ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

The restored amphitheatre in Thessalonika, with the ruins of the agora, or market place, in the background. Paul would have seen this when visiting the ancient city.

Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessalonika is one of the earliest books of the New Testament. It was written in about AD 50, scarcely thirty years after Jesus’s death and resurrection. Yet it shows a church alive and thriving, and with an already very developed understanding of who Jesus was and what he has done for us. This is no “Bible-based church”; it was a going concern before the first New Testament book was written!

In Paul’s greeting at the beginning of the letter, he praises God for the Thessalonians’ faith, hope and love in Jesus Christ. But he does this in a striking way when he speaks of their “work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Why does he use these phrases?

The “work of faith” is unusual. Many people set the two against each other. What Paul means is that in their everyday life, people could see the faith of the Thessalonians at work. The “labour of love” shows clearly that Christian love is expressed in the way we act towards one another. “Love one another just as I have loved you” says Jesus, who laid down his life for our salvation. Finally, “steadfastness in hope” refers to the virtue which sustains our faith in Jesus Christ when all around us seems hopeless. The Thessalonians had been persecuted shortly after their conversion, and they had survived that persecution with their faith intact. Thus, to be steadfast in hope means to remain faithful to Jesus, no matter what.

In short, Paul shows us that faith, hope and love are not mere feelings, but virtues of action. We live our faith in Jesus Christ by acting according to his will, which includes prayer and worship, and extending the love we receive from him to all around us.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

Parable of the Wedding Feast, by A. N. Mironov

There is a certain kind of person whom we call “convivial;” a person who is jolly, welcoming, kindly, friendly, and who likes to share his joy in some kind of celebration, such as a meal or party. Such people are often invited to parties for that very reason. The word “convivial” shares its roots with the Italian word convivio, which means “banquet.” And it is with a banquet that we are concerned in today’s First Reading and Gospel.

To get behind the idea of today’s readings, we need to look at the significance of meal fellowship in the Mediterranean, for it underlies the story we have just heard. We South Africans, in common with the Anglo-Saxons, tend to socialise before and after a meal; perhaps cocktails and snacks with conversation before, followed by coffee in the lounge after we have eaten.

The Mediterranean peoples, on the other hand, tend to spend their time of fellowship around the table where the meal has eaten, and can sometimes sit there for hours. It is the meal itself, rather than the socialising before and after, which is the point of the exercise. A banquet is thus an occasion of great joy, with plentiful food and wine to keep it going, and as such a fitting way to celebrate occasions of great joy. And when king celebrated, for example, a military victory or the wedding of his heir, it was not only the people in the palace who enjoyed such a feast; the poor of the city also enjoyed the feasting in the streets, and the wine sometimes, quite literally, flowed in the gutters. It is this idea of the convivio that lies behind both Isaiah and Matthew today, though in the case of Matthew the actual outcome differs considerably from what we have just described, as Jesus makes a great point to us.

In the Old Testament reading, Isaiah is describing the last times, when God has finally vindicated his people, and has come to rule amongst them himself. The banquet is held on Mount Zion, the site of what has become the New Jerusalem. God gives a banquet for his faithful people, the “poor”, who have remained faithful to him through all their sufferings and privations.

The banquet is also, however, the great celebration of a new era of human existence; not only is there an abundance to replace the former privations, but “sadness and sorrow will be no more, and death will be forever destroyed...the Lord will wipe away the tears from every face and take away the reproach of his people.” The banquet on Mount Zion is what we call an eschatological banquet; a great feast celebrating the fulfillment of all God’s promises. Such a banquet is featured in many places throughout the scriptures as a symbol of the last times, the fulfillment of all God’s promises to his people.

The king in Jesus’ parable clearly represents God the Father, and in the wedding feast of his son, there is an echo of the mystical union between Christ and his Bride, the Church. This is to be a parable of the last times. Jesus echoes the hope and promise of the banquet in Isaiah, while adding a characteristic warning to the story. Just as in Isaiah, the banquet is closed to no-one, no matter how poor, low-born or humble. The king’s explicit instructions are to leave no-one outside. The king, as God, sends out his messengers out to proclaim the good news to anyone “who has ears to hear.” There is also an echo here of the psalm “the poor, when they hear it, will be glad.”

But the parable has a warning, In his day, Jesus might have been directing it towards the Pharisees, those who were so sure that they were the invited guests of the Father in the banquet of eternal life. But it is in fact one of the most universal messages Jesus ever directed towards the human race. Wherever human beings take for granted their virtue over an against others, and fail to recognise their own weakness, sinfulness or self-centredness; whenever self-righteousness or self-satisfaction rear their ugly and satanic heads; in all these places, Jesus’ message rings out loud and clear.

