THE GREAT FIFTY DAYS

Eastertide at All Saints' Benhilton

(click on the photo - twice - to enlarge it)

During this last week one of my friends said to me, 'Now that Easter is behind us . . .' As you would expect, I took the opportunity to remind him that - strictly speaking  - Easter is not a day, or even a long weekend! Easter is a whole season lasting for 50 days, sometimes called 'THE GREAT FIFTY DAYS' of the Church calendar. Easter begins with the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday and culminates with the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

That's why we use the term 'Eastertide' for this time of the year.

It’s also why the big Paschal Candle, a symbol of Jesus the risen Lord, is prominently displayed near the nave altar and lit for all services throughout the entire fifty days. 

Then, when the Easter season comes to an end, the Paschal Candle is moved to a place of honour in the baptistry by the font, where it is lit during baptisms. The candles given to the newly baptised are lit from it, reminding them (and the rest of us!) that in the miracle of baptism Jesus joins us to his dying and rising, and gives us his light to shine in a world where darkness can often seem to have the upper hand. 

The Paschal Candle is brought back to the altar and placed near the coffin during funerals.  This is a powerful sign to mourners that the risen Jesus shares his victory over death with all his people, and that even the most tragic death and our deepest grief cannot destroy that victory. The dancing flame of the Paschal Candle reminds us, in the words of S. Augustine of Hippo, that “we are an Easter people, and ‘alleluia’ is our song”.

Love without limits 06 (Fr Lev Gillet)

"No less than six times in the first chapter of the first sacred book of the Hebrews, God is represented creating the days of the week and setting evening as the time at which the day begins.

"The way people today count time is not Your way, O Lord. Instinctively, they tend to start the day with morning. The day begins with the pale light of daybreak. Then comes the joy of dawn, the rising of the sun, the splendour of noonday, the sunset and shadows of evening, the sadness of the twilight hours, and finally the tangible tragedy and the terrors of darkness.

"With You, O Lord, it is very different. You declare that first there was evening, and only then did morning appear.

"Your day begins in the evening hours, in nocturnal obscurity. Then it progresses toward morning, toward the light, toward the incandescence of the Burning Bush and of the midday sun.

"Thus it is with our love. It always begins in obscurity, in weakness, uncertain and threatened. Gradually it progresses in strength towards the brilliance of Love without limits.

"Without doubt, the evening will return once again. Yet an immense gulf separates the vision of a day declining toward night, from the image of a day that rises toward morning.

"What truly matters, O Lord, is the meaning You attribute to the movement that marks each day. You make a symbol of the order it follows, from darkness to light. From the beginning of Creation, You have directed the evolution of time toward Your own luminous fullness. You guide us toward the Morning.

"O Lord, grant me to be more conscious of the movement inherent in my days. Despite the obscurities that can darken each moment, grant me an intuition and an unceasing movement toward the rising of the Sun of Love. Open wide the door of my hope to the approaching Day of Your Kingdom, a Day that will know no evening."

 

The Proclamation of Jesus

The Church of the Ascension, Lavender Hill

Two days ago I had the honour of celebrating and preaching at the Church of the Ascension, Lavender Hill (just near Clapham Junction in south London). It’s always inspiring to visit that parish (which has never NOT had the full Catholic Faith!), whether on a Sunday or for a weekday Mass. Lots of people of all age groups, faithfully worshipping, growing in the Lord, and reaching out to others!

The Gospel for the day was the call of the first apostles and the beginning of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God in the exact place where the “Davidic kingdom” had begun to fall apart around 740BC at the hands of the Assyrians who invaded the area of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. We noted that between then and 720 the local inhabitants were marched off into captivity (see 2 Kings 15:29; 1 Chronicles 5:26). The complete crumbling of the Davidic kingdom took another century and a half - when Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians, and the remaining tribes exiled between 597 and 581. 

Sunday’s first reading (Isaiah 8:23-9:3) foretold that the region first “brought into contempt”, would see the light of God’s salvation. Matthew’s Gospel emphasises Jesus fulfilling that prophecy near the start of his ministry. In other words, he announces the coming of God’s kingdom right where the Davidic kingdom had begun to crumble.

