O come O come Emmanuel

A joyful Year of Faith to look forward to

 A Year of Faith
Let us joyfully greet the Holy Father's designation of the year from October 2012 as a Year of Faith.  Let us gladly look forward to the riches of the Catholic Faith that will be shared during the year, and let us pray God's grace will enable us to share those riches with those around us.  click here for more

Aleteia
Please keep an eye out for this new website that enables people to find reliable catholic teaching from the best sources on the web.  It is to be launched any day now.  Aleteia is from the Greek for truth.  http://www.aleteia.org/

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Just to clarify my last post.  Swordinariate is not shifting over to Twitter.  It is just that Twitter will alert people to new postings on this Blog.

Render unto Caesar The enemies of Jesus set a trap for Him. Although normally the Pharisees and Herodians were enemies, they come together to lay a trap for their common enemy. The Jews were obliged to pay taxes to Caesar as they were an occupied nation. The Pharisees opposed the paying of taxes, which was obviously a very popular position to take. The Herodians, on the other hand, supported the payment of taxes as a compromise for the sake of peace; by this position they gained power. So the enemies of Jesus lay a trap in the form of a question that would force Jesus to respond in one of two ways: either Jesus would support the tax and thereby discredit himself with the people, or he would tell them not to pay the tax and the Herodians would report Him to the Roman authorities. In a masterful stroke Christ undermines their trap. Asking for a denarius, the coin used to pay the tax, He enquires as to the image on the coin. The image is of course that of Caesar, inscribed with the words: Augustus Tiberius, son of the divine Augustus. Caesar claimed to be son of God! Of course this appalled Jews who were known for their rejection of other gods. The Herodians took the position that they would have to put up with this in order for there to be peace – the Pharisees took a hard-line position: resist paying taxes. Jesus was not however threatened by Caesar's claim of divinity, nor his required tax. Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God, that which is God's. If Caesar just wants grubby coins, give it to him. The image of Caesar was imprinted on silver coins – the image of God was found in humanity. Jesus shows His enemies that their focus is wrong. Yes, the claims of divinity by Caesar are untrue, but they need to focus not on the kingdoms of this world rather the Kingdom of God. They should focus on something different to a coin – the human heart, their hearts. The Pharisees felt themselves to be truly faithful to God's Law. They were not prepared to compromise their principles. They thought the Herodians to be very worldly: far too concerned with politics and power. The Herodians were in part pragmatic; but they were also caught up in power games. But both the religious Pharisees and the worldly Herodians had got it wrong. Now these two Jewish parties are important not just for historic context but because the same sort of mistakes can be made by people of faith in any century. Whether we think of pragmatists and hard-liners, or, progressives and conservatives, we easily recognise that such parties exist in the church of today. Retreating into parties within the church is never a good idea. It was not a good idea in the early Church, and it is not good for us today. Such parties can be a prelude to heretical movements. Parties arise out of reacting against something that is perceived to be wrong. In reacting against it, very often an over-reaction occurs. Parties and labels are something to avoid for they accentuate disagreement and cause division. In the time of St Paul, some Christians divided themselves according to who baptised them. What St Paul taught was that what mattered was Jesus Christ, not who baptised (see 1 Cor). Christ called both Herodians and Pharisees to re-focus, to turn to the heart of the matter. In the book of the prophet Isaiah, the foreign ruler, Cyrus, was proclaimed to be God's anointed despite not being conscious of it. God reveals that He is quite capable of enabling a foreign power to serve His divine purposes for His people. Similarly God was quite capable of using the Roman Empire for His purposes. Herodians and Pharisees needed to have greater confidence in God who is the Lord 'unrivalled'. Caesar posed no threat to God, no matter what he had stamped on his coins. Christ says that God has no need of coins, He wants hearts converted to Him. In St Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul shows how focused he is on the divine image reflected by the Thessalonian church. What is reflected is wealth, not in coins but in three principle Christian virtues: … you have shown your faith in action, worked for love, and persevered through hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. May it be that we exemplify such virtues in our daily lives, and thus show the divine image imprinted on us.

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Collect Trinity 14 BCP)

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Wedding garments

From my sermon at the student mass last Sunday.

The wedding garment

Banquets and feasting are very much the theme in the first reading and the gospel today. The feast in Isaiah is in the context of a whole chapter giving thanks to God who has done away with the oppressor. Apparently the oppressor had a citadel in the midst of Jerusalem and this citadel had been completely destroyed. It was time to rejoice and be thankful.