Politicians who demonise their opponents rather than condemning their ideas; nations, races or churches who consider themselves intrinsically morally superior or more virtuous than others; whenever human beings set themselves up as models of virtue over against others, so that God is pushed from the centre, the invited guests are busy reneging on their invitations. And it is the very people whom they despise who are repenting and converting, that are taking their places. In another place, Jesus tells his hearers that “Tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of heaven before you.” And this happens precisely because a self-satisfied, self-righteous person feels no need of repentance, and becomes hardened in spiritual blindness.

We are thus both warned and encouraged in today’s gospel. No-one is too poor or humble to be called by God, and to enjoy eternal life with him. But equally, no-one is as much in danger of losing his place as the one who thinks it is fully assured. It is those who stride in with assurance who may very well find themselves out on the streets, while those who thought they had no chance at all who find themselves brought in. We can never be too sure of our own salvation, and even less so of someone else’s damnation. We can only come before God in all humility, asking him to forgive us our sins and to show us his love. And pray that we will hear his call to us, and leave everything to respond to that call.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: 27TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

Moses elects the council of 70 Elders of Israel. Drawing of his own painting made by Jacob de Wit.

 In the Book of Numbers, the elders of Israel are given the gift of prophecy when summoned before the Tent of Meeting in the desert. When God gives the same gift to two men left behind in the camp, the elders’ immediate reaction is indig­na­tion: “Who do these fellows think they are to usurp what is our exclusive right?” It is left to Moses to give the divine answer. Firstly, if God has given these two men the gift, who are mere human beings to deny it? Secondly, far from limiting the gift of prophecy and making it something small and exclusive, Moses expresses the wish that it were given to everyone. Moses’ longing, which reflects God’s action, is for universality rather than exclusivity.

There is a similar, even stronger message in Mark’s gospel. Jesus has called the Twelve and given them certain powers, including that of exorcism, the casting out of demons. When they find a man who is not a disciple doing the same, they are outraged, and want to put a stop to his activities; they, after all, are Jesus’ appointed disciples. He immediately redirects their thinking; the important issue is not who is “in,” but who is doing Jesus’ work. The fact that this man is not one of Jesus’ disciples does not prevent him serving Jesus. Jesus goes further to explain that the smallest service done for him, or in his name, is still truly an act of service to him.

Once again, the divine call is not to exclusivity and division, but to universality and solidarity. It is no accident that the incident around which this story is based is an exorcism; the clear message is that Satan will not be defeated if those who claim to serve God spend more time fighting and vying with each other than in fighting against the evil one. By stopping the outsider from performing his exorcism, the disciples are preventing the war against Satan from being fought!

This is a vital lesson for us today. In an increasingly secular world, which more and more is coming out into an open contempt for God and his kingdom, it is vital for Christians to stand together against the foe, and to stand united. We cannot allow the Church to be fragmented into little exclusive groups, each claiming to represent the real truth. We cannot refuse to work together with other Christians who stand as squarely against the foe as we. No-one who truly does the will of God can be against him. In Jesus’ own words: “He who is not against me is with me.” As long as we allow ourselves to be divided by our little human exclusivities, Satan’s kingdom will triumph over us.

But we must stand fast, and stand together. Within and without the Church, we must seek to co-operate with all who love the Lord Jesus and serve in his name. We need to work together; we need specially to pray together. May God, who loves us, who died for our sins and rose from the dead to give us life, free us from all evil and unite us in Christ for his own kind purposes. Amen.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - 2017

Domenico Ghirlandaio's fresco of Nuestra Señora de la Merced,
painted approximately 1472.

Today, 24^th September, has traditionally been the feast of Our Lady of Ransom in England, a feast which celebrated the strength and endurance of the Catholic Church under centuries of persecution and suppression. In last week’s Southern Cross, a 2017 survey revealed that 53% of Britons do not believe in God at all. This is up by a staggering 2% from 51% only two years ago! It is a distressing statistic, given what Christianity once meant to Britain.

For Britain was once a jewel in the crown of Christianity. It produced great theologians like Duns Scotus and St Anselm. It produced heroic martyrs like St Thomas á Becket of Canterbury, St Thomas More, St John Fisher and the Carthusian monks who died at Tyburn rather than give up their faith. In fact, if one looks at the saints of Britain, most of them were martyrs. The great evangelical hymn tradition which forms the backbone of our church music is theirs, brought out by missionaries. British converts to Catholicism have included such illustrious names as GK Chesterton, Cardinal Manning, Cardinal Newman, Edith Sitwell and Evelyn Waugh. During the centuries of persecution and suppression, great noble Catholic families impoverished themselves paying crippling fines, rather than abandon the Mass to attend alternative worship services.

What has happened? Why has faith in Jesus Christ collapsed in that once great Christian country? The answer is difficult and complex. But one thing is certain; modern Britain needs our prayers. We must all pray for the re‑conversion of England. Indeed, the Cathedral choir will do just that at the end of the 9 am Mass this morning, by singing Sir Hubert Parry’s setting of William Blake’s mystical poem Jerusalem. 

