Jubilee of Marian Spirituality

The inclusion of the teaching of Vatican Council II on the Virgin Mary as a chapter in the Constitution on the Church, rather than as a separate document in its own right, suggests to us that every aspect of the Church's life has in some way a Marian dimension. In this light, a specific Jubilee dedicated to Marian spirituality, to be marked in the days 11th-12th October 2025, appears either to be unnecessary or to represent a celebration of the Church's life as a whole. 

The invitation to the Jubilee is described as follows:

All members of the movements, confraternities and various Marian prayer groups are particularly invited to this jubilee event.

The orginal statue of Our Lady of Fatima will be present in Rome for the Jubilee, and is a particular focus for the events of the Jubilee. The invitation, and the presence of the Fatima statue, place the focus on that aspect of the Marian life of the Church that might be covered by the term "popular piety". It is worth recalling that, as Pope Francis suggested in Evangelii Gaudium nn.122-126, the various expressions of popular piety should be seen as an inculturation of the Gospel, as a way in which a people embed a presence of their Christian faith in their daily lives and in the daily lives of those among whom they live. Different forms of Marian spirituality can easily be recognised as precisely this way of embedding Christian presence in a culture.

One element of the Marian spirituality being marked by this Jubilee is pilgrimage to Marian shrines. Some shrines, such as Lourdes and Fatima, have gained an international reach. Many countries have a national shrine to the Virgin Mary where devotion might reflect something of the local character of the people or of the place. Not infrequently, such a shrine will reflect a founding grace which gives to the devotion expressed at that shrine a specific character. The National Shrine for England at Walsingham, for example, offers a sense of the house of Nazareth as a distinctive aspect of its spirituality. There are also more local devotions such as the Lancaster diocesan shrine at Ladyewell, which has a particular historical context proper to that part of the country.

A second element is that of prayer groups, often based in meeting to pray the Rosary, with a specifically Marian devotion. Such prayer groups may arise with a certain spontaneity and may not have the specific connection to a place that belongs with a shrine. But nevertheless, for those who take part in them, they represent an embedding of their faith in their everyday lives.

Viewed from the point of view of the Church's liturgical life, these examples of popular Marian piety should both derive from the liturgy and lead back to it. Whilst seen in isolation they may appear to exist in parallel to the wider life of the Church, they are lived authentically when they are inserted into that wider life. The many different formulas contained in the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary and celebrations that occur in the universal and local calendars manifest this relationship between the Liturgy and devotional life.

Jubilee of Confraternities

 The days 16th-18th May 2025 are to be marked as a Jubilee of Confraternities. The programme for the grand procession of several confraternities gives an idea of the range of groups that will be taking part, and of the different devotional inspiration of the confraternities involved. The spirituality and processions that are typical of these confraternities can be described as exemplifying the idea of "popular piety".

Pope Francis dedicated a section (nn.122-126) of his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium to "The evangelizing power of popular piety".

 Popular piety enables us to see how the faith, once received, becomes embodied in a culture and is constantly passed on. Once looked down upon, popular piety came to be appreciated once more in the decades following the Council. In the Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (n.48), Pope Paul VI gave a decisive impulse in this area. There he stated that popular piety “manifests a thirst for God which only the poor and the simple can know” and that “it makes people capable of generosity and sacrifice even to the point of heroism, when it is a question of bearing witness to belief”. Closer to our own time, Benedict XVI, speaking about Latin America, pointed out that popular piety is “a precious treasure of the Catholic Church”, in which “we see the soul of the Latin American peoples”.

During the Year of Faith, a day was also dedicated as a Day for Confraternities and Popular Piety. Preaching on that occasion, Pope Francis referred to two expressions that Pope Benedict XVI had used in talking of popular piety:

 Here we are shown the centre from which everything must go forth and to which everything must lead: loving God and being Christ’s disciples by living the Gospel. When Benedict XVI spoke to you, he used this expression: evangelical spirit. Dear confraternities, the popular piety of which you are an important sign is a treasure possessed by the Church, which the bishops of Latin America defined, significantly, as a spirituality, a form of mysticism, which is “a place of encounter with Jesus Christ”. Draw always from Christ, the inexhaustible wellspring; strengthen your faith by attending to your spiritual formation, to personal and communitarian prayer, and to the liturgy. Down the centuries confraternities have been crucibles of holiness for countless people who have lived in utter simplicity an intense relationship with the Lord. Advance with determination along the path of holiness; do not rest content with a mediocre Christian life, but let your affiliation serve as a stimulus, above all for you yourselves, to an ever greater love of Jesus Christ. ...

