‘My grace is enough for you, Paul; my power is made perfect in weakness.’

This is taken from the Lord’s response to Paul (in 2 Cor 12) when he pleaded with the Lord to take from him ‘a thorn in the flesh’, which he had been given to stop him getting too proud.  Remembering those words must have been very comforting for Paul when he was experiencing his extreme hardships and setbacks.  As Paul explains, those words of the Lord’s enabled him to endure cheerfully the ‘insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ’s sake.  For it is when I am weak that I am strong’.  

It was the use of the Apostle’s name, however, that made that Antiphon really stand out for me.  This insertion of Paul’s name into the biblical quotation really brought home to me the fact that God was speaking to him personally, individually.   We know, but perhaps often forget, that Christ speaks to us personally through the scriptures.  Inserting ourselves into the text as we read (something which we have explored in greater depth here) can help us to listen more actively to the scriptures.  And remembering that God calls us by name each and every time we read the scriptures will help us respond to His call.

Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by your name, you are mine.

Isaiah 43:1

We have the whole year to enjoy discovering the Jesus revealed to us through St Mark’s writing… but we would really benefit from reading the whole Gospel over the next few days.

In reading the Gospel swiftly, like a novel, we gain a good overview of its style and content and so many aspects of it will show themselves – like themes running through several chapters – which would remain hidden if we only ever approached the Gospel slowly and in small chunks.

Through reading a whole Gospel, we come to know the Evangelist (and St Peter, in this Gospel) much more intimately than we do when reading short passages.

There are only 16 chapters: come on, let’s dive in!

“Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”

By your life… not only by your acts of piety and your acts of charity, however great they may be, but with your whole life.

Our lives, as Catholics, are not only sacramental but follow the rhythm of the liturgical year.  We adopt a penitential mode on Fridays and in Lent through our prayer, fasting and almsgiving; we feast at Easter as well as at Christmas.  We take care to keep Sunday holy… but what about the other holydays of obligation?¹

Tomorrow is the solemnity of All Saints.  Because it is a holyday of obligation, we go to Mass, but apart from that, how do we mark the holyday?  How will our day reflect the liturgical character of the great solemnity?²  Because, in this country, there is no official holyday – schools, offices and factories are open for business as usual – it can be difficult to keep the day as holy as Sunday.  We can try, however, and we can have fun trying!

To celebrate a Feast with a feast seems like a good place to start.³  I don’t think there can be any easier act of evangelisation than eating cake as a means of bearing witness to ones faith!  Pack a tasty cake in your lunchbox and be sure to mention that you have it because it’s All Saints’ Day.  Better still, pack two cakes and give one away.

The saints of God knew as well as anyone else that life is not all piety and charity.  The flip side of fasting when the Church fasts is feasting when she feasts, so “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life” and get baking!

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^{1 In addition to every Sunday, holydays of obligation are Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Mary, Mother of God, Immaculate Conception, Assumption, St Joseph, Ss Peter & Paul and All Saints.  ‘Episcopal Conferences may, however, suppress certain holydays or transfer them to the Sunday (Code of Canon Law 1246 §2)‘, which, of course, they do but that need not stop us marking the days in other ways.}

^{2 For an overview of how we ought to mark these days, see Code of Canon Law 1247 and CCC 2185-8, as well as the E&W Bishops’ document ‘Keeping these days Holy’}

^{3 Yes, I know tomorrow’s a Solemnity – that’s a feast with extra pudding!}

Jesus, of course, had called the right tax collector to follow him. He wanted Matthew because he was Matthew. Time and again in the Gospels, Jesus ‘sees’  people not only for who they are now but for who they can become.

This brings to mind the words of Blessed John Henry Newman’s prayer,*

God knows me and calls me by my name…

God has created me to do Him some definite service;

He has committed some work to me

which He has not committed to another.

I have my mission – I may never know it in this life,

but I shall be told it in the next.

I don’t suppose St Matthew thought of himself as being terribly impressive or clever when he invited tax collectors and sinners to that banquet.  He was just being him; being true to himself… and that was precisely what Our Lord wanted.  Similarly, for the vast majority of us, that ‘definite service’ for which we were created is not going to be something impressive that will make even a column inch, let alone grab the headlines of the smallest free, weekly newspaper.

