Jubilee 2025: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 The Liturgical texts for the celebration of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary echo rather nicely the words of the Jubilee Prayer, and so perhaps encourage us to pray that prayer with a particular intensity on this feast day.

The Collect at Mass during the day:

Almighty ever living God, who assumed the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of your Son, body and soul into heavenly glory, grant we pray, that, always attentive to the things that are above, we may merit to be sharers of her glory.

Compared to:

May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven. 

From the Preface at Mass:

For today the Virgin Mother of God was assumed into heaven as the beginning and image of your Church's coming to perfection and a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people. ..

Compared to:

Father in heaven, may the faith that you have given us in your son, Jesus Christ, our brother, and the flame of charity enkindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit reawaken in us the blessed hope for the coming of your Kingdom. 

From the Prayer after Communion at the Vigil Mass:

Having partaken of this heavenly table, we beseech your mercy, Lord our God, that we, who honour the Assumption of the Mother of God, may be freed from every threat of harm.

Compared to:

 May your grace transform us into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel. May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos in the sure expectation of a new heaven and a new earth, when, with the powers of Evil vanquished, your glory will shine eternally.

 

Jubilee 2025: The Hope of the Bride

In Dom Anscar Vonier's book The Spirit and the Bride there is a short chapter entitled "The Bride's Hope". The chapter suggests that, through the living presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, there is a perfection of hope that is intrinsic to the Church and is more than the sum total of the individual hopes of believers or local communities.

What we may truly call the official hope of the Church is an overwhelming reality; there is simply no vestige of hesitation in any acts and movements of the Church concerning her power to obtain eternal life. This is manifested before all men through the Church's way of praying. Ecclesiastical prayer is the visible sign of the Church's hope; she hopes as she prays, and she prays as she hopes.  Now of the Church's prayer there is no end; it is an unceasing stream, unfathomable in its depth, though all eyes can behold its surface. If the Church ceased to pray, her life of hope also would come to an end.... More truly than Moses on the mountain, the Bride is stretching forth her arms in supplication, and she is not in need of any supporters, as she know of no lassitude, for the power of the Spirit is in her.

If you are familiar with Edith Stein's essay "The Prayer of the Church", Anscar Vonier's chapter is a natural jumping off point to a re-reading of that essay. In English translation it is published in the Institute of Carmelite Studies collected works of Edith Stein vol. 4 The Hidden Life. The essay makes some striking comparisons between the Jewish liturgy and the Christian liturgy, reflecting Edith Stein's own lived experience, and is worth reading for those insights alone. 

... it is not a question of placing the inner prayer free of all traditional forms as "subjective" piety in contrast to the liturgy as the "objective" prayer of the Church. All authentic prayer is prayer of the Church. Through every sincere prayer something happens in the Church, and it is the Church itself that is praying therein, for it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church that intercedes for every individual soul "with sighs too deep for words". This is exactly what authentic prayer is, for "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit". What could the prayer of the Church be, if not great lovers giving themselves to God who is love!

Anscar Vonier places the expression of hope within the Church's prayer since that prayer shows an absolute confidence in the ability of the Church to gain eternal life for the persons who are the object of that prayer. A connection can be made to the words of the Jubilee prayer:

May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.

The Way of the Cross at the Colosseum 2023: Voices of Peace in a World at War

 Pope Francis has, on more than one occasion, referred to a Third World War that is currently taking place in a fragmentary way. In the introductory prayer to this year's Good Friday Way of the Cross at the Colosseum, the Holy Father returned to this theme:

Tonight, the way of the cross winds its path behind you, directly from the Holy Land.  We will walk it, listening to your suffering reflected in that of our brothers and sisters who have suffered and still suffer from the lack of peace in the world, allowing ourselves to be pierced by the testimonies and reflections that reached the ears and heart also of the Pope during his visits.  They are echoes of peace that resurface in this “third world war being fought piecemeal”, cries that come from countries and areas torn apart today by violence, injustice and poverty.  All the places where conflict, hatred and persecution are endured are present in the prayer of this Good Friday.

