishop of Birmingham. All we know about Chad is what has been recorded by the monk historian called the Venerable Bede, who had been instructed himself by one of Chad’s disciples.
Today’s gospel message is quite uncharacteristic for Who we may think Jesus Christ was, for He declares that He had come to bring not peace but a sword, to cause deep and painful divisions within families. This is not a call to accept a moral code per se, but a call to establish a strong and permanent allegiance to Him – a heart-to-heart with God Himself. I was thinking of Chad and Cedd as I heard this gospel; in their day the English were still mostly pagans and these men and their families were a sign of contradiction, foreigners in their own tribes and within their own societies, because they had embraced the religion of the Apostles. Every convert to Christianity understands the fire and the sword that Christ brings into families divided in their personal beliefs, some more than others. If we are to be slaves of Christ, and if no slave can serve two masters (as Christ also said), then embracing the Christian and Catholic religion, with its radical embrace of Christ to the exclusion of even family and friends, can be immensely painful. Men and women have broken relationships and given up inheritances for the sake of the promises Christ made to those who would remain with Him. In the history of the English reformation, we read of many who fled England for Continental Europe, homeless and dispossessed, because they were desirous of remaining Catholic. We also read of a handful of those refugees who returned to England as priests to bring the Sacraments to English Catholics, and who were hunted down, tortured and executed for their efforts by a ruthless protestant government. May we always remember the sacrifices men and women made in the past and make today for their attachment to Christ, and be prepared always at least in our hearts to do the same.
“Do you think that I have come to bring peace on the earth? No, believe Me, I have come to bring dissension. Henceforward five in the same house will be found at variance, three against two and two against three; the father will be at variance with his son, and the son with his father, the mother against her daughter, and the daughter against her mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
“A message from the Lord to the king He has anointed, to Cyrus. I have caught him by his right hand, ready to subdue nations at his coming, put kings to flight, open every gateway before him, so that no door can keep him out. And now (says the Lord) I will still lead thee on thy way, bending the pride of earth low before thee; I will break open gates of bronze, and cleave through bars of iron; their hidden treasures, their most secret hoards, I will hand over to thee. Know by this that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, Who am calling upon thee by thy name; and that I do it for love of My servant Jacob, of Israel, My chosen people.”
Thus begins our first reading this weekend. Isaiah the prophet in the splendid 45th chapter of that prophecy names a non-Jewish king, Koresh (or in English Cyrus), to perform a job for Him and restore the Jewish people from seventy years of exile to their own land, the Holy Land, what we know today as Palestine. The prophet even calls this Persian emperor an ‘anointed one,’ or in the Greek language, a ‘Christ.’ For Koresh has been chosen by the Holy One for this particular mission; in freeing the Jews to return and rebuild Jerusalem, some five hundred years before Christ, Cyrus would make his own contribution to establishing the environment for the birth of Christ, for the Jews would bring back to Palestine some Persian customs and even the Aramaic language of the Apostles. But the Jews returned to Palestine would not have their own sovereignty for millennia (until the establishment of the modern Zionist state). The family of our Lord would be subjected after the Persian empire to the Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great and the Seleucid Greek empire after that, and the Roman Empire at last. All of these empires had overlordship of the Jewish kingdoms, to a greater or a lesser extent. How does a religious person, such as you or I, who claim a religious allegiance to the Holy One – how do we respect these human and worldly lordships and empires? Our Lord Himself grew up in Galilee, where there were small Jewish villages and large non-Jewish towns. He would have spoken familiarly the Aramaic of the Persians, in the carpentry business of S. Joseph He would have spoken the Greek of the Macedonians, and in the synagogue the Hebrew of His heritage. So, He knew well what He was talking about when He established this character of the Christian Church:
“…the Pharisees withdrew, and plotted together, to make Him betray Himself in His talk. And they sent their own disciples to Him, with those who were of Herod’s party, and said, ‘Master, we know well that Thou art sincere, and teachest in all sincerity the way of God; that Thou holdest no one in awe, making no distinction between man and man; tell us, then, is it right to pay tribute to Caesar, or not?’ Jesus saw their malice; ‘Hypocrites,’ He said, ‘why do you thus put Me to the test? Shew Me the coinage in which the tribute is paid.’ So they brought Him a silver piece, and He asked them, ‘Whose is this likeness? Whose name is inscribed on it?’ ‘Caesar’s,’ they said; whereupon He answered, ‘Why then, give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.’
The Apostles and early priests like S. Paul knew how to live under empire and respect the human overlord – S. Paul knew also how to use the Roman systems to spread the Gospel far beyond anybody else’s expectations. They were taught by Christ to give what is due to the human emperor to him, and give what is due to the Holy One to Him. As we see in our gospel message above, the Church throughout the world (like Christ) lives and must live under human potentates and governments. The Church has always seen this as at least a divinely permitted and at most a divinely ordained system – we are meant to be thus subject to men and nevertheless remain faithful to God. Cyrus the Persian in the first reading was designated by the Holy One, and so are our governments today, for better or for worse. Often where we are, despite our belief that we are being democratically governed, we find ourselves helpless before the antics of our politicians and policy-makers. But they must have their due. And their incompetence should make us trust more and rely more upon the benevolent government of God our Lord, Who draws us on to our true end – happiness with Him forever. And so let us in every situation, as Paul says in our second reading today, continue to show our active faith, our unwearied love, our endurance in hope in Our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory and praise now and always.
“Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the Church assembled at Thessalonica in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; grace be yours and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you continually in our prayers; such memories we have of your active faith, your unwearied love, and that hope in our Lord Jesus Christ which gives you endurance, in the sight of him who is our God and Father.
First letter of S. Paul to the Thessalonians, 1: 1-3 [link]
The Mablethorpe S. Joseph parish annual general meeting took place this last Thursday, after the morning Mass, and the following are (a) the message from the Chair, and (ii) the minutes of the meeting.
Chair’s Report – AGM 2023
Firstly, a big thankyou to our regular parishioners. We have, over Covid and since, built up a good core of regulars – 55/60 each week. (Sunday).
Now a welcome to Fr. Kevin. We do have teething problems, but nothing too hard that it cannot be sorted. It is really early doors yet. Any problems are lost in the gratitude we owe for finally having a parish priest and not having to rely on the good offices of the retired ranks.
Your rep’s on the PPC have faithfully and diligently attended meetings held monthly and contributed ideas and help in many fields. I thank them for the support they have given me.
You will hear from our Health & Safety man Mr Travers later in the meeting.
Ongoing we had two young people prepared for confirmation, and currently have four preparing for First Holy Communion. So, we continue to grow; steadily and steadfastly.
Ongoing, we need to come together with Saint Mary’s. An ongoing challenge to amalgamate accounts, Gift Aid et al. I have faith it will be made to work for both congregations.
Finally, thanks to Roger for holding it all together for the past four years. Enjoy your retirement!
M. L. Chair of the PPC for Saint Joseph’s, Mablethorpe.
Minutes of an Annual general Meeting held at Saint Joseph’s, Mablethorpe on Thursday 12th October 2023 at 10.50am
Present: Fr. Kevin Athaide (President), T. L. (Chair), Fr. James Lynch, C. F., V. C., T. T., N. S., M. F. and D. H., J. W., J. W., M. M., K. A., V. J. and Deacon Roger Crowe.
Apologies: K. H., C. H., J. C. and J. M.
Introduction
T. L. announced Fr. Kevin who opened the meeting with prayer and handed it over to the chair of the PPC, T. L.
Minutes of the last meeting
Minutes of the previous AGM held on 11th October 2022 were agreed to be an accurate record of that meeting. Proposer – V. C., Seconded by M. F.
Matters arising
Monthly Draw: The draw had been suspended when Lock Down was imposed, leaving ten months of funds to be dispersed. The PPC had agreed this should take place when convenient to all and the first of the draws had taken place on Sunday 9th October 2022 when the first prize was won by Mrs. D. T. and the second prize by Mr. K. H. Prizes were drawn monthly thereafter until all funds had been distributed to winners and the scheme will not be continued for the foreseeable future as agreed at the 2022 AGM.
Confirmation of the present members of the PPC in their appointments:
The meeting was asked to approve the appointment of the present members of the council and other parish officers in their appointments pending the inaugural meeting of the PPC of the newly amalgamated parish of St. Mary’s, Louth with St. Joseph’s, Mablethorpe when the matter will be discussed again. Approved.
Reports from the PPC:
The chair gave a comprehensive report which is attached to these minutes.
Finance Report:
Each person attending was provided abridged copies of the parish finance report for FY2022/2023. A full copy was published and is available on the noticeboard in the narthex. The treasurer noted that Sunday collections were holding up well. The Excess of Income over Expenditure for the FY was around £2,000.
Parish Reports:
Gift Aid: C. F. told the meeting that the numbers of those involved in the Gift aid scheme had dropped and that membership was down on previous years. It was acknowledged that some parishioners will have dropped out of paying tax due to threshold changes over the last two years. Despite this the contribution from the Gift Aid scheme continued to be a very valuable source of income. How the scheme will be administered after amalgamation remains open.
Buildings & Grounds: T. T. reported on works required to comply with the latest Health & Safety Audit and Quinquennial inspection report. The solution to leaks on the Narthex roof and a new Fire Exit in the Fatima Shrine chapel have been agreed and approved by the diocesan buildings committee and work on the roof will start shortly.
Flowers: Deacon Roger reported that funding for flowers had started to run low regularly and some parishioners had commented upon the more regular requests for collections outside of the traditional Easter and Christmas appeals. V. C. noted that a sale of Tomatoes and Lavender Bags recently raised £41 for the Flower Fund. The Chair was asked to investigate Floral Decoration and Funding and to report back to the PPC. Action: T. L.
Red Boxes: Deacon Roger reported that he had taken responsibility for APF collections and that all monies are now processed through the parish. This is onerous as, not only are small denominations of coin heavy and have to be banked, counting and banking have become difficult as banks have closed locally. He intends to pass the Red Box collections to the representative at Louth. Action: Deacon Roger
Quinquennial Inspection and Resulting Works Services:
Deacon Roger advised that the Diocesan Property Office had requested the Diocesan Surveyor to bring forward his quinquennial inspection date for this parish that he might advise on the action we should take to resolve the water ingress into the Narthex. His recommendations were passed to Rodden & Cooper who had inspected the roof and had proposed a remedy which the diocese has agreed. The costs are generally reasonable, and the major funding element is the new fire exit and modifications to existing exits. Works will proceed shortly.
Sunday Mass Times:
Deacon Roger introduced a discussion with the Dean where Fr. Kevin was confirmed in his desire to properly accommodate liturgical and pastoral ministries at Saint Mary’s and Saint Joseph’s and was advised to bring forward the Sunday Mass time at Saint Mary’s to 9am while retaining that at Saint Joseph’s at 11.30am. He informed the meeting some parishioners had requested that the Sunday Mass at Saint Joseph’s commence earlier as the late finish precluded any social interaction which was the main thrust of our Synodal submission the deanery. Discussion concluded with Fr. Kevin deciding in favour of retaining the current Mass time of 11.30am at Saint Joseph’s. The Sunday Mass at Saint Mary’s will commence at 9am from the first Sunday of Advent. The chair will investigate the potential for tea/coffee and a chat might be possible following the Thursday Mass. Action: Fr. Kevin/T. L.
Any other business:
Fr. Kevin enquired as to the provision of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He suggested a monthly Saturday Vigil Mass at 6pm to be preceded by Confessions as a possibility and he will see if this might be possible. Perhaps he and Fr. Richard Ireson might alternate between Mablethorpe and Louth? Action: Fr. Kevin
V. C. generously volunteered to arrange for a Christmas Raffle. Action: V. C.
K. A. kindly volunteered to take minutes for future meetings. Action: K. A.
The theme of the last few weekend’s readings on the vineyard of the Lord being the House of Israel is continued this weekend. This time, the kingdom of God is not drawn as a vineyard with workers or as a vineyard with the management being changed, but as a royal wedding feast. And the feast, as given by the prophet Isaiah in the first reading, is not for a particular people or nation – not only for Israel – but emphatically for all peoples.
“A time is coming when the Lord of hosts will prepare a banquet on this mountain of ours; no meat so tender, no wine so mellow, meat that drips with fat, wine well strained. Gone the chains in which He has bound the peoples, the veil that covered the nations hitherto; on the mountain-side, all these will be engulfed; death, too, shall be engulfed for ever.”
The location of the Holy Mountain is obviously Mount Zion or Jerusalem, and the wedding feast is a Jewish wedding feast; the gospel reading demonstrates that the first invitation of guests was the Hebrew nation of Israel, the descendants of Israel. But Isaiah speaks of the veil being lifted off the eyes of non-Jewish people, so that they come running to find the God of Israel. But the message of Christ was primarily for a Jewish audience, and He is clear here that the Hebrew nation, as represented by the chief priests and the elders of the people, had not itself responded to the invitation. As the parable continues, we discover that the king who was making the invitations had sent out servants to pursue the invitations and bring the invited in, but they were employed with secular activities – literally, the things of this world.
