Christmas Night Mass Homily

[This is still in draft form, so please forgive my infelicities of thought and style.]

After the passage of countless centuries from the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created heaven and earth and formed man and woman in his own image, and very many centuries from the time when after the flood the Almighty had set his bow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant and of peace; in the twenty-first century from the migration of Abraham, our father in faith, from Ur of the Chaldees; in the thirteenth century from the departure of the people of Israel from Egypt under the leadership of Moses; in about the thousandth year from the anointing of David as king according to the prophecy of Daniel; in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad; in the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the City of Rome; in the forty-second year of the rule of Caesar Octavian Augustus; while the whole world was at peace, Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the Eternal Father, desiring to consecrate the world by his most gracious coming, having been conceived of the Holy Spirit, and when nine months had passed after his conception, is born as man in Bethlehem of Judah from the Virgin Mary: the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. (Christmas Proclaimation)

Throughout the world, on ‘this holy night’ (cf. Opening Prayer), parishes gather together to hear the Christmas proclamation and celebrate the great feast of Our Lord’s birth. Individuals and families make their way out of the cold and darkness, into the warmth and light of our Christmas celebration. It’s no coincidence that we gather in the darkest time of the winter to hear how the true light of the world came in our midst.
The Door of Humility
And as we think of millions who gather, like us, to celebrate this feast, let us turn our minds in a particular way to the City of Bethlehem, where Christian memory has preserved the place where Christ was born of Mary twenty centuries ago. A church has stood on that spot for the past 1,700 years, and beneath the Church is the grotto itself, the cave-stable where the Word of God came into this world. The spot is marked a silver star set into the floor, with a Latin inscription: Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. But to reach that that star, to go into the grotto one must first get into the Basilica of the Nativity itself. The main entrance of the Church is called the Door of Humility – and is less than 4½ feet high! It’s not possible for anyone – no matter how great or good – to get to Christ’s birthplace without bending down! Of course, it was God Himself who bowed down first, coming among us in poverty to share our condition.
The Mind of a Child?
Because God has bowed down, to come among us, let us too bow down in humility and spend a little time at the crib. Have you ever seen little children being brought to look at the crib? They’re fascinated by it – the angels, the shepherds, the Kings, the animals, Mary and Joseph, and at the heart of it all, the baby Jesus – so small, and yet the centre of attention. Christ tells us that we must be like little children (cf. matt 18:3), and this is – I think – especially true at this Christmas celebration. Children are filled with wonder and joy at Christmas. The Christmas story is one that a child can grasp. But it’s not just a children’s story. It’s not just something for children to wonder at. Our wonder and joy should be just as great as that of the smallest child learning about the crib for the first time. Our adult faith should be continually astonished that our God has come among us in such humility – as a small baby, in a cave, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger, cared for and dependent on a carpenter and his young wife. We who have seen something of life should renew our amazement and joy this night – because God Himself has come among us, has put Himself at our mercy, has come to show His love and win our love in the greatest humility. If anything, we should be even more astonished than the children!
Not a Children's Story
This is no fable or fairy story. There is no history or life more real than that of the little child, born in poverty, coming into a world of darkness. There is still much darkness and poverty in the world – in the Bethlehem of today, and in so many other places. There is a darkness and poverty in the corners of our own lives too. And yet, the true light has come into the world and we are invited to welcome Him.
Venite Adoremus
Come let us adore Him. Let us take the time to truly worship Him this evening. Let us be joyful and grateful this night. If we do not take the time to adore the child in the manger, we cannot know God or His peace. True peace and true communion are offered to the world through that little child. If we bow down and worship Him, turn our hearts and minds to adoration of Him, we will know that God is truly among us. If we worship Him in His innocence and humility, we will become what we worship. God has come among us as a child, has shared our life and our struggles so that we might have a share in His life, His peace and His glory.

Introduction to Creed
Let us stand for the Profession of Faith – and because it is Christmas, we genuflect at the words “and was made man” in honour of God's humility in coming among us.

Prayers of the Faithful
With joy and confidence in the power of God who came among us as a man, let us make our prayers for the Church and the World:

We pray for the Church throughout the World – that the faith and joy of Christians everywhere may be renewed.

We pray for peace in the world – between nations and peoples, and within families – may the Infant Jesus bless us with His peace.

We pray for all those who suffer – from poverty, ill-health, and despair – through the power of the Holy Spirit and the help of those around them, may this season bring them hope.

We pray for our own intentions – I offer this Mass this evening for all our parishioners – especially for those who find it difficult to celebrate this Christmas.

We pray for our dead – especially those who died during the past 12 months – May the Lord welcome them all into His presence.

Let us Pray
Lord God, you sent your Son among us as our Saviour. May our celebration of His birth deepen our faith and strengthen our hope. We make this prayer through Christ our Lord.

On the Road to Bethlehem

I happened to be reading GK Chesteron's Irish Impressions recently, and was very stuck by something he wrote:

The Irish Catholics, like other Christians, admit a mystery in the Holy Trinity, but they may almost be said to admit an experience in the Holy Family. Their historical experience, alas, has made it seem to them not unnatural that the Holy Family should be a homeless family. They also have found that there was no room for them at the inn, or anywhere but in the jail; they also have dragged their new-born babes out of their cradles, and trailed in despair along the road to Egypt, or at least along the road to exile. They also have heard in the dark and the distance behind them, the noise of the horsemen of Herod.

One of the typical Christmas decorations here in Ireland is a lit candle in each window of the house throughout the Christmas season. These are intended to light the journey of Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem. In some parts of Ireland it was the tradition to take the candle from the window on Christmas Eve and place it in the middle of the kitchen floor. The door of the house would be left unlocked as an invitation for the Holy Family to stop for refreshment on their journey. Sigerson Clifford's Kerry Christmas Carol refers to this custom:

Brush the floor and clean the hearth,
And set the fire to keep,
For they might visit us tonight
When all the world’s asleep.

Don’t blow the tall white candle out
But leave it burning bright,
So that they’ll know they’re welcome here
This holy Christmas night.

Leave out the bread and meat for them,
And sweet milk for the Child,
And they will bless the fire, that baked
And, too, the hands that toiled.

For Joseph will be travel-tired,
And Mary pale and wan,
And they can sleep a little while
Before they journey on.

They will be weary of the roads,
And rest will comfort them,
For it must be many a lonely mile
From here to Bethlehem.

O long the road they have to go,
The bad mile with the good,
Till the journey ends on Calvary
Beneath a cross of wood.

Leave the door upon the latch,
And set the fire to keep,
And pray they’ll rest with us tonight
When all the world’s asleep.

