Jubilee of Consolation

The Jubilee of Consolation is being marked on 15th September 2025.

All those who are experiencing a time of pain and affliction, due to illness, bereavement, violence or abuse, are especially invited to this jubilee event, together with their families and friends. 

The recent canonisations of Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis bring to mind the life of another young person who lived her Catholic faith to an heroic extent, Blessed Chiara "Luce" Badano. In the story of her life and of her illness there are countless moments that might be characterised as being acts of consolation. In some instances these moments are offered by Chiara to people she encounters; in others they are offered to her by her friends, particularly those in the Focolare. The following stories are told in Michele Zanzucchi's account of Chiara's life (I have an early French language edition - I think there is an updated English edition available). The first occurs during a hospital stay early in the course of Chiara's illness; the second occurs during a hospital stay during what was Chiara's last Christmas before she died. 

Her father, Ruggero, says: "At the hospital Pietra Ligura, despite the suffering and the fever, she did not stop. She concerned herself with a young girl suffering from depression in the next room. She accompanied her everywhere, for very long walks in the corridors, even if she needed to rest. Before our suggestions to take more care, she replied: 'I will have plenty of time to sleep later'."

[That day], a hospital volunteer fell into a deep existential crisis: how can a God exist if in this hospital children are dying of cancer? While Maria Teresa [Chiara's mother] went down to the bar, this woman sat with Chiara. I do not know what they said to each other, but this woman confirmed, having recovered all her courage, that this Christmas was the most beautiful of her life. "For us too, it was the same thing", insists Ruggero. 

The Bull of  Indiction for the Jubilee 2025 includes the following paragraphs:

Signs of hope should also be shown to the sick, at home or in hospital. Their sufferings can be allayed by the closeness and affection of those who visit them. Works of mercy are also works of hope that give rise to immense gratitude. Gratitude should likewise be shown to all those healthcare workers who, often in precarious conditions, carry out their mission with constant care and concern for the sick and for those who are most vulnerable.

Inclusive attention should also be given to all those in particularly difficult situations, who experience their own weaknesses and limitations, especially those affected by illnesses or disabilities that severely restrict their personal independence and freedom. Care given to them is a hymn to human dignity, a song of hope that calls for the choral participation of society as a whole.

Pope Francis: the apostolic zeal of the believer

 In his sequence of General Audience addresses dedicated to the Passion for Evangelisation: the apostolic zeal of the believer, Pope Francis has begun to offer examples from among the saints of those who witness to that zeal.

Pope Francis first example - not surprising considering his Jesuit background - is St Francis Xavier.

...Saint Francis Xavier was born into a noble but impoverished family in Navarre, northern Spain, in 1506. He went to study in Paris — he was a worldly young man, intelligent, good. There, he met Ignatius of Loyola, who made him do spiritual exercises and changed his life. And he left all his worldly career, to become a missionary. He became a Jesuit, took his vows. Then he became a priest and, sent to the East, he went to evangelize. At that time, the journeys of the missionaries to the East meant being sent to unknown worlds. And he went, because he was filled with apostolic zeal....

He arrived in Goa, India, the capital of the Portuguese East, the cultural and commercial capital. Francis Xavier set up his base there, but did not remain there. He went on to evangelize the poor fishermen of the southern coast of India, teaching catechism and prayers to children, baptizing and caring for the sick. Then, while praying one night at the tomb of the apostle Saint Bartholomew, he felt he needed to go beyond India. He left the work he had already initiated in good hands and courageously set sail for the Maluku Islands, the most distant islands of the Indonesian archipelago....

In Japan, the great dreamer, Xavier, understood that the decisive country for his mission in Asia was another: China. With its culture, its history, its size, it exercised de facto dominance over that part of the world. Even today, China is a cultural centre with a vast history, a beautiful history. He thus returned to Goa, and shortly afterwards embarked again, hoping to enter China. But his plan failed: he died at the gates of China, on an island, the small island of Sancian (Shangchuan), in front of the Chinese shoreline, waiting in vain to be able to land on the mainland near Canton. 

Pope Francis second example is St Andrew Kim Tae-Gon.

But, the first Korean priest: you know something? The evangelisation of Korea was done by the laity! It was the baptized laity who transmitted the faith, there were no priests, because they had none. Then, later... but the first evangelisation was done by the laity. Would we be capable of something like that? Let’s think about it: it’s interesting. And this is one of the first priests, St Andrew. His life was and remains an eloquent testimony of the proclamation of the Gospel, the zeal for this. 

Pope Francis draws our attention to two aspects of St Andrew's life:

The first is the way he used to meet with the faithful. Given the highly intimidating context, the saint was forced to approach Christians in a discreet manner, and always in the presence of other people, as if they had been talking to each other for awhile. Then, to confirm the Christian identity of his interlocutor, St Andrew would implement these devices: first, there was a previously agreed upon sign of recognition: “You will meet with this Christian and he will have this sign on his outfit or in his hand.” “And after that, he would surreptitiously ask the question—but all this under his breath, eh?—“Are you a disciple of Jesus?” Since other people were watching the conversation, the saint had to speak in a low voice, saying only a few words, the most essential ones. So, for Andrew Kim, the expression that summed up the whole identity of the Christian was “disciple of Christ.” “Are you a disciple of Christ?”—but in a soft voice because it was dangerous. It was forbidden to be a Christian there...

One time—think about what St Andrew did—one time, he was walking in the snow, without eating, for so long that he fell to the ground exhausted, risking unconsciousness and freezing. At that point, he suddenly heard a voice, “Get up, walk!” Hearing that voice, Andrew came to his senses, catching a glimpse of something like a shadow of someone guiding him.

