Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
GospelMatthew 16:21-27 (English Standard Version
Anglicised, India)
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must
go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests
and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.And
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This
shall never happen to you.”But he turned and said to Peter, “Get
behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not
setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.For whoever
would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
his life for my sake will find it.For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole
world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his
soul?For the Son of
Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father,
and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
Päivi Räsänen is a member of the Finnish parliament who served as
Minister of the Interior from 2011 to 2015, is married to a Lutheran pastor,
has five children and ten grandchildren and is a physician by profession.
On Thursday 31 August and Friday 1 September she was being tried along with Bishop Juhana Pohjola of an independent Lutheran church before the Helsinki Court of Appeal. As the Catholic Herald (England) reports: Along with Räsänen, a Finnish Lutheran bishop named Juhana Pohjola is also being tried for hate speech for publishing a pamphlet written by Räsänen that advocated for the biblical understanding of sexuality and marriage. Though they were unanimously acquitted by a Finnish District Court in 2022, prosecutors appealed their acquittal to the Helsinki Court of Appeal.
There is a report of the case in the Court of Appeal here. A verdict is expected by 30 November.
The words of Jeremiah in today's First Reading I'm sure resonate with Mrs Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola:Forthe word of theLordhas become for mea reproach and derision all day long. The words of Jesus in the Gospel tell us clearly the price of following hm: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
A Man for All Seasonsis a movie made in 1966, written by Robert Bolt and based on his stage play with the same title. It is based on the life of St Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England during the time of King Henry VIII. His position would be similar to that of Prime Minister today. More refuses to sign a letter asking Pope Clement VII to annul the marriage of the King to Catherine of Aragon who had not borne him a son. Eventually More is found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death.
During his trial Sir Thomas More discovers that Richard Rich, who had given perjured testimony against him, had been made Attorney General for Wales as a reward for this. The laws of England were about to be extended to Wales, a country of 20,779 square kilometres in the west of the island of Britain which also includes England and Scotland. More says to Rich, Why,Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world - but for Wales? [3:30 - 4:20 in the video above]. The saint is referring to today's Gospel: For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
St Thomas More was beheaded on 6 July 1535. St John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was the only English bishop to refuse to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church in England. He too was executed, on 22 June 1535. The feast day of both is celebrated on 22 June. Both can be seen as martyrs for the sacrament of matrimony, since King Henry set himself up as head of the Church because the Pope would not declare null an void his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
Päivi Maria Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola are being harassed because they say that marriage is between man and woman. That is what our Christian faith demands. Nature itself reinforces this.
King Henry VIII attacked and mocked marriage by his behaviour and brought about a break in the Church in England, followed by bloody persecution. Today there is division in the Catholic Church over the sacredness of marriage, with a majority of bishops in Germany, for example, giving the green light to priests to 'bless' 'unions' between two persons of the same sex, while asserting that such 'blessings' and 'unions' are not the sacrament of marriage. The Pillar reported this week: In the Aug. 21 letter, Archbishop Heiner Koch assures the Berlin archdiocese’s priests, deacons, and lay pastoral workers that he will not take disciplinary action against them if they bless couples 'who cannot or do not want to marry sacramentally.' These couples include those living in adulterous relationships.
We are living in times where it is becoming more and more difficult to proclaim the Gospel, even in countries such as Finland where two-thirds of its population of almost six million are nominally Christian, mostly Lutheran. There are about 16,000 Catholics there. We are living in times, at least in the Western world, where one can be condemned for asserting that males are males and females are females and that the one cannot become the other. Such assertions are not professions of faith but statements of scientific fact.
Yes, our faith asserts this too. In the first account of creation we read: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27). We further read in Genesis 2:24 in the second account of creation: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Jesus quotes this text in the gospels of St Matthew (19:5) and Mark (10:8) as does St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians (5:31).
