Saints This Month - 29 April, St Catherine of Siena

Catherine of Siena is one of three women to have been declared Doctors of the Church, the other two being Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux.

At the centre of Catherine’s teaching is what she has to say about prayer. She refers to prayer as ‘the cell of self-knowledge’. At least to pray is to enter this ‘cell of self-knowledge’. So prayer is a place where we get to know ourselves. But we get to know ourselves in a particular light because in prayer we seek to be in the presence of God. So in prayer we get to know ourselves in the light of God, seeing the weaknesses of our nature on the one hand but also the extent of our desire, a desire that reaches even to God.

She gives us an image to keep in mind. There is a bridge, she says, across which we want to travel so as to come to God. There are three steps up to the bridge and she identifies these steps as different parts of the cross, or different parts of Christ’s body as he hangs from the cross. The first step is his feet, the second his side and the third his lips. These represent three different attitudes in us as we relate to God in prayer. If we come in fear it is as if we were kneeling, kissing the feet of Jesus. If we come in love it is as if we were standing by his side, kissing his breast. And to be kissing his lips, she says, refers to a union with God that happens in prayer from time to time but for which we do not really have the words.

Catherine says that in prayer we learn all the virtues, especially faith and charity. Without faith we would not pray at all and it is above all charity, God’s love, that we learn in prayer. Catherine is thinking of us praying before the crucified Christ, meditating about Christ on the cross. That makes her think of the blood of Christ, poured out for love of the Father and the world. The blood of Christ makes her think about the Eucharist because it is above all when we come to the Eucharist that we partake of the blood of Christ. This is where we come into the presence of God and enter the mystery of his love.

She adds another detail to the picture she paints for us. Beside the bridge, she says, is a hostel for the travellers who are keen to make the journey up onto the bridge. This hostel is the Church where the Eucharist is offered to travellers as sustenance and support on their journey. Whenever take part in the Eucharist we are visiting this hostel, coming to be nourished on the blood of Christ, to be in the presence of God, and to experience his love.

For Catherine prayer is not an end in itself. It is always fruitful in charity. That is the outcome of prayer for her. She means that we will be ready to go to the help of our neighbour, to practise charity in that sense. Through praying to the God of love, and through receiving the blood of Christ, we in turn become lovers. We are able to reach out to others to help them, to bring them the love of God we have come to know.

Join us for Exposition & Benediction in Oxford

The Year of the Priest - Father Jerzy Popiełuszko

It was announced recently that Fr Jerzy Popieluszko is to be beatified in Warsaw on 6th June. We re-publish here a post on him from our series for the year of the priest. It was first published in October 2009.

On the 19th of October 1984, three officers of the Polish Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, pulled over the car of a thirty-seven year old priest. They bundled him into the boot of their unmarked car and drove to the dam near Wloclawek. They then savagely beat the priest until he was unconscious and drowned him in the river.

The murdered priest was Jerzy Popiełuszko. He had been born into a farming family in the harsh conditions of post-war Poland, under the jackboot of Communism and Stalin's USSR. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1972 and began to work with children and youths.

In 1978 Karol Wojtyła was elected Pope taking the name John Paul II. This had an electrifying effect on the Polish people. Even under communist rule Poland had been one of the most devout nations in Europe but the election of John Paul II and his call for his countrymen to create an "alternative Poland" galvanized the nation. Fr. Popiełuszko heeded the Holy Father's call. He started to support the strikers of the independent trade union Solidarity. He said Masses at the picket lines, heard confessions and organised 'workers schools' for the strikers. When martial law was declared in 1981, Popiełuszko helped those persecuted by the regime, providing food and sanctuary when he could.

During this period the Church was the only group that could openly challenge the state. Fr. Popiełuszko became one of its greatest weapons. From 1982 he began to preach homilies that interwove spiritual exhortations with political messages, criticizing the Communist system and motivating people to protest. Popieluszko’s preaching was a thorn in the government’s flesh,especially as they were broadcast on Radio Free Europe He pointed out social injustice and became the “conscience of the people”. For a Poland assailed by social unrest, he saw redemption in the words of St. Paul: “Conquer the bad through the good.”

