Category Archives: newsletter

The King’s people

newsletter,

Happy feast day for today, Christ the King parish and school! Happy 50th anniversary for eight days’ time, St Brigid’s!

Celebration is an important part of our faith, as it is in life itself. I have always believed in marking the patron saint’s feast day in parishes, and Christ the King has a spectacular one this weekend. A few decades ago, the Church moved this feast from the last Sunday in October to the last Sunday in the liturgical year. It’s as if we wanted to go out with a bang. The universal kingdom of Jesus is such a powerful theme. Our Lord lived his kingship in an extraordinarily hidden and serving way. Yet when challenged in his last hours during his trial he affirmed that he is indeed a king – ‘So you are a king then?’ asked Pilate. ‘It is you who say it’ answered Jesus. ‘Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.’ So feel free to celebrate this beautiful feast of Christ the King!

Our celebrations for the 50th anniversary of St Brigid’s Church reach their climax with the visit of the Archbishop on Monday 1st December to celebrate Mass with us. And here also we have every reason to celebrate, as the building both houses and in a certain way symbolizes the real Church – the people. We are marking not just bricks and mortar, but flesh and blood, those who have gone before us and those with whom we continue to journey onwards as the People of God. Please make every effort to join the parish family, with our bishop and some former priests, to celebrate this important birthday.

So there you have it – two very different causes for joy. On the horizon lies Christmas, with its season of preparation starting next Sunday. We will publish a full list of Advent and Christmas services and information in next week’s newsletter.

Fr Matthew

Into your hands

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After the Second Vatican Council, the various liturgical books were renewed and translated. The Missal for Mass, the words for the seven Sacraments – it was a long process. One of the very last texts to be renewed (appropriately) was the Rite of Christian Funerals. I’m not sure if lessons had been learned in the previous years, but many agree that it is one of the best post-Council rites.

Not only are there many different prayers for every situation imaginable, but the quality of the translation was somewhat better than some previous efforts. The language is modern yet dignified, suitable for public speaking and not contorted. One of my favourite liturgical prayers is the Prayer of Commendation at the end of a funeral. It is a key moment as we prepare to leave the church, the emotions of the bereaved are often strained by this point in the Mass, and something profound yet accessible is called for. And it certainly works – you can usually hear a pin drop as the much-loved person is handed back to the God who gave them to us… It is a prayer for November:

Into your hands, Father of mercies,
we commend our brother/sister N.
in the sure and certain hope
that, together with all who have died in Christ, he/she will rise with him on the last day.
We give you thanks for the blessings which you bestowed upon N. in this life: they are signs to us of your goodness and of our fellowship with the saints in Christ.
Merciful Lord,
turn toward us and listen to our prayers:
open the gates of paradise to your servant
and help us who remain
to comfort one another with assurances of faith, until we all meet in Christ
and are with you and with our brother/sister for ever. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Fr Matthew

A seat for the Bishop

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Today we celebrate an unusual feast – the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. The Lateran Basilica, better known as St John Lateran, is the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, better known as the Pope. So the feast is really one of the Pope, of the unity and catholicity of the Church gathered around our bishops who, in turn, gather around the Pope. But what is a cathedral?

It surprises visitors to Rome to discover that the great St Peter’s in the Vatican is not a cathedral. That is because many people have the mistaken idea that a cathedral is simply a big church. In fact, it takes its name from cathedra, a Latin word for a seat from the Greek kathedra. At his installation each bishop is seated on a special chair that becomes a symbol of his leadership and service to the Church. The chair is often decorated or on a rather grander scale than your usual sort of chair! So the cathedra gives its name to the building where it is located. So, on the whole, there is just one cathedral church in each bishop’s diocese or area. So, as Bishop of Rome, the Pope’s cathedral is St John Lateran.

Our archbishop has his cathedra in St David’s cathedral in Charles Street. That’s just behind Marks and Sparks for those who have never visited! Make a visit and you will see a grand oak chair located just to the right of the main altar. The use of this is reserved to the Archbishop, and so priests celebrating Mass use another, smaller one. You will see him on it at the Chrism Mass and other occasions when he presides there.

St John Lateran dates way back to the fourth century, but St David’s only to the 1880’s, and it became a cathedral in the early twentieth century. Naturally, the history of the Church in South Wales goes back much further than that – to the mists of the Celtic age, and for nigh on a thousand years the cathedral of the Bishop in our area was at Llandaff, where it still stands. It’s being looked after by our Anglican friends… but that’s another story.

Fr Matthew