Mk 12:41-44; 1 Kings 17:10-16
Today is Remembrance Sunday, when we remember all those who died in the wars, and those continuing to die. We recall those who died in bravery and those who died in tragedy, those who died as acclaimed heroes and those who lie unknown.
We often, and rightly, speak of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defence of their country. But I want, this morning, to speak of the importance of self-sacrifice in general, and to do so in reference to the example we just heard Jesus refer to in what He taught us about sacrifice in the Widow’s Might (Mk 12:44).
The true value of the widow’s gift wasn’t known by the people around her.
If we think, in particular, of those soldiers who gave their lives in World War Two, they didn’t know the FULL effect and value of the sacrifice they made. They knew they were in a terrible war, but they didn’t know the even larger significance of it. When they died, neither they nor the Allies knew the true horror of the Nazi atrocities, of the millions killed in the gas chambers, of the millions in England who would have been killed if the Nazi had won. They didn’t know just HOW much they saved us from, and so their sacrifice had a value far beyond the one they realised.
The same must be said of any sacrifice, any good deed, and this is what the Lord Jesus was teaching about the Widow’s Might. The value of her offering wasn’t the money –after all, it was just a penny. The value of her offering was that it was her everything. And what gives this value is God, the God who watches over all our deeds, who accepts our sacrifices, our good deeds, our prayers, and indeed and our very lives –the God who uses and accepts them as prayers. He is a GOOD God, and prayer does change things.
God wants each of us to offer ourselves to him, to offer our lives as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1; 1 Pet 2:5), a fragrant offering to the Almighty. In him our lives acquire a new supernatural value, one beyond what we can know.
Many of us can get discouraged from time to time over the effort of our lives, or over the way that there seems to be so little gain for the good works we can try to do. We can come to think that it’s not worth bothering. Why should I continue to be nice to that person when he never changes, when he’s never nice to me? Why should I be the only person at work who doesn’t use foul jokes and language, or the only person who refuses to be dishonest in business? Why should I continue to pray when nothing ever seems to change? Why should I clean up after the kids, yet again, when they’ll only mess up the place 2 seconds later?
Such discouragement is natural. But the lesson of the Widow’s Might is that there is more to life than the natural, more than we can see. If we judge ourselves only by what we see then we will grow discouraged, we’ll think that there is no point.
There is MORE to life. There is God, and the value He puts on our works. He accepts them as offerings to Him, and in the cosmic balance these offerings change the universe. In this our deeds have an effect we simply do not know. And there is heaven too, the eternal glory and merit that will be assigned to our deeds and our lives. If we forget this then we forget the true meaning of our life, and what gives true meaning to our actions.
The widow who gave her last bit of food to share it with the prophet Elijah didn’t know what lay in store for her. But she had faith to do good anyway, and God transformed her offering into more than enough food. God transforms our offerings too. He said that we will be repaid a hundredfold (Mk 10:30), and He is true to His promises.
To refer again to the sacrifice of those fighting the Nazis, we can see today that the ultimate sacrifice paid by those soldiers had a great value, but it’s full value will only be completely disclosed in heaven. Their sacrifice was greater than the ones that most of us encounter daily –but the same truth holds. We must never let ourselves be discouraged over what can seem like small effects of our good deeds: there’s a value and effect that transcends what we can see, and so it is worth being good.
They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
at the going down of the sun, and at the rising
we will remember them.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
2nd November 2009, All Souls Day, Shaftesbury
We keep today a sadly neglected commemoration. It used to be the case that ALL churches would be heaving at the seams today. It was a sound instinct of the faithful that led them to come and pray for the souls of their dearly departed loved ones, and it’s an instinct that we’d do well to try and restore.
The doctrine and practice that we celebrate today is one that makes me proud to be Catholic, with a capital “C”, because it’s not only about solid doctrine, and the way we reach solid doctrine, it’s a doctrine that squares perfectly with the pastoral needs of our heart –a perfect model of how all truth is pastoral. And, of course, it is a definitively "Catholic" doctrine because it was the defining issue that Martin Luther rejected at the Protestant Reformation.
We reach this doctrine about purgatory and the practice of praying for the dead in a solidly Catholic way not least because we find its most direct roots in the part of the Bible that Protestants call the Apocrypha, in the Second Book of Maccabees. “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they might be loosed from their sins”.(2 Macc 16:46) We know there, as we know elsewhere, that this is thus a part of our Judeo-Christian Tradition, something familiar at the time of Jesus. And to be fully Catholic we need to be in touch with the continuity of that Tradition, or else we lose, among other things, a lot of the basis of Christian morals, which are largely Jewish morals, and we can end up saying that all Jesus believed is that you must be nice to each other.