“…he sent other servants with a fresh summons, bidding them tell those who had been invited, By this, I have prepared my feast, the oxen have been killed, and the fatlings, all is ready now; come to the wedding. But still they paid no heed, and went off on other errands, one to his farm in the country, and another to his trading; and the rest laid hands upon his servants, and insulted and killed them. The king fell into a rage when he heard of it, and sent out his troops to put those murderers to death, and burn their city….”
These servants were the prophets who had been sent for centuries, most lately S. John the Baptist. They had all been badly-treated and somehow silenced. Here again, Christ foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple (forty years later), when He says that the king in his anger dispatched soldiers to have the murderers killed and their town burnt down. The next prophecy is of the Apostolic Church, for the new servants – the Apostles and missionaries – are now sent out to invite everybody they could find with a mind to come, even non-Jews and non-Hebrews. What a great message for all of us who are not Jews, that we should be able to enter the family of God. Our song of joy is given by Isaiah in the first reading:
“…men will be saying, He is here, the God to whom we looked for help, the Lord for whom we waited so patiently; ours to rejoice, ours to triumph in the victory he has sent us.
And yet, the Lord ends the parable with a warning: there is a man invited to the wedding who had no wedding garment on, and was at once condemned to be tossed without again. Long ago, in our baptisms, we were given a literal white garment and were told by the priest baptist (whether or not we could understand, if we were baptised as infants) that we were to bring that white garment unstained before the Lord at the end of our lives. It is not easy to keep the white garment unstained, for sadly we are most of us sinners, but worse yet there are many we know (even our friends and family) who have given up their wedding garments through apostasy and denial of Christ. The response of the king in the parable, who generously invites all to the feast, is terrifying: ‘throw him without, where there is weeping and grinding of teeth.’ So, today, let us pray for the return to the practice of the faith of lapsed Christians and Catholics. For, as the Lord says…
“Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the darkness, where there shall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth. Many are called, but few are chosen.”
Mgr. Richard Moth, liaison bishop for prisons [image source]
“This year Prisoners’ Sunday – the national day of prayer and action for prisoners and their families – falls on 8th October. Prisoners’ Sunday is an important opportunity for us all to direct our thoughts and prayers to the needs of prisoners and their families, and those who work to support our brothers and sisters affected by the criminal justice system.”
Mgr. Richard Moth, liaison bishop for prisons, in his letter to priests nationally
This is where we support the PACT charity. That stands for prison advice and care trust. According to their website, they support prisons, convicts and their families. Here’s a quote from that website that we can get behind and support…
“Our vision is of a society that understands justice as a process of restoration and healing, that uses prisons sparingly and as places of learning and rehabilitation, and that values the innate dignity and worth of every human being. We work for the common good of Society, taking a public health-based approach. We work at the intersection of criminal justice, child and family welfare, mental health, wellbeing provision and health and social care.”
“The migratory flows of our times are the expression of a complex and varied phenomenon that, to be properly understood, requires a careful analysis of every aspect of its different stages, from departure to arrival, including the possibility of return. As a contribution to this effort, I have chosen to devote the Message for the 109th World Day of Migrants and Refugees to the freedom that should always mark the decision to leave one’s native land.
“‘Free to leave, free to stay’ was the title of an initiative of solidarity promoted several years ago by the Italian Episcopal Conference as a concrete response to the challenges posed by contemporary migration movements. From attentive listening to the Particular Churches, I have come to see that ensuring that that freedom is a widely shared pastoral concern.
“‘An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said: Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ (Mt 2:13) The flight of the Holy Family into Egypt was not the result of a free decision, nor were many of the migrations that marked the history of the people of Israel. The decision to migrate should always be free, yet in many cases, even in our day, it is not. Conflicts, natural disasters, or more simply the impossibility of living a dignified and prosperous life in one’s native land is forcing millions of persons to leave. Already in 2003, Saint John Paul II stated that ‘as regards migrants and refugees, building conditions of peace means in practice being seriously committed to safeguarding first of all the right not to emigrate, that is, the right to live in peace and dignity in one’s own country.’ (Message for the 90th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, 3)
“‘They took their livestock and the goods that they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and they came into Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him.’ (Gen 46:6) A grave famine forced Jacob and his entire family to seek refuge in Egypt, where his son Joseph ensured their survival. Persecutions, wars, atmospheric phenomena and dire poverty are among the most visible causes of forced migrations today. Migrants flee because of poverty, fear or desperation. Eliminating these causes and thus putting an end to forced migration calls for shared commitment on the part of all, in accordance with the responsibilities of each. This commitment begins with asking what we can do, but also what we need to stop doing. We need to make every effort to halt the arms race, economic colonialism, the plundering of other people’s resources and the devastation of our common home.
“‘All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.’ (Acts 2:44-45) The ideal of the first Christian community seems so distant from today’s reality! To make migration a choice that is truly free, efforts must be made to ensure to everyone an equal share in the common good, respect for his or her fundamental rights, and access to an integral human development. Only in this way will we be able to offer to each person the possibility of a dignified and fulfilling life, whether individually or within families. Clearly, the principal responsibility falls to the countries of origin and their leaders, who are called to practice a good politics – one that is transparent, honest, farsighted and at the service of all, especially those most vulnerable. At the same time, they must be empowered to do this, without finding themselves robbed of their natural and human resources and without outside interference aimed at serving the interests of a few. Where circumstances make possible a decision either to migrate or to stay, there is a need to ensure that the decision be well informed and carefully considered, in order to avoid great numbers of men, women and children falling victim to perilous illusions or unscrupulous traffickers.
“‘In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property.’ (Lev 25:13) For the people of Israel, the celebration of the jubilee year represented an act of collective justice: ‘everyone was allowed to return to their original situation, with the cancellation of all debts, restoration of the land, and an opportunity once more to enjoy the freedom proper to the members of the People of God.’ (Catechesis, 10 February 2016) As we approach the Holy Year of 2025, we do well to remember this aspect of the jubilee celebrations. Joint efforts are needed by individual countries and the international community to ensure that all enjoy the right not to be forced to emigrate, in other words, the chance to live in peace and with dignity in one’s own country. This right has yet to be codified, but it is one of fundamental importance, and its protection must be seen as a shared responsibility on the part of all States with respect to a common good that transcends national borders. Indeed, since the world’s resources are not unlimited, the development of the economically poorer countries depends on the capacity for sharing that we can manage to generate among all countries. Until this right is guaranteed – and here we are speaking of a long process – many people will still have to emigrate in order to seek a better life.
“‘For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ (Mt 25:35-36) These words are a constant admonition to see in the migrant not simply a brother or sister in difficulty, but Christ himself, who knocks at our door. Consequently, even as we work to ensure that in every case migration is the fruit of a free decision, we are called to show maximum respect for the dignity of each migrant; this entails accompanying and managing waves of migration as best we can, constructing bridges and not walls, expanding channels for a safe and regular migration. In whatever place we decide to build our future, in the country of our birth or elsewhere, the important thing is that there always be a community ready to welcome, protect, promote and integrate everyone, without distinctions and without excluding anyone.
“The synodal path that we have undertaken as a Church leads us to see in those who are most vulnerable – among whom are many migrants and refugees – special companions on our way, to be loved and cared for as brothers and sisters. Only by walking together will we be able to go far and reach the common goal of our journey.
Following the destruction of the Catholic Church in England by King Henry VIII in the sixteenth century and his successors (notably Queen Elizabeth I), refugees from England were welcomed by Catholic countries on the Continent, and several English Colleges were born in various places. Famous are the ones at Douai and Rheims, now long dissolved, which gave us the enduring English translation of the Catholic Scriptures called the Douai-Rheims, and again the still-extant ones at Rome and Valladolid, which are still the home of seminaries belonging to the bishops of England and Wales. We have just been notified by e-mail of a new history of the English College in Lisbon, only dissolved in 1972, which is now available for purchase. The communiqué we have been sent is below…
“THE ENGLISH COLLEGE AT LISBON, 1622-1972 Simon P. Johnson Gracewing 2023
“The English College in Lisbon was unique in being the only continental college to be controlled by the secular clergy of England from its inception to its closure: a ‘diocesan’ seminary on the model instituted by the Council of Trent but serving an entire country. Its origins go back to the early seventeenth century when the sympathy of a Portuguese noble, Dom Pedro Coutinho, for the sufferings of English Catholics prompted him to fund the establishment of the College of Saints Peter and Paul in 1622. This marked the beginning of a virtually unbroken record of providing priests for England and Wales until obliged to close in 1972. Simon Johnson has provided a succinct and lively account of the college’s fortunes, between poverty and riches, neglect and Portuguese royal favour. Established at a time of penal persecution in England, it found itself able as a British establishment to help negotiate the marriage of Catherine of Braganza and Charles II, and at times of violent anti-Catholic political sentiment in Portugal was able to provide a safe haven for Lisbon inhabitants to worship, both students and staff blithely ignoring the prohibition of the public display of clerical dress. Forced to close at the end of the Second World War, it found new life in 1948 under the presidency of Mgr James Sullivan (later awarded OBE for his service to Anglo-Portuguese understanding). Generations of students from widely differing backgrounds studied together: former Royal Navy officers found themselves rubbing shoulders with ex-National Servicemen, journalists, teachers and teenagers fresh from school. With a foreword by the Duke of Braganza, the book has already re-energised interest in the college’s place in the religious and political history of both England and Portugal.
“The book is available directly from Gracewing or from Amazon Books, priced £25.00.”
These two words, which begin one of the recent documents of the Holy Father, mean ‘the joy of the Gospel.’ I’m a little late with this post, but I did promise to have something on the parish website. To begin with, the Holy Father has hoped that we would be preparing wow the jubilee year celebrations in 2025, in two ways:
in 2023, reflecting on the larger documents of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, called constitutions; and
in 2024, deepening our lives of prayer with a particular focus on the Lord’s Prayer, in 2024.
We are called to be joyous in proclaiming our faith. This weekend, we heard something about the ‘Mission Directorate’ of the Bishops’ Conference. According to the website of the bishops, this promotes ‘the work of encounter and evangelisation,’ and through which, ‘the vision of the Holy Father is embraced in a fuller way,’ promoting ‘the whole ideal of of proclamation, evangelisation, dialogue and catechesis.’ It would do us well to support them and pray for real benefits from all these efforts. The Mission Directorate has produced a series of videos on the four Constitutions which reflect on the Liturgy, the Word of God, the Church and on its role in the modern world. Find out more here: https://www.cbcew.org.uk/evangelii-gaudium-sunday.
A range of resources is being prepared for the Year of Prayer in 2024 which include a course on the Lord’s Prayer from small groups for Lent, encouragement to try different ways of praying from the tradition of the Church. The Mission Directorate will be supporting the Jubilee co-ordinator appointed by each diocese. The second collection for Evangelii Gaudium Sunday will support the work carried out by the Mission Directorate on behalf of the Bishops’ Conference. Some of these are visible at the above-linked webpage.
I shall conclude this short post with links to the original constitutional documents of the Second Vatican Council:
But, apart from our blessed Lord, Paul was the greatest heart in the writings of the New Testament, able to create several local churches with or without the existence of a local Jewish synagogue, to a great extent by his own personal influence. Probably because of his ability to foster deep friendships with his converts and to carry these on across vast distances, through the use of letter-writing. Letters became a primary means of uniting the churches in various parts of the Roman empire, which seems to have had an excellent and reliable postal system for the times.
Saint Paul, according to the later part of the letter, doesn’t seem to have visited Rome before, for he says that he had made it a point to not visit areas that had already received Christian missionaries. And, of course, by the time of this letter, the Apostle Saint Peter had already set up his chair as bishop somewhere in the city of Rome. I remember once reading that a possible origin story for this letter to the Romans was an invitation from Peter to Paul to write it. Why? Because, whilst Peter had exerted himself with the mission to the Jewish communities, Paul had specialised in missions to the non-Jewish, or Gentile, believers. And Peter was in a particular quandry: at some point we are not certain of, the Emperor Claudius had expelled all the Jews from Rome. We know this from the Acts of the Apostles:
“Here he met a Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who, with his wife Priscilla, had lately come from Italy, when Claudius decreed that all Jews should leave Rome.”