The communists tried to intimidate this inconvenient priest: break-ins, shadowing, damage of private goods, bombs, a false trial, numerous arrests, and finally car accidents but he refused to be silenced because he believed that he had a duty as a Christian and as a priest to proclaim the truth. The only way they could silence him was to take his life.

His funeral attracted thousands of mourners who were convinced that they were “witnesses of the sacrifice of a priest who gave his life for the truth.” Communism would cling on in Poland for another five years but the witness and example of Jerzy Popiełuszko would inspire many to rise up against the regime.

Br Ursus OP prepares for the Easter Fair...

This year's Easter Fair at Blackfriars Oxford takes place on Sunday 2 May, from 10.30am. Do come and join us, and sample some of the delicious Golden Honey Fudge made by Br Ursus OP, with the help of his able sous chef, Br Robert Verrill OP!

"The Lord has brought you into a land flowing with milk and honey, alleluia, alleluia: that the law of the Lord may be ever in your mouth, alleluia, alleluia!" - the Introit for Easter Monday.


"More to be desired are your words, O Lord, than gold, even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb" - Psalm 119:10.


"My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.
Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off" - Proverbs 24:13f.

Saints This Month-23 April: St. George

One of the most interesting social trends in my life has been the rebirth of England as a distinct cultural entity in the United Kingdom. It was only in the mid 1990s that the St. George's Cross began to be seen across the country, especially during sporting events. Previously the English flag had only been seen at Anglican Churches, on admiral’s ships and at far-right rallies. If an Englishman wished to be patriotic, the Union Flag was his banner of choice. Now all of this could be caused by the shrewd marketing of sportswear companies or the devolved government in Scotland and Wales, but nevertheless this rise in English nationalism has also given a renewed interest in the feast of St George and its celebration.

St George is one of the most highly celebrating Saints in both the Eastern and Western Churches. Pope Gelasius stated that George was among those saints "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God", but it is thought that he was born into a noble family in Palestine during the late third century. George went to Nicomedia, to begin a career as a soldier. By his late 20s, George was promoted to the rank of Tribune and stationed as an imperial guard of the Emperor at Nicomedia.

In the year AD 302, Diocletian issued an edict that every Christian soldier in the army should be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the pagan gods. But George objected and with the courage of his faith approached the Emperor. George loudly renounced the Emperor's edict, and in front of his fellow soldiers and Tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian and declared his worship of Jesus Christ. Diocletian attempted to convert George, even offering gifts of land, money and slaves if he made a sacrifice to the pagan gods. The Emperor made many offers, but George never accepted. Recognizing the futility of his efforts, Diocletian was left with no choice but to have him executed for his refusal. Before the execution George gave his wealth to the poor and prepared himself. After various torture sessions, including laceration on a wheel of swords in which he was resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia's city wall, on April 23, 303. Tradition has held that his blood formed a cross.

St. George’s great act of witness, strength and Christian virtue led to him becoming one of the most venerated saints in Palestine. His cult spread throughout the Eastern Church and eventually reached the West in the 5th century. In England the earliest reference is from the will of Alfred the Great but St George’s popularity exploded during the crusades. This soldier saint, born in the Holy Land, was the perfect patron for the crusaders. The legend of Saint George and the Dragon was popularised in this period and it has been suggested that it is an allegory of his status as the protective giant of Christendom and the Faith.

It is a very good thing to celebrate a patron but the problem lies in how and why we celebrate. The modern celebration of the feast has fallen, albeit on a much smaller scale, into the same state as the commercial “Oirish-fest” that St Patrick’s Day has become. This is a terrible shame, as the Christian virtue of St George is the reason behind him being so venerated throughout the world. Wherever St.George is especially celebrated, be it Genoa or Barcelona, Georgia or Portugal, Milan or Malta, or Palestine and England. Let us remember why we venerate him: not because of some nationalistic shindig or a publican's marketing scheme. We venerate him because of his witness to Christ. He is an example to all of us. This St.George’s Day let us pray for the conversion and protection of England first: then we can have a pint or two of ale in his honour.