We also noted that the region was known as “Galilee of the Nations” or “Galilee of the Gentiles.” Vital trade routes passed through it, from Egypt and South Palestine to Damascus, as well as from the Mediterranean to the Far East. It had become a meeting place of cultures and peoples. There was a strong Gentile presence there, and Greek was widely spoken (as well as the indigenous Aramaic). Jesus begins preaching the coming of God’s Kingdom, not just where the old kingdom had begun to fall apart; but in a multi-ethnic region that was looked down on by the religious purists. 

It is here that Jesus calls his first disciples, two fishermen who, he says, are to be “fishers of men” with a vocation to draw others into the kingdom. We considered how the whole Church is “apostolic”, not just because it is built on the original apostles and has the “apostolic succession’’ (vital as those things are), but because the WHOLE Church, the “many-membered Body of Christ”, is sent into the world to continue the ministry of Jesus drawing men and women into the kingdom of his love. That means each of us, in our “ordinary” lives.

In thinking about the context in which WE are called - a sort of “post-Christian" society still boasting that it doesn’t need Jesus - we finished with a quote from T.S. Eliot, who prophetically understood both the difficulty of our witness to the Gospel in a crumbling civilisation, and the importance of our being faithful, whatever the cost:

The Universal Church is today 

more definitely set against the World 

than at any time since Pagan Rome. 

I do not mean that our times are particularly corrupt;

all times are corrupt. 

In spite of certain local appearances, 

Christianity is not and cannot be 

within measurable time, ‘official’. 

The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form 

a civilized but non-Christian mentality. 

The experiment will fail; 

but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; 

meanwhile redeeming the time: 

so that the Faith may be preserved alive 

through the dark ages before us; 

to renew and rebuild civilization, 

and save the World from suicide.

- T. S. Eliot, from Thoughts After Lambeth (1931)

Dark Night - Wednesday in Holy Week

FIRST READING (Isaiah 50:4-9a)

Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Why will you still be smitten, that you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they are not pressed out, or bound up, or softened with oil. Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence aliens devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by aliens. And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom.

GOSPEL (Matthew 26:14-25)

O one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?”

And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.

And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain one, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.’” And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the passover.

When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; and as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me. The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Is it I, Master?” He said to him, “You have said so.”

REFLECTIONS 

More on the betrayal

(Word of Life Community)

How do we prepare to celebrate the days ahead?

(Presentation Ministries)

FURTHERMORE . . .

“I looked for sympathy, but there was none; for comforters, and I found none.” (Psalms 69:21)

Many great spiritual writers have written about “the dark night of the soul.” This is a time when we experience a sense of complete abandonment and aloneness. We are slowly being surrounded by the darkness with no one there to help us or even walk with us. One religious sister told me of her experience with the dark night. She was in chapel praying and was overcome with a sense of God’s complete absence. There was nothing there to pray to. She was so scared she had to run from the chapel!

Of all the days in Jesus’ life, today is one of the darkest. The readings show us a Jesus Who is abandoned and betrayed. He is facing His most difficult moment, His death, and the people He most relied on are deserting Him. Isaiah prophesies that the Messiah will face His pain and tortures alone. The responsorial psalm echoes his soft cry for help: “Lord in Your great love, answer Me!”

We have all faced dark nights of the soul when everything seems lost and we are forsaken. In this darkness, we stand with Isaiah, and sp many Saints dpwn through the ages. Mostly, though, we stand with Jesus. And we trust the voice of God, as it did in the first moments of creation, to create a dawn in the darkness.

(Reflections On The Passion by Charles Hugo Doyle)

PRAYER

O Gracious Father,

we humbly beseech thee for thy holy Catholic Church;

that thou wouldest be pleased to fill it with all truth, in all peace.

Where it is corrupt, purify it;

where it is in error, direct it;

where in any thing it is amiss, reform it.

Where it is right, establish it;

where it is in want, provide for it;

where it is divided, reunite it;

for the sake of him who died and rose again,

and ever liveth to make intercession for us,

Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord.

Amen.

Archbishop William Laud (1573-1645)

Today's Advent Antiphon: O ORIENS

SOME OLD TESTAMENT BACKGROUND:

Isaiah 9:2

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.

Isaiah 60:1-3

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

THE ANTIPHON:

This is the old chant for "O Oriens". You can listen to it HERE.

