18 May: I had to share my reserves.

“18th May, 1866.—The country is all dry: grass and leaves crisp and yellow, yet the great abundance of the dried stalks of a sort of herbaceous acacia with green pea-shaped flowers, proves that at other times it is damp enough. The marks of people’s feet, now baked, show that the country can be sloppy. The head-man of the village where we spent the night is a martyr to rheumatism. He asked for medic-ine, and when I gave some he asked me to give it to him out of my own hand. He presented me with a basket of siroko and of green sorghum as a fee, of which I was very glad, for my own party were suffering, and I had to share out the little portion of flour I had reserved to myself.” From The Last Journals of David Livingstone.

Dr Livingstone practising medicine on his travels! Many of the East African villages he tramped through had lost much of their food crop to Arab raiders, and some of his porters proved unreliable. On this day he received in payment for his professional skills food for his party and himself. Interesting to see that he had reserved for himself some (presumably wheaten) flour. Did he see this as a luxury or a necessity? Whichever, he was prepared to share it with his companions.

What am I holding back that others need?

*I did not discover what siroko might be.

17 May: An Unobtrusive Spirit

 Newman challenges us to be resigned and contented even as we try, day after day, to be more at one with the person our Creator made us to be.

The spirit of the Gospel is a meek, humble, gentle, unobtrusive spirit. It doth not cry nor lift up its voice in the streets, unless called upon by duty so to do, and then it does it with pain. Display, pretension, conflict, are unpleasant to it.

What then is to be thought of persons who are ever on the search after novelties to make religion interesting to them; who seem to find that Christian activity cannot be kept up without unchristian party-spirit, or Christian conversation without unchristian censoriousness?

Why, this; that religion is to them as to others, taken by itself, a weariness, and requires something foreign to its own nature to make it palatable. Truly it is a weariness to the natural man to serve God humbly and in obscurity; it is very wearisome, and very monotonous, to go on day after day watching all we do and think, detecting our secret failings, denying ourselves, creating within us, under God’s grace, those parts of the Christian character in which we are deficient; wearisome to learn modesty, love of insignificance, willingness to be thought little of, backwardness to clear ourselves when slandered, and readiness to confess when we are wrong; to learn to have no cares for this world, neither to hope nor to fear, but to be resigned and contented!

from “Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) by John Henry Newman.

14 May: Newman on Daily Prayer.

That table, laid for a feast, surely reminds us to say our Grace before we start our meal today. There have been times when busyness and tiredness have overwhelmed my good intentions to pray every day, but at least the instinct to say or sing Grace has always been there, even if the prayer springs to mind only after the first coffee of the day.

And Grace – or should I say Thanksgiving – was always the last thing at night when the children were ready for bed, but the questions that Newman poses below would have been more challenging then, when working and child rearing, than now when there is the occasional time to stop and stare.

Is God habitually in our thoughts? Do we think of Him, and of His Son our Saviour, through the day?

When we eat and drink, do we thank Him, not as a mere matter of form, but in spirit?

When we do things in themselves right, do we lift up our minds to Him, and desire to promote His glory? When we are in the exercise of our callings, do we still think of Him, acting ever conscientiously, desiring to know His will more exactly than we do at present, and aiming at fulfilling it more completely and abundantly? Do we wait on His grace to enlighten, renew, strengthen us?

From Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII of 8 by John Henry Newman

Photograph from Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Littlehampton

There will be more from St John Henry in the next days leading to Pentecost.

13 May: The Impact of L’Arche, II.

Once again we share an interesting and topical post from the Catholic Union on a matter very close to our heart.

The Holy Father and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences met last week to discuss ‘Disability and the human condition’. The President of the Catholic Union, Baroness Hollins, addressed that plenary session; and the work (outlined below) of an award-winning organisation led by one Scotland-based subscriber to our Weekly Briefing demonstrates the vital contribution our laity undertakes at the praxis of these important issues.