This experience of the great Korean witness makes us understand a very important aspect of apostolic zeal; namely, the courage to get back up when one falls.

Those who would criticise Pope Francis when he warns against the dangers of proselytism would do well to read these audience addresses and recognise their authentic sense of the term "evangelisation". 

 

 

Novena for Pentecost: Baptism in the Spirit and love of the Church, of Mary and of the saints

 It is now some years since the relics of St Therese of Lisieux were brought to Britain. The blog recording that visit can still be accessed: Saint Therese relics blog. Very large numbers gathered at each of the venues to pray alongside the relics, in a quite exceptional manifestation of faith on the part of largely ordinary people.

A fruit of Baptism in the Spirit is exactly this kind of affection and devotion to the saints of the Church, with its double aspect of celebration of their holiness and source of teaching for the living of the Christian life. The practice of testimonies, typical of the Renewal but not exclusive to it, is a kind of reflection of this. 

Often there is also a new closeness to Mary, the Mother of Christ and spouse of the Holy Spirit. Her presence in the upper room awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is a prompt leading to an appreciation of Mary's presence to and intercession for the Church today. It is interesting in this respect that Pope Francis, very familiar with the Charismatic Renewal, has established in the universal calendar the Memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, that is celebrated on the Monday immediately after Pentecost Sunday.

It is not a surprise that, alongside this love for the saints and for the Virgin Mary, there is a love for the Church. Baptism in the Spirit encourages, not a sense of separation between the Church as a visible institution and the freedom of those gifted with a charism, but a profound sense that the visible, hierarchically structured institution is at one and the same time the institution that is animated by the Holy Spirit. There is a strong commitment to unity within the Body of Christ.

I miss saints during Lent ....

 The liturgy of the Lenten season gives precedence to the week days of Lent over the celebration of those saints who would otherwise be celebrated as memorials or optional memorials. They become "commemorations". And I miss these celebrations of saints ....

Yesterday (9th March) would have seen the celebration of St Frances of Rome. MAGNIFICAT included as its "Meditation of the Day" an extract from an address by Pope Benedict XVI during a visit in 2009 to the monastery of the order of Benedictine oblates founded by St Frances. I was particularly struck by the following section, which reflects the charism of St Frances which is both prayerful and charitable. It is the connection of the gift of a motherhood to that of religious self-gift that caught my attention.

..... I wish to emphasise the feminine dimension: women, who belong wholly to God and wholly to their neighbour; women who are capable of recollection and of generous and discreet service in conversation with Christ and in first-hand experience in the area of charity, assistance to the sick, to the marginalised, to minors in difficulty. This is the gift of a motherhood that is one with religious self-gift, after the model of Mary Most Holy. Let us think of the mystery of the Visitation. Immediately after conceiving the Word of God in her heart and in her flesh, Mary set out to go and help her elderly kinswoman Elizabeth. Mary's heart is the cloister where the Word continues to speak in silence, and at the same time it is the crucible of a charity that is conducive to courageous gestures, as well as to a persevering and hidden sharing.

Canonisations

I am delighted that Archbishop Oscar Romero and Pope Paul VI are now "officially" saints of the Church. This from Pope Francis' homily at the canonisation Mass:

Jesus is radical. He gives all and he asks all: he gives a love that is total and asks for an undivided heart. Even today he gives himself to us as the living bread; can we give him crumbs in exchange? We cannot respond to him, who made himself our servant even going to the cross for us, only by observing some of the commandments. We cannot give him, who offers us eternal life, some odd moment of time. Jesus is not content with a “percentage of love”: we cannot love him twenty or fifty or sixty percent. It is either all or nothing.....

Today Jesus invites us to return to the source of joy, which is the encounter with him, the courageous choice to risk everything to follow him, the satisfaction of leaving something behind in order to embrace his way. The saints have travelled this path.

Paul VI did too, after the example of the Apostle whose name he took. Like him, Paul VI spent his life for Christ’s Gospel, crossing new boundaries and becoming its witness in proclamation and in dialogue, a prophet of a Church turned outwards, looking to those far away and taking care of the poor. Even in the midst of tiredness and misunderstanding, Paul VI bore witness in a passionate way to the beauty and the joy of following Christ totally. Today he still urges us, together with the Council whose wise helmsman he was, to live our common vocation: the universal call to holiness. Not to half measures, but to holiness. It is wonderful that together with him and the other new saints today, there is Archbishop Romero, who left the security of the world, even his own safety, in order to give his life according to the Gospel, close to the poor and to his people, with a heart drawn to Jesus and his brothers and sisters. We can say the same about Francesco Spinelli, Vincenzo Romano, Maria Caterina Kasper, Nazaria Ignazia of Saint Teresa of Jesus, and also our Abruzzese-Neapolitan young man, Nunzio Sulprizio: the saintly, courageous, humble young man who encountered Jesus in his suffering, in silence and in the offering of himself. All these saints, in different contexts, put today’s word into practice in their lives, without lukewarmness, without calculation, with the passion to risk everything and to leave it all behind. Brothers and sisters, may the Lord help us to imitate their example.  

Brief biographies of those canonised alongside Archbishop Romero and Pope Paul VI can be found here.

Decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints

I was delighted to hear that the Trappist monks of the monastery at Tibhirine have been recognised as martyrs - a step that makes possible their beatification. They are among the "18 companions" of Bishop Claverie.

Also a great delight: the recognition of the heroic virtues of Madeleine Delbrel, included in the same announcement from the Holy See but which only came to my attention today.

Text of notice at the Holy See website.

Padre Pio and the stigmata

Today's memorial of St Pio of Pietrelcina has reminded me of writing an article about him for a parish magazine at the time of his canonisation. At the time, St Pio was not someone about whom I knew much, and he was not someone to whom I had any special devotion.

