ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION - THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR 2017

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul uses the analogy of the human body to describe the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church is not simply a group of people with common beliefs. We are bound together in a close unity; we are a single entity. No-one thinks of a human family as a group of adults and children who just happen to occupy the same house. A family of parents and children think of themselves as a single entity, and that is how we live, especially when the children are still young. When a child is seriously ill, it is the parents who agonise, who sit up during sleepless nights looking after the child until the danger has passed. As children, when a brother or sister is lost, we worry and cry until the missing child has been found. On the other hand, when someone who has been injured emerges healed from hospital, when a child celebrates a birthday or wins a prize, we all rejoice together.

The Church, as Paul teaches, is even closer. We are all brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus and as such, sons and daughters of God. We are bound together more closely than any human body, more intimately than any human family. We are in fact a world-wide family, drawn from every nation, language, culture, people. We really are brothers and sisters in Christ, sons and daughters of God the Father. We all share in each other’s sufferings and joys. When a child in a family is sick, the mother pays more attention to that child, not because she loves him more, but because at that particular moment he has a greater need of her love. It is the same with members of the Church. We cannot allow ourselves to remain unaffected by the suffering of our brothers and sisters in famine and war.

This idea of mutual concern and love is a central concern of Pope Francis, an integral part of his message. Indeed, it is a central part of the message of Jesus Christ: “Love one another, just as I have loved you…whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers you do unto me.” It is not a social, economic or political message, nor must it ever be allowed to be reduced to one or more of these. It is both simpler and more profound: that, as John puts it, “God is love,” and that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. We can never be indifferent to the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ and still claim to love and serve God. Like a father – for God is Our Father – we must care for and love each other as he cares for and loves us, “…so much that he gave his only-begotten Son.” There are many needs in the Church today; let us all respond to them with love, with prayer, with care and generosity, to the fullness of our ability to do so.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION - SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR 2017

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Words that we hear every Sunday. Words that can pass us by if we do not stop and reflect upon them. Words that reveal something so astounding that we almost cannot take it in.

Sacrifice has been part of human religion since before we started recording history. In the Jewish religion, from which our own faith came, it was customary to sacrifice a one-year-old, spotless male lamb for sin. The understanding was that all sin is an offence against God, and deserving of death. But God allowed a lamb to be substituted for the sinner, and to die in his place. After the blood, which Jews believed contained the life, which belonged to God, had been drained from the body, the richest part, the fat, was burned as belonging to God. Most of the animal was returned to the offeror, who held a communion feast to celebrate the forgiveness of his sins.

Abraham was called by God to offer his own son Isaac as a sacrifice. But at the last moment, God provided a Lamb as a substitute for Isaac. This has a vital message for us. First, this story is a revelation from God that outlaws human sacrifice. God, as the story of salvation tells us, demanded only ever one human life; that of his Son, who died, not for just one sin of one person, but for all the sins of all the world. Jesus became the Lamb of God. On the night before he died, he gave his Body and Blood in the form of bread and wine as a communion meal, so that we could rejoice in our salvation. That is why it is called the Eucharist, for the word Eucharist means “to rejoice.” Jesus dies to save us from the death we deserve for offending God, a price we could never pay ourselves, and it costs us – nothing.

But if we want to enjoy that forgiveness, to escape from the eternal death which is the price of sin, it is we who must come to Him, confess our sins in sorrow before him, ask his forgiveness. When John first saw Jesus, it was a breath-taking event for him. He could hardly believe that the Saviour of the world had actually come at last. Today, we tend to take our salvation for granted. After all, Jesus, through his Church, has been amongst us for two thousand years. We need to regain our sense of wonder that there is any hope for us at all, that the forgiveness of our sins is even possible.

We cannot take God for granted. He owes us nothing, and there is certainly no obligation upon him to forgive us. That he sent his Son to free us from sin and death; that he feeds us with his Body and Blood; all these things are a free gift. And we should be filled with wonder at this gift. Today, we should be as astounded by his presence amongst us as was John. We have celebrated his coming in Christmas; let us now recognise why has come, and for what he has come. Let us, like John, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: FR STEPHEN VISITS HIS HOME COUNTRY

Father Stephen has been on annual leave, visiting his home country of Nigeria for the first time since he was ordained. He sent us some photos, three of which are posted below. He seems to have had something of a busman's holiday!

Fr Stephen celebrates a house Mass.

Fr Stephen celebrating his best-loved priestly ministry: baptizing babies.

Outside the church after mass.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION - SOLEMNITY OF THE EPIPHANY 2017

How many of us remember the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, starring Richard Dreyfuss?  In it, a “close encounter of the third kind” is described as an actual meeting with extra-terrestrials. During the course of the film, people from all over experience strange phenomena and signs which draw them to an odd-shaped mountain. There, pulsating with light, a massive spaceship descends and takes a number of chosen humans away to a new and, we presume, more perfect existence.

It is strange how cultures which have rejected God, like modern secular culture, nevertheless seek transcendent experiences, long for a new world where evil does not exist. This film could have been inspired by today’s First Reading. The film is a poor, fifth-rate, watered-down vision, to be sure, but it is probably the best that human beings without God can conjure up. How very different is the transcendent glory of the Christian reality!

Christian tradition has always associated the words, “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” with the Star of Bethlehem. A light that shines brightly in the darkness of night; and what a scene it reveals! “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. A multitude of camels shall cover you. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” The camels, the gifts of gold and frankincense, call to mind the journey of the Magi. It is a vision of an uncountable number of people, all converging on a single point; and for a Christian, that single point can only be the Manger in Bethlehem.

For centuries, the prophets had foretold the coming of the Messiah, the Saviour. There were the dreams in which God spoke to Joseph. There was the sign of the Star in the heavens, of angels appearing to the shepherds. All of these bear down inexorably on the child in the Manger at Bethlehem. What appears on earth is not some tawdry vision of an extra-terrestrial visitation, but a vision of heaven itself, in the concrete form of the baby Jesus with Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, wise men, donkeys, cattle, camels; all the elements that make up the crib we so love to see at Christmas.

Not bug-eyed aliens, but a child, God-with-us, in whom, as Jesus tells Philip on the night before he died, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Not a machine to convey us to another planet, but God descended to earth; the path to heaven itself opening before us! At Christmas, we have a “close encounter” with God face-to-face in the person of Jesus, and after that encounter, we can never be the same again.

It is a powerful vision; but this vision is also a powerful reality. Bethlehem means “House of Bread.” And out of the House of Bread, comes the Bread of Life. The baby in the Manger is the same Jesus who promised us, “I am the Bread of Life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and I will raise him up on the Last Day.” Next to this, all other visions fade into nothing. If only we can encounter the living Lord Jesus, this promise will become a reality for us. There can be no greater gift, and in the Christmas season we have just celebrated, it is ours, if we really want it with all our hearts.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION - NEW YEAR 2016/2017

We welcomed the New Year on Saturday with a well-attended Vigil at the Cathedral. The service consisted of exposition and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. It included an examination of conscience, the praying of the Psalm for night prayer, Scripture and sermon. There were reverent silences for meditation and adoration. Fr Johnson preached on Romans 8,31-39. Fr Cyriacus Okoro was the celebrant. Prof Nicol Viljoen played the organ, providing his own beautiful  and spiritual accompaniments to the Latin benediction chants.

9 am Mass at the Cathedral. Fr Johnson is the celebrant, assisted here at communion by Mr Chris Groenewald.

Vandag het ons Afrikaans mis ook gevier. Vr Xolisa Mafu is die selebrant.

Ten spyte van die hitte, was daar 'n goeie bywoning en die kamer was stampvol.