Behold, I will bring back again Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwelling places; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanks giving and the voice of them that make merry: I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will glorify them, and they shall not be small. Their children also shall be as afore time, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress them.
And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Jeremiah 30:18-22.
A hopeful message from Jeremiah today. The photo shows Truro Cathedral on its hill or heap, a place of merry singing when we were there. Other cities are not peacefully set on their hills, with war and its consequences making life impossible.
Let’s pray that leaders of nations and warring factions will strive to make Jeremiah’s vision a reality. And that each of us might strive to bring about peace in our families, work places, schools and communities.
Today we are happy to share L’Arche UK’s annual Impact Report. This colourful leaflet (with plenty of links to other stories of our members) will give you a taste of who and what we are in this jubilee year – 50 years of L’Arche UK, 60 years of L’Arche internationally – and what we hope to achieve in the next 5 or 50 years. Click the link and read on!
Pope Benedict XVI was baptised as Joseph. Here is an extract from a homily he gave to workers on this day in 2006.
In many passages, the Bible shows that work is one of the original conditions of the human being. When the Creator shaped man in his image and likeness, he asked him to till the land (cf. Gn 2: 5-6). It was because of the sin of our first parents that work became a burden and an affliction (cf. Gn 3: 6-8), but in the divine plan it retains its value, unaltered.
The Son of God, by making himself like us in all things, dedicated himself for many years to manual activities, so that he was known as “the carpenter’s son” (cf. Mt 13: 55). The Church has always, but especially in the last century, shown attention and concern for this social context, as the many social interventions of the Magisterium testify and the action of many associations of Christian inspiration show; some of them are gathered here today and represent the whole world of workers.
Work is of fundamental importance to the fulfilment of the human being and to the development of society. Thus, it must always be organized and carried out with full respect for human dignity and must always serve the common good.
At the same time, it is indispensable that people not allow themselves to be enslaved by work or idolise it, claiming to find in it the ultimate and definitive meaning of life.
If the Son of God made himself like us in work, may our work make us more like him, day by day.
I’ve half a mind to shake myself Free just for once from London, To set my work upon the shelf And leave it done or undone;
To run down by the early train, Whirl down with shriek and whistle, And feel the bluff North blow again, And mark the sprouting thistle Set up on waste patch of the lane Its green and tender bristle.
And spy the scarce-blown violet banks, Crisp primrose leaves and others, And watch the lambs leap at their pranks And butt their patient mothers.
This extract from Christina Rossetti’s poem, A Farm Walk is almost a poem within a poem. What will getting out of London for a day do for her – or the assumed ‘he’ who speaks here? One thing each of us could profitably do is shake ourselves, get out of the rut and breathe fresh air, look around and see – things we maybe overlook day by day. These white violets are hard to spot near the edge of a local park. In a couple of weeks, if you did not know where to look, they would be hiding, ever more successfully, under the grass and weeds that surround them.
Even the sight of the photographs shakes away a layer of stress! That earliest of orchids, rising amid the primroses; the companion planting arranged by nature in both pictures. If you can’t get out of town, make for your back garden or local park. Do it today, as part of your Lenten almsgiving to yourself!
Rossetti, in the rest of her poem mourns a lost opportunity, perhaps even the memory of an illusion of an opportunity. Let this passage sink in before turning to the complete text which you can find here. It is melancholy, as so often with Christina Rossetti!
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.
An ecumenical team from Burkina Faso with the local Chemin Neuf Community have prepared the prayers for Unity Week 2024. Today we can learn a little about the vocation of the Chemin Neuf – the New Way.
An introduction to the Chemin Neuf Community.
The Chemin Neuf Community (CNN) is a Catholic community with an ecumenical vocation, born in Lyon in 1973 and now established across five continents. Inspired, like so many new communities, by the dynamics of Vatican II, it is rooted in both the Ignatian tradition and the experience of Charismatic Renewal – i.e. life in the Holy Spirit.