O DAY-SPRING FROM ON HIGH,

Brightness of Eternal Light, 

and Sun of righteousness:

Come and enlighten those

who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

MASS READINGS: 

Song of Songs 2:8-14, Luke 1:39-45

ANOTHER FOCUS

Most of us have realized at one time or another, no matter how fleetingly, that the solution to many of our personal problems may be found in just forgetting ourselves, more positively, in concentrating our attention and energy on someone else or on some good cause. Today we think of Mary - after her words of acceptance to the Angel - "making haste", climbing up into the hill country to share with her cousin Elizabeth (and John the Baptist discerning the sacredness of this Visitation from the vantage point of his mother's womb!). Possibly Mary went in order to share with Elizabeth what had happened to her; but undoubtedly she made that arduous journey so as to assist Elizabeth - a much older woman - in her pregnancy. We read that Mary stayed there for three months.

But what a visit! No wonder it has a feast day of its own in the middle of the year. Notice that the older woman says she is "honoured" with a visit from "the mother of my Lord."

It is also significant that Elizabeth says to Mary, "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (v.45). May we be known as children of Mary who always believe that the Lord will fulfil his word!

There is, of course, a sense in which the Church is foreshadowed in Mary's visit to Elizabeth. As Mary carried Jesus within her and brought great joy to her cousin, so our vocation is to bless others by bringing Jesus to them.

This beautiful prayer is very appropriate for today:

Almighty Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

you have revealed the beauty of your power

by exalting the lowly virgin of Nazareth

and making her the mother of our Saviour.

May the prayers of this woman

bring Jesus to a waiting world

and fill the void of incompletion

with the presence of her child,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit

on God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The power of the Lord's Resurrection - Fr Gonville ffrench-Beytagh

St Vedast Foster Lane (just near St Paul's Cathedral, as seen from Paternoster Row

If anybody's life demonstrates the power of the Lord's resurrection in the ebb and flow of our faltering discipleship, it is Father Gonville ffrench-Beytagh (1912-1991), the anti-apartheid Dean of Johannesburg, who endured a forty day trial and imprisonment.

On his release he went to England where he lived 'in exile', as he saw it. He became well-known for his ministry of spiritual direction which he carried out from St Vedast's Church near St Paul's Cathedral, London. He published numerous books, including Encountering Darkness, an account of his imprisonment, Facing Depression, Encountering Light, Tree of Glory, and A Glimpse of Glory.

Go HERE for a previous post which quotes at length his teaching about prayer and the Holy Spirit.

Go HERE to Canon Patrick Comerford' blog for the story of Father ffrench-Beytagh's life.  

Here are some extracts from the teaching of Fr Gonville ffrench-Beytagh:

"What distinguishes a Christian from anybody else is not that he goes to church, or that he is good, or that he has been baptized, but that he knows that he, John Smith, is loved and valued at a depth beyond any human imagining and that he desires to respond to that love. He may feel almost filled with hate and lust and envy, but he knows he is loved - the whole of him, not just the 'good' bits - and so he can begin to open himself to God and his fellowmen and allow the power of divine love to flood through him." (From Encountering Light)

"Think of yourself for a moment. There is no one on this earth who is like you. This may be just as well, but it is true. You may have an identical twin who was removed at birth for all you know, but there is not, and cannot ever have been, nor will there ever be, a person who is exactly like you. Even if someone has exactly the same genes and chromosomes, the environment in which he (or she) grew up will have been different and so he will have become a different person. It is not possible for someone else to have the same loves and hates and lusts and fears and anxieties and hopes and desires as you yourself have.

"You are unique, you are yourself and there has never been, or can be, someone who is just like you, or who fills your place in the world. And if religion is, as it claims to be, a personal relationship with God, your relationship with God will be something unique to yourself and him. You can listen to preachers preaching, you can read about religion — and probably ought to do so because we can learn from each other's experience — but in the last resort your religion and your prayer is something of your own self.

"Finally, at the end of your life, you will stand before the judgement seat by yourself. You are responsible for yourself. Many people have contributed towards your goodness and badness. Many of them may well be blamed and have some responsibility for what is in you, but in the last resort, you are you and no one can take your place." (From Encountering Light)

"Consider this world in the present day - the fear, the starvation, the many kinds of distress and our terrifying weakness. Some of the trouble exists because Christians are too damned lazy to pray - I mean that literally. Jesus loves the whole world and our concern should reach out towards the evil and horror of the whole world." (From A Glimpse of Glory)

“Behind the horror of the cross shines the tremendous, transcendent beauty of the God who is present even in the horror.”  (From Tree of Glory )

