Today’s Scripture Readings are about “counting the cost” of following Christ, in terms of commitment and personal sacrifice:

Great crowds accompanied Jesus on His way, and He turned and spoke to them… ‘Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple’.

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, comes among us in person. In 1982 Pope John Paul II paid a Pastoral Visit to this island. Pope Benedict pays the first ever Papal STATE visit. He comes as Successor of St Peter, and will have a message for both the State and for the Church in our land. His words will be significant. Like Jesus, in whose Name he speaks, he will challenge us to live the Gospel, to stand up for and proclaim the truths of the Catholic Faith. Are we ready to be challenged?

16th Sunday of the Year

“For too long a time there has been a mistaken insistence on the supposed incompatibility between secular work and the interior life. Nevertheless, it is there in the midst of daily work and by means of it, not in spite of it, that God wants to call most Christians to lives of holiness. We are to sanctify the world and sanctify ourselves with a life of prayer that gives divine meaning to earthly tasks.

“Jesus does not pass sweeping judgement upon Martha or Mary. He responds to Martha’s question with profundity by pointing to what is most important in life, that being the presence of Christ in the house. How often might not the Lord make the same reproach to us?  Nothing can justify forgetting Jesus in our daily work, not even the most important concerns. We cannot put Him, who is the Lord of all things, aside for the sake of the things of the Lord. We certainly cannot minimize the importance of prayer with the excuse that we are too busy with activity.

“All worldly occupations, when engaged in with the right intention, allow us the opportunity to put into practice charity, mortification, a spirit of service to others, joy and optimism, understanding and an apostolate of friendship and confidence. We sanctify ourselves through our work. This is what really matters – to find Jesus in the midst of our daily concerns, not to forget about the Lord of all things… Otherwise we will end up doing what is, in fact, His work for ourselves, thereby neglecting the Master.

From In Conversation with God, by Francis Fernandez

13th Sunday of the Year

At first glance it looks like a poster for a horrow film – perhaps The Omen VI: He’s Coming to Get You.”

This is how Terry Sanderson, of the National Secular Society, recently described an ultrasound image of a baby in the womb. He speaks for the self-proclaimed apostles of ‘reason’; but, in being so flippant, reveals the unreasonableness of many secularists to those without a voice: they are to be reviled and are, at best, only a commodity. Survival is only for the fittest, and for those whom ‘they’ choose to live.

The Catholic Church, without reservation, defends the right of the unborn, the sick, the elderly and the marginalised; it is for this reason that many secularists hate her with a fanatical passion. She challenges their perceived ‘right’ to commit evil, as they see ‘evil’ to be something relative – to be determined only by the individual. Logically, this is an absurd idea, but, nonetheless, it prevails and is practised widely by those who choose to ignore the Word of God and the teaching of His Church. However, this is nothing new. In the first century, the First Chrisitian Martyrs of the fledgling Church of Rome stood up to the absurdities and evils of the tyranical emperor, Nero, and paid with their lives. We celebrate their memory this coming Wednesday (30th June). In our day, the Church of Christ is still proclaiming Christian Truth; yet, in spite of his enormous power and prestige, Nero’s empire is but a chapter in history. Mr Sanderson: Have regard for the past, examine the present, look towards the future – Respice, adspice, prospice!

Indeed, the Sanctorale (the commemoration of the saints) for this week richly recalls martyrdom: the price paid by Christians for the Truth of the Faith, and none more glorious that Ss Peter and Paul, the two great saints of the Holy Roman Church, whose solemnity we keep on Tuesday (and which is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Latin Church!).

The word, martyr, comes to us from the Greek, martyros, meaning witness. Almost all the saints, whom we recall this week, died in witness of Jesus Christ. One need only contemplate today’s Psalm to understand their motivation. Here, the Psalmist highlights what is key for all the people of God, manely, to have a total devotion to the Lord. God is our refuge and portion; He is our counsel and fullness of joy. To understand this is to be fearless in the face of earthly trial, no matter what the cost.