Acts of the Apostles, 18: 2
Before this point, the Roman church had been mostly Jewish. With the expulsion of the Jews, it naturally became almost entirely non-Jewish, but continued to grow. When the expulsion ended, the Roman Jewish Christians who returned found themselves in a new situation: a majority Gentile church. And poor, dear Peter had to handle the consequent tensions between the Jewish Christians, who still felt bound to the Law of Moses (especially the dietary rules), and the Gentile Christians, who revelled in the freedom granted them by Christ. We see a little of this towards the end of the letter, when Paul tells the feuding Christians to exercise charity:
“And if thy brother’s peace of mind is disturbed over food, it is because thou art neglecting to follow the rule of charity. Here is a soul for which Christ died; it is not for thee to bring it to perdition with the food thou eatest. We must not allow that which is a good thing for us to be brought into disrepute. The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking this or that; it means rightness of heart, finding our peace and our joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Romans, 14: 15-17
Therefore, if your Jewish Christian wants to observe the dietary rules, don’t give him or her any grief over it. Just co-exist, for the sake of the kingdom of God… The whole letter is a prolonged defence of the Jewish people who have largely rejected the Catholic gospel, leaving only a remnant (the Jewish Christians):
“So it is in our time; a remnant has remained true; grace has chosen it. And if it is due to grace, then it is not due to observance of the law; if it were, grace would be no grace at all. What does it mean, then? Why, that Israel has missed its mark; only this chosen remnant has attained it, while the rest were blinded; so we read in scripture, God has numbed their senses, given them unseeing eyes and deaf ears, to this day.”
Romans, 11: 5-8
Paul is himself a Jew, one of this remnant, and he feels deeply for the others. In those days, there was no very sharp distinction between the Jews who didn’t believe in Christ and those who did – Jewish Christians still lived according to the Law of Moses. We know from the Acts of the Apostles that the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem continued with the Temple observances, and that would mean the synagogue observances also. This would naturally have set them apart from the non-Jewish Christians. Paul demands that the Jewish Christians (those who are circumcised) remember that Christ came to ‘relieve their needs’ as Jews, and the Gentiles Christians remember that they are indebted to the mercy of God for their own being Christians.
“You must befriend one another, as Christ has befriended you, for God’s honour. I would remind those who are circumcised, that Christ came to relieve their needs; God’s fidelity demanded it; He must make good His promises to our fathers. And I would remind the Gentiles to praise God for His mercy. So we read in scripture, ‘I will give thanks to Thee for this, and sing of Thy praise, in the midst of the Gentiles;’ and again it says, ‘You too, Gentiles, rejoice with His own people;’ and again, ‘Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles; let all the nations of the world do Him honour;'”
Romans, 15: 7-11
Get along, please, you’re all Christians, he seems to say. It’s impossible to walk through all the contents of this letter in a short blog-post, but it’s worth noting once more, Paul’s solicitude for his own people, who he expects to eventually be reconciled with the Christian message, although at the moment they have denied it, and so have forfeited their right to Christian believers, Jews and Gentiles:
“Tell me, then, have [God’s people, the Jews] stumbled so as to fall altogether? God forbid; the result of their false step has been to bring the Gentiles salvation, and the result of that must be to rouse the Jews to emulate them. Why then, if their false step has enriched the world, if the Gentiles have been enriched by their default, what must we expect, when it is made good? (I am speaking now to you Gentiles.) As long as my apostolate is to the Gentiles, I mean to make much of my office, in the hope of stirring up my own flesh and blood to emulation, and saving some of them. If the losing of them has meant a world reconciled to God, what can the winning of them mean, but life risen from the dead?”
Romans, 11: 11-15
And there is the kind heart I meant earlier, and the personal influence surely follows from that. Throughout the letter, he not only counsels Christians to bear with each other in their differences, but he refuses to exclude the Jewish people from the final reward of ‘life risen from the dead.’ Anyway, I shall end here, by mentioning the absolute crowd of Christians in Rome Paul seems to know already, probably because he had met them on his travels through Asia, Macedonia and Greece. It must have been a small world, the Roman world, that could sustain this type of pan-European-and-Asian network of churches and Christians. Paul tells the Romans of his desire to both visit them finally (in spite of the presence of an Apostle in Rome) and continue on to Spain. Some people think he may have made it to Spain, although the New Testament only informs us of one imprisonment of Paul in Rome. Whether there was only one, or two, it is striking that, by the end of the first century, Peter and Paul were seen as joint founders of the Roman church.
We are trying to improved the look of both the website and newsletter, so changes are on the way. Suggestions from parishioners and visitors are welcome, so do let us know via the contacts page. We shall also begin using a new e-mail address from this weekend.
The Bishop’s letter, which will be read out at Masses this weekend, can be downloaded using the button above. He commends to us the Catholic education service in our Diocese, invites us to support the work with prayer and through fund-raising. And he calls for more directors and governors to be appointed to the multi-academy trusts. Here are a few associated messages.
In our pastoral letter [this weekend], Bishop Patrick is seeking to appoint new foundation directors and governors for our Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts and schools. If you would like to know more about these rewarding voluntary roles, please contact Peter Giorgio (Director of Education) by emailing the Director’s PA, Julie Sweeney (julie.sweeney@nottingham-des.org.uk) or by telephoning 01332 293833.
Ahead of Education Sunday, the Catholic Union is encouraging people to sign an open letter to the Education Secretary calling for the 50 percent cap on faith-based admissions to new free schools to be lifted. The cap is preventing the Catholic Church in England from taking part in the free schools programme. The letter is available to sign at www.catholicunion.org.uk.
I saw a recent twittering about the awful language used by our Lord to the Syro-Phoenician woman in the gospel message this weekend. He said that the food of the children should not be tossed to the house-dogs. Does that mean He is calling a Gentile woman a house-dog. By no means. It seems to me that he is using Jewish slurs of His time against Gentiles to test the faith of the woman. Let’s have a look at the story.
“Jesus left those parts and withdrew into the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon. And here a woman, a Chanaanite by birth, who came from that country, cried aloud, ‘Have pity on me, Lord, Thou Son of David. My daughter is cruelly troubled by an evil spirit.’ He gave her no word in answer; but His disciples came to Him and pleaded with Him; ‘Rid us of her,’ they said, ‘she is following us with her cries.’ And He answered, ‘My errand is only to the lost sheep that are of the house of Israel.’ Then the woman came up and said, falling at His feet, ‘Lord, help me.’ He answered, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ ‘Ah yes, Lord,’ she said; ‘the dogs feed on the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ And at that Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, for this great faith of thine, let thy will be granted.’ And from that hour her daughter was cured.”
The poor woman is clearly not a Jew, but she demonstrates that she doesn’t have to be to earn the favour of the Holy One of Israel. It was not unusual in the Hebrew Scriptures for non-Jews to receive great favours. Elsewhere in the gospel, Christ makes mention of people like the widow of Zarephath, whose son was resurrected from death by the prophet Elias/Elijah and the Syrian army-captain Naaman who was cured of leprosy by the prophet Elisha. In both these cases, the miracle enables the the Gentile (non-Jew) to acquire into the faith of Israel in the eternal God. We may consider that this Canaanite woman of the gospel story became a Christian in due course.
The first reading this weekend is a prophecy of Isaiah. God, speaking through the prophet, says that foreigners (read Gentiles, non-Hebrews, or non-Jews) would be drawn to His holy mountain. I think we may say with the Apostles that this holy mountain is the Apostolic Church established by Christ. This message was not always welcome to Jewish ears: that the time had come for the promises made by God to the Hebrews to be applied to non-Jews. It took a long time for the Apostles themselves to realise this, as is given by the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles. Here, the first bishop of Jerusalem, S. James, upon hearing of the vision of S. Peter (called Simon here) that God accepts non-Jews, and the stories of Paul and Barnabas of the further miracles worked among the Gentiles of Asia Minor, makes declaration of it…
“Then the whole company kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul describing all the signs and wonders God had performed among the Gentiles by their means. And when they had finished speaking, James answered thus, ‘Listen, brethren, to what I have to say. Simon has told us, how for the first time God has looked with favour on the Gentiles, and chosen from among them a people dedicated to His Name. This is in agreement with the words of the prophets, where it is written: Afterwards, I will come back, and build up again David’s tabernacle that has fallen; I will build up its ruins, and raise it afresh; so that all the rest of mankind may find the Lord, all those Gentiles among whom My Name is named, says the Lord, Who is the doer of all this. God has known from all eternity what He does to-day. And so I give my voice for sparing the consciences of those Gentiles who have found their way to God…”
Acts of the Apostles, 15: 12-19
Even today, it is rare to find a Jew who is happy to discover that the Christian Church is Jewish in her constitution. And many Christians seem to have forgotten it. But S. Paul is clear in his letter to the Romans, which gives us a text for our second reading at Mass this evening. The ‘pagans’ Paul speaks to in our lectionary texts today are the Gentile Christians who, in the Roman church that received Paul’s letter, had begun to outnumber the Jewish Christians. For Rome was the centre of a vast empire, which was by far non-Jewish. Paul wishes to create peace within a church in conflict, to establish a spirit of charity between Christians both Gentile and Jewish in Rome. It would seem that the house-dogs of the gospel message also were beginning to look down upon the children in general, who had to a large extent rejected Christ and so forfeited the rewards brought them by Christ as the Holy One of Israel. So, Paul says that Gentile Christians should not despise Jews who do not accept Christ, for they too will one day be joined to the Church…
“If the losing of them has meant a world reconciled to God, what can the winning of them mean, but life risen from the dead? When the first loaf is consecrated, the whole batch is consecrated with it; so, when the root is consecrated, the branches are consecrated too. The branches have been thinned out, and thou, a wild olive, hast been grafted in among them; sharest, with them, the root and the richness of the true olive. That is no reason why thou shouldst boast thyself better than the branches; remember, in thy mood of boastfulness, that thou owest life to the root, not the root to thee. Branches were cut away, thou wilt tell me, so that I might be grafted in. True enough, but it was for want of faith that they were cut away, and it is only faith that keeps thee where thou art; thou hast no reason for pride, rather for fear…”
Letter of S. Paul to the Romans, 11: 15-20
Thus, the losing of the greater number of Jews through their refusal to accept Christ has resulted in the Apostles gathering together more non-Jews into the Church, so causing ‘a world reconciled to God.’ This new community of Gentile Christians he calls a wild olive tree grafted onto the old olive tree of Israel which has been consecrated and revitalised by Christ. And the wild olive tree shares ‘the root and the richness’ of the old olive tree. So, Christians cannot despise their Hebrew roots, from which they draw life. And they cannot forget to pray that they themselves remain grafted onto that tree, for if the unbelieving among the Jews could be branches cut away through a ‘want of faith,’ that could easily happen to Christians also.
So, let us pray for an increase in faith. And let us pray for the Jewish communities, who are still called by the Name of the Holy One of Israel. For, as Paul says later on,
“In the preaching of the Gospel, God rejects them, to make room for you; but in His elective purpose He still welcomes them, for the sake of their fathers; God does not repent of the gifts He makes, or of the calls He issues.”
This weekend by a coincidence, the feast day of the Transfiguration falls on the Sunday and, being a feast, ranks with the Sunday and is able to ride over the Sunday, filling our churches with white, a colour that is vividly described in the gospels by the men who heard first-hand descriptions (from the Apostles Ss. Peter, James and John) of Christ dressed in light. Dressed in light! There’s a psalm about that…
“Bless the Lord, my soul; O Lord my God, what magnificence is Thine! Glory and beauty are Thy clothing. The light is a garment Thou dost wrap about Thee, the heavens a curtain Thy hand unfolds. The waters of heaven are Thy ante-chamber, the clouds Thy chariot; on the wings of the wind Thou dost come and go.”
As we see in our second reading this Sunday S. Peter, who was charged with the other two Apostles to not reveal this vision until after the Resurrection, was eloquent in his description of it: as a lamp in some darkened room. ‘When I am gone,’ he wrote to the early Church, ‘you will remember what I have said…’ Take it away, Peter…
“And I will see to it that, when I am gone, you shall always be able to remember what I have been saying. We were not crediting fables of man’s invention, when we preached to you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and about His coming; we had been eye-witnesses of His exaltation. Such honour, such glory was bestowed on Him by God the Father, that a Voice came to Him out of the splendour which dazzles human eyes; ‘This,’ it said, ‘is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; to Him, then, listen.’ We, His companions on the holy mountain, heard that voice coming from heaven, and now the word of the prophets gives us more confidence than ever. It is with good reason that you are paying so much attention to that word; it will go on shining, like a lamp in some darkened room, until the dawn breaks, and the day-star rises in your hearts.”