One of the things I found unusual about him was that, as a man, he experienced the stigmata, the marking of his body with the wounds of the passion of Christ. Most of the other stigmatists I knew of at the time were women, so I had a sense of the stigmata as part of a feminine charism in the Church, certainly as far as the contemporary life of the Church is concerned. This is what I wrote about it at the time:

The core of Padre Pio’s active apostolate and his spiritual mission in the Church, however, is his being marked with the wounds of Christ, the stigmata.  The visible marks are an outward sign of a lived experience of the crucifixion, both as a willing self-offering on the part of the person involved and as a gift from God of being able to take part in the suffering of Jesus himself.  Padre Pio is distinguished from his contemporary stigmatists (Marthe Robin, Adrienne von Speyr, Therese Neumann) as a man and as a priest.  Where their experience of the Passion is associated with time - from Thursday evening to Sunday morning or the period of the Easter Triduum - Padre Pio’s experience is associated with his celebration of the Eucharist.  Eyewitness accounts describe the intense pain that he experienced in his hands, feet and whole body as he celebrated Mass.  At the words of Consecration, said hesitantly and with frequent repeating of words, “he is literally on the cross with Christ”.  Blood flowed from the wounds in Padre Pio’s hands, feet and side.  After his Mass, Padre Pio would spend many hours celebrating the Sacrament of Penance.  This aspect of his mission in the Church can also be seen in the light of the stigmata.  In this sacrament, the Church bears the burden of sin “for others” and for Padre Pio this was explicit in the way in which he offered himself as a victim for others.  Whilst there are many stories of Padre Pio’s supernatural insight into the lives of those who came to him for confession, he was for the majority of people simply a very good confessor and counsellor.

The Collect for his feast captures something of the essence of St Pio's mission in the Church:

Almighty ever-living God, who, by a singular grace, gave the Priest Saint Pius a share in the Cross of your Son and, by means of his ministry, renewed the wonders of your mercy, grant that through his intercession we may united constantly to the sufferings of Christ, and so brought happily to the glory of the resurrection.

[For those not familiar with the phenomenon of the stigmata, it is a rare occurrence in the life of the Church, but well attested in the lives of those who experience it. As I indicate above, it should not be seen as just a "wonder" but as an expression of a particular gift and mission given to an individual in the Church.]

All the Cathedrals (5): Durham

Our visit to Durham Cathedral was part of a long weekend visit that Zero and I took to Durham, courtesy of a recently purchased Two Together railcard and Advance tickets (ie as economic an arrangement of train travel as possible). Ed Balls, then an active politician rather than a star of Strictly Come Dancing, was on the train that was in front of us on the East Coast mainline, and which broke down just north of Peterborough delaying us for over an hour .... which meant we could reclaim the cost of that part of our journey. Our weekend took us to the Beamish Museum (follow the "Explore and Discover" links in the menu at the top left), with a ride on a "heritage" Blackpool tram .... but not that "heritage", as it was exactly like the trams I can remember travelling on when I was being raised in the Blackpool area. We also visited Crookhall Gardens, which can be found readily just off the centre of Durham city itself.

It is worth arriving in Durham by train, as, particularly arriving from the south, there is a splendid view of the Cathedral from the viaduct carrying the railway.

Durham Cathedral takes part in the not uncommon narrative of Benedictine community, Romanesque building at the time of the Norman conquest, dissolution of the monastic community and establishing of a Cathedral see with a chapter of canons at the time of Henry VIII and a further intrusion at the time of the Civil War. This page at the Cathedral website gives an outline of its history. These video clips give an idea of the setting and the architecture of the Cathedral: Durham Cathedral: Builders & Buildings and Durham, England: Magnificent Norman Cathedral. Zero and I enjoyed a stroll along the river bank that encircles the Cathedral on three sides.

Links from this page will tell you something of the different areas of interest in the Cathedral building. Do explore these links, as doing so will provide something of the experience of visiting the Cathedral. A visit to the Cathedral's tower provides superb views of the surrounding countryside.

An additional dimension of the history of Durham Cathedral is its role as the shrine of St Cuthbert. The shrine was destroyed at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, and the tomb damaged. An account of the shrine can be found here, and the remains of the tomb itself have been preserved. It is interesting that the Church of England appears willing now to restore a shrine such as this, perhaps from a mixture of historical and religious motivation. The Galilee Chapel of the Cathedral also houses a shrine enclosing the bones of St Bede.

Durham itself has a very young feel to it, especially if you visit during term time. The collegiate nature of the university is reflected as you walk up the hill to visit the Cathedral, as you pass entrances to a number of university buildings. Durham is built on a hill, so visitors should expect to walk up and down rather than along the flat.

St Maximilian Kolbe: an "offering of life"

Some spirited remarks about St Maximilian Kolbe in this morning's homily have reminded me to place alongside each other the text of Pope St John Paul II's homily at the canonisation Mass for the saint (Italian original here, English translation here) and Pope Francis' recent motu proprio Maiorem Hac Dilectionem establishing the offer of life as a cause for beatification.

Speaking of the event of St Maximilian's death, Pope St John Paul II said:

All this happened in the concentration camp at Auschwitz where during the last war some four million people were put to death, including the Servant of God, Edith Stein (the Carmelite Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), whose cause for beatification is in progress at the competent Congregation. Disobedience to God-the Creator of life who said, "Thou shalt not kill"-caused in that place the immense holocaust of so many innocent persons. And so at the same time, our age has thus been horribly stigmatized by the slaughter of the innocent.