In throwing his cloak over Elisha, in our first reading, Elijah, symbolically, passed to Elisha his God-given gift of prophecy. This succession of grace and authority is still passed on today, which is why bishops of the Catholic Church stand in succession, to Peter and Paul, in succession to Christ; and so, when Paul’s work in Galatia was being hindered by those who sought to undermine his teaching, he was able to speak with authority and proclaim that it was the Law of Christ – the Law of Love through the Holy Spirit – which would free the Galatians from the slavery of pettiness and indulgence into which they had found themselves drifting.

After 2000 years, the detail of the challenge to the Church has changed – we are no longer confronted by those who seek to impose Mosaic ritual on the Galatians. However, challenges remain, as today’s world clings to what the Holy Father calls ‘Relativism’. This is how he described the problem just before becoming Pope:

Having a clear faith based on the creed of the Church is often labelled today as fundamentalism. Relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, looks like the only attitude acceptable to today’s standards … We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognise anything as definitive and has as its highest value one’s own ego and one’s own desires.

The Church today, with that same apostolic authority, proclaims the Law of Christ, which is the Law of Love, the Law of Life. It is contrary to relativism and in the eyes of many, its promotion is an unpopular thing to do, but still, we must do it, for “… love of Christ compels us” (II Cor. 5: 14).

Death may not be the martyrdom which the Lord calls us to, but His words, nonetheless, call for a quality of discipleship and witness. His bidding, to “Follow me”, is not just for Sundays, it is for eternity, and we share it with all who have gone before:

Therefore, the witnesses are before the throne of God. They are exalted to heaven.

(cf Apoc. 7: 15)

Fashion is probably one of our modern age’s greatest concerns. It may not seem so, when one looks at some young people in ripped jeans and creased tee-shirts, but don’t be deceived, as each rip and each crease is carefully placed. ‘Sunday Best’ has come a long way and means difference things to different people. Indeed, the diversity of fashions seems to create divisions, often unintentionally, so that one group may be dismissive – or even fearful – of another group’s attire.

Whilst it is always important for the Christian to show respect by making an effort to dress for Mass, there is something far more important than mere fabric, which the Christian must consider as part of his or her calling. It is a far more glorious garment than any designer ensemble and enables the bearer to be an individual, but without losing their identity as a member of the Christian family. It proclaims the wearer as being a follower of Christ, united with God and His Church.

In today’s second reading, St Paul discusses the divisions in the society of his age when he talks of Jews, Greeks, slaves and freeman. We have our own divisions: rich and poor; black and white, etc. Some things don’t change! However, here we see how radical the gospel truly is. For no matter how our ‘enlightened’ and godless societies might consider themselves, they cannot help but create division and difference, in spite of their rhetoric to the contrary. True unity can only come from the God who is Unity in Trinity. For this reason, Paul teaches his listeners to clothe themselves with Christ – to put on Christ. In doing so, we become Christ’s and share in the Divine Love of the Trinity, which we celebrated in a significant way two weeks ago on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, but which is itself the apotheosis of all Christian worship. To clothe oneself in Christ is to enter an intimate relationship with God. It is to become one who proclaims Love; it is to become a living Gospel. We give testimony to God by putting on Christ.

In the Gospel today, Peter knew how to put on Christ when he acknowledged who our Lord truly was. The Gospel reading makes it plain that the price has been paid by Christ in his suffering. It is through the Passion and Death of our Lord that we can put on Christ. There is no other way to enter into this relationship of Divine Love; but, whilst the price has been paid by Christ, it is clear that, for our part, we must renounce ourselves, take up our cross and follow the Lord. The final point, that of following Christ, is an ongoing action and it is an eternal one. As the Compendium of the Catechism puts it (56):

While respecting our freedom, God asks us to cooperate with Him and gives us the ability to do so through actions, prayers and sufferings, thus awakening in us the desire ‘to will and work for His good pleasure’.

Phil. 2: 13

In a holiday, given at St Chad’s Cathedral in 1850, the Venerable John Henry Newman considered what it meant to put on Christ in this way when he wrote:

[We do not] dream of asking for more than that which, through God’s grace, will be ‘evident’, though there be ‘many adversaries’… No one proclaims the truth to a deceived world, but will be treated himself as a deceiver. We know our place and our fortunes: to give witness, and to be reviled; to be cast out as evil, and to succeed. Such is the law which the Lord of all has annexed to the promulgation of the truth: its preachers suffer, but its cause prevails. Joyfully have we become a party to this bargain; and as we have resigned ourselves to the price, so we intend, by God’s aid, to claim the compensation.