But we, who live so happily in a country of strong faith, South Africa, must also pray for the faith here. We cannot afford to take our faith for granted, to be lukewarm about it in an era when it is under attack as never before. We need to turn our prayers, our hearts, to the Lord Jesus and ask him to increase and strengthen our own faith, “in spite of dungeon, fire and sword,” as the old hymn has it. We need to bear witness to Him more than ever. Faith in Jesus Christ is our only hope. We should allow nothing to separate us from his love.

Fr Phillip.

ORAT0RIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - 2017

Michelangelo's famous image of Isaiah.

The second part of the Book of Isaiah the prophet is very special to Christians. It contains, amongst much else, four Songs of the Servant of the Lord, which increasingly reveal him as a Suffering Servant. The third of these Songs of the Servant of God presents him as being falsely accused before the authorities of his people, despised, insulted and humiliated, but nevertheless confident that whatever he must suffer, God will ultimately vindicate him.

For a Christian, this song resembles so much the trial of Jesus before the Council of his own people; for he was not tried by foreigners, but by those who should most have understood whom he is, who should have recognised him when he came, but did not do so; his own people, and their leaders at that, who really should have known better.

We should look carefully towards ourselves when considering this scripture. The leaders of Israel may have been instrumental in securing Jesus’ crucifixion, but we must never forget that he is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” And that means our sins; all of them. Yes; it is our sins that nailed him to the cross. But God does not hold this against us. He wants us to come to repentance for sin, to turn back to him and seek the forgiveness that Jesus alone has won for us by his death and resurrection. Failure to do this empties the cross of Christ of meaning in our lives. 

“Seek the Lord while he is still to be found!” counsels the same prophet Isaiah. There is nothing more important in our lives. In the prayer of Jesus to be found in the lines of poetry affixed by the composer Gustav Mahler to the beginning of the last movement of his Third Symphony, “Father, look upon these wounds of mine. Let not one of your creatures be lost to you!” May it be so.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

Some years ago it was fashionable to seek human explanations for the miracles of Jesus. For example, according to this trendy kind of thinking, there was not really a miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes, when Jesus fed the five thousand. What really happened (the trendy said) was that Jesus persuaded the crowd to be unselfish and to share what they had already brought with them.

But this hardly squares with the reactions of Jesus’ disciples, or of the crowd. They responded quite differently. They recognised the Messianic power of Jesus to provide in plenty and wanted to make him king by force, so that Jesus had to escape from them. Clearly, the crowd’s strong reaction is not the consequence of a mere exhortation to share on Jesus’ part; it is the response to something tremendous which actually happened, something so tremendous as to provoke their extreme reaction.

This is something far more than mere human kindness. In Jesus, the miraculous cannot be limited to the little human gestures described in the first paragraph of this reflection. God really has broken into our reality in Jesus, and his miracles and signs show the real power of God to transform our human reality, to intervene in this world of want, of sin and of suffering.

When God intervenes, we are healed; we are fed; we are even raised from the dead. Where God reigns, there is no more sin, no more suffering, no more shame, no more deprivation. His miracles, of whatever nature they are, are glimpses of a new creation, pure and holy, in which we all are transformed, in which we all do his will at all times. Even now, we can share in the promise of that reality. Even now, if we learn to love and obey him with all our hearts, we can glimpse the wonderful future he has in store for each one of us.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: 22ND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

Dr Louis Pasteur, famous French scientist and devout Catholic. A journalist once asked him, "Dr Pasteur, how is it that you, one of the greatest scientists of our age, have the religious faith of a Breton peasant?" Pasteur replied, "What you say is true. But I hope that one day it will be different. I hope that one day, I will have the faith of his wife."

There is, on YouTube, a series of about forty episodes called People who Changed the World. What is interesting, is the people that have been chosen. All seem to be amongst the darkest and most evil in the world: Mass murderers like Pol Pot of Cambodia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia or Kim Jong Il of North Korea. They are people who have created darkness and misery and death for millions of people. They have certainly changed people’s lives through hardship and suffering. But the strangeness is that they have made no real contribution to the world. People have been wounded, physically, emotionally and spiritually by them, but as time passes, the world always seems to recover from them. They are here today, gone tomorrow, and eventually ordinary people just forget them as generations pass. Soon, like Ozymandias in Shelley’s poem, little remains of the might they have conferred about themselves but mouldering ruins.

Nowhere in this series does one find the great and good; scientists like Louis Pasteur, for example, whose work still benefits billions of people worldwide. Nowhere does one find the great reformers of labour laws, prisons, medicine and nursing. Nowhere do the great abolitionists of slavery feature. Great humanitarians like St Theresa of Calcutta are conspicuous by their absence. There is an unbridgeable gap between the monsters presented in the series, who changed times and places, albeit drastically, for a while, and those who brought the light of God to bear upon the world.

For this is the great difference. The murderous and violent figures in the series all started with a vision for a godless heaven on earth. When they began to fail, as such visions always do, their proponents attempted to shore them up and force their continuance with ever increasing control and violence, until the systems became more oppressive and brutal than the ones they were supposed to be replacing. They replaced love and justice with oppression and fear. They failed to deal with the one thing that could have made the difference; human sin, both within and around them. And they lacked the one thing that could have made the difference: God’s redeeming love, as He communicates it to us through the death of Jesus on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead.

