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.

13 April: Surrounding himself with happy creatures.

O taste and see how gracious the Lord is; 
blessed is the man that trusteth in Him."
—Psalm xxxiv. 8. 

You see by these words what love Almighty God has towards us, and what claims He has upon our love. He is the Most High, and All-Holy. He inhabiteth eternity: we are but worms compared with Him. He would not be less happy though He had never created us; He would not be less happy though we were all blotted out again from creation. But He is the God of love; He brought us all into existence, because He found satisfaction in surrounding Himself with happy creatures: He made us innocent, holy, upright, and happy. And when Adam fell into sin and his descendants after him, then ever since He has been imploring us to return to Him, the Source of all good, by true repentance.

“Turn ye, turn ye,” He says, “why will ye die? As I live I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” “What could have been done more to My vineyard that I have not done to it?” And in the text He condescends to invite us to Him: “O taste and see how gracious the Lord is: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.” As if He said, “If you would but make trial, one trial, if you would but be persuaded to taste and judge for yourself, so excellent is His graciousness, that you would never cease to desire, never cease to approach Him”.

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

”He found satisfaction in surrounding himself with happy creatures” – and so would we, if we sought the happiness of those who live around us. What will make them happy? There may be many things. How can we bring some of them about?

Can I develop a deep down belief that I am happy, despite misfortune and suffering that comes my way? Can I be a happy creature as God created me?

Our stained glass window from Saddleworth has Jesus surrounded by happy creatures – the children pressing around him and the hand-fed flock of the Good Shepherd.

24 March, Jeremiah XXX: They shall know my name.

Jeremiah could read the sign of the times, that people would come from the ends of the earth to find the true God, not one they had made. His rescuer, Ebed-Melek was from Ethiopia for a start! This was not a new idea: think how often the Psalms sing of the nations flocking to Jerusalem and worshipping the one true God^.‘O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth.’ PS67.4.

Jesus was approached by Gentiles, something we can look on as a sign of his times and for ours. This Palm Sunday let’s rejoice that we can shout hosannas with brothers and sisters from Mozambique to Malta, Chile to China, England to Ethiopia. Here is Jeremiah, and after him, Saint Matthew. Happy Holy Week!

O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.

Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?

Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The Lord. (16:19-21.)

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Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. (Matthew 27:54).

Photo: Palm Sunday in Mozambique, Missionaries of Africa.

12 March, Jeremiah XXIII: like a tree by the waters.

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is, for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. 17:7-8.

Jeremiah’s words here remind us of the first song in the book of Psalms, which would have been well known to his hearers, but where the Psalmist prefaces this passage with praise of the ‘just man’, Jeremiah denounces the one whose heart turns away from God:

 Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. 17:5-6.

Inevitably, it seems, I depart from the Lord soon after I place my trust in him. Dear Lord, when I am far from you in my heart let me hear the living waters and make my way towards them and towards you, the fountain of life, Amen.

Photograph by CD

30 November: Abel’s sacrifice was his heart.

 

I have never felt comfortable with the slaying and burning away of animals to appease or thank God, nor with the story of Cain and Abel. They were the sons of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. One day they both sacrificed to God, Abel from his flocks of domestic animals, Cain vegetables from his fields.

God accepted Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. An angry Cain then killed Abel, and was exiled from his family.

What was this all about? Why does God choose meat over vegetables? According to Saint Cyprian, I am asking the wrong question. Read on and see if you agree!

God commands us to be peacemakers, and to agree, and to be of one mind in his house. What he has made us by the second birth he wishes us to continue during our infancy, that we who have begun to be children of God may abide in his peace, and that having one spirit we should also have one heart and one mind. Thus God does not accept the sacrifice of one who is in disagreement but commands him to go back from the altar and first be reconciled with his brother, so that God may be placated by the prayers of a peacemaker. Our peace and concord are the greatest possible sacrifice to God – a people united in the unity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

When Abel and Cain were making the first sacrifice – not even then did God pay attention to their gifts. He looked into their hearts, and the gift that was acceptable was the one offered by the one who was acceptable in his heart. Abel, peaceable and righteous in sacrificing in innocence to God, taught the rest of us that when we bring our gift to the altar we should come, like him, with the fear of God, with a heart free of deceit, with the law of righteousness, with the peace of concord. He sacrificed in such a way, and so he was worthy to become, afterwards, himself a sacrifice to God: he who bore witness through the first martyrdom, who initiated the Lord’s passion by the glory of his blood, had both the Lord’s righteousness and the Lord’s peace. Such are those who are crowned by the Lord at the end; such are those who will sit and judge with him on the day of judgement.