And what about the other two Apostles? What had they to say? James, the first of the Apostles to be killed didn’t write anything we have preserved, but John wrote us another gospel, notoriously missing out this crucial story from it, the story of the Transfiguration. But, he did write a nice long letter which we have preserved. And it begins like this…
“Our message concerns that Word, Who is life; what He was from the first, what we have heard about Him, what our own eyes have seen of Him; what it was that met our gaze, and the touch of our hands. Yes, Life dawned; and it is as eye-witnesses that we give you news of that Life, that eternal Life, Which ever abode with the Father and has dawned, now, on us…”
It’s all about light and light dawning on darkened minds. The picture above this article is a stylisation of the Transfiguration event, with the transfigured Christ surrounded by the figures of Moses holding the Ten Commandments (a summary of the Hebrew Law) and Elijah holding a scroll of prophecy. Long ago, Christ not yet in the form of man had given the Law to Moses and he had given the words of the prophecies through men like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Although Elijah himself left no writings, in the Jewish mind he represented all the prophets. The word of God in the Ten Commandments was supposed to draw men and women into a union of hearts with God: to enlighten minds. The prophecies had two functions: to call people back to the observance of the Law (and so into a union of hearts with God), and to foretell the coming of a new breakthrough. A new light, that would bring the darkness to an end. The prophet Ezekiel foretold wonderfully that God Himself would arrive as a shepherd to guide His people…
“…but now I mean to protect this flock of Mine against your greed, give beast redress against its fellow.… They shall have a single shepherd to tend all of them now; who should tend them but My servant David? He shall be their shepherd, and I, the Lord, will be their God, now that he rules them on earth; such is My divine promise to them. Such a covenant I will make as shall grant them security; beasts of prey there shall be none, safe resting, now, in the desert, safe sleeping in the woods; on My hill-sides they shall dwell, a blessed people in a blessed home, rain in its season fall on them, and blessings all the while.”
And that is the meaning of the Transfiguration event. Behold, God has arrived, clothed in light. He is both the Good Shepherd of Ezekiel and the Son of David of the prophecy, to rule us upon earth. In the transfigured Christ, the Jewish Messiah is revealed to the startled Apostles as the fulfilment of Law and Prophecy.
This is the message from the Holy Father for the third World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, programmed for Sunday the 23rd of July, 2023
“Dear brothers and sisters!
“This is the theme of the third World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, and it takes us back to the joyful meeting between the young Mary and her elderly relative Elizabeth (cf. Lk 1:39-56). Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth addressed the Mother of God with words that, millennia later, continue to echo in our daily prayer: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (v. 42).
“The Holy Spirit, Who had earlier descended upon Mary, prompted her to respond with the Magnificat, in which she proclaimed that the Lord’s mercy is from generation to generation. That same Spirit blesses and accompanies every fruitful encounter between different generations: between grandparents and grandchildren, between young and old. God wants young people to bring joy to the hearts of the elderly, as Mary did to Elizabeth, and gain wisdom from their experiences. Yet, above all, the Lord wants us not to abandon the elderly or to push them to the margins of life, as tragically happens all too often in our time.
“This year, the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly takes place close to World Youth Day. Both celebrations remind us of the “haste” (cf. v. 39) with which Mary set out to visit Elizabeth. In this way, they invite us to reflect on the bond that unites young and old. The Lord trusts that young people, through their relationships with the elderly, will realize that they are called to cultivate memory and recognize the beauty of being part of a much larger history.
“Friendship with an older person can help the young to see life not only in terms of the present and realize that not everything depends on them and their abilities. For the elderly, the presence of a young person in their lives can give them hope that their experience will not be lost and that their dreams can find fulfilment.
“Mary’s visit to Elizabeth and their shared awareness that the Lord’s mercy is from generation to generation remind us that, alone, we cannot move forward, much less save ourselves, and that God’s presence and activity are always part of something greater, the history of a people. Mary herself said this in the Magnificat, as she rejoiced in God, Who, in fidelity to the promise He had made to Abraham, had worked new and unexpected wonders (cf. vv. 51-55).
“To better appreciate God’s way of acting, let us remember that our life is meant to be lived to the full, and that our greatest hopes and dreams are not achieved instantly but through a process of growth and maturation, in dialogue and in relationship with others. Those who focus only on the here and now, on money and possessions, on “having it all now”, are blind to the way God works.
“His loving plan spans past, present and future; it embraces and connects the generations. It is greater than we are, yet includes each of us and calls us at every moment to keep pressing forward. For the young, this means being ready to break free from the fleeting present in which virtual reality can entrap us, preventing us from doing something productive.
“For the elderly, it means not dwelling on the loss of physical strength and thinking with regret about missed opportunities. Let us all look ahead! And allow ourselves to be shaped by God’s grace, which from generation to generation frees us from inertia and from dwelling on the past!
“In the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth, between young and old, God points us towards the future that He is opening up before us. Indeed, Mary’s visit and Elizabeth’s greeting open our eyes to the dawn of salvation: in their embrace, God’s mercy quietly breaks into human history amid abundant joy. I encourage everyone to reflect on that meeting, to picture, like a snapshot, that embrace between the young Mother of God and the elderly mother of Saint John the Baptist, and to frame it in their minds and hearts as a radiant icon.
“Next, I would invite you to make a concrete gesture that would include grandparents and the elderly. Let us not abandon them. Their presence in families and communities is a precious one, for it reminds us that we share the same heritage and are part of a people committed to preserving its roots. From the elderly we received the gift of belonging to God’s holy people. The Church, as well as society, needs them, for they entrust to the present the past that is needed to build the future. Let us honour them, neither depriving ourselves of their company nor depriving them of ours. May we never allow the elderly to be cast aside!
“The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly is meant to be a small but precious sign of hope for them and for the whole Church. I renew my invitation to everyone – dioceses, parishes, associations and communities – to celebrate this Day and to make it the occasion of a joyful and renewed encounter between young and old.
“To you, the young who are preparing to meet in Lisbon or to celebrate World Youth Day in your own countries, I would ask: before you set out on your journey, visit your grandparents or an elderly person who lives alone! Their prayers will protect you and you will carry in your heart the blessing of that encounter. I ask you, the elderly among us, to accompany by your prayers the young people about to celebrate World Youth Day. Those young people are God’s answer to your prayers, the fruits of all that you have sown, the sign that God does not abandon His people, but always rejuvenates them with the creativity of the Holy Spirit.
“Dear grandparents, dear elderly brothers and sisters, may the blessing of the embrace between Mary and Elizabeth come upon you and fill your hearts with peace. With great affection, I give you my blessing. And I ask you, please, to pray for me.”
Given by HH Francis, at Rome S. John Lateran, on the 31st day of May, 2023, the feast day of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
We have gotten used over the last few years that the Holy Father is eager to solemnise the Sunday nearest to the feast day (the 26th of July) of the parents of the Blessed Virgin, S. Joaquim and S. Anna – that is, the Holy Grandparents – as a day to honour all our grandparents, in the same way as we honour our parents with the secular Father’s Day and Mother’s Day. This year, the Apostolic Penitentiary has announced that the Holy Father has granted a plenary indulgence for the Faithful who take part in this Third World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, on the 23rd of July.
The conditions for gaining the plenary indulgence are:
the participation in the solemn Mass offered in the presence of the Holy Father at S. Peter’s basilica on Vatican hill, or attendance at Mass on that day in various parts of the world.
the usual conditions of sacramental Confession, reception of the Eucharist, and prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father.
A plenary indulgence offers remission of the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven, which can be applied to oneself or to the souls in Purgatory. The Apostolic Penitentiary extends the same Plenary Indulgence to those who dedicate significant time to visit – either in person or by virtual means of communication – their elderly brothers and sisters who are in need or facing difficulties, such as the sick, abandoned, and those with disabilities.
For people who are unable to leave their homes due to serious reasons, spiritual participation in Mass celebrated for the World Day through prayer, offering their sufferings, and joining in the broadcasts of the Pope’s various celebrations will also grant them the opportunity to obtain a plenary indulgence. However, the indulgence requires that the faithful maintain detachment from sin and intend to fulfil the three usual conditions as soon as possible.
And they are both men I knew and worked with. I knew Father Gradwell when he joined my seminary during my last months there as a permanent deacon preparing for the priesthood, following the death of his wife Susan. As for the Reverend Stephen Doona, he was our active deacon at the Cathedral when I worked there, many years ago, going in retirement for ill health not long before I left the Cathedral for my placement in Leicester. I did not know Mrs. Gradwell at all, but Mr. and Mrs. Doona I shall never forget.
Father Kevin Gradwell went to the Lord on the 1st day of July. Born on the 29th day of August 1950, he at first studied for the priesthood, before meeting Susan and settling down with her at Marple Bridge S. Mary. Following a career in the civil police, he was called to support students of the seminary at the English College in Valladolid, in Spain. I remember his stories of his regular ferrying with his van of cargo for students from England to Valladolid in the summers – a grave act of generosity, I always thought. Having retired, he was soon ordained a deacon in March, 2010. When Susan passed away, he applied to the priesthood and joined us at the seminary of the archbishop of Westminster, at Allen Hall, in Chelsea. He was ordained not long before myself at the Cathedral and spent his priestly ministry in the High Peak, working along with the ailing Father John Cairns at Chapel-en-le-Frith, while assisting at Marple Bridge and New Mills. He generously agreed to serve as parish priest at Grantham S. Mary Immaculate at the end of 2020, but was forced within a few months to retire to Marple Bridge for ill health. I shall always remember his big smile, even when he was in great pain and discomfort. May he rest now in the peace of Christ. His body will be received at Marple Bridge S. Mary on the 27th of July at 18.00, and the Mass in requiem will be offered by the Bishop on Friday the 28th of July at 11.30.
The Reverend Stephen Doona also went to the Lord on the 1st day of July. He married Liz at Calverton S. Anthony and they settled down at Syston Divine Infant of Prague, working in catering. Stephen began to work at Emmanuel House in Nottingham in the 90s and, with Liz and their son, began to attend the diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes, while they lived at Eastwood OL of Good Counsel. Stephen was soon drawn to the permanent diaconate and ordained by the Bishop at the Cathedral in February, 2006. Stephen has worked as a deacon in both Eastwood and at the Cathedral, where he also had a ministry to those in bereavement, as I well remember. He was forced to retire from this work for ill health, roundabout 2017. May he rest now in the peace of Christ.
Ever since this idea was given me by a fellow priest of the diocese, I have endeavoured to find my way regularly through all of Sacred Scripture, for if you don’t go to it you don’t quite get it in full. The liturgical sequence we get at daily Masses, even for those of us who can attend Holy Mass every single day, is quite inadequate. And the Sundays, if we attend on Sundays only, give us even less. And, of course, the readings prepared for the Masses are often cut and pasted in ways that extract very significant parts of the whole.
The solution is to actually grab for the Book of books, and make a brave attempt of our own. It’s not easy, since the Bible is not a single book, but a library of books, and each of those books has overall a certain genre. It’s not like reading a single modern book which has the same manner and presentation throughout. Among the various genres we find in the Bible are: history, poetry, narrative storytelling, prophecy, apocalyptic vision… Even the history in the Bible is not history as we understand it today, and many books have a mixture of the above: history and poetry, storytelling and vision, etc. We may not always understand what we’re reading – but it’s good to make a stab of it and get it done. So, there is an element of endurance.
My sister recently got me a copy of the Augustine Bible (pictured above), which is the English Standard Version translation, and a Catholic edition, so it should have all the books of the Catholic canon. I’m going to start working my way through it, beginning today. Below, you should find a list of the books of the Bible, and I shall update this post regularly, as I find my way through over the next few months. Having grown up with computers, I depend on progress bars, and this post is the progress bar I shall use for the Augustine Bible. Let’s go…
Bible progress: 8% (currently Genesis 36%, Book of Psalms 8%, Gospel of S. Matthew 24%)
Joshua/Iosue (0%) Judges (0%) Ruth (0%) I Kings/1 Samuel (0%) II Kings/2 Samuel (0%) III Kings/1 Kings (0%) IV Kings/2 Kings (0%) I Paralipomena/1 Chronicles (0%) II Paralipomena/2 Chronicles (0%) I Esdras/Ezra (0%) II Esdras/Nehemiah (0%) I Machabees (0%) II Machabees (0%)
3. Traditional literature (much historical material)
Tobias (0%) Judith (0%) Esther (0%) Job (0%) Psalms (8%) Proverbs (0%) Ecclesiastes (0%) the Wisdom of Solomon (0%) Ecclesiasticus/Sirach (0%) the Song of Songs (0%)
Romans (0%) I Corinthians (0%) II Corinthians (0%) Galatians (0%) Ephesians (0%) Philippians (0%) Colossians (0%) I Thessalonians (0%) II Thessalonians (0%) I Timothy (0%) II Timothy (0%) Titus (0%) Philemon (0%) the Letter to the Hebrews (0%)
8. The letters of the Apostles
James (0%) I Peter (0%) II Peter (0%) I John (0%) II John (0%) III John (0%) Jude (0%)
Sister Justine Mulcahy PBVM (+), of the Presentation Sisters, whom I knew when she was still making parish visits at Eyres Monsell, just south of Leicester City. Sister was of Newcastle West, Limerick, entered the Order at Castleconnell in Ireland, before a foreign mission to India, eventually finding her way back to England, and working across the Diocese through the several Presentation houses we have had, most latterly the one at the parish church of S. John Bosco at Eyres Monsell. She had moved to the convent at Matlock because of her last illness, and died there on the 27th of June. Very dedicated to her life of consecration and to her fellow Sisters and the people she constantly ministered to, she now makes her final journey to the heavenly City. Let us remember the Presentation Sisters at this time, and Sister Justine whom we shall ever remember.