... a second element which I want to remind you of, as Benedict XVI did, [is]: ecclesial spirit. Popular piety is a road which leads to what is essential, if it is lived in the Church in profound communion with your pastors. Dear brothers and sisters, the Church loves you! Be an active presence in the community, as living cells, as living stones. The Latin American Bishops wrote that the popular piety which you reflect is “a legitimate way of living the faith, a way of feeling that we are part of the Church” (Aparecida Document, 264). 

Pope Francis continued to add a third expression:

 I would like to add a third expression which must distinguish you: missionary spirit. You have a specific and important mission, that of keeping alive the relationship between the faith and the cultures of the peoples to whom you belong. You do this through popular piety. When, for example, you carry the crucifix in procession with such great veneration and love for the Lord, you are not performing a simple outward act; you are pointing to the centrality of the Lord’s paschal mystery, his passion, death and resurrection which have redeemed us, and you are reminding yourselves first, as well as the community, that we have to follow Christ along the concrete path of our daily lives so that he can transform us. Likewise, when you express profound devotion for the Virgin Mary, you are pointing to the highest realization of the Christian life, the one who by her faith and obedience to God’s will, and by her meditation on the words and deeds of Jesus, is the Lord’s perfect disciple (cf. Lumen Gentium, 53). You express this faith, born of hearing the word of God, in ways that engage the senses, the emotions and the symbols of the different cultures … In doing so you help to transmit it to others, and especially the simple persons whom, in the Gospels, Jesus calls “the little ones”. In effect, “journeying together towards shrines, and participating in other demonstrations of popular piety, bringing along your children and engaging other people, is itself a work of evangelization” (Aparecida Document, 264).

 At a parish level, the devotion of those who, before or after Sunday Mass, light a candle before a statue of the Virgin Mary or the parish patron saint comes to mind as we reflect on the value of popular piety.

Personal relationship with Christ?

From time to time there is discussion in Catholic blogs about the idea that we are called to an individual relationship with Christ, and so with the life of the Trinity.  This is sometimes flagged as a "Catholicism-lite" when this call made on the part of Catholics is perceived as being a call that is indifferent to doctrinal content; and it has also an affinity to the life of non-ecclesial Christian communities that, despite a Biblical base, do lack real sources of doctrinal belief. There is also a suspicion by Traditionalists of anything that appears evangelical in its origins and impact rather than ecclesial.

In this context, it was interesting to read the "Meditation of the Day" in MAGNIFICAT for this coming Thursday, the feast day of St Dominic. The text was taken from Pope Benedict XVI's General Audience address for 8th August 2012.  One thing that vividly emerges from Pope Benedict's presentation of the prayer of St Dominic is the movement from Liturgical prayer to personal meditation "in which prayer acquires an even more intimate, fervent and soothing dimension":

.... personal meditation, in which prayer acquires an even more intimate, fervent and soothing dimension. After reciting the Liturgy of the Hours and after celebrating Mass, St Dominic prolonged his conversation with God without setting any time limit. Sitting quietly, he would pause in recollection in an inner attitude of listening, while reading a book or gazing at the Crucifix. He experienced these moments of closeness to God so intensely that his reactions of joy or of tears were outwardly visible. In this way, through meditation, he absorbed the reality of the faith. Witnesses recounted that at times he entered a kind of ecstasy with his face transfigured, but that immediately afterwards he would humbly resume his daily work, recharged by the power that comes from on High.

St Dominic, in his life of prayer, expresses quite precisely the appropriate mutual relation between Liturgical prayer and personal devotion, between the ecclesial encounter with Christ and the personal encounter with him. We can perhaps add to this Pope Francis' repeated insistence that it is not possible to come to know Christ without the Church.