Without God to heal, us, we carry around with us, sin and its consequences, and no matter what we attempt, sin stains and pollutes it. We need to be redeemed, to be made “whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51) It is those who were close to God, who loved him above all things, who have really changed the world. The horrors inflicted on Romania by the Ceauçescus lasted for 25 odd years, and the country is recovering from them. What they did has passed into history. But the efforts of William Wilberforce in the emancipation of slaves is with us still, and the world has been transformed forever by the work that God achieved through his faithfulness.

It would be wonderful were we to be able to make a counter-series about “People who REALLY Changed the World, and to tell the stories of people such as William Wilberforce, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Fry, St Peter Claver, St Theresa of Calcutta, Archbishop Romero and a host of others. But perhaps it is not necessary. God has seen their work, and the world has benefited by it. What will the contribution of each one of us be? Great or small, each one of us has a very definite task to do for God, and even the smallest can change the world without even knowing it. May each one of us respond to his call, and carry out that task to the very best of our will.

Fr Phillip.ere is, on YouTube, a series of about forty episodes about people who changed the world.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: 21ST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

The Last Judgement, by Michelangelo, on the wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Do you remember, as a schoolchild, being given an assignment for the following week; how far away it seemed? There was so much time before the task had to be handed in; there was no hurry. And then, suddenly, it was the evening before due date, and there just was not enough time to do it justice. As a result, you either had to make a lame excuse as to why it was not done or face the equally unpleasant consequence of a poor mark for a rushed job. Did you ever wish, in such a situation, that you had not wasted the time of the previous week when you could have been preparing thoroughly for the due date of that task?

In the letters of Paul to the communities of the early Church, there is always a sense of urgency. The day of the Lord could come at any moment; are you ready to meet him when he comes? In Paul’s era, the expectation was that the Lord could come again at any moment; He was, in fact, expected to return quite soon after his Ascension. As time passed, they realised that this was not the case, that Jesus’ return might be quite some time later than originally expected.

This did not alter the urgency with which they regarded his return. Like the early Christians, we do not know when or how Jesus will return, only the fact that he will, that it will be unexpected; as the Lord himself put it, “It is not for you to know the times or places”. Paul is quite clear, as is Jesus himself in the Gospels, that we must be ready to receive the returning Lord whenever he might appear. The only way to do this is to be ready to receive him at all times. A half-baked, rapid prayer at the last moment may not be enough if our hearts are not prepared to receive him.

Paul encourages us to be ready through our love and attention to prayer, our care for one another, our dedication to supporting and encouraging one another in readying ourselves for his coming. He urges us to prepare “with all our hearts.” There is no such thing as a “basic minimum” to get into heaven; we are either all for Jesus, or not at all. In our daily lives let us heed Paul’s wise words, and in everything that we do, let us keep ourselves ready to receive Jesus, whenever he might return.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY - 2017

Carlo Maratta - The Virgin appearing to St Philip Neri

The Scriptures have much to tell of the Mother of Jesus, and indeed, much more to tell us when we study her very few words to us and the events surrounding her life.

The angel tells her, “Hail, full of grace”. This literally means “You who are already filled with grace,” for the Greek perfect tense in which it is expressed implies a present situation arising from something that has happened in the past. If Mary is “filled with grace,” there is no room for any sin within her. Mary’s flesh is already sinless when Jesus is conceived, so that he might truly be “One like us in all things but sin.”

From this follows the teaching that Mary never bore another child but Jesus. The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time claimed membership of God’s holy chosen people by virtue of their genetic descent. John the Baptist tells them that this means nothing, that “God can raise up sons of Abraham from these very stones.” Our only claim to a relationship with Jesus is through baptism, by which we are reborn as adopted sons and daughters of God.

Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth her cousin, six months pregnant with John the Baptist, has a profound message to us as well. When Mary arrives and greets Elizabeth, Elizabeth says, “The moment I heard your voice, the child in my womb leapt for joy. How blessed am I to receive a visit from the mother of my Saviour!” The unborn John the Baptist recognises the presence of the barely conceived Saviour, Jesus. This should certainly make clear to us the preciousness of human life, and the evil of abortion.

Finally, there are Mary’s words to the angel and at the wedding at Cana. “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let what you have said be done to me.” An engaged fourteen-year-old girl accepting a pregnancy by no human agency; who would believe her? And facing a penalty of death by stoning? What faith to accept God’s call in the face of such a situation! Yet she did, and placed her faith, her life and her future completely in God’s hands.

The other, at the wedding at Cana, when Jesus turns water into wine, applies these words to our own lives. What an embarrassing situation at a Jewish wedding; to run out of wine! Mary knows that Jesus will act despite his reluctance, and tells the steward, “Do whatever he tells you!” — “…whatever he tells you!” A strong command, but one which saves the honour of the groom and allows the guests to continue to rejoice.

