The Paschal Candle is extinguished

Even the Low Mass of Ascension that we celebrated here this evening had its little bit of drama as the paschal candle was extinguished immediately after the Gospel. It seems eminently logical to do so and I cannot quite understand why this was changed.

As with many things that used to take place during the Liturgy (e.g. the unveiling of the statues and images during the Easter Vigil), the paschal candle is now extinguised after the Mass on Pentecost Sunday. As it was lit with great solemnity at the Easter Vigil, should a certain solemnity not surround its extinguishing?

Jesus, the Light, has gone. Yes, I know that, as an early father wrote, as He came to earth without leaving heaven, so He returns to heaven without leaving earth. Yet, symbolically, the extinguishing of the paschal candle during the Mass somehow helps us visualise and be present at the Lord's ascent into the clouds. We experience "sacramentally" the departure of the Lord as the apostles themselves did.

As one fire - which began in the form of a huge fire outside our churches in the night of Easter - is extinguished, so we await the coming of a new Fire as the apostles and the whole Church are baptised in the Spirit at Pentecost.

The time between Ascension and Pentecost is a time of waiting.

Come, Holy Spirit...

The water of salvation became both tomb and mother for you.

 Every day this week the Divine Office contains beautiful ancient homilies or instructions on the paschal mysteries. Here's the Second Reading from the Office of Readings for yesterday:

A reading from the instructions to the newly baptized at Jerusalem

Baptism, symbol of Christ's Passion

You were led down to the font of holy baptism just as Christ was taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb which is before your eyes.

Each of you was asked, “Do you believe in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?” You made the profession of faith that brings salvation, you were plunged into the water, and three times you rose again. This symbolised the three days Christ spent in the tomb.

As our Saviour spent three days and three nights in the depths of the earth, so your first rising from the water represented the first day and your first immersion represented the first night. At night a man cannot see, but in the day he walks in the light. So when you were immersed in the water it was like night for you and you could not see, but when you rose again it was like coming into broad daylight. In the same instant you died and were born again; the saving water was both your tomb and your mother.

Solomon’s phrase in another context is very apposite here. He spoke of a time to give birth, and a time to die. For you, however, it was the reverse: a time to die, and a time to be born, although in fact both events took place at the same time and your birth was simultaneous with your death.

This is something amazing and unheard of! It was not we who actually died, were buried and rose again. We only did these things symbolically, but we have been saved in actual fact. It is Christ who was crucified, who was buried and who rose again, and all this has been attributed to us. We share in his sufferings symbolically and gain salvation in reality.

What boundless love for men! Christ’s undefiled hands were pierced by the nails; he suffered the pain. I experience no pain, no anguish, yet by the share that I have in his sufferings he freely grants me salvation.

Let no one imagine that baptism consists only in the forgiveness of sins and in the grace of adoption. Our baptism is not like the baptism of John, which conferred only the forgiveness of sins. We know perfectly well that baptism, besides washing away our sins and bringing us the gift of the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of the sufferings of Christ. This is why Paul exclaims: Do you not know that when we were baptized into Christ Jesus we were, by that very action, sharing in his death? By baptism we went with him into the tomb.

Funerals, Suicide, Hope and general thoughts

Suicide is becoming a rather too common occurrence. I have learned that if you read in the local paper that "NN died unexpectedly at his/her residence on dd/mmm" it is quite likely that the person committed suicide.

There is also a lot of gloominess with the number of deaths in the town at present.

A couple of thoughts have occurred to me which may or may not be fair. I'd be interested in readers' thoughts:

• This paragraph from my Easter homily:

To abandon faith is to abandon hope and ultimately to lose any sense of the purpose of life. To journey in faith is to live by hope, and to live a life of the deepest charity – love – united with the Risen Christ in this life, so that we shall live forever with him in the next.

• Where a local population is ageing and the birthrate is in decline, deaths/funerals are bound to outnumber births/baptisms. This will lead to a general gloom in the community, possibly perpetuating a cycle of despair.

