The Rector Writes - 27th February 2011

Lent is almost upon us (Ash Wednesday is March 9th - Wednesday week) and Pope Benedict’s message to mark the season has just been released. Its theme centres around the phrase from the Letter to the Colossians: “You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him” (2:12). The Holy Father is asking us to reflect on the mystery of our own baptism through which we already have a share in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The 40 days of Lent culminate in the Easter Vigil during the night of Holy Saturday – where, in the proclamation of Christ’s overcoming the grave, we find the natural context for the sacramental initiation of new Catholic Christians and the renewal of our own baptismal commitment. “The Lenten journey finds its fulfilment in the Pascal Triduum, specially in the Great Vigil of the Holy Night: renewing our baptismal promises, we reaffirm that Christ is the Lord of our life, that life which God has bestowed upon us when we were reborn of ‘water and the Holy Spirit’, and we profess again our firm commitment to respond to the action of grace in order to be his disciples”.

Pope Benedict urges us all to take Lent seriously and to use the coming six weeks as a unique opportunity to draw closer to the person of Christ. “By meditating and internalising the Word in order to live it every day, we learn a precious and irreplaceable form of prayer: by attentively listening to God, who continues to speak to our hearts, we nourish the itinerary of faith initiated on the day of our Baptism”. There will be handouts available next weekend with the full round of the Lenten programme at Spanish Place, but, just to whet your appetite, a course of talks is planned for the Wednesday evening slot (7-8pm) under the general heading “God & The Arts”. A number of speakers have agreed to share their insights on music, painting, dance, literature and architecture. On the Lent Thursdays there will be a meeting in the rectory (3-4pm) during which we will study a book together which will provide the opportunity for discussion and prayer. “Prayer also allows us to gain a new concept of time: without the perspective of eternity and transcendence, in fact, time simply directs our steps towards an horizon without a future. Instead when we pray, we find time for God, to understand that his words 'will not pass away' (Mark 13:31), to enter into that intimate communion with him 'that no one shall take away' (John 16:22), opening us to the hope that does not disappoint, to eternal life”

For several months a group of adults has been sharing in a process of catechesis which will culminate in their deeper communion with Christ and his Church this Easter. For them, the next few weeks are especially precious, and we should be supportive of them in our prayer. Three of the group are looking for Baptism, while three more are moving from other Christian traditions and the rest are seeking to renew their Catholic belief through Confirmation. In a couple of weeks they will join hundreds of other catechumens and candidates in the Rite of Election at Westminster Cathedral. The presence of these new Christians and seekers after truth in our midst is a reassuring sign from God as to the health of the parish. For them and for us, as Pope Benedict’s Lenten message says:” Christ wants to open our interior vision, so that our faith may become ever deeper and we may recognise him as our only Saviour. He illuminates all that is dark in life and leads men and women to live as ‘children of the light’”

Christopher Colven

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NOTICES

On ASH WEDNESDAY (9th March) there will be Masses offered here at 7.15am, 11am (in the Extraordinary Form), 12.30pm and 6pm (with the choir). Ashes will be distributed at each Mass and, in addition, during a Liturgy of the Word for St Vincent’s School at 2pm here in church.

Next Sunday (6th) children from St Vincent’s School will be participating in the Midday Mass to mark Education Sunday (which occurred during their half term). We value these links, as we are proud of all that the School achieves.

Our thanks to Sister Catherine and her helpers who gave generously of their time and energy in organising last week’s Jumble Sale, which raised £812.

The Gregorian chant group (who practice every Sunday from 5.45pm) will provide the music this Sunday at the 7pm Mass (they do this one Sunday in each month) – and we are grateful for their commitment.

There is a be an service of prayer and reflection in Westminster Cathedral this Wednesday (2nd) at 7pm for the victims and those affected by the New Zealand earthquake – anyone is welcome to attend.

Please pray for the soul of David Heaslip whose Funeral Mass will be offered here on Tuesday (1st March) at 9.30am. We offer the condolences of the parish community to David’s son and daughter.

It is a happy coincidence that two of the priests with residence in the rectory share a birthday – same age too. We wish both David Irwin & Francis Jamieson “happy birthday" for March 1st. Monsignor Jamieson is with us this week before returning to the Gulf until Easter – we assure him of our prayers both for him and the Vicaraiate, situated as they are in the midst of present turmoil.

It is good to have Father Paul Dudzinski staying in the parish once more – he has been saying Mass here over the past few days – he returns to his parish in the USA on Monday.