We can speak to God because God has spoken to us – because He has come to us as a Word and because, in His inmost life in the TRINITY, He is a relationship.

The prayer of Jesus reveals that the heart of the TRINITY is a familial, filial relationship of love. God in His inner essence is a dialogue of love, and our prayer, both corporately in the liturgy and privately, is a participation in this filial and familial dialogue.

The family prayer that Jesus taught his followers, the Our Father, illuminates this point. Even when the believer prays the Our Father privately, he or she prays as a member of the family of God. It is never my Father. The prayer of Jesus is always personal and simultaneously the prayer of one who knows himself to be part of a family. Prayer is always praying with someone in the communion of the Church, in the Body of Christ, the family of God.

As our prayer is never alone, neither is it something we can do on our own initiative. Prayer and worship are our response to the God who has first spoken to us. God’s Word to us is a gift, the gift of Himself; it is the opportunity to participate in His familial dialogue of love. This has two implications. First, it implies that our worship is never the work of the Church, never our own invention. Worship is a response to an initiative coming from above, to a call and an act of love which is mystery.

We can respond to God’s words and deeds in prayer and worship because He calls us into the dialogue that He is. As Pope Benedict says, “God Himself is the content of Christian prayer”. In our prayer we ask for no less than the gift of God’s self. We have the audacity to ask for that gift because He has given Himself to us, in a most definitive way, on the Cross.

The prayer of the Church, the liturgy, becomes, then, a participation in Christ’s work of self-giving. Liturgy is the opus Dei, the work of God – God’s action in us and with us.

Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, by Scott Hann (DLT 2009). All quotations are the the Holy Father’s writings.

Pentecost Sunday

Today’s feast of Pentecost is known as the Birthday of the Church.

While the Church was born from the side of Christ on the Cross, the Church was animated, filled with the life of God, at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit first came upon the Apostles.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 688) teaches us that:

The Church, a communion living in the faith of the apostles which she transmits, is the place where we know the Holy Spirit:

• in the Scriptures he inspired
• in the Tradition, to which the Church Fathers are always timely witnesses
• in the Church’s Magisterium (teaching office), which he assists
• in the sacramental liturgy, through its words and symbols, in which the Holy Spirit puts us into communion with Christ
• in prayer, wherein he intercedes for us
• in the charisms and ministries by which the Church is built up
• in the signs of apostolic and missionary life
• in the witness of saints through whom he manifests his holiness and continues the work of salvation

And the Compendium to the Catechism teaches:

139. What symbols are used to represent the Holy Spirit?

There are many symbols of the Holy Spirit: LIVING WATER which springs from the wounded Heart of Christ and which quenches the thirst of the baptised; ANOINTING with oil, which is the sacramental sign of Confirmation; FIRE which transforms what it touches; the CLOUD, dark or luminous, in which the divine glory is revealed; the IMPOSITION OF HANDS by which the Holy Spirit is given; the DOVE which descended on Christ at His baptism and remained with Him.

140. What happened at Pentecost?

Fifty days after the Resurrection (Easter Sunday), at Pentecost the glorified Jesus Christ poured out the Spirit in abundance and revealed Him as a Divine Person so that the Holy Trinity was fully manifest. The mission of Christ and of the Spirit became the mission of the Church which is sent to proclaim and spread the mystery of the communion of the Holy Trinity.

We have seen the true Light. We have received the heavenly Spirit. We have found the true Faith. We adore the indivisible Trinity, who has saved us. (Byzantine Liturgy, Troparion of Vespers of Pentecost)

Until very recently (and elsewhere still) kept last Thursday, 40 days after Easter, as “…for forth days He had continued to appear to them and tell them about the Kingdom of God…” (Acts 1: 3).

This nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost (next Sunday) gives us the original Novena (ie. 9 days of prayer) as the Biblical basis for the Novenas which often precede other feasts and celebrations, developed from this original Novena for Pentecost when we pray for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Today – World Communications Day – is kept on this feast when Jesus, ascending to His Father in heaven, directed the Apostles to “Go out to the whole world: proclaim the good news” as He said: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.” (Mt. 29: 20).

