study

I was not a good student at high school. On a good day my exam results reached average.  Many of my teachers taught me what I had to learn, but no one thought of telling me how to learn it.  

Tonight I leave NZ for two months study leave at the Liturgical Institute at Mundelein University in Chicago.  Some of you who have been reading this blog for a couple of years will remember that I was there two years ago.

There have been a few things to organise in the week since I discovered that I was definitely to study this year.  Now I am at the airport in Auckland, about to board the flight.

The blog will continue with regular updates while I am away.

Please keep me in your prayer.  I pray daily for all readers of this blog, whoever and wherever you may be.

Corpus Christi newsletter

Weekly newsletter for the Catholic Parishes of the Hurunui District and the Chatham Islands.  Feast of Corpus Christi.


http://www.catholichurunui.co.nz/newsletter_10_June_2012.html

Corpus Christi

Orvieto is a beautiful settlement where all roads lead to the magnificent medieval Cathedral. The ‘treasure’ of this church is the corporal onto which the host was said to bleed during a Mass in the year 1263.

In this Middle-Age era of scepticism and instability, reports of the miracle spread rapidly and widely as a message of hope and confidence in the reality of Jesus present in the form of bread and wine. What Christians knew to be true was verified once again. The people were delighted.

The pope of the time was Urban IV. He had set up his home not in Rome, but in Orvieto. The Papal Palace is just beside the Duomo in the town. The miracle above happened in the nearby town of Bolsena, so it was probably only hours before the pope heard about it.

When he heard the wonderfully positive response of the people to the miracle, he too saw the event as a direct communication from God. The following year he proclaimed the feast we celebrate today: Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Eight hundred years later, on the other side of the world, we celebrate this feast that is the heart of our Catholic faith. God is with us. We are never alone and therefore have no cause to ever feel lonely.

God is available to us in every Mass in the most tangible and simple elements of bread and wine. The disciples of Jesus knew as they left the Last Supper, that something remarkable had happened at their table. They did not understand at the time why Jesus had told them to “do this in memory...”. But after his Resurrection three days later, and six weeks later filled with the Pentecost Spirit, they knew that Jesus had in fact gifted them with the fulness of Himself.

As they began to meet weekly ‘in memory of Him’, they did exactly as Jesus had instructed them. They took bread and broke it. They took the cup and proclaimed the blessing. They ate and drank what they knew to be His body and His blood. In doing this they realised that they were partaking of the food of life. This nourishment was the source and summit of their existence.

Within a few years, as the flailing Roman Empire desperately grasped at power, Christians were seen as a threat. Those who professed Jesus as their saviour, and who gathered for the Eucharist, were persecuted and often put to death. In the midst of this antagonism Christians became more committed to Jesus, and Christianity spread throughout the world.

God prevailed in the lives of this persecuted little group. Despite every opposition their community flourished throughout the Empire. Over the dark and difficult ages that followed, Christianity flourished. Twelve hundred years later St. Francis and St. Dominic proclaimed this life of Christ in ‘real presence’ in the Eucharist.

Forty years after the death of Francis and Dominic, just down the road from their home towns, the Bolsena miracle  renewed human understanding of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

After the Reformation, when many began to see the Eucharist as simply a symbolic ritual, Catholics continued to know that in receiving communion, they were taking the reality and fullness of Jesus into their lives. Catholics showed their conviction in this reality by receiving communion only after much prayer and reflection. This was no token ritual for them, but a conscious and active participation of God in a person's life. The natural response to such an overwhelming divine love is a personal conscious and active participation in the life of God.

It is significant that at the Last Supper, Jesus instructed his disciples to “remember”. “Do this in memory of me”.  He would have known how easy it is for humans to forget what is essential and to become preoccupied with what is less necessary and even trivial.

Weekly participation in the celebration of the Eucharist has throughout Christian history been the sign that one is seeking to live the life of Christ fully. 

Today, when we pass through the doors to enter a Catholic Church, we are expressing our desire to enter the life of Christ more fully. A Catholic church is not a 'community venue' but a holy place, consecrated to use only for prayer and worship. 