It’s also solidly Catholic in that it’s rooted in private revelations, in the devotion of the saints. And the extent that we feel uncomfortable with these as sources of Faith, we can fear that we’ve been infected by Modernism.
But this practice, what I consider to be one of the crowning glories of Catholicism, is a glory that is, as I said, not only doctrinal and disciplinary, but is also deeply pastoral.
There are certain times in the life of everyone when we wonder what happens to people when they die. For some of us it first comes when we face the prospect of their own death. But probably, for most of us, that time comes when someone we love dies. It’s a time when we are likely to be not only concerned but distressed about the fate of our loved one. That distress can be met and faced by the doctrine of Purgatory and the practice of praying for the dead.
If we were Protestants then we would have to ABANDON our deceased loved ones to the judgement of God, unable to help them in any way. But, as Catholics, we know that the bonds that unite us to the dead are greater than the division brought about by death. In the Communion of Saints we remain united to the dead, because whether are alive or dead we all remain united to Christ. On earth, we can pray for each other while we are alive. I can pray for my friends, my family and those I do not even know. It is the same with the dead. I can pray for deceased friends, and family, and strangers. I can pray that God will have mercy on them in the Judgement. In this way we’re not left powerless and despairing when our loved ones die. We’re still able to help them, just as we could help them while they were on earth.
I often feel sorry for Protestants faced with grief, because it’s important that we have something we’re able to DO in grief. And in the economy of the Communion of Saints God has foreseen this, and arranged for this, and so we maintain our bonds with the deceased by our prayers for them.
The doctrine of purgatory also gives us hope against the fear that we will be judged too harshly. Many of us may fear at some time or another that we’re not good enough to go to heaven. And we’re not good enough for Heaven. And Scripture itself teaches us that there is only perfection in heaven. But this doesn’t need to cause us to give up hope, because otherwise there would be no-one in heaven.
We can go to heaven even though we’re not pure, even though we have sinned. But in order to do so we must go through a time, a place of purification. And that place is Purgatory. There, through the grace that is given to us by and through Jesus Christ, we will be made perfect, and fit to live in the happiness of heaven.
And so Purgatory is a doctrine that gives us hope. Hope because we know that even sinners like you and me can make it into the perfection of heaven.
Our time in purgatory is also something that can be shortened and made easier by the prayers of the faithful. And so we pray for our loved ones. Not only that God will have mercy on them in the Judgement, but also that they will be sped through Purgatory.
So let us rejoice today in the consoling doctrine of Purgatory, and the practice of praying for the dead. It’s one of the great spiritual acts of mercy. And it keeps us mindful and thankful that death does not totally separate us from the dead, and so we remember them in our prayers.
The doctrine and practice that we celebrate today is one that makes me proud to be Catholic, with a capital “C”, because it’s not only about solid doctrine, and the way we reach solid doctrine, it’s a doctrine that squares perfectly with the pastoral needs of our heart –a perfect model of how all truth is pastoral. And, of course, it is a definitively "Catholic" doctrine because it was the defining issue that Martin Luther rejected at the Protestant Reformation.
We reach this doctrine about purgatory and the practice of praying for the dead in a solidly Catholic way not least because we find its most direct roots in the part of the Bible that Protestants call the Apocrypha, in the Second Book of Maccabees. “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they might be loosed from their sins”.(2 Macc 16:46) We know there, as we know elsewhere, that this is thus a part of our Judeo-Christian Tradition, something familiar at the time of Jesus. And to be fully Catholic we need to be in touch with the continuity of that Tradition, or else we lose, among other things, a lot of the basis of Christian morals, which are largely Jewish morals, and we can end up saying that all Jesus believed is that you must be nice to each other.
It’s also solidly Catholic in that it’s rooted in private revelations, in the devotion of the saints. And the extent that we feel uncomfortable with these as sources of Faith, we can fear that we’ve been infected by Modernism.
But this practice, what I consider to be one of the crowning glories of Catholicism, is a glory that is, as I said, not only doctrinal and disciplinary, but is also deeply pastoral.
There are certain times in the life of everyone when we wonder what happens to people when they die. For some of us it first comes when we face the prospect of their own death. But probably, for most of us, that time comes when someone we love dies. It’s a time when we are likely to be not only concerned but distressed about the fate of our loved one. That distress can be met and faced by the doctrine of Purgatory and the practice of praying for the dead.
If we were Protestants then we would have to ABANDON our deceased loved ones to the judgement of God, unable to help them in any way. But, as Catholics, we know that the bonds that unite us to the dead are greater than the division brought about by death. In the Communion of Saints we remain united to the dead, because whether are alive or dead we all remain united to Christ. On earth, we can pray for each other while we are alive. I can pray for my friends, my family and those I do not even know. It is the same with the dead. I can pray for deceased friends, and family, and strangers. I can pray that God will have mercy on them in the Judgement. In this way we’re not left powerless and despairing when our loved ones die. We’re still able to help them, just as we could help them while they were on earth.