As we celebrate Our Lord’s Ascension into heaven it is therefore appropriate to ask ourselves the two most basic questions about communication:

1. How is the Faith communicated to me?
2. How do I communicate the Faith to others?

It is obvious that we cannot do one without the other. We have first to receive before we can give. We have first to be Disciples (ie. those who listen and receive) before we can be Apostles (ie. those who are sent). And we need assurance that this is authentic Catholic teaching (not dissenting from the Magisterium).

Our faithfulness at Sunday Mass is primary – in which we receive the Word of God, proclaimed in the Sacred Scripture and expounded in the homily; and in which we receive the Word made Flesh, whose Sacred Body transforms us into His likeness.

We, further, have responsibility to inform ourselves about the Faith by prayer, reading and reflection. There are many opportunities for this but, today, we suggest just three:

• News from the heart of Rome on the Zenit website – free sign-up at www.zenit.org
• Eternal Work Television Network (EWTN) – Channel 589 on Sky, and through Freesat, details on a poster in the Narthex
• Buy a weekly Catholic newspaper, e.g. The Catholic Herald

Lent lasts for forty days, but Eastertide lasts for fifty – which reminds us that, while penance has its proper and inescapable place in the Christian dispensation, the hallmark of our faith is joy – joy in the Resurrection and in the Redemption won for us by Jesus. His death on the Cross is not a defeat but rather a victory – the sacrificial love which Jesus shows on Good Friday is rewarded by the triumph of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, a triumph in which we share through our faith, and through the Sacrament of Baptism.

Easter is marked, among other things, by the resumption of the joyful chant of ‘Alleluia’, the Gloria, flowers, the wearing of white vestments, and the placing of the great Paschal Candle besides the ambo, where it illumines the Scriptures we read at Mass – a reminder that the whole Bible can only be understood in the light of the Resurrection, the final revelation of God’s abiding love which we especially celebrate in this holy season – the 50 days of Eastertide.

The principal Hebrew word for the ‘mercy’ of God (hesed) is the same word used to express the duties of mutual assistance in a natural community of from a contractual bond or covenant. But we speak only of the ‘hesed’ or mercy of God because He is the only One who is faithful to His side of the covenant.

When the people of the Old Testament sinned (were unfaithful to the covenant), they noticed that God nevertheless always remained faithful to them. The mercy of God thus includes His compassion, patience and forgiveness, and became the principal aspect of God who longs to be the Saviour, and who consequently stoops down to the weak, to sinners, and grants them His grace.

2nd Sunday of Easter

The liturgy of Holy Week is full of drama – an event which prepares us for the still greater drama of the Resurrection: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, all lead up to Eastertide, the most important season of the Church’s year. The themes of sin, betrayal, life, death, love, forgiveness, innocence and rebirth that run through these days are themes to inspire us – as they have inspired Christians for many generations.

Our Priests recently visited the newly opened ‘Medieval and Renaissance Galleries’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Part of the permanent exhibition (and so free of charge!) these are a sight no Catholic should miss. They might make an excellent outing during the Easter holidays (children are catered for too, and will find many interesting things to look at). The captions accompanying the exhibits are helpful and informative, and (in contrast to much written about religion these days) they are also accurate and respectful in describing the beliefs which led to the production of these beautiful and precious works of art.

Walking through these rooms, crowded with monuments, chalices, vestments, statues, altarpieces and much else too numerous to mention, one senses the immense richness of the Christian Gospel and of the Catholic Creed, which inspired the often unknown artists of that period to put their talents at the service of the Faith. The same drama we celebrate in the wonder of Easter can be glimpsed in these masterpieces too.

Yet the most important task of the Gospel story is not to produce art but to make saints. The truth, beauty and splendour we see in these artifacts have to be reflected just as clearly in our own lives. Seeing the way we behave should inspire others to seek Christ, the source of all true goodness.

We all fall short of that high ideal – and so Holy Week is a time for humility – but Eastertide is full of hope and of joy. Yes, we are frail and weak and sinful, but God is merciul, and these are the days of new life and fresh beginnings. Christ, who conquered death, has power to transform our own stubborn hearts as well. As we joyfully acclaim the resurrection of the Lord in these fifty days of Eastertide, let us ask him for the grace to do His will, and to proclaim his saving help to others too.