Month: November 2023

During this past week we celebrated the feast of St Cecilia, virgin and martyr and patroness of musicians. Happy feast, if you’re a musician. Almost nothing (except an approximate date of her death) is known about her. It was some 200 years after her death which took place during the persecutions of the Roman Emperors that a strong cult grew up around her, so strong that a basilica was erected to her honour in the mid 5th century. Some of the greatest composers in history have written about her and she seems to be a sort of muse for the virginal-like flowering of a new piece of music in the mind of a musical genius.

Anyway, because of the conviction of the newly-liberated church of the post-Roman empire, we can be pretty certain that she was both a virgin and a martyr who died because of her all-consuming love for Jesus. To our sophisticated ears, those terms can seem somewhat archaic themselves and thus ‘discardable’. But they are vitally important to the life of Faith as they express the marriage bond that the exists between God and His people. The Old and New Testament scriptures abound with examples of the imagery of a wedding feast and indeed, in our actual wedding liturgies we talk of how the newly weds are symbols of Christ’s love for the Church, His Bride. This is not about some goody-two-shoes lass who’s never been kissed; it’s much deeper than that. It’s about the absolute giving of Christ Himself to His people and our feeble attempts to do the same back. It’s a call to us to get our act together and to put Christ at the centre of our lives.

Easier said than done; trust me, I know! Maybe you’re like me and you’re wondering where the year has gone? This time last year I was serving on a parish in the Diocese of Sacramento in California. This time last year, just like this year, I’m marvelling at ‘what a difference a year can make’! As we watch time speed by, as we enter into December and the First Sunday of Advent in this coming week, we can perhaps find ourselves wondering (not marvelling) at the missed opportunities to deepen our Faith in and love for Christ, our King. This year, we have enthroned an earthly king in Westminster Abbey, but have we enthroned our Heavenly King in the depth of our hearts? St Cecilia and many others are presented to us by Holy Mother Church to remind us of this most important task, namely embracing Our Lord as the centre of our lives and, in the way spouses do, preferring absolutely nothing to Him. When He is at the centre of our universe everyone and everything else can fall into its rightful place and God’s creative genius can be seen in everyone and everything. Last year, I learnt from my Mexican parishioners that such a conviction drove the Cristeros martyrs at the beginning of the 20th century who, as they were shot for insisting on Jesus’ law against an atheistic law, shouted out: VIVA CRISTO REI! Would I be that courageous? Yes, but only if Jesus is enthroned in my hearts core as my love, my Saviour and my King.

Last laugh: I’m not saying he was a heavy drinker but the only thing that grew on his grave were hops! Les Dawson

It barely seems possible that we are over halfway through November already. Many of us have lost dear family and friends in the last year, some expected, some shockingly quick. Our parish family has lost some of its oldest and most faithful people during this last year. You hear some people say that the one thing we all have in common is that we shall all die one day. It’s a bleak thought and it’s true in part; but actually, it’s not the only thing we have in common. We can only die if we have first lived and been present in this world and so, in common, we all live and we all die. But FIRST, we live.

Too many people spend too much time worrying about fending off the inevitability of death. It’s going to happen and Jesus, who knows what it is to die (and even to die in awful circumstances) assures us that we don’t need to worry as long as we keep our eyes fixed on Him and our trust in God’s mercy. That established, we can get on with the sometimes tedious, sometimes exciting prospect of being a (wo)man fully alive. St Iranneus said that “The glory of God is a human-being fully alive”. We can only be fully alive if we are fully in the present moment and don’t spend too much time worrying about the manner of our death. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why the Church used to promote prayer to St Joseph, the Patron of a happy death. I say ‘used to’ because the insidious evil of Relativism has ensured that our community and especially our children should fear death, unless of course it’s commercialised at Halloween. This is bound to happen when you insist on removing the fullness of God from as much of life as possible. Well, I can assure you it aint happening in any parish placed in my care, not even over my very dead body! Below are two prayers for a happy death, one seeking the intercession of St Joseph and one seeking the comfort of the Holy Family. Pray them, shock your trendy neighbours, send the politically correct into spasms of objection and then stop worrying about the end of your life and get stuck into enjoying your life as it is right now because right now, just like the Holy Souls, you are in God’s hands and you will be at the moment of your death and way beyond as long as you are prepared to trust Him.

O Blessed Joseph, you gave your last breath in the loving embrace of Jesus and Mary.
When the seal of death shall close my life, come with Jesus and Mary to aid me.
Obtain for me this solace for that hour – to die with their holy arms around me.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I commend my soul, living and dying, into your sacred arms. Amen

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, assist me in my last agony.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, may I breath forth my soul with thee. Amen.

