27 March: Lenten Pilgrimage XX, Vocation is more than ministry

We have been looking at different aspects of Christian vocation these last few days. Yesterday Bishop Erik Varden pointed us to the daily sacrifices through which we unite ourselves to the great Sacrifice of Christ. The daily sacrifices don’t have to be unpleasant: Mrs Turnstone often remarks: ‘I thought being a parent would stop when they left home.’ No! There is another generation who need love, care, support. We are not, thank God, the sort to retire to the golf course or prolonged tours on floating cruise cities, all needs catered for. there are family and friends on terra firma whose needs and gifts we are called to share.

I was recently reading the thoughts of some American religious sisters on their vocations.

Sister Carol Zinn Sister of St. Joseph of Philadelphia said, ‘I am a sister until I draw my last breath, not until I can’t physically do my ministry anymore. Structures always follow relationships. Structures don’t come first, relationships do, whatever the structure will look like, it will respond to the relationships.’

 Sister Jane Herb, of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary said the view of religious life needs to change from “a ministry of doing to a ministry of being.”

We will be good parents, good grandparents, good friends, when we take care of the relationships. Which reminds me of my Resolution to write a couple of letters or emails each day in Lent to friends or relations I’ve perhaps been a little neglectful of lately. A structure conceived to support relationships.

………………………………………………..

Dear X,

I’ve been meaning to write …

… … …

… Love and God Bless,

Will.

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26 March: Lenten PilgrimageXIX: Our exemplar, challenge, and joy.

This is an extract from a homily given by Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim at a votive Mass to Christ the Eternal High Priest on the final day of a retreat to the clergy of the diocese of Copenhagen. Maribo, Denmark, 16 February 2023.

The Priesthood.

We glory in the Cross! The Christ we know and confess is Christ crucified (cf. 1 Corinthians 2.2), who sacrificed himself — fully human, fully divine — to atone for us and, in death, to destroy our death. What depth of meaning in the statement the Epistle to the Hebrews puts on Christ’s lips: ‘I have come to do your will!’

It points towards a total oblation.

In that oblation you and I find our exemplar, challenge, and joy. Our priesthood is not a job we do; it is the life we live, a life in which everything can come to have a priestly character. We are called to offer sacramental gifts. That is not all, though. We are called to offer ourselves, to the end.

We are not only presbyters and pastors; we are priests, whose function and raison d’être is the offering of Christ’s sacrifice for the saving of the world. Into this great sacrifice we are drawn as participants. We offer it as representatives of Christ whose action is present.

Pope John Paul II lamented what he saw as a lack of the sacrificial element in the celebration of the Mass in his time, but I’ve never worked out what he meant, for the words we use are full of sacrificial imagery. Perhaps the problem is rather a lack of awareness, a lack of consciousness of the daily sacrifices asked of us. Even those extracted from us willy-nilly can be seen through the perspective of Calvary and offered up; but it is not the easiest thing, to glory in the Cross, especially if it is one laid on my shoulders by the circumstances of life. But accepting the Cross through gritted teeth is a step towards being drawn into the great sacrifice of Christ. Do read the whole homily at the link above!

23 March: Lenten Pilgrimage XVII, at risk of injury, infection or insult.

I look upon it as a great grace that in spite of my tepid life Jesus has given me an ardent desire to love Him. I long eagerly to love my Jesus passionately, with an intense ardent love such as the saints had; and yet I remain cold and indifferent with little zeal for His glory.

Fr Willie Doyle S.J. wrote these words during the Fourth Week of the Spiritual Exercises, you can read the full diary entry if you follow this link.

Surely most of us remain ‘cold and indifferent with little zeal’ for much of the time. We talk of getting through the week on autopilot. We cannot all give up four weeks to follow the Exercises of Saint Ignatius. We hardly notice Lent is underway; indeed we go to work, cook the meals, get the children to school, change a nappy. We may be so tired, so tepid, that we cannot feel ardent as we go about our duties, but Jesus says we will be judged on what we did to the little ones, not how passionate our feelings were. Sometimes love demands above all perseverance and faithfulness in little things; sometimes getting on with undesirable or dangerous tasks, at risk of injury, infection or insult. Indeed, sometimes we need to be cold and indifferent to get on with the task in hand.

I came across Fr Doyle when reading about sacrifice in the Great War, 1914-18. Some years after this entry he volunteered as a military chaplain and won a reputation as a brave pastor to the men he served with. He would go out into No Man’s Land to bring back the wounded or give them the sacraments. He is considered a Servant of God, and his cause for canonisation has begun. The link will open within the official website of the cause.

More reflections on vocation tomorrow and the following day when we hear Mary’s ‘yes’ and follow where it led her.

29 December: Small acts of kindness by Father Peter.

Chicken by Abel, 7.

Father Peter shared this story in Missio magazine, Autumn 2022.

I was driving slowly in the countryside on one of Kenya’s dusty, gravelly roads.

Just ahead of me I saw a young girl walking by the side of the road carrying a chicken. As I drove past, the chicken jumped out of her hands and flew into the side of my car and was killed.