But that work, ‘which He has not committed to another‘ is the most important work of our lives, so let’s ask St Matthew to pray for us, that we, like him, will be true to ourselves and true to our Christian calling.

St Matthew, pray for us!

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*You can find the whole of Newman’s prayer here.

The first is the reason he incurred the wrath of the Roman Prefect.  The greedy prefect was convinced that the church had many precious treasures and charged Laurence with the task of collecting them all and bringing them to him.  Laurence agreed and asked for three days to gather the riches together.  Pope Sixtus, who had just been martyred, had predicted Laurence’s martyrdom three days after his own, so Laurence spent those three days joyfully giving away all the money he had to the poor.  He then returned to the Prefect on the third day with a large number of poor people, lame and blind too, declaring that they were the treasures of the Church.  The Prefect suffered a huge sense-of-humour failure and sentenced Laurence to death.

And so Laurence met his death; he was burnt slowly on a gridiron.   Here’s the second story we can’t resist about St Laurence: while he was burning, he reputedly called out, ‘Turn me over – I’m done on this side!’

I must admit I smiled when I saw 2 Corinthians 9:6-10 for Mass today, as it contains the verse,

‘Each one should give what he has decided in his own mind, not grudgingly or because he is made to, for God loves a cheerful giver’. 

‘Saints never grow old,’ said John Paul II, ‘they never become figures of the past, men and women of ‘yesterday’. On the contrary, they are always men and women of the future, witnesses of a world to come.’ ¹

Take today’s saint, John Vianney, for example. Even now, he still touches the lives of souls seeking God:  His words ‘it is always springtime in a soul united to God‘ not only emphasise the eternal present of the Communion of Saints, but are available on a rather snazzy Zazzle T-Shirt – how cool is that?!  Seriously though, despite looking like the first Dr Who, William Hartnell²  and dying over 150 years ago, I find it easy to admire him today because he struggled academically throughout his years as a seminarian and then when he was eventually given the parish of Ars, it was a quiet backwater place, with nothing to draw the eye: ‘all’ he had to recommend him was his authentically holy life.  Those words of Our Lord’s to St Paul could have been written for him:

‘My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness’ (2 Cor 12:9).

St John Vianney could have settled down to comfortable mediocrity but -  through channelling the grace of God – he worked with what he had and set to work to prepare the inhabitants of the little town of Ars for heaven.  As you’ll know (not least of all because you’ll have read it in last year’s post), it was eventually not only Ars he ministered to, but people from all over France and beyond.  His mystical knowledge of penitents’ souls, the example of his own holy life and his continual pointing out that eternity is a long time to spend in the wrong place brought many thousand of souls back to God during his lifetime.

As Blessed John Paul II has said, though, he is not merely a figure of the past but a man of the future.  He points from the past to the future that lies beyond us, to eternity – the home for which we are made:

‘See, my children, we must reflect that we have a soul to save, and an eternity that awaits us. The world, its riches, pleasures, and honours will pass away. Let us take care, then. The saints did not all begin well; but they all ended well. We have begun badly; let us end well, and we shall go one day and meet them in Heaven.’³

St John Vianney, patron of Parish Priests, pray for our Parish Priests and pray for us!

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^{1 during a homily in Lisieux in 1980}

^{2 does that make him a figure of the past or of the future, though, ‘hmmm‘?}

^{3 John Vianney’s Catechetical Instructions chapter 1}

However, if one is not in the habit of praying the Rosary, or if one does not have 20 consecutive minutes to devote to this beautiful prayer, then it can seem daunting or even impossible, to begin.

So I have an idea. It’s not my idea, but from Fr John Edwards, SJ (whom I’ve quoted before, not least of all here, here and here). He suggests that we simply try to pray a good decade of the Rosary, if the whole thing is unfeasible for whatever reason. If we start today, there are just enough days in May for a decade a day, finishing conveniently on the 31st – the feast of the Visitation.

If you’re looking for a little background on the Rosary, there’s always Blessed John Paul II’s apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, in which he introduced the Mysteries of Light.  If you’re fairly au fait with the Rosary but need a little reminder of what all the mysteries are, there is a simple page here to help you (you need to click on the beads to access the scriptural and CCC quotation).

