Advent reflection: taken, blessed, broken and given

Mission: We are to be taken, blessed, broken and given

The miracle of the feeding of the four thousand is a miracle of generosity. It is a miracle that also recalls the miracle of the great prophet Elisha (in 2 Kings 4:42-44) when he multiplied 20 barley loaves to feed 100 men, with some left over.

The miracle also prefigures the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. In the account, our Lord takes, gives thanks, breaks and then gives them food (Mt 15v36). This pattern is the pattern of the holy Mass. Through His disciples the multitude, over whom Jesus expresses much compassion, are fed. So He also feeds us with compassion through His disciples today. But he not only feeds us, He also calls us to go out. The Lord has taken us, we give thanks for the Eucharist and are given new life through it, and we then go out into the world.

Going out into the world we come into conflict just as Jesus did. Christ was broken on the cross for our salvation. So we also suffer because we witness to Christ in our lives. Through faith and hope, our suffering is united to His suffering, and because His suffering is redemptive, so our suffering participates in His redemption. By our witness and suffering in the world, others can be given the new life they so desperately need. The pattern of the Eucharist is also the pattern for effective mission.

The superabundant generosity of God is nowhere more manifested than in the Holy Eucharist. For the Eucharist is the superabundance of the Father’s gift of His Son to the world for our salvation.

Fr Ian

Hiding things from the wise

St Luke has preserved for us one of Jesus explicit prayers to the Father. These prayers of our Lord are a very precious and wondrous thing for us to have.

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to infants; yes Father for such was your gracious will. (RSVCE, Lk 10:21-24)

We notice that our Lord begins with thanksgiving. He thanks the Father for ‘hiding’ the mysteries of the Kingdom from those who think they are ‘wise’ and ‘understanding’. This is not our Lord being anti-intellectual. Our intelligence is God-given and therefore good, but if we suffer with pride our intelligence can get in the way. Pride means we forget God; we make our own human intelligence the superior intelligence. And this blocks our minds from opening to the truths revealed by God.

Our faith is a faith based on divine revelation. It does not contradict our God-given intellectual powers, but if we are proud then we will not be open to divine revelation, because we will not be willing to humble ourselves to accept it. Just as God is willing to condescend to reveal Himself out of His great love for us, so He requires of us to humble ourselves to accept His revelation. We must be like infants. To accept divine revelation does not require us to be super-intellectual and neither do we need to be anti-intellectual, but we do need to humble ourselves.

Our Lord’s exclamation, “Yes Father!”, mirrors the fiat of His mother when at His conception she gave herself to become the Mother of God the Son. It expresses the depth of His sacred heart and prefigures His prayer at Gethsemane, when He gave Himself to His Father’s will.

The whole prayer of our Lord is an expression of the loving adherence of His human heart to the will of His heavenly Father.

So let us this Advent, following the example of Our Lord and His mother, give our hearts to the will of our heavenly Father.

Fr Ian

Advent thoughts - Monday week 1

Monday of first week of Advent

Gospel of the day: Mt 8:5-13  The healing of the centurion’s servant

Our Lord marvelled at the faith of the centurion who said he was unworthy of such a guest as Jesus. What faith indeed this man must have had for Jesus to have marvelled at this Gentile soldier! The centurion was a military commander of one hundred men. According to Luke’s account of this he was responsible for building a synagogue. The witness of the Jewish people had opened this Gentile man’s heart to the truth. And before the Christ he stood before the Holy God of Israel, though he did not know it fully; at least intuitively he knew this man was different.

His words are familiar: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” At Mass we say: “Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.”

Our souls, like the centurion’s servant, need to be healed by Christ. We inherit the consequences of Adam’s sin, and while our baptism has absolved us of this original sin, God wills that we should still be subject to its temporal consequences. We still have a tendency to sin. We find the sinful way much easier than the virtuous way. Our souls are not yet fully reconciled to God and thus need healing. Christ alone can heal us.

Christ comes to us as a guest in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. He condescends to make the bread and wine of the Eucharist His most sacred Body and most precious Blood, that we might welcome Him as a guest and that we might be healed.

How do we approach our Lord Jesus Christ during Mass? Do we approach with the faith of this centurion? Or do we take Him for granted? Do we think it our right to receive the sacrament?

In this season of Advent let us cultivate a sense of the sacred. Try to spend time before a sacred image or a crucifix adoring God and thanking Him for His inestimable gift in the Incarnation and Redemption. Even better try to spend some time before the Blessed Sacrament adoring Christ.

Some more reading here:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P42.HTM

Veneration of St Thomas More's relic

The veneration of the relic (hair shirt) of St Thomas More is now possible whenever Buckfast Abbey is open (almost every day of the year). His hair shirt made out of goat hair, which the saint wore while he waited for his martyrdom, has been placed in a glass case upon an altar of the abbey.

Read more here.