Bishop Malcolm McMahon OP on 'Hard Talk'

Bishop Malcolm McMahon OP, former Provincial of the English Dominican Province, and the present bishop of Nottingham, speaks on the BBC's Hard Talk radio program about the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, and the lessons we have learnt and stand to learn as a Church.

This is available here on the BBC iPlayer until 28 April 2010.

Saints This Month-18 April: St. Apollonius the Apologist

As Britain prepares for a general election it seems apt that the feast of St. Apollonius falls within the month-long political circus that precedes polling day. Apollonius was an eminent citizen of second-century Rome and a member of the Senate. He was well versed in philosophy and was a respected member of the Roman elite. He developed an interest in the Jewish scriptures and this led him to Christian writings. He was inspired by his reading to be baptised. During this period the Emperor Commodus had informally halted the persecution of Christians, out of regard for his Empress Marcia, who was an admirer of the Faith. Nevertheless the laws of his father Marcus Aurelius, who had persecuted Christians, had not been repealed.

One of Apollonius' slaves publicly accused him of Christianity and the the praetorian prefect, Sextus Tigidius Perennis, arrested him. Perversely the slave was immediately condemned to have his legs broken, and to be put to death, as the anti-Christian edict of Marcus Aurelius ordered that the accusers of Christians should also be put to death.

Apollonius was summoned before the Senate to defend himself. Due to his standing if he had denounced the charge and Christ he would have been set free. His fellow senators expected him to take such action. However instead of recanting, he defended the Christian faith and took the opportunity to give the whole court a reasoned apology of his Christian faith, in a moving and direct summary of the entire Christian creed. He argued that Christianity surpasses paganism, through the salvific work of Jesus Christ, the revealing Word of God and teacher of moral life, who became man to destroy sin by his death. Apollonius said that Christ's death was prophesied both by Scripture and by Plato.

Apollonius was condemned by a decree of the Senate, and beheaded about the year 186. His heroic defence of the truth is an example to civil leaders throughout the world. With his fortune, position and life at risk he refuse to be pressured into submission. All too often in Britain we see politicians reject the common good because of fear of losing votes, of being isolated by the party leadership or of losing donations. Let us pray that this coming election will return to the Commons , members who are prepared to stand and defend the truth and the common good.

Interchapter in Oxford

Halfway through the Prior Provincial's four year term of office there is an extended meeting of the provincial council or what is sometimes called an 'interchapter'. The provincial and his council are joined by priors and other superiors who are not already members of the council. The task of this meeting is to deal with all that seems useful for the good of the province, in the first place by reviewing whether the ordinations and exhortations of the last provincial chapter and general chapter have been put into practice.

The interchapter of the English province took place in Oxford from 14th to 16th April. Brothers travelled from Barbados and Grenada as well as from the other six communities in Britain (London, Cambridge, Leicester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle). The chapter was a time for business and decisions but also for prayer and fraternity, a time to catch up on news and to renew friendships.

Please continue to pray for the work of the Dominicans, in particular asking the Holy Spirit's guidance of the Order as we prepare for the general chapter in September. At this chapter, to be held in Rome, a new Master of the Order will be elected.

Ordination to the Diaconate in Dublin

On Sunday 11th April at St. Saviour's Priory, Dublin, fr David Barrins OP of the Irish Province was ordained a deacon by His Grace, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. David has been studying in Oxford for the past three years and so is a member of the Godzdogz team. Five brothers from Oxford made the journey to the fair city for what proved to be a memorable and joyful day. These photos of the day were taken by fr Luuk Dominiek Jansen OP and there are more pictures and some video material at his excellent blog Witness Christ: Walking through Life with God

Celebrating Priesthood - Fr Vincent McNabb OP

The first time I heard the name Vincent McNabb was at my initial meeting with the Dominican vocations director at the priory in London. On the wall was a painting of a Dominican friar, a frail old man in big black boots and a shabby habit, a picture of someone exuding holiness. This was Vincent McNabb. I was told various anecdotes about him – how he used to always sleep on the floor, how he had only one habit, home-spun from the wool of sheep reared in a nearby field. He had a great distrust of modern technology prefering to wash his habit in the bath with carbolic soap rather than resorting to a washing machine. Often he would put his habit on without waiting for it to dry, so that he would leave a trail of water behind him as he wandered around the priory.