Funeral liturgies at funeral homes do not quite do it in the way a funeral liturgy in the parish church does. In our parish, the parishioners love to provide hospitality (i.e. a good luncheon) for the family and mourners. We want to provide a dignfied liturgy with a choir and organist. We want to bring the body of the deceased person - who entered upon the "door of faith" when they were baptised - into the church where they began their lifetime journey of faith which leads inevitably to the "door of death" to eternal life.

The parish church is a sacred place where the Lord is present both sacramentally and spiritually. It is a place hallowed by the prayers of so many generations of faithful catholics. There is a natural experience of the Communion of Saints, so important at the moment of death and grief.

Having said that, the local funeral home is a very dignified one, run by a faithful catholic who does everything possible to ensure that the funeral is carried out with reverence. So I have conducted funeral liturgies there. I do, however, observe the liturgical norms fully. The funeral service is carried out in the same way as it would be in church: a crucifix in a prominent position, the symbols of the Gospel Book and crucifix placed upon the coffin, the people invited to stand and sit as they would in church. Of course, no one wants to sings hymns in the funeral home and so there is no music during the funeral liturgy itself (I will not have recorded music played while we just sit and listen), apart from the In paradisum which I sing whilst sprinkling the casket/urn during the final commendation.

While extending the warmest possible invitation to the family to have the funeral of their dearly beloved departed in the church, one cannot refuse to hold it in the funeral home, and there is always the possibility of reaching out to those who perhaps have fallen away from attendance at church or who are simply non-churchgoers. I have recently had a very good experience of encountering some good young people who are rediscovering the Christian faith in one or another denomination even if their parents/grandparents are not particularly diligent in attendance at any particular church.

I now experience the several generations of people who have been lost to the Church. Why did they leave? Did the upheavals in liturgy and catechetical formation of the last forty years have anything to do with it? I cannot help thinking it did. Good liturgy and clear teaching will strengthen the faith of those who come to church. As for those who do not experience the now happily re-reformed liturgy of their parish church, we need to find every opportunity of reaching out to them and giving them reasons for hope in eternal life.

The door of the tomb and the door of faith

Homily for Easter:

“They were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back; it was very large.”

The three women on their way to the tomb, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, were concerned about an obstacle that threatened to block their access to Jesus Christ, whom they supposed to be lying dead behind the stone.

St Mark adds that the stone was “very large.” We could describe it as a huge stone, a huge obstacle, something that the women would not have been able to move by their own strength.

They found, however, that this stone had been rolled back, and so they were able to enter through the door of that tomb. The door of that tomb was to prove to be much more than an entry into the tomb where they expected the dead body of Jesus to lie. Rather, the door of that tomb was a “door of faith”. By entering through that door, they were able to hear the testimony of a young man clothed in a white robe – an angel – who told them that Jesus “has been raised; he is not here.”

The young man told them to tell Peter and the other disciples. We may suppose however that the women believed, even before Peter and the apostles came to verify for themselves the truth of the testimony of these women, before – if you will – the Church officially believed in the Resurrection. The door of the tomb was a door of faith.

“The ‘door of faith’ is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into his Church.” It was with these words that Pope Benedict began an apostolic letter entitled PortaFidei – the door of faith – on October 11^th last and in which he announced a Year of Faith which will begin on October 11 next, the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and end on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, on November 24 2013.

The Year of Faith will be “a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world. In the mystery of his death and resurrection, God has revealed in its fullness the Love that saves and calls us to conversion of life through the forgiveness of sins.”

Today, one of our number will enter through this door of faith, setting out on a journey that will last a lifetime. This journey “begins with baptism, through which we can address God as Father, and it ends with the passage through death to eternal life, fruit of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” (PF, 1)

Patty enters through that door of faith now. We entered so many years ago. Our journey will lead us through another door, the door of death, that leads to eternal life where faith will disappear, hope will be fulfilled, and charity will endure in the fullness of purity.