The meditations for each of the Stations describe the experiences of suffering and migration in different parts of the world that are characterised by conflict. We might readily think of migrants seeking to cross the English Channel or the Mediterranean or of the conflict in Ukraine. But it is interesting to read these meditations and recognise that there are other places where violence occurs and has its effect on ordinary people.

Lord Jesus, at your birth the angels in heaven announced: “On earth, peace among those whom he favours” (Lk 2:14).  Now our prayers rise up to heaven to appeal for “Peace on earth,which humanity throughout the ages has so longed for” (Pacem in Terris, 1).  Let us pray, beseeching the peace that you have left us and that we are unable to keep.  Jesus, you embrace the whole world from the cross: forgive our failings, heal our hearts, grant us your peace.

Discernment: Pope Francis' current series of General Audiences

 Each week, the Holy Father speaks to a gathering of the faithful in Rome, in the Audience Hall during the winter months when numbers are smaller, and in St Peter's Square in the summer. The audience to which he speaks is, in the first instance, those who have gathered on that particular day with the Pope. But the Pope's words are also addressed to the wider Church, via subsequent publication in the means of social communication. They also have a degree of permanence, being offered not just for the Church of today but, depending on the subject, to the Church for the future. A particular example of this are the series of General Audience addresses from Pope St John Paul II beginning in September 1979 and ending in November 1984 that are now known under the title "The Theology of the Body". Likewise is the series of audiences devoted to the psalms and canticles of Morning and Evening Prayer, begun by Pope John Paul II in March 2001 and completed by his successor, Benedict XVI, in Feburary 2006, and published in a collection by the Catholic Truth Society.

The subject of Pope Francis' present series of audience addresses is that of discernment. One can see, both in the choice of subject and in the contents of the addresses themselves, the influence of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. The choice is pertinent given the part to be played by discernment in the Synodal process and the part that discernment plays in the teaching of Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia.

In his third audience in the series, Pope Francis suggests that it is an affective form of prayer that is an important element of discernment:

Discerning what is happening within us is not easy, for appearances are deceptive, but familiarity with God can melt doubts and fears in a gentle way, making our lives increasingly receptive to his “gentle light,” according to the beautiful expression of Saint John Henry Newman. The saints shine with reflected light and show in the simple gestures of their day the loving presence of God, who makes the impossible possible. It is said that two spouses who have lived together for a long time, loving each other, end up resembling each other. Something similar can be said about affective prayer. In a gradual but effective  way, it makes us more and more capable of recognizing what counts through connaturality, as something that springs from the depths of our being. To be in prayer does not mean saying words, words, no: being in prayer means opening my heart to Jesus, drawing close to Jesus, allowing Jesus to enter into my heart and making us feel his presence. And there we can discern when it is Jesus and when it is us with our thoughts, that so many times are far from what Jesus wants.

 In the sixth audience, Pope Francis speaks of how the "book of one's own life" forms one of the elements of discernment, suggesting a slightly different character to a daily examination of conscience:

Discernment is the narrative reading of the good moments and the dark moments, the consolations and desolations we experience in the course of our lives. In discernment, it is the heart that speaks to us about God, and we must learn to understand its language. Let us ask, at the end of the day, for example: what happened today in my heart? Some think that carrying out this examination of conscience is like doing the bookkeeping of the sins we have committed — and we commit many — but it is also about asking oneself, “What happened within me, did I experience joy? What brought me joy? Was I sad? What brought me sadness? And in this way, learning to discern  what happens within us.

The most recent audiences address the questions of desolation and consolation with regard to discernment, themes that are profoundly Ignatian. Perhaps these audiences will prove to be a specifically Ignatian contribution from a Jesuit Pope.

The Praise of Glory

 MAGNIFICAT for last Sunday uses as its "Meditation of the Day" an extract from St Elizabeth of the Trinity.  The text is published under the title Heaven in Faith in the Institute of Carmelite Studies (ICS) complete works of St Elizabeth, Volume 1. In the following I use the Scripture translations used in the ICS edition, rather than those used by MAGNIFICAT, which use the Jerusalem translations used in the Liturgy (and thereby seem to lose a subtlety in St Elizabeth's thought).

