11 April: making you strong.

Burkina Faso is not the peaceful country it once was. Terrorists have forced many people to flee their homes but they find themselves in barren, waterless camps. There have been abductions too, including Marianite Sister Suellen Tennyson, who was then supervising her congregation’s medical clinic in Yalgo. A year ago she was kidnapped, tied up and driven away on the back of a motorbike.

At the time of writing she was safely home in the United States, enjoying being with her community and her family. Do read all about her experience of God’s presence in her time away. There are several Easter notes to her story which you can find here.

Advertisement

10 April: Eternal glory

O God, creation’s secret force, 
yourself unmoved, all motion’s source, 
who from the morn till evening ray 
through all its changes guide the day:

Grant us, when this short life is past,
the glorious evening that shall last;
that, by a holy death attained,
eternal glory may be gained.

To God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Spirit, Three in One,
may every tongue and nation raise
an endless song of thankful praise!

Saint Ambrose of Milan composed this simple hymn, appropriate for Eastertide with its reflection on a holy death and eternal glory. I wonder what would make a holy death? Or unholy? Accident victims and those who die in their sleep or of a massive heart event we can but commend to God, ‘creation’s secret force’ who can grant eternal glory to whomsoever he will. The photograph shows the ancient Baptistry beneath the present day Cathedral of Milan, discovered in the 1950s when the metro was being excavated. Notice that it was a proper pool with room for total immersion. It has eight sides because Jesus rose on Easter Sunday, the eighth day of Holy Week. We are baptised into his death and resurrection,as was Ambrose, in this pool, and at his hand, Augustine.

March 2, a recipe for Saints David of Wales and Chad of Lichfield

These bishops were ascetics and hard-working Pastors, and would have enjoyed this Lenten feast. It’s easy to make, cheap and tasty.

David, whose feast was yesterday, was born around 500, well before Augustine came to Canterbury to convert the English. The Welsh were already Christian and civilised. David founded a monastery where his Cathedral now stands, a pleasant walk from his birthplace, close by where his mother, Saint Nôn’s, well still flows. Water was all David drank: he ate just bread with herbs. Onions, leeks and garlic count as herbs, and surely so do peas. Was there a word for vegetarian in the sixth century, I wonder?

A century later, Chad was a civilised Saxon. He came to Lichfield in 669 from Lindisfarne by way of York; he is patron of the ancient Diocese of Lichfield as well as the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham. He lived a short distance from today’s Cathedral with its three spires and beautiful Lady Chapel. The area is rich in springs, one of them feeds Saint Chad’s Well. Here Chad would pray, and here he baptised his converts. Here stands the Church in his name.

Although he was only bishop for three years before he died of the plague on this day in 672, Chad so looked after his diocese, as Bede tells us, that he was soon declared a saint. Chad was known and loved for visiting on foot, and smoothing relations with the local British Christians, diplomatic where Augustine had been imperious. Saint Chad’s cathedral in Birmingham houses his relics, saved from destruction by local recusant families. Lichfield has a precious fragment of his tomb, a Saxon angel found under the cathedral floor.

This Pea Soup would suit both David and Chad. The pea-souper fogs of my childhood in Birmingham meant  School sent us home early, to feel our way by the gas lamps. Chad would have known the gentler mists that envelop Lichfield and the Trent Valley to this day.

Birmingham Pea Soup

Clean and chop up a leek, a big carrot and a celery stick. Put them into a big pan with 250 gm of split peas – use green or better yellow, the colour of the fog; 2 bay leaves, pepper and salt, a teaspoon each of ginger, coriander and paprika. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil, and push onto the back burner for an hour or so, before liquidising the soup. It will have the consistency of the air in old Birmingham on a foggy March evening. Serve with crusty bread, or croutons.

You could substitute a big onion for the leek.

31 January: Winter’s charms

From the Epistle to William Simpson by Robert Burns

Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me,
When winds rave thro' the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
Are hoary gray;
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,
Dark'ning the day!

