Sunday August 16th. to Saturday August 22nd.
Sunday August 16th. to Saturday August 22nd. Reflections on the Readings at Daily Mass.
Sunday August 16th. The Solemnity of the Assumption of the
Mother of God.
This feast occurred, of course, yesterday but,
as we explained before, our Bishops decided some years ago that when a Major
Feast occurs on a Saturday or Monday, it would be moved to the Sunday, whence
we are keeping the feast of the Assumption of Mary today.
Although Pope Pius XIIth. defined this doctrine
in 1950 when he declared in the Decree
‘Munificentissimus Deus’, that ‘having completed her earthly life (Mary) was
assumed in body and soul into heavenly glory’, it is generally agreed that such
a belief was unknown to the early Church. From the fourth century on, some of
the writings of Church authors begin to mention the death of Mary amid various
miraculous circumstances, sometimes relating how her body was taken to be with
God.
It was not until Saint Gregory of Tours (+450)
that the idea of Mary being taken, body and soul, to be with God, was actually
formulated in the Western Church. It was Saint Andrew of Crete (c.660-740) who
presumed from a writing of Dionysius the Areopagite, that he, Dionysius, had
witnessed the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven. In fact Dionysius, who had
been thought to have been a disciple of Saint Paul, wrote only in the fifth or
sixth century under the name of Dionysius. In the next century Saint John of
Damascus (c.675-749) related at the Council of Chalcedon (452 C.E.) how the Emperor Marcian and his
wife, Pulcheria, had asked Juvenal, the then bishop of Jerusalem, for the body
of Mary. Juvenal told them that the church in Jerusalem did not have the body because,
though her death had been witnessed by all the Apostles, when her tomb was
opened later, it had been found to be empty. This tradition became highly
influential also in the West.
The earliest record of Mary’s death being
celebrated as a feast dates possibly from the fourth century at Antioch and
from the fifth in Palestine.
In the Western Church it would appear that
until the seventh century, there was only one feast celebrated in Mary’s honour
on January 1st., a feast that has now been restored in our Calendar.
By the eighth century the feast of the Assumption had become generally observed
throughout the Western Church. The belief that Mary was taken to God, body and
soul, was probably first upheld by theologians in the eighth and ninth
centuries and it was defended by the great theologians of the Mediaeval Church,
Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great, Bonaventure and so on. Pope Benedict XIVth. (1675-1758)
was still able to declare that this doctrine was a ‘probable opinion’.
However, responding to repeated demands from
1870 onwards, Pope Pius XIIth., eventually defined this doctrine on November 1st.,
1950.
The Eastern Churches believe much the same as
the Western Church though they are less precise in their understanding of this
doctrine. They normally refer to it as the Falling asleep or the Dormition of
the Mother of God.
All of this will show how the doctrine has
developed over the centuries. The pressures on Pope Pius XIIth. to define this
doctrine came from the developing exaggeration of the place of Mary in God’s
plan and also from those who were influenced by various claimed visions and
apparitions of the Mother of God which had become very prevalent in the
nineteenth century .Sacred art has done little to help us in our understanding
of this doctrine since Art
Galleries are full of paintings of Mary being
borne up into the sky supported by baby cherubs!
The belief that Mary’s body could not become
corrupt after death springs from her having given birth to Jesus and the
development of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception which teaches that
Mary was preserved from Original Sin from the first moment of her
existence in the womb of her mother. The
result of Original Sin was seen to be death and corruption so that, if Mary
were free of Original Sin, her body would remain incorrupt.
One has to ask if any of these ideas are very
helpful to people of our time and, in some ways, they seem to diminish the real
humanity of both Jesus and Mary. The idea of being ‘assumed into heaven’ is
foreign to our understanding of the universe and, although we proclaim our
belief in ‘the resurrection of the body’ it may well be that this is to affirm
that, whatever may happen to us after death, we believe that the real person
survives and not just an ethereal spirit or soul.
What we celebrate today then is, in many ways,
what we would hope for ourselves that Mary at the end of her life passed
through death to the resurrection life with God. We celebrate her because she
was the mother of Jesus and it was she, above all others, who helped him grow
into the fullness of humanity.
Today is a feast of hope, hope that we too will
come to be with God after our death. All the trimmings that have grown up over
the centuries seem to only confuse the issue since death is the great mystery
and we know nothing of the life after death, whether it be for Mary or for
ourselves. What we hope is that when death has taken us out of this world we shall
be with God caught up in the mystery of his love.
There are two sets of readings for the feast,
the one for the Mass celebrated on the eve and the other for the day itself.
Readings for the evening of the 15th.
August
1 Chronicles 15/3-4, 15-16, 16/1-2 :
First letter to the Corinthians 15/20-26
: Luke 11/27-28
This set of readings has a somewhat different
emphasis from those for tomorrow. The first from the Old Testament relates how
the Ark of the Covenant, the focus of the Jerusalem Temple and the place where
God was believed to dwell in a mysterious and special way, was brought back
from the household of Obed-Edom, where it had been resting, amid great
celebrations to the Temple in Jerusalem. Mary has often been compared to the
Ark of the Covenant because the Son of God rested in her womb before his birth.
This episode envisages then the rejoicing as Mary is brought back to be with
God at the end of her earthly life.