"[The Church must face things like apartheid] if our faith is to have any reality in world aftairs, and is not itself to be a kind of apartheid . . . a shutting off from the real issues of the twentieth century in a cosy game of liturgical reform where the crucifixion is forgotten and love involves no cost and no sacrifice." (Quoted by William Barclay in 'The Expository Times')

“The pattern of prayer is a looking towards God, a listening for him, a leaning towards him, and a longing for him, until there comes the experience of love." (From A Glimpse of Glory)

Water, Fire & Breakfast - An Easter Vigil Sermon by Bp N.T. Wright

The great Easter Vigil Mass is the most important church service of the whole year. It must begin after nightfall and before dawn. Many parishes have it on the evening of Holy Saturday. Some still hold it at midnight. Others begin it just before sunrise - often the case in England. This sermon was preached at the Easter Vigil in Durham Cathedral, on Easter Day (3rd April) 2010 by Dr N.T. "Tom" Wright, Bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010, and now Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. (He is widely respected ecumenically for his scholarship and in particular his historical apologetics. He was the Anglican observer and an invited speaker at the Roman Catholic Synod of Bishops in 2008 on "the Word of God." His home page is HERE.) 

If you remember little else about this morning, you will probably remember it as the day you got up at half past three in the morning to go to church. I hope you remember a lot more than that, but that’s a good start: because the whole point of Easter, and of baptism and confirmation, is that it’s all about getting up ridiculously early, being splashed with water to wake you up, and perhaps, in old-fashioned houses at least, lighting a fire somewhere so that the house can warm up for everyone else. Then, when all that’s done, you can think about some breakfast. Well, that’s what we’re about this morning – the water, the fire, and the breakfast: and all because Easter is about waking up ridiculously early while everybody else is asleep. That’s why, at the first Easter, everyone was shocked and startled – the women perplexed and terrified, the men disbelieving and amazed. This was all wrong. Things shouldn’t happen like this. The world was surprised and unready. It was still asleep. And it still is. 

You see, the popular perception of Easter lets us down in a big way. I don’t just mean the chocolate eggs and fluffy chicks and rabbits. In a sense, they are all just good fun. Nobody in their right mind would mistake them for the real thing. No: the danger lies deeper. Many people in our culture, including many Christians, think of Easter basically as a happy ending after the horror and shame of Good Friday: ‘Oh, that’s all right, he came back to life, well, sort of, and so he’s in heaven now so that’s all OK, isn’t it?’ And the answer to that should be, ‘No, that’s not OK; that’s not what Easter is about at all.’ The whole point of Easter is that God is going to sort out the whole world, put the whole thing to rights once and for all – this world, not just somewhere called ‘heaven’ – and the resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of that great work. 

What’s that got to do with getting up two hours before sunrise, and with the water, the fire and the breakfast? Well, pretty much everything. You see, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, it’s still night-time. Nothing new has really happened. The world would much prefer to believe that Christianity is simply another ‘religion’, offering another strange spiritual option, with a few odd miracles to back up its claims, but that really nothing’s changed. Corruption and death still rule the world, and Easter simply whispers that there’s a way of escape if we want it. No! Believe it or disbelieve it (though you, here, had better believe it!), the point of Easter is that when Jesus came out of the tomb he was alive again in a bodily life which was the start of the new physical world which God is going to make. And that means that God’s time has jumped forwards, so that what we thought would happen at the very end – God putting everything to rights at last – has leapt forwards into the present, into the middle of our time, our history. When the early Christians told the story of Jesus’ resurrection, that’s what they were saying: God’s new world has begun, and you are invited to be part of that new world – part of the world which lives on God’s time, and lives in God’s new way. 

And it’s all because of Jesus, and his dying and rising again. God’s new time is the time when new life happens, but new life can only happen when death has been overcome. God’s new world is the world where sins are forgiven, but forgiveness can only happen when sins have been dealt with. God’s new life is the genuinely human life, the life that fully reflects who God actually is, but we can only even dream of that holiness if something happens to us and in us so that we ourselves make the transition from the way of death – which is what seems, to us, the ‘ordinary’ way of living – to the way of life. And the way we are brought into that new time, that new world, and that new life, is through being plunged into the death and resurrection of Jesus so that his death becomes ours, and his resurrection becomes ours. 

Jesus himself showed how we are to do this. When we are baptized, we are drowned in his death and come out the other side into his new life, his new world, his new time. This is the meaning of the water of baptism. 