O Nature! a' thy shews an' forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the summer kindly warms,
Wi' life an' light;
Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night!

The Muse, nae poet ever fand her,
Till by himsel he learn'd to wander,
Adown some trottin burn's meander,
An' no think lang:
O, sweet to stray, an' pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang. 

Three wintry verses from Robert Burns. Silence and solitude seem to be his prerequisites for hearing the heart-felt song forming in his mind. The Scots dialect is not too difficult here, but just a couple of translations from our third verse. 
Fand: found.
Burn: brook; it crops up in English place-names, Saltburn, Blackburn,  etc..

25 October: A Holy Well

Harbledown’s Holy Well.

This year we have been challenged not to take water for granted. Long weeks with little or no rain dried up fields and gardens, while rivers’ flow diminished. In one lake nearby many fish died from lack of oxygen.

It was a relief to come to the back of the old Harbledown leper hospital near Canterbury the week before the drought broke and to find the spring flowing in the holy well.

Edward, the Black Prince and Prince of Wales would have been happy, too. He attributed a cure he received to taking the water. He was devoted to Canterbury and was buried in the cathedral in 1376. The well is sometimes called the Black Prince’s Well, sometimes St Thomas’s. This was the last spot to water horses before descending into the city; a chance for riders, too, to take a cold drink and for the hospital to beg for alms.

Notice the Prince of Wales’s feathers carved on the capstone of the arch, an older example of this emblem, more formal than the version on British 2p coins and instantly recognisable to passers-by. The stone appears to be balanced on top of the arch rather than holding all of it together. Perhaps this sign of royal favour was enough to spare the well under the Tudor monarchs’ vandalism.

Let us pray with Saint Francis:
Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,
So useful, humble, precious and pure.

And let us remember how precious water is, and how impure it has become because we have despised its humility and taken it for granted.

5 September: On looking inside the window.

For more than thirty years we have resisted hanging net curtains in the bay window of our front room. We all, from visiting grandchildren to the oldest inhabitant, like to look out and wave to our neighbours and friends. Only yesterday Melvyn told me he always looks in case I’m there to exchange waves. But the other day brought something different. We spotted this damselfly on a loosely woven blanket by the window. The colours did not make for a good photograph, but black and white enhanced it all, especially the veins of the wings.

I wonder if the creature came from our pond? We soon opened the window and gently sent her on her way to snap up a few mosquitoes. It was encouraging to see a big dragonfly this morning by the river, but too high for a photo unless we get a drone! We would almost certainly crash it into the trees if we did.

Are dragonflies or damselflies mentioned by name in the Bible? I fancy not, but just look at Genesis 1:22, almost an exact description! And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. That sounds like a dragonfly or damselfly to me, coming forth from the waters to fly above the earth in the open firmamnet of heaven. LAUDATO SI!

31 August: A moment with … Tim Hollis by Maurice Billingsley

River Waveney and boats at Beccles, By David Medcalf.

The challenge was to describe a moment spent with another L’Arche community member, and it was issued days after news of Tim Hollis’s death, so this is what came to mind. Tim’s funeral is today, 31 August. MB.

We got to know Tim and Marion Hollis quite well in those early days of L’Arche; they were almost part of the furniture, they came so often. It was good to witness how greatly they respected every core member and assistant, an example to us all. When we went on pilgrimage to Walsingham, they welcomed us to their home in Beccles, with its little oratory in the attic, lit by a custom-made glass roofing tile.

Two or three years after leaving L’Arche I was working in a London adult training centre and was asked to accompany  a small group on holiday quite close to Beccles, so I wrote to ask if we might visit Tim and Marion; of course a warm welcome was extended.

After tea and visiting the oratory, Tim invited us for a voyage on the River Waveney, the southern end of the Norfolk Broads. Tim, Geoffrey Morgan and Jean had been in the Royal Navy together, and Tim now had his own boat, big enough to take us all.

Everyone was comfortably enjoying the trip when Tim asked the student beside him, ‘Mervyn, would you like to steer?’ Mervyn proudly took the wheel and soon grasped how to use landmarks to steer by. Everyone else got a turn, even Maurice.