The reading from Paul’s First Letter to the
Corinthians is about victory over death which we all share with Jesus who is
risen from death. Obviously, this is a victory which Mary shares
pre-eminently.-
At first sight, the Gospel reading might seem
to be a strange choice for this feast but, not only does it exalt her but it
applies to us who hope to share in her destiny. This passage is wonderfully
down to earth since it alludes to Mary’s womb and her breasts. Jesus says
though, that far more important than having been his mother is the fact that
Mary heard the Word of God and kept it, not just for nine months in her womb
but always in her heart. She lived by that Word.
These readings remind us that Mary is one of
us. She is the Ark of God but so are we, both we the Church and we as
individual followers of Jesus. Our role like hers, is to bear Jesus in our
hearts and to bring him into the world.
We believe that Jesus has overcome death and
sin and this is the victory in which Mary shares but it is ours also through
our Baptism and in the way we live our lives. With Mary then we celebrate today
for ourselves as well as for her and we pray that like her, we may both hear
the Word of God, that is listen to Jesus and be faithful to that Word in our
daily lives.
Readings for Sunday August 16th.
Revelation 11/19, 12/1-6, 10 :
First to the Corinthians 15/20-26
: Luke 1/39-56
The readings for the Mass during the day are
quite different in tone. That from the Revelation to John might seem, at first
sight, to be about Mary, though it is only since the Middle Ages that it has
been interpreted in that way. The most likely explanation is that it is about
Israel itself, giving birth to the Messiah. However, this imagery has been used
by artists for centuries to depict Mary in the way described by the author and
it reminds us of Mary’s great privilege of being both the mother of Jesus and
his first disciple.
The reading from the letter of Paul to the
Corinthian church is about the victory of Jesus over death, a victory in which
both Mary and we ourselves share.
The Gospel reading tells us part of the story
of the Incarnation as Luke relates it.
It gives us the words with which we are so familiar, ‘Blessed are you
among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb’. This story presents Mary as
a model for the church. She has been overshadowed by the Spirit and bears
within her womb the Word made flesh. We, the Church are also overshadowed by
the Spirit of God and made, in this way, the Body of Christ in the world,
bearing him to others as Mary did. John the Baptist leaps for joy in his
mother’s womb when Mary approaches bearing Jesus. Like Mary we, the Church,
ought to be a source of joy for the world and in us ought to be revealed the
love and the compassion of God in Christ. Mary rejoices in the song that we
know as the ‘Magnificat’ which we sing every day at Evening Prayer. The words
that Luke puts into Mary’s mouth are full of allusions to the Jewish Scriptures
and , more especially, to the Song of Hannah when she knows that she is to be
the mother of the great prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 2/1-8). This is the song of
the Church, rejoicing in the Lord who is for the poor and the afflicted and who
destroys the domination of the rich and the powerful, the God who chooses the
little and the unimportant people before the great and the mighty. Every day we
are reminded of this revolutionary message of the Gospel as we sing Mary’s song
at Evening Prayer.
Today we rejoice with Mary in that we share her
role as ‘Godbearer’ the ‘Theotokos’ and we give thanks that our destiny is like
hers, to be with God for ever, lost in his love.
Monday August 17th. Monday in Week Twenty in Year Two.
Readings
Ezekiel 24/15-24 :
Matthew 19/16-22
Today’s reading from Ezekiel is particularly
tragic. The prophet’s beloved wife dies but Ezekiel is told by God that he must
show no signs of mourning for her. When asked by the people the reasons for his
strange behaviour he tells them that it is because, just as he has lost his
wife, Jerusalem, God’s beloved city, will be destroyed and those of their sons
and daughters who survive will be put to the sword. Jeremiah tells the people
that they must not mourn over this tragedy because they have deserved this
punishment for their unfaithfulness to the God who loves them.
What meaning can this reading hold for us? It
does make us remember that the great evils which beset us now with the
destruction of cities and the sufferings of thousands of people to say nothing
of the present pandemic are not some punishment from God, although there are
those who would try to tell us this. Sadly they are so oftenthe result of our
own or others follies.
Today it would be good to remember all those
innocent millions who suffer through warfare and violence, not through any
fault of their own but, so often, through the failures of their leaders and
governments. We must also pray that the nations and peoples of the world,
recognise that as the Pandemic has made no distinction between one people and
another, so we must learn that we are one people of one flesh and blood and we
must work together to build a better world for all.
The Gospel story is one which we also find in
Mark’s Gospel but Matthew simplifies it, though he does tell us that the man
who questions Jesus is ‘young’. Jesus tells his questioner that if he wants to
‘possess eternal life’ he must keep the commandments, particularly those that
concern his neighbour and he adds one which sums up all the others, that he
should love his neighbour as himself. If he keeps all these commandments it
would be enough for him to share in the eternal life of the Kingdom of God. The
man is not satisfied and says, somewhat arrogantly, that he has kept all these
commandments since his youth. He wants a more personal answer and Jesus, having
seen that he was rich and had great possessions, tells him that what is
preventing him from entering the kingdom
of God is his attachment to his wealth and his possessions. Jesus invites the
man to free himself and become his disciple but this is too much for the young
man and he goes away sad.
This story challenges us because we know that,
even if we are not wealthy, we can be very attached to what we have, even to
the point of becoming enslaved by it. We must ask ourselves honestly, how much
do I really need and how much could I give away? This is not a once and for all
decision as it was put to the rich young man. We cannot just get rid of
everything but we can, at least, embark on a gradual freeing of ourselves from
what we don’t need.