Thanks to Fr Philip...

His post on 'Five Hard Truths' provided the back-bone to my homily this Sunday. As Advent draws near and we remember the Holy Souls during this month of November, he gives a very fitting reflection.

Anglicanorum Coetibus

The Holy See has issued the Apostolic Constitution which sets up new structures enabling Anglicans to enter into full communion with Rome. My brief reading of it suggests that they're essentially getting mini-dioceses - personal Ordinariates - giving them quite an amount of autonomy to preserve their Anglican heritage.

IV. A Personal Ordinariate is entrusted to the pastoral care of an Ordinary appointed by the Roman Pontiff.

V. The power (potestas) of the Ordinary is:

a. ordinary: connected by the law itself to the office entrusted to him by the Roman Pontiff, for both the internal forum and external forum;

b. vicarious: exercised in the name of the Roman Pontiff;

c. personal: exercised over all who belong to the Ordinariate;

This power is to be exercised jointly with that of the local Diocesan Bishop, in those cases provided for in the Complementary Norms.

Interesting... and one wonders if this is a possible structure which could be used to reconcile the SSPX?

The spin, the spin...

I note with interest this report in the Irish Times which deals with a Church of Ireland group which is supportive of Civil Partnerships for homosexual couples. Now, I don't have the time or inclination to moderate a debate about that particular issue. However, I think that it's important that we look at what one preacher is supposed to have said.

In a sermon at the chapel yesterday Rev Sharon Ferguson, of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement and a minister at the Metropolitan Community Church in London, said “those who are called by God to be our religious leaders are exhorted to remember that they are no different from the rest of us and consequently deal gently with all people”.She said: “Jesus spent his whole ministry reaching out to those rejected by the Jewish faith – lepers, tax collectors, women, gentiles, the sick and disabled, prostitutes – and he showed God’s all encompassing love for all people.“He didn’t judge them and insist that they changed their ways before sharing God’s love with them, for he knew that none of these things matter.”

Now, I don't know whether that's an accurate account of what she said, or the context in which she said it, but taking it at face value, it's applying a huge amount of spin to the Gospel itself.

Certainly, religious leaders are called to be gentle and to remember that they're made of the same flesh as everyone else. And Christ certainly spent his ministry reaching out to those on the margins.

However, it's somewhat disingenuous to suggest that lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes, gentiles and the disabled are somehow interchangeable. All received healing and forgiveness from Christ, but their situations were not identical. The woman caught in adultery was urged to go and sin no more, whilst I don't ever recall Christ telling anyone go and don't be a gentile or a woman any more.

Yes, Christ showed God's all encompassing love for everyone, regardless of what their situation was. I truly hope that the Church can continue to do that. However, He also called those He touched to a new and challenging way of life. Some took up the challenge; others, like the rich young man, turned away. Christ brought God's forgiveness and mercy because they are so needed. Whether one needs to turn to God and take up the challenge of conversion is not a matter of indifference. Christ was continually calling people to conversion - the pharisees, the tax collectors, those who hate, those who refuse to forgive, and, yes, adulterers and prostitutes. That's not a denial of God's all-encompassing love. It's a sign that God loves us too much to leave us in a state of slavery.

So, unless Rev Ferguson wants to suggest that ministers of religion should stop speaking out against financial corruption, war, thief, ingratitude and all those other ways in which we give evidence of our fallen nature, then she can't really argue that the example of Christ means that the Church shouldn't speak out against Civil Partnerships. If she wanted to argue that homosexual relations were holy and blessed, and that the Church should therefore support civil partnerships, well, I could respect her. I wouldn't agree with her, but I would respect her reasoning to a point, because it would not be denying the fact that Christianity has something to say about right and wrong.

However, the road she's taking at the moment suggests that God doesn't care about anything and that therefore the Church shouldn't take a position on any moral issue. Anyone who knows even a little about the Gospel and the history of Christianity will know that line of reasoning is bunkum.

Mathematical Ignorance

This is a good example of why I don't trust newspapers. The science editor of the Irish Times writes about the work of Nadia Baker who encourages mathematical literacy. However, he concludes with the following howler:

Ms Baker referred to something that, on the face of it, seemed a remarkable coincidence but in fact was only simple probability.

It would seem a long shot to meet someone with the same birthday date as you, but in fact in a random group of just 23 people, there is a greater than 50/50 chance of meeting someone with the same birthday as you.

You can bet on it.

No you can't! In a random group of 23 people, there is a greater than 50/50 chance that two people in that group will share a birthday. Dr Math explains it here.

HOWEVER, that's not what the article says. The article says that in a random group of 23 people, there's a 50/50 chance that I will find someone with the same birthday as myself. That's patently absurd. As a matter of fact, I would need to get a group of 183 other people together in order for the probability of one of them having the same birthday as myself be more than 50%.

Someone has seriously misunderstood the birthday problem...

Irish Priest Kidnapped

From the Irish Times:

An extensive military and army search is underway in the Philippines following the kidnapping of an Irish priest by a gang of armed men in the south of the country yesterday.

Michael Sinnott (79), a Columban Father originally from Barntown in Co Wexford, was taken away on a speedboat after six gunmen entered the Columban House in Pagadian city in the province of Zamboanga del Sur yesterday evening, and dragged him away, according to reports quoting local police.

Fr Sinnott was taking a stroll in the garden of the compound when a man knocked on the door asking for a priest. When a member of staff opened it, gunmen barged in and grabbed him.

The missionaries could not do anything “because the abductors had powerful weapons”, regional police commander Angelo Sunglao said.

The kidnappers took Fr Sinnott away by sea, Mr Sunglao said, citing fishermen in the area. The van used to take him from the house to shore was later found abandoned and burned near the Catholic mission.

Regional military commander Major General Benjamin Dolorfino said Fr Sinnott was kidnapped for ransom. Intelligence reports indicated he was taken by boat to a town in nearby Lanao del Norte province, where a large Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is active.

Maj Gen Dolorfino said it was not clear if the Moro group or smaller but more violent al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf extremists were involved.

(snip)

Fr O’Donoghue said people from all walks of life had contacted the order to express sadness at what had happened to Fr Sinnott. “Right across the divide people are outraged that this could happen to a 79 year-old-man who has given his life to poor and to justice in this country,” he said.

The kidnapping comes nine months after Abu Sayyaf abducted three Red Cross workers on the island of Jolo. They were released one by one in a hostage crisis that lasted for six months. The group was also blamed for kidnapping Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi, who was held for more than a month in 2007.

Good News!