Is anyone interested in joining a small group of parishioners interested in questions surrounding action for the homeless or persecuted, refugees, CAFOD, the environment? If so, please speak to Father Colven. It is so important that we keep clearly before us the social teachings of the Church.

Work on the final stage of the provision of disabled access to the church and hall began last Tuesday.

We await a definite completion date.

Fr Richard Ho Lung (known to many through EWTN’s “Church of the Poor”) will be coming to England with his group of four tenors to raise funds for the Tree of Life mission to the poor in Kenya and the Holy Innocents home for women in crisis in Jamaica. There is to be a concert at the Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street SWIG to raise funds on 12th March – see posters in the porch or ring Eva on 07800 6709 5160

Details of a concert being given here on Saturday 2nd April at 7.30pm to raise funds jointly for the Society of St Vincent de Paul and the Refugee Centre at Notre Dame de France off Leicester Square will be found at the back of church. Don’t forget the bike ride which SVP is organising in June to raise funds for their work – Bill Metcalf and Simon Webb can provide more information.

Last weekend’s giving £2,742

(includes envelopes but not bankers orders, etc)

Sermon for 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 27th February 2011

At the front of my breviary I keep a small piece of paper with some words written by an old Carthusian monk. “The first thing then is not to be afraid either of ourselves or of others. We must face life. It is this deep and prolonged contemplation of reality which brings us to God, for he is behind everything”. I read those words again as I watched television coverage of the destruction in Christchurch during this past week. I was in that city five years ago visiting family and friends and it was especially sad to see the Catholic Cathedral in ruins – it being one of the finest ecclesial buildings in the southern hemisphere. “Zion was saying: ‘The Lord has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me'. Does the woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you”.


Secular humanists seem often to think that their clinching argument against believers is that we blindly try to make sense of the inexplicable, to explain away the contradictions, to want to dot every “i” and cross every “t” – that we live in an imaginary world of our own creation, sustained by the illusion that everything will come right, one day, in heaven. They could not be further from the truth.

Our belief in the Incarnation roots the Christian absolutely in the here and now circumstances of his or her own life. In and through his Christ, God enters time and meets us within our own space. In so doing, he commits each one of us to contemplate what is - and not to dream of what might be. Jesus, rightly, reminds his disciples that it is not possible to serve two masters, something that he himself had to face up to, in the starkest of forms, in the 40 days of temptation in the wilderness at the beginning of his public ministry and, again, with greater ferocity, in the final Agony of Gethsemane.

What we are being told in the Gospel is that we should not be anxious – that anxiety is the very negation of everything that has been revealed about God’s nature and activity. We do not believe that a magic wand can be waved and all will be well. The reality of human suffering – its depth and its cruelty, in so many manifestations – deserves better than a sticking-plaster caricature of religion, and anything that does not do justice to the passion of Christ, and to the reality of the wounds in his body, is nothing short of blasphemous. At the heart of Christianity will ever be the sign of the cross and that alone should guarantee that there are no shortcuts – no simple solutions – no half measures.

Jesus’ challenge to his disciples – and to anyone who will listen – is to accept that, despite every contrary sign, despite every attempt to rewrite the script and to leave God out, there is just no satisfactory way in which this world can be interpreted other than in terms of its Creator and his loving intention. To pick up on the imagery from Isaiah - and it is interesting to note this is one of a the very few examples in the Old Testament where female imagery is associated with the Godhead - there is something here which can only be understood in terms of nurturing, of cherishing. Jesus reveals his Father in terms of a loving, concerned Parent who will ever only do what is best for his own – who will never give up on them – who is prodigal, and will ever be prodigal, in his gifts. To know the Father of Jesus, to trust the Father of Jesus, is to remove any form of anxiety from the way we live.

But if being anxious is a form of atheism, compassion is a sharing in the heart of God – and, in the face of the pain of our world, it is compassion, rather than anxiety, which the Christian is called to exercise. Our belief, our experience, teaches us that God and his creation are essentially good – but, on a daily basis, we are confronted with the dysfunction of this same creation. Whether it is an earthquake in New Zealand or a Gadafi turning murderously on his own people, our eyes are wide open to the negative forces at work - not least in the human psyche. We are realists – we are not like Voltaire's Dr Pangloss, constantly trying to square the circle, and explain away what does not fit the preconceived notion. We are content to make St Paul’s words to the Corinthians our own: “there must be no passing of premature judgment. Leave that until the Lord comes. He will light up all that is hidden in the dark and reveal the secrets of men’s hearts”.