Although it is not immediately obvious, this,
of course, is linked to what the prophet was saying and what Saint John
Chrysostom (347-407) said so long ago that anything we have which we don’t need
is robbery because it belongs to the poor! So many of the evils of the world are linked
with the enormous disproportion between the rich and the poor. Part of our
effort can be to support those agencies that try to address this problem like
Cafod, War on Want, Christian Aid and so on. Could I, perhaps, do more here? It
is Jesus who challenges us.
Tuesday August 18th. Tuesday in Week Twenty in Year Two.
Readings
Ezekiel 28/1-10 :
Matthew 19/23-30
In today’s reading the prophet Ezekiel is
condemning not so much the people but the Ruler of the city-state of Tyre who
has become so rich and powerful that he behaves like a god. It is not difficult
to see, throughout history, in all the great empires of the past, including our
own British Empire, the illusion that possessed Tyre. As soon as any state or
empire begins to think that it is greater and better than all the others its
downfall is not far off. In the case of
Tyre it will be the Babylonians who are the ‘foreigners’ who finally bring the
city down. There is a lot to reflect upon in this reading especially in view of
recent history. How much do I still cherish the notion that it is ‘British and
best’? The present chaos as a result of Brexit would seem, in part, due to this
attitude among some. While we ought to be justly proud of our heritage, we must
not be blind to the failures of the past and to our misdeeds in regard to other
peoples and their own particular greatness. Nor must our pride make us forget
the achievements of other nations and peoples with their own particular gifts.
As followers of Christ we must be, above all,
those who seek to build up the kingdom of God which must involve achieving a
community of nations where the richer serve those less fortunate. The Kingdom
of God is not some future heaven but the achievement of God’s purposes here in
our world. When we pray ‘Your Kingdom come’ it is for this that we are praying
and, in so doing, committing ourselves to be among those who work to this end.
One area about which we ought to be particularly concerned is our present
government’s policy of giving aid to those countries which may be of benefit to
us , something completely contrary to the original idea of ‘overseas aid’. Here
is one area where we could make our voices heard and get involved with those
who are trying to stop this travesty of what true generosity and aid really
are.
Today’s Gospel reading follows on from that of
yesterday when we read of the rich young man who was attached to his
possessions. Today Jesus elaborates on what he said to the young man by telling
his hearers how difficult it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus’ humourous comparison of the camel getting through the eye of a needle is
one that was already familiar to the Jews of his time to describe something
that was virtually impossible.
The disciples conclude from what Jesus says
that no one can be saved because riches were generally seen as a sign of God’s
blessing and favour. Jesus reminds them that with God nothing is impossible.
As usual in Matthew’s Gospel it is Peter who
speaks up and reminds Jesus that he and his companions have left everything to
follow him and to be his disciples. After hearing Jesus speak of the rich it is
almost amusing to hear Peter speaking in this way. He and his companions were
poor fishermen with very little in the way of possessions but he reminds Jesus
that, even so, they have given everything up to follow him. This, of course, is
reminder to us that, even though we may have little we can be all the more
attached to what we have.
Jesus then tells the Twelve that they will sit
on thrones of judgement to judge the Twelve Tribes of Israel ‘when all is made
new’. This is obviously addressed to the community for whom Matthew is writing.
They are still very conscious of their Jewish identity and still in conflict
with those Jews who have not become Jesus’ followers.
Jesus goes on to give us a clue as to what is
meant by the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ when he promises the disciples that for all
that they have given up to follow him, they will be repaid a hundredfold.
The salvation that the young man was seeking
and the salvation of which Jesus is speaking is not being ‘saved’ from Hell and
going to Heaven. This salvation is being saved from the meaningless life of
those who hoard possessions and wealth and finding fullness of life here and
now in the Reign of God’s love. That Kingdom is where all are sisters and
brothers and all love one another and care for one another, where, in fact, we
are saved from our own selfishness and sin to find fullness of life.
This is why Jesus tells us to rid ourselves of
useless possessions and a superfluity of wealth. It is not to make life more
unpleasant and less enjoyable but to enable us to live life to the full in the
Reign of God’s love here and now.
In our day, this is one of the most difficult
of Jesus’ teachings for us to accept and to practice because we live in a
society where wealth and possessions are the false gods that we are constantly
invited to worship. We know that they don’t bring us the happiness and
fulfilment they promise and so, once again, Jesus invites us to a fuller life
by ridding ourselves of so much that holds us back. What do I need to get rid
of to make my own life fuller and richer?
Wednesday August 19th. Wednesday
Week Twenty Year Two. Memory of John Eudes (+1680)-
Readings
Ezekiel 34/1-11 :
Matthew 20/1-16
Both of today’s readings are about compassion
and love. Ezekiel reproaches the ‘shepherds of Israel’, not just the priests
but the politicians and the rulers, all those whose responsibility it was to
care for the people, God’s flock. Since they have neglected to care for the
people, especially the most needy, God assures them through the prophet, that
he himself will care for them. Like a good shepherd, God will keep his eye on
each and every one of them.