Father Maximilian Kolbe, himself a prisoner of the concentration camp, defended in that place of death an innocent man's right to life. Father Kolbe defended his right to life, declaring that he was ready to go to death in the man's place, because he was the father of a family and his life was necessary for his dear ones. Father Maximilian Maria Kolbe thus reaffirmed the Creator's exclusive right over innocent human life. He bore witness to Christ and to love. For the Apostle John writes: "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16).

I have added the italics to try to draw out how John Paul II's words indicate a way of understanding the intention of Pope Francis' idea of an "offer of life". Later in the homily, this becomes clearer still:

Men saw what happened in the camp at Auschwitz. And even if to their eyes it must have seemed that a companion of their torment "dies," even if humanly speaking they could consider "his departure" as "a disaster," nevertheless in their minds this was not simply "death." Maximilian did not die but "gave his life...for his brother." In that death, terrible from the human point of view, there was the whole definitive greatness of the human act and of the human choice. He spontaneously offered himself up to death out of love.

And in this human death of his there was the clear witness borne to Christ: the witness borne in Christ to the dignity of man, to the sanctity of his life, and to the saving power of death in which the power of love is made manifest.  

Pope Francis characterises the offer of life as "a free and voluntary offer of life and heroic acceptance propter caritatem of a certain and untimely death". Pope John Paul II, to an extent foreshadowing Pope Francis' motu proprio, assimilated St Maximilian's offer of his life to martyrdom and proclaimed that St Maximilian was to be recognised, not just as a confessor of the faith, but as a martyr for the faith.

Many years ago now I recall speaking and writing about Archbishop Oscar Romero and Fr Jerzy Popieluszko as "martyrs for the truth about man". I think we can see in both of these great figures examples of the "offering of life" which Pope Francis has now established as a way to beatification.

Pope Francis' homily for All Saints

I have not been able to follow Pope Francis' visit to Sweden to mark the anniversary of the Reformation, due to pressures of work and family events.

However, I have just read the text of his homily for the Solemnity of All Saints which, though it touches on ecumenism only lightly, nevertheless speaks of an underpinning principle of ecumenical activity, that is, of a common search for holiness rooted in the consecration of Baptism.

Like Pope Benedict XVI before him, Pope Francis can provide a lovely turn of phrase:

The Beatitudes are the image of Christ and consequently of each Christian..... 

....meekness is the attitude of those who have nothing to lose, because their only wealth is God..... 

The Beatitudes are in some sense the Christian’s identity card. They identify us as followers of Jesus..... 

To our heavenly Mother, Queen of All Saints, we entrust our intentions and the dialogue aimed at the full communion of all Christians, so that we may be blessed in our efforts and may attain holiness in unity.

I also noted his reference to the foundress (and re-foundress) of the Order of St Bridget, topical both because of Pope Francis' presence in Sweden and because of the ecumenical context of his visit. The charism of the Bridgettines is hospitality and prayer for the unity of Christians and, for me, they represent one example of how the mission to ecumenism represented in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council is lived out, not as some kind of "extra", but as an ordinary part of the life of the Church. (The charism of the spirituality of unity of the Focolare movement is another example of the living out of the ecumenical impulse in the daily life of the Church).

All Saints

It seems to have become an unquestionable absolute that the homily at Mass should be based upon the Scripture readings - but the rubric actually reads (General Instruction n.65, with my italics added):

The Homily is part of the Liturgy and is highly recommended, for it is necessary for the nurturing of Christian life. It should be an explanation of some aspect of the readings from Sacred Scripture or of another text from the Ordinary or Proper of the Mass of the day and should take into account both the mystery being celebrated and the particular needs of the listeners.

So, for a feast like that of All Saints, it is quite legitimate to use the Liturgical texts other than the readings to explain exactly what it is that the feast celebrates. And this is an interesting exercise, and one that itself is not lacking in Scriptural reference.

From the Preface, which has a title in the Missal of "The glory of Jerusalem, our mother":

... today by your gift we celebrate the festival of your city, the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother ... Towards her we eagerly hasten as pilgrims advancing by faith ...

The proper prayers of the Mass also indicate an important characteristic of the Feast, namely that of our need for the intercession of the saints. The Prayer over the Offerings, for example:

May these offerings we bring in honour of all the Saints be pleasing to you, O Lord, and grant that, just as we believe the Saints to be already assured of immortality, so we may experience their concern for our salvation.

What is striking too is something that emerges from the hymns at Vespers and Lauds for the feast day. It is very apparent in the Latin hymns, rather less so but not absent from the hymns in the English "Liturgy of the Hours". These hymns refer in turn to the Virgin Mary, the angels, patriarchs and prophets, the apostles, martyrs and confessors, virgins and religious, in turn asking each category of saint to intercede for us.

I suspect that it is common place for the feast to be explained as a celebration of those who are in heaven but have not been formally declared saints by the Church - and it is certainly that. It may well refer to people whom we have known and who have lived their Christian vocation in a way that has inspired others - and I do feel that this "ordinary sanctity" of parish life can too often go unnoticed.

But the office hymns suggest challenging models of the road to sanctity followed by the saints. The celebration of the feast asks us to learn how these models can be lived in the contemporary world.  Those who live the married vocation in fidelity to Catholic teaching, for example, might well in future times be seen as confessors of the faith in their particular circumstances of life; current events in the Middle East also clearly show confessors and martyrs in the more usual sense.

All Saints is a good example of a feast day on which a homily limited to explaining  the Scripture readings will miss out important aspects of what the feast itself actually celebrates.

St Pio of Pietrelcina

St Pio is not a saint to whom I take naturally, so it was rather a challenge at the time of his canonisation to engage with the stories of his life and to try and understand that life as a charism and a mission for the Church. Below is part of an article I wrote at that time. It tries to identify exactly what was St Pio's mission in and for the Church. I think the prime source for the account of the pain he experienced during the celebration of Mass is the testimony of American soldiers and airmen who attended his Mass while serving nearby during the Second World War.