But to be complete, we creatures of earth need not only the water but also the fire. When people come to confirmation they not only ‘confirm’ the promises made at their baptism – promises about dying with Jesus and rising again with him – but also pray for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the living fire of God’s own presence and power, and that fire comes to live inside us – us together, and us individually – so that we can live the new life, be part of the new world, and in particular live on God’s time, which is always ahead of the sleepy time of the rest of the world. When you pray for the Holy Spirit, and when together as a church we pray for the Spirit to come upon us – and today in particular upon you – God answers that prayer in all sorts of different ways. Sometimes it’s quite dramatic, and that’s fine. Sometimes it’s slow and quiet, and you will only gradually realise that things are different. You are to take responsibility for thinking it through and working out what God is now calling you do be and to do, what his new life will look like in and through you. As the Americans say, ‘You do the math’: figure out what are the ways in which he is calling you to wake up and live on a different time to the rest of the world, and in particular the ways in which he is lighting a fire inside you not simply to warm you up but so that, through you, he can warm up the rest of the world. 

Because that’s the point of all this. Confirmation isn’t simply about God’s gift of himself, his own Spirit, to live within you. Confirmation is about God’s gift of himself through you to the rest of the world – more particularly, to the bits of the world where he has called you and put you. You are God’s Easter-presents to your family, to your school, your place of work, to our country and our world. The early Christians used to dress people up in white clothes after baptism, to symbolize the new life they had now entered. Perhaps we should dress you up as large chocolate eggs, to make the point that God is giving you to the world all around as a delightful and delicious Easter-present. I know people don’t usually think of Christians that way, but perhaps it’s time they did. After all, in many towns and cities and villages it’s mostly Christians who are volunteering to help in the hospice, or visiting in the prisons, or doing meals on wheels, or whatever. Yes, several people do these things who are not Christians, but again and again you’ll find they are. It’s Christians, mostly, who are campaigning on behalf of asylum seekers, who are working as Town Pastors in the confused night-time world of our city streets. Christians should be at the forefront of the world’s celebrations and its tragedies: rejoice, said Paul, with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. You are the salt of the earth, said Jesus; you are the light of the world. You are the fire that God is lighting in our cold, dark, nighttime world, the fire that says it’s morning-time and the place needs warming up. Christians are people who have been washed in the water and filled with the fire, abandoning the old life and bringing the new one to birth in a surprised and unready world. 

And the water-and-fire people are then the breakfast-people. You can’t sustain the new life by yourself. You can’t live in God’s new world, on God’s new time, without constant help. And the help we need is Jesus himself – his death to go on dealing with our sins and failings, his new life to go on becoming ours, for us and through us. As we come to his feast, the bread and the wine become heavy with fresh meaning, Passover-meaning, Jesus-meaning, meaning for us and for the world through us. This, too, is shocking and puzzling to many people. How on earth can this simple, symbolic meal carry all that power? 

The short answer is: because Jesus said it would when he told us to do it. The deeper reasons are all there to be explored in due course. But today, as we come to the first Eucharist of this Easter, you come with special joy, because you are today’s water-and-fire people, and, as we share in this breakfast with you, you remind us that all of us who belong to Jesus are water-and-fire people, all of us Easter-presents to and for God’s whole world. Thank you for standing up and being counted today. Thank God for all that he’s doing in your lives and through you for the rest of us. No doubt there will be times when you, like the rest of us and like those first disciples, will be perplexed and amazed, perhaps even disbelieving and terrified. But Jesus Christ is risen again! He is on the loose, on the move, at work in his world and in our midst, and you today are the living witnesses to the power of his death and resurrection and Spirit. Remember the water; pray for the fire; come to the breakfast, and be ready then to go out live as God’s Easter presents to his surprised and unready world.

God really does love us (a homily on today's Gospel from the late Bishop Joe Grech)

Fifteen months ago, the death occurred of the Most Rev'd Joe Grech, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst in rural Victoria, Australia. He was a Spirit-filled preacher of the Gospel and a real pastor to his people, especially the young. Go HERE to find out more about him. 

What follows is his homily for this Fourth Sunday of Lent, preached back in 2009. It is from the Diocese of Sandhurst website.

