All posts by 3 churches

Donkey, Wood, Wood, Stone

Holy Week

It’s now just two weeks to Palm Sunday, and therefore three to Easter Sunday. The services of the Sacred Triduum or Three Days – of Maundy Thursday evening, Good Friday afternoon, Saturday evening and Easter Sunday are best seen as a single feast. These liturgies have a special and memorable character and deserve our best efforts for their celebration. They also deserve the best efforts of all of us to take part in them!

But what about where they took place, these saving events that we celebrate in Holy Week? I mean where specifically…

If you think about it the answer is quite extraordinary. Where was Jesus on Palm Sunday? Yes, he was entering the great city of Jerusalem – but on the back of a donkey! Where did He institute the Eucharist and the Priesthood? Again, in an upper room in that city – but he left us the Sacrament of the new and everlasting covenant on a wooden table, probably bare and rough. Where was the final altar on which He offered himself for us, and for our salvation? A cross of even rougher wood… And finally where precisely did the Resurrection take place, where did the Eternal Father raise His Son from the dead in the power of the Holy Spirit? On a slab of stone in someone else’s sepulchre, in darkness, on His own.

So, on a donkey, a humble wooden table, an even humbler Cross, and on the stony coldness of a grave slab. These are the places where these great moments took place, events which changed the world and brought us salvation. You couldn’t get locations more simple, could you?

So we now have a couple of weeks to prepare for the opportunity to renew our faith at its very sources. What do these profound occasions mean to you? Perhaps remembering their simple locations will help you home in on the heart of Holy Week. This in turn will help you home in on the heart of our Faith. What do you make of a God who triumphs on a donkey, gives us the gift of himself on some wooden planks, dies on some others, and rises on cold, dark stone?

Familiarise yourself with the services beforehand, reflect on the readings, and make every effort to come to the churches where they take place. Most of all, watch Jesus in this holiest of weeks, because this – all of this – was done for you!

Fr Matthew

THE DO GOOD BROTHERS

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St John of God 8th March

John of God was born in 1495 in Portugal. As a child he left home, the reason still unknown, and ended up a homeless orphan in Spain. He found work as a shepherd, and then became a soldier, but was accused of stealing and was almost condemned to death. He returned to the farm but later decided to enlist again, and for the next 18 years he served in various parts of Europe. John eventually moved south near Seville, finding work once more as a shepherd, but began to realise that this no longer satisfied him. He wanted to see Africa, and maybe work to free enslaved Christians. On the way, he befriended a Portuguese family, but when they became ill he began to nurse them. Troubled and feeling spiritually lost from his failure to practice his faith during his years of service, he returned to Spain, trying to find what God wanted from him. A vision of the Infant Jesus is said to have directed him to go to Granada.

In 1537, John experienced a major conversion while listening to a sermon by John of Avila, a leading preacher who would encourage him in his quest to improve the life of the poor. Perceived by others as a victim of a mental breakdown, he was imprisoned in a Hospital for the mentally ill, but he regained peace of heart and left the hospital. He established a house for the sick poor, at first doing his own begging, but still found himself misunderstood and rejected. Later he received the cooperation of priests and physicians, and slowly John drew to himself a dedicated circle of disciples who felt called to join him in this service.

John of God died on 8 March 1550 in Granada and was canonized in 1690. He was later named a patron saint of hospitals, the sick, nurses, and others. A church was erected in 1757 to house his remains, where the September Pilgrims celebrated Mass in 2006. He had organized his followers into the Order of Hospitallers, who still care for the sick in 53 countries around the world, operating more than three hundred hospitals, services, and centres. Commonly known as the Fatebenefratelli, the Do-good-brothers, in Italy, they serve a wide range of medical needs, supported by tens of thousands of benefactors and friends who identify with and support the work of the Order for sick and needy people across the world. Folks from Canton may remember the sisters who taught in St Mary’s.

Fr Matthew

RESPECT AND ADMIRATION Billy Graham RIP

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I remember one day in seminary around 1975 there being a conversation about Billy Graham. The air was a slightly superior, scoffing one, hinting that as he was neither British by birth nor Catholic in his behaviour, so, well, we didn’t need to worry too much about him. Then one student piped up that actually it was through attending a Billy Graham rally that the Lord had turned his life around in his early twenties. That shut us up!

Billy Graham, perhaps the best known evangelist of the second half of the twentieth century, died 21 February 2018, at the age of 99. An ordained Southern Baptist Minister, he was popular among Christians of all denominations as well as those of other religions. During a public ministry spanning more than half a century, he reached more than 180 countries and preached before more than 200 million people. He was a spiritual advisor to several American presidents and numerous civic and political leaders. Graham met several times with Saint Pope John Paul II and the two were frequent correspondents.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York released the following statement on Graham’s passing: “As anyone growing up in the 1950s and 1960s can tell you, it was hard not to notice and be impressed by the Reverend Billy Graham. There was no question that the Dolans were a Catholic family firm in our faith, but in our household there was always respect and admiration for Billy Graham and the work he was doing to bring people to God. Whether it was one of his famous Crusades, radio programs, television specials, or meeting and counseling the presidents, Billy Graham seemed to be everywhere, always with the same message: Jesus is your Saviour, and wants you to be happy with Him forever. As an historian, my admiration for him only grew as I studied our nation’s religious past, and came to appreciate even more the tremendous role he played in the American evangelical movement. May the Lord that Billy Graham loved so passionately now grant him eternal rest.”

Fr Matthew (with acknowledgements to zenit.org)