For the last twenty years of his life, he was a well known figure on the streets of London – his brethren jokingly called him the Mahatma Gandhi of Kentish Town. Most Sundays he would walk 5 miles from the priory to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park where he would draw huge crowds. Often he would have to deal with persistent hecklers. E. A. Siderman, a non-Catholic, was a frequent thorn in the side of Father Vincent as he preached, yet after his death in 1943, Siderman wrote a very affectionate account, 'Father Vincent at Marble Arch.' He writes how Catholics in the crowd would often become incensed whenever their faith came under attack from a heckler, yet Father Vincent would always reprimand anyone interfering with the questioner. 'Leave him alone,' he would say. 'Questioners are our guests, and we welcome them and want their questions. Many of you Catholics learn more about your religion from these questions and answers than you have done at school or at church and some Catholics only remember their Faith when they hear it attacked. I have heard some Catholics declaiming that they would die for the Faith but it would please me better if they would live the Faith.' And then he would turn to the questioner: 'I am sorry. Please put your question again.'

Vincent McNabb was almost a legend in his own lifetime. There is a story, which may well be apocryphal, of a woman heckler who is supposed to have become impatient when he was answering a question regarding clerical celibacy. She shouted out 'If you were my husband, I'd give you poison.' And the retort is said to have come back: 'If you were my wife, I'd take it.'

Vincent McNabb had a brilliantly sharp mind and he knew it, but he was not without faults. With his great intellect he was sometimes in moral danger of commiting the sin of pride. Occasionally he would have outbursts of invincible obstinacy and then he would show extravagant gestures of remorse. At times he could be very difficult to live with. Such personality traits would have greatly puzzled anyone who took him to be a ready made saint. He had his fair quota of faults and failings, and like everyone else he was still in need of Christ's saving power. Yet Dominican life really did provide an environment in which he could grow in holiness. He knew that the Dominican vocation wasn't just to save other people's souls, but also his own soul. As he grew older he became more consciously aware of his failings, and this led to a much greater level of spiritual maturity. One of his superiors in London wrote of him:

No one gave me less trouble as superior than Father Vincent. He was always busy, but one never had to persuade him to do anything or not to do it. He had simply to be told, and one always felt confident that he would do as he was told whatever it cost him. There was no pettiness about him, and I always could and did tell him what I wanted him to do without giving the slightest offence. I used to feel sometimes it was like leading a lion on a string. But the string never broke.

Father Vincent was an example of how the love of Christ can triumph over the unruly forces in the soul so that Christ's glory is able to shine through them, and for me, he was a priest who I found greatly inspiring when I was considering whether I should join the Dominicans.

Celebrating Priesthood: Fr Gerald Vann OP

When I was an undergraduate studying theology in London my chaplain, Fr Tim Calvert OP, gave me a copy of The Divine Pity as spiritual reading. I remember being surprised at how slim a volume it was and I immediately began to read it. What struck me most of all was the punchiness of the text: this was clearly a man who was not afraid to challenge his readers with the hard hitting truth. I found myself drawn to this book and had many questions for Fr Tim about its author. As I was hoping to join the Order at this time, it was a thrill to think that I might one day belong to the same province as this priest who had such insight into the human condition and wrote so beautifully.

I think the reason why The Divine Pity touches me and so many others so deeply is that it reflects the struggles of a man who felt compelled to speak the truth about how we as Christians should be, and how we all too often act. Fr Gerald seems to have had a particular hatred for selfishness and indifference, two things that he thinks are the most deadly for the life of charity within the soul. With great flair he managed to write a book of just under 200 pages within which so much practical Christian wisdom and teaching is contained that it could almost be seen as a course in the spiritual life. Again and again he points out the potential pitfalls of emphasising any particular aspect of the virtuous life out of proportion so that it becomes a distortion and is not in fact virtue at all. The book takes as its structure the beatitudes and indeed the subtitle of it is 'A Study in the Social Implications of the Beatitudes'.

