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.

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.

5 April: Praying with Pope Francis, For the role of Women.

We pray for the dignity and worth of women
to be recognised in every culture,
and for an end to the discrimination they face
in various parts of the world.

This pot is part of our Easter Garden at Saint Mildred’s in Canterbury. It represents Mary Magdalene who had walked with Jesus through the Holy Land, who had supported him with her own money, who had stood by the Cross as he died, who came to anoint his body on Easter morning, who met him risen in the garden.

Mary Magdalene helped to make Jesus’ mission possible, and brought her practical skills to the fellowship of the disciples. Today, let us discern and recognise the many ways in which women build up the Church and give thanks for them. Let us celebrate their gifts and graces. Let us enable and encourage them to take on roles new to women in the Church.

11 March: Jeremiah XXII, I will heal thee.

A field hospital set up in the Philippines

I will restore health unto thee, 
and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord; 
because they called thee an Outcast, saying, 
This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.

Jeremiah 30:17

Pope Francis has frequently called for the Church to be like a field hospital for anyone wounded by their experience of life. That may call some church organisations or individuals to take on roles in earthquake zones, in combat areas or other emergencies, but every day we may meet someone who needs a little of our time: a family member, friend or neighbour; quite possibly a stranger. Let us look out for them, all of them God’s children.

2 March: praying with Pope Francis: the new Martyrs.

Here is Pope Francis’s prayer intention for the month of March.

We pray for those who risk their lives
for the Gospel
in various parts of the world:
may their courage and missionary zeal
permeate the Church.

We are told that there are more people than ever before being killed for their faith, and Christians are the most persecuted group of people across the globe. One place among many where Christians have been suffering is the Holy Land, undergoing the latest in a series of wars going back to Jeremiah’s time and beyond. This report from The Independent tells how Christians in Gaza were faring under siege from IDF snipers.

Let’s pray for the Gaza families, for those in Nigeria, Sudan, Central America, and all Christians who, as a group or as individuals, suffer for their faith.

The Good King Edmund of East Anglia was surrounded and murdered by Viking invaders, who cut off his head and tossed it into a nettle patch. When his people went to gather his remains, they found a wolf on guard over his head. This wolf patrols the precincts of Saint Edmundsbury Cathedral.

Let us learn to be faithful witnesses through the troubles and challenges that we and our families and friends encounter. May we be signs of God’s love through our loving friendship.

Here is a link to the Pope’s video message for this month.

1 February: Praying with Pope Francis, For the Terminally ill.

Pope Francis has suggested as a focus for our prayer this month the terminally ill. Death will come for you and for me, no escape! I just learnt of the death of an old friend, who ‘knew her time had come’; she had good care and accompaniment from family and loved ones. A famous example of this was the Venerable Bede, the great scholar and Doctor of the Church. He had just finished dictating his translation of Saint John’s Gospel into English, when he gave away his few possessions to his confreres and asked to be raised up to see the shrine in his cell. His last words were the prayer, ‘Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit’; the moment is caught here by the early 20th Century artist John Doyle Penrose.

Let us pray for the terminally ill
We pray that those with a terminal illness, 
and their families, 
receive the necessary physical and spiritual care 
and accompaniment.

Let us pray, too, for all who care for the terminally ill, that they might be supported by colleagues, superiors and family.

Pope Francis has entrusted these intentions in a particular way to the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, an organization that works to encourage Christians to respond to the Pope’s appeal and to deepen their daily prayer. You can find more information about the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network on their website.

POPE’S WORLDWIDE PRAYER NETWORK

February

13 January: Church Unity: With the Archbishops of Juba.

We will be sharing reflections on reconciliation and unity between Christian Churches between now and the end of Church Unity Week; today we visit South Sudan and the Vatican.

Justin Welby, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, blesses Pope Francis, 2016. They have worked together with the two Archbishops of Juba and the leader of the Church of Scotland, to bring reconciliation to the hostile parties in South Sudan.

Juba is the capital of South Sudan, a civil war torn country in Africa, but its Churches have lessons to teach the rest of the world. Christians working together will help bring peace within and among nations, said Dr Jamie Hawkey, Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey at the Gregorian University in Rome. He cited the Catholic and Anglican archbishops of Juba, South Sudan, speaking at an ecumenical forum in London in 2002. ”We rarely travel out of Juba at the same time. Juba needs an archbishop, and if only one of us is present, he is the archbishop for all the people of Juba.”