Ethical Sex

"Ethical Sex" 

- a talk by Dr Anthony McCarthy (the same title as his book) - 

- Christ the King Catholic Church Hall, Plymouth - 2pm - Sunday 27th November -

- the talk follows lunch - Mass at 12noon -

Ethical Sex: Sexual Choices and Their Nature and Meaning. Is sex important? How concerned should we be about our sexual choices and their effects? Is sexual desire best understood in terms of pleasure, love, interpersonal union and/or procreation? In an era of radical redefinition of marriage and rapidly changing views about the nature of sex, Ethical Sex seeks to bring some philosophical clarity to our thinking.

Please join us for this stimulating and informative event.

November: the month for praying for Holy Souls

A cemetery in Plymouth where my grandparents are buried

During the month of November the Church calls on the faithful to pray for the souls in purgatory by various devotional means.

Background
It is during November that the Church meditates on the Communion of Saints. What do we mean by this? This is the charitable link between three parts of the Church: (1) with the faithful who have already reached heaven (Church Triumphant), (2) the faithful departed who are still expiating their sins in Purgatory (Church Suffering) and (3) of the pilgrim faithful here on earth (Church Militant). 

In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1475).

So presently we are the Church Militant and we have the great gift of being able to receive grace and to grow in piety. One of the pious activities we are called upon is to offer prayer for the souls in purgatory. The Church asks us to do this throughout the year but especially during this month.

Plenary Indulgence for visiting a cemetery and praying for holy souls
Between November 1st and 8th, the Church grants a plenary indulgence from the temporal effects of sin for the souls of the departed in purgatory. This indulgence is granted once per day for a visit to a cemetery (with the intention of gaining an indulgence) at which we pray for the departed. The usual conditions for an indulgence also apply, one must :

• (1) be in a state of grace;

• (2) have gone to confession during the 8 days before or after the visit;

• (3) have received the Sacrament of the Eucharist on the day;

• (4) have prayed for the Pope's intention (by whose Christ-given authority the indulgence is given);

• (5) be detached from all sin (including venial sin) - otherwise the indulgence is only partial.

The indulgence is only partial on other days of the year when this is done.

Holy Day of Obligation - ALL SAINTS
The month of November begins with an obligatory feast when the faithful gather to celebrate the Church Triumphant. The importance of us focusing on the ultimate goal of our existence (ie. heaven) cannot be overemphasised. The Church calls on us all to come to Church to receive this special grace. And this is especially important in this materialist age when the reality of the spiritual and unseen is so often regarded with deep skepticism or at times ridicule. 

Masses for the Dead
The highest prayer that can be offered by the Church Militant is of course the Holy Mass. 

In the Scriptures of the Old Testament it is recommended we pray for the dead: 

It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.(2 Macch. 12, 46). 

This duty has found expression not only in public and private prayers but especially in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the repose of souls. The faithful should ask their priest to offer a mass for holy souls in purgatory.

Other means
While the mass is the highest prayer, we can do other things to relieve the suffering of souls in purgatory: prayer, suffering and penances.

(1) Prayer. We can of course offer rosaries for the departed and also pray the traditional prayer:

Requiem aeternam dona ei (eis), Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei (eis). Requiescat (-ant) in pace Amen.
Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

This prayer has a indulgence applicable to dead attached to it, and can be prayed throughout the year. Some families may pray this prayer at their meal-time prayers.

(2) Suffering. Any suffering we endure can be piously offered to the Lord for the benefit of the souls in purgatory.

(3) Penances. We can voluntarily take on activities which we offer not for our own benefit but for the souls in purgatory.

Opportunity
The month of November is then a great opportunity for the faithful to remember their communion with the Church Suffering and the Church Triumphant. It is part of our communion of charity that we should do these things. And it benefits us too. The more souls that can move from purgatory to heaven the more there are to pray for the rest of us, and we, having prayed for the souls in purgatory, will benefit from their prayers if we should, according to God's judgement, find ourselves in purgatory also.

Fr Ian Hellyer

More:
On Indulgences: The Catechism of the Catholic Church section on Indulgences, Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 2, Article 4, Subsection 10, 1471-1479.
For more information on the Church's teachings on indulgences, read the Enchiridion of Indulgences given by the 1968 Decree of the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary. 

Eight new candidates for the priesthood

Monsignori Broadhurst, Burnham and Newton at their ordination

Eight new candidates for the priesthood within the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham began their training at the beginning of October.  They are all former Anglican clergymen and thus undertake a tailored scheme of study under the direction of Dr Stephen Wang, the former Director of Studies at Allen Hall and now Senior Chaplain for Universities in Westminster Diocese, who is Director of Studies for the Ordinariate.  Lectures began with a session on Moral Theology by the Rev'd Dr Dylan James, priest of the Diocese of Plymouth and Tutor at Wonnersh seminary.  If you would like a taste of Fr Dylan's teaching click here for a recording of the introductory lecture. 

These eight men join one other former Anglican priest who is in his second year of training and our two seminarians at Oscott college.  Eleven candidates in training is a clear sign that the Ordinariate has a strong future.

[taken from the Ordinariate weekly email newsletter]