"If you knew the gift of God", Christ said one evening to the Samaritan woman. But what is this gift of God if not Himself? And, the beloved disciple tells us: "He came to His own and His own did not accept Him". St John the Baptist could still say to many souls these words of reproach: "There is one in the midst of you, 'in you', whom you do not know".

The two words "in you" are inserted into, and emphasized, in the quotation of St John the Baptist, and echo a phrase in St Luke's Gospel.

The MAGNIFICAT meditation then omits a following section, losing a Marian reference in St Elizabeth's thought (St Elizabeth may have included this section prompted by the occurrence of the solemnity of the Assumption at the time of her writing):

"If you knew the gift of God..." There is one who know the gift of God, one who did not lose one particle of it, on who was so pure, so luminous that she seemed to be the Light itself: "Speculum justitiae". One whose life was so simple, so lost in God that there is hardly anything we can say about it.

"Virgo fidelis": that is, faithful Virgin, "who kept all these things in her heart".

 The extract then takes up the theme of the praise of glory, quoting St Paul:

"We have been predestined by the decree of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we may be the praise of his glory."

It is St Paul who tells us this, St Paul who was instructed by God Himself. How do we realize this great dream of the Heart of our God, this immutable will for our souls? In a word, how do we correspond to our vocation and become perfect Praises of Glory of the Most Holy Trinity?

"In Heaven" each sould is a praise of glory of the Father, the Word and Holy Spirit, for each soul is established in pure love and "lives no longer its own life, but the life of God". Then it knows Him, St Paul says, as it is known by Him.... St John of the Cross affirms that "the soul surrendered to love, through the strength of the Holy Spirit, is not far from being raised to the degree of which we have just spoken," eve here below! This is what I call a perfect praise of glory!

 Where the Jerusalem translation "..chosen to be, for his greater glory..." appears to be passive in its intent - it is God's action that makes us manifest his greater glory - ".. so that we may be the praise of his glory" suggests an active sense too, on the part of the soul, though active in response to the initiative of God. Whatever the subtleties of the exegesis of the Scriptural text, the idea that the soul should live as a praise of glory of the Trinity is a key part of St Elizabeth's thought.

Novena for Pentecost: Baptism in the Spirit - charisms and prayer for healing

I think it is the case that every Catholic should be comfortable with the idea that the Holy Spirit can show his power in particular interventions, from what most might recognise as the working of providence, through the occurence of miracles, and then on to more extraordinary gifts such as praying in tongues or the gifts of healing in prayer. In the vast majority of cases, such specific interventions are given for a particular case or a particular moment, and while they might form the content of an individual testimony they do not possess a universal interest for the Church. Whilst being comfortable with the idea that such interventions occur, no Catholic is obliged to believe in the veracity of each and every such intervention (with, perhaps, the exception of the very few recognised publicly by the Church in processes of beatification and canonisation).

Within the Charismatic Renewal, the occurrence of extraordinary charisms is readily accepted. The best known such charism is that of prayer in tongues; but equally there is the existence of a charism of healing. The life of the Renewal is characterised by prayer for healing (understood in a wide sense as referring to physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual healing), though in many cases this occurs in the ordinary prayer of a prayer group rather than in the context of a specific healing ministry. The extraordinary healing ministries - that of Sr Briege McKenna comes to mind as I write - form only a small part of this aspect of the life of the Renewal, and a care is taken that it is not seen as a substitute for the Sacrament of the Sick.

Linked to prayer for healing is a strong awareness of the need for spiritual battle against the powers of evil. There is an experience of both temptation by Satan and the power of the Holy Spirit to resist that temptation. The experience of spiritual battle is lived anew, giving rise to recognition of the need for prayers and ministries of deliverance to free people from various forms of spiritual oppression. However, it should be said that this experience is a mature experience for those in the Renewal and not one pursued in an irresponsible way. In particular, the Renewal has provided many of the priests who exercise the ministry of exorcism in the Church, with all the precautions that accompany that ministry.

Novena for Pentecost: Praise and Worship

 Whilst the experience of Baptism in the Spirit can often be seen as having fruits in quite extraordinary gifts, such gifts can at the same time be understood as being ordinary, expected gifts of a vividly lived Christian life. 