Chris Gehrke, Director of L’Arche Highland, writes:
Earlier this month, in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Pope Francis commented on the stuttering progress made by the international community in acknowledging the rights and dignity of persons who live with disabilities. Our “throwaway culture”, he said, discards people with disabilities by failing to recognise their contributions to the shared project of human flourishing.

Pope Francis is right about this. Today, we excessively value qualities such as autonomy and efficiency. And no group is more acutely excluded by this than people with learning disabilities.  The Pope’s remedy is to seek out “forms of social friendship that include everyone”.  If you want proof that such friendships are not just utopian fantasy, I suggest a visit to L’Arche Highland, in Inverness.

L’Arche is a Community movement, bringing together people with and without learning disabilities in equality and mutual respect.  Our shared life is a joyful rebellion against a society that’s often unfair and unkind to people with learning disabilities.  The form of inclusive social friendship we have in L’Arche is neither utopian nor perfect. But it is real – in the stories and daily life of individual people, with and without disabilities, who come together in our Community.

12 May: I will be your God.

Behold, I will bring back again Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwelling places; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanks giving and the voice of them that make merry: I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will glorify them, and they shall not be small. Their children also shall be as afore time, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress them.

And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Jeremiah 30:18-22.

A hopeful message from Jeremiah today. The photo shows Truro Cathedral on its hill or heap, a place of merry singing when we were there. Other cities are not peacefully set on their hills, with war and its consequences making life impossible.

Let’s pray that leaders of nations and warring factions will strive to make Jeremiah’s vision a reality. And that each of us might strive to bring about peace in our families, work places, schools and communities.

11 May: Safe at Anchor

Safe at anchor, now at rest,
With the many of our fleet,
But once again we will set sail
Our Saviour Christ to meet.

This verse is inscribed on the grave of William Marsh, one of at least three master mariners in Saint John’s churchyard, Woodbridge, Suffolk. He was in his 80th year, so surely he did not drown at sea, but died safe at anchor in his own house in the town.

One last time he set sail to meet Christ; the One he would have met more than once on the ‘lonely sea and the sky’ of Masefield’s poem, Sea Fever. Or as Psalm 107 has it:

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

Let’s pray for all seafarers, and thank God for their hard work and the good things they bring us. Let’s remember, too, the port chaplains of Stella Maris, ministering to sailors and their families often far away.

HMS Vale, in the upper photo, saw service with the Swedish Navy before becoming a Royal Navy training vessel and finally a cafe on the River Deben near Woodbridge. There you can sit in peace, watching the birds and the constantly changing light over the water.

9 May: The Ascension of Jesus

Ascension and Pentecost

The Ascension and Pentecost are connected in this stained glass window. The two feasts are close together in the calendar, but the connection goes deeper than that. They represent the beginning of a new chapter in the Salvation Story, the chapter we twenty-first century Christians are mentioned in.

Saint Luke is our witness here. The end of his Gospel and the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles show how the disciples went from running scared to finding solidarity in shared fear and confusion, and finally on to boldness in proclaiming the Good News. What inspired this boldness? And where do we come in?

Saint Paul tells us: The things that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God. Which things also we speak, not in the learned words of human wisdom; but in the doctrine of the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

The sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined. But the spiritual man judgeth all things; and he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that we may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:11-16

Even as he goes up to Heaven, Jesus bears the scars of this foolishness: the marks of the nails in his hands and feet. That foolish gesture of dying for us is recorded by the artist as an element of his glory. Hands raised as they were on the Cross, his seamless garment embroidered with his monogramme in case there was any doubt who this window is about. Yes, it is about Jesus, but it’s about us too, represented by the disciples gathered around him.

The disciples are present in the second window, linking the two chapters in our salvation story. Notice the descending dove of the Spirit, mirroring the outstretched arms of the risen Lord. He had to go away for the Spirit to come and take over but we remain in the care of the one God.

In this time between two feasts, between two Ages, let us pray that we may have the courage and strength to live with holy fire in our hearts, and to seek Jesus, not in Heaven but wherever in this world we may have been placed.