Yet this victory, welcome though it undoubtedly was, was only one stage – the great hope is the “feast for all peoples”. After Judgement God will destroy death – the covering over all peoples, the veil spread over the nations will be destroyed; God will swallow death forever.

As we turn to the parable of the wedding banquet in the gospel today, we notice that the parable has two parts. We can clearly understand the meaning of the first part because it parallels the parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard we heard last Sunday. The king's invited guests are not responding despite the sending out of servants to call them to the banquet (the servants being the prophets). The guests deal wickedly with the servants and murder them and then the king despatches his troops and deals with them by killing them and burning down the town. Then servants call everyone from highways and byways, good and bad alike, to come to the banquet. This refers to the call of the gentiles into the kingdom of God.

All well and good. But the second part of the parable takes a different turn. The new guests are arriving and entering into the king's banqueting hall. The king is looking over the guests. And he picks out someone who is not dressed appropriately, and they are thrown out into the outer darkness.

If you are wondering about this and what it could mean, you are not alone. Over the centuries many have wondered at its meaning. As with all the parables we are not to take it literally – it is not referring to impropriety in dressing wrongly for mass, or an other occasion. So what is it? What has this man done to deserve this treatment?

The first thing to recognise is that it is not to do with any misfortune that the man has experienced – he isn't victimised because he is poor, for example. I read in the commentaries that wedding garments would have been provided for the poor. So in the story this man had chosen not to dress like everyone else. What therefore does this mean?

Both St Gregory the Great and St Augustine agree what this wedding garment signifies, and I gladly take their suggestion above all the various other suggestions I have heard preachers give.

St Augustine and St Gregory say that the wedding garment is the Christian virtue of love (what used to be called charity). St Augustine refers us to St Paul's words in his first letter to the Corinthians:

If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love(charity), I am nothing.

The man had nothing to answer, the robe had been offered to him and he had decided not to wear it. We too are offered the grace it is up to us whether we avail ourselves of it.

When St Augustine, St Gregory or indeed St Paul used the word “love” they were not talking about the natural affection or emotion of love that we usually mean in common speech today. [This is one of the most confusing/misleading aspects of the modern world – the corruption or prostitution of so many wonderful words.] And it is imperative that we as Christians know what we mean by love.

So the wedding garment in the parable is not about how disposed we are to feel love towards people or indeed God. God does not command us to be luvvie-dovies!

The natural instinct and sentiment of love drives us towards having or possessing what we desire. Whereas the Christian virtue of love is almost the opposite. It is not a drive, but the operation of grace leading to self-offering to God. It is not about possessing something but giving self. It is not about getting more for myself, but sacrifice. This Christian virtue of love is not dependant on emotions but involves a free act of will. God provides the grace, we must freely choose to receive it.

So the man in the parable is the one who while being offered the grace of divine love, refuses it; but in refusing it, as St Paul says, becomes nothing (that is true outer darkness).

The commandment to love God is at the very heart of Christianity and Judaism. Our Lord endorses the core Jewish precept, “hear O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (Dt 6:4-5)

We get further confused by the use of heart here. We tend to use heart nowadays as the seat of our emotional life, but for the ancient Jew, he thought with his heart – he felt emotions with his bowels. And as we see bowels are not mentioned in the above list. God is not commanding us to feel love  – we might or we might not, it does not matter so much.

The Christian virtue of love is a patient and humble love. It does not try to possess or control. It is not full of itself but self-emptying. The Christian virtue of love is the drawing of all the energies and virtues of the soul towards God – unifying the whole soul and directing it towards God. This is of course perfect love but every Christian should desire this and strive after such love.

It is by growing in divine love that we draw closer to eternal blessedness – the true banquet of heaven. As we grow in such love we grow in the true knowledge of God, and the soul is energised for good. As we mature in such love, results matter less, just the knowledge of doing the will of God is all that matters.

But How? How do we avail ourselves of such love? There is only one source of such love: God Himself. And no technique or method will avail ourselves of His grace. We must spend time offering ourselves to Him in prayer and allow Him the room to send His grace into our hearts. The great challenge for us today, in the busyness of modern living, is to make sure we give God enough time, that we avail ourselves of the wedding garment He has provided for us. Lest when we come to the wedding banquet of heaven, we find we have not put on the garment of divine love, and we are nothing!