Again Ezekiel speaks to us in our day. There
are politicians, those in public office who are conscious of their
responsibilities and who truly care for the people whom they have been elected
to serve but there are others who are concerned only for their own prestige and
power and for feathering their own nest. Unfortunately, even within the
community of the Church this can also be true and those whom the people have
called to serve them can forget their true role and behave as those who are
called to control the people and wield power over them. The danger is, of
course, that we tar everyone with the same brush. In every walk of life there
are those who dedicate themselves to the service of others. Because, these
days, we are reminded so often of those who fall we can easily forget the many
who are faithful to their task both within society and in the Church.
Today, while we pray for those who have failed and have abused their position
of power and authority, we give thanks for all faithful and devoted servants of
the people both in the Church and in society. We ought always to pray for those
who hold office either in the Sate or in the Church and be careful not to be
among those who judge but rather always
be willing to show compassion and forgiveness.
The story that Jesus tells in today’s Gospel
reading is that of a compassionate landowner who goes out to enlist workers,
even up to the last hour of the day so that none shall remain without work and
wages. The sting of the story, of course, is in the tail. When the landowner
pays everyone the wage promised, those who have worked all day long feel
entitled to more than those who only recently arrived, in spite of having
agreed upon the wage before they began work.
The point of the story is to remind us that
God’s love is for all. It is not something that we earn by working especially
hard for it. Like any true love, it is pure gift. We don’t love our partners,
our children or our friends for what they can do for us or what they give us.
We love them for themselves and without reserve. God’s love is like that and extends not only
to those whom we would love naturally but to absolutely everyone without
exception. It is difficult for us to accept that God’s love is as great for a
murderer or a child abuser as it is for us but that is what Jesus teaches us.
We cannot imagine such love, but thinking of our own love for those who are
nearest and dearest to us may help. That love may be hurt or shaken but however
much the loved one hurts us or treats us badly, our love for them is still
there. We know the pain that others whom we love can cause us and so we can
understand that God’s love for those whom we would find totally unacceptable
must, in some mysterious way, be a love that suffers and suffers more than we
could ever imagine, but never fails. That is the love that we worship for God
is love.
With Jesus’ parable in mind we ought to
remember today all those whose livelihood is in danger due to the present
pandemic and who may be in a very difficult situation, especially if they have
families to support, those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves
without work and with no means of finding work.
Memory of Saint John Eudes, priest and founder
(1601-1680)
Born of a farming family in Normandy, John
Eudes was part of that extraordinary revival in the
French Church in the seventeenth century after
the bitter struggles of the Reformation. He was educated by the Jesuits at Caen
but in 1623 he joined the French Oratory which had been founded by Pierre de
Berulle in imitation of that founded by Philip Neri in Rome. John became a priest and he stayed with the
Oratorians for some twenty years, becoming one of the best preachers in France,
giving missions all over the country, some of which lasted several months and
were what we would call ‘renewal programmes’. He also distinguished himself in
the care of the sick, especially in the plagues of 1627 and 1631.
In 1641 John founded the Order of Our Lady of
Charity and Refuge to care for ‘fallen’ women and to rescue them from
prostitution, an Order which still exists today and until recently had a house
at Waterlooville.
In 1643 John left the Oratory to found a new
Order for men, the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, whose object was to train
young men to be priests, a work which the Congregation still undertakes,
together with preaching and teaching.
In his teaching, John gives firm foundation to
the growing devotion to the Heart of Jesus and he actually composed Masses for
the feast. In all this John was firmly rooted in the spirituality of the ‘Ecole
Francaise’ which he had learnt from de Berulle and the Oratory and which was
centred on the Incarnation, God made flesh, God who in Jesus shares our life
and our death so that we may share the divine life of God. John’s devotion to
the heart of Christ and, indeed, to that of Mary, was very much in line with
this spirituality in that he saw, in the heart of Jesus, the heart of love
which ought to be in each of us and was, par excellence, in the heart of Mary.
We pray today for the Eudists as they are often
called and for the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge and their works,
still very much with women in need.
Celebrating John Eudes is optional . There are
special readings for him though, almost certainly, those of the day will be
used.
Those for John are the following:
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 3/14-19
: Matthew 11/25-30
The reading from the letter to the Ephesians is
about the indwelling of Christ in our hearts and the immeasurable love of God
that we have seen in him.
The Gospel reading tells us of the mystery of
the love of God which is revealed, above all, to those who are ‘mere children’
through Christ. Jesus invites all those who labour and are overburdened to come
to him since he is ‘gentle and humble of heart’ and we can find rest in him and
learn from him to have a heart like his.
Thursady August 20th. Memory of
Bernard of Clairvaux. Thursday in Week Twenty Year two.
Born in Dijon in France, Bernard became known
as a young man of charm, wit, learning and eloquence. He had, however, long
been inclined towards the monastic life and in 1113, with thirty other young
men, some of them his brothers, he entered the monastery of Citeaux, about sixteen
miles south of Dijon. Citeaux had been founded in 1098 by Robert of Molesmes
who with some others sought a simpler way of monastic life than that lived at
the great abbey of -
Cluny which had become the centre of the
monastic world and whose daughter houses
had spread all over Europe. Citeaux had been struggling since its foundation but
with this influx of younger men, it grew rapidly and new houses were founded,
one of which was Clairvaux where Bernard became abbot. By the time of his death there were seven
hundred monks at Clairvaux and Bernard is generally thought of as the second
founder of the reformed Benedictines which became known as the Cistercian Order
from the name of the original monastery.