The longest psalm of the Book of Psalms in our Bibles is number 118 according to the ancient Greek numbering in our Catholic Bibles, and 119 according to the masoretic Hebrew numbering that most modern Bibles use. The psalm is wonderfully repetitive because it is a long prayer and hymn to the Holy One, that He increase in our hearts the love of the Torah, His own holy Law and Guidance for our lives as human beings – and that He do this despite the worst of circumstances. This love of the Torah for the sake of the Holy One was the great strength of the Hebrew people and continues to be for their remnant, the Jewish nation. And it is the great strength of Holy Church, who recognises in Christ the Torah incarnate – the Word of God in the flesh. Let’s have a look at psalm 118, but as we go through it, let’s replace ‘law’ or ‘commandments’ or ‘decrees’ in our minds with ‘Christ’ or ‘gospel,’ and ‘covenant’ with ‘love’ or ‘Church’ – which is a sacrament of the love of God – and see how it sounds. In the following translation, the translator Monsignor Knox has used an acrostic-type mechanism, by which he has composed successive stanzas of the psalm to have each line beginning with a particular alphabet – an old Hebrew trick.
Ah, blessed they, who pass through life’s journey unstained, who follow the Law of the Lord! Ah, blessed they, who cherish His decrees, make Him the whole quest of their hearts! Afar from wrong-doing, Thy sure paths they tread. Above all else it binds us, the charge Thou hast given us to keep. Ah, how shall my steps be surely guided to keep faith with Thy covenant? Attentive to all Thy commandments, I go my way undismayed. A true heart’s worship Thou shalt have, Thy just awards prompting me. All shall be done Thy laws demand, so Thou wilt not forsake me utterly.
Best shall he keep his youth unstained, who is true to Thy trust. Be Thou the whole quest of my heart; never let me turn aside from Thy commandments. Buried deep in my heart, Thy warnings shall keep me clear of sin. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, teach me to know Thy will. By these lips let the awards Thou makest ever be recorded. Blithely as one that has found great possessions, I follow Thy decrees. Bethinking me still of the charge Thou givest, I will mark Thy footsteps. Be Thy covenant ever my delight, Thy words kept in memory.
Crown Thy servant with life, to live faithful to Thy commands. Clear sight be mine, to contemplate the wonders of Thy law. Comfort this earthly exile; do not refuse me the knowledge of Thy will. Crushed lies my spirit, longing ever for Thy just awards. Chastener of the proud, Thy curse lies on all who swerve from Thy covenant. Clear me of the reproach that shames me, as I was ever attentive to Thy claims. Closeted together, princes plot against me, Thy servant, that thinks only of Thy decrees. Claims lovingly cherished, decrees that are my counsellors!
Deep lies my soul in the dust, restore life to me, as Thou hast promised. Deign, now, to shew me Thy will, Thou who hast listened when I opened my heart to Thee. Direct me in the path Thou biddest me follow, and all my musing shall be of Thy wonderful deeds. Despair wrings tears from me; let Thy promises raise me up once more. Deliver me from every false thought; make me free of Thy covenant. Duty’s path my choice, I keep Thy bidding ever in remembrance. Disappoint me, Lord, never, one that holds fast by Thy commandments. Do but open my heart wide, and easy lies the path Thou hast decreed.
Expound, Lord, Thy whole bidding to me; faithfully I will keep it. Enlighten me, to scan Thy law closely, and keep true to it with all my heart. Eagerly I long to be guided in the way of Thy obedience. Ever let my choice be set on Thy will, not on covetous thoughts. Eyes have I none for vain phantoms; let me find life in following Thy ways. Establish with me, Thy servant, the promise made to Thy worshippers. Ease me of the reproach my heart dreads, Thou, whose awards are gracious. Each command of thine I embrace lovingly; do Thou in Thy faithfulness grant me life.
For me too, Lord, Thy mercy, for me too the deliverance Thou hast promised! Fit answer for those who taunt me, that I rely on Thy truth. Faithful Thy promise, let me not boast in vain; in Thy covenant lies my hope. For ever and for evermore true to Thy charge Thou shalt find me. Freely shall my feet tread, if Thy will is all my quest. Fearlessly will I talk of Thy decrees in the presence of kings, and be never abashed. Fain would I have all my comfort in the Law I love. Flung wide my arms to greet Thy Law, ever in my thoughts Thy bidding.
Go not back on the word Thou hast pledged to Thy servant; there lies all my hope. Good news in my affliction, Thy promises have brought me life. Ground down by the scorn of my oppressors, never from Thy Law I swerve aside. Gracious comfort, Lord, is the memory of Thy just dealings in times long past. Great ruth have I to see wrong-doers, and how they abandon Thy Law. Gone out into a land of exile, of Thy covenant I make my song. Gloom of the night finds me still thinking of Thy Name, Lord, still observant of Thy bidding. Guerdon I ask no other, but the following of Thy will.
Heritage, Lord, I claim no other, but to obey Thy word. Heart-deep my supplication before Thee for the mercies Thou hast promised. Have I not planned out my path, turned aside to follow Thy decrees? Haste such as mine can brook no delay in carrying out all Thy bidding. Hemmed in by the snares which sinners laid for me, never was I forgetful of Thy Law. Hearken when I rise at dead of night to praise Thee for Thy just dealings. How well I love the souls that fear Thee, and are true to Thy trust! How Thy mercy fills the earth, Lord! Teach me to do Thy will.
In fulfilment of Thy promise, Lord, what kindness Thou hast shewn Thy servant! Inspire, instruct me still; all my hope is in Thy covenant. Idly I strayed till Thou didst chasten me; no more shall Thy warnings go unheeded. Indeed, indeed Thou art gracious; teach me to do Thy bidding. In vain my oppressors plot against me; Thy will is all my quest. Inhuman hearts, curdled with scorn! For me, Thy Law is enough. It was in mercy Thou didst chasten me, schooling me to Thy obedience. Is not the Law Thou hast given dearer to me than rich store of gold and silver?
Jealous for the handiwork Thou hast made, teach me to understand Thy commandments. Joy shall be theirs, Thy true worshippers, to see the confidence I have in Thy word. Just are Thy awards; I know well, Lord, it was in faithfulness Thou didst afflict me. Judge me no more; pity and comfort Thy servant as Thou hast promised. Judge me no more; pardon and life for one that loves Thy will! Just be their fall, who wrong me scornfully; Thy Law is all my study. Joined to my company be every soul that worships Thee and heeds thy warnings. Jealously let my heart observe Thy bidding; let me not hope in vain.
Keeping watch for Thy aid, my soul languishes, yet I trust in Thy word. Keeping watch for the fulfilment of Thy promise, my eyes languish for comfort still delayed. Kitchen-smoke shrivels the wine-skin; so waste I, yet never forget Thy will. Knowest Thou not how short are Thy servant’s days? Soon be my wrongs redressed. Knaves will be plotting against me still, that are no friends to Thy Law. Knaves they are that wrong me; bring aid, as Thy covenant stands unchanging. Keep Thy bidding I would, though small hope of life they had left me. Kind as Thou ever wert, preserve me; then utter Thy bidding, and I will obey.
Lord, the word Thou hast spoken stands ever unchanged as heaven. Loyal to His promise, age after age, is He who made the enduring earth. Long as time lasts, these shall stand, obeying Thy decree, Master of all. Lest I should sink in my affliction, Thou hast given Thy covenant to be my comfort. Life-giving are Thy commands, never by me forgotten. Lend me Thy aid, for Thine I am, and Thy bidding is all my quest. Let sinners go about to destroy me, I wait on Thy will. Look where I may, all good things must end; only Thy Law is wide beyond measure.
My delight, Lord, is in Thy bidding; ever my thoughts return to it. Musing still on Thy commandments, I have grown more prudent than my enemies. More wisdom have I than all my teachers, so well have I pondered Thy decrees. More learning have I than my elders, I that hold true to thy charge. Mindful of Thy warnings, I guide my steps clear of every evil path. Meek under Thy tuition, Thy will I keep ever in view. Meat most appetizing are Thy promises; never was honey so sweet to my taste. Made wise by Thy Law, I shun every path of evil-doing.
No lamp like Thy word to guide my feet, to shew light on my path. Never will I retract my oath to give Thy just commands observance. Nothing, Lord, but affliction, never the saving help Thou didst promise me? Nay, Lord, accept these vows of mine; teach me to do Thy bidding. Needs must I carry my life in my hands, yet am I ever mindful of Thy Law. Nearly the snares of the wicked caught my feet, yet would I not swerve from Thy obedience. Now and ever Thy covenant is my prize, is my heart’s comfort. Now and ever to do Thy will perfectly is my heart’s aim.
Out upon the men that play traitor to the Law I love! Other defence, other shield have I none; in Thy Law I trust. Out of my path, lovers of wrong; I will keep my God’s commandments. Only let Thy promised aid preserve me; do not disappoint me of the hope I cherish. Only do Thou sustain me in safety, looking ever to Thy will. Obey Thee who will not, shall earn Thy disdain; idle is all their scheming. Outcasts they are that profane the land with wrong; for me, Thy Law is enough. Overcome is my whole being with the fear of Thee; I am adread of Thy judgements.
Protect the justice of my cause; never leave me at the mercy of my oppressors. Pledge Thyself still to befriend me; save me from the oppression of my enemies. Pining away, I look for Thy saving help, the faithful keeping of Thy promises. Pity Thy own servant, and teach him Thy decrees. Perfect in Thy own servant’s heart the knowledge of Thy will. Put off the hour, Lord, no more; too long Thy commandment stands defied. Precious beyond gold or jewel I hold Thy Law. Prized be every decree of Thine; forsworn be every path of evil-doing.
Right wonderful Thy decrees are, hard to read, and well my heart heeds them. Revelation and light Thy words disclose to the simple. Rises ever a sigh from my lips as I long after Thy covenant. Regard and pity me, as Thou hast pity for all that love Thy Name. Rule Thou my path as Thou hast promised; never be wrong-doing my master. Rescue me from man’s oppression, to wait henceforth on Thy bidding. Restore to Thy servant the smile of Thy living favour, and teach him to know Thy will. Rivers of tears flow from my eyes, to see Thy Law forgotten.
So just, Lord, Thou art, Thy awards so truly given! Strict justice and utter faithfulness inspire all Thy decrees. Stung by love’s jealousy, I watch my enemies defy Thy bidding. Shall not I, Thy servant, love Thy promises, tested and found true? Still despised and disinherited, I do not forget Thy charge. Stands Thy faithfulness eternally, Thy Law for ever changeless. Sorrow and distress have fallen on me; in Thy commandments is all my comfort. Sentence eternal is Thy decree; teach me the wisdom that brings life.
Thy audience, Lord, my whole heart claims, a heart true to Thy trust. To Thee I cry, O grant deliverance; I will do all Thy bidding. Twilight comes, and I awake to plead with Thee, hoping ever in Thy promises. Through the night my eyes keep watch, to ponder Thy sayings. Thine, Lord, to listen in Thy mercy, and grant life according to Thy will. Treacherous foes draw near, that are strangers to Thy covenant. Thou, Lord, art close at hand; all Thy awards are true. Taught long since by Thy decrees, I know well Thou hast ordained them everlastingly.
Unblessed is my lot; look down and rescue me, that still am mindful of Thy Law. Uphold my cause, and deliver me; true to Thy promise, grant me life. Unknown thy mercy to the sinner that defies Thy bidding. Unnumbered, Lord, are Thy blessings; as Thy will is, grant me life. Under all the assaults of my oppressors, I keep true to Thy charge. Unhappy I, that watch Thy warnings to the sinner go unheeded! Up, Lord, and witness the love I bear Thy covenant; in thy mercy bid me live! Unchanging truth is Thy word’s fountain-head, eternal the force of Thy just decrees.
Vexed by the causeless malice of princes, my heart still dreads Thy warnings. Victors rejoice not more over rich spoils, than I in Thy promises. Villainy I abhor and renounce; Thy Law is all my love. Votive thanks seven times a day I give Thee for the just awards Thou makest. Very great peace is theirs who love Thy Law; their feet never stumble. Valiantly, Lord, I wait on Thee for succour, keeping ever true to Thy charge. Vanquished by great love, my heart is ever obedient to Thy will. Vigilantly I observe precept and bidding of Thine, living always as in Thy sight.
Wilt Thou not admit my cry, Lord, to Thy presence, and grant me Thy promised gift of wisdom? Wilt Thou not countenance my plea, redeem Thy pledge to deliver me? What praise shall burst from my lips, when Thou makest known Thy will! What hymns of thankfulness this tongue shall raise to the author of all just decrees! Wouldst Thou but lift Thy hand to aid me, that take my stand on Thy covenant! Weary it is, Lord, waiting for deliverance, but Thy Law is my comfort. When will thy just award grant redress, that I may live to praise Thee? Wayward Thou seest me, like a lost sheep; come to look for Thy servant, that is mindful still of Thy bidding.