About two weeks ago I had a very difficult funeral. A young man, thirty seven years of age died as a consequence of a suspected suicide. He left behind a wife and a beautiful eight year old daughter. As I was facing the large congregation I kept saying to myself “What can I say to these people today?” From a human point of view there was nothing good about what had occurred. People were stunned and perplexed. I am sure that many, especially those closest to him could not understand why this thing had to happen. I am sure that they had many questions lurking in their minds for which answers were very difficult to find. Definitely my intention was not to judge but somehow to read that situation from a very different angle, the angle of faith. 

As I was thinking this way, the words that Jesus said to Nicodemus in today’s gospel suddenly flashed in my mind. “Yes God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not be lost but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). Yes, it was a tragedy. Yes it would have been better if that young man was still alive. Yes it would have been great for his wife and child to keep enjoying the company and the presence of a husband and a father. Yet the reality was different. However, even though what happened was tragic, God because of his amazing care and affection, was still saying to that young man and to all of us “Hey not all is lost. I still care. Irrespective of whatever happened this is still my beloved son. I care about him. Trust me”. Our God indeed can turn what seems to be tragedies into triumphs. 

There is another addition to this situation. When I was sharing these thoughts with those present, I also challenged myself and everybody present to think about where our life is going. Whether we are walking close with our God or whether God is distant. I asked everyone including myself to make a decision while we still can reason a bit clearly to draw closer to our God because after all, at the end of our lives what matters is our relationship with Jesus Christ who is passionately in love with us. I am still today receiving emails from those who were present at this funeral sharing about their life situations and asking how they can move into a closer relationship with our God. Yes indeed many were touched that day by the mercy and the constant love of our God. 

True, sometimes we are caught in a situation of darkness. It is very difficult at times to break from our own circles of sadness and difficulties on our own. We long for the light to live in peace and tranquillity yet we very often find ourselves caught in situations where we cannot even see the possibility of how we can move forward. This is where Jesus comes in. 

There is a reading from the gospel of St John that we often hear proclaimed during funerals. “There are many rooms in my Father’s house; if there were not, I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you with me; so that where I am you may be too” (Jn 14:2-3). I have often stopped and reflected where is the Father’s house which Jesus was referring too? Yes we have always been told that this refers to heaven. That is correct. However, there is also another place where we can find the Father’s house and that is in our hearts. We believe that the life giving presence of our God is also found in our hearts because of our baptism and confirmation. 

In our hearts, there are indeed many rooms. We are happy with many of these rooms. We do not find it difficult to enter some of these rooms. We feel at home. The doors are wide open, the blinds are up, the windows are open and we feel quite contented in these rooms. 

However, there are other rooms in our hearts where the doors are closed; where we are very uncomfortable as we approach these rooms. The doors to these rooms are locked very tightly. The blinds are down, the windows are closed and darkness pervades. At times we pretend that these rooms do not exist. However, it only takes a simple incident, or meeting with someone whom we have not seen for a long time or a word that someone says to us to make us realise very vividly that these closed rooms are very much real. 

What are we going to do? Once again this is where Jesus comes in. “Jesus here I am. You know the situation that I am in. I cannot continue to live in the midst of these locked rooms because I need to live in peace and tranquillity. So Lord take my hand and you help me to put my hand on the door handle and you help me turn that handle and you help me open these doors. I cannot do it on my own. Help me to put on the lights. Help me to draw these blinds up. Help me top open the windows, help me to let the fresh air in. Help me to overcome my fear. Help me to be at peace in whatever situation I find myself in because I know that you are always with me”. 

Even if our faith is very small and minute it does not matter. Let us use whatever faith we possess and it will grow. The real tragedy is not that we have to face at times difficult and agonizing moments in our lives. The tragedy is when we think or when we decide that we can face these situations on our own. With Jesus there is always a way forward. Thank God for our faith. Amen.

Mother Teresa’s “Dark Night”

What did it mean for her? What does it mean for us? 

Ralph Martin over at RENEWAL MINISTRIES has a wonderful article on Mother Teresa'a agony of soul. I share it with you because it might be helpful in the struggles many Christian people experience at the present time. 

Even though the main lines of Mother Teresa’s experience of “darkness” had been known for several years, the full publication of her private letters drew world-wide media coverage. (Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta” Edited and with Commentary by Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C.) 

TIME Magazine did a cover story on it. Prominent articles appeared in the NY Times and other major publications. There were many TV and radio interviews. 