Fr Gerald begins his exploration of the beatitudes with the importance of our teleological end, namely: God made us to know Him, love Him, serve Him and so to be happy. He follows his brother St. Thomas in this approach. Making clear that Christian virtue is related to but distinct from how it was understood by the Greeks, he points out that in the labour required to gain the habits of prudence, justice et al there is the same self-mastery that we find in the Greeks, but that this is only half the picture. For the Christian, the human being is to be a master but also a child. For virtue to be a part of religion it must genuinely be an act of worship, an act offered for God, to God, and with God and not have the human being himself as the focus.

In the first chapter, where his approach to the beatitudes is introduced, Fr Gerald first mentions one of the core concepts of the book: that to be a happy and holy Christian is not primarily a question of doing but of being. The virtues lived perfectly are not something that we do but something by which we are possessed. In an age where the fear of what doing nothing might bring pushes almost everyone to embrace a culture of activism, it is such a relief to read that all we really have to do is to let God take over. The anxieties and neuroses that are the product of a semi-Pelagian attitude must be left behind, says Fr Gerald. The feeling that we must make everything happen has no place here, it is not a Christian approach.

Fr Gerald sees poverty of spirit as a child-like dependence on God. It is the opposite of pride which attempts to be autonomous, which wills to be its own master. The book was published in 1945 at the end of the Second World War when the world had just seen the utter failure and horror of a system that put Man at the centre. He sees this failure as inevitable since we cannot just be human. Either we accept the gift that God wishes to give us and become more than human, or we reject it and therefore become less than human. For Christ is the key to understanding true humanity.

This true humanity requires purity of heart and it is this purity that enables us to see God. Fr Gerald quotes St. Thomas who says that the life of vision is not in the first half of the beatitudes, which are the conditions required for happiness, for the life of vision is not a means to happiness but happiness itself. He sees temperateness as a central aspect of this beatitude since it concerns how to enjoy people, animals and things for themselves and not as a means to an end. A metaphor for temperateness can be the reverence with which a connoisseur treats a rare and expensive wine. This is the reverence that the Christian should have for all things. Temperateness is not restricted to the use of food and alcohol and it is not a restrictive, negative quality but a positive creative trait which is essential if we wish to love. As we genuflect when we pass the Blessed Sacrament, are we to ignore the presence of God in those who have just received him at the altar? If we learn to see things rightly by seeing God within them, then we learn to make our whole lives a unity. Instead of an agglomerate of unconnected interests, we become a single and all-inclusive fire.

It is this holy fire of divine love, which as it consumes us makes us into itself, that I found in this book and which has been such an inspiration to me. Since I first read The Divine Pity I have retained a great love for this work and a great admiration for Fr Gerald Vann. I wish that I could have met him in this life, but please God I shall meet him in the next.

Celebrating Priesthood - Monsignor Georges Lemaître

One of greatest fallacies of the "new atheists" is that modern cosmology and physics prove the mendacity of religion and therefore people of faith ignore or even attack scientific inquiry. Last September I was lucky enough to be at the University of Edinburgh Student Union's freshers fair and came upon the secularist society's stall. Amongst their promotional paraphernalia were badges saying "I Believe in the Big Bang". I, of course, was very happy to take one of these badges and, to the horror of these 'rational' youths, put it on my habit. I think they would be further mortified if they realised that the 'hypothesis of the primeval atom' or the Big Bang Theory was proposed by a Belgian Catholic priest in 1933. Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître was born in 1894 and was educated by Jesuits. At the age of 17 he entered the Catholic University of Leuven to study civil engineering. His studies were interrupted when the Kaiser invaded Belgium in 1914. The young Georges enlisted as an artillery officer in the Belgian army and served throughout the great war with distinction, being awarded the Croix de Guerre with palms.