To reject what science and the Word of God teaches us is a grave affront to God our Creator, a rejection of the teaching of Jesus, God who became Man and of the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
But Jesus reassures us in today's Gospel: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. May we take him at his word, as Finnish Lutherans Päivi Maria Räsänen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola have done,and praise him with hearts full of gratitude and hope.
Psalm 117 [116]
Setting by William Byrd
Sung by Voces8
Praise our Lord all ye Gentiles, praise him all ye peoples,
Because his mercy is confirmed upon us, and his truth remaineth for ever. Amen.
Traditional Latin Mass
Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English ishere. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 09-03-2023 if necessary).
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
Gospel Matthew 22:15-21 (English
Standard Version Anglicised)
Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his
words.And they sent their disciples to him, along
with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and
teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's
opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to
pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?Show me the coin for the tax.” And
they brought him a denarius.And
Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription
is this?”They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God
the things that are God's.”
Readings for Irelandfor World Mission Sunday. John 17:11, 17-23 replaces the Gospel above. The other readings are the same.
The reflection below is based on Matthew 22:15-21;
Mission is a free and
conscious response to God’s call. Yet we discern this call only when we have a
personal relationship of love with Jesus present in his Church.
A denarius from 44 BC showing the head of Julius Caesar and the goddess Venus [Wikipedia]
In the time of Jesus a denarius was a day's wage for an ordinary working man.
I spent three months in the latter part of 1982 working in a hospital in Minneapolis as a chaplain. I was one of seven doing a 'quarter' of Clinical Pastoral Education. One day I had to go to a bank and got chatting with an employee at the information desk. When he heard I was based in the Philippines he told me that in the previous elections in the USA he had considered, among other things, what impact his vote would have on the lives of Filipinos and others outside the USA.
I was very struck by his attitude. We never got into partisan politics nor did we discuss religion. The man was almost certainly a Christian, probably a Lutheran if he was from Minneapolis or a Catholic if from St Paul, the other 'Twin City'. I saw in him a person reflecting the teaching of Vatican II.
One of the major documents of that Council, Gaudium et Spes, addresses the political life of society. No 75 says: All citizens, therefore, should be mindful of the right and also the duty to use their free vote to further the common good. The Church praises and esteems the work of those who for the good of men devote themselves to the service of the state and take on the burdens of this office . . .
All Christians must be aware of their own specific vocation within the political community. It is for them to give an example by their sense of responsibility and their service of the common good. In this way they are to demonstrate concretely how authority can be compatible with freedom, personal initiative with the solidarity of the whole social organism, and the advantages of unity with fruitful diversity. They must recognize the legitimacy of different opinions with regard to temporal solutions, and respect citizens, who, even as a group, defend their points of view by honest methods. Political parties, for their part, must promote those things which in their judgement are required for the common good; it is never allowable to give their interests priority over the common good.
A politician of the last century who may be
beatified one day is the Servant of God Robert
Schuman, one of the founders of what is now the European Union. His
politics of reconciliation in post-World War II Europe flowed from his deep
Catholic Christian faith. Yet he was never an 'agent' of the Catholic Church.
He was an embodiment of the vision of Gaudium et Spes, promulgated
by Pope Paul VI in December 1965.
Incidentally, Robert Schuman, when Foreign Minister
of France - he had been Prime Minister in 1947-48 despite having been born a
German citizen in Luxembourg - said at a congress in
1950 to mark the 1,400th anniversary of the birth of Ireland's greatest
missionary saint: St Columban, this illustrious Irishman who left his
own country for voluntary exile, willed and achieved a spiritual union between
the principal European countries of his time. He is the patron saint of all
those who now seek to build a United Europe.
Robert Schuman's deepest identity was as a
Christian. It was as such that he became a patriotic Frenchman and a visionary
European. St Thomas More was one of the greatest Englishmen in the history of
his country. However, he was His Majesty's good servant - but God's
first. In 2000 St John Paul II proclaimed him patron saint of politicians and statesmen.