Although a monk, Bernard became involved in the
affairs of his day and was one of the most influential figures of his age. He
was involved in the founding of the Knights Templar who were a monastic
military Order and in the subsequent Second Crusade in 1147 which failed, much
to Bernard’s disappointment. This was
the darker side of his life and work.
In spite of all this, Bernard was first and
foremost a monk and his writings show him as an exponent, above all, of the
love of God. His best known work is ‘De diligendo Deo’ ‘On the love of God’ and
his teaching was, above all, about the love and the grace of God and the
resultant activity of women and men responding to that love.
Bernard died in 1153 and was canonised in 1174,
less than twenty years after his death and in 1830 he was declared a Doctor or
Teacher of the Church.
We pray today for Cistercian monks and nuns
throughout the world and for a greater understanding of Bernard’s teaching on
the love of God.
There are special readings for Bernard but
those of the day will almost certainly be used.
Readings
Ezekiel 36/23-28 :
Matthew 22/1-14
Today in the reading from Ezekiel, the
prophet promises the Israelites, exiled
in Babylon, a new start, a restoration. God’s name has been profaned among the
nations, in that they have mocked a god who cannot save his people and the
Israelites themselves for believing in such a god.
Ezekiel promises that God will bring the people
back to their own land and show all the surrounding nations his greatness not
by a display of power but by his sheer holiness. God will cleanse the people of
their past sins, especially their following of false gods and idols and he will
give them a new heart and a new spirit. The heart is the seat of both thinking
and loving in Jewish thought and so God will give them a new way of seeing
things from his point of view. This is the new Covenant that God will make with
the people.
For us we see this promise fulfilled in Jesus
and in our own Baptism and Anointing with the Spirit so that we may be able to
see things from God’s point of view.
We must remember that God is always faithful to
his promises and at the second Vatican Council, the assembled bishops declared
that the Jewish people is still that people, chosen of old by God and that they
still have a special relationship with God. It was they who received the great
revelation of the one true God, a revelation which was unique in the ancient
world and which would shape their whole future. We are that branch grafted on
to the ancient Vine of
Israel and it is from that Vine that our life
also springs with all our Jewish heritage.
The Gospel reading is a difficult one and is
the story of a wedding feast. It can, however, so easily be read in an
anti-Semitic way. Jesus is reproaching not the people of Israel but their chief
priests and elders, reminding them of how their ancestors had treated the
prophets over the centuries. Furthermore, this is also the treatment that they
will meet out to the Son. They have persistently refused to listen to what God has been saying to them through
the prophets and they have not been interested in the wedding feast of God’s
Kingdom, a feast which Jesus goes on to explain, is open to everyone and not
the Jewish people alone. The Kingdom of God is for all and all are welcome.
The order to the servants to go out and bring
in ‘everyone they could find’ may be an allusion to the marginal people in
Israel, the tax-collectors and the sinners but it may also mean those who were
outside the Jewish people but in either case it is a warning that the Kingdom
is for everyone and for Matthew’s community made up mostly of Jews but with
some non-Jews, it would have spoken directly to them.
The reference to the troops being despatched to
destroy the offenders is usually interpreted as an allusion to the destruction
of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. which indicates that Matthew’s
Gospel was written towards the end of the first century C.E. after this event.
The mysterious allusion to the man without a
wedding garment, though obscure, may probably be read as a warning that
admission to God’s banquet is no guarantee of staying there. The Kingdom is not
an event but an ongoing reality in which we are invited to live and participate
and which requires of us to keep the ‘wedding garment’ clean by our way of
life.
Jesus is also speaking to us, the Church. How
often, over the centuries Christians and especially Christian leaders have
refused to listen to the Gospel message and to the prophets of their day. How
often the institutional Church has believed itself to be beyond reproach and in
no need of reform so that it ceased to be the sign and sacrament of the Kingdom
of God. In our times the prophetic voice has come to us through the bishops
gathered together in the Second Vatican Council and led by the Holy Spirit. The
Council re-discovered a vision of the church as the People of God with
ministers to serve it and not to dominate it. It was to be once again, not an
end in itself but the sign and sacrament of the coming Reign of God. So much of
what the Council said has been put to one side and not developed and acted
upon. There are now even bishops who are trying to return to the way things
were before the Council.
The vision of the Council is of the Church as a
‘holy people’ among whom the Holy Spirit dwells. Each and every one of us has
our part to play in the life of the Church. That is far from evident in our
church today. We must not let the voice of the holy people of the Church be
silenced, especially when there are things which concern the whole people and
which need to be discussed and decided upon together. The Spirit still speaks
to the Church but very often those who are called to be our shepherds fail to
listen or even refuse to do so. Each of
us must be ready to speak up and to share our insights with those who are
called to lead our church. The Church is not them, it is all of us together!
There are special readings for Bernard, though,
almost certainly, those of the day will be read. Those special to Bernard are
the following:
Ecclesiasticus 15/1-6 :
John 17/20-26
The extract from Ecclesiasticus is, like the
whole book, about the wisdom that comes from God and which is given to those
who open their hearts to the Holy Spirit. Bernard was renowned for his great
wisdom and his love of God so that this reading is very appropriate for him.