A set of Rosary beads is handy, of course, but if you don’t have a set to hand, then use your fingers.  Why, after all, do you think you have ten?!

Remember; if we only make a good start, the prayers of Our Mother will help our feeble efforts bear fruit.

What St Patrick means to me

In years gone by, many considered that the best start in life for an Irish boy was to be Christened Patrick. My older brother was named after the great saint, as well as was the custom in most Irish families. After Christmas day and Easter Sunday, St Patrick’s Day was the most important day in the Irish calendar. Over the years, many young men and women emigrated to many parts of the world but wherever they were, St Patrick’s Day was always celebrated- and the world knew you were Irish.

We were taught in school how Patrick arrived in Ireland as a boy slave and became a shepherd on the hills of County Antrim. In a dream one night he was told by an angel to escape to Rome to study and to become a priest. He should then return to Ireland in order to convert the people to the true God. Patrick duly followed the angel’s instruction and by 430 A.D. he was appointed Bishop and returned to Ireland.

The High King of Ireland at the time lived in Tara County Meath. St Patrick went to the hills of Tara where he lit what became known as the Pascal Fire. The king became alarmed and summoned Patrick to explain the reason for the fire. Patrick picked up a native weed with three leaves and used this to explain the Holy Trinity- God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Not only did Patrick convert the King to Christianity but also gave Ireland its emblem – the shamrock, which grows all over the country.

Back in Ireland, families always remembered absent loved ones living abroad by picking shamrock from the home fields and posting it to different parts of the world. What they didn’t realise then was that by the time it reached the U.S.S or other remote parts of the world (everything went by boat in those days) it had turned brown beyond its prime. Years later, an uncle home from the U.S.A said they always looked forward to receiving the shamrock knowing it had been picked by their mother or father. Many a tear was shed on picking up what was left of the shamrock.

As St Patrick’s day always fell midway during Lent and was a public holiday as well as  a Church Holiday, local organisations such as the Local Defence Force, the Red Cross and the Knights of Malta took part in a parade led by the local brass and wind band to a special St. Patrick’s Day Mass.

Football and other sporting events were held in the afternoon but for the majority of the young and not so young adults, the evening was the best time as the local dance hall was also the Church Hall. Dances were off the menu during Lent except on St Patrick’s night where a top band and a full house always guaranteed a good night for all.

Gerry Cole

After cutting his teeth reconverting the Chablais (60,000 inhabitants!), he became bishop of Geneva and went from strength to strength (metaphorically, not physically), inspiring through preaching, writing and personal example.  He was so phenomenally productive that when reading his biography, one wonders how on earth he fitted it all in!  Even in the last year of St Francis de Sales’ life, writes Butler, ‘The letters continued to pour out at the rate of twenty or thirty a day; he preached constantly, revised the Visitation constitution, and somehow found more time for contemplative prayer.’

I’ve read a good deal about St Francis de Sales and read a lot (though a small fraction) of his writing, but it is the last three words of this dazzlingly brilliant man that elucidate all he ever said and did.  On his deathbed, he was asked by a nun to give a final piece of advice.  No longer able to speak, St Francis took a piece of paper and wrote ‘humility, humility, humility’.

St Francis de Sales, pray for us, that we may always practise humility in thought, word and deed.

You have entered upon the office of bishop. Sitting at the helm of the Church, you pilot the ship against the waves. Take firm hold of the rudder of faith so that the severe storms of this world cannot disturb you. The sea is mighty and vast, but do not be afraid, for as Scripture says: he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the waters.

The Church of the Lord is built upon the rock of the apostles among so many dangers in the world; it therefore remains unmoved.  The Church’s foundation is unshakeable and firm against the assaults of the raging sea.  Waves lash at the Church but do not shatter it.  Although the elements of this world constantly beat upon the Church with crashing sounds, the Church possesses the safest harbour of salvation for all in distress.  Although the Church is tossed about on the sea, it rides easily on rivers, especially those rivers that Scripture speaks of: The rivers have lifted up their voice.

‘Proclaim the message and, welcome or unwelcome, insist on it; refute falsehood, correct error, call to obedience, but do all with the patience that the work of teaching requires’.