When we enter a Catholic church we are silent and still. As we enter we bless ourselves with the waters of baptism. When we arrive at our seat we genuflect to the reality of Jesus present in the tabernacle. In the moments before Mass begins we remember our need for God. In every Mass we are reminded of God’s desperate desire to live with and in us in every moment.

As the Word of God is proclaimed we recall what we have missed during the week. We remember that we need to know God is with us in every moment of the week ahead. Without this active memory, we can never feel as though we are truly alive.

The most basic of elements, flour, water and grape are brought forward as bread and wine. Now the Eucharistic Prayer is prayed and the substance of these humble gifts becomes the reality of Jesus Christ.

This is an even more wondrous event than a miracle. A miracle happens only when God chooses. But God has given us the power to choose the time and place of each Mass.  Jesus allows Himself to be given to us. God allows Himself to be consumed by us. In this moment we cannot doubt that Jesus is with us, for without own eyes we have seen Him make His home in our bodies.

When we recall that this is in fact what is happening, our healthy response is humility, gratitude and veneration. 

It is appropriate that in the moments before we receive communion we make a physical act of preparation, the Sign of the Cross or a dignified bow before the God who is eager to give us all that we desire. 
   

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Pope Benedict XVI Corpus Christi Homily 2011

Queen Elizabeth 60 years

I met the Queen in 1977 in her silver jubilee tour of NZ. A group of four of us scouts had been chosen to stand at a camp fire cooking sausages on Caroline Bay Timaru. Several hundred scouts stood about ten metres behind us. 

The Queen came along and stopped at our fire. She greeted us and spoke with us. One of our group asked if she would like a sausage. She held out her white-gloved hands, and declined.

Five minutes later, Prince Philip came along. We offered him a sausage as well. He looked around to see where the Queen was, and (looking as though he really wanted one), also declined.

The Queen was 50 years old in that February - March 1977 NZ tour. When I met her in Timaru that day, she was exactly the age (to the week) that I am today.  (Being snow-stranded in Cheviot today I have the time to work these things out!)

Today I watched the Diamond Jubilee Service at St. Paul's Cathedral.  There are many positive comments I could make about that appropriate and dignified service, but I will save them for a later blog entry.

A highlight was Archbishop Rowan Williams' sermon. He spoke powerfully about dedication. This is worth reading a couple of times.

The Archbishop's sermon text is available at this link

Revised order of the Mass

Over the past couple of years, the revised texts of the prayers of the Mass has taken our time and effort. In communities where the effort has been made, the fruits are evident.


We often slip up and respond with the more familiar 'and also with you' instead of 'and with your spirit'. It is inevitable that we struggle with the change in texts, but this rediscovery of the gift of the Mass invites us to a much broader project. These months of renewal are an opportunity for us to appreciate anew the beauty of the Mass.

In every Mass, our human senses are re-activated and re-oriented towards God. The Mass, when celebrated well, engages our physical senses, so enabling the senses of the soul to become more sensitive to the activity of God with us.

In the Mass we listen and we speak. We see. We touch. Even our sense of smell is engaged as the incense rises. Our bodies are active in worship of God as we kneel and stand. We bow and beat our breasts. We process. We listen and look.

The Mass is not simply a ‘spiritual’ event. It is also a physical action.  When Jesus enters bread and wine, transforming them into his body and blood, this is much more than a spiritual experience. It is a tangible event. It is a corporeal reality.


We are reminded of this when encouraged to embrace renewed postures of standing and kneeling, beating our breast in repentance, bowing before receiving communion...

And so our 'spiritual life’ is a profoundly ‘physical’ existence. The fullness of God has become fully present in earthly elements. The bread and wine now have a new reality. They are God-with-us.  We consume this reality and every cell of our bodies becomes a new creation.

We too easily make the mistake of thinking of God as only ‘spiritual’ and dwelling only in the human ‘soul’. Yes, God is Spirit, and God does live in the soul. But the process of human growth invites God to transform every emotion, every experience, every encounter. The full presence of God, in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is a physical reality among us.