The language of "personal relationship with Christ" might well be an unfamiliar language for some Catholics; and it is, I suspect, more to be associated with the newer movements and ecclesial communities than with older Catholic organisations. Whilst a vocation to the priesthood or religious life might have always been seen as a way of living a closer personal relationship with God, that the life of lay persons should be seen in the same way has a certain novelty about it. I would suggest, however, that Catholic life has always included ways for lay people to live this closer personal relationship with God - through sodalities and a whole range of pious associations. According to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, it is the sacraments of baptism and confirmation that call each and every Christian to a vocation in the Church - and the danger for the Catholic is that this where that vocation comes to a stop (the danger for the pentecostal is that it does not reach this point at all). What the newer ecclesial movements explicitly do is articulate the forms of commitment associated with a life lived according to their charisms as a specification to a particular form of the vocation received in a general way through baptism and confirmation.

So, for example, the Marian consecration according to the teaching of St Louis Marie de Montfort promoted by the Legion of Mary and the Foyers of Charity (it is the concluding act of the "fundamental retreat"). The Catholic Charismatic Renewal also understands the gift of "Baptism in the Holy Spirit" in a relation to the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, seeing it as an opening out of the grace of those sacraments.  I have posted on this theme here. Fr Cantalamessa wrote of his own experience of Baptism in the Holy Spirit:

For me, baptism in the Spirit was a chance the Lord gave me to ratify and renew my Baptism...

The pastoral implication of all of this is that, if formation programmes in Catholic parishes are limited to the immediate preparation for the sacraments of initiation, then there will be an intrinsic failure to consistently develop the (additional) specification of the grace of those sacraments that constitutes the "living personal relationship with God". The additionality provided by formation to a particular charism in the Church is needed to achieve this - I suspect I am not alone in feeling that those one meets in parish life who have a more-than-average sense of Christian life have almost without exception gained that sense of Christian life from experience of one or other of the new ecclesial movements.

[A development of the them of this post would be to evaluate the Marian character and sense of the evangelical counsels that can be seen in many of the new movements.]

Hail Mary and the Prayers of the Faithful

For some time now I have noticed that the "Hail Mary" has not been said as part of the Prayers of the Faithful in the parish where I generally attend Mass on Sunday. This has also been the case in other nearby parishes. Though no public promulgation of the change has been formulated, the lay faithful can definitely detect the effect of some "guidance" offered to their clergy on this matter.

Instead of the "Hail Mary", the last of the bidding prayers in my usual parish has been formulated along lines somewhat like these:

With the prayers of Mary, we place our own private intentions in silence before the Lord.

The absence of the "Hail Mary" has not meant an absence of a Marian character to the prayer. I have not had any issue with this, generally feeling that the new practise is more reflective of the idea that elements of devotional life should not be inserted/intruded into the Liturgy properly so-called. Marian character is profoundly Liturgical; the "Hail Mary" itself a devotional prayer.

The report on this matter at The Catholic Herald, however, indicates a slightly different take on the part of some when it quotes from a parish newsletter:

Parish priests in Bishop Conry’s diocese have asked those who prepare the bidding prayers to exclude the Hail Mary. “However, this should not in any way undermine the importance of devotion to Mary and we strongly encourage the use of Marian prayers in the home and other non-Eucharistic liturgies,” said the newsletter of the parish of the Nativity of the Lord in Redhill, Surrey.

The question here seems to be one of a separation of Marian devotion from Eucharistic devotion, and not one of the relation between Liturgy in its strict sense and devotions, the question that the Holy See seems to be raising if a later paragraph of The Catholic Herald report is correct .

Given the number of feasts of the Blessed Virgin that are celebrated in the Church's calendar with their proper Mass texts, and given that the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin contains 46 formularies for Masses in honour of Our Lady, it appears profoundly non-Liturgical to suggest that Marian prayers and devotions should be reserved only for "non-Eucharistic liturgies" (small "l" which I take to refer to what I would consider "devotions" outside of the Liturgy, capital "L", properly so called).

Quite the contrary. The Liturgy of the Eucharist has a profoundly Marian character to it, even when the Mass being celebrated is not one of a Marian feast or a votive Mass of Our Lady. And Eucharistic devotions - adoration, benediction - should also reflect that character.