After the War Georges focused his energies on his study of mathematics and physics. Whilst writing his doctorate, he realised that he was being called by God to be a priest. He began his studies for the priesthood and was ordained in 1923. His superiors encouraged his obvious scientific talents and sent him to study astronomy at the University of Cambridge, where he spent a year at St Edmund's House (now St Edmund's College, which happens to be next door to the Dominican Priory in Cambridge). He returned to Leuven to lecture in 1925 and two years later gained international fame through presenting the new idea of an expanding universe. This challenged the established finite-size static universe model proposed by Einstein. Einstein refuted Lemaître's theory, saying "your math is correct, but your physics is abominable"

Nevertheless the work of this cleric was attracting interest and in 1930 he was invited to the British Association in London, where he expanded his theory. He proposed that the Universe expanded from an initial point, which he called the "Primeval Atom". Lemaître described his theory as "the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation"; it became better known as the "Big Bang theory", a phrase originally used sarcastically.

This proposal met skepticism from his fellow scientists at the time. Eddington found Lemaître's notion unpleasant. Einstein found it suspect because he deemed it unjustifiable from a physical point of view. On the other hand, Einstein encouraged Lemaître to look into the possibility of models of non-isotropic expansion, so it's clear he was not altogether dismissive of the concept. He also appreciated Lemaître's argument that a static, Einsteinian model of the universe could not be sustained indefinitely into the past. Between 1930 and 1933 Lemaître developed and debated his findings. New investigations into cosmic rays and changes within the cosmological consensus resulted in the Belgian priest being vindicated, with Einstein declaring his theory to be "the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."

Georges Lemaître died in 1966, highly regarded and honoured as a scientist. He is an example of how reason and revelation complement and enrich each other in the honest pursuit of truth. As a priest he demonstrated the importance of engaging with the world and secular society. Who knows how many scientists and students kept or found their faith through his example?

Pope Dedicates Audience to St. Albert the Great

Jesus Christ is Risen Today

To celebrate Easter, fr Robert Verrill OP plays 'Jesus Christ is Risen Today' on the trumpet

EASTER SUNDAY - Ridicule, Reversal, Rejoicing

Readings: Acts of the Apostles 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4 (or: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8); John 20:1-9

A monk, whose name has been lost in history, was pondering the meaning of the events of Holy Week, with its solemn observances of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the astonishing, earth-shaking events of Easter. "What a surprise ending," he thought. Then suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, he had a new insight. His hearty laugh startled his fellow monks, breaking the silence of their contemplation.

"Don't you see?" he cried. "It was a joke! A great joke! The best joke in all history! On Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified, the devil thought he had won. But God had the last laugh on Easter when he raised Jesus from the dead." This reaction is understandable. When faced with the resurrection the most understandable response is laughter. There is the the laughter of ridicule and mockery that St. Paul received from the Athenians at the Areopagus, a laughter we still hear today from the secularist wings of society. Their cries of "No way! I have never experienced resurrection so it can't be true" continue to mock and sneer at this event which is pivotal not only to our faith but to the whole universe and to the entire created order.

The laughter of ridicule is however hollow and self condemning. For we think so little of ourselves that we must raise ourselves by inches as we stand on others. When we mock life it is not because we embrace life, but because we are afraid of it. This is the laughter of ridicule; this is the laughter of fear and it has about it the odour of death. There is however another type of laughter, the laughter of reversal. Humour is "tragedy standing on its head with its trousers split." Laughter is the response to seeing death step on the banana peel and what is feared more than death? What a cause for hilarity: the mighty have been brought low. It is the laughter of reversal. St. Paul says "Death is swallowed up in victory". And today it has been.

God is in the business of reversing "the way things are." Today the rhetorical question "what good can come out of Nazareth?" is answered. The King of Kings who was shamefully crucified, died and was buried, but who is alive and glorified: He came out of Nazareth. And by joining in with this laughter of reversal and by grabbing the hand of the Risen Christ we begin to experience the final form of laughter, the laughter of rejoicing. The laughter of rejoicing allows us to cry out in victory over the worst this world can dish out. The last laugh is at the resurrection, not a laugh of ridicule or even of reversal, but a laugh of rejoicing. Sin, death and sorrow have been swallowed up by redemption, life and joy.

