19 May: Pentecost

This window is in Saint Aloysius’ church, near Euston station in London. If you are passing around Mass time you can drop in and see the windows and also the street outside. The Church is not separate from the city!

Looking at the gathering, there are twelve tongues of fire above the disciples and Mary when there were actually about 120 people in the Upper Room, including, surely, the women who went to the tomb on Easter Sunday – the two Marys, Salome and Johannah.

We can add to that number the passers-by who are also part of the picture. If this was our parish we would probably know a few of them by name!

There are people from all over the world in London today as there were two thousand years ago in Jerusalem. Let us pray that the fire of God’s love will be kindled in each one of them so that peace will reign in all hearts and communities in the city.

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.

28 April: Hearts on fire, feet on the move.

The start of the pilgrim journey from Canterbury to Rome; the disciples’ starting point was the upper room, where Jesus appeared the evening after showing himself to the two disciples at Emmaus.

In this post Canon Anthony Charlton of Saint Thomas’ Canterbury reflects on Pope Francis’s Message to us all, each one a missionary disciple. Help! Help is at hand.

Pope Francis’s theme for Mission Sunday last October was “Hearts on fire, feet on the move,” which he said was inspired by the story of Jesus and the disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection. We are all familiar with this incident at the end of Luke’s Gospel.

After the crucifixion of Jesus, two of the disciples of Jesus had turned their backs on Jerusalem and were full of sadness and disappointment because they had such high hopes for Jesus. They did not recognise the stranger that joined them as Jesus and they told him the reason they were sad; “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

They are full of disappointment. Yet their meeting with Christ in the Word and in the breaking of the bread sparked in them the enthusiastic desire to set out once again and go
back to Jerusalem and proclaim that the Lord had truly risen.

The Pope points out that, in this Gospel account, we perceive this change in the disciples through a few revealing images: their hearts burned within them as they heard the Scriptures explained by Jesus, their eyes were opened as they recognised him and, ultimately, their feet set out on the way.

It is easy for us to get disheartened when we hear that we are called to be missionary disciples. We are not sure what is expected of us. We are sometimes more comfortable with quoting the saying attributed to St Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel with your lives, only use words if necessary”. Yet Jesus is calling us to go forth. This is what the two disciples did.
Renewed and encouraged by the encounter with Jesus at Emmaus they returned to Jerusalem.

An evangelist, Roy Fish, made an interesting observation saying that there is a difference between “come and hear” and “go and tell.” The “come and hear model” is when we say to others come and hear the Gospel proclaimed in our church we hope to be yet Jesus is inviting us to “go and tell.” We are like those two disciples, we need to be refreshed by the Word of God, nourished by the Eucharist and so share with others the joy of meeting the Lord.

So, let us set out once more, illumined by our encounter with the risen Lord and prompted by his Spirit.
Let us set out again with burning hearts, with our eyes open and our feet in motion.

Let us set out to make other hearts burn with the Word of God, to open the eyes of others to Jesus in the Eucharist, and to invite everyone to walk together on the path of peace and salvation that God, in Christ, has bestowed upon all humanity.
Our Lady of the Way, Mother of Christ’s missionary disciples and Queen of Missions, pray for us!”

(Pope Francis’s message for World Mission Sunday 2023.)

24 April: Darkness cannot overcome

Christ yesterday and today,
the beginning and the end,
Alpha and Omega,
all time belongs to him,
and all ages.

Paschal Candles at Canterbury Cathedral.

My health did not allow me to attend the Easter Vigil in person this year so I tuned into the live stream from Saint Thomas’ in Canterbury. Once everyone present had gone outside to bless the Easter fire and Paschal Candle the church was plunged into darkness. My screen showed a single dark grey stripe in an otherwise pitch black church. Light from the street perhaps produced the slightly paler stripe.

Be that as it may, I was in the dark, and only caught the occasional phrase of the blessing: ‘by his holy and glorious wounds’. But the words are familiar from years of being there; I knew what was being said, sung and done.

Light came in, radiating from the Paschal Candle, carried by Father Giovanni. Away from the resplendent flame, it reached into the corners of the Church but gave a silver-grey monotone to everything. Despite the shadows, the altar flowers glowed white.

Finally, when all were gathered into the building, candles were lit all around, and colours returned to everything, and Father Giovanni was able to sing the Exsultet, with its words, ‘

Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from her eternal King,
let all corners of the earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom and darkness …

On this, your night of grace, O holy Father,
accept this candle, a solemn offering,
the work of bees and of your servants’ hands,
an evening sacrifice of praise,
this gift from your most holy Church.

And the candle is a reminder that light in every corner, in full, glorious colour, is a gift from God to us; and that we should be glad in our heart of hearts, despite all the evil that seems to have our world in its sights.