Padre Pio is a witness to the reality of a supernatural existence.  Just as he lived in the physical world, he also experienced ecstatic encounters with Jesus and the saints in heaven.  These joyful encounters were matched by an acute sense of his own sinfulness and a despairing experience of temptation; Padre Pio’s spiritual experience was that of an oscillation between heaven and hell.  Whilst this might appear remarkable to us, it is an experience shared by the great mystics St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross and expressed in the poetry of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament: “Then I rose to open to my Beloved….but he had turned his back and gone!”.   

There are countless stories of healings in response to intercession by Padre Pio, some better attested than others.  When he was in Rome as a Bishop for the Second Vatican Council, Karol Wojtyla asked Padre Pio to pray for one of his closest friends and collaborators in Krakow.  When he telephoned Krakow the day after major surgery was due, he learned that Wanda Poltawska had returned home healed of her cancer without having undergone the surgery.  The effectiveness of Padre Pio’s intercession arises from his self-offering to God as a victim for others.

The core of Padre Pio’s active apostolate and his spiritual mission in the Church, however, is his being marked with the wounds of Christ, the stigmata.  The visible marks are an outward sign of a lived experience of the crucifixion, both as a willing self-offering on the part of the person involved and as a gift from God of being able to take part in the suffering of Jesus himself.  Padre Pio is distinguished from his contemporary stigmatists (Marthe Robin, Adrienne von Speyr, Therese Neumann) as a man and as a priest.  Where their experience of the Passion is associated with time - from Thursday evening to Sunday morning or the period of the Easter Triduum - Padre Pio’s experience is associated with his celebration of the Eucharist.  Eyewitness accounts describe the intense pain that he experienced in his hands, feet and whole body as he celebrated Mass.  At the words of Consecration, said hesitantly and with frequent repeating of words, “he is literally on the cross with Christ”.  Blood flowed from the wounds in Padre Pio’s hands, feet and side.  After his Mass, Padre Pio would spend many hours celebrating the Sacrament of Penance.  This aspect of his mission in the Church can also be seen in the light of the stigmata.  In this sacrament, the Church bears the burden of sin “for others” and for Padre Pio this was explicit in the way in which he offered himself as a victim for others.  Whilst there are many stories of Padre Pio’s supernatural insight into the lives of those who came to him for confession, he was for the majority of people simply a very good confessor and counsellor.

St Pio would also appear to have had a somewhat wicked sense of humour. My article relates a prank he organised at the expense of some of his fellow Franciscans that involved exaggerating the pain of a cholera inoculation they were all receiving  - to the extent that one fellow priest fainted and another approached the doctor having gone as white as a sheet. My favourite anecdote, however, relates to St Pio's expressed views in favour of the refrigerator and against the television, delivered, if my memory is correct, in the community room of his friary. "The inventor of the refrigerator ..."[pointing upwards]; "... the inventor of the television ..." [pointing downwards].

Why saints? .... Why blogs?

From time to time - and perhaps rather less so now than in the past - I have had cause to write about "saints" in a broad sense; that is, about men and women who, whether formally recognised by the Church as saints or not, offer inspiration to us in the living of the Christian mystery. I recall quite consciously trying to do three things whenever I did so:

1. To describe something of the saints personal life journey

2. To give some sense, usually by anecdote, of what it would have been like to know the saint as a person

3. To identify the particular charism of the saint, the particular gift that they represent to the Church and for the world.

It will always be the case that a saint, in this broad sense, lives at a particular time and in a particular place and so their charism has roots in a particular time and a particular place - and, indeed, perhaps in a particular activity in that time and place. A particular dimension that occurs when the Church officially recognises such a saint in the processes of beatification and canonisation is the recognition of a universal significance to that charism from a particular time and particular place. At this point, it is perhaps my second and third points that are most in play, though they cannot be completely separated from the first.

The teaching of the Second Vatican Council's constitution Lumen Gentium (n.50) on the communion of saints is instructive in this regard (my emphasis added):

When we look at the lives of those who have faithfully followed Christ, we are inspired with a new reason for seeking the City that is to come and at the same time we are shown a most safe path by which among the vicissitudes of this world, in keeping with the state in life and condition proper to each of us, we will be able to arrive at perfect union with Christ, that is, perfect holiness. In the lives of those who, sharing in our humanity, are however more perfectly transformed into the image of Christ, God vividly manifests His presence and His face to men. He speaks to us in them, and gives us a sign of His Kingdom, to which we are strongly drawn, having so great a cloud of witnesses over us  and such a witness to the truth of the Gospel.

The next section of this paragraph, however, goes on to suggest that our regard for the saints is at the service of the communion of the Church (my emphasis added):

 Nor is it by the title of example only that we cherish the memory of those in heaven, but still more in order that the union of the whole Church may be strengthened in the Spirit by the practice of fraternal charity. For just as Christian communion among wayfarers brings us closer to Christ, so our companionship with the saints joins us to Christ, from Whom as from its Fountain and Head issues every grace and the very life of the people of God. It is supremely fitting, therefore, that we love those friends and coheirs of Jesus Christ, who are also our brothers and extraordinary benefactors, that we render due thanks to God for them and "suppliantly invoke them and have recourse to their prayers, their power and help in obtaining benefits from God through His Son, Jesus Christ, who is our Redeemer and Saviour." For every genuine testimony of love shown by us to those in heaven, by its very nature tends toward and terminates in Christ who is the "crown of all saints," and through Him, in God Who is wonderful in his saints and is magnified in them.