[An Easter diversion - match these Scripture passages with the photographs in this article - Luke 24:13; Galatians 6:14; Matthew 28:11]

HOLY SATURDAY - Good News About The Church

"And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised" - Matthew 27:51f.

This Holy Week, no one can have missed the sensational headlines concerning scandals committed by churchmen and the alleged failure of some Church leaders. Headlines are punchy one-liners, designed to catch our attention. At their best, they invite us to read the article they herald and maybe discover whatever truth it contains. At their worst, they are misleading and we can wrongly think they capture the truth in a nutshell, so that we don't need to consider the issue any further. It's fair to say that most of the media headlines which have captured the world's attention this Lent have been of the latter kind, and people have thus been led to form a kangaroo court, and to judge the Church of Jesus Christ, and to jeer at her. One need only peruse the hateful and intemperate comment boxes of the media or various blogs for evidence of this. And so, once again Jesus Christ, truly present as the Head of His Mystical Body, the Church, is scourged and lashed for the sins of his people and his ministers.

As the Victim of those sins, Jesus identifies Himself with all those who have been victims, and so the Church, who is always first and foremost the Mystical Body of Christ, truly identifies with their pain and trauma; the victims' pain and anger is also the Church's anguish and distress. Christ then mounts the Cross to redeem sinners and endure an agonizing death with suffering humanity. But even as He hangs there in love, those who do not know what they are doing mock and jeer at Him. Hence, the entire Church is summarily condemned, derided, and dismissed; all her members are found to be naively deluded, at best, and at worst, guilty and complicit in a cover-up.

In contrast, what is the headline that we should concentrate on as we pass from Holy Week into Eastertide? It begins tonight at the Easter Vigil: Alleluia!

That exclamation of Easter joy invites us to consider the truth and reality of what the Church is about. The Church of Jesus Christ is about good news, and her headlines fill the Gospels. So, let us always turn to them and read them! St Matthew's gospel, cited above, leaves us with his punchy attention-grabbing headlines to tell us what the death of Christ effected, and they are so much more sensational than the media's. Christ's death was accompanied by cosmic phenomena, so that as St Ignatius of Antioch said, Jesus "was truly crucified and died, with those in heaven and on the earth and under the earth looking on". Thus, creation itself proclaimed the headlines and sensationally told the good news. And this is news of health, life, peace, reconciliation and goodness to all humanity because of the love of God for all people, shown definitively on the Cross. The gospels proclaim that death is not the end, that sin is ultimately defeated, and that the grave has no hold over us. Rather, we will be raised with Jesus Christ. This is the essence of the good news that the Church proclaims day after day.

St Justin Martyr said that on Holy Saturday, the Lord "remembered his dead ... and He went down unto them to preach to them the good news of His salvation". The Lord still does that today! In every situation where people are dead through sin, or because they have been the victims of sin and evil, the Lord Jesus continues to preach salvation to His beloved people. And He does this primarily in the sacramental actions of His Body, the Church. Many tonight will see and experience the grace of baptism, which joins the forgiven sinner with Jesus Christ so that he or she becomes a child of God, and shares in divine life itself. This is good news! Christ also preaches salvation in the lives and deeds of countless Christians, for raised to new life by His grace and prompted by His Spirit, these members of the Church witness to God's love, compassion and goodness in their lives and extend these to others. This is good news! And finally, in the speech, writing, and art of Christians, Christ's message of salvation is proclaimed. So, Melito of Sardis, in the earliest extant Easter homily, said: "It is He who drew close to you, who cared for the suffering in your midst, and raised the dead". This is good news!