Couples, consecrated brothers and sisters, women and men, from different countries and different cultures have chosen the adventure of community life following Christ. Living in the same area or under the same roof, they experience daily that sharing actually increases what they have. Sharing who they are makes them more truly brothers and sisters. On this humble path of shared daily life, they experience how much the meeting of their differences is a richness, especially as it experiences the challenge of reconciliation. From this communion spring the joy and celebration which are at the centre of the community.
2,400 people are members of CCN, present in 30 countries, in 80 dioceses; among them are 400 consecrated celibates, including 120 priests. The founder of the community is Père Laurent Fabre. He was succeeded as leader of the community in 2016 by Père François Michon.
In Burkina Faso, CCN has about seventy committed members, mainly married couples, but including also priests and consecrated sisters. (For more information, see: https://www.chemin-neuf.fr or http://bf.chemin-neuf.org.)
The Chemin Neuf community has an ecumenical vocation: “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). “We dare to believe in the visible unity of the Church, and we have received a call to work for that unity with all our strength” (Constitutions, p. 20). Jesus was the first to pray for unity, and members of CCN desire to make this prayer their own. “Anything we can do together, let’s do it.”
Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Orthodox and Anglicans, they share their daily life and carry out their missions together. They do this in order to bear witness together to the love of the Father for all his children. On this journey, they offer various ecumenical formations and desire to involve their respective churches with them, forging strong bonds with those around them.
Somehow these stone-carved oak leaves and acorns have come down to us from the mediaeval masons of Southwell Minster. They are part of a rich treasury of carvings of leaves around the chapter house or priests’ meeting room. At the time the masons were at work, the ancient Sherwood Forest surrounded Southwell much more closely, with a wide variety of native trees and plants. It is easy to imagine a mason arranging a sprig like this on a board beside where he was working, modelling his work on the divine creation before his eyes.
But lately I read these words, from Florence, where the director of the cathedral museum is an American priest called Timothy Verdon. He told Joanna Moorhead:
Ultimately, what we’re doing here is helping people to pause and think about beautiful things that speak to them on some level. And maybe for them to find in that a religious meaning, a source of contemplation. A discovery of something new and meaningful.
New and meaningful? The Southwell leaves are centuries old, as are the exhibits in the Florence museum, but new to us. The leaves bring the local forest into the Minster, bring God’s creation before of our eyes, drawing us to look at individual leaves, sprigs, and flowers and thank our Creator for his handiwork and that of the craftsmen it inspired. The meaningfulness will seep into my consciousness in the days and years to come, I hope.
For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12).
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.'
Samuel Pepys was a conscientious civil servant. He was in post during the Plague, the Great Fire of London, and Naval wars and skirmishes, notably with the Dutch. Clearly money was going to be tight but to make matters worse King Charles II and Parliament were at loggerheads, while his brother, James Duke of York had a poor grasp of what the Navy needed in terms of ships, supplies, men and money to pay them. He decided to put his concerns in writing. This was rather more laborious than it would be for XXI Century writers as Pepys confides in his diary. We moderns, with our electric lights and computers and printers, have much to be grateful for, considering the editing process he describes as saving him much time.
Let us thank God for conscientious public servants and the work they perform.
Let us thank God for the benefits of modern technology at home, school and work.
Let’s pray for wisdom to use technology well and for the good of all our brothers and sisters.
Up, and to the office, where all the morning. At noon home to dinner, and in the afternoon shut myself in my chamber, and there till twelve at night finishing my great letter to the Duke of York, which do lay the ill condition of the Navy so open to him, that it is impossible if the King and he minds any thing of their business, but it will operate upon them to set all matters right, and get money to carry on the war, before it be too late, or else lay out for a peace upon any termes.
It was a great convenience to-night that what I had writ foule in short hand, I could read to W. Hewer, and he take it fair in short hand, so as I can read it to-morrow to Sir W. Coventry, and then come home, and Hewer read it to me while I take it in long-hand to present, which saves me much time. So to bed.
Here’s a prayer to start the day, or whenever we need to take stock, make a cup of tea, and have five minutes’ down time. I’m off to put the kettle on!
Let us pray.
In your love, Lord,
answer our humble prayer:
give us the grace to see what we have to do
and the strength to do it.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
agnellusmirror 