I reflect on this because of the reaction on Catholic blogs to the recent canonisations of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II (and what is probably about to ensue with regard to the beatification of Pope Paul VI). Whilst it is a truism that canonisation does not canonise each and every action of the saint, it does nevertheless "canonise" the charity and charism of the saint indicating that this charity and charism are of permanent and universal value for the life of the Church. It recognises the second and third points made above.

I have found it somewhat disingenuous - and decidedly not at the service of communion - to see blog comment that criticises the canonisations because this or that policy of the one Pope or the other does not meet with approval. That is to avoid the real question that exists for a canonisation, namely, the recognition of the charity and charism of the person canonised, and of their universal significance for the Church. If we are completely honest, can we not recognise in much of that criticism an underlying antagonism towards the Second Vatican Council?

If blogging has the same purpose for a Catholic as has regard for the saints - namely, growth in communion - what has been the point of Catholic blogging in this regard? And should not that blogging examine its conscience a little more critically than it appears inclined so to do?

Two Collects

One of the themes of Pope Benedict XVI's time as Pope was that of the correct relationship between faith and reason, between what we can know through revelation and what we can know through the natural exercise of human reason. Two of his most controversial addresses - that at Regensburg and the one that he was unable to deliver at La Sapienza University in Rome - touched on this in different contexts. The Regensburg address set the question in the light of the nature of religious freedom and the challenge to that freedom represented by coercion of religious belief, before going on to examine the relationship between Christian faith and reason in a treatment ranging from ancient times to the present day. The La Sapienza address started from the point of view of how a historically received set of beliefs still remains a form of the wisdom that should have a part in a contemporary search for ethical truth, and then explored this particularly in the relative relationship between reason and belief in the search for what is ethically true, in the context of the mediaeval university and the contemporary university. Pope Benedict's address in Westminster Hall placed the question in the context of the relationship between religious belief and political activity.

In the light of this, I found the Collect for yesterday's feast of St Albert the Great quite pertinent. I offer two translations, one from the "Liturgy of the Hours" and the second from the revised English translation of the Missal. Their relevance to the pontificate of Benedict XVI illustrates, in my view, how the texts of the Liturgy at once can specifically reflect the charism of a particular saint, but at the same time retain a universal applicability:

Lord God,
you made Saint Albert great by his gift
for reconciling human wisdom with divine faith.
Help us so to follow his teaching
that every advance in science
may lead us to a deeper knowledge and love of you.

O God, who made the Bishop Saint Albert great
by his joining of human wisdom to divine faith
grant, we pray, that we may so adhere to the truths he taught,
that through progress in learning
we may come to a deeper knowledge and love of you.

In my own diocese, Saint Edmund of Abingdon's feast day is today celebrated as an obligatory memorial. He is one of the patrons of the diocese. Again, the Collect for the feast day expresses both something of St Edmund's charism whilst retaining an uncanny relevance to modern times:

O God, by whose grace the Bishop Saint Edmund of Abingdon
was vigilant over integrity in public office
and discipline in religious life,
grant, we pray, through his intercession,
that same spirit of constancy to your Church,
that she may be fearless in promoting justice.

Concerning Pope Paul VI

I would add my voice to that of those who look forward to the possible beatification (and canonisation) of Pope Paul VI. Aunty Joanna: News... and Stella Maris: Pope Paul VI..Venerable? Yes.

It is possible to characterise him as a Pope who has been much misunderstood, but I think it is also important to recognise that he is a Successor of Peter whose stature matches up to that of his immediate successors. But it simply isn't known, perhaps largely to the media coverage that he attracted, though I was not around at the time to know how true that is.

My own thought has been that, at some key points in his pontificate, Pope Paul appears to have acted  with a vivid sense of his charism as the Successor of Peter. What I would dearly like to see is some investigation as to whether or not at these moments he acted in response to an immediately given charismatic intervention of the Holy Spirit. Of the nature of things, we might never know; but one can perhaps nevertheless see clearly a faithfulness to his calling as Successor of Peter.

One such moment might be his attribution of the title "Mother of the Church" to the Blessed Virgin Mary during his address at the closure of the second session of the Vatican Council (n.21 - no English translation on the Vatican website), when the Council itself had not seen fit to address her with that title. Hans Urs von Balthasar subsequently identified this as vitally important, and it certainly characterises the sense of Marian/ecclesial existence that is my natural environment post-Vatican II (as opposed to Marian devotion as some kind of "additionality").

Another has to be Humanae Vitae, and Pope Paul himself seems to offer a hint at this in his introductory remarks in the Encyclical:

6. However, the conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain, dispensing Us from the duty of examining personally this serious question. This was all the more necessary because, within the commission itself, there was not complete agreement concerning the moral norms to be proposed, and especially because certain approaches and criteria for a solution to this question had emerged which were at variance with the moral doctrine on marriage constantly taught by the magisterium of the Church.

Consequently, now that We have sifted carefully the evidence sent to Us and intently studied the whole matter, as well as prayed constantly to God, We, by virtue of the mandate entrusted to Us by Christ, intend to give Our reply to this series of grave questions.

And the last possibility is the Profession of Faith since known as the Credo of the People of God, delivered as the homily at the Mass to conclude the Year of Faith and delivered just weeks before Humanae Vitae was published. It is one of the most striking examples of "confirming the brethren int he faith" that one can read.

Texts for All Saints

On the basis that the texts of the Liturgy can offer a teaching on the nature of a feast day being celebrated, it is quite interesting to look at the texts that I encountered for todays Solemnity of All Saints.