In the meantime, recognising the image of the suffering Christ written deeply into those around us, we try to minister to him as and where we can. Created in the likeness of God, we must not fail to reflect the compassion which identifies us most closely with the loving Creator. “The first thing then is not to be afraid, either of ourselves or of others. We must face life. It is this deep and prolonged contemplation of reality which brings us to God, for he is behind everything”.

The Rector Writes - 20th February 2011

“To rise with Christ, we must die with Christ: we must ‘be away from the body and at home with the Lord’” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Last weekend – in response to the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and its designation as world day of prayer for those who suffer - our thoughts centred on Jesus’ injunction to his disciples, “heal the sick”. After the example of the Lord himself, it is obviously our Christian duty to do all that we can to ensure that those in need receive care and support. The Church does this through its sacramental ministry and intercession, and by its own commitment to institutions which continue to incarnate Christ’s compassion (hospitals, care homes, etc), as well as its involvement in trying to ensure that civil society does not neglect its responsibilities to the most vulnerable. Care of the sick is one of the works of mercy and it must ever be seen as a hallmark of those who try to follow Christ, but while we strive for the quality of being of each individual (the Catholic tradition has always been “pro-life” in its fullest definition) we do believe that the experience of dying is not the ultimate failure of medical intervention but rather the reason for our existence in the first place. As a life moves towards its climax it should be supported in every way possible (the rites of the Church, palliative care, etc) but death should be seen not as defeat, but as the moment of grace when we become what God has always intended us to be.


Just as the Church provides for us in our passing (the final commendation of the dying, “Go forth, Christian soul”, repays regular reading) so its liturgy in death offers all that is necessary on our final journey. One of the sad realities of the moment is to see how many Catholics seem to have fallen in with the current (secular) trend to laud people who have died. Memorial services and thanksgivings may have their place for those who do not share our understanding of what happens after death, but our belief is that none of us in our dying is free from sin and that we face a judgment in which all excuse and pretence is finally stripped away. We must not fear this judgment because we know the nature of the Judge is all mercy and love, but none of us can pretend that this final reckoning – when we see ourselves as we truly are (or perhaps, more devastatingly, as we could and should have been) – will be anything other than searing. In death, our fundamental and crucial need is not for others to speak well of us, but that they should pray for the forgiveness of our accumulation of wrong choices and accompany us with their ongoing affection – what then matters is not what has been, but what is to come. “Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice, why should we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them” (St John Chrysostom).

It is right and sensible that we should leave clear instructions as to our funeral so that our executors are left in no doubt as to our wishes. For the Catholic, this should include a Requiem Mass in which we ask God’s mercy and invite those we love to pray for us. Our Easter faith is secure and we are not afraid -“for life is to be with Christ, where Christ is there is life, there is the kingdom” (St Cyprian) – but we are also conscious of our own frailty and we need to be realistic: in the words of the Roman Canon (the first eucharistic prayer): “Father accept this offering from your whole family. Grant us your peace in this life, save us from final damnation and count us among those you have chosen”.

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The kaleidoscope is turning dramatically once again in the Middle East, and it is not easy to see what fresh patterns might be emerging . One can only hope and pray that the experience of genuine democracy will create opportunities for lasting harmony in the region, but, one fears, “plus ca change”, the more something appears to change, the more it remains the same. Today’s Gospel is offered to the disciples as a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount: in it, Jesus addresses the crisis of a nation under occupation, a people that yearned for its freedom. As today, there were then those who thought that violence offered a way forward – drive out the oppressor, cut out the evil root, show no mercy. The reaction of the Zealot provokes Jesus’ teaching - which is as radical, as it is new.


The Levitical Law bestowed on Israel through Moses, of which we heard a passage in the first reading, was, in its own way, and in its own context, surprisingly enlightened. The perception of “an eye for an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth” was a huge leap forward for a society which was used to wreaking revenge by wiping out whole groups and families. But the Law’s definition of “neighbour”, of course, referred only to those who shared a common religion and culture. “You must not exact vengeance” applied only within the boundaries of the nation. What Jesus does is to make love of enemy, a genuine concern for his or her well-being, the hallmark of his ethical teaching – those who follow him are to be identified by an acceptance, a service, which is truly catholic, all embracing, universal. The perfection of God is to be recognised and respected in all those who have been created in the divine image – none, in Jesus’ canon, may be rejected, even our persecutors. “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”.