IH 8 Oct 2011

A Cardinal, a Vineyard, Judgement and Holiness

A conker tree still producing fruit

His Emminence Cardinal Levada

On Michaelmas it was my privilege to concelebrate the mass of St Michael and all Angels (as it is called in the Ordinariate Ordo) with His Emminence Cardinal Levada along with the other ordinariate clergy.  The mass was splendid and was celebrated in the seminary chapel.  Although the mass was the common Roman Rite we tried to make it Anglican in the way it was performed. So we sang it with full ritual, singing a few Anglican type hymns but chanting the full setting of the mass. We also used Merbecke's setting for the Our Father.

Much could be written of the lecture Cardinal Levada delivered to the ordinariate clergy.  I will just say that it was wonderful to hear the thoughts both of the Cardinal, his prece of the ARCIC process and the hopes of the Holy Father for the ordinariate. It is clear that it is a significant and new approach to ecumenism by the Holy See.  While talks and reports may continue to still happen, it seems unlikely that any more significant ground can be made this way.  This can hardly be surprising when Anglican governing bodies have gone back on agreements, practicing something different to what they have agreed.  So the vatican's response to Anglicans, who saw how ecumenism has stalled, was the creation of space within the Catholic Church for Anglicans to live truly as Catholics, and also share their particular charisms and traditions, thus enriching the whole Catholic church. It was gratifying to actually hear these things from the lips of the prefect of the congregation of the doctrine of the faith.

27th Sunday per annum

“Why is it that the church seems to be struggling so much? Why is it that we cannot point to our church as a “success” in order to convince people that they should be part of it?” 

One sometimes hears these sorts of questions, and even sometimes think them ourselves. It is of course much easier to invite or even argue that someone should be a part of the church if the church can be seen as a success, or exemplary in all it does. But that is not the case. Critics of the church can so easily find problems with the church: examples of how its members fall very short of the teaching of their Lord. And we might pray to God, ‘why has this happened?’

In the readings of today, we are presented with the image of the vineyard, and are told that this
vineyard is the people of God. God has planted the vineyard, each vine plant he has tended
and encouraged to grow. In the prophecy of Isaiah, despite the efforts of this tending of the
plants, the vines produce fruit that is sour. Nobody likes sour grapes! And in the prophecy
Isaiah says that because of this the vineyard will be laid waste, overgrown and grazed upon. In
the final verse Isaiah makes it plain that what this means is that God, who expected a righteous
people living in the ways He had revealed to them yet finding the opposite, will visit judgement
upon them.
 

Now this sounds very dramatic, especially when we employ the word ‘judgement’. Judgement
is not a popular idea in the modern Christian’s mind despite its Biblical origins. What I think
people are actually rejecting when they say something like,“I don’t like the idea of the judgement of God”, is actually an image of God; they reject an image of a vengeful God who visits punishment on His wayward children for their wickedness.

So how should we view judgement? Judgement is not about revenge on God’s part.
Judgement is simply the consequences of not doing God’s Will - it is the consequence of doing
our own thing and ignoring what God wants for us. So in the context of Isaiah’s prophecy the
downfall of Israel is connected with their lack of faithfulness to God expressed as injustice and
bloodshed. Isaiah’s prophecy reveals to God’s people that the consequence of their infidelity to
God is disaster. In the time of these prophecies the disaster that befalls them is the Babylonian
exile. Despite being God’s special people, their nation is torn apart and their beloved city of
Jerusalem is destroyed, and vast numbers of the people deported into servitude in Babylon.
The lament of God’s people is captured in the psalm of today. In the second stanza, the psalm
asks God with regard to the vineyard, “why have you broken down its walls? It is plucked by all
who pass by, it is ravaged by the boar of the forest, devoured by the beasts of the field.” The
once well tended vineyard has been truly laid waste. This is how the people must have felt -
bewildered by being forsaken by God.
 

In the gospel today, our Lord takes this theme from Isaiah and the psalms and develops it
further as He presents a challenge to the leaders of the Jews in His own time. He likens the
chief priests and elders to tenants of the vineyard. Religious leaders are called to tend the
vineyard for God. Yet these tenants are found to be doing it not for God but for themselves.
They do not want to send the owner of the vineyard His dues, but rather keep it all for
themselves. And Jesus says that this was manifested in bloodshed and injustice against the
prophets, persecuted for speaking God’s word, and is also true for Him, God’s Son. Not only
will they not respect God’s Son, they will actively try to destroy Him.
 