The first text to catch my attention was the office hymn for Morning Prayer, or perhaps more strictly, Laudes matutinas, since I use the Latin breviary for the hymn rather than the English. The hymn is Iesu, salvator saeculi and a translation can be found by scrolling down at this page. I was struck by the way in which the hymn presents categories of saints in order interceding for us: the Mother of God (v.1) , the angels, patriarchs and prophets (v.2), the Baptist (v.3), martyrs, confessors and virgins (v.4) and monks (v.5). The hymn for Vespers, Christe, redemptor omnium (translation on the same page as before) has a similar ordering, which includes the apostles. The ordering represents a ranking in order of closeness of participation in the work of Christ, and also in the historical order of salvation history.

The other text that I encountered was the introduction to the Mass for today contained in Magnificat. This was extracted from the words of Pope Benedict XVI:

To become saints means to fulfil completely what we already are, raised to the dignity of God's adopted children in Christ Jesus ...The saints bring to light in a creative fashion quite new human potentialities .... The saints are themselves the living spaces into which one can turn ... There is no isolation in heaven. It is the open society of the saints and, consequently, also teh fulfilment of all human togetherness ... One might say that the saints are, so to speak, new Christian constellations, in which the richness of God's goodness is reflected. Their light, coming from God, enables us to know better the interior richness of God's great light .....Nothing can bring us into close contact with the beauty of Christ himself other than the world of beauty created by faith and light that shines out from the faces of the saints, through whom his own light becomes visible.

And the final text was the Preface from the Mass for today:

For today by your gift we celebrate the festival of your city, the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother, where the great array of our brothers and sisters already gives you eternal praise.

It is true that this feast day celebrates the future glory for which we on earth live in hope, and so has an aspect of reference to ourselves. But these texts point us away from ourselves and towards heaven, towards the "great array" of the angels and saints who there live in worship of the glory of God

Will any be called Matthew?

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, announced the recruitment of an extra 2000 tax inspectors at the Liberal Democrat Conference.

More than 2,000 tax inspectors will be recruited to crack down on tax evasion among the wealthiest people in the UK, a Liberal Democrat minister has said.  

Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, told the Lib Dem conference that this would ensure 350,000 top earners paid their "fair share" of tax....

The renewed drive against tax evasion is designed to prevent the richest people in Britain from hiding the true extent of their liabilities and ensure they contribute to efforts to reduce the UK's huge deficit.

I wonder if any of these tax collectors will be called Matthew?

God of mercy,
you chose a tax collector, Saint Matthew,
to share the dignity of the apostles.
By his example and prayers
help us to follow Christ
and remain faithful in your service.

St Robert Bellarmine on faith and science

I have a soft spot for St Robert Bellarmine, in part because of his consideration of the relationship between science and Christian faith outlined below, and in part because of the affinity of his stature in the Catholic Church of his time to that of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The account below dates from some work I did in 1997. The principle source for the thinking of Robert Bellarmine is a two volume biography by written by William Brodrick and published in 1928.

In April 1615, St. Robert Bellarmine wrote a letter to the author of a book which had defended the Copernican view of the universe, clearly addressing the letter to Galileo as well.  St. Robert Bellarmine fulfilled a role in the Church of his time similar to that of Cardinal Ratzinger in our own time (ie in 1997).  He was a man of great intellect and profound devotion.  He was well informed about the state of contemporary scientific endeavour and seems to have had quite cordial communications with Galileo.  His letter is strikingly modern, and very concisely presents an answer to the debate as it had come to be presented.

“..It seems to me that your Reverence and Signor Galileo act prudently when you content yourselves with speaking hypothetically and not absolutely, as I have always understood Copernicus spoke..”

This is a reference to the fact that the Copernican view was an interpretation of astronomical observations.  At least one other successful interpretation was possible at the time, and it is in this sense that the Copernican view represented a “hypothetical” rather than an “absolute” claim.  To accept it as a “hypothesis” in this sense was quite a different thing than accepting it as being the way things really were.

“..If there were a real proof that the Sun is in the centre of the universe ... and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining the passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true..”

This is the critical passage in the letter.  Underlying it is the conviction that the results of scientific study and the content of Christian faith are in harmony with each other.  When science can offer convincing proof, then it is necessary to look again at the way in which Scripture is understood. 

“But I do not think there is any such proof since none has been shown to me..I believe that the first demonstration (i.e. that the Copernican view is a workable hypothesis) may exist, but I have grave doubts about the second (i.e. the existence of proof that the Copernican view is the way things really are); and in the case of doubt one may not abandon the Holy Scriptures as expounded by the holy Fathers..”

This is an important balancing of the previously expressed willingness to look again at the way in which Scripture is understood.  In the seventeenth century there really was not any absolute evidence of the earth’s movement through space.  In the twentieth century there is, and, if he were alive today, St. Robert Bellarmine would accept that proof and be willing to understand Scripture differently as a consequence.

The decree of 1616, in St. Robert Bellarmine’s account of how it was notified by him to Galileo, was that the Copernican view “is contrary to Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended or held”.  In the sense of St. Robert Bellarmine’s letter, this decree still allowed discussion of Copernicus view as a working hypothesis, and this seems to have been the way in which both Bellarmine and Galileo understood it.

Seen in this context, the decree of 1616 is not unreasonable.  However, history has come to see it as a defining moment in the development of a gulf between science and Christian faith, with particular ill-feeling being directed at the Catholic Church.  This might be accounted for by the stricter interpretation given to the decree by some churchmen and by the controversialist stance taken by Galileo, both of which combined to lead to Galileo’s trial in 1633. But the inappropriate opposition of science and Scripture around which the whole affair developed did not find support amongst the best Catholic thinkers of the time.