How often do we complain that God doesn’t help us, that he seems to leave us high and dry? But do we do whatever he tells us? Or only something of it, just in case God messes up and we have to take things into our own hands? Mary placed her all in God’s hands, and as a result her words “All generations shall call me blessed!” have become true in a way she could never have imagined. Like Mary, doing whatever God tells us might lead us to things we might never have imagined. And like Mary, we, too, will be blessed in ways beyond our imagination if only we would do “whatever he tells us.”

Fr Phillip

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: 19TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

“How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?” goes the old joke, to which the answer is, “Only one; but the light bulb must really want to change.” There is more to this joke than meets the eye, for what it says is true of our faith. Faith is a gift from God; but in order to receive that gift, we must really want to receive it. We must want it strongly enough that we are prepared to take a step out into the unknown in order to find it.

God has revealed much of himself through his Creation. When we look at the beauty, the design built into everything around us, from the skies and plants and animals to the artistic and mental products of human beings, it is near impossible to imagine that this is all a blind accident. Behind it all we become aware that there must be an intelligence, a Someone who has designed it all. No-one can look at a watch and think it an accident; we intuitively know that there must be a watchmaker. So with the Creation; there has to be a Designer who thoughtfully put it all together.

But if we are to know such a vast and powerful Creator, we can only know him is he reveals himself to us. And in order for us to know him, two things are required: a desire to know him, and a way to do so. This way of knowing him is what we call faith. If we really want to know God, he will show himself to us. But he wants us to take the first step beyond knowing about him to actually knowing him, ourselves. We have to step out in faith, believing that he exists, and that we will meet him and experience him if we do this.

C.S. Lewis illustrates this beautifully: When a mother teaches her toddler to walk, she begins by holding his little hands and leading him to walk in front of her. Most babies gurgle with delight at the discovery that they can walk on only two legs. But there comes the day when he must learn to walk on his own. So she lets go of his hands, takes a small step backwards and calls him to come to her. That first, unsupported step he takes is a big one for a tiny baby, but the mother will coax him until he takes it. If he stumbles, she will be there to catch him before he falls and hurts himself. And how happy will that mother be that he has taken his first unsupported step, no matter how hesitant and awkward it might be.

Just so, God wants us to take that first step towards him, a “leap of faith,” as it is often called. And we need to take that first step, difficult though it may seem, with the assurance that God, like the mother, will be there to catch us, and that in that very first step of living and acting as though we believe in his existence, God will reveal himself to us. This is what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews means in today’s Second Reading when he speaks of faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” When we place ourselves in God’s hands, we not only discover that he exists; we discover that he loves and cares for us, that he will do, and has done, anything to save us, even to the death of his only-begotten Son Jesus on the cross.

Chapter 11 of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us of the faith of Abraham. It is worth taking time to reflect upon this passage, which reveals both the depth of Abraham’s faith in God, and the extent to which God blessed him through his faith. The leap of faith is not a once-off action, but a choice which carries us throughout life and beyond. If we are to see at last, when we reach eternity, the face of God who has revealed himself to us, then we must continue to hold on to the gift of faith that he has given us, the “assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Abraham had faith, and followed God in all that he commanded.” So must we.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: TRANSFIGURATION OF THE LORD - 2017

For most people, suffering and glory are two opposites. They would never think of them as two sides of the same coin. Yet that is just what the gospels communicate to us the story of the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus.

The story of Jesus’ Transfiguration appears in all of the first three Gospels. It is a brief, flashing moment in which the glory of God is seen directly by the naked human eye. In Luke’s Gospel, we find the following strange sentence: “Suddenly there were two men there talking to [Jesus]; they were Moses and Elijah appearing in glory, and they were speaking to him of his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.”

Moses is the great Lawgiver of Israel. Jesus speaks with Moses of his “passing” in Jerusalem. The word Luke uses for “passing”, interestingly, is exodoV. It was in the Exodus that Moses Led God’s people to freedom, on the way to Sinai to receive God’s Law, the Ten Commandments. Moses led Israel through the Red Sea, in which God drowned Pharaoh’s army. The Exodus is a passing out (of slavery) and a passing through (the Red Sea), and passing is associated with passion, and passion with suffering.

The Good Friday service, in fact, contains these lines: “I opened the Red Sea before you; but you opened my side with a lance.” Jesus appears here with Israel’s greatest lawgiver, and shows that he fulfils the entire Old Testament Law, by leading his people from the slavery of sin to freedom with God, through the waters of baptism.

Elijah is regarded as the great Prophet of Israel. A prophet is someone sent by God to call his people back to faithfulness to the Law. Since his words are the words of God, they must be fulfilled. The prophets also promised the coming of the Suffering Servant of God, the Messiah. The suffering of the Messiah becomes a way from death and sin to life with God. Jesus speaks with Elijah of what he was to “accomplish” in Jerusalem; his suffering, death and rising. Jesus appears here with Israel’s greatest prophet, and shows that he fulfils all prophecy by suffering and dying for the sins of others. It is also the path he calls us to follow: “If anyone would be my disciple, he must daily take up his cross and follow me.”

