Early in my discernment journey, I spent quite a bit of time getting to know the community of Carmelite nuns at Ware, Hertfordshire. This consisted of lots of long chats with the novice mistress, visits to the monastery (the guest house had a VHS player and a copy of ‘Sister Act’, so I’d happily go back any time) and even a bit of time inside the enclosure, eating, working and praying with the sisters (they’re delightful!). At the time I wasn’t yet completely sold on the appeal or, indeed, the merits of the enclosed religious life. Having grown up in an era which carried unprecedented freedoms for women, the thought of not being able to go and get a coffee with friends on a whim or head off gallivanting around Europe whenever I fancied made me a bit gun shy of the whole thing.
It was during one of the aforementioned chats that I found myself saying to the novice mistress that I couldn’t imagine what living in an enclosed order would be like. “Well,” she replied calmly and probably with a smile, “If you imagine what it was like when you lived at home with your Dad? It’s just like that, except you never go out.” The thought was mildly panic-inducing to say the least (which is not a criticism of my father, I hasten to add). Who in their right mind would voluntarily do that to themselves? Fast forward one year, and here we are. Key workers being the exception, most of us are now being given a free introduction to the enclosed life – some in community, some not. What’s to be done? One of my early objections to monasticism as a potential vocation was that there seems to be such great need in the world, and shutting yourself up in a house with twenty other ladies to spend your days in prayer didn’t seem like the best way of responding to that. After all, didn’t Christ Himself command us to: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28: 19-20)? Maybe these nuns just hadn’t got the memo. If I’d expected to teach the novice mistress a thing or two with my objections, I was to be disappointed – she didn’t seem remotely ruffled by them, instead gently pointing me in the direction of the theology of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Born in 1873 to a devout French Catholic family, Thérèse had a longing for the religious life from a young age, even making a pilgrimage to Rome to seek an audience with the Pope, who she hoped would give her permission to enter earlier than the convent’s rules allowed. However, she also had a restless soul and found herself filled with the desire to be a missionary or a martyr. Her ultimate insights into the value of a life devoted to prayer are still cherished by enclosed women religious around the world. However, I believe they also hold something for the rest of us as we struggle to come to terms with the government’s new rules: Since my longing for martyrdom was powerful and unsettling, I turned to the epistles of Saint Paul in the hope of finally finding an answer. By chance the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians caught my attention, and in the first section I read that not everyone can be an Apostle, prophet or teacher, that the Church is composed of a variety of members, and that the eye cannot be the hand. Even with such an answer revealed before me, I was not satisfied and did not find peace. I persevered in the reading and did not let my mind wander until I found this encouraging theme: Set your desires on the greater gifts. And I will show you the way which surpasses all others. For the Apostle insists that the greater gifts are nothing at all without love and that this same love is surely the best path leading directly to God. At length I had found peace of mind. When I had looked upon the mystical body of the Church, I recognised myself in none of the members which Saint Paul described, and what is more, I desired to distinguish myself more favourably within the whole body. Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation. Indeed I knew that the Church had a body composed of various members, but in this body the necessary and more noble member was not lacking; I knew that the Church had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love. I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to action, that if this love were extinguished, the Apostles would have proclaimed the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would have shed their blood no more. I saw and realized that love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time and every place. In one word, that love is everlasting. Then, nearly ecstatic with the supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed: O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. Certainly I have found my place in the Church, and You gave me that very place, my God. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things, as my desire finds its direction. If you’re the type of person who likes to be out and about, ministering to souls and responding to the needs of the poor and vulnerable, you might well be feeling frustrated and impotent in the current situation. Thérèse would urge you not to underestimate the power of your prayers at this time. I truly believe that the prayers of the saints, made to the Father in love, by the power of the Holy Spirit and in the Name of Jesus, will be ultimately what decides the fate of our world during this battle with an invisible killer. A prayer said by you, in love, might be what gives an exhausted A&E nurse the strength she needs to carry on one more day, or what brings a spark of inspiration to a research team as they race to find a vaccine. It might be what brings healing to someone who is sick, or the grace of conversion to someone who is dying. Right now we all have the chance, like Thérèse, to be a powerhouse of prayer and love in the flaming heart of the Church. Let’s not waste it. Your thoughts? by Lucy Stothard