The Gospel reading is an extract from the long
prayer of Jesus which is part of the discourse that John places at the time of
the Last Supper. In this prayer Jesus addresses himself to the Father and prays
for his followers and for their unity. The unity for which he prays is to be
that which Jesus himself has with the Father, the unity which is at the heart
of God. This unity will be a sign to the world that Jesus was sent by the
Father and the love which he has for his followers is that same love which he
and the Father share. It is this which is at the heart of
Bernard’s teaching and it is this love that we
are called to share one with another. This would have been at the heart of the
monasteries that Bernard founded and must be at the heart of every Christian
community.
We must ask ourselves if what the world sees in
our communities is this love for one another and for the world of which Jesus
speaks or do they just see a group of nice people who go to church?
Friday August 21st. Memory of Pope Pius
Xth. (1835-1814) Friday in Week Twenty in Year Two.
Giuseppe Sarto was born at Riese in Venetia in
Italy in 1835, the son of a poor family. He was able to study though and became
priest in 1858. His talents were soon recognised and in 1867 he became
archpriest of Salzano. In 1875 he was made a Canon of the diocese of Treviso
and, subsequently, Chancellor of the diocese and Spiritual Director of the
Diocesan Seminary. In 1884 he was made Bishop of Mantua and in 1893 he was
appointed patriarch of Venice and a Cardinal. On the death of Pope Leo XIIIth.
Giueseppe was elected Pope by the College of Cardinals and took as his name
Pius. For his motto he took ‘To restore all things in Christ’ (Eph.1/10)
Pius was particularly anxious to restore and
renew the worship of the church and many of his achievements saw the beginnings
of change in the Church’s worship and began the process that lead up to the
Second Vatican Council. Pius encouraged frequent Holy Communion and the
admission of children to the Lord’s Table from about the age of seven. Before
that young people had not been admitted to Holy Communion until well on in
their teens. In making this change Pius had directed that children come to Holy
Communion as soon as they were confirmed but, where this was not possible, they
might receive Holy Communion before their Confirmation. The practice of the
Western Church had always been that Confirmation should follow Baptism and
precede Holy Communion since, originally, Confirmation and Baptism were only
one sacrament as they still are in the churches of the East. Because, in the
West the anointing with Chrism was reserved to the Bishop, the one sacrament of
initiation became two with the part
reserved to the bishop being more and more
delayed and becoming a separate event which children would receive in their
teens. This would then be followed by their reception of Holy Communion. Pius’
intention was not to change the order of things and Confirmation should still
have preceded the reception of Communion unless there were some reason why this
could not be done. Unfortunately, the exception rapidly became the rule and
while Holy Communion was regularly given to children, Confirmation was still
delayed until teenage years, thus losing its raison d’etre as the completion of
Baptism. Various meanings for Confirmation have been invented over the years
but it only makes sense as the completion of Baptism where the person being
baptised goes down into the waters (ideally by immersion) and shares in the
death of Christ to come up out of them to share in his resurrection and to be
anointed with the Holy Spirit. To
re-establish the right order of things would obviate the need of trying to find
a meaning for Confirmation and a right time for its reception.
Pius, in his desire to reform Church worship
made a start on this with the return to Gregorian chant which had been
neglected and replaced by complicated polyphony in which no-one except a
trained choir might participate. Where other settings were used, Pius ordered
that they should be simple enough for the words to be understood. This was the
beginning of that long journey towards worship, as we now have it, in the
language of the people.
Pius also ordered the revision of the Daily
Prayer of the Church which had become overlong and burdensome for ordinary
priests in parishes, though, although we now have the Liturgy of the Hours as
we call it, in our own language and in a simpler form it is still not very
suitable for daily worship by ordinary folk and a lot more work needs to be
done to make it so.
Pius also ordered the reform of the Church’s
Law and the first Code of Canon Law was produced. He reorganised the Roman
Congregations who ran the Western Church and he also inspired Catholic Action
which meant that Christians ought to be involved in the life of society and
bring their faith to bear on everyday situations and problems.
However, in spite of being a truly reforming
Pope, Pius made a grave error in his condemnation of what became known as
‘Modernism’. This was a movement which grew up among Catholics of various
countries and which was aimed at bringing traditional Catholic belief into closer
relations with the modern outlook in philosophy, the historical and social
sciences and social ideas. Unfortunately, Pius saw all this a threat to the
purity of Catholic doctrine and in 1907 he condemned the whole movement in the
Encyclical letter ‘Pascendi’ and in the Decree ‘Lamentabilis’and introduced the
‘anti-Modernist’ oath which all members
of the clergy were forced to swear. This heavy handed treatment led several
notable Catholic thinkers to leave the Catholic Church and brought about an atmosphere
of suspicion which did not disappear entirely until the middle of the last
century. It made it extremely difficult for Catholic scholars to pursue various
lines of study without incurring condemnation for heresy! Most of the ways in
which Catholic theologians and Biblical scholars were moving have,
subsequently, been adopted by our church but not until after many decades of
being stifled by Roman authority.
In spite of all this, Pius did have a lasting
effect on our church and began a process which is still going on and of which
the second Vatican Council reminded us when it said that the Church is
always in need of reform, ‘semper reformanda’.
This again is something which is being forgotten at the present time with those
who wish to return to former ways of being Church and outmoded beliefs and
devotions.