One of these gifts is a style of worship characterised by a certain exuberance. Though this prayer is not readily identified as liturgical in its character, it nevertheless has something in common with prayer that is more strictly identified as liturgical. It is prayer that has at its heart the praise and adoration of God - that is, worship - that is a first intention of liturgical prayer.  It is manifested, too, in the Trinitarian form of liturgical prayer - to the Father, through the Son and in the unity of the Holy Spirit. This movement of the Spirit has led to the composition of many new songs and melodies, often based on the psalms or other Scriptural texts, to express the praise of God, a movement which can also be seen at work in places outside the Renewal (CJM's Born for This comes readily to mind as an example). The gift of tongues, primarily as a gift for prayer and praise, is perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of this exuberance in prayer and praise.

Alongside this gift of praise and worship, Baptism in the Spirit has a power to lead those who receive it to a deeper conversion and holiness of life. Growth in holiness leads to an experience that becomes less one of self-striving against sin and more one of yielding to the Holy Spirit. The cross and resurrection of Christ come to be known not only as an event of the past but a present source of grace enabling a death to sin and a living for God. The ability to resist sinful tendencies and deep-rooted patterns of sin, freedom from addictions and the healing of relationships - these are fruits experienced by those who have received Baptism in the Spirit, fruits which can be found wherever there is growth in Christian life.

In observing the Charismatic Renewal from the outside, it is perhaps important to recognise this connection between exuberance in prayer and praise, which may not be for everyone, and the deeper conversion and holiness of life that accompanies it.

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.]

In England and Wales: a day of prayer for the victims of human trafficking

The Bishops of England and Wales have asked Catholics in their territories to keep today, the feast of St Josephine Bakhita, as a day of prayer for the victims of human trafficking.

This page at the website of the Bishops Conference gives some background, including the Collect for St Josephine Batkhita and an outline biography of her.

At a time when the United Kingdom receives more migrants than might have been the case in the past from the less prosperous countries of eastern Europe, this day of prayer has a particular relevance. That migration creates opportunities for human trafficking that did not previously exist. Conflict in non-EU countries, which can increase the flow of refugees into nearby EU countries who, once within the EU have much easier freedom of movement to other member countries, is another factor that creates opportunities for human trafficking.

The sexual exploitation of young people, both internationally and within the UK, is another aspect of the phenomenon of human trafficking. Indeed, the on-line exploitation of children could be seen as a form of "cyber-trafficking". Any form of trafficking represents an exploitation of the often vulnerable person who is trafficked; when the intentions behind that trafficking are sexual exploitation, then the nature of the crime takes on a paticularly horrific character.

In the background to this issue sits the call towards hospitality towards the stranger who lives in our midst. The United Nations places obligations on its member countries with regard to granting asylum to refugees; and the Catholic Church recognises its mission to migrants in the work of, for example, of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples.

O God, who led Saint Josephine Bakhita from abject slavery
to the dignity of being your daughter and a bride of Christ,
grant, we pray, that by her example
we may show constant love for the Lord Jesus crucified,
remaining steadfast in charity
and prompt to show compassion.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen

Taken from the Missal as the Collect for 8 February

Two more things that have passed me by .... St John Vianney, Invocation

This weekend I find myself reflecting again on two events that have happened without my really noticing. As it turns out, the two events are connected.

The first event is the visit of the relic of the heart of St  John Mary Vianney to the north-west of England, and to Birmingham. Details of the visit, and associated resources, can be found at the website of Shrewsbury Diocese.

The second is the annual Invocation 2012 festival at Oscott College, Birmingham. This event is aimed at young people and intends to encourage them in discerning their vocation in the world and in the Church. It is characterised by the presence of young priests and religious and by the presence of representatives of some of the new orders and religious communities. The home page of the Invocation website is here. The link to the visit of the relic of St John Mary Vianney is that the relic was brought to Oscott College as part of the programme of the festival.