The challenge was aimed at the chief priests but is of course applicable to the church and
especially those of us called to leadership in the church. Later in the first century, the church
would see the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans just as the Babylonians had done
before. But this warning of the parable also applies to the leaders of church today. Anyone who
takes on leadership in the church does so knowing that if they fail to tend the vine and allow
it to produce sour grapes or fails to produce fruit at all, will have to answer for this. I was very
conscious in my own ordination of the weight of the responsibility one is asked to bear. But it is
not just true for clergy but also those who are catechists, eucharistic ministers, or lead the music group. If by our words or actions we inhibit their growth in faith, then we will have to face the judgement. Those of us with responsibility in the church need your prayers.
 

But let us not think that this parable could only apply to leaders - it is tempting for the laity
to think it only applies to the clergy, the clergy to think it applies to the bishops, the bishops
perhaps to the pope...! We all have a share, a responsibility to make sure we are people who
produce the fruit that God wants. And the fruits God wants from us are lives of virtue, of holiness
 

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure,whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you. (RSV CE)

We might wonder about the church and why it isn’t successful in some way, but the only
measure of success that we should be concerned with is our growth in holiness, in the virtues
St Paul talks about. These virtues might not make us a success in the eyes of the world, and it
might even lead to our persecution, but it does mean we are doing what God wants of us and
producing, by His grace, the fruits He wants us to produce.

Journalists and the Pope

Milo Yiannopolous, of The Catholic Herald, has done this excellent amusing piece on the appauling way mainstream journalists tend to deal with the Pope.  It is funny, but sadly it is also true.

Imagine you’re a newly minted BBC News intern. You bound into the office on your first day, your 2:1 in Media Studies and Digital Production from the University of Salford burning a hole in your pocket.
You’ve made it! You’ve reached the dizzying heights of the state broadcaster’s newsroom. You’re ready to take over the world.
But disaster strikes: your editor hands you the first assignment, and it’s a report on the Catholic Church. Pope Benewhatsit has gone to some place to give some speech about God and stuff.
You’re eager to impress, but totally out of your depth. What are you to do? Who do you turn to?
Well, here at the The Catholic Herald, we understand how peculiar and arcane the world of Catholicism must appear to reporters new to the beat. That’s why we’ve trawled the archives of the major broadcasters and newspapers to bring you the lessons learned by your senior colleagues.
We hope that by sharing these best practice guidelines, we can help reporters to uphold the tradition of fair and balanced reporting on Catholic issues for which the British press is rightly famed. Here, then, are our top tips for success.

For any event at which the Pope appears, always inflate the number of protesters. At World Youth Day in Madrid this year, the number of protesters represented less than 0.04 per cent of the people who turned out in support of the Pope (5,000 people versus 1.5 million people). But that didn’t stop those enterprising minds at the BBC from focusing almost exclusively on the malcontents, ignoring the vast scale and success of a joyful celebration of young Catholics. ....

Read the rest of the article here .
Fr Ian

Celebratory Mass and Cream Tea

Fr Robin's Anniversary Mass

What a privilege it was to be with Fr Ellis celebrating fifty years of Christian priestly ministry!  Could he have imagined back then that he would celebrate the fifty years finally as a Priest of the Catholic Church?   In Fr Robin's own words, we celebrated the mass in thanksgiving for God's gift of priesthood to the Church.  The Mass was concelebrated by the local ordinariate clergy and also Fr Smethurst, a diocesan priest, who was also formerly Anglican.  Fr Smethurst preached a helpful sermon on the lections, although in a small digression he told us that Fr Robin had instructed him to stay on the readings and not to speak about him. The chapel was almost full as friends, family and former colleagues gathered to celebrate with Fr Robin and Anne, his wife.  It was great to see Anglican friends at the mass, although heart-wrenching when it came to Communion, when so many received blessings and we felt the pain of Christian disunity.  Everybody pulled out the stops to make the Mass the best we could offer.  Lead by our very gifted cantor, Michael, we sang the Missa de Angelis. Michael not only lead us in the setting of the mass but also sang a very beautiful Alleluia and later the Offertory.  The congregation was in very good voice too and seemed very comfortable with the liturgy.  I was pleased at how well the congregation seemed to cope with the Latin which for most Anglicans and former Anglicans is unfamiliar territory.

Following mass we went to The Grange, instrumental in the Abbey's important work of hospitality to all visitors, where we enjoyed a cream tea provided by Fr and Mrs Ellis.  What a wonderful celebration!  Thank you to Fr Robin and Ann for allowing us to share it with them.

Conkering

Again conkers were on the mind of my younger children.  This time they didn't want to depart without some decent sized shiny conkers.  So dad had to scuff around in the leaves before we could depart for home. 
Fr Ian Hellyer