There are many obstacles – large obstacles – to faith, like that huge stone that the women expected would block their entry into the tomb, a place of death where they found life. Only the grace of God can remove these obstacles.

The people of Israel faced the waters of the Red Sea as they fled Egypt. They were led by the fiery cloud, that appeared as a cloud – the glory of God – by day and a fire – the light of Christ – by night, just as we were led by the light of the paschal candle form the darkness of night into this place of light and joy, led by the light who is Christ, the light of the peoples.

To enter through the door of faith and to persevere on the road of faith is only possible by the help of God’s grace.

We are only too well aware of the challenges to our Christian faith today. There is first of all the challenge of our own weakness leaves us vulnerable to the temptation to lack of faith, or even to sin.

There are the forces of secularism and relativism that tell us that there is no place for religion in the public square, that our religious beliefs should not have any social consequences, that there is no such thing as truth, that faith is myth.

The Church proclaims the dignity of every human being: “God created man in his image; in the image of God he created them” in the face of a widespread disregard for human life and human rights, including the right to religious liberty.

The Church proclaims a beautiful vision of life and fertility: “Be fertile and multiply”, whereas powerful institutions at national and international levels seek to promote anti-fertility policies and aggressive population control.

The Church proclaims the equality yet complementarity of the sexes: “male and female he created them” and the consequent teaching of marriage as an indissoluble union between a man and a woman, in the face of attempts to redefine marriage to encompass other kinds of union.

Even though these truths do not pertain exclusively to the realm of faith – they are all of the natural law, accessible to all men and women who use their reasoning powers correctly – they are being challenged today as at no other time in history.

There are other challenges we may face, in which things just seem impossible – until we place our trust in God. And then the impossible becomes possible.

The prophecy of Ezekiel sums up the work that God wishes to accomplish in us in leading us through the door of faith which is baptism:

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you… I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony (or hard) hearts and giving you natural hearts (of flesh)… You shall be my people, and I will be your God.” This new heart and new spirit will lead us into a greater desire for union with God in prayer, for it is only in union with God that the human heart finds the fulfillment of its deepest desires: “Like a deer that longs for running streams, my soul longs for you my God.”

And to strengthen us on this lifelong journey we are nourished by the food of the Holy Eucharist. This is the truly living Son of God, Jesus Christ, who gives his body and sheds his blood for us. As he gives us himself, so we must give ourselves to him in an act of total faith and total trust. Then all obstacles to faith will be overcome. The door of faith will always be open for us.

To abandon faith is to abandon hope and ultimately to lose any sense of the purpose of life. To journey in faith is to live by hope, and to live a life of the deepest charity – love – united with the Risen Christ in this life, so that we shall live forever with him in the next.

Let us this Easter ask Our Lord to increase in us the gifts of Faith, Hope and Charity that he placed in our hearts at baptism, when we first entered through the door of faith.

Easter Triduum Polish style

My friend Father Piotr Kaczmarek sent me some pictures from St Joseph's parish in Ursus, Warsaw.

After the Holy Thursday Mass, the Blessed Sacrament is taken to a special place (there is normally a tabernacle also - we would refer to it as an Altar of Repose):

After the Good Friday liturgy the Blessed Sacrament is taken to the Sepulchre and set alongside the image of the dead Christ with special decorations

Adoration continues until midnight:

Confessions are heard until the last person has made his/her confession (this year until 11:35 p.m.) Adoration continues all day Saturday.

I was quite surprised when I heard about this custom but Fr Piotr assures me that the exposition/adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in this way is not forbidden in Poland. On the contrary it is a very well-known and widespread custom. People are praying waiting for the Resurection and contemplating the Passion of Our Lord.

On Saturday at 20:00 the Easter Vigil commences:

On Easter Sunday morning there was a special Resurrexit procession. The Cardinal Archbishop of Warsaw participated.

After the Triduum they replaced the sepulchre with a replica of Pope John Paul's coffin in anticipation of his forthcoming beatification.

It's always fascinating to appreciate different traditions.