At a stroke, Jesus’ words cut through all the nationalisms and tribalisms which have disfigured history and offer a vision of human solidarity, a different path for mankind. The tragedy, of course, is that the Sermon on the Mount continues to fly in the face of the norms of our fallen behaviour. Secular humanists, with some justice, point to the sectarianism of Christianity as among its more obvious failings. St Paul, in our second reading, is trying to address a situation in Corinth where the local church is divided into factions. “Be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy”, was the message given to Moses, and the Apostle of the Gentiles takes up that theme, and addresses the Corinthians as people who should reflect the sheer holiness of God. The fractured nature of their communion leads him to the direst of warnings: “If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is sacred: and you are that temple”. William Temple once pointed out the problem is not so much that Christianity has been tried and has failed – rather, it has never really been tried.

And that, surely ,is the point of this Sunday’s Scripture readings. Because the Church is the mystical body of Christ, and we are members of that body, it is right that more should be expected of us – for “you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God”. In a world which is confused and ill at ease with itself, where in society after society interest group is pitted against interest group, culture against culture, those who try to live in Christ should be offering a radical alternative. It was said of the first Christian communities “see how these people love one another” – converts were made, not so much by the power of preaching, but by the consequences of that preaching shown forth in gentleness, in kindness, in the living out of the virtues, in service of neighbour.

As St Paul demonstrates in his dealings with the Corinthians, this positive face soon became flawed anhristianommunities, all too soon, and all too often, conformed, and conform to the current mores. Instead of offering a different perspective, a critique, we take the easy option, and meld into the given background. The Church is then seen not as prophetic but as part of the status quo – what should be challenging human behaviour and creating vision, shores up what is complacent and second rate. The very antithesis of all that Jesus requires: “be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect”.

There is a Latin phrase, sometimes attributed to St Augustine, “in neccessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas”. Loosely translated that comes out as, in those things which are fundamental to belief we must maintain unity – in those things about which there can be legitimate plurality, there should be freedom, but in all things charity, compassion, must be the overriding principle. As a mission statement for the Christian community, I can think of none better. Let us hope and pray, that those who come through these doors, into this church, experience the beauty of holiness, yes; orthodoxy in expression, of course; but also the warmth of a people filled with the Spirit of Christ who are prepared to treat anyone, and everyone, as their neighbour, and to care for them as such.

The Rector writes - Easter Day

Writing to the Corinthians (1:15 v14) St Paul says quite simply: “If Christ has not been raised then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain”. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead - the Paschal Mystery - which we are celebrating in a special way this weekend, and for the next forty days, is the heart of Christian Faith. Rightly, St Paul recognises that without the new life of Christ rising from the tomb the Gospel cannot ring true. Easter Day is the proof positive, the absolute vindication, of that self-emptying in the Incarnation which accepted the consequences of human sin in death, and now transcends all that is partial and limited. St Paul’s conviction is that Christ is risen – something which he had experienced at first hand in his own conversion – and that there is a power and an integrity which enables us, in our turn, to proclaim “dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life, Lord Jesus come in glory”.


2,000 years may separate us from the original Easter witnesses but every time we share in the Mass we are able to make the words of the two disciples on the Emmaus road our own: “did not our hearts burn within us” (Luke 24 vv13-35). Faith in the resurrection is an understanding of an historical event in a particular place, but it is also a truth which resonates within each believer and gives meaning and purpose to our lives. In the midst of all the sadness of this world and the suffering of so many, we can take our stand with Job: “I know that my Redeemer lives”. Despite every sign to the contrary, our conviction is in a loving God who raises his Son out of death and demonstrates that, ultimately, love will not be overcome. What was true for Christ will, pray God, be true for each one of us: “after my awaking, He will set me close to Him … I shall look on God … these eyes will gaze on Him”.

During the Good Friday Liturgy each year the whole Church intercedes for its Pope in an ancient formula going back to the first centuries: “Let us pray for our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, that God who chose him to be a bishop may give him health and strength to guide and govern God’s holy people”. This Good Friday that prayer held a particular poignancy as Pope Benedict finds himself at the centre of a storm of criticism. I know from what a number of you have said that there is a fallout from this which is having its effect on lay Catholics. With a Papal Visit scheduled for September it is likely that the negativity will intensify and it is important that we keep the Holy Father in our daily prayers. The saintly Cure d’Ars used to say that the Devil sees further than we

can and will do anything he can to undermine anything in the future which is going to be fruitful in God’s hands. Humbly, quietly and faithfully, we need to get on trying to lead good and holy lives, not allowing the forces of evil to throw us off track. That surely is the message of Easter – its relevance for us today.

I would like to put on record the gratitude of the parish to those who worked to make Holy Week and Easter such a beautiful expression of our Faith. To those who prepare and clean, and serve and make our music – and especially among them Chris. Daly, Terry Worroll and Iestyn Evans – the rest of us say a sincere “thank you”.