As such, it would be a diabolical tragedy if anyone should refuse to hear the good news and only considers bad news in the Church. It is true and should be acknowledged that this is a reason why any scandal in the Church is so very terrible and evil: as trust has been shattered, it is extremely hard to put one's faith in Christ and His holy Church again. However, we can also become so distracted by the sins and failings of some Christians that we fail to look at Christ himself and at the saving work he has wrought for all of sinful humanity. Thus, we might allow sin to dim the light of faith in our hearts, scandal to extinguish our hope, and outrage to cool our charity. We can be so allured by the glamour of evil and human sinfulness that we seem to revel in bad news. As Easter people, though, let us be taught by the Cross, enraptured by the love of God, enthralled by the beauty of holiness, and glory in His good news. On Holy Saturday, let us imitate Christ and preach salvation to the dead, beginning with the sin that resides in our own hearts, and then, rising with Him, let us share the love and mercy that we have received with others. For such is good news, such is what the Church is about, and such is the 'headline' that we pray will draw the world's attention.

GOOD FRIDAY - The Message of Jesus' Sufferings

Readings: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1:19:42

Any path of spiritual growth, any way of healing and maturing, any wisdom which is worth anything, will have something to say of suffering. We can go further: it will have something to say about the meaning, message, and even value of suffering. This is a difficult one to get right but it is central to the mystery of following Jesus and it can easily be misunderstood. The Christian way at its best is not interested in pain, suffering, and death in ways that are perverted, queer, or odd. Of course it is not always at its best.

The growing pains of adolescence end when our bodies are fully grown. But we continue to grow in our spirits and in our hearts, in our souls and personalities. At least we are called to continue to grow in understanding, compassion, faith, and love. There is no limit to the growth of these things in us. We can refuse to grow and shut down our hearts in cynicism, bitterness or disappointment. That brings its own kind of pain. Or we can respond positively to the call to grow in love and understanding. And that brings pain with it too.

Little surprise then if, on the way of Jesus, we experience 'growing pains', a peculiarly human kind of suffering as we try to find our way through many limitations and difficulties, within and without. We can think of a seedling finding its way through the darkness and many obstacles before breaking through to the light of day. Jesus himself used this image: only if a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies can it bear fruit (John 12:24). And Paul reminds us that we must all negotiate many difficulties before we can enter the kingdom of heaven (Acts 14:22).

The cross never comes in the way we anticipate. If it did, it would not be the cross. So we really suffer deeply because we do not see the point of suffering in this way or in that, or because we do not see the point of it going on so long. Suffering never comes in the way we would have chosen for ourselves. It often attacks precisely those aspects and qualities that we most value. Suffering easily arouses our anger and dismay, fear and disgust. The suffering of others, especially children, makes us especially angry.

Jesus suffered for us and left an example for us to follow the way he took. That way led him through the valley of darkness - Gethsemane and Golgotha - before it took him to Easter and Pentecost. Those who follow him listen for his voice. And his authentic voice speaks, not in the first place of suffering, but in the first place of love. But love also necessarily means suffering. To love is to become tender and vulnerable, to open to the presence of another, to share the burdens and difficulties of another. To love means to open oneself to the possibility (the likelihood, the inevitability) of suffering. Those who love truth suffer for the truth. Those who love justice suffer for justice. Those who love peace suffer for peace. Those who love others suffer for others.

To understand Jesus' sufferings we must speak not only of love but also of sin. The career of Jesus takes the road of suffering not just because it is love but because it is love in a sinful world. It has always happened so. It continues to happen so. The biblical authors speak of how the wise and just person excites envy, hatred, and violence in a sinful world. The person of principle excites envy, distrust, and opposition in a society of compromise.

In the difficulties and challenges of life we will be tested to the depths of our being. We can resist the challenge and become stuck on the road. We can turn away and fill our lives with distractions and comforts. Or, with God's grace, we can follow the way of Jesus, hearken to the voice of his love, and throw our human story (sinful and compromised as it is) in with his, so that all might have life and have it to the full.

This is the message of Jesus' sufferings - out of love he gave his flesh for the life of this sinful world. To see this is to know that any share in the mystery of his sacrificial love is a privilege and a strange joy. Christian hope, far from removing us from the reality of sin, suffering and death, enables us to face those enemies of the human race with clarity of mind and confidence of heart.