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Tag Archives: mary

Homily for Marian Consecration 2017

12 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Homily

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advent, consecration, homily, marian, mary, our lady, our lady of guadalupe

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This homily was given at a Mass preceding the final act in the 33 Day Consecration of Saint Louis Grignon de Montfort, on the eve of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In the life of the Church there are many things which go by different names. We talk about the Sacrament of Penance, or Reconciliation, or Confession. And in a similar way there are times when we describe different things with the same word. We know, for instance, that the blessing invoked by us over our breakfast cereal is different from that given by the Priest at the end of the Mass.

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Homily for the Immaculate Conception 2017

08 Friday Dec 2017

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homily, immaculate conception, mary

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At the back of our church is a very large and very striking stained glass window. It is often the first thing that visitors remark upon when they come through the door, but it is also something that many of us perhaps take for granted. The window is a rich tapestry of light and of colour, but much more than that it is a tapestry of theological truth. Through its forms and design the glass depicts for us a theme that is essential not just to the Christian life, but the entire human experience. This is of course the story of our creation, the covenants between God and Man, and the salvation offered us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in His passion, death, and resurrection.

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Homily for Easter IV

08 Monday May 2017

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easter, homily, mary, priesthood, vocation

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The month of May, dedicated as it is to the Blessed Virgin Mary, presents us with an opportunity to reflect upon the readiness of Our Lady to say yes to God. In the annunciation of the Lord’s will by the message of an angel, the young Mary freely and completely gave herself to God. This act we call her fiat, taken from the Latin phrase of scripture: Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum; let it be done unto me according to thy word (Lk. 1:38). Mary’s yes to the Lord made possible the great act of the incarnation—the coming amongst us of the Word made Flesh; the person of Jesus Christ. Mary’s selfless act of obedience undid the selfish act of disobedience of Eve, and it is for this reason that the Fathers of the Church often call Mary the new or second Eve.

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Homily on Our Lady of Sorrows

17 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Homily

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homily, mary, our lady

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Our Lady of Sorrows by Emil Jacques, Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Portland OR

This homily was given at a Votive Mass of Our Lady of Sorrows at Saint Mary’s, Alexandria VA.

It is fitting that in the month of September, dedicated as it is to Our Lady of Sorrows, and following the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, we offer this Votive Mass of Our Lady of Sorrows, and so honour She who is at once the Mother of Christ and our mother also. That we do so in a church dedicated to Our Lady, and at an altar placed so precisely at the foot of a great and beautiful crucifix, is all the more poignant. Truly we have come to Calvary; to participate in the one, full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. As the Council of Trent taught, and as the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms: “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: ‘The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different’” (§ 1367).

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Homily for May Devotion 2015

11 Monday May 2015

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Homily

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homily, mary, our lady

Schone Madonna (c. 1430, Austrian) in the Harvard Art Museums

Schone Madonna (c. 1430, Austrian) in the Harvard Art Museums

This homily was preached at Mass on the Sixth Sunday of Easter and was followed by a May procession and devotions in honour of Our Lady.

This season of Easter, which stretches fifty days from the first glimpses of Easter Sunday to its close at Pentecost, is perhaps most vividly characterized by joy. In the light of the resurrection and Christ’s victory over sin and death the Church exercises an unbridled fervour as she proclaims, “Alleluia! Christ our passover is sacrificed for us”. We see and hear this joy all around us, particularly in the sacred liturgy. Here in the magnificence of the Eucharistic celebration we see the splendour of fine vestments, the sacred ministers clad in white to represent the pure life of grace imparted to us through the Lord’s sacrifice of love; here we hear over and over again that great word, “Alleluia”, buried from our sight from Septuagesima until its bursting from the tomb at the gospel of the resurrection in the holy night of Easter; and with our hearts raised to God in honour of his triumph over evil we sing with a new appreciation the words of the psalmist as we are reminded of our baptism in the Rite of Sprinkling: “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious: his mercy endureth forever”.

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Homily for the Immaculate Conception

08 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Homily

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homily, immaculate conception, mary, our lady

Shrine of the Miraculous Medal, Philadelphia, PA

Shrine of the Miraculous Medal, Philadelphia, PA

The feast of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady is well-placed in the course of the Church’s liturgical year. As we continue through the season of Advent, today our eyes are fixed on heaven as we rejoice in the unique participation of the Mother of God in the redemption of mankind, in and through the saving actions of her beloved Son. The collect for this feast begins thus, ‘O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin didst prepare a worthy dwelling-place for thy Son’. Today, then, we rejoice in the ‘worthy dwelling-place’ which is the Virgin Mother of God, whom scripture tells us Almighty God possessed ‘before he made anything from the beginning’ (Wis. 8).

