Tag Archives: Benedict XVI

Homily for Epiphany II

17 Sunday Jan 2016

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Saint Peter, Caldwell Chapel, The Catholic University of America

Given for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

As we celebrated, this past week, the fifth anniversary of the canonical erection of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and look forward to the episcopal consecration of Monsignor Steven Lopes as the first bishop-ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in a matter of weeks, it is fortuitous that we come this week to the annual observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In Monsignor Lopes’s own words, the personal ordinariates are “ecumenism in the front row,” which is to say that the entire project of Anglicanorum cœtibus is one founded on the principles of ecumenism as understood and lived by the Catholic Church. At the threshold of this particular time set aside for prayer for the unity of Christians, it is worth revisiting the ecumenical mission of the ordinariates, not simply to comprehend more fully the structural and theoretical implications of that mission, but so that each of us—who make up the clergy and lay faithful of the ordinariates—might realize our own part in that work, and be better equipped to articulate that purpose to those who, in the words of Blessed John Henry Newman, are “shivering at the gates.”

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Sharing the Treasure

19 Saturday Oct 2013

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The primary purpose of the newly promulgated liturgical texts for the personal ordinariates is ‘to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared’ (AC III). It is clear that, from their use by the clergy and lay faithful of the ordinariates, these texts provide the primary way in which the Anglican patrimony is transmitted within the Catholic Church. How, then, might the desire of the Apostolic Constitution for these texts to be ‘a treasure to be shared’ be made manifest?

In his comments on the recent celebration of the new Ordo Missae in this week’s Catholic Herald, Dr Joseph Shaw says, ‘The newly unveiled liturgy of the ordinariate is to be welcomed both because it affirms the important principle of liturgical pluralism in the West, and because it represents a move forward in official thinking about the reform of the liturgy. Like the use in the ordinariate’s Calendar of Septuagesima (pre-Lent), the appearance (at least as an option) of the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar and the Last Gospel restore much-loved elements of the ancient Catholic Mass which were stripped away following the Second Vatican Council. The arguments against these, that they were strictly unnecessary and confused the sequence of events in the rite, have been overtaken by a new sense that the Mass should introduce worshippers into the liturgy of heaven where, as Pope Francis recently remarked of the Eastern liturgy, “time does not count. The centre is God”. In short, this represents a decisive rejection of a reductionist and functionalist understanding of the liturgy’ (Catholic Herald, 18 Oct 2013).

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WYD & Peer Evangelization

26 Friday Jul 2013

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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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Homily on the Most Precious Blood

18 Thursday Jul 2013

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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).

Homily for the Chair of St Peter

22 Friday Feb 2013

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This year we celebrate the feast of the Chair of Saint Peter with a particular poignancy as we prepare, in just under a week, for our beloved Holy Father to renounce the office which that very chair signifies. Pope Benedict XVI’s relatively short pontificate has been an astonishing moment in the life of the Church, but far from simply being a series of exciting events, it has also been a masterclass in the Christian life and, more specifically, in the nature of the papacy. Pope Benedict has shown us the primary role of the occupant of the Chair of Saint Peter: to point us to Christ.

How has this been achieved? We have seen it in the establishment of Personal Ordinariates – a fatherly hand extended in love to those who have sought his care; we have seen it in his gentle but decisive renewal of the sacred liturgy – always by example, never by force; we have seen it in his clear teaching, at once simple and profound – always true and always loving. And now, in this final action of his public ministry, we see it once more: ‘It is not I’, he says, ‘But Christ’. Joseph Ratzinger means nothing, the action tells us, except as a lens through whom can see more clearly the Lord whom he has served so faithfully.

Today, then, is a feast not of earthly ecclesiastical power, but of Christ. Today we celebrate the Lord’s abiding presence in the Church, made known to us in a particular way through the office of the successor of Saint Peter, the Pope, the Vicar of Christ. And we do so with sincere gratitude for the example of the current occupant of the Chair of Saint Peter, and in confident hope of the example of the next, because – as Pope Benedict has shown us – the office is greater than the man. We know that the Lord will not leave his flock abandoned – he is the Good Shepherd, how could he? Rather in the office of the Chair of Saint Peter he sends us a man whom he has entrusted with the task of gathering us in, so that, united in the one true fold, we may be so united to him.