Before the Protestant Reformation in England there used always to be an Easter Sepulchre built into the side of the churches and a Sacred Host was buried there after the Good Friday liturgy until the Easter Vigil. Here's a typical example from St Owswald's Church in Ashbourne, Derbyshire:

Surrexit Christus, Alleluia!

Greater numbers than ever at Church this Easter

After the Easter ceremonies last year I made a note that there was an extremely good attendance at the ceremonies, particular the Easter Sunday morning Mass. This year, there was an even greater number. This must confound the 'The Catholic Church is Finished' rhetoric of the media. As well as being the Church's major feast of the year, I think Easter possibly speaks to people at a more profound level than Christmas. It really is a feast of hope and joy. No matter how 'dead' the Church might seem, it always rises again. Perhaps in the midst of Her current difficulties, fuelled mainly by media who won't accept 'sorry' from the Pope no matter how often and in how many different ways he says it, the Church is a sign to a huge number of people who perhaps know they are not living 'up to the mark' in terms of regular church attendance, marriage, etc, etc, yet they see a Church that is made up of and welcomes sinners and gives them hope.

I reflected yesterday on the fact that the first witness of the empty tomb and of the Risen Christ was a woman who had had seven devils cast out of her. The Magdalen was a sinner, and it was as a forgiven and healed sinner that she proclaimed to the doubting apostles the fact of the Risen Christ. She is an example of the new batch of unleavened bread, the corrupting old yeast having been cast out of her. The mysterium iniquitatis was there at the beginning of the Church's proclamation of the Resurrection, and so it will be with the Church until the end of time. But that does not invalidate Her proclamation. In fact, it makes it all the more credible to those who need to live their lives in the hope of becoming something better than they are at present. The impossible is, with the power of God, possible.

A message received from a parishioner of mine this morning:

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

What a wonderful week of masses and ceremony. I feel refreshed and renewed.

You, and all involved, must have worked very hard so that everything went off smoothly, it was a joy being in church to worship our dear Lord.

Here is a photograph of St. Simon's altar decorated so beautifully for Easter morning.

God bless you for everything.

Thanks are due to everybody who worked really hard to prepare the church and the liturgy: cleaners, flower arrangers, choir, sacristy, MC, and particularly to our servers. We had a full complement at the Easter Vigil, with sufficient numbers to have torches, and an excellent turnout of servers at the Morning Mass. Fantastic!

Congratulations to Rachel Numas who was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church and who received Holy Communion with us for the first time during the Easter Vigil. She, together with five other adults (her husband Nigel, Martial and Sandrine Eba, Aude Alecks and Annelise Moore) were confirmed, taking as confirmation patron saints respectively: Therese of Lisieux, Thomas More, Gabriel, Rita, Joanna (one of the women who went to the tomb on Easter morning), Catherine of Sienna.

Two of the lads who have been popping into church recently came to the Easter Sunday morning Mass. I saw them at the back as I processed in and took them down to be near the front, placing them in the safe hands of the same parishioner who wrote the above appreciative message. Their sister and a friend popped in this morning and told me that one of the lads is telling everyone he wants to be a Catholic.

Saturday morning saw a packed church (I have never seen the Church so full) with the Polish blessing of food which, as last year, I did using the Latin formulae for the blessing of Lamb, Eggs and Bread at Easter found in the old Rituale Romanum. (See slideshow below). The Kentish Express photographer was present so we might see a few photographs in this Thursday's edition (see the KE's announcement here, search later this week for a report).



And on Good Friday evening some of the Polish community organised a very inspiring 'son et lumiere' Way of the Cross followed by a homage to Pope John Paul II whose fifth anniversary it was. Although I could understand nothing of what was said or read, the language of prayer and faith was all I needed. Congratulations to them. They made a huge effort in decorating the church with votive candles, including a cross on the church floor, and power point images taken from The Passion of the Christ etc. Very prayerful, very devotional. It took a couple of hours to set up and lasted for two hours. Congratulations to all involved.

Happy Easter everybody.