Thine Own Service

Thine Own Service

Monthly Archives: July 2013

Marked by Beauty

29 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Liturgy

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Beauty, bxvi, eucharist, liturgy, priesthood

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In his 2007 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (SC), Pope Benedict XVI remarked that ‘Everything related to the Eucharist should be marked by beauty’ (SC §41). I would like to offer, here, a few short reflections on how a better understanding and knowledge of this simple, guiding principle, might underpin our celebrations of the Eucharist.

First, it is the duty of the Priest (and all those assisting with the celebration) to ensure that everything neccesary is made ready before the Mass begins. This may seem to be an obvious point, but being ‘ready’ does not simply mean being organised; it means being spiritually prepared for the role we undertake in the Sacred Liturgy, from the Priest-Celebrant to those in the pew. The Priest should take – and should be given – space and time to prepare to ascend the altar, both in the church and in the sacristy before Mass. Bishop Peter Elliott recently called for the mandatory and official use of the Vesting Prayers in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. This is a good way for the Priest to recognise that he is not simply ‘getting changed’, but being clothed to enter the Holy of Holies. In the Personal Ordinariates, some priests make use of the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, from the Extraordinary Form, as a preparation with the servers before Mass. This, too, can inculcate a proper sense of preparation and readiness for the sacred action.

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WYD & Peer Evangelization

26 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Evangelisation, Media

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Benedict XVI, communications, evangelisation, pope francis, rio, social communications, social media, wyd, youth

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This evening I was watching the live feed from Rio as Pope Francis officially opened the 28th World Youth Day on Copacabana beach, renamed by the Twitterati as #Popacabana for the duration of the week. After the Pater Noster (sung beautifully to the Solemn Anaphora Tone, for those interested in that sort of thing), and the final blessing, that great anthem of World Youth Day, Jesus Christ you are my life, struck up. Immediately my mind leapt back to those wonderful days in Madrid a few years ago, and I quickly fired-off a text to a Norwegian priest-friend who is in Rio, reminiscing and promising prayers from England for the event.

Live feed. Twitter. SMS. World Youth Day has become an amazing Catholic moment in the social media world, and we have almost missed the significance of what is going on here. As I type this, #PontifexRio, #PapaFrancisco, and #Copacabana, have all been trending worldwide on Twitter, not just from on the ground in Brazil, but from across the world, as young Catholics enter into World Youth Day like never before.

In his message for WYD this year, Pope Benedict XVI (as he was then) spoke specifically about the need for young people to engage a ‘missionary commitment’ in the area of social communications. As well as quoting his Message for the 43rd World Communications Day in 2009, he asked young WYD pilgrims, who “have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent'”, and to “[l]earn how to use these media wisely”. It seems to have worked.

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Communications and Proactive Evangelisation

22 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Evangelisation, Media

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Tags

communications, evangelisation, media, new evangelisation, new media, social communications, social media

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Photo: © Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk

In the coming weeks, with my move to DC imminent, I will be stepping down from my current role as Communications Officer for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. I began this job almost two years ago now, with no prior experience and no expertise; simply with an enthusiasm for the project and a passion for evangelisation, especially through new means, such as social media. And I certainly don’t claim to be anything like an expert now. I have had no formal training. I learned to write press releases from the gentle criticisms sent me by friendly journalists, and I have tried to present our work and mission in a positive light, sometimes in the face of negative or unthinking rebuke, even from Catholic sources. I don’t think we’ve done a bad job, and the Ordinariate is still in most of the Church press most weeks, and in the national press on a regular basis too.

At some level, though, it isn’t the press work that I think has been the greatest success, nor the primary focus of our work, because I do not believe that this is where the Church should be focussing her energies in the field of communications. Too often we are on the back-foot; responding to criticisms or situations, or buffeting the wires with information of limited interest to the public. Too often we are responsive, rather than pro-active; often failing to make real use of the opportunities presented to us to speak explicitly and articulately about the central precepts of the faith. Too often we have become experts in media work at the cost of becoming weak practitioners in the task of evangelisation.