Pius struggled to avert the First World War but
his voice was not heeded and he died a frustrated and saddened man in
1914. It was his reputation for simplicity
of life and poverty, never forgetting his peasant origins, together with his
desire to renew the worship of the Church
that were all factors which led Pope Pius XIIth. to canonise him in
1954.
There are special readings for Pius but, almost
certainly, those of the day will be used.
Readings
Ezekiel 37/1-14 :
Matthew 22/34-40
The reading from the prophet Ezekiel is one
that is well known and the subject of the famous Spiritual ‘dem dry bones’.
This passage follows on from the previous chapter where God, through the
prophet, had promised to make a new covenant with his people, giving them a new
heart and a new spirit.
The dramatic revelation which follows this in
today’s reading is a vision of a dead Israel restored to life. The opening
verses indicate that the prophet had received a powerful visionary experience
but it does not require any physical bi-location. The vision is generated by
the people’s proverb ‘our bones are dried up’ in verse 11. The plain where the
vision occurs is probably the same plain that was mentioned earlier in the book
(Ez.3/22).The action is divided into two
parts, a description of the vision in verses 2 to 10 and then the
interpretation of it in verses11 to 14.The whole episode plays on the contrast
between the dry dead bones and the ‘Ruah’, the wind, breath, spirit of God.
This passage summarizes Ezekiel’s mission to the exiles. He preaches the word
of God to bring new life to a dead Israel. The bones, bleached, scattered on
the ground and very dry represent the total destruction of Israel by an
attacking army, that of Babylon. No reference to the resurrection of
individuals from death is intended. The whole emphasis is on the Spirit or the
‘breath’ .Ezekiel begins with the notice that the Lord is going to ‘put breath’
that is the Spirit, into the bones and after the bones have come together, with
a mighty noise, the prophet is ordered to summon the breath, the Spirit and the
whole passage climaxes when God himself declares that he ‘will put my spirit in
you’.
This whole episode is a vivid representation of
what God intends for his people in exile when he will restore his dead people
to life.
We are familiar with this reading, of course,
because we hear it among the readings for the Vigil of Whitsunday. It is such a
powerful picture of what God does with us, a people who are so often dried up
and dead. God breathes into us his Spirit to give us life, not just life but
God’s life, the divine life, the life which is love, the life which is God.
The Church is in so many ways ossified, a bag of dead bones which so many try to
revive by bringing back old ways and old beliefs but what we need is the inbreathing
of the Spirit of God which will enliven us and make of us, once again, the
living Body of Christ in the world. And what will that Body be doing if not
what Christ himself did while he was among, proclaiming
that the Kingdom of God is among us, within us,
very close to us and helping to build up that Kingdom by the care and the love
that we give to all who are in need.
The Gospel reading for today tells of a lawyer
trying to trap Jesus by asking him which was the greatest of the commandments.
There were, in the Jewish Law, 613 commandments and it was point of discussion
among the rabbis and Scribes as to which of these was the most important, so it
was not surprising that this question should be put to Jesus as a rabbi or
teacher. It is, of course, a trick question but Jesus does not hesitate to
answer and gives not one but two commandments. His answer consists of the
traditional Jewish prayer, the ‘Shema’ or ‘Hear O Israel’ from the book
Deuteronomy (Deut.6/5) ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind’ but he elaborates on this by
adding a second commandment ‘You shall
love your neighbour as yourself’. This is not a commandment to love ourselves,
something which one hears about quite a lot these days, but to value one’s
neighbour as much as one values oneself and Jesus makes it clear that the two commandments
are really only one. The idea that all
the commandments ‘hang’ on these two in the original Greek calls to mind the
image of a large mass, the 613 commandments, suspended by the two ropes.
As Saint John will say later, if we say that we
love God and we fail to love our neighbour we are liars. Love of God can only
be demonstrated practically in the love of our neighbour for, as Jesus told us
so plainly, ‘as often as you do this for one of my brothers or sisters, you do
it for me’.
Today then we remember how we are given the
Spirit to renew and re-vivify us with the Divine life and to enable us to love
others with the love which is God’s very self, to allow God to love in and
through us.
The special readings for Pope Pius Xth., should
they be used are as follows:
Paul’s First letter to the Thessalonians
2/2-8 : John 21/15-17
The reading from Paul’s Letter to the
Thessalonian Christians speaks of Paul’s love for the Thessalonians and how his
only purpose was to give the Good News of the Gospel with the care of a mother,
feeding and looking after her own children’. This was very much Pius’ attitude
towards the people of the Church for whom he cared enormously and his struggles
to present the Great World war show how devoted he was not just to Catholics
but to all those who would and did suffer so much as a result of war.
The Gospel reading shows us Peter being given
the chance to make up for his betrayal of Jesus by loving and caring for his
brothers and sisters. Pius demonstrated his love for Christ very much by his
care for the people of the Church.
Saturday August 22nd. Memory of the Queenship of Mary, the Mother
of God.
Before the revision of the Calendar of our Western
Church, greater feasts had an Octave which meant that they were celebrated for
eight days and the eighth day was a sort of lower key second celebration of the
feast. Over the centuries these Octaves had proliferated so that the
the Calendar had become extremely complicated.
After the second Vatican Council, the whole Calendar was simplified and Octaves
were abolished except for those of Christmas and Easter.