I expected Tim to be wary of Eric, who spent all day head bent, looking down. Could he possibly steer a boat with eight people on board? Tim felt my tension, but said simply, ‘watch’. I watched. Eric stood at the wheel, hardly raising his head, but plying the course that Tim set him. Eric did not have the speech to say how he felt, but the pleasure and recognition he experienced were palpable.

That moment has informed so much of my work with people with learning and behaviour difficulties: so often they are not trusted and respected, even by those entrusted with their care, education and well-being.

It’s a bit late to tell Tim how much that one moment means to me still, but never too late to share such good news. Thank you Tim, and thank you, Eric.

God Bless,

Maurice.

24 July: Teach us how to pray

Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. A moment of prayer with the Lord.

Jesus did not confine his mission to his own Jewish people. The woman at the well is just one example that we know about; she spoke to him face to face, undergoing a radical examination of conscience, and putting her faith in the Messiah who was calling her.

Today’s Gospel reading is from Luke 11:1-13, the Lord’s Prayer. The link leads to the Bishops of England and Wales’ page of the Lord’s prayer recited in different languages. A reminder that the Gospel is for every nation, every citizen, every human being.

Prayer too is universal. We can pray by listening as well as speaking. You can select the language you want to hear the Lord’s Prayer prayed in using the playlist on the web page. Maybe the next time you go to Mass abroad, you’ll be able to let these words flow over you even if you can’t join in reciting them!

9 June: A newish feast.

Rood, Our Lady and English Martyrs, Cambridge.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest

Pope Benedict XVI set this Feast on the Thursday after Pentecost ten years ago. It has only just crossed my radar, and I wondered whether this was a feast for clericalism, that non-synodal view of the Church that Pope Francis wants to leave behind. My suspicions were not placated when I saw the reading in the Divine Office was from Pope Pius XII, but I read on, and was reminded that he had made important changes to the celebration of the Eucharist, such as allowing people – including priests – to take a drink of water without breaking their fast. For anyone travelling a distance, or whose circumstances meant they attended a late Mass, he made it more possible to participate and receive Communion.

This extract from Mediator Dei insists that every Christian is called to be  a priest ‘as far as is humanly possible’; today we might remember that we are each anointed at Baptism to serve as priest, prophet, and king. But Pope Pius was exploring these ideas before Vatican II. The language is perhaps unfamiliar, but the message is clear enough.

Christ is a Priest indeed; however, he is a Priest not for himself but for us, since, in the name of
the whole human race, he brings our prayers and religious dispositions to the eternal Father; he
is also a victim, but a victim for us, since he substitutes himself for sinners.
Now the exhortation of the Apostle, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,’
demands that all Christians should possess, as far as is humanly possible, the same dispositions
as those which the divine Redeemer had when he offered himself in sacrifice: that is to say, they
should with a humble attitude of mind, offer adoration, honour, praise and thanksgiving to the
supreme majesty of God.
Moreover, it demands that they must assume in some way the condition of a victim, that they
deny themselves as the Gospel commands, that freely and of their own accord they do penance
and that each detests and makes satisfaction for his sins.
It demands, in a word, that we must all undergo with Christ a mystical death on the Cross so
that we can apply to ourselves the words of St. Paul, ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ (Galatians
2:19).

28 April: THE SHOWER

Waters above! eternal springs! 
The dew that silvers the Dove's wings! 
O welcome, welcome to the sad! 
Give dry dust drink; drink that makes glad! 
Many fair ev'nings, many flow'rs 
Sweeten'd with rich and gentle showers, 
Have I enjoy'd, and down have run 
Many a fine and shining sun; 
But never, till this happy hour, 
Was blest with such an evening-shower! 

                                                  From "Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II.

This was not an April shower, but a March one; a morning but not an evening shower yet I'm sure Henry Vaughan would have appreciated it, as I did, seeing the raindrops on the willows shining on the osiers. Laudato Si'!