To try and capture something of both events, I link to the text of the address delivered by Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury at the Invocation event. Two points that I particularly noticed about this address were the way in which the origins of the priestly vocations of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI were cited as examples for the young people listening, and the confident and strong affirmation of the value of the ordained priesthood that is drawn from the words of St John Mary Vianney.

It is also interesting to note the way in which the words of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI are cited by Bishop Davies. There is nothing dogmatic or authoritarian about this. The Holy Father exercises a pastoral office towards the whole Church through annual messages such as those for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. However, that exercise of a universal office is not in conflict with the exercise of a local pastoral office by the Bishop of a diocese, and the use by Bishop Davies of citations of the words of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI indicates the way in which the two offices act in communion with each other.

Real Life

I have copied this from Tigerish Waters because it was posted there in such a way that it was not possible to link to it as an individual post. Tigerish Waters is one of the more thoughtful blogs on the block. Her husband was taken ill suddenly during the Easter triduum.

It has taken me a while to get here, but I now have to report the news to you that my husband, Paul died at 9.20 pm on Tuesday 10th May. I humbly ask now that you pray for the repose of his soul.

It was a good death. It was a beautiful death. I wake up every morning and cry because I cannot believe I was able to participate in such an outpouring of grace. Perhaps one day I'll write in more detail, but not now.

Actually, I implore you too to pray for a happy death as he did every night. It is such an important thing to do.

If I could, on my own testimony, raise Bl John Henry and my dear Bl Elizabeth of the Trinity to be amongst the canonised saints, I'd do so now. They have worked miracles for us in the last few weeks.

I also give thanks to God for your wonderful prayers and support. This is the real power of blogging, and never let us forget that.

************

Well my dear St Rita, I'm a widow now like you, what ever next .....?

Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace and rise again in glory.

'Day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world'

In October of this year, Pope Benedict XVI will visit Assisi to mark the 25th anniversary of the first inter-religious encounter held there at the invitation of Pope John Paul II. The Press Office of the Holy See has issued a news release "Pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace" which entitles the visit on 27th October as a "Day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world".

In the light of my earlier post on the question of Assisi 3 and the question of inter-religious prayer, this release makes interesting reading. What will be distinctive of 27th October 2011 compared to the previous days of prayer in Assisi are the times of silence during which the participants can reflect or pray according to their own beliefs. There is a time of such silence scheduled for the meeting at St Maria degli Angeli, and for the pilgrimage towards the Basilica of St Francis later in the day. We have become used to the "moment of reflection", for example, that has replaced the "prayer" that used to be said on BBC Radio 2's Sunday morning programme just before the news at 8. am. A "moment of reflection" is not uncommon in assemblies in schools. The point is this: for those of different religious belief, does this shared time of silence constitute a time of "inter-religious prayer" or of "multi-religious prayer" in the sense of the debate in my earlier post? How does the invitation of persons from the world of culture who do not have a religious belief alter the nature of this time of silence?

It is interesting that Pope Benedict will take part in a vigil of prayer the evening before, and invites his fellow Catholics to organise similar vigils in their own dioceses:

In preparation for this Day, Pope Benedict XVI will preside over a Prayer Vigil at Saint Peter’s the previous evening, together with the faithful of the Diocese of Rome. Particular Churches and communities throughout the world are invited to organize similar times of prayer.

Year of Catholic Education: Nottingham Diocese

Since it is Bishop Malcolm McMahon OP who leads for the Bishops Conference on education, it should perhaps not be a surprise that his diocese has a well prepared initiative to mark the Year of Catholic Education. It is called The Angelus Project.

It is an encouraging project in two respects. It does, in the first place, express something that is specifically religious in Catholic education. In the second place, it reflects the overall theme that has been taken for the Year of Catholic Education: "I have come that they may have life to the full". The five listed themes - Sainthood, Service, Vocation, Communication, and Prayer - seem to embrace the idea of the common good in a way that includes the religious (see my earlier post on the Year of Catholic Education).

The project takes its name from the prayer of the Angelus, which it encourages schools to use with their pupils. Others in the diocese are also being encouraged to pray the Angelus, as close as possible to 12 noon each day. Among the resources on the Angelus Project page, I liked:

- the adapted version of the Angelus prayer for use with very young children, which I thought preserved the integrity of the prayer whilst presenting it in an age suitable way

- the Angelus hymn, which is simple but attractive to sing (listen to the .mp3 here) and the words of which are profoundly evangelising.