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The Gospel for Mass today (https://universalis.com/L/0/mass.htm) contains the following passage from John 5:
You study the scriptures, believing that in them you have eternal life; now these same scriptures testify to me, and yet you refuse to come to me for life! As for human approval, this means nothing to me. This is a very important passage. It reminds us that there are two types of knowledge: “knowledge about” and “knowledge of”. Theology and reading of Scriptures provide us with knowledge about God, but given the natural limitations of our human language and the simple fact that Scriptures were written down by particular people, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit but also with all their personal and social conditions, our knowledge about God will always be necessarily limited. On the other hand, knowledge of God is found in our immediate experience of God and his love in our lives; this experience transcends thought and is not just an intellectual or reading exercise. Knowledge of God is the experience of His love. Likewise, in our lives, there is a contrast between knowing someone intimately, in a relationship of family, friendship or affection, and knowing about someone through media or through information in a file, without really knowing that person in personal terms. Theology and reading of Scriptures thus need to feed on prayer and on our lives. What we learn is to be transformed into practical action. What we learn and study becomes a kind of spiritual coal which, at the right moment, waits to be ignited by the flame of God’s love. And so the Gospel reminds us today that the eternal life cannot be found simply in reading the Scriptures, but in welcoming Jesus to enter our lives, by being transformed by Him and testifying to Him by how we live. By Fr Tomas What’s curious about the Coronavirus pandemic is the way it has brought a certain silence and stillness to parts of our world which normally thrum with activity. When my father, a man in his seventies, recounted what he had seen at the local shops a few days previously, the only words he could use which adequately described the eery quiet were: it’s like Sundays used to be. I can’t help but feel there’s a significance here which we, as people of faith, ought not to miss.
I spent much of 2018 teaching English abroad: first in Spain, then in Germany. Continental Europe isn’t necessarily more religious than the United Kingdom, but I was, nevertheless, struck by the way that Sundays are still very much held as sacred there, with the vast majority of cafés, shops and restaurants closed. In places like Barcelona, the difference is palpable, and the whole pace and volume of the city comes down a good few notches on a Sunday. It’s a time to rest, reflect, spend time with loved ones and, if you’re of a Christian persuasion, enjoy the intimacy with God which flourishes in the quiet. Back in Blighty, though, this is no longer the case, and hasn’t been since I was a teenager, or perhaps even earlier than that. More and more we are finding ourselves living in a ‘twenty-four hour society’ where access to shopping, services and entertainment is expected round the clock, regardless of the day. It is estimated that under ten percent of British adults attend Church regularly, so Sunday, for a great deal of us, has become very much like any other day. It’s yet another symptom of a world which no longer has time for its Creator. As Christians, we are privileged to have for our Father a God who can bring everything from nothing, life from death, and joy from even the most sorrowful circumstances. We ought not to be surprised, then, to see Him working miracles and bringing something positive out of the current crisis. Perhaps one such positive element might be that now, and quite unexpectedly, all of our Sundays seem to have come at once. What effect might this have on our society? With so many amusements normally competing for our attention, there’s apparently little need to stop and think about the important questions in life, such as where we came from or where we might be going, how far away the stars are or Who might have put them there. For people of a certain generation, this will be the first time in their lives they’ve actually had the chance to pause and reflect for an extended period of time. For others, it might take them back to a simpler way of life which they remember but thought they’d forgotten. It might just be that the silence and stillness, unwelcome as it might be for so many of us, is finally going to give God’s voice the chance to be heard, for it is in silence that the Lord speaks, as the prophet Elijah found: And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19: 11-12) How is God speaking to you in our current circumstances? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. By Lucy Stothard The beautiful work of art was donated to us by Jan Hearn. It shows Jesus, the Great Physician, cradling and consoling a Coronavirus patient who is wrapped in all the flags of the world. It is a tribute to an original piece by Arte Cardé (warning: this artist's work is not family friendly).