This is seen particularly in two places. First, in social and new media we find large numbers of Catholic journalists, organisations, active lay faithful, and priests (and one English bishop, so far) making use of Twitter and Facebook. This is a seriously positive step forward, essential for raising awareness of the life of the Church, and also for reaching beyond our own flocks and friends. It is a tool of communication and of evangelisation. The problem comes, though, when an imbalance – usually communication over evangelisation – creeps in, either be poor individual judgement or a lack of prudence (i.e. engaging in polemical arguments or point-scoring against others), or – and this is perhaps more easily solved – because an organisation or individual adopts a ‘mediacentric’ view (i.e. seeking to promote news to journalists, rather than Christ to the world). If we fail to make use of the ‘digital continent’ as – in Pope Benedict’s words – ‘portals of truth and faith; new spaces for evangelisation’, then we are simply wasting our time out there, and engaging in what Pope Francis might call a ‘self-referential’ exercise, that does little to truly promote the gospel.

Secondly, it is a cause of some real concern that there is growing number of ‘professional Catholic’ journalists and commentators – lay and clerical. These are people who make use of their Catholic ‘credentials’ as a means of giving a particular view or outlook on a story – often in a secular sphere – but who do not make use of their chosen outlet (and increased portfolio) for pure, raw evangelisation. Be it Catholic newspapers or Twitter feeds, the church of the New Evangelisation has little time for those who simply wish to comment on the life of the Church, without themselves engaging actively in the central reason for the incarnation: bringing the light of Christ to the darkness of the world. Anyone who seeks to work for the Church – in whatever capacity – needs to speak regularly and clearly about the transformative love of Christ in their lives and the life of the Church, if they are to avoid painting a picture of a mere institution rather than the Mystical Body of Christ.

My call, then, is for a renewal in Catholic communications, for them to really become exactly that. It is a call to move away from ‘Catholics doing media’, and towards Catholics communicating the person and teachings of Jesus Christ, more explicitly and more comprehensively than ever before. We need a renewal that will see evangelisation, and the person of Jesus Christ, put at the centre of all that we do and say, so that every interview given, every press release issued, every message tweeted, will speak of Jesus Christ, and will explicitly seek to draw others to him.

If that means a story isn’t published, or our comment isn’t sought – fine. A content-light article or a painfully balanced piece isn’t going to bring the world to Christ. What might, is our own courageous witness to the joy and delight that comes from knowing the Lord Jesus in his holy Church, and that can’t be hidden under a bushel for the sake of journalistic credibility, press protocol, or an impressive scoop.

Homily on the Most Precious Blood

18 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Homily

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Benedict XVI, eucharist, homily, John XXIII, precious blood

This homily was given at a Votive Mass of the Most Precious Blood at the church of Ss Francis and Anthony, Crawley:

Precious Blood

There are certain devotions that, to those looking on from outside – and perhaps sometimes to those inside the Church – can seem at best odd, and at worst perverse. We think of the glory given to the Cross (an instrument of torture) or the paradox of the Sacred Heart, that bleeds and burns itself up for love of us. We might also include in that, devotion to the Most Precious Blood. With eyes of faith, though, we can see beyond a merely human reaction and understand why the Church maintains and preserves this beautiful tradition, opening up to us, by it, an ever-richer life of grace.

In his letter Inde a primis, on promoting devotion to the Most Precious Blood, Blessed Pope John XXIII reminds us that the blood of Christ was poured out for us “first at his circumcision eight days after birth, and more profusely later on in his agony in the garden, in his scourging and crowning with thorns, in his climb to Calvary and crucifixion, and finally from out that great wide wound in his side which symbolises the divine Blood cascading down into all the Church’s sacraments”. In other words, from his consecration to the Father in the temple until the consummation of his redeeming works on the cross, Christ’s blood symbolises for us the fidelity of God the Father, and the sacrifice made for us in atonement for our sins. Beyond that, even, the sacraments – the means of grace by which we grow in our love of the Lord – are instituted through Christ’s blood-shed, so that like the deer that yearns for running streams, our souls may be refreshed with the grace that flows from the fount of all life, which is God himself (cf. Ps. 42).

In the Book of Genesis (cf. Gen. 4) we read of the blood of Abel, shed by his brother Cain, crying out to God from the dust of the earth. In response, the Lord casts the murderer Cain out from the land, to a life of fruitless labour. Conversely, through the new covenant in Christ, we are restored to that rightful home – the heavenly Jerusalem – through his blood, freely given for our salvation, and in atonement for sins. In the words of Saint Alphonsus of Liguori, perhaps better known to us in the hymn Glory be to Jesus, “Abel’s blood for vengeance pleaded to the skies / but the blood of Jesus for our pardon cries”. In the words of Pope Benedict, “the Blood of Christ is the pledge of God’s faithful love for humanity” (Angelus 5 July 2009).