Jesus doesn't give us any detailed way of being
involved in the political life of whatever country we belong to. But he gives
us the values to live by. We cannot leave those values at the entrance to the
polling booth or at the entrance to the legislative chamber if we happen to be
elected to public office. Nor can we leave them at the door of the church after
Mass on Sunday.
As voters and politicians Catholic Christians may
have very different views on most matters of policy. But there are certain
issues on which we must all take a Gospel stand. We may never advocate abortion or 'assisted suicide' or support the very new idea of 'marriage' between two persons of the same
sex. As I prepare this it is reported that the Netherlands is about to legalise euthanasia for children under 12.
In 2013 a member of the Irish parliament who voted
in favour of legalising abortion in certain circumstances was aggrieved when
his parish priest told him that he could no longer be an extraordinary minister
of Holy Communion. It is far more important to try to live as Gaudium
et Spes teaches - All Christians must be aware of their own
specific vocation within the political community - than to be an
extraordinary minister of Holy Communion or a lector, important though these
roles may sometimes be. But they are simply roles. No one has a 'vocation' to
be either of these or to take on similar roles. But the Council tells us that
each of us has a specific vocation within the political community.
Robert Schuman lived that vocation to the full. St
Thomas More was martyred because he lived that vocation to the full.
Last week I quoted Fr Emil Kapaun, an American army chaplain who died in a prisoner of war camp in 1951 during the Korean war. I will end with that same paragraph as I think he was thinking of what today's Gospel is about.
In a broadcast in Japan on 21 April 1950 Fr Kapaun said: We can be sure to expect that in our own lives there will come a time when we must make a choice between being loyal to the true faith or of giving allegiance to something else which is either opposed to or not in alliance with our faith.
This Sunday, 18 October, is the Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost in the calendar that uses the TLM. The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-18-2020, if necessary).
Last May I updated a series of posts on The Rosary with the Great Artists. Here areThe Sorrowful Mysteries.
Authentic Beauty
Authentic beauty,
however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know,
to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
Performed by the Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Nejc Bečan
This youth orchestra is located in Slovenia. Smetana wrote this piece in 1874 when he was 50 and had lost his hearing. Here is his description of the work.
The
composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small
springs, the Cold and Warm Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single
current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes
where a farmer's wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the
night's moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins
aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St John's Rapids; then it widens and flows
toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the
distance, ending at the Labe (or Elbe, in German).
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
GospelMatthew 16:21-27 (English
Standard Version Anglicised)
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must
go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests
and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.And
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This
shall never happen to you.”But he turned and said to Peter, “Get
behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not
setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.For whoever
would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake
will find it.For what
will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?For the Son of Man is going to come
with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay
each person according to what he has done.
A Man for All Seasonsis a movie made in 1966, written by
Robert Bolt and based on his stage play with the same title. It is based
on the life of St Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England during the time of
King Henry VIII. His position would be similar to that of Prime Minister today.
More refuses to sign a letter asking Pope Clement VII to annul the
marriage of the King to Catherine of Aragon who had not borne him a son.
Eventually More is found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death.
During his trial Sir Thomas More discovers that Richard Rich, who had
given perjured testimony against him, had been made Attorney General for Wales
as a reward for this. The laws of England were about to be extended to Wales, a
country of 20,779 square kilometres in the west of the island of Britain which
also includes England and Scotland. More says to Rich, Why,Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world -
but for Wales? [3:30 - 4:20 in the video above].
On Sundays in Ordinary Time the First Reading and the Gospel are linked
thematically whereas the Second Reading is from on the Letters of St Paul read
over the course of a number of Sundays. But this Sunday it is closely related
to the other two readings in that it reminds us that as followers of Jesus we
are called to be living sacrifices:
I appeal to you
therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship.Do
not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of
God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2).
The Prophet Jeremiah discovers the cost of doing God's will: I
have become a laughing-stock all the day; everyone mocks me . . . For
the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision
all day long (Jeremiah 20:7,8).
St Peter cannot abide the thought of any such thing happening to
Jesus: God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you. He
receives an extraordinary rebuke from Jesus: Get behind me, Satan! You
are a hindrance to me; for you are not setting your mind on the things of God
but on the things of man.