Now that this divine reality has been communicated to us, we have become the vehicles of the divine word to the world. Our awakened bodies become the voice through which we tell of God: through our words, and work, the way we look and listen. Every aspect of our presence in the world becomes the vehicle of our inner life with God to our family, friends, neighbours and to all people.

The liturgy of the Church seeks to engage our hearts, minds AND bodies, in worship of God.

One of the most universal and popular prayers highlights this. When we make the Sign of the Cross we use movement to accompany our invocation of the Trinity.

The Sign of the Cross is not simply a convenient way to begin and end prayer. The Sign of the Cross IS prayer.  We have prayed this prayer often and habitually. We rejoice when we see a sportsman or stranger quickly make this sign in a moment of need or thanksgiving. 

The Sign of the Cross, even without the conscious use of words, is a powerful prayer.

On this Trinity Sunday, let us rediscover this short, simple and beautiful prayer; the prayer that engages our bodies in participation in the full life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

community: the fruit of communion

If someone were to ask you to say something about the Trinity in a sentence or two, what would you say? I have spent many hours sitting in classes studying the Trinity, and I’m not even sure how I would begin.

Some people think that the doctrines of the Church, celebrated in the major feasts of the Church, are ‘optional extras’.  These people might say that it is not essential to know what is meant by the doctrine of the Trinity (or the Ascension or Assumption etc).

Here is an analogy that you might find useful.

One of our parishioners was telling me last week about the assistant priest at Hawarden (many years ago), who was instructed to take the car and go to Cheviot to celebrate Mass. The assistant was not prepared to admit that he had never driven a car before, so he boldly went out, got into the car, started it, and drove to Cheviot for Mass. 

After Mass he was telling the Cheviot parishioners how difficult and slow the journey was, and how much noise the engine made. It became obvious to all that he had driven all the way in first gear.

To drive a distance in first gear is possible. You may even reach your destination.  But how much more helpful to learn from someone who knows, about the advantages of second gear, reverse gear, and about the benefits of using the clutch!

A baptised Catholic is the heir to the fullness of Christian life. Much of this life is conveyed in the revelation of faith communicated by doctrines and teachings of the Church.  If we listen to the Tradition of faith that explains the Trinity, we are feeding from the source of revelation; we are also drinking from the reservoir of the wisdom of holy men and women who have known God intimately.

To refer back to the analogy for a moment. It is possible to discover the reality of the Trinity in my own relationship with God (since the doctrine is not simply a human creation). But why not move out of first gear right now and receive as a fact of faith, the Church doctrine of the reality of the inner life of God that is the Trinity.

The inner life of God, the three persons of the Trinity, is not simply a ‘community’ of divine persons. The inner life of God is a communion. This distinction has wonderful implications for us. In every earthly situation, people try to create community. This is both a healthy desire, and (more often than not) very hard work. We either fail, or manage only a temporary sense of togetherness.

It is not the primary task of a Catholic parish to create community among parishioners. While this is a well-intentioned goal, we will always struggle and fail. We will never achieve any more than can be found in any ‘secular community’ group.

The goal of a parish community is to settle for nothing less than a personal and communal life of communion with God.


When we live every moment ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’, we open ourselves to participation in the divine life of the Trinity which is a communion of persons.

This divine communion, is the answer to every heart-felt human desire. This communion with the fullness of the reality of God, a communion of persons, has the immediate fruit of creating human community at a deeper and more satisfying level than any human attempt could every achieve.

May the life of our growing parish community be the fruit of the communion that is the Trinity. 

to be human

A front-page Press story today told of two Christchurch people who found almost $60.000 in coins on a Christchurch street.

What would you do?

The writer almost seemed a bit surprised that the finders had no hesitation in immediately calling the police. It seems they did not even think for a moment of running off with a few coins.

The hint in the article was that their honesty was a rare and unusual thing; that it would have perhaps been more 'human' to experience and submit to a temptation to steal in this situation.

In fact the two who found the coins simply did what was human. Their behaviour was not super-human. To do anything less than report their find would have been 'sub-human'.

I am grateful to Jaime and Tane for their witness to the beauty of ordinary human behaviour, and to the Press for sharing the story.