The Coronavirus pandemic has received a fair share of coverage in conservative Christian media, a lot of which has focused on the idea of God sending plagues as a wake-up call to an unrepentant world – as well as a conspiracy theory about biological warfare which is not supported by science. While it is certainly true that the Bible contains the above accounts, it’s equally if not more true that one of the primary ways God reveals Himself in Sacred Scripture is as a healer, culminating in the person of Jesus Christ as the Great Physician. Here are some Bible verses which remind us that our loving Father desires to bring healing to our fallen and broken world: ‘It is He who forgives all your guilt, who heals every one of your diseases, who redeems your life from the grave, who crowns you with love and compassion…’ (Psalm 103: 3-4) ‘Go back and say to Hezekiah, prince of My people, “The LORD, the God of David your ancestor, says this: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will cure you…” (2 Kings 20: 5) ‘But look, I will hasten their recovery and their cure; I will cure them and let them know peace and security in full measure.’ (Jeremiah 33: 6) ‘Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in My arms; But they did not know that I healed them.’ (Hosea 11: 3) ‘But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.’ (Malachi 3: 20) ‘“But I will heal him, and console him, I will comfort him to the full, both him and his afflicted fellows, bringing praise to their lips. Peace, peace to far and near, I will indeed heal him,” says the LORD.’ (Isaiah 57: 18-19) In the Gospels, our God comes to earth as a human being, and His earthly ministry is marked by innumerable works of healing. The accounts of His life devote considerable time to describing this; here are just a few examples: ‘He went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among the people. His fame spread throughout Syria, and those who were suffering from diseases and painful complaints of one kind or another…were all brought to Him, and He cured them.’ (Matthew 5: 23-24) ‘Now Simon’s mother-in-law had gone to bed with fever, and they told Him about her straightaway. He went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her and she began to wait on them.’ (Mark 1: 30-31) ‘…as He stepped ashore He saw a large crowd; and He took pity on them and healed their sick.’ (Matthew 14: 14) ‘“No doubt you will quote Me the saying, ‘Physician, heal yourself’…”’ (Luke 4: 23) Of all of these it is perhaps John’s Gospel which concludes the most beautifully: ‘There were many other things that Jesus did; if all were written down, the world itself, I suppose, would not hold all the books that would have to be written.’ (John 21: 25) As fallen human beings, though, we’re often so reluctant to believe that a Holy God could possibly feel sorry for us or want to help us – which might account for the overtly negative readings of Scripture mentioned at the beginning of the post. We can see this same doubt present in the people who saw Our Lord face to face, as Mark’s account of the healing of the leper shows: ‘A leper came to Him and pleaded on his knees: “If you want to,” he said, “you can cure me.” Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him. “Of course I want to!” He said. “Be cured!”’ (Mark 1: 40-41) It’s interesting to note that some translations read that Jesus was ‘indignant’ – presumably that the man would doubt God’s good intentions toward him. As Christians, we’re often all too quick to believe that God is looking to punish us, but we struggle to believe that He desires to see His children happy, whole and well. In her book, Prove it! Jesus, the American Catholic writer Amy Welborn addresses the common misconception that Jesus performed miracles as a means of proving His divinity. Were this the case, He surely wouldn’t have frequently followed such works of healing by urging the person to ‘say nothing to anyone’ (Mark 1: 44). Rather, contends Welborn, Jesus healed people because of His divinity. Through His incarnation He brought the kingdom – or reign – of God to earth, and where God reigns: ‘the blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life...’ (Matthew 11: 4). With all of this in mind, you may like to use the following prayer this week: My Jesus, I truly believe that You are the Great Physician And that anything I ask in Your Name, your Father will do. With a heart full of faith I ask you now To renew your Reign over our world That those suffering from Coronavirus may be healed And the dead be raised to life And that the blind may see That You alone are the One, eternal cure for all sickness and death I ask this in Your Almighty Name Amen By Lucy Stothard Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation, and we may not be aware of the fact that when the “Anno Domini” (Year of the Lord) dating of the calendar was first introduced in 525, the 25th of March would become the first day of the year. The first recorded instance of the celebration of the feast was at the Council of Toledo in 656.