8 May: Witnesses of Faith

Tomorrow we celebrate the feast of Christ’s Ascension. Just before he went up to Heaven, he instructed his disciples to preach the Good News to the ends of the earth. Many of those early followers were killed for their faith. Last year, 20 Catholic missionaries met violent deaths worldwide: one Bishop, eight Priests, two Religious Brothers, one Seminarian, one Novice, and seven Lay people were killed.

Sadly, the past year saw many missionaries and pastoral workers become victims of violence as they were going about their everyday lives and activities. Many of them were killed in places and situations marked by conflict – by soldiers, militia, terrorist groups, or individuals wielding weapons.

In the mystery which unites them to the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, these witnesses of faith also share in the pain of Christ for all the innocent who suffer unjustly. The gift of their lives reflects Christ’s salvation offered to all humanity, and manifests God’s love for all.

Pope Francis said: ‘There are many in our world who suffer and die to bear witness to Jesus… the seed of their sacrifices, which seems to die, germinates and bears fruit, because God, through them, continues to work miracles (cf. Acts 18:9-10), changing hearts and saving humankind.’ ‘Let us ask ourselves, then: do I care about and pray for those who, in various parts of the world, still suffer and die for the faith today? And in turn, do I try to bear witness to the Gospel consistently, with gentleness and confidence? Do I believe that the seed of goodness will bear fruit even if I do not see the immediate results?’

Fr Jacques Yaro Zerbo, 67, was killed on 2 January while on his way to carry out pastoral activities in the Boucle du Mouhoun region of Burkina Faso. The unidentified armed men murdered him and drove away in his car.
Fr Isaac Achi, 61, died on 15 January during an attack on his parish in northern Nigeria.
The armed group, unable to access the presbytery, set fire to it. Whilst a fellow Priest, Fr Collins Omeh, was wounded as he fled the house, Fr Isaac was unable to escape the flames.
Diego Valencia, 65, Sacristan of the Parish of Nuestra Señora de La Palma in the province of Cadiz, Spain, was killed on 25 January whilst trying to stop an attack on parishioners by a young man armed with a machete. The perpetrator was later arrested by the police.
Fr Juan Angulo Fonseca, 53, Parish Priest of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, was shot and died on 10 February. Sources claim that this well-respected Priest fell victim to a family member over a land dispute.
Monsignor David O’Connell, 69, Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles (USA), was shot by his housekeeper’s husband on 18 February. The perpetrator was later arrested and confessed to the crime, possibly motivated by a dispute over money.
Br Moses Simukonde Sens, 35, a Missionary of Africa from Zambia, was killed on 29 March by a stray bullet near a military checkpoint in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital.
Fr Javier García Villafaña, 35, an Augustinian and Parish Priest in the Archdiocese of Morelia, Mexico, was murdered on 22 May when his car was
riddled with bullets as he was on his way to celebrate Mass.
Fr Charles Onomhoale Igechi, a recently ordained Priest of the Archdiocese of Benin City, was killed by gunmen along Agbor Rd, Edo State, Nigeria on 7 June.
Gertrudis Cruz de Jesús and Gliserina Cruz Merino, both young catechists, were killed on 15 June, during a conflict between armed groups while on their way to a Eucharistic procession in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. They belonged to a movement for the recognition of the human rights of their people – the Triquì.
Fr Pamphili Nada died from his injuries on 19 July whilst being taken to hospital. He had been attacked with a blunt object by a mentally unwell man in his parish of Our Lady Queen of Apostles, Arusha, Tanzania.
Seminarian Na’aman Danlami, 25, perished in a fire on 7 September. It was deliberately started by armed bandits after they failed to kidnap the Parish Priest of St Raphael’s Parish of Kaduna State, Nigeria.
Godwin Eze, 31, a Benedictine Novice kidnapped from the monastery in Eruku,
Kwara State, Nigeria, was shot dead and his body thrown into a river by an armed group on 18 October.
Br Cyprian Ngeh, 40, an exemplary Religious nurse of the Congregation of the
Sons of the Immaculate Conception, was attacked and stabbed to death in Bamenda, Cameroon on 7 November whilst walking back to his Congregation’s Health Centre.
Junrey Barbante, 24, and Janine Arenas, 18, students and committed volunteers of the Catholic chaplaincy community of Mindanao’s State University in the
Philippines, were killed on 3 December by a local group retaliating to military
operations. They were among the victims and casualties of the bomb which detonated during the celebration of Mass on the first Sunday of Advent.
Fr Stephen Gutgsell, 65, died on 10 December following a knife attack during an attempted break-in at the church in Fort Cahloun, a small community in Nebraska (USA) that he had led for 11 years. The suspected attacker was arrested by police.
Fr Léopold Feyen, 82, a Salesian of Don Bosco from Belgium, was stabbed to death by an unidentified killer in the parish of St Mary Help of Christians in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo on 12 December.
Samar Kamal Anton, and her mother, Nahida Khalil Anton, were killed on 16 December by snipers as they were walking to the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa in the parish complex of the Holy Family in Gaza. One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety. Both belonged to a prayerful group of Catholic and Orthodox women committed to serving poor and disabled people.