Longing for the Name of Jesus

This is the title of the "Meditation of the Day" in Magnificat for today, which can be celebrated as an optional memorial of the Holy Name of Jesus. The author is given as Fr Hilton (died 1396), a canon of the Augustinian Priory of Thurgarton, England. In the index at the back, the source is given as "From The Scale of Perfection, Dom Gerard Sitwell OSB Tr. Published by The Newman Press, 1953, Westminster, MD."  In looking up the reference to the Song of Songs 1:2 I found the quoted text given in Sg 1:3 instead.

Do not be surprised that the awareness of grace is sometimes withdrawn from the lover of God, for Holy Scripture says of the spouse: I sought him and did not find him; I called him and he did not answer (Sg 3:1). That is, when I sink back into my natural weakness, grace is withdrawn; and if it is withdrawn, my failure is the cause, and not because he has departed from me.....

But at last, in his own good time, he returns, full of grace and truth, and visits the soul which is languishing with desire and sighing lovingly after his presence. He touches it and anoints it with the oil of gladness and takes away all its suffering. And then the soul cries out joyously wiht the voice of the spirit: Your name, O God, is oil poured out (Sg 1:2). Your name is Jesus, that is Saviour. As long as my soul is sick through sin, oppressed with the heavy burden of the body, anxious and disturbed by the dangers and miseries of this life, so long, O Lord, your name is for me oil, not poured out, but witheld. But when my soul is suddenly illumined with the light of grace, cleansed from all the defilement of sin, and feels itself filled with consolation, with spiritual strength and unspeakable joy, then I can say to you with delighted praise and in joy of spirit, "Your name, O Lord, is for me oil poured out. For the grace of your visitation makes me fully understand the true meaning of your name, which is Jesus, Saviour. For it is your gracious presence that saves me from sorrow and from sin".

There is a resonance between this meditation and the Opening Prayer of the votive Mass of the Holy Name, from which the texts are taken for today's optional memorial ("old" ICEL translation, sorry):

Lord,
may we who honour the holy name of Jesus
enjoy his friendship in this life
and be filled with eternal joy in his kingdom
where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit
one God, for ever and ever.

The Holy Name of Jesus

A few months ago, one of the "mums" who regularly comes to Children's Adoration in the parish asked me to include a catechesis about the pious practice of bowing one's head at the name of Jesus.

I was reminded of this as I read one of the books I received at Christmas the other day. It is by Stuart Maconie (who I usually switch off when he turns up on Radio 2), and is called Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North. He has a passing observation about Liverpool's Roman Catholic Cathedral: it is "a piece of sixties concrete psychedelia known as Paddy's Wigwam". The "Paddy's Wigwam" I remembered from childhood days, but "concrete psychedelia" was new on me. Much earlier in the book, Stuart Maconie makes a reference to "the way Catholics involuntarily nod after uttering the word Jesus". That definitely shows a Lancashire Catholic upbringing!

Today's feast day could perhaps be an opportunity to renew this rather nice devotional practice, and make it a conscious act of amendment for the very many occasions when the name of Jesus is taken in vain.

Liturgical irritability syndrome

A conversation yesterday reminded me that my personal "style" when it comes to prayer is strongly coloured by the Liturgy. This contrasts with people who have a very "devotional" style. The difference? I will tend to include an intention in my normal routine of prayer (eg remembering someone as I pray the intercessions of Morning Prayer) whereas a person with a more devotional style will find a prayer to the patron saint for that particular issue and start saying that prayer. It doesn't mean that I don't give attention to devotional (in the technical sense of non-Liturgical) aspects of the Church's life - themes that I adopt for Eucharistic Adorations in the parish usually follow the devotion associated with a particular month of the year or the Liturgical season. It does mean that I am a little bit laid back about devotions, though.

One devotion I am rather quiet on is that of praying for the dead during November. It isn't that I don't believe in doing it, and it is one aspect of the theme for our parish Adoration on 7th November; but I do feel a rather obsessive sense that seems to be associated with it during November. Catholicism that has a strong surrounding social culture (in England, perhaps the influence of Irish Catholicism) may contribute to this.