The most excellent Sisters of the Gospel of Life (based in Glasgow) have welcomed a new Postulant. The sisters are very much in their infancy as a congregation, but from having met them and heard much about their apostolate, I'm convinced that they have a huge amount to offer to the Church and I pray that they will thrive. Congrats to Sisters Roseann, Andrea and Amanda.

The Wedding of Tommy Tiernan

I was interested to read about the wedding of Irish Comedian Tommy Tiernan in today's Irish Times. Back in 2006 he created some controversy by performing on the Late Late show. I don't recall the details, but he generated quite a lot of ill-feeling by being very offensive about Christ and the Catholic Church. More recently, he fell afoul of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission for mimicking a man disabled in a motor accident.

A Church Wedding?
Still, I must say that I wasn't tremendously surprised that he was married in the Catholic church at Corracrin in Co. Monaghan. The right of the baptised Catholic to be married in the Church is very strongly upheld by the Code of Canon Law, and whilst Tiernan seems to have displayed little respect for the Church in the past, I'm not in a position to speculate about the current religious attitudes of himself or his bride.

Waiting for the Bride
However, the newspaper report's description of the wedding annoys me for a whole variety of reasons. Firstly, the wedding was supposed to take place at 2.30pm. Any priest will tell you that the bride being a little late is traditional, and that it's rare enough for her to be ridiculously late. In my own experience, I find that couples are usually quite good, and on those rare occasions when I've been kept waiting due to unforeseen circumstances, the bride has usually been most apologetic. However, in this case, the groom didn't arrive until 5 to 3, and the bride was a full hour and a half late, eventually showing up at 4pm. Now, one of the challenges that I have with weddings is trying to preserve an air of recollection in church beforehand. Folk are excited, and maybe some aren't frequent church-goers, so I don't run around slapping their palms with a ruler for talking in church. However, I always preface a wedding with a few words of welcome for friends and family and a reminder that they're all gathered to prayerfully accompany the couple on their big day. That, I think, helps bring things under control in the 5 or 10 minutes we spend waiting for the bride.
Now, let's be honest. I find it hard to believe that the great and the good of Irish showbiz society were quietly prayerful during the 90 minutes wait for the future Mrs Tiernan. When a wedding runs that late, it seems as though respect isn't being shown to the Church, the priest, the guests or Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

Security Guards?
I was also disturbed by the fact that security guards were hired to keep the riff-raff (i.e. local parishioners) out of the church for the duration of the wedding. Marriage is a public act, and in Canon Law should only be performed secretly for a grave and urgent cause. (Canon 1130) Personally, I wouldn't dream of allowing any church in my parish to be closed to my parishioners in such a manner.
I'm also puzzled as to how this fits in with the provisions of the Civil Registration Act of 2004 which states:

51.—(1) A marriage may be solemnised by, and only by, a registered solemniser.
(2) A registered solemniser shall not solemnise a marriage
unless—
[...]
(c) the place where the solemnisation takes place is open to the
public,

The Cleric as Tight-rope walker
My attitude to this is pretty much the same as my attitude to the controversy surrounding the late Ronnie Drew's funeral. The Church has rules to guarantee the rights of the faithful and to assist the Christian people grow in holiness. They're often administered with a light hand for the sake of the salvation of souls. However, when it seems as though the usual procedures are set aside for the rich and famous, the Church is made to seem as though she favours those who have been successful in the eyes of the world. Preferential option for the poor, where are you? Sometimes it's a case of priests caving to pressure applied to them, at other times it's a case of an unfortunate cleric having his head turned by fame or celebrity. Sometimes my brother priests can be disloyal in having little time for the basic rules and regulations which the rest of us try to compassionately uphold. Sometimes the laity take the initiative and arrange for things to be done 'their own way' whether the clergy like it or not, and we're left in the situation of making the best of a bad situation without causing too much scandal.

I'm not in a position to make accusations or point fingers at anyone - lay or cleric - in the case of Tommy Tiernan's wedding. I don't have the inside story on how things were arranged by anyone involved in the celebration. Perhaps everything was done 'by the book' and in good faith. However, the media report of the wedding seems to raise several questions about the way in which the marriage was conducted, and seems to me to be an example of how scandal can be caused when special allowances are made for people who are only special because of worldly success. What can I do, but echo the bewilderment of the parishioners who were locked out of their own church?

Divorced and Re-Married - An Internal Forum Solution?

Fr John Boyle posts a very interesting article about whether an 'internal forum' solution exists for divorced and re-married Catholics who wish to receive Holy Communion.

Amnesty International & Domestic Politics

John Waters in today's Irish Times turns his attention to Colm O'Gorman's recent comments about the proposed civil partnership bill, and in particular the position of Amnesty International in the debate. Now, I was wondering whether his remarks were made in his capacity as Amnesty International's executive director or in a private capacity. I guess its coverage on the Amnesty Website resolves that to some extent.
I recall Amnesty visiting our school when I was 11 or 12. I think I unnerved the visitor somewhat by asking whether their defence of human rights included protection for the unborn child. She explained that they stayed out of that debate - and in retrospect, one can understand why an organisation concerned with representing prisoners of conscience might steer clear of such a disputed and divisive issue in order to focus on their core mission. However, in recent times, Amnesty has dropped its neutrality on the issue of abortion.
(By the by, I should hope that it's obvious to readers involved in education that Amnesty should no longer be welcome in our Catholic schools.)
John Waters notes that Colm O'Gorman's statement on civil partnerships also represents a shift away from what used to be Amnesty's priorities:

WITHOUT ANYONE emphasising or questioning the shift, Amnesty International has gone in recent years from being an organisation devoted to the rights of prisoners-of-conscience in foreign jurisdictions to a lobby group concentrating selectively on ideological issues within the immediate jurisdictions in which it operates. I often wonder what its founders would have thought about this. I wonder, too, if people who stuff cash into the boxes of Amnesty’s street collectors are aware of the implications of what has occurred.
Twenty years ago, the idea of Amnesty lecturing the Irish Government in partisan terms on a matter on which there is democratic controversy would have been inconceivable. The old-style Amnesty considered human rights too vital to be mixed up with everyday political argumentation within democratic societies.