“Dear parishioners, in preparation for our 175th anniversary in 2025, we are developing a strategy to enable our parishes, schools, and chaplaincies to be better supported in their mission. As a first step, we are conducting a consultative phase to develop the most effective plan. Gathering a cross representation of opinions, via an e-survey, this process is designed to gauge reaction to our spiritual themes, funding priorities, assess our ability to raise additional funds and consider key fundraising aspects.
“We value your feedback as we carry out this important piece of work, and ask that you please take a moment to read an overview of our plans – CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT OUR PRIORITIES before responding to this short survey.
“We thank you in advance for your participation. This survey will be open until 12pm on Friday 30th June. Your insight will help guide us in making the right decisions for our future and for the next generation of Catholics across the Diocese of Nottingham.
“With prayer and good wishes, Diocese of Nottingham“
It’s worth repeating the historical sequence of the major prophets, and that is best done with a table. As can be seen, many of the prophets we know of appeared during the reign of King Ioatham – Osee (aka. Hosea), Michaeas (aka. Micah) and Isaias – and these three persisted into the reign of King Ezechias, joined by Nahum. These authentic prophets of the eternal God would have known each other, and we sometimes find shared material, such as with Michaeas and Isaias. Isaias even enters the historical narratives in the books of the Kings and in the Chronicles as the advisor to the good King Ezechias, when Juda was invaded by the Assyrian King Sennacherib. I suppose that the ministry of the prophets was dependent on a receptive king, and its no surprise then that the wicked King Manasses and his son Amon could not tolerate a prophet of the eternal God; they would have had yes-man court prophets, who told them what they wanted to hear. Then came the good King Josias with his multiple religious and moral reforms, and the prophets again multiplied – Sophonias (aka. Zephaniah), Habacuc and Jeremias. Jeremias had the sad duty of preaching, being ignored and watching the wrath of God descend upon the people, as Juda was successively neutralised and then Jerusalem destroyed in 587 BC, thereupon being carried off into exile in Egypt. Baruch was a scribe and a close associate of Jeremias. And Ezechiel, who was carried off with King Joachim into exile in Babylon is the last on my list. He, like Jeremias and Baruch, lived through the ordeal of the final destruction of the kingdom of Juda, although (unlike Jeremias) from afar off. The northern kingdom of Israel had perished during the reign of King Achaz of Juda, so the later kings of Ezechias formed the last of the Israelite kingdoms.
King of Juda
Period of reign at Jerusalem (BC)
Prophet
Ioatham
742-735
Osee, Michaeas, Isaias
Achaz (Iehoachaz)
735-715
Osee, Michaeas, Isaias
Ezechias (Hezekiah)
715-687
Osee, Michaeas, Isaias, Nahum
Manasses, Amon
687-640
Nobody
Josias (Josiah)
640-609
Sophonias, Habacuc, Jeremias
Joachaz, Joachim
609-598
Jeremias, Ezechiel
Joachin, Sedecias
598-587
Baruch, Jeremias, Ezechiel
The prophets aligned with the Judaean kings of their times
But this post is about Isaias son of Amos, who lived some time before the destruction of Jerusalem, but could certainly see far enough, by the grace of God, to know that this bombshell was approaching and what it would do to the people. Indeed he could see even further into the future and describe in many ways the Messianic age we are living in, so much so that he is often said to have written the fifth Gospel. I shall try to add as much of this as I can, without making this post too long. In Scripture school, you hear that there is a consensus that the book of Isaias was written in three segments, at three different periods, and later on merged together into a single book; scholars who support this theory may speak of a ‘school of Isaiah,’ composed of the prophet’s disciples, who produced the later sequences. It’s all terribly clever, I’m sure, but I shall be treating the book as a whole, as it was first given to us by the Church, and not speculating about multiple authors.
Isaias is similar to other prophets in the usual condemnations: the people have forsaken the God of their ancestors and become thoroughly idolatrous, becoming comparable to the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; their practice of the Hebrew religion is superficial and have become abominable to God; and they are morally corrupt. All this is in the first chapter, which gives us the famous call to penitence and the washing away of the filth of sin:
“‘Wash yourselves clean, spare Me the sight of your busy wickedness, of your wrong-doing take farewell. Learn, rather, how to do good, setting your hearts on justice, righting the wrong, protecting the orphan, giving the widow redress; then come back,’ says the Lord, ‘and make trial of Me. Crimson-dyed be your guilt, it shall turn snow-white; like wool new-washed yonder scarlet stain. Will you think better of it, and listen, and have rich harvests to feed you? Or will you refuse, and defy Me, and yourselves be food for the sword? The Lord has given sentence.'”
Isaias, 1: 16-20
This is very sad, because in the time of Isaias, the people still had a chance to turn back to God and find atonement with Him, but by the time of Ezechiel their chance had passed by and not even the good will of the reformer King Josias could turn back the wrath of God. There’s that wonderful bit from chapter two that is also present in Michaeas (chapter four), a picture of the Messianic age, when the Gentiles would enter the Church of God:
“In later days, the mountain where the Lord dwells will be lifted high above the mountain-tops, looking down over the hills, and all nations will flock there together. A multitude of peoples will make their way to it, crying, ‘Come, let us climb up to the Lord’s mountain-peak, to the house where the God of Jacob dwells; He shall teach us the right way, we will walk in the paths He has chosen.’ The Lord’s commands shall go out from Sion, His word from Jerusalem, and He will sit in judgement on the nations, giving His award to a multitude of peoples. They will melt down their swords into plough-shares, their spears into pruning-hooks, nation levying war against nation and training itself for battle no longer. ‘Come you too (they will say), children of Jacob, let us walk together in the path where the Lord shews us light.'”
Isaias, 2: 2-5
In chapter five, we find the story of the owner of the vineyard that was adopted by Christ after His entry into Jerusalem as Messiah (Gospel of S. Matthew, 21: 33-46), to the great rage of the Sadducees and the scribes, who realised that the original condemnation of Isaiah against the rulers of the Israelites of his time was now being levelled against them in Jerusalem by the successor of David.
“‘A song, now, in honour of one that is my good friend; a song about a near kinsman of mine, and the vineyard that he had. This friend, that I love well, had a vineyard in a corner of his ground, all fruitfulness. He fenced it in, and cleared it of stones, and planted a choice vine there; built a tower, too, in the middle, and set up a wine-press in it. Then he waited for grapes to grow on it, and it bore wild grapes instead. And now, citizens of Jerusalem, and all you men of Juda, I call upon you to give award between my vineyard and me. What more could I have done for it? What say you of the wild grapes it bore, instead of the grapes I looked for? Let me tell you, then, what I mean to do to this vineyard of mine. I mean to rob it of its hedge, so that all can plunder it, to break down its wall, so that it will be trodden under foot. I mean to make waste-land of it; no more pruning and digging; only briars and thorns will grow there, and I will forbid the clouds to water it. Alas, it is the house of Israel that the Lord called his vineyard; the men of Juda are the plot he loved so. He looked to find right reason there, and all was treason; to find plain dealing, and he heard only the plaint of the oppressed.”
Isaias, 5: 1-7
See also chapter twenty-seven, where the destruction is given as a means of disciplining the people, aimed at purifying them and cleansing them of their errors. The rest of chapter five continues the condemnation of the rulers of the people and the false prophets, who had not only led them into ruin through idolatry (see also chapter twenty-eight), but were thoroughly unjust in their dealings with ordinary people (stealing their land and possessions, for example), had neglected the warnings of the true prophets as well, and so were leading all their dependants into utter ruin (see also chapter nine). Chapter six provides us the details of Isaias’ calling and his famous cleansing of soul by the angel, sometimes used at Ordination Masses.
“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.’“
Isaias, 6: 1-8
The following chapter, chapter seven, gives us the famous prediction of the virgin birth, in response to a question from King Achaz, a rather wretched king but with a superficial piety, and yet grateful that the coalition of the northern kingdom of Israel and the Syrian kingdom would not succeed in attacking Juda. If I remember correctly, it was Achaz who had called on the help of the Assyrian king against the above-mentioned coalition and so drawn the attention of Assyria to the wealth of Juda; thereafter the Judaites would be paying tribute to the Assyrians until the end.
“The Lord sent, besides, this message to Achaz, ‘Ask the Lord thy God to give thee a sign, in the depths beneath thee, or in the height above thee.’ But Achaz said, ‘Nay, I will not ask for a sign; I will not put the Lord to the test.’ ‘Why then,’ said Isaias, ‘listen to me, you that are of David’s race. Cannot you be content with trying the patience of men? Must you try my God’s patience too? Sign you ask none, but sign the Lord will give you. Maid shall be with child, and shall bear a son, that shall be called Emmanuel. On butter and honey shall be his thriving, till he is of age to know good from harm; already, before he can tell this from that, king they shall have none, the two kingdoms that are thy rivals. As for thee, and for thy people, and for thy father’s house, the Lord means to bring upon thee such days of trouble as have not been seen since Ephraim parted from Juda, with the coming of the king of Assyria.'”
Isaias, 7: 10-17
“From the stock of Jesse a scion shall burgeon yet; out of his roots a flower shall spring. One shall be born, on whom the spirit of the Lord will rest; a spirit wise and discerning, a spirit prudent and strong, a spirit of knowledge and of piety, and ever fear of the Lord shall fill his heart. Not his to judge by appearances, listen to rumours when he makes award; here is judgement will give the poor redress, here is award will right the wrongs of the defenceless. Word of him shall smite the earth like a rod, breath of him destroy the ill-doer; love of right shall be the baldric he wears, faithfulness the strength that girds him. Wolf shall live at peace with lamb, leopard take its ease with kid; calf and lion and sheep in one dwelling-place, with a little child to herd them! Cattle and bears all at pasture, their young ones lying down together, lion eating straw like ox; child new-weaned, fresh from its mother’s arms, playing by asp’s hole, putting hand in viper’s den! All over this mountain, my sanctuary, no hurt shall be done, no life taken. Deep as the waters that hide the sea-floor, knowledge of the Lord overspreading the world! There he stands, fresh root from Jesse’s stem, signal beckoning to the peoples all around; the Gentiles will come to pay their homage, where he rests in glory.“
Isaias, 11: 1-10
It all brings a tear to the eye, these visions of the Messianic age. We Catholics may look at the flower springing from the root of Jesse as the Blessed Virgin herself, for she was of the tribe of Juda and of the family of King David, and through her agreement to the plan of God, permitted God to take human form and walk among His ancient people as He had never done before. As we can see, the main sign of the Messianic age is the entry of the Gentiles into the Church of God, the very thing the Sadducees and the scribes of Christ’s time could not tolerate (remember that even the people of Nazareth tried to kill Christ, when he mentioned this, Gospel of S. Luke, 4: 24-29). The next few chapters begin with a series of woes on all the nations that had made some form of enmity with the Israelite kingdoms, and this formula is common to the other great prophets: there was Babylon, that would be the instrument of God’s punishment of the people (chapter thirteen) and would herself one day lose her strength and be destroyed by the Persians; there was Philistia, who rejoiced in the destruction of the power of Juda during Sennacherib’s invasions (end of chapter fourteen); there was Moab, one of the earliest foes of the Israelites (chapter fifteen and sixteen); there was the Syrian power of Damascus, soon to be overrun by the Chaldeans (chapter seventeen); there was Egypt, that rejoiced in an ancient wisdom and power, but which would also be overrun by the Chaldeans (chapter nineteen); there were the Persians of Tyre, famous merchants and traders, who would rejoice in the destruction of the power of Israel and Juda, who had monopolised access to the ancient trade routes, so that all merchandise reaching Tyre passed through Israel (chapter twenty-three). The Chaldeans would wipe the slate clean with the Holy Land and its neighbouring territories, and all that would be left would be a Hebrew remnant, chosen to rebuild.
“In the midst of the wide earth, among those many peoples, what shall be left? A remnant, the last olives that are shaken from the tree, the gleanings that remain when vintage-time is over. Few only, but they shall lift up their voices in praise; God’s honour vindicated, their rejoicing shall be heard across the sea, Give glory to God, where knowledge of him is revealed; praise to the God of Israel among the distant isles; here at the ends of the earth his song of triumph has reached us, the boast of his elect.”
Isaias, 24: 13-16
And then Isaias goes Messianic again, recalling that feast on mount Sion to which Gentiles would arrive (chapter two), and we get a wonderful little piece which is echoed in the Gospels and in the book of Apocalypse (aka. Revelation) – it’s all about the freedom of the people and the removal of sadness and despair.