My style also colours my approach to Marian devotion. I do not have a separate devotion ot Our Lady; instead, my approach is that everything that I do in the Church should have a Marian character. This happens to leave me rather cool on Fatima, for example, or on the "Day with Mary" devotion; but not on Lourdes, though I probably see a visit there as much a visit in honour of St Bernadette as one in honour of the "white Lady" - don't ask me why. It seems to me to be a matter of one's own vocation in the Church, and other people may well have a different vocation than mine.

A liturgical style of prayer does, of course, mean that I am very sensitive to the way in which the Liturgy is celebrated. A devotional style of participation at Mass can cope with wayward clergy; but not a Liturgical style. I don't think there is anything in principle wrong with this kind of sensitivity; it is a mirror side to the entitlement of the lay faithful to have the Liturgy celebrated in accord with the mind of the Church.

However, it can become over-developed into a kind of irritability syndrome where everything imaginable causes annoyance.

Fit for Mission? Lancaster Diocesan pastoral review

On the 12th June 2008, Bishop O'Donoghue wrote to the people of his diocese of Lancaster:

My dear people,

Today, I received with great delight the long-awaited Final Proposals of the extensive Fit for Mission Parishes Review. This report marks the end of an extensive consultation. ...

... this Review was about mission and how we are to strengthen the communication of the Faith today. It was not all about the linking and merging of parishes though inevitably this will happen. What is of real concern is the prayer-life of our parishes, schools and homes and the living out of the faith with confidence. At the very heart of the mission of the Church is our being gathered together in Christ and being sent out as witnesses to Him and leading others to Him....

Now I must take time to study the proposals and pray about them before taking my own recommendations based on my consideration of The Final Proposals to the Diocesan Council of Priests. My first task, guided by the Council, is to make decisions about the future of those parishes identified as requiring immediate action.

The schools document relating to Lancaster Diocese's pastoral review has attracted both national and international attention. It forms part of a review of the activity of the whole diocese, the final report of which was published in June 2008. Both of these documents can be accessed from the diocesan website. The ready availability of this documentation is very welcome. The final report gives a clear transparency to the proposals for the future of the Diocese. These proposals are both structural (relating to which parishes should cease to provide Sunday Mass, grouping of parishes to form new parishes) and immediately practical (targets for individual parishes grouped under the headings of sacramental priority and mission priority). There are also indications of some points where future consultation should take place before a decision is made - I looked at Fleetwood, for example, where I spent part of my childhood, and can see three parishes that will become two, and eventually become one, with further consultation to take place as to which Church will be the one finally retained for Mass (the issue: the town centre church is a beautiful Pugin church, but it does not lie near the housing estates mostly grouped around the town, though the resident population of the town centre might grow in the near future).

The very detailed nature of the document shows how much has gone in to preparing it. The process has involved each parish having the opportunity to contribute, so I expect that many of the targets for individual parishes have been based on contributions from the parish itself. The transparency of its publication is very welcome. I think Bishop O'Donoghue should be given due credit for facing up to the challenge represented by falling Mass attendance and reducing numbers of priests in the diocese. This must involve a "management process" in the human sense, and that is reflected in the process that has led to the final document. There is a saying about praying as if everything depended on the prayer, and working as if everything depended on the work ....

However, and I think this can be seen in the documentation relating to the review and in Bishop O'Donoghue's letter quoted above, there is also an aspect of charism or grace that needs to be involved, too. I am not sure that this has reached through to the parish level targets, so I have some questions about these targets:

nowhere did I see any engagement with new movements in the Church, and, given their strength both in evangelising and in forming vocations to the priesthood and religious life, this seems a weakness in the document

there seems to be a lack of specific references to promotion of devotional life (eg Eucharistic Adoration, Marian devotion) outside what is strictly Liturgical prayer; such devotional life having important implications for Sacramental preparation and for the mission life of a parish, both of which are reflected in the parish targets

many parishes seem to need to train more catechists for sacramental preparation, including marriage preparation; but if this means that the priest will step back and leave the lay catechists to do it alone, then it won't do; the lay engagement is absolutely necessary, but accompanied by the priest

the setting up of Liturgy committees or groups represents an unnecessary bureaucracy; similarly, proposals for developing lay leadership

An interesting target which appears for several parishes is that of setting up a "faith focussed" youth group, which seems to recognise the hazard of youth groups that lack any religious aspect. Another interesting point relates to properties that will no longer be used for Sunday Masses. The responsibility for deciding what to do with these properties is identified as resting with the parish community in consultation with the diocese, there being a suggestion that such properties could still be used for worship (eg Liturgy of the Hours).