The Crucifixion of St Peter
Caravaggio [Web Gallery of Art] If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
St Peter in giving unwanted and unhelpful 'advice' to Jesus had no idea of the price he himself would pay for following in the footsteps of the Lord. He was following human thinking, not God's. This incident shows that our thinking has consequences. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, says St Paul in Philippians 2:5. This is what our baptism calls us to. Everything we do is meant to be in accordance with God's thinking, with God's will. Last year here in the Republic of Ireland which has a population of almost five million, 6,666 children were legally killed before birth. The law allowing this came into effect on New Year's Day 2019, the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God. The law was the foreseen consequence of a referendum in May 2018 when two-thirds of those who voted chose to 'repeal' Article 8 of the Constitution that protected the life of the unborn child and of the mother. Based on the census of 2016 nearly eighty per-cent of the voters identified themselves as Catholic. The majority of legislators who legalised abortion-on-demand were Catholics by background, one of them a regular lector at Sunday Mass in her parish. This is a glaring example of what the late Fr Jaime Bulatao SJ, a Filipino, labelled in 1966 Split-level Christianity. (I took some classes under Fr Bulatao in the summer of 1974). Promoting or supporting abortion is incompatible with the Catholic Christian faith. In his encyclical Laudato si'No 120, Pope Francis states: Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? 'If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away'. Some politicians who identify themselves as Catholics are now promoting abortion as a 'right'. And many people who work for the dignity of every human life from conception to death are condemned as persons with no interest in the welfare of children and others after birth, a total lie. Mary Wagner is a Canadian woman who has spent much time in prison for peacefully proclaiming the humanity of the unborn child and for trying to offer mothers an alternative to abortion. Another Canadian who has spent much time in prison for totally silent witness outside abortion centres is Linda Gibbons. I am sure that these two extraordinary witnesses to our Christian faith must have experienced what the Prophet Jeremiah expresses in today's First Reading: If I say, “I will not
mention him, or speak any more in his name”, there is in my heart as it were a
burning fire shut up in my bones and I am weary with holding it in, and I
cannot. Please pray for them. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For behold, when
the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy (Luke 1:44).
Miserere mihi, Domine
Setting by William Byrd
Sung by Cardinall's Musick
Miserere
mihi, Domine, et exaudi orationem meam.
Have mercy on me, Lord, and listen to my prayer.
Extraordinary Form of the Mass
Traditional
Latin Mass (TLM)
This Sunday, 30 August, is the Thirteenth Sunday
After Pentecost in the calendar that uses the TLM. The complete Mass in Latin and
English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 8-30-2020, if necessary).
+++
Where'er You Walk
George
Frederic Handel
Oboist,
Leo Duarte and The Academy of Ancient Music, directed by Richard Egarr
It may have happened on some
occasion that you paused before a sculpture, a picture, a few verses of a poem
or a piece of music that you found deeply moving, that gave you a sense of joy,
a clear perception, that is, that what you beheld was not only matter, a piece of
marble or bronze, a painted canvas, a collection of letters or an accumulation
of sounds, but something greater, something that 'speaks', that can touch the
heart, communicate a message, uplift the mind (Pope Benedict XVI).
Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap
Jesus in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the
Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of
God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not
regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay
taxes to the emperor, or not?’ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you
putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought
him a denarius. Then he
said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them,
‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God
the things that are God’s.
A denarius from 44 BC showing the head of Julius Caesar and the goddess Venus [Wikipedia]
In the time of Jesus a denarius was a day's wage for an ordinary working man.
I spent three months in the latter part of 1982 working in a hospital in Minneapolis as a chaplain. I was one of seven doing a 'quarter' of Clinical Pastoral Education. One day I had to go to a bank and got chatting with an employee at the information desk. When he heard I was based in the Philippines he told me that in the previous elections in the USA he had considered, among other things, what impact his vote would have on the lives of Filipinos and others outside the USA.