God did not pay attention to their gifts, but to their hearts. We can follow the argument about sacrifice through the Book of Psalms.

Cyprian, Treatise on Sacrifice, Office of Readings 23.6.23

12 September: A Fresh Translation

This is a blog post from the United Reformed Church. They have just adopted the Grail translation of the Psalms for their on-line worship resources, a translation familiar to most English speaking Catholics, albeit in a revised, and as yet not approved, revision.

The Grail PsalterChi Dear Maurice Over the last 6 years we have, each Sunday, worked our way through the Psalms.  First in the metrical version used by the Free Church of Scotland, then through a variety compiled together in the book Psalms for Every Season.  Now, for the next three years, we’re going to use the Grail Version in its 1986 inclusive language translation. The Grail Psalms, first published in 1963 by the Ladies of the Grail (now called simply The Grail), were an English translation of the Psalms in the, French, Jerusalem Bible translated by Jesuit priest Fr Joseph Gelineau around 1953.  The Grail is an association of lay women grounded in the Catholic Church but has members from a variety of traditions.  Their Psalms were designed for worship where they were given a responsorial structure, with the congregation singing a repeating antiphon between the Psalm verses which are sung by a choir or cantor and a regular metre – rather like the metrical Psalms made popular at the Reformation.  The Grail version was already popular before the Second Vatican Council revised the Catholic liturgies.  The Council called for more liturgical use of the vernacular instead of Latin, and also for more singing and chanting.  As a result the Grail Psalms were utilised as the official Catholic liturgical Psalter by most of the English-speaking world.  A separate edition of the Grail Psalms, revised with inclusive language, was produced in 1986 but was expressly forbidden for liturgical use!  It is this version we will be using.   Translators from one language to another have to wrestle with how best to go about their work.  Do they seek word for word accuracy from the source language (formal equivalence) or do they seek to render the original meaning in ways which make sense in the target language (dynamic equivalence), or strike a balance between these two?  Since the 1960s Biblical translations such as the Good News, Jerusalem, the New English, and New International Readers’ Version all used dynamic equivalence to try and ensure readers understood the meaning of the text.  On the other hand translations such as the New King James Version, Revised and New Revised Standard Versions and the Revised New Jerusalem version all use formal equivalence seeking to render an accurate version of the original languages.  Biblical translations such as the New Jerusalem, and New International Version try to marry these two approaches.  The differences over Biblical translation have also played out in the Catholic Church’s translation of the liturgy with the 1970s rite using dynamic equivalence from the Latin but more recent revisions have produced a formal equivalence version which, to my mind at least, seems rather more stilted and stuffy.  The Grail version now used in Catholic worship is a revision based on the principles of formal rather than dynamic equivalence.   The Grail Psalter, like the wider Jerusalem Bible, strove to use a dynamic equivalence approach to translation seeking to make the words of the Psalms meaningful to modern readers.  Many of us will be unfamiliar with this version of the Psalms despite its past extensive use in Catholic worship.  I hope the translation will be fresh for us and help us appreciate, anew, the Psalter which has long served as the prayer book of both Synagogue and Church. With every good wish Andy The Rev’d Andy Braunston Minister for Digital Worship

3 May, Francis on Joseph II: A tender and loving father.

Joseph was a tender and loving father: continuing our reading from Pope Francis’s letter on Saint Joseph, husband of Mary and adoptive father of Jesus.

Joseph saw Jesus grow daily “in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favour” (Luke 2:52). As the Lord had done with Israel, so Joseph did with Jesus: he taught him to walk, taking him by the hand; he was for him like a father who raises an infant to his cheeks, bending down to him and feeding him (cf. Hosea 11:3-4).

In Joseph, Jesus saw the tender love of God: “As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him” (Psalm 103:13).

In the synagogue, during the praying of the Psalms, Joseph would surely have heard again and again that the God of Israel is a God of tender love,[11] who is good to all, whose “compassion is over all that he has made” (Psalm 145:9).