Last Laugh: And God said: “Let there be Satan, so people don’t blame everything on me. And let there be politicians, so people don’t blame everything on Satan.” George Burns

During this last week, I met with a number of our young people and their parents as they plan for the young ones to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation from the Bishop in February next year. You will remember that a few years ago, Bishop Stock reduced the age of Confirmation from 13/14-year-old to 10/11. For some time, it seemed that Confirmation completed the Sacraments of Initiation whereby we mark the journey to spiritual adulthood in our young people. It has nothing to do with that at all. That model has created a sort of ‘rite of passage’ which has more in common with a Jewish Bar-Mitzvah than one of the seven Sacraments. Confirmation doesn’t complete the initiation into the life of Faith, Holy Communion does and if you go to the Easter Vigil and watch adults being received into the Church you will see them being first baptised (or formally received if they have belonged to another Christian denomination) then Confirmed and then, later in the Mass, making their First Holy Communion. Even with the Bishop’s renewed structure we’re still getting things out of sync.

When a person is Confirmed, they are given the gifts of the Holy Spirit by which they are enabled to live the Sacramental life of a Catholic Christian. Without those gifts none of us can hope to grow to full spiritual maturity in our lives of Faith. The Bishop wishes to move the Sacrament closer to the celebration of the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion so as to ensure that more children have the opportunity to receive these gifts and so begin to live by the graces they promise. You might say that they have this opportunity now: they can choose to petition for the reception of the Sacrament if they’re that bothered. The modern reality is that by the age of 13/14/15 they are running out of steam and are being massively pressured to abandon their Faith by their peers. (And this pressure happens as much in our Catholic high schools as it does in any other school, so let’s not kid ourselves otherwise. ) It is hoped that with the grace of the Sacrament working within them they have at least a slim chance of resisting such forces.

Christ needs foot soldiers for the work of grace and mercy that is so necessary in this modern world. The majority of that work is done, not by priests and religious, but by the laity. Our bishop is making sure that the spiritual soldiers under his command are suitably equipped and prepared to meet the battles that must be fought. They are battles for souls: our own and everyone else’s. If you don’t believe in a spiritual life then that last statement is pure tosh and you may as well dress the children up in posh frocks and throw cake at them…oh, wait…that’s what happens to many of our children at Holy Communion-time, isn’t it?! But if the spiritual life means anything to us then we need to roll up our sleeves, assess the task and all it needs and then get cracking with the work in hand. We have been appalled when the government has sent our soldiers into war zones poorly armed and supported. Last year we Confirmed about a dozen young people from this parish. According to the records that ‘baptism year’ we should have been Confirming nearer 50. We have allowed too many of our young people to go out into a tumultuous world with less than we can give them. Please pray for the young people of our communities, and their families, as they embark on this journey of grace.

Last Laugh: I love to sing and drink scotch. Most people would rather hear me drink scotch. George Burns

This weekend there’ll be bonfires and fireworks a-plenty around our two towns. Bonfire Night was always a big ‘do’ at our house when we were kids. I distinctly remember making a fantastic Guy Fawkes one year with a mate of mine and we made a fortune on ‘penny for the Guy’. That was the year when I realised through my history lessons that I was sponsoring the burning of an effigy of a Catholic and that’s when I stopped making Guys. Admittedly, Guy Fawkes wasn’t exactly playing by the Catechism of the Catholic Church when he and others plotted to blow up the king and parliament along with members of the royal family. But, if you know a little bit about history, you’ll know that parliament and the monarchy hadn’t exactly been playing fair with Catholics for many a year up to that point. Little wonder that to some of the Catholics of his day, Guy Fawkes was a martyr? Certainly, the Church has never recognised him as such. But, anyway, it’s all a long time ago, isn’t it? And we’re not so primitive in our manners, are we? Hmmm.

This weekend, the goodly people in the Bonfire capital of the world, Lewes, will not only burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes but, as they do every year, they will also burn an effigy of the Pope. (Technically, it’s Pope Paul V who became Pope in 1605, but an effigy of the pope is an effigy of the pope, innit?!) I was thinking of burning an effigy of the current Ayatollah on the green in Heckmondwike this weekend. I wonder how that might go down? The protestants of Lewes remember their 17 martyrs who were put to death by Queen Mary and you have to hand it to their ‘remembering’: it’s a prolific thing to keep such hatred going for 500 years. But we have not a few Catholics who play fast and loose with the memory of our own martyrs. I wonder if the goodly protestants of Lewes or our own righteous Catholics tut-tut at how those Gazans and Israelis just can’t seem to bury the past.

The most persecuted religion in the world at present is Christianity, the majority of whom are Catholics, though that fact is barely ever reported by the main news outlets. And how should we respond to the institutional prejudice of our own country (i.e. the monarch cannot marry a Catholic nor can a Catholic PM advise the King on the appointment of Bishops) and the violent bigotry directed to our brethren in the Middle East, South East Asia and China? Should we respond with gunpowder, burnings, butchery and more bigotry? No. It is to be met by the Bonfire of Love that burns in the Heart of Jesus, that His disciples are asked to imitate. That being the case, is it any wonder that few take up Jesus’ challenge to live non-violently to its maximum effect? And yet, where our forebears have done so, and maybe even lost their lives in the process, it has a far greater effect than the brute elemental fire that only destroys. Jesus’ Heart on Fire consumes hatred and makes converts who begin their lives anew. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, make our hearts like unto Thine.

Last Laugh: My mother always used to say “The older you get, the better you get. Unless you’re a banana.” Rose from the Golden Girls.