But Jesus’ death is much more than just an example for us to follow. It is something which he alone can do. Luke speaks of “All that he was to accomplish.” He uses the little Greek word pleroun, which means, literally, to fulfil. From it comes pleroma, fullness. It is the Biblical word used to describe the dazzling glory which surrounds God when he appears to Israel in the Old Testament. It perfectly describes Jesus’ appearance in the Transfiguration.

Strange, is it not, that the suffering and death which Jesus was to pass through in Jerusalem, should be spoken of as a fulfilment, using the same word that is used to speak of God’s glory? It is this word that links the two; in it, suffering and glory become one and the same thing. Jesus is glorified in his suffering and death, which is his complete obedience to the Father. Through it our salvation is accomplished.

Do you see how closely woven is the story of our salvation, from the Flood to Calvary and the empty tomb? Do you see, too, how Jesus’ all the incidents of Jesus’ life up to this point are brought together into a perfect whole. From this moment, his life moves quickly forward on the road to Calvary. The Transfiguration is a single lightning flash of blinding truth which lights up everything, and allows us for a moment to see everything clearly.

On this feast day, then, we share the vision which the three chosen disciples were privileged to see. We see Jesus in his glory, an unbearable sight for sinful human eyes, and in it we see a his promise of glory for us. But we also see the suffering and death that forms part of that glory: His suffering and death. And it is made clear to us that without Jesus’ suffering and death, there is no hope for us. And we have to follow him, sharing in our own way in his suffering and death. But in that flash of glory we see the one hope to which we can cling; that because of what Jesus has done for us, if we can only take up our own small crosses daily and follow him, the glory which for a moment he reveals today, is the same glory which he has promised us forever, living with him.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

The Great Flood by Nicholas Chaperon.

A baptism is always a happy occasion for those involved. What could be more beautiful, more joyful than the reception of a new life into the Church, the claiming of a human being for the Lord Jesus Christ through rebirth into God’s family? This joy is reflected in the symbols of the occasion: The Paschal candle, the little baby in a white baptismal robe, the anointing with oil, the gentle pouring of water over the baby’s forehead with a seashell. Even aunt Maud, snapping away with her tablet, is not an annoyance on this occasion.

It is instructive, then, to look into the teachings of the first Christians to see how they understood baptism. If we do, we will come away surprised, perhaps even a little shocked, for the early Church’s symbols of baptism are powerful, violent images; those of the Flood and the Crossing of the Red Sea. Even Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, sees baptism as a burial! What led our Fathers in the Faith to conceive baptism in such stark and violent terms?

We must remember that to confess Jesus Christ as Lord in that era was to stand under the very present threat of death. For those early Christians, salvation in Jesus Christ was everything, and in their lives, it really did take precedence over everything else. They were not prepared to comprise with the world in the way that many Christians so easily do today. They wanted eternal life with God above all things, and Nothing would deter them from it. For them there really was “no other name in heaven or on earth by which we can be saved” – that is, the name of Jesus.

This was the background against which they saw sin. Sin, for them, was a disaster. It separates man from God; its corrupts our very nature, and for them, corruption meant death. They also understood that the problem of evil was something colossal, beyond our human nature, about which we of ourselves can do nothing. Our only hope, they believed, is the grace of God, the power of his mercy, which is infinitely greater than the power of evil. The universal symbol of both life and purity has always been water, and it was in “salvation by water” that they saw their only hope.

Thus it was that when they conceived God’s salvation, his destruction of sin and giving of new life, they did so in terms of water. In the very beginning, before God creates, there is chaos, and in the Old Testament, chaos is water. Water can extinguish fire, they said, but who can stop a flood? But God drives back the water and makes dry land appear, a place for man to live. And when man became so wicked as to be irredeemable, God allowed the water to re-cover the earth, destroying the wickedness of the human race, allowing only Noah and his family to survive in the Ark.

When God leads Israel out of Egypt from slavery to freedom, the Israelites, by passing in safety through the sea, are “saved by water,” while the Egyptians, their persecutors, are destroyed by the same waters. The early Christians saw in both of these cataclysmic events (and the word “cataclysm” means flood) both the destruction of evil and salvation from it. For them, when someone was baptised, the water was a symbol of the very real action of the Holy Spirit coursing through us like a violent flood, destroying sin and bringing us to rebirth as members of God’s family. In the baptism by total immersion practiced in Paul’s day, the candidate descended into the water as though into a tomb, like Jesus after his death, and then rose to new life by coming up out of the water, as did Jesus in his Resurrection.