What's also interesting is that Waters valiantly attempts to point out how O'Gorman and other gay rights activist try to (and in general succeed) to change the meaning of the concepts used in our national discourse in order to muddy the issue and demonise those who promote a traditional understanding of marriage and the family:

O’Gorman’s statement was laden with disingenuous constructions and weasel words. Amnesty is either arguing for gay marriage or it isn’t, but can’t have it both ways. The Bill does not discriminate against gay couples any more than unmarried heterosexual couples can claim to be “discriminated against” for similar reasons. In not dealing with the adoption of children at all, the legislation might be said to discriminate, in accordance with public policy, against both categories by comparison with married couples, but this is a false comparison. And nor does the legislation discriminate against adopted children being brought up in gay unions any more than against adopted children being brought up by unmarried parents who are not gay. It does not deal with adoption at all. O’Gorman’s reference to “the right not to be discriminated against because of who you love” is a piety designed to fudge the issue and bully the public.
[snip]
The gay lobby has made its case by mangling the meaning of terms such as “marriage” and “discrimination”, and by bullying with accusations of “homophobia” and “bigotry” anyone who refuses to acquiesce in the new definitions.

Of course, the question should be about what is meant by marriage and why it's an institution worthy of legal recognition.

Marriage, a contract between a man and a woman, is an institution maintained by society for reasons having little or nothing to do with “love”. All men and all women have a right to marry, provided they wish to marry members of the opposite sex to whom they are not closely related by blood. Heterosexuals, like homosexuals, are prohibited from marrying people of their own sex. It is no more valid to allege wrongful discrimination in this context against gays than to argue that cycle lanes “discriminate” wrongfully against wheelbarrows.

Now, that statement needs a lot of unpacking, and it probably says a lot about the quality of catechesis in Ireland that not many of the decision makers in our society are willing or capable of doing this.

Holy Communion Services without a Priest

One of the vexing questions facing us here in Ireland is how we should cope with the increasingly severe shortage of priests. Of course, relative to much of the world, there's still an abundance of priests in Ireland - and maybe the past has spoiled us in terms of our expectations, but what is clear is that many Irish parishes will be losing priests at a very rapid rate over the next few years.
One consequence of this is that communities will find the number of Masses celebrated on weekdays and on Sundays cut back. Should these simply be dropped or should they be replaced by lay- or deacon-led services? If they are replaced, what form should these services take and should they include distribution of Holy Communion?

There's been a lot of muddled thinking about this issue, and I think that there are a number of points which should be made clear. Firstly, the absence of the celebration of Mass in one's local church doesn't necessarily dispense one from one's serious obligation to attend Mass on a Sunday or Holyday of Obligation. If one can travel to another nearby church for Mass, one should, and it would be a very worthwhile thing for people to assist their elderly neighbours and all others who have difficulty making it to Mass. Consequently, we should be extremely cautious about replacing our Sunday Masses with other forms of service when it is practicable for the faithful to travel to nearby churches. Redemptionis Sacramentum is very clear that this is the preferred way of dealing with this situation:

Therefore when it is difficult to have the celebration of Mass on a Sunday in a parish church or in another community of Christ’s faithful, the diocesan Bishop together with his Priests should consider appropriate remedies. Among such solutions will be that other Priests be called upon for this purpose, or that the faithful transfer to a church in a nearby place so as to participate in the Eucharistic mystery there.

However, circumstances may arise where Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest may be appropriate. It should be noted that the distribution of Holy Communion need not be part of such a celebration. Obviously one would have to take into account how long the community would be deprived of Holy Communion in such a case.
It's worth noting that the guidance of Redemptionis Sacramentum very much frowns on weekday services where Holy Communion is distributed outside the context of the Mass:

Likewise, especially if Holy Communion is distributed during such celebrations, the diocesan Bishop, to whose exclusive competence this matter pertains, must not easily grant permission for such celebrations to be held on weekdays, especially in places where it was possible or would be possible to have the celebration of Mass on the preceding or the following Sunday.

I note that there has been a certain amount of press coverage given to a priest who, whilst on holidays, arranged for a lay-led service with the distribution of Holy Communion. That would seem to be contrary to the liturgical guidelines, and in my opinion, a bad idea.

One of the sad things one encounters pastorally is the lack of understanding of the Holy Mass. The separation of the distribution of Holy Communion from the Mass inevitably increases this confusion. Anecdotally, I've heard of situations on the Continent where parish communities have refused the offer of holidaying priests to celebrate a Sunday Mass for them because they like the 'Mass' (sic) celebrated by their local lay pastoral worker. To my mind, it's incredibly sad that a community deprived of the Mass due to a shortage of priests would refuse the opportunity to participate in the Eucharist when it is offered to them. The personality of the lay pastoral worker or the community's own self-regard has displaced Christ as the focus of their worship.

One of the central advances in liturgical and sacramental theology of the past century or so is the re-connection of the participation in the Mass with the reception of Holy Communion. It might surprise modern readers to learn that until the early 20th century Masses were frequently celebrated without the distribution of communion to the lay faithful, and the reception of communion often happened in a ceremony separate from the Mass. One of my professors in Rome told me of a convent which had the following custom on the eve of the Second Vatican Council. The nuns would receive Holy Communion outside the context of the Mass, and then attend Mass as their thanksgiving for Holy Communion. This, of course, ran totally contrary to the teaching of the Popes from St Pius X onwards who encouraged frequent communion in the context of attending and participating in the Mass.
Now it seems we have another problem - people equate going to Mass with the right to receive Holy Communion. It's becoming increasingly difficult to explain to people why they might attend Mass when they are not in a situation where they could receive Holy Communion. The celebration of the Mass seems to have become subordinated to the reception of communion. Divorcing the distribution of Communion from the Mass would only increase this confusion.
I was recently re-reading Dom Ansgar Vonier's 1925 classic A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist and found that the following passage inadvertently prescient:

There ought not to be in classical Christianity a real division of spiritual attitude between Mass and Communion. Suppose per impossible, that there were an extreme multiplicity of private communions by the faithful on the one hand, and an ever-dwindling attendance at the sacrifice of the Mass on the other hand, it would indeed be the gravest spiritual disorder; it would falsify the Eucharistic setting; it would lower the sacrament through a misconception of its true role.

Caritas in Veritate - New Papal Encyclical

Just a reminder that the Pope's new encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) has been published.
It seems quite dense and deals with "integral human development in charity and truth."

Maynooth Open Day

I'm delighted to see that there was a decent turn out at Sunday's open day at the seminary in Maynooth.

About 80 men aged between 20 and 35 attended the Open Day at Maynooth last Sunday, Vocations Sunday.

The initiative which marked the close of the Year of Vocation, was the first of its kind for St Patrick’s College, and organisers were surprised and impressed at the numbers of young men who showed up to get an insight into what life is like in the seminary and as a priest.

The idea for the day, came from the seminarians, who were all present for the event.

After talks by the President of Maynooth, Mgr Hugh Connolly, and other members of the formation team on the four foundations of formation: spiritual, intellectual, pastoral and human, four seminarians from different diocese shared the stories of their own calls to the priesthood. The four are all at different stages of their training – from second year to already being a deacon.