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NOTICES

Congratulations to the nine people who were brought into full communion with the Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil – to those Baptised, Received, and Confirmed. They are God’s gift to us – may we prove worthy of them. At each Mass on Easter Day we have the chance to renew our own Baptismal Vows and to be aspersed with the Easter Water.

As Easter Monday is a Bank Holiday there is only one Mass here – at 10am. For the rest of Easter Week Masses are at the usual times i.e. 7.15am, 12.30pm & 6pm.
Please pray for the soul of Maria Cura who died on Tuesday aged 85.  Maria lived in Pictor Place, off Duke Street and worshipped here until she became housebound. Details of the funeral will be placed on the noticeboard. RIP

All the parish organisations are having a break this week. The Gregorian Chant group, the Taize group, and the Legion of Mary resume next week.

The London Oratory School Schola and the London Oratory Brass will be coming to St James's on Friday 7th May at 7.30pm. The programme includes the world premiere of a new plainsong Mass setting by Roxanna Panufnik together with Motets by Anton Bruckner, Gabrieli's In Ecclesiis and the Canterbury Te Deum by Grayston Ives. Tickets from www.seetickets.com

A film "No greater Love" will be on general release from April 9th. It provides an extraordinary picture of life in the Carmelite Monastery in St Charles Square. Please try to see it if you can and encourage others to do so. A breath of fresh air in today's climate !
New sets of weekly Offertory Envelopes are available at the back of church for those who have signed up for them. This is a simple way to help regular giving. If you would like a set of envelopes, fill in one of the forms and return it through the Rectory door.

This is the last opportunity to contribute your lenten savings which can be put in the box near the door at the back of the church designated Lenten alms – this year the savings we make will be divided between the St John Southworth Fund (to help the needy in London) and the Thai Children’s Trust.

Sermon for Easter Day

There is a Capuchin friar who has the title Preacher to the Papal Household. He is a gentle, perceptive man who used to stay at the Cathedral Clergy House at Westminster when I lived there. Several times a year, he has the responsibility of recalling the Pope and those around him to the central truths of the Gospel. Duirng this Holy Week, the Preacher has talked of a time of purification, which the Church is undergoing at present. In his words, there were obvious undertones of the scandals which are besetting so many local churches for which there must be genuine contrition and a firm purpose of amendment. An evil root has been tolerated and allowed to produce bad fruit, and for that there has to be genuine repentance and deep compassion for its victims. But the purification the Papal Preacher was talking of has another, more profound dimension, for, at its centre, it is concerned not so much with human weakness but with Divine mercy – not so much about where human beings get things wrong, but where God gets them right.


And, of course, God got it so absolutely and definitively right in the Paschal Mystery which we are celebrating in these holy days. “Christ has died: Christ is risen: Christ will come again”. On Good Friday the God who has becomes so accessible in his Incarnation that human pain is now intrinsic to his experience, allows himself to descend into death. In so doing, he traces a path which none of his creatures can avoid – and, in so doing, he transforms that path, taking from it, if we are prepared to accept the consequences of what has been achieved, the fear of annihilation which is endemic to the human condition. When Mary of Magdala, Peter and John witness the empty tomb on Easter morning there is a shift in consciousness which can never be reversed. “O grave where is your victory? O death where is your sting?” The Resurrection is the most powerful statement possible about the value and dignity of the human person, of every human person.

The picture given to us in the creation stories which begin Scripture is of an initial harmony - between God and his creatures, as between creature and creature - but that harmony is fractured. What should have been a continuum of generosity is broken - with devastating consequences to everyone, and everything, concerned. Mistrust, self-regard, fear, enter the frame, and life itself becomes truncated, its purpose a matter of question, its future uncertain. The Christian understanding is that God determined to reverse this damage, to give this world a new beginning, nothing short of a re-creation. This he effects, so we believe, in the life, death and resurrection of his Christ. At the end of a gradual, painstaking process lasting centuries, there stands a cross and an empty tomb. By means of these physical signs, these sacramentals, these moments in history, there is atonement, purification of all that we are.

The significance of the physical resurrection of Jesus – not just a spiritual rebirth, but a mystery involving flesh which is warm to the touch, which is recognisable, tangible – Someone not just something - is that our humanity is set back on course: once more we are offered continuity, communion. Physical death is still a barrier, but God’s own Son shows a way through, which we are to follow. As St Paul writes to the Corinthians: “We shall be changed as well, because our present perishable nature must put on imperishability, and this mortal nature must put on immortality”. Or as T S Eliot expressed it, "to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from”.