I was very struck by his attitude. We never got into partisan politics nor did we discuss religion. The man was almost certainly a Christian, probably a Lutheran if he was from Minneapolis or a Catholic if from St Paul, the other 'Twin City'. I saw in him a person reflecting the teaching of Vatican II.
One of the major documents of that Council, Gaudium et Spes, addresses the political life of society. No 75 says: All citizens, therefore, should be mindful of the right and also the duty to use their free vote to further the common good. The Church praises and esteems the work of those who for the good of men devote themselves to the service of the state and take on the burdens of this office . . .
All Christians must be aware of their own specific vocation within the political community. It is for them to give an example by their sense of responsibility and their service of the common good. In this way they are to demonstrate concretely how authority can be compatible with freedom, personal initiative with the solidarity of the whole social organism, and the advantages of unity with fruitful diversity. They must recognize the legitimacy of different opinions with regard to temporal solutions, and respect citizens, who, even as a group, defend their points of view by honest methods. Political parties, for their part, must promote those things which in their judgement are required for the common good; it is never allowable to give their interests priority over the common good.
A politician of the last century who may be beatified one day is the Servant of God Robert Schuman, one of the founders of what is now the European Union. His politics of reconciliation in post-World War II Europe flowed from his deep Catholic Christian faith. Yet he was never an 'agent' of the Catholic Church. He was an embodiment of the vision of Gaudium et Spes, promulgated by Pope Paul VI in December 1965.
Incidentally, Robert Schuman,
when Foreign Minister of France - he had been Prime Minister in 1947-48 despite
having been born a German citizen in Luxembourg - said
at a congress in 1950 to mark the 1,400th anniversary of the birth of
Ireland's greatest missionary saint: St Columban, this illustrious Irishman who left his own country for
voluntary exile, willed and achieved a spiritual union between the principal
European countries of his time. He is the patron saint of all those who now
seek to build a United Europe.
Robert Schuman's deepest identity was
as a Christian. It was as such that he became a patriotic Frenchman and a
visionary European. St Thomas More was one of the greatest Englishmen in the
history of his country. However, he was His Majesty's good servant - but
God's first. In 2000 St John Paul II proclaimed him patron saint of politicians and statesmen.
Jesus doesn't give us any detailed way
of being involved in the political life of whatever country we belong to. But
he gives us the values to live by. We cannot leave those values at the entrance
to the polling booth or at the entrance to the legislative chamber if we happen
to be elected to public office. Nor can we leave them at the door of the church
after Mass on Sunday.
As voters and politicians Catholic
Christians may have very different views on most matters of policy. But there
are certain issues on which we must all take a Gospel stand. We may never
advocate abortion or support the very new idea of 'marriage' between two
persons of the same sex.
In 2013 a member of the Irish
parliament who voted in favour of legalising abortion in certain circumstances
was aggrieved when his parish priest told him that he could no longer be an
extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. It is far more important to try to
live as Gaudium et Spes teaches - All Christians must
be aware of their own specific vocation within the political community - than
to be an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion or a lector, important though
these roles may sometimes be. But they are simply roles. No one has a
'vocation' to be either of these or to take on similar roles. But the Council
tells us that each of us has a specific vocation within the political
community.
Robert Schuman lived that vocation to the full. St Thomas More was martyred because he lived that vocation to the full.
The words of
today's alternative Communion Antiphon were sung as the Alleluia verse at the
canonisation of St Pedro Calungsod and others, 21 October 2012.
Antiphona ad
communionem Communion
Antiphon Mt10:45
Ritus hominis venit,
ut daret animan suam redemptionem pro multis.
The Son of Man has come
to give his life as a ransom for many.
World Mission Day
This Sunday is World Mission Day. You may wish to read
the Message of Pope Francis for World Mission Day 2017. The Pope quotes his
predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI: Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea,
but the encounter with an event, a Person, which gives life a new horizon and a
decisive direction.
Apostle Peter in Prison