Julian of Norwich Part 4: the hazel nut

In the Short Text, Julian describes a vision that she recieves of a hazel-nut in the palm of her hand. For someone from a scientific background, this  passage represents an interesting meditation on the idea of creation as sustaining in being. But the passage about the hazel nut is placed close to a passage about Our Lady, and it is difficult to read the two passages apart from each other. Together, they place Our Lady at the head of creation, and give to the doctrine of creation a Marian/Christological intent. There is also a hint in the passage of a teaching on union with God that might be more familiar from the writing of St John of the Cross.

And in this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazel-nut, lying in the palm of my hand, and to my mind's eye it was as round as any ball. I looked at it and thought, "What can this be?" And the answer came to me, "It is all that is made". I wondered how it could last, for it was so small I thought it might suddenly disappear. And the answer in my mind was, "It lasts and will last for ever because God loves it; and in the same way everything exists through the love of God". In this little thing I saw three attributes: the first is that God made it, the second is that he loves it, the third is that God cares for it. But what does this mean to me? Truly, the maker, the lover, the carer: for until I become one substance with him, I can never have love, rest or true bliss; that is to say, until I am bound to him that there may be no created thing between my God and me....

Then God brought our Lady into my mind. I saw her spiritually in bodily likeness, a meek and simple maid, young of age, in the same bodily form as when she conceived. God also showed me part of the wisdom and truth of her soul so that I understood with what reverence she beheld her God who is her maker, and how reverently she marvelled that he chose to be born of her, a simple creature of his own making. For what made her marvel was that he who was her Maker chose to be born of the creature he had made... With this sight I really understood that she is greater in worthiness and fullness of grace than all that God made below her; for nothing that is made is above her except the blessed Manhood of Christ. This little thing that is made that is below our Lady Saint Mary, God showed it to me as small as if it had been a hazel-nut. It was so small I thought it might have disappeared.

Julian of Norwich: Part 3

In which I consider Julian's treatment of God as mother or, more precisely, of Jesus as mother.

Thus our Lady is our mother in whom we are all enclosed and we are born from her in Christ; for she who is mother of our Saviour is mother of all who will be saved in our Saviour. And our Saviour is our true mother in whom we are eternally born and by whom we shall always be enclosed.

This is a first sense in which Julian describes Christ as mother, and she does it in a relation to her understanding of the motherhood of the Virgin Mary. A reading of both texts of the Revelations indicates a Marian dimension to Julian's writing that has a very modern ring to it, though studies explain this dimension in the context of a growth in Marian devotion at Julian's time, a growth that more feminist interpretations put down to wish at the time to find a more feminine aspect to a religion dominated by maleness. Julian also does this in the context of the Church as the Body of Christ and mother of all Christians, the Marian dimension also having an ecclesial dimension.

The second, and more systematically developed, way in which Julian describes Christ as mother is in the context of the Holy Trinity.

I considered the operation of all the Holy Trinity, and in doing so I saw and understood these three properties: the property of fatherhood, the property of motherhood and the property of lordship, all in one God. In our almighty Father we are sustained and blessed as far as our essential nature is concerned, which belongs to us through our making since before time began; and in the second Person, who is Intellect and Wisdom, we are sustained as far as our sensory being, our redemption and salvation are concerned; for he is our mother, brother and saviour. And in our good lord the Holy Ghost we have our reward and recompense for our living and suffering; and endless surpassing of all we desire comes from his marvellous generosity, his great and abundant grace.

Julian draws a distinction between the "essential" and the "sensory" in man, which might roughly though inexactly be considered a distinction between soul and body. This is a context in which she further develops the idea of motherhood in the activity of the Trinity. She identifies the act of creation with the Father, that of redemption with the Son/mother and that of grace with the lord/Holy Ghost. The moment of the passion and death of Jesus is described by Julian as a labour, giving birth to the redeeming of mankind; and his feeding us with his Body and Blood in the Eucharist is likened to a mother feeding her child with her own milk.

.. Jesus is our true mother by nature, at our first creation, and he is out true mother in grace by taking on our created nature ...

I understand three ways of seeing motherhood in God: the first is that he is the ground of our natural creation, the second is the taking on of our nature (and there the motherhood of grace begins), the third is the motherhood of works ...

... we are redeemed by the motherhood of mercy and grace and brought back into our natural dwelling where we were made by the motherhood of natural love; a natural love which never leaves us.

In using the word "mother" of Christ, there is no suggestion that Julian intends in any way to attribute a female identity to him, and indeed she uses the masculine pronoun of him. Whilst the offices of "father" and "mother" in the Godhead (see below) are in themselves analogous with regard to gender, Julian does not suggest anything other than that Christ becomes incarnate as a man.

In using the word "mother" of Christ, Julian does not intend any denial of a "fatherhood" in God. On the contrary, such fatherhood is affirmed.

Whilst it may not be possible to dissociate Julian's use of the word "mother" of Christ completely from a question about gender, nevertheless such a question is not the purpose of her writing with regard to the motherhood of God. In this sense, one can challenge the view that Julian should be seen as an icon for a feminist theological hermeneutic.

The essence of what Julian means by the term "mother" as applied to Christ is the delineation of an office (in the sense in which Hans Urs von Balthasar would use that term), an existence and a work, within the life of the Trinity and in the action of the Trinity ad extra. The same can be said of her use of the term "father" with regard to the first person of the Trinity, and one can suggest in following her that the Christian tradition might become more aware of fatherhood in the Trinity as an office. Both terms are analogous (in the sense of the analogy of being) to the human experiences of mother and father.

There is an ecclesiological development of Julian's thought that might be explored further. This arises from her use of the word "enclosed" - that we are enclosed in both the Virgin Mary and in Christ. We are enclosed in Mary as a figure of the Church and we are enclosed in Christ, whose mystical body is the Church.