Please join us in giving thanks for
the work and witness of these, our
sisters and brothers. May they
rest in peace and rise in glory.
Amen.

All information is supplied by Fides, the Vatican-based news agency of Missio, and by Vatican News.

7 May: All are welcome!

This tree stands just outside the Anglican churchyard in Winchelsea, Sussex. \it was just here that John Wesley preached his very last outdoor sermon. He was not welcome – and neither were his followers – in the church nor even the churchyard, so he preached under the shelter of a tree.

Not this very tree: the original was killed by souvenir hunters cutting into it but this successor is going strong!

Father Peter was talking about trees in this Spring’s Missio magazine, in particular the mustard tree that sheltered the birds of the air in the parable. And some of those birds would have been as unwelcome as John Wesley and his Methodists would have been in Winchelsea hundreds of years later. Let’s listen to Father Peter:

I can imagine Jesus scratching his head as to how to describe the Kingdom of God to the people, and, as we read in the Gospels, in his ‘head scratchings’ he came up with many wonderful images.

On one occasion he likened the Kingdom to a mustard seed (Luke 13) which would grow into a tree which the birds of the air could shelter in. A familiar image which everyone would understand – that the Kingdom of God was for everyone to enter and find shelter.

But Jesus was being a bit controversial here when he talked about the birds of the air and did not distinguish between, according to Jewish purity laws, those birds which were unclean and detestable (Leviticus 11: 13-19). Jesus was, in effect, saying that all the birds of the air were welcome in the tree – clean and unclean!

Of course, what Jesus is saying is that, like a mustard tree,the Kingdom of God was shelter, shade, and rest for everyone. With no distinction between those people that we, or others, might think of as ‘unclean’ or not worthy. Everyone is welcome to rest in the shelter and shade of the love of God.

Father Peter.

3 May: Praying with Pope Francis: forming ministers, Franciscans 800 VI.

We pray for those training for the religious life and for the priesthood;
may they grow to be credible witnesses of the Gospel
through the human, 
pastoral, 
spiritual 
and community formation 
that they receive.

Pope Francis’s intention for this month is for people in training for ministry in the Church. We should, of course, remember them often but a reminder does not hurt. Discerning a vocation takes time, patience, trust: trust in God, trust in superiors, trust in oneself. May all candidates use their formation time decisively, even if that entails saying a last-minute ‘no’ to religious life – as a friend of mine did, leading to 50 years of a happy and blessed marriage! Priests and religious are not the only witnesses to the Gospel.

Our Photo from Brother Chris shows apprentice Franciscan sisters and friars on a pilgrimage in Kent. We remember our Franciscan friends especially since this blog began at the Franciscan International Study Centre in Canterbury.