This encouragement of the praying of the Angelus can be evaluated within the framework of the Church's understanding of its mission of evangelisation. In that context, it can act as "primary proclamation" of core Christian teaching - the coming of Jesus Christ, God made man, to live among us and to die for us. This is explicit in the words of the Angelus hymn, and attention could usefully be drawn to it from time to time as the hymn is used in schools. If a contemporary arrangement of the Regina Caeli is used during Eastertide, then the proclamation of the Resurrection will be added to this proclamation of the incarnation and death of Christ. The regular use of the prayer will also encourage in pupils the element of response to that primary proclamation - something that is, again, explicit in the words of the Angelus hymn when it speaks of our praising God morning, noon and evening.

My two final thoughts are that the Angelus Project takes a devotion that could be described by the word "traditional" and presents it in a very contemporary manner. And, in undertaking an exercise in "primary proclamation", it does so in the company of the Virgin Mary thereby expressing the Marian-ecclesial character of evangelisation. I like it!

The Purifying Power of Prayer

The title of this post is the title of the "Meditation of the Day" in Magnificat for today. The meditation is from St Teresa of Avila, and it was this few words that caught my attention:

For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequenly to be alone with him who we know loves us.

I think that the meditation was chosen to go with the Gospel at Mass today, which included the account of Jesus clearing the Temple of the traders (Mk 11:15-19):

Does not scripture say: My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples? But you have turned it into a robber's den.

Now I read these in the context of a recent post about talking in Church, a post based on what St Benedict says about the status of the Oratory in the monastery in Chapter 52 of his Rule:

Let the oratory be what it is called, a place of prayer; and let nothing else be done there or kept there.

In the parish and in the monastery, the Church is the place where the Liturgy is celebrated; and the Liturgy is, generally speaking, a communal prayer rather than just an individual prayer. When we attend Mass we attend along with others, and as we arrive in Church beforehand or stay for a time afterwards, there will be others present in the Church with us.

There seems to me to be a kind of dialectic between the meeting of the individual soul with God - "taking time to be alone with him who we know loves us" - and the fact that this meeting takes place alongside others. This dialectic seems to me to be served by a real, lively participation in the Liturgy, in the sense expected by the Second Vatican Council, combined with respecting the silence of the Church outside of the Liturgical celebration itself.

The Church is the place of the meeting with the Triune God, and so the individual and the others who accompany the individual come to the Church to encounter God. The encounter with each other belongs elsewhere.

Chapter 52

I have had reason over the last few weeks to keep coming back to Chapter 52 of the Rule of St Benedict.

Chapter 52 On the Oratory of the Monastery

Let the oratory be what it is called, a place of prayer; and let nothing else be done there or kept there. When the Work of God is ended, let all go out in perfect silence, and let reverence for God be observed, so that any brother who may wish to pray privately will not be hindered by another's misconduct.

I wonder why this can't apply in parish churches. It's not about being obsessively neurotic and never saying a word in church unless it is a prayer .... but, if you want to chat, why not outside the church? It's not about wanting to be unwelcoming .... but in the church I want to do something else.

I was recently totally phased - and I do mean totally - by someone who came up to me in church to ask how my week had been. My explanation that "I don't do talking in Church" probably went over more as a put down than as an explanation of why I quite literally couldn't sustain anything vaguely resembling a conversation in the circumstances.

I can't cope!

Priests

...well posted by Rita, really. [Note: the title of this post is a hyperlink to Rita's post, so you need to click on the title to get there ... thought I'd be clever ...]

A Psalm of Thanksgiving

Mother Maria-Michael posted a reflection on the readings of yesterday's liturgy, that is not without some relevance to today being the World Day of Prayer for Vocations: A Psalm of Thanksgiving.

An online retreat

House of Prayer describes itself as follows:

"My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." Mk 11:17 This site is intended as a resource for Catholics and other Christians interested in growing spiritually through prayer.