The Blessed Virgin Mary plays a most important role in God’s plan. From all eternity, God destined her to be the mother of Jesus and closely related to Him in the redemption of the world. Because Mary is God’s instrument in the Incarnation, she has a crucial role to play in the Incarnation and redemption of the world. Having received into her lowliness the infinite love of God, she became the space where God could act. As the human being who best, after Jesus, exemplifies the possibilities of human existence, the Blessed Virgin Mary is our link between heaven and earth. It is nearly impossible to consider our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary without thinking of the Annunciation, as the angel Gabriel’s greeting to Mary, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women,” became the beginning of the Angelus prayer; this prayer should be recited three times a day, at 6am, at noon, and at 6pm. The French Cistercian monk Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) wrote: "You have heard, O Virgin, that you will conceive and bear a Son; you have heard that it will not be by man but by the Holy Spirit. The angel awaits an answer; it is time for him to return to God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady, for your word of compassion; the sentence of condemnation weighs heavily upon us. The price of our salvation is offered to you. We shall be set free at once if you consent. In the eternal Word of God, we all came to be, and behold, we die. In your brief response we are to be remade in order to be recalled to life. Tearful Adam with his sorrowing family begs this of you, O loving Virgin, in their exile from Paradise. Abraham begs it, David begs it. All the other holy patriarchs, your ancestors, ask it of you, as they dwell in the country of the shadow of death. This is what the whole earth waits for, prostrate at your feet. It is right in doing so, for on your word depends comfort for the wretched, ransom for the captive, freedom for the condemned, indeed, salvation for all the sons of Adam, the whole of your race. Answer quickly, O Virgin. Reply in haste to the angel, or rather through the angel to the Lord. Answer with a word, receive the Word of God. Speak your own word, conceive the divine Word. Breathe a passing word, embrace the eternal Word. Why do you delay, why are you afraid? Believe, give praise, and receive. Let humility be bold, let modesty be confident. This is no time for virginal simplicity to forget prudence. In this matter alone, O prudent Virgin, do not fear to be presumptuous. Though modest silence is pleasing, dutiful speech is now more necessary. Open your heart to faith, O blessed Virgin, your lips to praise, your womb to the Creator. See, the desired of all nations is at your door, knocking to enter. If he should pass by because of your delay, in sorrow you would begin to seek him afresh, the One whom your soul loves. Arise, hasten, open. Arise in faith, hasten in devotion, open in praise and thanksgiving. Behold the handmaid of the Lord, she says, be it done to me according to your word." Homily In Praise of the Virgin Mother by St. Bernard (Hom. 4, 8-9: Opera omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 4 [1966], 53-54) Let us conclude with the Memorare, one of the most popular Marian prayers that has been proven to work miracles over the last 500 years: Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen. By Fr Tomas I’m writing this blog post from a flat in the North of England, which stands on the grounds of what was once a thirteenth-century Dominican monastery. I’m here alone so that my elderly parents have somebody to deliver groceries in the event that one of them becomes unwell. Being a very family-orientated person, I was initially far from happy about my new living situation, my feelings oscillating between irritation at the noise from the neighbours and an almost crushing sense of loneliness. Walking round the streets of my hometown and seeing much-loved small shops and cafés closed – some of whom may not recover from this crisis – left my heart grieved. If you’re self-isolating or keeping your distance from friends and loved ones for their own good, you may be experiencing similar feelings. Whether you live in a spacious suburban house or a tiny city-centre flat, spiritually the current landscape looks very similar for all of us. We are in the desert. However, this need not be a reason for despair. We must remember that, as Christians, the desert holds a unique and sacred place in our spirituality and heritage. It was into the desert that Moses led the Israelites, there to wander for the next forty years. It was to the desert that the prophet Elijah fled when persecuted by the wicked queen Jezebel. Jesus was driven ‘by the Spirit’ into the desert shortly after His baptism, there to be ‘with the wild beasts’ (Mark 1: 13). For all of these, the desert represented a place where their faith, not to mention their faithfulness, would be tested. But it would also become a place where they saw with their own eyes the miraculous provision of our amazing God. Amid temptation, hunger pangs and cries of desperation, manna rains down from Heaven, water springs from the rock, and angels show up – with cake, no less. Few, if any, of us would, I suspect, be likely to think of the desert as a great place for a wedding. But for the ancient Israelites, the wilderness of Sinai was the place God elected to enter into an indissoluble covenant with His chosen people. In his book, Jesus the Bridegroom, Brant Pitre writes: ‘From an ancient Jewish perspective, the history of salvation was centered on the events that took place at Mount Sinai during the exodus of Egypt at the time of Moses. And from an ancient Jewish perspective, the relationship between God and Israel that was established at Mount Sinai was not just a sacred bond revolving around the laws of the Ten Commandments. From the perspective of the biblical prophets, what happened at Mount Sinai was nothing less than a divine wedding.’ The significance of these events is alluded to by the LORD Himself when He says to Moses, on the slopes of Sinai: “You yourselves have seen what I did with the Egyptians, how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to Myself’ (Exodus 19: 4; emphasis mine). The wilderness, then, represents a place where the most sacred of all unions can take place. By entering willingly into the desert, we can respond more fully to the invitation to enter into the very heart of our God. The desert fathers and mothers understood this great mystery, deliberately seeking the aridity and solitude of the Scetes wilderness as a means of radical renunciation and single-hearted devotion to Christ. Wilfully embracing lives devoid of material comfort and, in many cases, human contact, they knew that it is only in the desert that we realise how truly lonely, hungry and thirsty we are, and only here that we can truly make space for the One who longs to fill us with Himself. In the modern world, this reality is still lived out by those called to the monastic or eremitical lifestyles, often in the midst of bustling towns and cities, the walls of the enclosure or hermitage demarcating the boundaries of that timeless space where the soul can finally be alone with God. Their lives bear witness to one of life’s great paradoxes: that the one who appears to have nothing is really the one who has everything. As we watch and pray for our current crisis to be over, perhaps we can take something from their example to emulate in our own lives. Many of us will find that, with homes filled with various means of entertainment, there’s ample opportunity to distract ourselves from the reality of what’s happening. But perhaps we’re not meant to – at least not all of the time. Instead of fighting against the wilderness, we might try embracing it in our spiritual practice. By learning to sit quietly with the emptiness and aridity of life in the time of Coronavirus, we can give God the space to work in us, to complete what He has already begun and unite us more perfectly to Himself. Doing so might cause the Church, once all of this is over, to return to the world more resplendent than before, causing all who see her to marvel: ‘Who is this coming up from the desert, leaning on her Beloved?’ (Song of Songs 8: 5). By Lucy Stothard Please feel free to share your thoughts on this post using the comment box below! The following passage by St. Augustine wonderfully explains that we can meet God in our homes, on every page of the Scriptures. "You have heard the account of the two disciples who meet the Lord on the road to Emmaus and yet did not recognize Him. When He met them, they had lost all hope of the redemption that is in Christ, they were convinced that the Master was dead like any other man, they did not realize that Jesus inasmuch as He is Son of God was still alive. According to them, He had left this life without being able to return, like one of the many prophets. Then the Lord revealed to them the meaning of the Scriptures. Beginning with Moses and quoting one prophet after another, He showed that everything that He had suffered had been foretold. After that, He appeared to the eleven disciples and they thought that they were seeing a ghost. So Jesus let them touch Him, the one who had let Himself be crucified. He was crucified by His enemies and touched by His friends. He healed them all, the former of their wickedness, the latter of their unbelief. Yet the Lord did not consider it was sufficient to allow them to touch Him. He wanted to appeal to the Scriptures to confirm their hearts in the faith. He saw us in anticipation. who had not yet been born, who do not have a chance to touch Christ but do have the opportunity to read about Him. The Apostles believed because they had touched Him. But what can folk like us do? By now Christ is ascended into heaven and will only return at the end to judge the living and the dead. On what base shall we build our faith, unless it be those Scriptures with which the Lord wanted to confirm the faith of those who touched Him? He revealed to them the meaning of the Scriptures and showed how it was necessary that Christ should suffer and should fulfil all that had been written about Him in the books of the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms. The Lord went through the whole Old Testament. He seemed to span it all in His embrace. The Scriptures are in fact, in any passage you care to choose, singing of Christ, provided we have ears that are capable of picking out the tune. The Lord opened the minds of the Apostles so that they understood the Scriptures. And He will open our minds too in our prayer." St. Augustine - On the first letter of John, 2, 1 (SC75, p. 151ff.) By Fr Tomas |
Lucy Stothard & Fr David & Fr TomasLucy is an Intern at S Giles, Fr Tomas is is our curate, and Fr David is the vicar. We hope to offer some regular words of encouragement during this difficult time. Archives
May 2020
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