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Spem in alium

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Music

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liturgy, mary, music, our lady, spem in alium, tallis

Virgin and Child by Tilman Riemenschneider, c. 1520, at Dumbarton Oaks.

Virgin and Child by Tilman Riemenschneider, c. 1520, at Dumbarton Oaks.

Tomorrow afternoon around 100 musicians will gather in Holy Comforter-Saint Cyprian church – my resident parish here in Washington, D.C. – to rehearse and perform Thomas Tallis’s epic forty part motet, Spem in alium. The performance is at 3.30 p.m., and is free and open to the general public. You are very warmly invited and welcome! More details are available here.

Composed around 1570, the text of the work is a Sarum Rite responsory for Mattins adapted from the deuterocanonical book of Judith. It was Judith whose great beauty enabled her to ingratiate herself with the enemy leader, Holophernes, get him inebriated, and then behead him and return to the Israelite camp with her trophy. She was praised by the Jewish princes as a courageous and somewhat tenacious woman. A striking depiction of the decollation of Holophernes was painted by Carravagio between 1598-99, and now hangs in the Palazzo Barberini, Rome (the painting, that is, not the head).

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Humility and Heaven

15 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Evangelisation

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assumption, humility, mary, our lady

Rolduc Abbey, Kerkrade, Holland

Rolduc Abbey, Kerkrade, Holland

We’re interrupting this service… As an aside during the posts about Forming Intentional Disciples, I wanted to put out a few thoughts on the beautiful feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, which we celebrate today. These have been spurred on by a few messages on Twitter, the first from Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, the Bishop of Parramatta in Australia:

We celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Holy Day of Obligation. May we, like her, be faithful to the end. — Bishop Fisher OP (@AnthonyFisherOP) August 14, 2013

At the feast of the Annunciation we rightly celebrate Mary’s humility. We celebrate her fiat, her ‘Yes’ to God’s will for her life, and we hold up her humility as a paradigm of human virtue. Mary relies not on her own merits or ability, but entirely on the will of God, despite her own fears and anxieties. Her human obedience to divine providence is a beautiful example to us, but also the start of a life for her marked by unimaginable pain and suffering, not least as she stands at the foot of the Cross – Our Sorrowful Mother – and witnesses the sacrifice of her Son. Her obedience leads her to this suffering, and one might well ask (if the story ended there) if a loving God could truly demand such obedience in return for so little a reward.

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Homily for the Visitation

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Homily

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mary, our lady, prolife, visitation

This homily was given at the Good Counsel Network on the feast of Visitation.

It would be verging on the irresponsible to miss a chance to say something about today’s feast of the Visitation in the context of the important work you undertake here at the Good Counsel Network. Today we are met with two pregnant women whose children will not only change their lives, but the entire course of human history. In S. Elizabeth’s womb, the young S. John the Baptist leaps for joy as he first encounters Christ who, in the womb of Our Blessed Lady, draws the whole world to himself, even before his birth.

Not only is there a profound joy in the encounter between S. Elizabeth and Our Lady – blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb! – but there is a deep sense of the reality of humanity, a deep sense that the encounter between the two women, is in fact a meeting of four people, even if S. John and Our Lord are hidden beneath the protruding bellies of their mothers. In some real way, the Gospel reminds us of the fundamental truth of the dignity of all human life.

The work you carry out here is an extension of this beautiful revelation. You are able, through what you do, to continue that Gospel of Life, drawing others to understand the basic fact that life is a sacred gift, not a manufactured commodity. In doing that, rooted in the Faith, you also present people unwittingly with Christ. Just like Our Lady, you bring him into their presence in a way that they may not even realise – hidden from view, but nonetheless entirely and really there. In acts of charity, and in those moments where you seem to be the only person who cares for a young woman in distress, your contribution is vital – not because it’s you there, but because you have the honour of bringing Christ to them, so that he can infuse their hearts and souls with his love and his grace.

So may God bless you and your work this day, as he so clearly does. May the prayers of S. Elizabeth, S. John the Baptist, and Our Lady, support you in all you undertake. And may Christ, hidden or in plain sight, continue to work through you his good news for the whole of mankind. Amen.

Mary at the cross & the tomb

08 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by Fr James Bradley in Homily

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day with mary, easter, homily, mary, our lady

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