The daily posts are in the Ignatian tradition, and the side bar offers links to guidance in that same tradition. You are encouraged to join them during Lent. To gain an idea, this is the post for Wednesday of last week.

A good contemporary guide on Ignatian spirituality, which keeps its psychological insights within the context of Sacred Scripture, is welcome.

H/T Catholic Analysis.

The Genesee Diary: here and there

In at least two different places in his diary (I haven't finished reading it yet, so there might be others as well) Henri Nouwen comments on events taking place in other parts of the world. He writes with feeling of events in Chile and Africa, and about testimonies to persecution and to shortages of basic foods in these distant parts of the world. The depth of feeling with which Fr Nouwen writes makes an impression on the reader.

For the monk, more than for the lay person, there might be the sense that events such as these are "distant". It is easy to see them as not being something we should worry about; instead we should focus on our own lives, and the fulfilling of God's will in our own lives.

When discussing the question raised by this, it is easy to play these two polarities off against each other. In the Christian life, this might be expressed by a tendency to let one's commitment to "the third world" provide a gloss over things that are wrong in our immediate living of Christian life in our own circumstances. The dichotomy is one that isn't as apparent now as it was perhaps in the 1960's and 1970's.

An authentic Christian response is a "both-and" rather than an "either-or". Perhaps primarily, we should focus on living in our own, immediate circumstances. The challenges that this presents to us represent the vocation that, in the providence of God, is our particular one. Our first call, then, is to answer that vocation, and so achieve a fruitfulness in the Christian life. However, this does not mean that we should exclude that part of Christian living that might be expressed by the word "solidarity".

If we understand the monastic life as Christian living taken to its most radical form, and so see it as a model for all Christian living, it can teach us the lesson of this "both-and" very well. The monk is confined to one place - the monastery - which prompts the focus on living the Christian life in the place where he finds himself. But, at the same time, the monk can be extraordinarily well informed about what is going on in the wider world. Which opens up to the monk the possibilities of solidarity in his prayer and penance.

The Genesee Diary: "Mary's return"

I recently posted, referring to the fact that I was reading Henri Nouwen's The Genesee Diary, and suggested that it might offer some insights into how monastic life can be understood in relation to the life of a lay person.

I think it is fair for me to observe that Fr Nouwen approached his Catholic life from what one might term a more "liberal" perspective rather than from a "conservative" perspective. But that isn't to say that Fr Nouwen isn't open to the working of grace in the monastery. Take, for example, his account of his re-discovery of the part to be played by the Virgin Mary in his prayer life:

When I was a child she played a very important role in my religious development. The May and October devotions in my family are a real part of my childhood memories ... But after my seminary years, a certain antidevotionalism developed in the circles where I lived, and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, became less and less important in my religious life.

But this week "she returned". Not by an conscious attempt to restore my devotion to Our Lady .. but without any intrusiveness I found her in the heart of my search for a more contemplative life. If anything helped, it was the Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir in the Abbey chapel. ...

With a somewhat sad, melancholic gaze, Mary looks at you and points with her right hand to the child she holds on her left arm. The child is embracing her in a very affectionate way. The intimacy of the child's embrace is expressed by the little hand that, appearing from under the veil covering Mary's head, gently touches her left cheek. The child looks like a small adult ina  monk's habit.

I keep looking at this intimate scene, and peace invades my soul. Mary speaks to me about Jesus. To him she directs me ... it seems that she invites me to share in the intimacy between her and her child.

This week I often experienced resitance toward private prayer... But when I knelt in front of the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, it was different. In some way my resistance against meditation subsided, and I simply enjoyed being invited to enter into the intimacy between Jesus and Mary.

Fr Nouwen goes on to discuss how the monk acting as his spiritual guide during his stay at Genesee pointed out the psychological implications of this. Fr Nouwen was encouraged to give more space for his receptive, contemplative side - his feminine side.  More fundamentally, they might have reflected on an ecclesial implication - the contemplative nature of the monastic life as sharing in Mary's openess and receptivity to the Holy Spirit and to the coming of the Word made flesh, and the monk as an exemplar of Mary-the Church who still makes Christ present in the world.