“A time is coming when the Lord of hosts will prepare a banquet on this mountain of ours; no meat so tender, no wine so mellow, meat that drips with fat, wine well strained. Gone the chains in which He has bound the peoples, the veil that covered the nations hitherto; on the mountain-side, all these will be engulfed; death, too, shall be engulfed for ever. No furrowed cheek but the Lord God will wipe away its tears; gone the contempt His people endured in a whole world’s eyes; the Lord has promised it. When that day comes, men will be saying, ‘He is here, the God to whom we looked for help, the Lord for whom we waited so patiently; ours to rejoice, ours to triumph in the victory He has sent us.’“
Isaias, 25: 6-9
But succeeding chapters insist that before all of this comes great destruction, devastation of all the Israelite cities and their dependencies. Chapters twenty-seven and twenty-eight begins this with another diatribe against the rulers of the people and chapter thirty and chapter thirty-one call out their diplomatic visits to Egypt, seeking for military aid as the armies of the Assyrians appear on the horizon. Pharaoh, says the prophet, is too weak to provide the support the Judaites are looking for, even if he could challenge the will of God for Juda. From chapter thirty-six, the prophecy is paused for an historical sequence which is almost identical to some of the final chapters of the fourth book of Kings, dealing with the invasion of the Assyrians under King Sennacherib and his challenge to the God of Israel. The Assyrians eventually abandon the assault on Jerusalem, thanks to the prayers of King Ezechias, buying Juda a few more years of respite. The prophetic sequence begins again with chapter forty, and a beautiful set of verses with a Messianic flavour.
“A voice came, bidding me cry aloud; asked I in what words, in these: ‘Mortal things are but grass, the glory of them is but grass in flower; grass that withers, a flower that fades, when the Lord’s breath blows upon it. The whole people, what is it but grass? Grass that withers, a flower that fades; but the word of our Lord stands for ever. Good news for Sion, take thy stand, herald, on some high mountain; good news for Jerusalem, proclaim it, herald, aloud; louder still, no cause now for fear; tell the cities of Juda, See, your God comes! See, the Lord God is coming, revealed in power, with His own strong arm for warrant; and see, they come with Him, they walk before Him, the reward of His labour, the achievement of His task, His own flock! Like a shepherd He tends them, gathers up the lambs and carries them in His bosom, helps the ewes in milk forward on their way.“
Isaias, 40: 6-11
This doesn’t quite mention the Gentiles, but it introduces what scholars call the Suffering Servant songs, which some people consider a story of the suffering nation of Israel, but which can be extremely personal, as if speaking of a single person, a particular person. And the Christian mind realises that these are startling images of Christ Himself. See this initial sequence, for example, which Christ quoted in the Gospels…
“‘And now, here is My servant, to whom I grant protection, the man of My choice, greatly beloved. My Spirit rests upon him, and he will proclaim right order among the Gentiles. he will not be contentious or a lover of faction; none shall hear his voice in the streets. he will not snap the staff that is already crushed, or put out the wick that still smoulders; but at last he will establish right order unfailingly. Not with sternness, not with violence; to set up right order on earth, that is his mission. He has a law to give; in the far-off islands men wait for it eagerly. Thus says the Lord God, He who created the heavens and spread them out, Craftsman of the world and all the world affords, He who gives being and breath to all that lives and moves on it: ‘True to My purpose, I, the Lord, have summoned thee, taking thee by the hand and protecting thee, to make, through thee, a covenant with My own people, to shed, through thee, light over the Gentiles: to give sight to blinded eyes, to set the prisoner free from his captivity, from the dungeon where he lies in darkness.’“
Isaias, 42: 1-7
Chapters forty-three and forty-four are something of a love song of God to His chosen people, in which He grumbles that they have not returned His affections and calling them back once more, all idolatry cast aside summarily. And now, chapter forty-five appoints a very particular messiah, the Median (Persian) king Cyrus, who is to vanquish the neo-Babylonian empire and permit the Judaites (now called Jews) to return to Juda and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple; the next two chapters tell of the fall of Babylon. The time of schooling over, the Messianic age beckons once more – Christ and His Church will be the light to the Gentiles, bringing salvation to the ends of the earth:
“‘Listen, remote islands; pay heed to me, nations from far away. Ere ever I was born, the Lord sent me His summons, kept me in mind already, when I lay in my mother’s womb. Word of mine is sword of His, ready sharpened, under cover of His hand; arrow He has chosen out carefully, hidden yet in His quiver. ‘Thou art My servant,’ He whispers, ‘thou art the Israel I claim for my own.’ To me, all my labour seemed useless, my strength worn out in vain; His to judge me, He, my God, must reward my work as He would. But now a new message He sends me; I am His servant, appointed ever since I lay in the womb, to bring Jacob back to Him. What if Israel will not answer the summons? None the less, the Lord destines me to honour; none the less, He, my God, protects me. ‘Use thee I will,’ He promises, ‘nor with thy service be content, when the tribes of Jacob thou hast summoned, brought back the poor remnant of Israel; nay, I have appointed thee to be the light of the Gentiles, in thee I will send out my salvation to the furthest corners of the earth.’“
Isaias, 49: 1-6
The height of the Suffering Servant verses is reached in the end of chapter fifty-two and all of chapter fifty-three, where the Sacrifice of Christ is manifested in frightening detail.
“‘See, here is My servant, one who will be prudent in all his dealings. To what height he shall be raised, how exalted, how extolled! So many there be that stand gazing in horror; was ever a human form so mishandled, human beauty ever so defaced? Yet this is he that will purify a multitude of nations; kings shall stand dumb in his presence; seen, now, where men had no tidings of him, made known to such as never heard his name.'”
Isaias, 52: 13-15
“Strayed sheep all of us, each following his own path; and God laid on his shoulders our guilt, the guilt of us all. A victim? Yet he himself bows to the stroke; no word comes from him. Sheep led away to the slaughter-house, lamb that stands dumb while it is shorn; no word from him. Imprisoned, brought to judgement, and carried off, he, whose birth is beyond our knowing; numbered among the living no more! Be sure it is for my people’s guilt I have smitten him. Takes he leave of the rich, the godless, to win but a grave, to win but the gift of death; he, that wrong did never, nor had treason on his lips! 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.”
Isaias, 53: 6-11
The following chapter returns to the marital language of God’s covenant with the people, renewed in the suffering of His chosen Servant.
“‘Husband now thou hast, and the name of him is the Lord of hosts, thy Creator; He, the Holy One of Israel, that will now be called God of the whole earth, makes thee His own. The Lord calls thee back, a woman forsaken and forlorn, the wife of His youth, long cast away; thy God sends thee word, ‘If I abandoned thee, it was but for a little moment, and now, in My great compassion, I bring thee home again. Hid I My face from thee, it was for a short while, till My anger should be spent; love that takes pity on thee shall be eternal, says the Lord, thy Ransomer.”
Isaias, 54: 5-8
And when you remember Christ standing on the Temple mount in Jerusalem and calling aloud, Come to me all you who thirst and drink (Gospel of S. John, chapter 7), you may be certain that at least some of the Jews who heard Him remembered this bit from Isaias. Even that was a Messianic call.
“‘So many athirst; who will not come to the water? So many destitute; who will come and get him food, get wine and milk free, no price to be paid? What, always spending, and no bread to eat, always toiling, and never a full belly? Do but listen, here you shall find content; here are dainties shall ravish your hearts. To My summons give heed and hearing; so your spirits shall revive; a fresh covenant awaits you, this time eternal; gracious promise of mine to David shall be ratified now. Before all the world My witness thou, a prince and a ruler among the nations! Summons of thine shall go out to a nation thou never knewest; peoples that never heard of thee shall hasten to thy call; such the glory thy God, the Holy One of Israel, has bestowed on thee.“
Isaias, 55: 1-5
Right, then. Hastening on towards the end – and this is mostly all Messianic now – let’s begin with chapter sixty. Rise up, O Jerusalem, mother of nations… when a Christian reads this, he or she is probably thinking of the book of Apocalypse (aka. Revelation) and the new Jerusalem, with a flood of Gentiles, the new sons of Jerusalem, entering the Church:
“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! Into thee all the herds of Cedar shall be driven, the rams of Nabaioth shall be thy victims; gifts at my altar accepted, to make the fame of My temple more famous yet. Who are these that come, swift as the cloud-wrack, as doves flying home to the dove-cot? These, too, are thy sons; long since, the islands and the ocean-going ships have awaited my signal, when I would bring them home from far away, their silver and their gold with them, for the honour of the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, that has bestowed this glory on thee.“
Isaias, 60: 1-9
And there’s that bit that Christ read at the synagogue at Nazareth, on probably His last visit to this synagogue of His youth (Gospel of S. Luke, 4: 24-29):
“The Lord has anointed me, on me His spirit has fallen; He has sent me to bring good news to men that are humbled, to heal broken hearts, promising the release of captives, the opening of prison doors, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s pardon, the day when He, our God, will give us redress. Comfort for every mourner; Sion’s mourners, what decree should I make for them, what gift offer them? Heads shall be garlanded, that once were strewn with ashes; bright with oil, the faces that were marred with grief; gaily they shall be clad, that went sorrowing. Sturdy growths (men will say) that fulfil hope reposed in them, pride of the Lord’s planting! Theirs to rebuild what long has lain desolate, repair the ruins of past days, restore the forsaken cities that were lost, we thought, for ever.”
Isaias, 61: 1-4
More Messianic verse still to come!
“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. No longer shall men call thee Forsaken, or thy land Desolate; thou shall be called My Beloved, and thy land a Home, now the Lord takes delight in thee, now thy land is populous once again.”
Isaias, 62: 1-4
Notice now that a new name is to be given to the Church of Christ. No longer Jacob, or Israel, after the patriarch of the people, perhaps because that name is so much associated with the idolatry of former days, which resulted in God’s holy Name being dragged through the dust before the world. Instead, here, the chosen people is called My Beloved. The prophet sees something brilliant in the distance and he seems to be impatient for it to burst into reality before him.
“Wouldst Thou but part heaven asunder, and come down, the hills shrinking from Thy presence, melting away as if burnt by fire; the waters, too, boiling with that fire! So should the fame of Thee go abroad among thy enemies; a world should tremble at Thy presence! Of Thy marvellous doing, we ourselves cannot bear the sight; so it was when Thou camest down, and the hills shrank away before Thee, long ago. Such things as were never known from the beginning, as ear never heard, eye never saw, save at Thy command, Thou, O God, hast made ready for all that await Thy aid.” – Isaias, 64: 1-4
Many prophets have used this type of poetic language for the arrival of God. See, for example, King David in Psalm 17(18) and the prophecy of Habacuc. But come He would eventually, and making all things new (just as in the book of Apocalypse, 21: 5: Behold, I make all things new…):
“‘My servants shall be light-hearted and sing, while you, with sad hearts, cry aloud, groan in the heaviness of your spirits. A name you shall leave behind you to serve My chosen people as a curse; the Lord God takes full toll. For His own servants He will have a new name instead; By the God of Truth shall be the blessing men invoke, By the God of Truth shall be the oath men take, in this land of Mine henceforward. Forgotten, the sorrows of past days, hidden away from My eyes. See where I create new heavens and a new earth; old things shall be remembered no longer, have no place in men’s thoughts. Joy of yours, pride of yours, this new creation shall be; joy of mine, pride of mine, Jerusalem and her folk, created anew.”
Isaias, 65: 14-18
Yes, the Church will have a new name, given her by God – that is to say, the remnant of the people would be given a new being, a new character, a new promise and covenant. God Himself is no longer to be called the God of Israel or the God of Jacob, but the God of Truth. Now recall that Christ said, I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life (Gospel of S. John, chapter fourteen), and you may see the full depth of His claims in Jerusalem, during those last few days, during Holy Week. The Apostles will have remembered this last part of Isaias when they heard Him, even if Pilate wondered what He meant by Truth. And that brings me at last to and end for this long post, and we may end well on the final blessing for the Church and with mention of her priests and deacons (priests and Levites), which is the end of the Book of Isaias.
“‘What of those that find deliverance? I have an errand for them, to be My messengers across the sea; to Africa, and to Lydia where men draw the bow, to Italy, and to Greece, and to the Islands far away. They shall go out where men never heard of My Name, never saw my glory yet, to reveal that glory among the nations. And out of all nations they shall bring your brethren back, an offering to the Lord, with horse and chariot, with litter and mule and waggon, to Jerusalem, the Lord says, to this mountain, My sanctuary. A bloodless offering this, for the sons of Israel to bring, in its sanctified vessel, to the Lord’s house! And some among these newcomers, the Lord says, I will choose out to be priests and Levites.‘ This, too, He promises: Enduring your race and name shall be as the new heavens, the new earth I fashion, to stand continually in My presence. Month after month, sabbath after sabbath shall go by, and still all mankind shall come to bow down before Me, the Lord says.”
I’m setting up a list of recommended charities, which is far from complete. I’ve added that as a link at the bottom of the main page of this website, but you can find it also by clicking here.