The message of the risen Christ this Easter Day – the Gospel – is one of purification from fear, the reclamation of a sense of worth and purpose for our lives which now regain an eternal significance. “The life you have is hidden with Christ in God”. We were created not for death, but for life. But as we come together to share in the Mass as Catholic Christians in this country at this particular time we are conscious of failure and of the message having become opaque through the flaws in its messengers. The months ahead are not going to be comfortable – the papal visit in September is going to stir up all kinds of prejudice of which at the moment we are havong a foretaste. Purification is needed. Jesus says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” but the Paschal Mystery – if we live it in practice rather than just accept it as theory – means looking to the future with great hope and without fear. The Risen Lord says to us, what he said to his first disciples: “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me so I am sending you”. Out of present difficulty will come many fresh opportunities to show Christ, to live Christ, to speak out of our own heart. The medium may have to be renewed - a greater humility, a listening ear, a new concentration on service - but the message is ever the same: Christ “the power and the wisdom of God … the first fruits of all who have fallen asleep … just as all die in Adam so all will be brought to life in Christ” .

This then is what I pray: “Out of his infinite glory may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth, until knowing the love of Christ which is beyond all knowing, you are filled with the utter fullness of God”.

EWTN Holy Week Retreat - Monday

My name is Father Christopher Colven, and I would like to welcome you to this lovely church of St James, Spanish Place in the centre of London, where I am the Rector. It is a privilege for us to be able to host this Holy Week retreat in what is one of the oldest Catholic parishes in this country. In the middle of the 18th century, the Spanish Embassy was situated in the building that houses the Wallace Collection in nearby Manchester Square. In Penal Times, when Catholics could not practise their faith openly, it was the embassies of the Catholic countries that gave them hospitality, and this parish grew out of a congregation which worshipped in the then Spanish Embassy. A first church was built in 1791 and was replaced by our present building in 1890. As you can see, it is a fine example of the neo-Gothic style, full of beautiful artefacts. John Francis Bentley, the architect of Westminster Cathedral, was responsible for several of the altars – of the Sacred Heart, of our Lady of Victories and of St Joseph.


My own special love here in St James’ is the Pieta – the statue of Our Lady cradling Jesus in her arms in death as she has in life. To me, it speaks so powerfully of the humanity of Christ and the mystery of the Incarnation. I would like to place this Holy Week retreat under Mary’s special care. May our Lady of Sorrows share with us something fresh of her sadness through these days – in order that, on Easter Day, she may share with us something entirely fresh of her joy in her Son’s new life.

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I want to begin this reflection in quite a difficult place …Primo Levi committed suicide in 1987. Born into an Italian Jewish family, he had experienced the horrors of the concentration camps at first hand, and through his subsequent life as a novelist he explored the human soul and its reaction to suffering. He gave his first book the title “This is a Man” and it remains unsurpassed as an account of personal survival in Auschwitz. Levi’s position was essentially negative, summed up in the phrase: “the future of humanity is uncertain”. Ultimately he could see no further than his own personal nightmare, and this led to the final act of self-destruction.

Primo Levi occupies an important place in Holocaust literature but he also serves as a modern expression of the age-old questions which have to be faced by each human being. “Does my life have meaning and, if it does, where can I honestly place my hope?” The recent earthquake in Haiti gives sharp focus to those questions. “Is what happens in our world purely arbitrary or is their purpose behind events?” For believers, the dilemma is particularly painful. “How does one square the concept of a compassionate, loving God with the evidence of one’s eyes? How can God allow such suffering”.

For the Old Testament Book of Job no matter what happens God is God – all one can do is to bow down before a Wisdom one cannot hope to grasp. That would be the approach of the Eastern religions, too. Acceptance of what one cannot comprehend. But is that enough? Can Christianity offer any further insight?

The Book of Isaiah, from which the first of today’s Mass readings is taken, has God prophesy of his beloved Son: “I, the Lord have called you to serve the cause of right. I have taken you by the hand and formed you; I have appointed you as covenant to the people and light to the nations; to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison and those who live in darkness from the dungeon”. But how is this to be achieved? What is God’s answer to human agony? When we cry out in pain, what is God reply?

St Peter was one of those who stood close to the cross of Jesus on Good Friday. This is his understanding of the crucifixion: “Christ suffered for you and left an example for you to follow the way he took. He had not done anything wrong and there had been no perjury in his mouth. He was insulted and did not retaliate with insults; when he was tortured he made no threats but he put his trust in the righteous judge. He was bearing our faults in his own body on the cross, so that we might die to our faults and live for holiness; through his wounds you have been healed”.