The Priest's Wife...

When I was in seminary, we jokingly referred to the breviary as 'the wife'. I was bemused to learn that Don Marco finds a similar description in the Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena.

The bride they hold ought to be the breviary, and the books of Holy Scripture their children. There they should take their pleasure in sharing instruction with their neighbors and in finding a holy life for themselves.

--The Eternal Father to Saint Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue

Secundum Scripturas

An American friend sent me this link. Sandro Magister writes:

ROME, May 1, 2009 – In a few days, the daily "la Repubblica" and the weekly "L'espresso" will offer to the Italian public, in hundreds of thousands of copies and at a reasonable price, the entire Christian Bible, in a new translation edited by the bishops' conference (CEI), accompanied by extensive notes and illustrated with artistic masterpieces from all time periods.
The work will be published in three volumes: the first with the Pentateuch and the historical books; the second with the wisdom books and the prophets; the third with the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the letters, and Revelation.
The initiative is all the more unusual in that "la Repubblica" and "L'espresso" are the leading publications for secular opinion in Italy, and are often critical of the Catholic Church and the Christian faith itself.

Can you imagine anything like that happening in Ireland?

Even more interesting is the article in L'Espresso which accompanies this project. It reads in part:

But be careful, the Christian Bible can punish those who venture into it blindly. It is an extremely special book, or rather collection of books, seventy-three in all, produced over a thousand years and divided into two major collections, the Old and the New Testament. These absolutely cannot be separated, at the cost of understanding nothing. The Mass shows why this is. The Gospel is never read without a prior reading from the Old Testament, which anticipates it "in allegory." Jesus is incomprehensible without the prophets. If he is risen from the dead, as the Gospels attest and the "Credo" proclaims, this took place "according to the Scriptures." If blood and water gush from the pierced side of Jesus, It is impossible not to think of the second chapter of Genesis, and the sleeping Adam from whose side God takes Eve, the mother of the living. The cross is the new tree of life of paradise, like the magnificent cross in bloom in the mosaic in the Roman basilica of Saint Clement. It is the fountainhead of the Church, it is the beginning of the new creation.
One should begin by reading Genesis in the Old Testament. It should come as no surprise that there are not one but two accounts of creation, one after the other and very different in style and content. The Bible does not intend to say how the world came about, but why. And also why, in a world that is indeed blessed by God as "good," so much evil should be unleashed, not by destiny but according to free and voluntary choice, disrupting both man and nature. From Cain to Lamech, from the Tower of Babel to the flood, wickedness invades the earth. But there is Noah the just man, in the ark that is saved from the waters. Then there is the calling of another just man, Abraham. And there is also justice beyond the chosen people, in a mysterious Melchizedek, "without father, without mother, without genealogy," as the author of the letter to the Hebrews would write in the New Testament. And there is God who visits Abraham in the person of the three anonymous guests whom Rublev, in the 15th century, would depict as an icon of the Trinity. And again, God who fights with Jacob on the shore of the river Jabbok. God? The Bible doesn't say so. It hints at it. Maybe.
In this, the Bible is truly extremely modern. It never says everything. On the contrary, it requires the reader to enter into the plot and decide. "The divine words grow with him who reads them," Pope Gregory the Great said in a homily on the prophet Ezekiel. It is as if the Scriptures were sleeping, before the reader came to wake them up. They were written this way, full of enigmas, ellipses, narrative leaps, obscurity. Rabbinical exegesis has always been this way: the "midrash" is an inexhaustible accumulation of readings and re-readings, reconstructions and reinterpretations, reality and vision. A painting by Chagall illustrates this perfectly. And the Christian liturgy is the same way: there, the Word of God is not a bookish reading, but becomes a living reality in the sacramental symbols. The Word of God takes on body and blood.

Jaroslav Pelikan & the Masai Creed

I was listening to an interview with the late scholar Jaroslav Pelikan on 'The Need for Creeds' and he made reference to a statement of faith drawn up by the Masai people of East Africa and the Holy Ghost Fathers in about 1960. Pelikan picked it out as being a fine example of a re-statement of Christian dogma in the particular language and concepts of a culture.

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in the darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the Bible, that he would save the world and all nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He was buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from that grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love, and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

Quite a number of aspects of this creed are striking. It begins with a bit of a surprise - not being composed in the context of Trinitarian controversy, the drafters didn't seem to deem it necessary to begin with a statement of the Fatherhood of God. Likewise, the eternal generation of the Son and the Lordship of the Holy Spirit aren't mentioned - not because of any squishy theology I would imagine, but rather because the focus isn't on disputed points of Trinitatian Dogma. (I would point to the strong affirmation of the need for penitence near the end of the creed as being evidence that we're not dealing with watered-down Christianity here.)
Pelikan was much taken by the idea of Christ always on safari doing good - a most lovely way of saying that Our Lord had no where to lay his head. Indeed, the emphasis on the life and ministry of Christ sets this apart from the more ancient creeds of Christendom. We normally jump from the Incarnation to the Crucifixion in those creeds which focus on re-affirming disputed points of doctrine. However, if one is coming up with a statement of the Christian faith in a non-polemic context, expressing what it is that is important about the life of the Christian, one can't simply pass over the life of Christ.
The description of what happened to Christ after his burial also has an interesting contemporary resonance. He was buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him... One is inclined to grin - there's a certain poetry in putting it that way, and perhaps it's a little quaint, but it makes the point. The grave did not claim Him. He did not decay like other men and when you have the likes of John Dominic Crossan claiming that Christ was left in a shallow grave to be devoured by wild dogs and crows, there's a definite pertinence in affirming that on the contrary, the hyenas did not touch Him.
There's more which could be said about this creed - one could come up with several lacunae, but it's sincere and thought-provoking, and it's little surprise that Pelikan picked it out as something special.

Incidentally, it wasn't only the Masai who have come up with 'updated' Creeds. Paul VI's Credo of the People of God is a much neglected statement of the Catholic Faith.