I stopped the car, got out, and apologised to the girl – although it was not my fault. The poor girl was distraught, looking down at her dead chicken lying on the road which would now not lay any eggs for the family.

Seeing her distress, I gave her 10 shillings. Her eyes lit up and a smile crossed her face. With that money she could go back to the market and buy not just one but two egg-laying chickens! Not only that, but she could also take the dead chicken home and she and her family could have a tasty meal.
Best of all – she would not face the wrath of her parents!

To live a Christ-like life, one does not need to perform heroic acts of self–sacrifice! Small everyday acts of kindness, compassion and caring can turn sadness into joy and make us channels of God’s love.

FATHER PETER
You can write to Fr Peter at:
41 Victoria Road, Formby,
Liverpool L37 1LW

Mission Today Autumn 2022 published bu Missio -England and Wales
Build a vibrant Catholic Church for the future


FATHER PETER
You can write to Fr Peter at:
41 Victoria Road, Formby,
Liverpool L37 1LW

15 September: Familial sacrifices, Our Lady of Sorrows.

from CD.

Good Morning! We make a big mistake if we say that the sacrifice of Christ was what happened on Calvary Hill and leave it at that. As Rowan Williams said, he lived a life-long passion. A passion caught from his parents, Mary and Joseph.

We know that Jesus suffered hardship on the road, but he kept going. As an infant seeking emergency refuge in Egypt, he still had what he most needed, the intimate love of Mary and Joseph. As an adult itinerant preacher, the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head.

As an infant he went where his parents chose in order to preserve his life, while for his sake they accepted exile, anxiety, pain, and a double dose of the exhaustion that every new parent knows. No doubt the magi’s gold ran out soon enough, spent on wayside inns, renting a place in Cairo, buying new tools for Joseph. Meagre rations until Joseph had an income.

Every parent can relate to these sacrifices, though many would not recognise their own daily grind as sacrificial, but it is a grind at times, and so it was for the Holy Family too. For some of us exile is leaving, if only for a while, an enjoyable job with interesting and funny colleagues and customers. It is a sacrifice, as is accepting the waves of tiredness, boredom, loneliness, depression that can knock a new father as well as a mother off-balance.

Jesus learned about sacrifice from the sacrificial love of his parents. They prepared him to be about his Father’s business even if they did not realise what it meant in practice to a 12 year old boy, let alone the man he grew into.

And a sword will pierce your heart.

Let it be done to me according to your word.

11 May: Honour the LORD with your wealth.

 

“Honour the LORD with your wealth and with the first-fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.” Proverbs 3:9.

 

Christ Jesus would have approved of this mosaic in Broadstairs Baptist Church. The grapes, the wine, the bread could all be from very close by. There are still fishing boats working nearby, farms growing wheat and ever more vineyards as Kent’s climate favours the grape more and more. The mosaic brings to our consciousness the reality of where this church is sent.

 

The mosaic is honouring the Lord with the first-fruits of  the local community; presumably the Church used its collective wealth to commission the work from a local artist. A mosaicist used to live in our street, not so far away.

 

The church uses its wealth, in terms of the church, hall and meeting rooms, not only to worship and chat about the congregation’s business, but also open these up to local groups. They are conscious of other people’s needs and strive to meet them. I used to teach there: groups of teenagers who had fallen out of school for different reasons and who would not have been wanted in other halls because of occasionally unpredictable behaviour. But there was always something else going on in the building at the same time, or following on from us: playgroup, rehab exercises for older people, drop-in sessions of various sorts. 

 

Thank you to Broadstairs Baptist Church for honouring the Lord by sharing your wealth! 

 

In these last days of Lent, we can remember people like Mary Magdalene, Johanna, Susanna, and Mrs Zebedee who supported Jesus with their wealth, not forgetting Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea who provided Christ’s tomb, newly carved from the rock. Am I supporting Jesus with my wealth of money, time, abilities?

12 April: The Love of Christ Which Passeth Knowledge

” I bore with thee long weary days and nights,
  Through many pangs of heart, through many tears;
I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights,
    For three and thirty years.
 Who else had dared for thee what I have dared?
  I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above;
I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared:
    Give thou Me love for love.
 For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth,
  For thee I trembled in the nightly frost:
Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth:
    Why wilt thou still be lost?
 I bore thee on My shoulders and rejoiced:
  Men only marked upon My shoulders borne
The branding cross; and shouted hungry-voiced,
    Or wagged their heads in scorn.
 Thee did nails grave upon My hands, thy name
  Did thorns for frontlets stamp between Mine eyes:
I, Holy One, put on thy guilt and shame;
    I, God, Priest, Sacrifice.
 A thief upon My right hand and My left;
  Six hours alone, athirst, in misery:
At length in death one smote My heart and cleft
    A hiding-place for thee.
 Nailed to the racking cross, than bed of down
  More dear, whereon to stretch Myself and sleep:
So did I win a kingdom,—share my crown;
    A harvest,—come and reap.
Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti’s reflection challenges her readers to look through Jesus’ eyes and heart, to acknowledge our betrayals and falling short, but to put ourselves in that cleft heart and share his crown, share his harvest.