Today would have been the octave day of the
Feast of the assumption which is, presumably, why it was chosen for the
celebration of this Memorial. The feast of the Queenship of Mary had been
instituted by Pius XIIth. in 1955 to be celebrated on May 31st. and
so this feast was transferred to today.
No doubt, the thinking around choosing this day
to celebrate Mary’s Queenship was, having arrived in heaven, Mary would be
crowned Queen of Heaven. This sort of thinking doesn’t really work in our day
and age since we no longer associate royalty with God. Just as we don’t see God as the Monarch
ruling over the whole universe it is difficult for us to envisage Mary as the
Queen of Heaven, in spite of all the rather questionable statues where she bears
a crown!
The best way to keep this feast is to remember
that Mary was the simple village girl who was to be the Mother of God without
any of the trimmings of royalty and state. She was the first to hear the Word
of God from her Son’s own mouth and she kept that word in her heart and
treasured it. So we must rid our minds of all these images and statues which
depict Mary in this royal fashion and see in her the model of the disciple, a
model which we must follow remembering always her Son’s words that ‘the first
among you shall be the last’ and ‘unless you become as little children you
cannot enter the Kingdom of God’.
There are special readings for the feast but,
almost certainly, those for the day will be used:
Readings
Ezekiel 43/1-7 :
Matthew 23/1-12
Today we read our last extract from the book of
the prophet Ezekiel. We have been reading from the book over the past two weeks
and this has given us an overview of the prophet and his message.
In this last vision , Ezekiel is given a
glimpse of the glory of God which takes us right back to his first vision when
he was called to prophesy.
In this vision today, God is returning to his
rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem which he had left at the time of its destruction.
He comes from the East Gate which is the one facing Babylon. His glory, a way
of speaking of God himself, fills the whole of the Temple, where a great voice
proclaims that this is where God will dwell with his people for ever.
This great vision culminates in God declaring
that the Temple is ‘the dais of my throne, the step on which I rest my feet. I
shall live here among the children of Israel for ever.’ The great Jerusalem
Temple is no more the new Temple is among us but the Word has become flesh and
continues to dwell among us in his faithful people and, indeed he is to be
found in every human person. God truly dwells among us , not in the Temple or
even in our churches which some have been so eager to re-open, but in each and
every one of us and this is where we
must worship him, in the love we give to one another. That is, truly, a
glorious vision. The
Gospel reading relates in many ways to the reading from Ezekiel. Jesus attacks
those who are called to teach the people. The people, Jesus says, must follow
their teaching but not their example.
Jesus’ remarks, of course, are addressed not
only to the Scribes and the Pharisees but to all religious leaders and teachers. So full of their own importance,
drawing attention to themselves by the religious clothing that they wear and
expecting the places of honour among the people, the Scribes and the Pharisees
have forgotten the essentials of their religion. They laid burdens on the
people by their meticulous interpretations of the Law and they delighted in the
obsequious way in which people treated them.
Jesus then goes on to instruct the people as to
how it must be among his followers. In so doing he turns everything upside
down. Among them, he says, there should be no hierarchy, the greatest should be
the least. There should be no titles since all are sisters and brothers. No one
ought to call themselves ‘Rabbi’ or ‘Master’ since they have only one master
and that is Christ himself. No one ought
to call themselves ‘father’ since they have only one father who is God. No one
ought to claim the title of ‘teacher’ since Christ himself is their only
teacher. The greatest among them must be the servant of all and, finally, Jesus
declares that those who set themselves up will be humbled and the humble will
be exalted. This is the exaltation that comes from God who ‘exalts the lowly
and the meek’ as Mary sings in her Magnificat.
This is how Jesus envisaged the communities of
his followers as communities of sisters and brothers where each and every one
rejoices in serving the others. The Gospel is our Teacher and only God is our
Father and only God should be given this title. Ought we then to be calling
anyone ‘Father’ and still less ‘Holy Father’?
It is up to us to work at our communities to
try to make them as Jesus envisaged they should be and then, in them,, the
glory of God will be revealed in an even more splendid way than in Ezekiel’s
vision and he will dwell among us in the love we have for one another.
A simple step we might all take is to refuse to
use titles in the Church. Call priests respectfully by their name and, if they
should question this, quote to them Jesus’ words. This very small change would
alter the dynamic of our parishes. You may get some strong reactions, although
many priests might be happy to be known by their names and not by a title which
sets them apart and puts them on a pedestal where they probably don’t wish to
be.
There are special reading for Mary’s Queenship
though they almost certainly won’t be used, they are :
Isaiah 9/1-6
: Luke 1/26-38
The reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah
is the one that we hear at Christmas and reminds of Jesus coming into the world
to establish the Reign of God’s Kingdom.
The Gospel reading is the familiar one from
Luke’s account of the Annunciation where the Gospel writer paints a wonderful
picture of Mary, becoming aware that she is to the means of Jesus coming into
the world. Through her the Word becomes flesh and her reaction is to accept the
role humbly. ‘Be it unto me according to your word, I am the servant of the
Lord’. Significantly, Mary does not rejoice in the great role she has to play
but exults in God who is her Saviour.
Both readings point to the reason for our
honouring Mary. She is the One through whom Christ comes into the world to
proclaim and establish the Reign or Kingdom of God and like her we, the Church,
must also be the way in which he comes into our world today in our flesh to
proclaim and work for the coming of that Reign of Love which is God’s Kingdom.
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