Tenderness is the best way to touch the frailty within us. Pointing fingers and judging others are frequently signs of an inability to accept our own weaknesses, our own frailty. Only tender love will save us from the snares of the accuser (cf. Revelation 12:10). That is why it is so important to encounter God’s mercy, especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where we experience his truth and tenderness. Paradoxically, the evil one can also speak the truth to us, yet he does so only to condemn us. We know that God’s truth does not condemn, but instead welcomes, embraces, sustains and forgives us. That truth always presents itself to us like the merciful father in Jesus’ parable (cf. Luke 15:11-32). It comes out to meet us, restores our dignity, sets us back on our feet and rejoices for us, for, as the father says: “This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (v. 24).

Even through Joseph’s fears, God’s will, his history and his plan were at work. Joseph, then, teaches us that faith in God includes believing that he can work even through our fears, our frailties and our weaknesses. He also teaches us that amid the tempests of life, we must never be afraid to let the Lord steer our course. At times, we want to be in complete control, yet God always sees the bigger picture.

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Bishop John Jukes OFM used to talk to children about baby Jesus’s fingernails – he needed them trimming just as they did, and perhaps needed some persuasion for one of their parents to be able to perform this service. A tender parent, like Joseph and Mary, will eventually be able to cut their child’s nails without fuss, and later, teach the little one to trim their own nails.

The Holy Family with Saint Francis, image from C.D.

The synodal and missionary Church presses on.

More news from the African Synodal Assembly.

PRESS RELEASE N.3 This Synod Assembly is over, but the synodal and missionary Church is moving forward!  After a morning dedicated to the practice of spiritual conversation in working groups on the draft Final Document that will be sent to the General Secretariat of the Synod by 31 March, this afternoon the participants gathered in plenary assembly to share the fruits of the morning’s work. Much of the afternoon was devoted to perfecting the final document with corrections and amendments. It was an arduous but true collegial work where everyone was able to express their opinion. The assembly managed to approve a set of priorities that it intends to offer as Africa Synod document to the universal Church for the work of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. The ad hoc group of experts who, since the seminaries in Accra and Nairobi, have been working on the Addis Ababa Synodal Assembly document, will continue to refine the document according to the indications received from the Assembly before sending it to the General Secretariat of the Synod.   In their closing remarks cardinal Berhaneyesus Souraphiel, who hosted the meeting, said “We are all Africans, so let us be free to move anywhere, to journey together, especially our youth who aspire to go to go Arab region of Africa and South Africa in search of greener pastures. SECAM can not only be the voice of Africa but also the point of reference”.   Bishop Lucio Muandula, first vice-president of Secam, quoted psalm 133 “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes” to express his satisfaction and reminded how “Journeying together gives us the strength to overcome any problems and challenges.”   Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, General Rapporteur of the 16th General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of the Bishops, expressed his joy and satisfaction on the work of the assembly. “I would like to thank God and all of you for this wonderful time of listening, of listening with empathy. In all continental assemblies I have found a catholic way of journeying together, of synodality through the spiritual conversation where sisters or brothers are a place where the Holy Spirit speaks to us and where we are all called to conversion in order to serve the world”. And referring particularly to the last session, he stated “I must say that I admire you for the passion you put in this last debate. It shows that the Church in Africa is living and that God’s Spirit is living in you”.   Then, the President of Secam, cardinal Fridolin Ambongo closed officially the meeting saying “We have come to the end of this historic Continental Plenary Assembly of the Synod on Synodality. […] These days we have been together at this Synod Assembly were not only a moment to talk about synodality, but a moment of experiencing synodality. We truly felt like a family, the family of God in Africa and the Islands that walks together, sharing joy and sorrows of our time. Focusing on the exercise of listening, cardinal Ambongo recognized that “listening to each other and to the Holy Spirit, helped us to reach consensus in dealing with the delicate themes that the Church is living today on the continent and the Islands, and to identify the priorities of the Church in Africa. This Syond Assembly is over, but the synodal and missionary Church is moving forward!” The President of Secam then concluded that “Renewed through the celebration of this continental synodal assembly, the Church in Africa and Islands commits to move on, especially by deepening the sense of being a Church-family, making it a place of mutual listening and listening to the Holy Spirit, a place of communion, forgiveness and reconciliation. Renewed by the celebration of this synodal assembly, the Church in Africa commits to enlarge the tent of inclusion by following the Gospel principle of conversation as the criteria”.

