Category Archives: newsletter

Don’t wash that hand!

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One Saint and two Blesseds – that’s my tally of holy hands that I have shaken. Pope St John Paul II was canonised recently, and I shook his hand and exchanged a few words back in 1990 on our first September Pilgrimage. Blessed Mother Teresa was beatified a few years back – and I shook her hand in about 1977, when accompanying her to Rome airport in our seminary minibus. She threw me – as saints do – when I asked her to pray for me, by asking the same of me. And finally, Pope Blessed Paul VI was beatified a week or two ago – and I met him, shook his hand, received a book, had a little chat (and a few photos), just after I was ordained in 1978. So – one saintly hand and two blessed ones… so far.

On the Feast of All Saints we celebrate those people who have been “raised to the altar”. They have been proclaimed as certainly having lived a profoundly Christian life and now receiving their heavenly reward. But we also, of course, celebrate those many, many “unproclaimed” saints that I hope we all have met.

Our 3 Churches here bring to twelve the number of church communities where I have served as a priest. I could not begin to count the number of deeply holy people I have had the privilege to meet. From some of the so-called most deprived areas of Wales, to leafy English country towns, to cosmopolitan Ottawa, capital of Canada – and now to the leafy northern suburbs of Cardiff, the people of God often live out their Christian calling in a way which we can only call saintly. Coping with incredible adversity or simply living out marriage or family life, taking their faith into public life no matter the cost, or humbly serving others unnoticed and unacclaimed – it is going on all around us.

So on this Feast of All Saints, give thanks for the saints that you have known, and maybe you could find some way of affirming someone today who is following Jesus so clearly. If they are indeed doing that, they will probably be the last person to want attention – so be simple and brief. Saints don’t like attention!

Fr Matthew

Pope Francis closes the Synod

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Commentators have praised Pope Francis’s closing comments at the recent Synod. Here are some extracts, starting with some “temptations”….

“One, a temptation to hostile inflexibility or rigidity, that is, wanting to close oneself – within the written word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises, (the spirit); within the law, within the certitude of what we know, and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. From the time of Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called “traditionalists” and also of the intellectuals.

The temptation to a destructive tendency to “goodness” that in the name of a deceptive mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation of the “do-gooders,” of the fearful, and also of the so-called “progressives and liberals.”

The temptation to come down off the Cross, to please the people, and not stay there, in order to fulfill the will of the Father; to bow down to a worldly spirit instead of purifying it and bending it to the Spirit of God.”

Later Pope Francis talked eloquently about the Church:

“This is the Church, the vineyard of the Lord, the fertile Mother and the caring Teacher, who is not afraid to roll up her sleeves to pour oil and wine on people’s wound; who doesn’t see humanity as a house of glass to judge or categorize people. This is the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and composed of sinners, needful of God’s mercy. This is the Church, the true bride of Christ, who seeks to be faithful to her spouse and to her doctrine. It is the Church that is not afraid to eat and drink with prostitutes and publicans. The Church that has the doors wide open to receive the needy, the penitent, and not only the just or those who believe they are perfect! The Church that is not ashamed of the fallen brother and pretends not to see him, but on the contrary feels involved and almost obliged to lift him up and to encourage him to take up the journey again and accompany him toward a definitive encounter with her Spouse, in the heavenly Jerusalem.

…We still have one year to mature… the proposed ideas and to find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families must confront; to give answers to the many discouragements that surround and suffocate families.”

Fr Matthew

St Teresa of Avila

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Teresa of Avila, a Discalced Carmelite and Doctor of the Church, is one of my favourite saints. I first came across her through studying Spanish literature in school and university. I was struck by her astonishing spirituality. joined to a well-earthed humanity. Indeed, I see her as one of the main influences in my becoming a priest. Next March sees the 500th anniversary of her birth, and the church in many places is observing a Year of St Teresa from her feast last Tuesday to the same date next year.

To mark this special year, Pope Francis has sent a message to the Bishop of Avila, an ancient city northwest of Madrid in the stark landscape of Castile in central Spain. He writes that St Teresa teaches us that the path to God is the path towards love for one another. He underlines that this great Saint, who was born on the 28th of March 1515 and died on the 4th of October 1582, was a woman of immense spirituality. He focuses on four gifts in particular that she possessed, those being joy, prayer, fellowship and being in touch with the realities of her own time. Not a bad list, and such a accurate description!

The Pope writes that St Teresa emphasizes the joy in discovering God, resulting in the love for one another that is nourished by prayer. This, he says, “overcomes pessimism and generates good deeds.” Focusing on the Carmelite nun’s mystical experience, the Pope says that it did not separate her from the world or from the concerns of the people. On the contrary, he adds that she has given “a new impetus and courage for action.”

Pope Francis notes that what St Teresa has to say through her writings has “perennial relevance” and he adds that it applies to individuals in their journey towards God and men. I’ll share some more from the great St Teresa, perhaps, as the Year goes on.

Fr Matthew