Some secularists chose to interpret her talk of darkness as a sign of hypocrisy and even accused her of not really believing in God. Only a very superficial and partial reading of these letters could have occasioned this interpretation. Some believers were disturbed and confused to hear of her prolonged experience of aridity or emptiness in her relationship with God. Some thought the letters were so disturbing it was a mistake to publish them. This last concern, while understandable, is unfounded, since the letters in question are part of the official record compiled in the process of canonization and are generally made public. And by now we must know that efforts to “edit” the life or writings of a saint (as the sisters of Therese of Lisieux tried to do in the case of their sister’s writings), only detract from the awesome witness to holiness that is found, albeit in sometimes unexpected and disturbing ways. I think we will see that in the long run this widespread media attention, even with its imperfections, and the publication of these letters, will bear great fruit. 

Having read the entire book, which includes all the available letters and the sensitive and expert commentary of a priest from Mother Teresa’s own order, I am left awe-struck at the depth of Mother Teresa’s holiness. Her faith and her heroic service were more profound than I ever imagined. 

It is certainly true that while receiving remarkable communications from the Lord and deep spiritual/sensible consolation at the beginning of her mission, for almost 50 years Mother Teresa was left almost totally bereft of such consolation. She carried out her mission with almost no affective experience of God’s love and presence. She could see the fruit that her work was producing. She could see that when she spoke to her sisters and others that they came alive and grew in the experience of God’s love, but she herself for the most part felt only emptiness. 

During the first ten years of this “darkness” she was deeply troubled by it . . . Go HERE for the whole article.

Into the Hidden Abyss of the Divine Mystery, through the Son, by the action of the Holy Spirit.

More from Chapter 3 of LIFE AND HOLINESS by Thomas Merton (1963):

But this all demands our own consent and our energetic cooperation with divine grace. Jesus Christ, God and man, is the revelation of the hidden sanctity of the Father, the immortal and invisible King of Ages whom no eye can see, whom no intelligence can contemplate, except in the light which he himself communicates to whomever he wills. Hence, Christian "perfection" is not a mere ethical adventure or an achievement in which man can take glory. It is a gift of God, drawing the soul into the hidden abyss of the divine mystery, through the Son, by the action of the Holy Spirit. To be a Christian then is to be committed to a deeply mystical life, for Christianity is pre-eminently a mystical religion. This does not mean, of course, that every Christian is or should be a "mystic" in the technical modern sense of the word. But it does mean that every Christian lives, or should live, within the dimensions of a completely mystical revelation and communication of the divine being. Salvation, which is the goal of each individual Christian and of the Christian community as a whole, is participation in the life of God who draws us "out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Peter 2:9).

The Christian is one whose life and hope are centred in the mystery of Christ. In and through Christ, we become "partakers of the divine nature" "divin consortes natur" (2 Peter 1:4).

It is through Christ that the power of divine love and the energy of divine light find their way into our lives and transform them from one degree of "brightness" to another, by the action of the Holy Spirit. Here is the root and basis of the inner sanctity of the Christian. This light, this energy in our lives, is commonly called grace. The more grace and love shine forth in the fraternal unity of those who have been brought together, by the Holy Spirit, in one Body, the more Christ is manifested in the world, the more the Father is glorified, and the closer we come to the final completion of God?s work by the "recapitulation" of all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10).

Grace and the Sacraments

Our divine sonship is the likeness of the Word of God in us produced by his living presence in our souls, through the Holy Spirit. This is our "justice" in God's sight. It is the root of true love and of every other virtue. Finally it is the seed of eternal life: it is a divine inheritance which cannot be taken from us against our own will. It is an inexhaustible treasure, a fountain of living water "springing up unto life everlasting." The first epistle of St. Peter opens with a jubilant hymn in praise of this life of grace, freely given to us by the divine mercy, in Christ: the grace which leads to our salvation, if only we are faithful to the love of God that has been given to us when we were dead in our sins, raising us from death by the same power which raised Christ from the dead:

"Blessed be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has begotten us again, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead unto a living hope, unto an incorruptible inheritance, undented and unfading, reserved for you in heaven. By the power of God you are guarded through faith for salvation, which is to be revealed in the last time. Over this you rejoice; though now for a little while, if need be, you are made sorrowful by various trials, that the temper of your faith - more precious by far than gold which is tried by fire - may be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Him, though you have not seen, you love. In him, though you do not see him, yet believing, you exult with a joy unspeakable and triumphant; receiving as the final issue of your faith the salvation of your souls."