So, in this month of July, dedicated to the Most Precious Blood, let us seek – as did the People of Israel – to be sprinkled once more by the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with us (cf. Ex. 24:8); not a covenant sealed by the blood of bulls and goats, but sealed by the Most Precious Blood of Christ, that comes to us in the sacrifice of the Eucharist and that, even now, comes to nourish us with the Lord himself, so that we might be united to him for all eternity (cf. Heb 10).

Sacred Music: a question of taste?

15 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Liturgy, Music

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Beauty, liturgy, music, plainchant, reform of the reform, transcendentals, vatican ii

The Organ of Ghent Cathedral

The Organ of Ghent Cathedral

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, last week I gave the first of two talks on Sacred Music at the parish of Ss Francis and Anthony (The Friary) in Crawley, West Sussex. We spoke first about the nature and purpose of the Sacred Liturgy, drawing on the documents of the second Vatican Council and the writings of Pope Benedict XVI, before turning to the nature and purpose of Sacred Music. Why? Because as both Pope Saint Pius X and Sacrosanctum Concilium point out, the music performed in the Sacred Liturgy is intrinsic to the rite itself. To use the phrase coined by Mgr Andrew Wadsworth, “We need to sing the Mass, not sing at Mass”.

One of the questions that came up in the Q&A session touched on the appropriateness of differing styles of music in the Mass. Theologically sound music of a high quality can be found in genres other than plainchant and polyphony; hymns of good quality can be found (if we search hard enough!). So why can’t these pieces be used in the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, be it the celebration of the Eucharist or the Liturgy of the Hours? Reading over Archbishop Alexander Sample’s talk to the recent CMAA conference in Salt Lake City, we see this exact question answered by placing alongside all performances of music in the liturgy three specific criteria.

First, Sacred Music is holy – it is sacred. Sacred Music is music set apart for the worship of God alone and, therefore – in the words of Pius X – must “exclude all profanity not only in itself, but in the manner in which it is presented by those who execute it” (Tra le Sollecitudini §I). This means that the music performed in the liturgy cannot simply be secular music – either in origin or style – ‘baptised’ by Christian worship; it must be set apart for the worship of the Almighty, just as a chalice is never to be used for profane purposes once it has been consecrated for the offering of the Mass.

Secondly, there must be an intrinsic beauty in the music performed in worship. It must be ‘good’, in the sense that it must of the highest standard of music and of performance, and it must also be ‘Good’, in the sense that it has within itself some transcendental element. The sheer beauty of the performance, of the music itself, should generate a desire for God within the one listening; this is why concerts of Sacred Music are always an opportunity for evangelisation, and why listening to Sacred Music outside the sphere of the liturgy is a way of deepening our desire for God, and our sense of his fundamental right to the worship we offer.

Thirdly, Sacred Music must have a universal character. Obviously plainchant embodies this perfectly (at least in our Latin context), but it would also be naive to suggest that only the chant can exemplify such a character. Certainly it does so in an unambiguous way, but music that is universally recognisable as sacred and intrinsically beautiful – even when it is drawn from a particular culture or context – can also embody such a characteristic. Victoria is pure Spanish renaissance, but utterly suited to the liturgy; Zoltán Kodály’s exquisite Missa Brevis is a work of twentieth century genius, but equally meets the required characteristics of beauty and sacredness. Neither draws on a secular idiom or style, neither seeks anything other than the objective worship of God.

If the music in our liturgical celebrations doesn’t meet these three criteria, then we are falling somewhat short of offering to God the best that we are able. Even with limited resources, if we attempt to apply these criteria to our worship, we will not fail to see more clearly the essential and true purpose of the Rites which we celebrate. In doing that, we will also see more clearly the essential and true object of our worship – the God who has loved us and known since before time and who, even now, desires nothing more than our presence with him in the full splendour of our heavenly home, where we will (we pray) worship him for all eternity.

Summer Weekend

14 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Uncategorized

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Tags

family, ordinariate, personal

vyne

What a wonderful summer weekend in Hampshire with my parents and sister! This has to be the major benefit of living a somewhat nomadic existence before I head to Washington DC this summer. Yesterday we visited The Vyne, a nearby National Trust property (above) with beautiful grounds and a very elegant house, and then today we went together to the Reading Ordinariate Group for their Solemn Mass, which I concelebrated with Fr David Elliott, the Group Pastor.