Next time you attend a baptism, and the touching scene as described at the beginning of this reflection is before your eyes, think about the powerful spiritual event which is the reality of baptism. Recognise that without the power of God to destroy sin, there is no hope for us. See in the baptism the enormous reality of our complete dependence on God who is our only hope, and on Jesus Christ his Son, who won our salvation. And give thanks to God for his precious gift of eternal life through water and the Holy Spirit.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: SIXTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

Most, if not all of us, like to live with the comforting thought that good things happen to good people and bad things, to bad people. In the Israel of Jesus’ time, where there was no strong concept of heaven, that is how people thought. The idea seems reasonable; until we turn it around, that is. As soon as we start saying, “Good things have happened to so-and-so, therefore he must be good,” and vice-versa, the whole idea of good-to-good and bad-to bad falls apart. In the world in which we really live, bad things often happen to good people and good things to bad people. In the later books of the Old Testament this idea is already appearing, for example Job, where a just and good man suffers all kinds of terrible calamities and desperately searches for an answer.

Today’s parable of the wheat and the weeds offers us an answer to this. The landowner will not pull up the weeds in case he also uproots some wheat plants with it. He will wait until the harvest, when the difference has become obvious. In the case of human beings, God will not uproot the wicked man before his time, since until each draws his final breath, there is always the hope he will repent and turn back to God. In the case of humans, this means that if a person dies unrepentant, he has thrown away the lifelong chance for redemption that God has placed before him. Jesus tells us, regarding this dilemma we have, that God “causes his rain to fall on good and bad alike.”

It is not what we have, but what we do with it, that determines our eternal future; with or without God. There are thus two very important, God-given tasks for us as we live our daily lives; to see to it that we remain close to God, and to pray and work for the salvation of those who are far off from him.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: OUR POSTULANTS - JULY 2017

Here is the first official photograph of our four postulants. The Cathedral parish has already encountered them all serving at the 9am Mass and involved in various activities such as altar server training and LifeTeen. They are engaged in a variety of studies, including Classics (Latin) and Education at UFS and Computer Technology at CUT.

The four postulants of the Bloemfontein Community-in-formation: from left to right
Louis Fourie, Amelio Smith, Thabo Moloi and James Mellin.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: NEWMAN ASSOCIATION - JULY 2017

The Newman Association met on 11th July. Fr Phillip presented an introduction to Gustav Mahler which included excerpts from the First Symphony, the song-cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) and musical examples played at the keyboard. For many members it was a first exposure to this great composer. The lecture was preceded by dinner as usual, this month consisting of a pot of Italian minestra for the cold season.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: FIFTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

Most, if not all of us, like to live with the comforting thought that good things happen to good people and bad things, to bad people. In the Israel of Jesus’ time, where there was no strong concept of heaven, that is how people thought. The idea seems reasonable; until we turn it around, that is. As soon as we start saying, “Good things have happened to so-and-so, therefore he must be good,” and vice-versa, the whole idea of good-to-good and bad-to bad falls apart. In the world in which we really live, bad things often happen to good people and good things to bad people. In the later books of the Old Testament this idea is already appearing, for example Job, where a just and good man suffers all kinds of terrible calamities and desperately searches for an answer.

Today’s parable of the wheat and the weeds offers us an answer to this. The landowner will not pull up the weeds in case he also uproots some wheat plants with it. He will wait until the harvest, when the difference has become obvious. In the case of human beings, God will not uproot the wicked man before his time, since until each draws his final breath, there is always the hope he will repent and turn back to God. In the case of humans, this means that if a person dies unrepentant, he has thrown away the lifelong chance for redemption that God has placed before him. Jesus tells us, regarding this dilemma we have, that God “causes his rain to fall on good and bad alike.”

It is not what we have, but what we do with it, that determines our eternal future; with or without God. There are thus two very important, God-given tasks for us as we live our daily lives; to see to it that we remain close to God, and to pray and work for the salvation of those who are far off from him.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: CATHOLIC BLOEMFONTEIN BY NIGHT - 2017

A few photographs of the Cathedral and Oratory by night.

The Cathedral tower with its great Fatima rosary.

The view down the Cathedral drive and up the length of Aliwal Street.

The Cathedral gardens.

The Oratory from the main entrance.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: FOURTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

Paul's letters would have looked very much like this manuscript. It is an early surviving example of the Letter to the Ephesians written on papyrus.

The few verses we heard today outline the vital role of the Holy Spirit in our salvation. When one reads Paul’s writings, one is always aware of the extreme closeness of the three persons of the Holy Trinity at work in our salvation; so much so, that it sometimes seems to be a little confusing. In today’s few verses, for example, the Holy Spirit is referred to as acting in his own person, as the “Spirit of Christ” and as the Spirit of “he who raised Jesus from the dead; that is, the Father.

But whatever the capacity in which the Spirit is acting, his role is essential to our salvation, for without him, as Paul tells us, we do not have Jesus, and without Jesus there is no hope of salvation. But we need, first, to take a step back from this teaching in order to understand how Paul views human beings; without this view, we will not understand what he is saying in our scripture.