21 April: Good Shepherd Sunday

Saint Maximus reflects on Jesus’ parable of the Good Shepherd. He did not only set out to find the lost one, but he brought it back on his own shoulders and set it down securely with the rest of the flock.

  * So too, when he found wandering in the mountains and hills the one sheep that had strayed from God’s flock of a hundred, he brought it back to the fold, but he did not exhaust it by driving it ahead of him. Instead, he placed it on his own shoulders and so, compassionately, he restored it safely to the flock.

Let’s pray that, as the Good Shepherd welcomes us, so may we welcome each other within our parish communities.

*From a letter by Saint Maximus the Confessor, abbot, Office of Readings, 13/03/2024.

20 April: how to be a good shepherd without really trying.

This was the way of it. As I walked down the steps from the City Library I noticed a boy of about 8 years old, in floods of tears, and the passers-by, if they saw him at all, studiously avoiding him. To some extent I could understand that, having been on the receiving end of malicious allegations from children just a couple of years older than he was; the feeling of jeopardy was most painful.

But this lad was in greater distress than that. He was near panic.

This was before mobile phones were universal! He had been in town with his grandmother and his sister, and had lost them. His parents were at work. We established that grandad was home, a bit too far for him to walk over there, the state he was in.

Do you know their phone number? He did.

Could he use the phone box? He soon got the idea. Grandad was a calming influence. Granny had already spoken to him and was going to ring from the library when she got back there, the last place she’d seen him.

‘We’d better stay here.’ Not for long though. Big sister was ready to tear a strip off him, but granny gave him a big hug. And that was that.

Except that a fortnight later, he was going into the library as I was leaving, and we met at the old swing doors. He introduced his grateful mother and I was able to praise him for his part in his own rescue, when he rang Grandad and explained what had happened. The lost sheep back with the flock.

Tomorrow is Good Shepherd Sunday. Who knows when you might have to become a temporary good shepherd?

18 April: Meeting our Saviour in the Old Testament.

If our state altogether is parallel to that of the Israelites, it is natural to think that so great a gift as Holy Communion would not be without its appropriate figures and symbols in the Old Testament. All that our Saviour has done is again and again shadowed out in the Old Testament;  All that our Saviour has done is again and again shadowed out in the Old Testament; and this, therefore, it is natural to think, as well as other things:

His miraculous birth, His life, His teaching, His death, His priesthood, His sacrifice, His resurrection, His glorification, His kingdom, are again and again prefigured: it is not reasonable to suppose that if this so great gift is really given us, it should be omitted. He who died for us, is He who feeds us; and as His death is mentioned, so we may beforehand expect will be mentioned the feast He gives us. Not openly indeed, for neither is His death nor His priesthood taught openly, but covertly, under the types of David or Aaron, or other favoured servants of God; and in like manner we might expect, and we shall find, the like reverent allusions to His most gracious Feast,—allusions which we should not know to be allusions but for the event; just as we should not know that Solomon, Aaron, or Samuel, stood for Christ at all, except that the event explains the figure.

Saint John Henry Newman encourages us to read and reflect upon the Old Testament, and to discern how the mystery of Jesus Christ was prefigured in the lives of patriarchs, prophets and Kings.

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

17 April: If you are one of the Marys, or Salome, or Joanna …

Saint Gregory of Nazianzen challenges each and every Christian to come nearer to Christ, to be more and more like him.

 If you are a Simon of Cyrene, take up your cross and follow Christ. If you are crucified beside him like one of the thieves, now, like the good thief, acknowledge your God. For your sake, and because of your sin, Christ himself was regarded as a sinner; for his sake, therefore, you must cease to sin. Worship him who was hung on the cross because of you, even if you are hanging there yourself. Derive some benefit from the very shame; purchase salvation with your death. Enter paradise with Jesus, and discover how far you have fallen. Contemplate the glories there, and leave the other scoffing thief to die outside in his blasphemy.

  If you are a Joseph of Arimathea, go to the one who ordered his crucifixion, and ask for Christ’s body. Make your own the expiation for the sins of the whole world. If you are a Nicodemus, like the man who worshipped God by night, bring spices and prepare Christ’s body for burial. If you are one of the Marys, or Salome, or Joanna, weep in the early morning. Be the first to see the stone rolled back, and even the angels perhaps, and Jesus himself.

From a sermon by Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Office of Readings 23.3.2024

12 April: I could not stop for Death.

Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The Carriage held but just Ourselves —
And Immortality.

We slowly drove — He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labour and my leisure too,
For His Civility —

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess — in the Ring —
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –

Emily Dickinson.

Girst, dust to dust. Even so should our heads be toward Eternity!