Unlikely Fruits?

19 Saturday Jan 2013

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This 25th January we mark the 30th anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges by which Blessed John Paul II promulgated the 1983 Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici, CIC). In this Year of Faith, when we mark also the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we might helpfully reflect on how these two documents can be seen as fruits of the second Vatican Council.

Although it was Blessed John XXIII who called for the revision of the CIC in 1959, it was in fact a direct result of the 1967 Synod of Bishops that certain principles for the revision of the 1917 Code were approved. Likewise, the Catechism is a direct result of the 1985 Extraordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, convened by Pope John Paul II to mark the 20th anniversary of the close of the Council.

The Synod of Bishops itself was, of course, first established by Pope Paul VI in September 1965 at the end of the Council, as the Holy Father sought to make greater use of the collaborative (and emphatically not collegial governance) aspect of the episcopal college, both for counsel and in order for a greater weight of authority to be given to certain decrees and decisions.

Both documents, then, are not only fruits of the conciliar reform, but also of the specific collegial and collaborative nature of the entire episcopal college.

Why is this of interest? Put simply, it is because a clear and authoritative body of doctrinal teaching (Catechism) and a renewed legislative text (Code) are not often thought to be the likely fruits of the second Vatican Council, at least as it has often been interpreted in the years following its’ closure. But they are, and that is something which is worth reflecting on as we consider the nature of the Council in this anniversary year, this Year of Faith.

What is particularly interesting is that a renewed acknowledgement of episcopal collaboration has not seen a decrease in legislation and doctrinal clarity, but the opposite: a renewal and increase of it. This is, perhaps, a moment to reflect also, then, on the true nature of that collaboration, and the intentions of both the Council and Pope Paul VI in the renewed approached they offer. Far from being a limiting of the authority of the papacy or a watering-down of dogmatic clarity, both documents in fact embody – and in a clear way – the hermeneutic of reform in continuity, by which we can properly understand what the second Vatican Council sought to achieve. Unlikely fruits? Perhaps not.

WYD 2013 and Social Media

18 Sunday Nov 2012

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Pope Benedict addresses young people ahead of World Youth Day in Rio next year:

I would like to emphasize two areas where your missionary commitment is all the more necessary. Dear young people, the first is the field of social communications, particularly the world of the internet. As I mentioned to you on another occasion: “I ask you to introduce into the culture of this new environment of communications and information technology the values on which you have built your lives. […] It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent’” (Message for the 43rd World Communications Day, 24 May 2009). Learn how to use these media wisely. Be aware of the hidden dangers they contain, especially the risk of addiction, of confusing the real world with the virtual, and of replacing direct and personal encounters and dialogue with internet contacts.

Full text here.

Pope Benedict on liturgical beauty and evangelisation

17 Saturday Nov 2012

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In his address to a group of French bishops during their Ad Limina visit today, Pope Benedict made the following remarks regarding the Sacred Liturgy (Original French here):

As the Council recalls, the liturgical action of the Church is also a part of her contribution to the civilizing task (cf. Gaudium et spes n. 58, 4). The liturgy is indeed the celebration of the central event of human history, the redemptive Sacrifice of Christ. By this, it testifies to the love with which God loves mankind, it testifies that human life has a meaning and that [man] is called by vocation to take part in the glorious life of the Trinity. Mankind needs this testimony. It needs to perceive, by way of the liturgical celebrations, that the Church is conscious of the Lordship of God and of the dignity of man. It has the right to be able to discern, beyond the limitations that will always characterize her rites and ceremonies, that Christ “is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, and in the person of the minister” (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 7). Aware of the concern which you have surrounding your liturgical celebrations, I encourage you to cultivate the art of celebration, to help your priests in this sense, and to work ceaselessly in the liturgical formation of seminarians and faithful. Respect for the establishes norms expresses love and fidelity to the Church’s faith, to the treasure of grace that she protects and passes on; the beauty of the celebrations, much more than innovations and subjective adaptations, is what makes the work of evangelization durable and efficacious.

(h/t Rorate Caeli for the translation)