In Paul’s day, and for long before, the Greek philosophers were very concerned, in their ethics, of discovering the golden mean of goodness. They were not blessed, as we are, with the Revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and had to work hard to think out for themselves the yardstick of what it means to be good. Not possessed of the idea of divine grace, they all in some way, and to a greater or lesser extent, believed that it was within the power of human beings to perfect themselves.

To become good meant to become natural, and there was a word for it in Greek: psychikos, which referred to the human soul or mind. Psychikos could in fact be translated as “natural man,” and this remained the hope of many, even at the time of Jesus and beyond. In fact, many people today still hope that this is the case.

Paul would have none of this. Although he says, at the beginning of Romans, that pagans can come to know goodness to a degree through observing God’s creation, the rest of his letter makes it clear that he does not regard this as adequate. For him, there are two kinds of human being; those who live according to the flesh, and those who live according to the Spirit.

Paul makes expresses this at the very beginning of today’s reading: “You are not of the flesh, but of the spirit.” Fleshly people, sarkikoi in Greek, are people enslaved by their appetites and desires, which lead them ultimately into a downward spiral of self-indulgence and sin. On the other hand, spiritual people, pneumatikoi in Greek, are people who are subject to the promptings of God, who leads them upwards on a path of self-forgetfulness and holiness.

For Paul, we cannot be spiritual people without the grace of Jesus Christ. How do we receive this? Because the Holy Spirit actually lives within us. He is the “Spirit of Christ” who makes Jesus present to us as a source of life and holiness, who makes it possible for us to attain holiness, not because of anything that we can do of ourselves, so much as because God’s presence within us through his spirit, is what transforms us from within.

But Paul makes a further link; for him, fleshliness is indissolubly linked with death, spiritual-ness with life. It is through the human body that we can participate in sin, and be dragged down into death. It is through the spirit that we can be made holy, and be drawn up into life. The ultimate link is the death of Jesus Christ.

Paul sees Jesus’ death in terms of his resurrection. Jesus had to die, because he had to be raised bodily to new life. Without the fact of bodily resurrection, there can be no hope for us. It is a theme that Paul comes back to over and over, most notably in the 15^th chapter of his First Letter to the Corinthians. But there can be few places in which Paul expressed it as pungently as he does in verse 11 of today’s Second Reading: “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies…” Just to make sure we do not miss the point, Paul repeats himself at the end: “…through the indwelling of his Spirit in you.”

There we have it. Sin, in which we participate through our bodies, has made us dead to God. In order for us to be redeemed, body and soul, Jesus had to be raised from the dead in his human body. The Resurrection makes it possible for us to be raised “in the body” from sin and death to holiness and everlasting life. It was “in the Spirit” who gives life that God raised Jesus from the dead. It is through the same Spirit, living within us, that God will one day raise us to everlasting life. For this to happen, we must co-operate with the Spirit, so that our spirits selves raise our bodies up to life, rather than our bodies dragging our spirits down to death.

Paul saw this renewal as extending, not just to human beings, but to the whole of creation, wounded by sin but now to be made new through the same Holy Spirit, a teaching which fulfils a prophecy made in the Psalms. And as we recognise this, so should we recognise that the teaching of Paul on the Spirit is not at all unfamiliar to us; it is to be found in that prayer known and prayed by every Catholic: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.”

That Spirit has filled the hearts of many through the centuries. It filled the heart of St Philip Neri in the catacombs, and through its fire the very Church was transformed from its mighty heart in Rome. That same Spirit can transform our hearts today, raising us to new life in Jesus Christ through the power of his Resurrection. We, like the saints of old, need to pray constantly for the gift of the Spirit of God in our lives.

“Lord, when shall we begin to do good? Send the fire of your Holy Spirit into our hearts, that we might burn with love for you, and serve you with gladness, in a spirit of joy. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Fr Phillip

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA 2017

This year's celebrations of our Lady of Fatima, being the centenary of the apparitions, were carried out in great style by the Portuguese community of the Cathedral, though this is a feast in which the entire community participates. There were the familiar prayer events of Mass and rosary processions. The tent with its array of food and dancing was, as always, on the hockey field. This year saw some extra features, some of which are presented in the photographs below.

The sanctuary decorated for the feast.

The Fatima statue being carried in procession.

A rosary made up of helium-filled balloons, released at the end of the celebrations.

The giant rosary that hangs from the Cathedral tower. Made up of blue and white LED lights, it can be seen halfway across Bloemfontein at night. It will remain in place until October.

Fr Phillip concelebrates Mass in Portuguese with Fr Geraldo, the visiting priest for the celebrations, on Sunday 13th May.

The Portuguese youth of the parish perform traditional dances at the festivities in the tent.

Fr Johnson joins the Knights of Da Gama for the concluding ceremony on Sunday.

Fr Geraldo blesses the bearers of the Fatima statue before the procession.

Special centenary handkerchiefs are distributed to the community for the farewell ceremony.