Easter Thoughts from Bishop Tom Wright

Bishop Tom Wright is the Anglican bishop of Durham. As Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey he spent several weeks in Rome as a visiting lecturer at the Gregorian University and as a guest of the Pontifical Irish College. Quite apart from being a world-renowned Pauline scholar, he's also written a very fine book about the Resurrection. His piece in today's Times is well worth a read. It's a good mix of rigorous academic thought and solid preaching that characterises much of his writing:

Easter was the pilot project. What God did for Jesus that explosive morning is what He intends to do for the whole creation. We who live in the interval between Jesus's Resurrection and the final rescue and transformation of the whole world are called to be new-creation people here and now. That is the hidden meaning of the greatest festival Christians have.
This true meaning has remained hidden because the Church has trivialised it and the world has rubbished it. The Church has turned Jesus's Resurrection into a “happy ending” after the dark and messy story of Good Friday, often scaling it down so that “resurrection” becomes a fancy way of saying “He went to Heaven”. Easter then means: “There really is life after death”. The world shrugs its shoulders. We may or may not believe in life after death, but we reach that conclusion independently of Jesus, of odd stories about risen bodies and empty tombs.
(...)
Let's be clear: the stories are not about someone coming back into the present mode of life. They are about someone going on into a new sort of existence, still emphatically bodily, if anything, more so. When St Paul speaks of a “spiritual” resurrection body, he doesn't mean “non-material”, like a ghost. “Spiritual” is the sort of Greek word that tells you,not what something is made of, but what is animating it. The risen Jesus had a physical body animated by God's life-giving Spirit. Yes, says St Paul, that same Spirit is at work in us, and will have the same effect - and in the whole world.

Now, suddenly, the real meaning of Easter comes into view, as well as the real reason why it has been trivialised and sidelined. Easter is about a new creation that has already begun. God is remaking His world, challenging all the other powers that think that is their job. The rich, wise order of creation and its glorious, abundant beauty are reaffirmed on the other side of the thing that always threatens justice and beauty - death. Christianity's critics have always sneered that nothing has changed. But everything has. The world is a different place.

Easter has been sidelined because this message doesn't fit our prevailing world view. For at least 200 years the West has lived on the dream that we can bring justice and beauty to the world all by ourselves.

Good and faithful servant...

It's hard to believe that it's 4 years since the passing of Pope John Paul II. I was in pilgrimage in Lourdes during the last week of his life, and happened to be returning to studies in Rome with a fellow seminarian on the last day of his life. Getting from Lourdes to Rome involved a couple of flights, and at each stop-over my colleague and I anxiously sought news of the Pope's condition. He was still alive when we landed in Rome, but as we reached the door of our residence the church bells of Rome began to toll. The only Pope we ever knew, that grandfatherly presence, that great man had passed from this life.
The next couple of weeks were to be unforgettable - the whole world gathering in Rome to pay their last respects, the hours of queuing in order to pay a final tribute to his remains, the memorable homily of Cardinal Connell who offered a requiem Mass for the Pope in the presence of Rome's Irish community and the almost unbearable sense of emptiness during the Eucharistic Prayer when the Christians of Rome had neither Pope nor bishop to pray for.
Curiously, the most eloquent tributes paid to the pontiff were drawn by the cartoonists of the world. Some of these sketches captured the mission of the Pope and the unique charism of John Paul II better than newspaper editorials and lengthy obituaries.
Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis.

Year of Priesthood

Via Northampton Seminarian:

It was announced this morning by the Holy Father that there will be a "Year of the Priesthood" from 19th June 2009 - 19th June 2010. The theme will be "Faithfulness of Christ, Faithfulness of the Priest." The year will be opened at Vespers on 19th June (Solemnity of the Sacred Heart) by Pope Benedict. The year coincides with the 150th anniversary of the death of the Curé d'Ars, St John Mary Vianney. At the end of the year, the saint will be declared patron of all the priests in the world.

Looking towards 2012

As I mentioned previously the 50th International Eucharistic Congress will be held in Dublin in 2012. I was delighted to learn from my bishop that I'll have a role to play in the local diocesan preparations for this Congress. Now, the Congress isn't being held in my rural diocese, but I think that it's important that the collective mind of the entire Irish Church be fixed on this Congress and on the mystery which it honours. At the moment I'm brain-storming with a few friends as to how there can be some sort of Eucharistic Renewal on the ground in the run up to the Congress. I'm keen that practising Catholics should have a deeper understanding and love for the Sacrament, and that the preparations for the Congress should be an opportunity for evangelisation and re-proposing the Mystery of the Eucharist to non-practising Catholics.

What should this consist of?
Well, it's evident that any renewal needs to draw on the richness of sound Eucharistic theology. (For my own part, I've decided to focus my reading on Eucharitic theology for the foreseeable future.) Good preaching and the opportunity for the faithful to deepen their understanding of the Eucharist is a sine qua non. Additionally, I think that it's important that we should draw on the history of the Church in Ireland - and in particular the history of devotion to and the celebration of the Eucharist in Ireland - in order to make people aware of our country's deep and abiding devotion to the sacrament. Thirdly, there would seem to be scope for an engagement between culture and the Eucharist. Perhaps our artists and young people should be encouraged to consider the Eucharist and Eucharistic spirituality as a topic for consideration. Wouldn't a flourishing of writing, poetry, music and the visual arts be a worthy way of honouring the sacrament which has so much to do with Divine creativity and artistry?
There will also be the more practical question of organising groups to travel to and from the Congress, and some sort of cathechesis 'on the ground'.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions as to how the Church in Ireland can make the most of this Congress?

Ash Wednesday

Remember man that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return...
Repent and believe in the Gospel

The liturgy today affords the priest a choice - he can chose either of those prayers as he applies ashes on the faithful today. This is my first year being in a parish for Ash Wednesday so I distributed ashes for the first time ever today. Between those attending the morning mass and the students in the schools I look after, I've probably distributed ashes to well over 500 people - and the evening Mass is still to come.

Now, I have a certain affection for the old-fashioned "Remember man that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return" and was always mildly irked as a layman that I never came across a priest who used it. However, as it suited the cathechesis I gave the school children, I used "Repent and believe in the Gospel" at the schools. (I was pleasantly surprised that some of the kids asked me about the whole mortality symbolism of the ashes without any prompting.)

Anyway, probably the most sombre moment of the day was when a mother and child came up for ashes at Mass. I asked the woman whether she wanted ashes for the child as well, and she nodded. It's difficult to say to a babe in arms, "Remember man that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return", but it was more appropriate than the other option. Whether we realise it or not, our death casts a shadow from the first moment of our life.

Forthcoming Canonizations

The Vatican's press office announced that there will be a gathering of the Holy Father and Cardinals to formally promulgate a number of forthcoming canonizations - including Blessed Damien of Molokai.