24 January: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2022, Day VII.

Original photo of Nablus (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0): Dr. Michael Loadenthal

Day 7 “Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh”

Readings

Hosea 6:1-6 – (v6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice)

Matthew 6:19-21 – (v21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also)

Reflection

The prophet Hosea is known for his cry for justice and love to override religious ritual and regulations. We are called to make a treasure of our expression of love and our work for justice and to let that be the offering that we place before the manger. We know that God does not want our riches or burnt offerings, but rather that God’s power works through our poverty: “I have no silver or gold”. The Lord desires our loving hearts, filled with mercy, truly penitent and desiring change.

Let us then prepare the gift of a heart full of love. Kneeling in worship requires hearts that are contrite for the sin that divides us and obedient to the One we serve. This obedience revives, heals and reconciles everything that is broken or wounded in us, around us, and among us as Christians.

Unity is the gift offered to us by Christ. We grow in communion as we share the graces our different traditions have received, acknowledging that the source of all our gifts is the Lord.

Prayer
God,
through your prophets you have called us to do justice,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with you.
In Christ, you have shown us what that looks like.
Through your Holy Spirit you continually enable us to hear your words,
to follow Christ’s example, and to live as his disciples.
So, as we gather at the manger, heal our wounds,
reconcile our divisions and hold us together in your love.Amen.

Hymn Verse
Vainly we offer each ample oblation;
vainly with gifts would his favour secure
richer by far is the heart's adoration;
dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
dawn on our darkness, and lend us your aid;
star of the east, the horizon adorning,
guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.
              Reginald Heber (1783-1826)

Questions

Global: Climate justice is being recognised as an expression of social justice with which churches can act together on a global scale. Why is this the case?

Local: Sometimes we talk of Christian Unity being advanced more easily when local churches work together on a specific project, often one involving an expression of social justice. How have you experienced this in your local area?

Personal: How do you consider the importance of church as a place for offering worship and as a place from which to call for social justice?

Go and Do

(see www.ctbi.org.uk/goanddo)

Global: Take time today to campaign for global justice. Visit the websites of CTBI agency partners (see https://ctbi.org.uk/membership/) to take part in their current campaign actions for social justice.

Local: Identify projects in your local area that need more support, and work together as churches to assist them.

Personal: Consider an issue of social justice that you’ve not been involved with previously and take time to find out more and take action.

Going Viral LXXXV: the certain fact that the virus is still with us.

A statement from the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales regarding attending Sunday Mass.

“It is hoped that it will be possible for all Catholics in England and Wales to fulfil the Sunday Obligation, by the First Sunday in Advent 2021.”

(Pere Jacques Hamel, martyred at the altar, 2017).

We are mindful of the certain fact that the Covid-19 virus is still circulating in society. Vaccines provide genuine protection against the worst effects of the virus, yet we recognise the legitimate fear on the part of some who otherwise desire to gather for Holy Mass. It is our continuing judgement, therefore, that it is not possible at the present time for all of the faithful to attend Mass on a Sunday thus fulfilling their duty to God.

It is hoped that it will be possible for all Catholics in England and Wales to fulfil this most important Church precept, that of the Sunday Obligation, by the First Sunday in Advent 2021. In the meantime, all Catholics are asked to do their best to participate in the celebration of the weekly Sunday Mass and to reflect deeply on the centrality of Sunday worship in the life of the Church.

In April, following our Plenary Assembly, we offered a reflection on the experience of the extraordinary long months of the pandemic. It was titled The Day of the Lord. We also began to look at the way forward. We spoke about the important invitation to restore the Sunday Mass to its rightful centrality in our lives. We asked for a rekindling in our hearts of a yearning for the Real Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist, as our response to the total, sacrificial love that Jesus has for us. We said: “The Eucharist should be the cause of our deepest joy, our highest manner of offering thanks to God and for seeking his mercy and love. We need to make it the foundation stone of our lives.”

May this continue to be our striving during these coming months as we journey back to the full celebration of our Sunday Mass and our renewed observance of The Day of the Lord.

5 April, Easter Monday: Johnson on the Eucharist

St Mildred’s Anglican Church, Canterbury, the Paschal Candle decorated with flowers.

‘Shall I ever,’ he asks on Easter Day, ‘receive the Sacrament with tranquility? Surely the time will come.’

from “Life of Johnson, Volume 2 1765-1776” by James Boswell

Doctor Johnson was staying with his friends the Thrales when he wrote this, well aware of his own sinfulness and the gulf that that could give rise to between himself and God, but also believing that salvation is ours: Christ has Passed-over through death to eternal life and so shall we. Believing does not mean being totally assured in my mind and heart that salvation is mine, and for the melancholic Johnson, all the theology in the world could not enkindle such certainty. Rather it is to accept the promise of salvation, even with a tiny part of myself, and forgive myself for my unbelief. Even a mustard seed faith can leaven the lump that I am; I can receive the Sacrament in fear and trembling, but at the same time, at a deeper level than my doubts, with tranquility.

Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1Corinthians 5:6-8)