My real question is: how far will the implementation of these targets reduce to being effectively "bureacratic" in nature ("we must have 10 catechists by December"), which I do not think was the underlying intention of the pastoral review process, or how far will it be charismatic (by which I mean, responsive to grace)? Is the question of identifying a catechist, for example, going to be approached in terms of recognition of a calling given in grace or simply on the basis that we need some more catechists for this year? This is where the lack of engagement with the new movements - who each live out a founding charism - may turn out to be more significant than at first appears.

Days of Eucharistic Adoration ("Forty Hours")

I have spent the last couple of days putting together the programme for our parish's Days of Eucharistic Adoration. As I went to look at the materials I used last year, I realised that this is now the fifth consecutive year that I have done this. There is now an established "routine", and I am, as I usually am, a bit bowled over by everyone's willingness to "join in" with getting it up and running. I took the photo below last year, at the end of the Adoration on the Friday evening. The Church is set up as it was for the Children's Adoration and Vigil. Last year's theme was the Our Father, hence the icon of God the Father and the words of the Our Father on the displays.

The theme for the days of Adoration - "The Eucharist: Gift of God for the Life of the World" - is taken from the theme of the International Eucharistic Congress, taking place in Quebec in June. The three "sub-themes" are based on three of the icons that decorate the "Ark of the New Covenant" that has been designed as a focus of devotion and adoration, particularly for the young people of Canada, during the time leading up to the Congress.

If you are within reach of Romford during these days, please do call in and visit Jesus, our Eucharist, Gift of God for the Life of the World.

Liturgy and Devotions (or Lent and the Rosary)

A prospect in sight is that of a parish whose prayer/catechetical life is just Mass, two or three session Baptismal preparation programme for parents of infants, children's first Holy Communion programme and teenagers Confirmation programme. That is, a parish without a devotional life (eg Rosary group, Sunday afternoon Eucharistic Adoration, Holy Hours, youth groups etc) to accompany its Liturgical life (Mass and the celebration of the Sacraments). This prospect seems to me to have unhelpful consequences:

1. the effectiveness of sacramental preparation programmes is reduced if young people "dip in" to them and then "dip out" again - a vibrant devotional/catechetical life in a parish can provide a constant background of devotion and catechesis in which the sacramental preparation programmes fit as particular "moments"
2. pastoral needs (eg with regard to styles of prayer or music) that can legitimately be met using the freedom of devotional life are instead met in the only place in parish life that is available, namely, the Liturgy - and we find inserted into the Liturgy practises that have no place there
3. the celebration of the Liturgy itself will be less rich, because the formation towards its celebration that comes from devotional life is lacking.

Devotional/catechetical life needs to begin from the Liturgy and then lead back to its celebration. It might well be the case that the types of devotional/catechetical life needed in parishes today are not the same as those from the past. One of the risks, too, in the prospect of the "devotions-less parish" is that catechesis and devotion are separated in the consciousness of the parishioners - so sacramental preparation programmes suffer an absence of piety, and acts of piety lack a sound catechesis.

A good example of a sound relationship between Liturgy and devotions is the Rosary, and, during the first weeks of Lent, the Mysteries of Light. [The Joyful Mysteries reflect the Liturgical seasons of Advent and Christmas, the Sorrowful Mysteries the season of Holy Week/Passiontide and the Glorious Mysteries the season of Easter.] The Baptism of the Lord is celebrated between Christmas and the start of Lent, and marks the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. The Wedding Feast at Cana looks forward to the "hour" of Jesus that will come at Calvary, and has a strongly Eucharistic significance. The Preaching of the Gospel and the call to Repentance is thorougly Lenten in its message. The story of the Transfiguration, with its forward glance to the day when the Son of Man has risen from the dead, is always the Gospel at Mass on the second Sunday of Lent. And the Institution of the Eucharist indicates the beginning of the "hour" for which Lent is our preparation, and the movement into the material of the Sorrowful Mysteries.

My favourite mysteries of the Rosary? You guessed it - the Mysteries of Light!