The story of Fr Damien was a staple of religious education classes when I was a youngster, but I suppose he's not on the new syllabus as the kids I come across seem not to have heard of him. I was discussing him with some of our primary school children recently, and I told them about leprosy and how the lepers had to gather together in an isolated area. I asked the kids what kind of life the lepers had - they realised that the lepers probably missed their families and friends and were very sad to be living in the leper colony. Then I asked them what kind of life the lepers had together. With the optimism of youth, one sharp little girl suggested that the lepers were friends with each other. Would that it were so, but I had to tell them that the lepers did not live together in peace and that their village became a place of drunkenness and fighting. The children seemed to understand that when they themselves were sad or sick or upset about something, they became quarrelsome with their parents and friends. Then I explained to them that Fr Damien's coming to live with the lepers was important - not just because he cared for their medical and material well-being, but that through his preaching and example he brought Christ to them.

Fr Neuhaus

I was surprised that there was no reference to Fr Neuhaus's passing when the February edition of First Things arrived last week. The magazine was obviously put together whilst Fr Neuhaus was still alive, and indeed includes a piece by Fr Neuhaus wherein he discusses his medical condition. I was very taken with its conclusion:

The entirety of our prayer is “Your will be done” — not as a note of resignation but of desire beyond expression. To that end I commend myself to your intercession, and that of all the saints and angels who accompany us each step through time toward home.

On the Conversion of St Paul (Extract from a Homily)

If we want to understand St Paul, we need to understand what happened to him on the roads to Damascus. If we want to understand why he wrote so passionately, travelled so tirelessly, was willing to endure shipwreck, imprisonment and beatings, we need to understand what was special about that event. There was a blinding flash of light, a heavenly voice, and a force that knocked St Paul to the ground... extraordinary things indeed, but they don't explain the great change which occurred in Saul of Tarsus. The important thing which happened on the road that day was that Paul met the Risen Lord, and that's what changed his life. And why did this meeting make such an impression? Because in Christ he encountered the mercy and love of God. Christ does not punish Paul for persecuting his followers, but offers him the chance of forgiveness. And Christ doesn't simply say to Paul, "I have forgiven you, let bygones be bygones." No! Through Annanias, Christ invites this former persecutor to become an intimate friend, someone who is entrusted with a mission which is no one else's. That's how God works. That's who God is.
My brothers and sisters, that same meeting happens in the life of every Christian. He presents Himself too us, He dearly wants to meet us. He extends to us the same mercy and makes known to us the same divine love. He invites each and every one of us to that same friendship. He has known each and every one of us from before the foundation of the world and has for each and every one of us a mission which He has entrusted to no other.

What precisely has the Pope done?

This morning's bulletin from the Holy See's press office contains the news that the Pope has lifted the excommunications of four bishops of the Society of St Pius X. Now, I'm worried about how the media - and in particular the Irish media - are going to report this event. I fear that all too easily this will be used as a stick with which to beat the Pope and that most journalists lack the background to explain the precise significance of this event. So, I'm writing a brief post to explain what precisely the Pope has done and what the background to this event is.

Basically the Society of Pius X is a society of priests who are not in full communion with the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. It was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre because of his resistance - and the dissatisfaction of many clergy and laity - concerning the liturgical changes which came into effect after the Second Vatican Council and various elements of the Council's teaching - especially on the subject of religious liberty. It operated for some years outside the normal structures of the Catholic Church in what might be described as being, at best, a canonical grey area. In 1988, without papal permission, Archbishop Lefebrve ordained 4 men as bishops. This was a very serious crime under Canon Law, so he, an assisting bishop and the 4 men who were ordained bishops were excommunicated.
Archbishop Lefebrve has since died, as has the bishop who assisted him. The 4 men he ordained bishops (Bishop Fellay being their leader) were, until this morning, still excommunicated.

However, in recent years there has been an attempt to reconcile the SSPX to the Church. There have been behind the scenes discussions and communications. In order to facilitate this process of reconciliation, the Pope has lifted the sentence of excommunication placed on the 4 SSPX bishops. He has removed the punishment they incurred for allowing themselves to be ordained bishops without permission. This is an act of mercy and a gesture aimed at healing wounds and encouraging reconciliation.
However, that does not mean that all is well with these bishops and the clergy of the SSPX. Whilst no longer excommunicated, these bishops are still not proper Catholic bishops in union with Rome. They lack the necessary permission to act as bishops, and the priests who work under them do not have the necessary permissions to act as priests. The division between the SSPX and Rome has not been healed, and it is still a very serious matter for a Catholic to receive the sacraments from a member of the SSPX in all but emergency situations. SSPX clergy do not have the necessary permission from Rome or from local bishops to carry out their work anywhere in the world. The Pope lifting the excommunications does not mean that the separation between the SSPX and Rome has ended. However, it is a move which seems to promise a sincere effort on Rome's behalf to bring the SSPX back into the tent of the Church. The ball is now very much in the SSPX's court in terms of how they will respond to this gesture.

It should especially be noted that the lifting of the excommunication does not mean that the Pope agrees with anything or everything that the SSPX bishops might say. In a singularly infelicitous episode, one of the SSPX bishops seems to have denied the holocaust recently. Do not let anyone try and convince you that the Pope endorses these views. Sometimes it is necessary to extend mercy to people whom we do not approve of - in this case, for the sake of the souls of the SSPX clergy and the people who attend their chapels, the Pope has been very brave in persisting with this act of mercy even though it threatens to be a PR disaster.

What next? There are a whole host of things that need to be sorted out between the Roman Curia and the SSPX. Fortunately, other smaller communities with an attachment to the older form of the liturgy have been received back into the Church in recent times. Aside from the liturgical issue, the question of the interpretation of Vatican II and its teaching on religious liberty is something that will need to be agreed between Rome and the SSPX. I suspect that even if the proposed discussions are successful, not all of the clergy and faithful who are attached to the SSPX will be happy to reconcile with Rome. Some hold opinions which flatly contradict the teaching of the Church and they may not be willing to abandon these opinions. However, I think that we should all be praying that this process of reconciliation goes smoothly and that we will be able to welcome many back into full communion with the Holy Father. We should also pray that those hostile to the Church and those hostile to the Holy Father within the Church will not take advantage of an act of Papal mercy in order to further their own agendas.

As usual, American blogger Amy Welborn covers this issue very well.

Prayers for Fr Foster

My former teacher and latinist sui generis Fr Reggie Foster is not doing well, according to Fr Zuhlsdorf:

Fr. Reginald Foster, famous American Carmelite Latinist who works for the Holy See, continues to have serious health problems, ever since his fall last June. He has basically been bed ridden ever since that incident. What follows is the latest.
Yesterday (Saturday) he was taken from his monastery to the Fate bene fratelli hospital on the Tiber Island. Shortly after arriving, he suffered some kind of seizure and was put in intensive care. At first they diagnosed it as pulmonary embolism and they did not expect him to survive. Now they say it was NOT an embolism, but apparently his spleen ruptured and the ensuing rush of fluid in his body caused temporary heart failure.

Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord

I think that we tend to under-rate the importance of this Feast and the event that it celebrates. I seem to recall reading that the Orthodox put much emphasis on Christ's Baptism in the Jordan as being one of the great Trinitatian theophanies - it's one of those rare times when the Three Persons make themselves 'visible'. We hear the voice of God the Father, God the Son Incarnate is baptized, and the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove.

Of course, part of the difficulty is in correctly interpreting that baptism. John's baptism was a baptism of repentance, so understanding why Christ submitted to it can cause difficulties. The Arians took Christ's baptism and the fact that He received the Holy Spirit at that time as evidence that He was not equal to the Father. Well-intentioned Christology which seeks to affirm Christ's divinity tends to downplay the importance of the Baptism of the Lord, reducing it to a mere gesture of humility. I'm inclined to think that such an over-simplification of things tends towards monophysitism - a rejection of the dogma of Christ's two natures, human and divine.
On the other hand, other theologians treat the Baptism as though it were the moment when Christ became divine, or as though He were just an ordinary man whose miracles and preaching derived purely from His having received the Holy Spirit at that time. Similarly, whilst it is evident that this Baptism was hugely significant in Our Lord's beginning his public mission, it would be a mistake to treat it as being the vocation-moment in His life when He realised who He was and what He had to do.

So, what is the Christological significance of the Baptism? Well, I shan't attempt to give a comprehensive answer, but I will highlight some aspects which strike me as important. Firstly, whilst Christ was sinless and not in need of forgiveness, I think that we can understand undergoing John's baptism as being more than just a gesture of humility or solidarity with the mass of sinful humanity. Rather, Christ is the Head of the Church and assumed a human nature which was marked by Adam's sin. He did not have the stain of Original Sin or the concupiscence which comes from it, but he did assume many weaknesses to which man is subject as a result of the Fall. It was therefore fitting that the Head of the Church should take part in the Baptism of repentance and thereby bring the Body with Him. Of course, it is the sacrifice of the Head which makes possible the repentance and salvation of the Body.
The Baptism is also profoundly a sign of acceptance - a prefigurement of His redeeming death. The logic of our sacramental relationship with Christ means that it makes perfect sense that if His baptism is a sign of His acceptance of His death, that our baptism allows us to share in the benefits of that sacrifice.

Various

Many thanks to Don Marco for posting an English Translation of the Holy Father's catechisis on Rom 12:1. My blog title is derived from that verse, and I took the concept of rationabile obsequium as a challenge to myself in the exercise of the priestly ministry.

True Worship in Christ
But the question persists: Then how should we interpret this "reasonable spiritual worship"? Paul always supposes that we have come to be "one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28), that we have died in baptism (Romans 1) and we live now with Christ, through Christ and in Christ. In this union -- and only in this way -- we can be in him and with him a "living sacrifice," to offer the "true worship." The sacrificed animals should have substituted man, the gift of self of man, and they could not. Jesus Christ, in his surrender to the Father and to us, is not a substitution, but rather really entails in himself the human being, our faults and our desire; he truly represents us, he assumes us in himself. In communion with Christ, accomplished in the faith and in the sacraments, we transform, despite our deficiencies, into living sacrifice: "True worship" is fulfilled.

Christ's True Sacrifice Made Present
This synthesis is the backdrop of the Roman Canon in which we pray that this offering be "rationabile," so that spiritual worship is accomplished. The Church knows that in the holy Eucharist, the self-gift of Christ, his true sacrifice, is made present. But the Church prays so that the celebrating community is really united to Christ, is transformed; it prays so that we ourselves come to be that which we cannot be with our efforts: offering "rationabile" that is pleasing to God. In this way the Eucharistic prayer interprets in an adequate way the words of St. Paul.

Alas, the current English translation of the Roman Canon fudges the following:

Quam oblationem tu, Deus, in omnibus, quaesumus, benedictam, adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem, acceptabilemquw facere digneris: ut nobis Corpus et Sanguis fiat dilectissimi Filii tui, Domini nostri Iesu Christi.

Secondly, Kansas Catholic has some wonderful pictures of a first profession of vows by one novice and the investiture of four postulants by the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles. Amongst the 4 who received the habit was my good friend Sr Mary G.

Finally, may Fr Richard John Neuhaus rest in peace.

This Sunday's Readings...

We're fortunate in Ireland that the Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated on the 6th of January, so we have the wonderful readings of the 2nd Sunday after Christmas tomorrow morning. A friend of mine from seminary suggested that the core of the Gospel would be preserved if, through some freak occurrence, the New Testament were lost except for the Letter of St Paul to the Galatians. I keep meaning to re-read Galatians with that hypothetical scenario in mind in order to make sense of what he was saying.
As I was reading the 2nd Reading and Gospel of this Sunday's liturgy, I realised that a somewhat similar claim could be made about those two readings. Between them they manage to encapsulate much of what is most central to our faith. If one were to commit them to memory, one would have the answers to the most pressing existential and philosophical questions.
The Second Reading ( Ephesians 1:3-6. 15-18) summarises God's plan for us quite nicely:

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ. Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved.

That will explain why I, having once heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, and the love that you show towards all the saints, have never failed to remember you in my prayers and to thank God for you. May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit

The Gospel (John 1-1-18), on the other hand, is virtually a complete Credo and a summary of all that follows in John's Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word:
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came to be,
not one thing had its being but through him.
All that came to be had life in him
and that life was the light of men,
a light that shines in the dark,
a light that darkness could not overpower

A man came, sent by God.
His name was John.
He came as a witness,
as a witness to speak for the light,
so that everyone might believe through him.
He was not the light,
only a witness to speak for the light.

The Word was the true light
that enlightens all men;
and he was coming into the world.
He was in the world
that had its being through him,
and the world did not know him.
He came to his own domain
and his own people did not accept him.
But to all who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to all who believe in the name of him
who was born not out of human stock
or urge of the flesh
or will of man
but of God himself.
The Word was made flesh, he lived among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory that is his
as the only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth.
John appears as his witness. He proclaims:
'This is the one of whom I said:
He who comes after me ranks before me
because he existed before me'.

Indeed, from his fulness we have, all of us, received –
yes, grace in return for grace,
since, though the Law was given through Moses,
grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God;
it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father's heart,
who has made him known.

Back in the day that (up to the words 'grace and truth') was recited by the priest at the end of Mass as the 'last Gospel'. There was a decided wisdom in repeating the richest of scriptural passages after each and every Mass.