Such joint witness, suggested Canon Hawkey, poses questions about how church structures and law might better serve the “gift of communion.” If we reflected upon the theological implications of our practical shared actions, would we become closer to the eucharistic sharing and formal recognition of ministries for which we long so deeply?

• There is a longer report on this story at the NCR website.

5 January: Praying with Pope Francis, the gift of diversity.

The Synod, which has now returned to local churches for further reflection, as Pope Francis said in the closing Mass of the October Synod Assembly:

‘It is important to look at the “principle and foundation” from which everything begins ever anew: by loving. Loving God with our whole life and loving our neighbour as ourselves. Not our strategies, our human calculations, the ways of the world, but love of God and neighbour: that is the heart of everything. And how do we channel this momentum of love? I would propose two verbs, two movements of the heart, on which I would like to reflect: to adore and to serve. We love God through adoration and service . . .

‘In the great commandment, Christ binds God and neighbour together so that they will never be disconnected. There can be no true religious experience that is deaf to the cry of the world. There is no love of God without care and concern for our neighbour; otherwise, we risk becoming pharisaic. We may have plenty of good ideas on how to reform the Church but let us remember: to adore God and to love our brothers and sisters with his love, that is the great and perennial reform.’

Adoration and service; there is room in God's tent for all, but is there room in my heart for all?

For The Gift Of Diversity In The Church
Let us pray that the Holy Spirit may help us
to recognize the gift of different charisms within the Christian community,
and to discover the richness of different ritual traditions
in the heart of the Catholic Church.

We will publish Pope Francis’s prayer intentions on the first Friday of each month, unless this clashes with another celebration.

Saint Pancras International Station, a buzzing hub of human diversity.

13 December, follow that star XI: to the crib. (Franciscans 800.I)

This is not a Christmas Crib, I hear you say, but we’ve chosen this picture to include Saint Francis, as it is 800 years since he erected the first Nativity scene in Greccio, not far from Assisi. Next year is also the 800th Anniversary of the first arrival in Canterbury and England of our patron, Blessed Agnellus of Pisa, and a small band of Franciscan friars. We will be commemorating that event during the coming year, but to mark the anniversary of the crib, here is part of a reflection by Pope Francis, as reported by Vatican News. Follow the link for the full article.

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Saint Francis’ crèche in Greccio

Pope Francis takes us back to the Italian town of Greccio, which Saint Francis visited in the year 1223. The caves he saw there reminded him of the countryside of Bethlehem. On 25 December, friars and local people came together, bringing flowers and torches, writes the Pope. “When Francis arrived, he found a manger full of hay, an ox and a donkey.” A priest celebrated the Eucharist over the manger, “showing the bond between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist.”

The start of the tradition

This is how our tradition began, continues Pope Francis, “with everyone gathered in joy around the cave, with no distance between the original event and those sharing in its mystery.” With the simplicity of that sign, Saint Francis carried out a great work of evangelization, he writes. His teaching continues today “to offer a simple yet authentic means of portraying the beauty of our faith.”

A sign of God’ tender love

Pope Francis explains that the Christmas crèche moves us so deeply because it shows God’s tender love. From the time of its Franciscan origins, “the nativity scene has invited us to ‘feel’ and ‘touch’ the poverty that God’s Son took upon Himself in the Incarnation”, writes the Pope. “It asks us to meet Him and serve Him by showing mercy to those of our brothers and sisters in greatest need.”

Photo by Brother Chris Dyczek

2 December: Praying with Pope Francis

Pope Francis embraces a child as he meets the disabled during his general audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican Jan. 13 2016 (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

For persons with disabilities

We pray that people living with disabilities 
may be at the centre of attention in society, 
and that institutions may offer inclusive programmes 
which value their active participation.

'Does he take sugar?' was the title of a BBC Radio series on living with disability. Even the most benevolent among us can be flat-footed, as when asking a companion whether a disabled person takes sugar in his coffee, when he could answer very well for himself, by gesture if not verbally.

Pope Francis takes the opposite view. Of course there is his own limited mobility for all to see, since he doesn't retire to the back of the Vatican, out of sight. He goes about the business of being pope undaunted, thanks to those around him. So do many people with disabilities too, and much has changed for the better since the International Year of Disabled People in 1981. 

People who once would have been put away at birth are included in society but by no means all, everywhere, and when disability is counted as a reason to abort a foetus, babies, children and adults with disabilities are problems, not quite full citizens.

Let us add to Pope Francis's prayer, 'May all of us see people with disabilities as part of the bigger picture, part of God's plan.'