St Peter does not minimise the reality of Jesus’ suffering, but he does see what happened on the first Good Friday not as a negative but as a positive. Yes, something of terrifying proportions is taking place, but its consequences allow grace to flow in unimaginable ways. For Christians, the cross is not a symbol of degradation and destruction: rather, it speaks to us of hope and of life. There is redemption here and healing.

Why? How? The key lies in the identity of the One who is being crucified. Jesus could say of himself – “I and my Father are one – to have seen me is to have seen the Father”. By his nature, the Eternal Creator is beyond suffering, but, and this is the Christian mystery in all its incredible depth, God assumes our humanity so that, through his Son, he can identity with us completely, even to taking into his own flesh the experience of pain and fear and doubt and death. Every time we look at a crucifix we know that human pain is now intrinsic to the experience of God, and our question is not just why does God allow suffering, but, how can he allow such suffering when it resonates so profoundly within his own heart?

Pope Benedict writes: “This is the mystery of God …. He came down to our level in order to suffer for us and with us. We will never be able to understand this mystery finally and completely. God does not simply rule by power. God uses his power differently from the way we use power. His power is that of sharing in love and in suffering, and the true face of God is shown, indeed, in suffering. In suffering, God bears and shares the burden of the injustice of the world, so that in our very darkest hours, we may be sure that God is then closest to us. He comes as someone who touches our hearts”.

In the face of an earthquake which has killed thousands, Christians have no simple, or simplistic, answers to offer. Certainly we cannot identify with those who would blame either an angry God or a vengeful climate. When, in Christ, God walked this earth, seeing Jerusalem in the distance and knowing that soon it would be utterly destroyed, we are told that he wept. That is the insight that we have to contribute to the universal questioning of suffering. God does not stand over and above his creation, the great Judge, the Cosmic Chess player; he becomes part of what he has made – because his creatures suffer, he suffers with them – because they weep, he weeps with them - because their hearts are broken, so is his.

Primo Levi’s experience of Auschwitz led him into a nihilism in which human life became pointless. His answer to the question of where was God in the Holocaust could only be given in the negative. Others had a different reaction. Maximillian Kolbe, St Maximillian, did not survive the death camps, but the months he spent in the gateway to hell he used to minister to others: to help them to live and to help them to die. It was said that wherever he was, and particularly in the days of his execution, there was a light which surrounded him, an indefinable something which brought another dimension. For Maximillian Kolbe that “something” was a “Someone”, Christ crucified, the Man with the wounded Heart who comes to “touch our hearts”. Somehow, it is the knowledge that his own heart is broken open by human suffering that makes our living possible.

[Please join me again in a few moments for our continuing meditation …]

Welcome back to this beginning meditation of our Holy Week Retreat. My name is Father Christopher Colven, and I am the Rector of this church of St James, Spanish Place, in the heart of London’s West End. Before the break we were thinking of how the Passion of Jesus gives meaning to our lives …


At the centre of every Catholic church you will find a crucifix – hopefully, in every Catholic home and above the bed of every Catholic there will also be a crucifix. The cross is the fundamental symbol of our Christian faith and, it is, of course, a double sign. On the one hand, it points to suffering and pain: on the other, it speaks of new life and the hope of glory: death and resurrection – the paschal mystery – two sides of a single coin – differing facets of the one reality.

As Catholics, our liturgy, our worship, opens up for us the things of Heaven, while we are still here on earth. This means that events which took place 2,000 years ago – events which mark the centre point of all human history – are as alive for us on this Monday as they ever were for those who were present in Jerusalem. We stand with Peter and John, we are there in the room with Mary Magdalen and Judas the Betrayer. We are participants, not just onlookers: for, as the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us: “Jesus Christ (is) the same, yesterday, and today and for ever”.

This is Holy Week and the Church asks us to reflect on all that the cross means to us on our own Christian journey. The key to our understanding of the cross is that, time and time again, we are brought up with a jolt when we realise the identity of who it is who is being crucified. Our belief is that Jesus is the human face of God. When our Creator wanted us, his creatures, to understand what he is like, he sent his Son to us in a way that we could talk to him, and touch him, and listen to him. St Paul expresses the incredible humility of God: “The state of Jesus was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as all men are; and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross”.

