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.