3 January: An old Scot remembers.

Weeping Willow, Westgate Gardens, Canterbury.

At New Year 1873, William Allingham, the Irish Poet, was in London and called on his Scottish friend Thomas Carlyle, as he told his diary.

London, January 1, 1873. — Carlyle’s at 3. He gives me a book. We walk out.

This morning he said, ‘ after midnight, as Mary and I were sitting together, we heard a chorus of male voices outside the window singing Auld Lang Syne. We peeped out, and saw five or six figures on the other side of the street. I was really touched. I put up the window and said ” Good-night ! ” one of them eagerly replied ” Good-night ! ” and then they all vanished silently away.’

Then with a laugh he added, ‘ Truly the songs of Judah in a Babylonish land ‘ ! and afterwards quoted Burns’s burlesque lines : — We hung our fiddles up to dreep*. He spoke of ‘Hogmanay ‘ in the streets of Edinburgh, hot punch and kissing.

*Nae mair by Babel's streams we'll weep,
To think upon our Zion;
And hang our fiddles up to dreep,
Like baby-clouts a-drying:
Come, screw the pegs wi' tuneful cheep,
And o'er the thairms by trying;
Oh rare! To see our elbucks wheep,
And a' like lambs' tails flyin'
                                        Fu' fast this day!

In Psalm 137 the poet sings of the people of Israel refusing to sing in exile, instead hanging their musical instruments on the willows beside the rivers of Babylon. This willow was just coming into leaf in Spring. Carlyle was not a conventional Christian believer, more of a life-long enquirer, but he enjoyed the tribute of being serenaded with song from the first-footers – who vanished silently away rather than expect their dram of whisky. Hogmanay seems to have been carnival time in Edinburgh 200 years ago, when Carlyle was a young man there.

Burns was not the man to indulge for long in melancholic reflection; rather he looked forward to the fiddlers’ elbows whipping the strings and getting people to dance. Perhaps the exiles’ songs of Judah contributed greatly to the fellowship, friendship and community of the Chosen People.

10 December, Advent Light X: Look up in hope

From Bishop Erik Varden’s ‘Coram Fratribus’ website. He is addressing an audience of monks in a French abbey, looking at Luke 21:5-19, when the disciples are admiring the temple but Jesus tells them it will all be destroyed. They should rather look to heavenly, eternal realities, manifest in our world of time. The full text is here.

If we lose the habit of considering what is temporal in the light of what is eternal, we shall seek the purpose of our life in view of an horizon that grows ever narrower, full of menacing shadows. We shall be at the mercy of false prophets who manipulate these shadows as puppets to inspire fear and to keep us submitted to the power of their rhetoric. We see this tendency at work often enough in our anxious Europe today. The Christian’s remedy is to raise his eyes serenely in search of a vaster comprehension, animated by hope, remembering that creation doesn’t exist for its own sake, that it indicates a purpose that transcends it.

If we accomplish our earthly pilgrimage in this way, our life will not be any less sweet or precious. On the contrary. Hope will bestow on constrained existence an opening towards eternity. By following this hope, we shall give to others, too, the courage to hope.

The quality which the Gospel proposes to learn to live in this way is perseverance: perseverance in directing our thoughts and acts according to the mind of God; perseverance in listening and patience (the two presuppose one another); perseverance in friendship with Jesus, by which grace will also instil our others friendships, which otherwise might tend towards superficiality, informed by self-love and self-interest.

By building our lives thus on what is true and real, we shall not need to fear the day of the Lord, burning like a furnace. Let fire consume the chaff and withered branches! For the Children of the Kingdom, who live according to the logic of their baptism, the day of the Lord will bring healing in its wings. Let us, then, give ourselves faithfully to our daily tasks, as St Paul would have it, for the good of others and for our delight, but without forgetting that our today points towards God’s tomorrow. Our present condition, even in its moments of ecstasy, is but a noviciate preparing us for a life of eternal abundance. Amen.

In my family there were times when there was a lack of temporal abundance. I have memories of a Christmas when my mother made a Christmas tree of green woollen yarn, stretched over drawing pins on her bedroom wall. From each branch she had hung a sweet, one for each of us for a few days. It was frugal but sweet and precious.

Let us prepare Christmas ‘for the good of others and for our delight.’