This is programmed for next weekend, Saturday the 17th and Sunday the 18th of June. As the bishops will tell us nearer the date, the voices of women who have had an abortion are often silent in Church and in society. This year’s message for Day for Life is written by a woman and hopes to break this silence and offer opportunities for hope, healing and reconciliation.
“I went to Catholic schools, I knew about God and morality on some level, but for me, the culture spoke louder when it came to making decisions around sexuality.
“When I was 15, I discovered I was pregnant and the fear clouded everything. I had one aim, and that was to solve the problem I had found myself in. A quick search for confidential help landed me at a clinic connected to an abortion provider. They seemed to genuinely believed that abortion was the solution to my problem and I don’t remember discussing any other options. I was relieved when they determined that I was capable enough to make this decision alone, without the involvement of an adult, which is still legal to this day.
‘By hearing other people share their stories and being gently encouraged by the team, I was able to speak the truth of what had happened to me on that day. My feelings were acknowledged, including my sense of loss.’
Jane
“That Saturday I travelled alone to the clinic. My parents were unaware, due to other difficulties in the family home that I didn’t want to contribute to. I went through the degrading experience of a surgical abortion, and I thought that if I could just get through that day, I would never have to think about it again. I remember feeling conflicted as a tear rolled down my cheek, that I quickly wiped away. I believed I couldn’t be sad because this was something I had chosen to do. So after the initial feeling of relief, I pushed down the experience and avoided anything to do with the topic of abortion. It was difficult to be around pregnant women and I found the anniversary difficult each year.
“Over the next few years, I became more curious about faith through the invitation of a friend. I was looking for direction and truth, but my spiritual life was always tainted by the thought that I could never be forgiven for what I had done – somehow, God’s mercy didn’t apply to me. In the fleeting moments of honesty with myself and God, I knew that my choice didn’t make me lose something, but someone. At times, this realisation was unbearable. This led to periods of deep depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as more promiscuous behaviour and numbing the pain with alcohol, food, or isolation.
“This all changed when I was encouraged to go to confession. Even when I tried to justify my choice, the priest met me with the love and mercy of Jesus. The tears he shed melted my heart of stone. I began to give up my old ways of life and follow His way.
“On this journey I was introduced to Rachel’s Vineyard: a healing ministry that provides support for those who are suffering after abortion. I remember the kindness of the woman that I spoke to, and I knew I wouldn’t be judged there.
“It took so much courage to go on a retreat, but I can genuinely say it changed my life. By hearing other people share their stories and being gently encouraged by the team, I was able to speak the truth of what had happened to me on that day. My feelings were acknowledged, including my sense of loss. I was finally given permission to grieve for the baby that had died through my choice. I acknowledged my motherhood and named my son Joseph. This was the start of God turning the guilt, shame and unforgiveness into a deep love for my son, as any good mother would have.
“The healing has continued alongside my faith journey. I’ve taken responsibility for the role I played in my abortion, but with perspective and time, I can see that my ‘choice’ wasn’t really a choice at all. There were other people’s failures, and an inability to truly give informed consent as a teenager that also contributed. The option that was presented as a quick fix solution has eternal consequences, and I truly believe that if I’d have known the impact abortion would have had on my life, even as a teenager, I would have made a different choice.”
In times past, this whole part of the calendar year, from Trinity Sunday until the first Sunday of Advent, was called the time ‘after Pentecost.’ These days, we count down the Sundays to Advent in an ordered way and call it Ordered Time, or Ordinary Time. I wanted to in this small post call attention to an old page I copied onto this website, about the so-called Athanasian Creed. It was of old attributed to S. Athanasius, but that association is usually thought to be contrived. It remains that the Athanasian Creed, also called Quicumque-vult, after its first words in the Latin, is a concise statement of the faith, with a greater content about the Holy Trinity than the other popular creeds that we know – the Apostles creed and the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan creed (both of which we use at Mass). Click the link in this paragraph for more.
I thought that I would repeat what I had begun at Derby – an hour of Confessions heard on Saturday mornings and about a half hour before every Sunday Mass. We began that today. I shall eventually establish an hour of Confessions at Mablethorpe also.
I’ve noticed that, once more, Catholic social media accounts are calling out about June being dedicated to the Sacred Heart. It’s been some time since I read Sister Margaret Mary’s reluctant autobiography about her visions of Christ. I say reluctant because, like so many other Catholic visionary Saints, she sought to be a recluse and to not receive publicity for herself. But messages like the one she received cannot be detached from the prophetic figures that bring them to the people. And Sister MM was a prophet. Here’s a short essay on her experiences:
She entered a community of the Visitation Sisters at Paray-le-Monial on the 25the of May, 1671, greatly gifted with humility and a generous spirit that drove her to choose duties for herself that made life particularly intolerable for herself. She found refuge from this in the Sacred Heart, and Christ acted personally as her spiritual director, confiding to her the mission to spread abroad devotion to His Sacred Heart. Religious superiors don’t generally look kindly on reports of spiritual excesses bestowed on their subordinates, and MM was called to obedience and to continue to lead the common life of the Sisters, despite the extraordinary favours shown her by the Most High. Suffering was His gift to her and she established the Holy Hour and the Holy Communion on the first Friday of every month. Christ called upon men and women in general to return to love of Him, and so to receive from the treasury of His Sacred Heart the love and mercy that was His gift, the sanctification and so the salvation that He had designed for the race of men. The Friday after the octave (eight days) of the feast of Corpus Christi was named by Christ Himself as the feast day of His Sacred Heart. He called Sister MM His beloved disciple of the Sacred Heart. She died with the Holy Name of Jesus upon her lips.
Here are the several promises made by Christ to those who would take up devotion to His Sacred Heart:
“I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life.
“I will establish peace in their homes.
“I will comfort them in all their afflictions.
“I will be their secure Refuge during life, and above all in death.
“I will bestow abundant blessings upon all their undertakings.
“Sinners will find in My Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
“Lukewarm souls shall become fervent.
“Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection.
“I will bless every place in which an image of My Heart is exposed and honoured.
“I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
“Those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart.
“I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays in nine consecutive months the grace of final perseverance; they shall not die in My disgrace, nor without receiving their sacraments. My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.”
I have promised to begin very slowly with establishing new and regular Mass timings at both Louth and Mablethorpe. This means that we shall continue for now with the present Sunday Masses and the existing Wednesday and Thursday weekday Masses at Louth, but standardising the 9.30 timing.
I am also establishing from this weekend the Saturday morning Mass at Louth, also at 9.30, followed by the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and an hour of Adoration and Confessions heard, followed by Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament. At the beginning of the hour of Adoration, parishioners will also be leading the Holy Rosary. I shall shortly establish an hour of Confessions at Mablethorpe also.
Today, we honour the Lord as the Eternal High Priest, both fully God and fully Man. Being fully Man enables Him to function as High Priest for the Elect of God.
Late last night, we arrived with the misty rain. Just had a nice walk through town on market day. I hadn’t expected the great variety of shops the town has, or the number of people/cars that would be passing through. Father Thacker was in this morning again, to say Mass for the Visitation, and my father and I attended at the back of the church. My father has been helping me with the move over and is a devoted son of our Lady. He would not miss Visitation Mass, even after a long evening of packing and moving and a short night, and especially when our church is dedicated to her.
We are currently taking things out of boxes, and calming the animals down; they are excitedly examining their new habitat. My first Mass at the parish church will be tomorrow morning at 9.30, when we shall honour our Lord as the Eternal High Priest. Here’s a small extract from the letter of S. Paul to the Hebrews:
“The purpose for which any high priest is chosen from among his fellow men, and made a representative of men in their dealings with God, is to offer gifts and sacrifices in expiation of their sins. He is qualified for this by being able to feel for them when they are ignorant and make mistakes, since he, too, is all beset with humiliations, and, for that reason, must needs present sin-offerings for himself, just as he does for the people. His vocation comes from God, as Aaron’s did; nobody can take on himself such a privilege as this. So it is with Christ. He did not raise Himself to the dignity of the high priesthood; it was God that raised Him to it, when He said, ‘Thou art My Son, I have begotten thee this day,’ and so, elsewhere, ‘Thou art a Priest for ever, in the line of Melchisedech.’ Christ, during His earthly life, offered prayer and entreaty to the God Who could save Him from death, not without a piercing cry, not without tears; yet with such piety as won Him a hearing. Son of God though He was, He learned obedience in the school of suffering, and now, His full achievement reached, He wins eternal salvation for all those who render obedience to Him. A High Priest in the line of Melchisedech, so God has called Him.”
I had begun to read the Bible in a year about two years ago; it seemed something of a fashion during the long months of the lockdown. And I simultaneously scribbled some little notes. I shall use those to populate this blog until I can get some new content in. That will happen when I have completed the relocation to Louth. But here’re my ramblings about the Gospel of S. Matthew.
It’s still safe to consider S. Matthew’s Gospel as being written the first, which is the traditional story, although a large portion of modern scholarship has succumbed to the idea that Saint Mark’s Gospel is prior, because of its smaller size. The idea seems to be that the shortest comes first, like a skeleton, which is later fleshed out into newer versions. There’s also this reasonable if entirely un-evidenced idea that there was a common body of ‘Jesus sayings’ that the scholars call Q, from which the evangelists (except Saint John) drew upon to construct their several essays. It’s all way up there: clever ideas thought up by clever people, you see. I’ve always thought, in my own reading, that these modern scholars picture the Apostles and Evangelists as scholars sitting in writing rooms to write, with bookshelves of reference books behind them. When you consider that many of these same scholars think that the Gospels were all written decades after the Ascension of Christ, and not by the Apostles and their disciples but later Christians, you can see why this whole idea of assembling by reference to other traditions fits in. I may refer to this theory as the priority of Saint Mark’s Gospel…
But, the older idea, as I said, may still be held. The Apostles had a mission and needed to leave the Holy Land at some point, possibly at some time in the late 50s. They required a working text of the Gospel to carry on to the countries they would visit. They must have generally used Matthew’s Gospel, the only one written at the time. He was one of the Apostles, of course. I know that at least the Apostle Bartholomew’s copy was left behind in India and found later (according to Eusebius’ history); and, of course, the Apostle Barnabas was buried with his copy. The mission of the Apostles, as also of Christ, was to the Jewish people, and the Gospel of Saint Matthew is full of references to the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament. Mark’s Gospel, written later, when the Apostle Saint Peter had arrived in Rome and Mark had joined Peter’s disciples there, is shorter and has some particular reference to Saint Peter, as it naturally would. It’s similarity to Saint Matthew’s Gospel may simply be explained by the fact that that was available in Rome and regularly heard, alongside the Holy Father Saint Peter’s own reminiscences. Saint Luke’s Gospel contains new information, such as in the infancy stories, and must have required further input from local Christians in the Holy Land (such as the Blessed Virgin) and is certainly from later on. Saint John’s Gospel is generally considered to be the last of the four, although it contains some very early, first-hand-witness information.
Flipping through Matthew’s Gospel right now, it’s surprising how short it feels, how abbreviated. The Gospels were not meant to be biographies of Christ, although they provide biographical information. They were concerned rather with presenting Christ as the fulfilment of the Promise. Matthew therefore provides an adjusted genealogy at the very beginning, to demonstrate that Christ’s arrival was carefully planned. Saint John the Baptist is introduced and surpassed. The Apostles are appointed, the inner circle first – Peter (along with his brother Andrew), James and John – and then the rest. There is the great Sermon on the Mount, between chapters five and seven, a first catechism, we might say. Then come the long stream of miraculous works, interspersed with confused Jewish leaders – pharisees, mostly, but increasing numbers of scribes and Sadducees (Jerusalem priests and their associates) – asking why such an orthodox Jew doesn’t observe all the various purity laws of the people. The disciples are then sent on the mission. John the Baptist is soon killed by Herod, the ethnarch of Galilee, and Christ takes Himself away from Galilee. In the midst of new attention from the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Christ prepares for His sacrifice with the Transfiguration on the mountain and the procession to Jerusalem. The controversies with the Jerusalem authorities climax with the terrible parables of the vineyard owner whose servants and son are killed by the vineyard keepers and of the king whose son’s wedding feast is not attended by those invited. The implied abandonment of Jerusalem by God brings a new fury into the hearts of the Jerusalem authorities, who arrange for Christ’s arrest. He establishes the new covenant, is tried, tortured, killed and returns from the dead. The Church then receives the command to go forth on the mission.
As it says at the bottom of the front page, there’s something of a countdown to my move across the country to the parish in Louth, which has recently had her parish priest retire. This will be an exciting, new thing, for I have never before remained for longer than a few hours in any part of Lincolnshire, having only briefly visited Lincoln city, Scunthorpe, Grimsby and lately Louth itself. With only a few, last minute duties at my present location in Derby, I should begin the move at month-end.
I’ve hijacked the image from the parish website, but I shall soon have my own pictures…
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 