After Mass the group had decided they wanted to take me out for lunch before I fly off, and so we headed to a pub on the outskirts of the Wellington Country Park for a good meal and a chance to catch up and say our farewells. One of the advantages of the smaller groups in the Ordinariate – as opposed to the larger parishes I’ve been working in – is that you can really get to know each other; there’s a beautiful pattern that emerges in the lives of people who come together for the Sunday Eucharist, spend social time together, and even go – en masse- on pilgrimage (Rome this year; Poland next). I’ve been very fortunate to be on the fringes of that in Reading and assure them of my prayers as they continue to move forward.

This past week I have been in Tunbridge Wells and in Crawley, giving talks on the New Evangelisation, and on Sacred Music. You can listen to my talk from Tunbridge Wells here, and you can always come to Part II of the Sacred Music this Thursday in Crawley. Details of that are here.

Invocation 2013: Rome

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Evangelisation

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discernment, discipleship, invocation, new evangelisation, priesthood, rome, vocation

Invocation_Rome

Last week I accompanied more than 100 pilgrims from England, Wales, and Scotland, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Peter as part of the Year of Faith. The pilgrimage, for seminarians, novices, and those discerning their vocation, was organised by the Pontifical Council for the promotion of the New Evangelisation, and included 6000 young adults from across the world. It was an impressive sight, but even more impressive was a profound sense that – close to Peter – this was a space in which these pilgrims could echo Peter’s words and say, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you”.

In Matthew 16 and John 21, the mission given to Peter by the Lord is as a result of Peter’s own confession of faith: You are the Christ the Son of the Living God; You know all things, you know that I love. So it is in the life of all Christians, that the acceptance of the Lord’s divinity and our openness to his love for us, precedes our true realisation of the vocation he has given us, and so precedes any true hope we might have for happiness. The Christian must first truly follow Christ, in order for the Lord to entrust him or her with the mission and state of life which will bring us to heaven. As others have started to say: discipleship discerns vocation.

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Sacra Liturgia 2013: Some Comments

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Evangelisation, Liturgy

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bxvi, liturgy, new evangelisation, ordinariate, pope francis, reform of the reform, sacra liturgia, tracey rowland

altar_cross

Two weeks ago I attended the 2013 Sacra Liturgia conference held at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. The conference was organised by Bishop Dominique Rey of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon as an opportunity ‘to study, promote, and renew appreciation for the liturgical formation and celebration’. I hope, over the next few weeks, to write up some more comments on the excellent talks and papers that were delivered, but I also wanted to simply make note of a few of the particular highlights of the conference whilst they are fresh in my mind.

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Sacra Liturgia: Closing Remarks

02 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Evangelisation, Liturgy

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Here are the closing remarks of Bishop Rey at Sacra Liturgia:

The new evangelization is a challenge: spiritual, theological, and pastoral; one which must get the Church back onto its feet. Indeed, at the start of this third millennium, we have changed to a new paradigm: that of a post-modernity that implies “a recommencing from Christ with a fresh zeal for new methods and for new expressions” (Speech by John-Paul II at the 14th plenary meeting of CELAM).

The history of evangelization throughout the centuries shows how the great missionaries were great men of prayer, and more specifically of authentic devotion. It also shows the correlation between the quality and depth of the liturgical life, which also reveals an apostolic dynamism. Indeed, the Eucharist is the “source and summit of all Christian life” (Lumen Gentium n.11) and “the source and summit of all evangelization” (Presbyterorum ordinis n.5). This is what Benedict XVI affirmed with emphasis in his apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist:

“The love that we celebrate in the sacrament is not something we can keep to ourselves. By its very nature it demands to be shared with all. What the world needs is God’s love; it needs to encounter Christ and to believe in him. The Eucharist is thus the source and summit not only of the Church’s life, but also of her mission: “an authentically eucharistic Church is a missionary Church.” ” (Sacramentum Caritatis n.84)

The new evangelization will also need to anchor itself to a profound eucharistic and liturgical renewal by rediscovering the sources of its tradition and the diversity of its expressions in the Church’s heritage; especially the mutual enrichment of the two forms of the Roman rite, in its fidelity to liturgical norms and usage, particularly in revivifying the ars celebrandi in order to enter into the work of redemption, of sanctification and of glorification, intended by Christ, and which continues in the Church through the celebration of the sacred mysteries.

I hope that the conference Sacra Liturgia 2013 has contributed to this liturgical renewal in “the spirit of the liturgy” as taught by Benedict XVI and I hope that it has been a source of inspiration and hope. As the conference comes to an end, I would like to thank every single one of you for your participation, the speakers for the quality of their talks, the team of organizers around Dom Alcuin, the translators, and of course the University of Sancta Croce for welcoming us, as well as all the benefactors.

A very big thank you.

Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon

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