The Church teaches us that the One who suffers on Good Friday is both God and man, fully divine and, at the same time, fully human. As Jesus dies in the flesh, which he shares with us, as his lifeblood pours away, his foreknowledge as God remains intact, and, in some way, which goes way beyond our human understanding, his Heart and mind comprehend the sins of our fallen humanity – every single one of them. The children’s hymn sums it up: “He died that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good, that we might go at last to heaven, saved by his precious blood”. He died for Mary Magdalen: he died for Judas Iscariot: he died for you, and he died for me. Every wrong choice, every evil deed, every failing, every meanness, every venial sin, every mortal sin – all the damage which evil has inflicted on the human condition, from the very beginning until the very end, all that nailed to the cross, crucified, consciously, with Christ.

As we look at the Crucifix, we know that all human suffering already finds an echo, a resonance, in Heaven. The Body of Jesus is marked, forever, with the wounds of his Passion, and all that we are – our every pain, our every fear – is already comprehended, experienced, within the Godhead. In his foreknowledge as God, every human fear has already been faced within his own Heart. “Dying, you destroyed our death: rising, you restored our life”.

We talk about “atonement”. It is through the wood of the cross that the basic dignity of our humanity is restored and raised to a new level. As Jesus himself says “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life”. The loving relationship which binds Father and Son together is now shared with us, and, through what is achieved on the wood of the cross, we become God’s sons and daughters in an entirely new way.

As we begin this Holy Week, it does us well to remember that the redemption won by Jesus in the shedding of his precious blood is a universal invitation to salvation from which no one, no one, is excluded. As an early council of the Church expressed it: “There is not, never has been, and never will be, a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer”. The consequence of this, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, is that “every human person, created in the image of God, has the natural right to be recognised as a free and responsible being. All owe to each other this duty of respect”.

But those words have a certain hollow ring about them. We are not a respectful society. Walk down any road, get on any bus, any day, any night, and the indifference, the unkindness, the lack of warmth with which people treat one another, on all sides, is palpable.

As we look up at the crucifix what is Jesus saying to you, to me, to our society? I believe he saying to us what he first said to the apostle Peter. Jesus had come to his disciples in the early morning across the water: impetuous as ever, Peter jumps out of his fishing boat to reach Jesus – but as soon as he feels the full force of the wind, he panics and begins to sink: “Lord, save me”, he cries. Jesus’ response is as simple as it is profound: “Do not be afraid”.

We feel the force of the wind today. There is no one who is not aware of the undercurrents of fear in our world. There is so much unease and disturbance around us. For our young people life is full of concern. The subculture of drugs, the over-sexualisation of adolescence, peer pressure to conform. Parents fear for the future of their children, as they fear for their own future. It is impossible not be unsettled by the larger questions about the future of our planet, about tensions between the nations – and, as we grow older, concerns about healthcare and aging matter more and more, which forces us up against the ultimate fear of the process of dying, and how we shall face our own death. “Do not be afraid", was Jesus’ response to St Peter, and it is his, too, each of us: “Do not be afraid”.

That is why our Catholic communities are of such vital importance, not just for our fellow believers, but for the wider localities in which we live. We have a responsibility to show how people from differing cultures and backgrounds can co-exist in an atmosphere of mutual respect and concern. Our Catholic parishes should be microcosms of what is possible. Perhaps that word co-existence is not well chosen, for what we are called to do is something much more profound than merely living alongside each other. We are called to interact as brothers and sisters within the same family, sharing the one Father. We are called to love one another, for as the Letter to the Romans reminds us: “love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour”.

We are sometimes told that we live in a broken society – if that is so (and I believe it is) then we, as Catholics, have a particular responsibility to contribute towards its healing. Let us pray that we may not fail in this duty to build loving parishes and loving communities. And this Holy Week gives us the perfect opportunity to do just that. Our journey with Jesus through these days of his Passion is an individual one, of course – but it is also corporate – it involves our brothers and sisters, too.

The then Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said this to her Missionaries of Charity: “Now, more than ever, we need to live out the teaching of Jesus: ‘Love one another, as the Father has loved me’. We have to love as the Father loves his Son, Jesus, with the same mercy and compassion, joy and peace. Try to find out how the Father loves his Son, and then try to love one other in the same way. Find out in all humility how much you are loved by Jesus. From the time you realise you are loved by Jesus, love as he loves you. In each of our lives Jesus comes as the Bread of Life – to be eaten, to be consumed by us. That is how he loves us. He also came as the Hungry One, hoping to be fed with the bread of our life, with our hearts that love and our hands that serve. In so doing, we prove that we have been created in the image and likeness of God, for God is love. When we love we are like God”.

And, as St John of the Cross never fails to remind us: “In the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love”.