I often feel sorry for Protestants faced with grief, because it’s important that we have something we’re able to DO in grief. And in the economy of the Communion of Saints God has foreseen this, and arranged for this, and so we maintain our bonds with the deceased by our prayers for them.
The doctrine of purgatory also gives us hope against the fear that we will be judged too harshly. Many of us may fear at some time or another that we’re not good enough to go to heaven. And we’re not good enough for Heaven. And Scripture itself teaches us that there is only perfection in heaven. But this doesn’t need to cause us to give up hope, because otherwise there would be no-one in heaven.
We can go to heaven even though we’re not pure, even though we have sinned. But in order to do so we must go through a time, a place of purification. And that place is Purgatory. There, through the grace that is given to us by and through Jesus Christ, we will be made perfect, and fit to live in the happiness of heaven.
And so Purgatory is a doctrine that gives us hope. Hope because we know that even sinners like you and me can make it into the perfection of heaven.
Our time in purgatory is also something that can be shortened and made easier by the prayers of the faithful. And so we pray for our loved ones. Not only that God will have mercy on them in the Judgement, but also that they will be sped through Purgatory.
So let us rejoice today in the consoling doctrine of Purgatory, and the practice of praying for the dead. It’s one of the great spiritual acts of mercy. And it keeps us mindful and thankful that death does not totally separate us from the dead, and so we remember them in our prayers.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
1st November 2009, All Saints Day, Shaftesbury
Mt 5:1-12; Apoc 7:2-14; 1 Jn 3:1-3
I've been away on retreat this week, which means that I've just spent the last five days in silence, saying nothing.
Now you may wonder what I did on retreat, what I did while I was busy not speaking for five days. Well, I did some walking while I could reflect in the silence. And I did some spiritual reading to give me things to reflect on. But more than anything, and more important than anything, I prayed: I spent five or six hours a day in prayer, which even for a priest is quite a long time! You might think that spending six hours a day in prayer would get a little boring. And, I'd have to confess I did get a little bored. Somehow, the Lord God Almighty, the infinite Creator of the universe, the supreme being who holds all things in being, the one who is perfect beauty itself, and the Saviour who loves me and died for me: sometimes, I find Him boring!
This, of course, is a fault in me not at fault in Him, but it is a common fault in us human beings: If we loved Him more He would not seem boring. We find God boring because our intellect fails to fully grasp how wonderful He is, and, correspondingly, our will fails to be filled with the excitement of loving Him.
One of the reasons God might seem boring us that we easily forget is the character of God as being "personal" –we can think of Him as being just some kind of “thing”. When I went on retreat, I had gone away on retreat to be alone, but one of the things I remembered when I got there is that a Christian retreat is not primarily about going to be silent, and it is not primarily about going to be alone, it is about going to be with someone, a very particular Someone, namely, the Lord. And when we think about the fact that we are going to be with the Lord it is always important that we try to remember who He truly is. As I said, we know that He is the Lord Almighty, the Creator etc, but while we live in this world we don’t fully grasp Him as His is: we only see Him in an unclear manner, as St Paul says, “through a glass darkly”(1 Cor 13:12). In contrast, as we heard in our second reading, if we get to heaven then "we shall see Him as He really is"(1 Jn 3:3).
On today's feast of All Saints we recall the glory of all the saints in heaven. Our gospel reading today (Mt 5:1-12) on the Beatitudes is given to us today to remind us of the promise of the happiness, the Beatitude, of heaven. This is something we need to repeatedly remember when we try to think and understand what God is like, Who He is. God is the one whose very presence gives us that perfect Beatitude that our gospel text so weakly translated as "happiness", and he gives us this happiness -because He is love. At a theological level, St Thomas Aquinas teaches that “joy” within us, true joy, is only ever in us as a fruit of "charity" -the technical name for “divine love” (ST II-II q28 a1). And this is something that we all know the level of our own experience: love is what makes us happy. To be loved by other people, and to be loved by God, this makes us happy. And when we can let go of selfishness and love others and love God, this also makes us happy.
But we can only love somebody, and we can only KNOW the happiness of loving somebody and being loved by that somebody, we can only do this if we actually have knowledge of that Somebody, and if we spend time with that Somebody. And this is why it is important to pray, this is why the saints all prayed, and this is why I went on a five-day retreat: to be with the Lord, and being with Him to know Him better and love Him better.
God is only boring to us to the extent that we don’t know Him. The more we know Him, the more interesting He seems to us. And the more we love Him, the more He is not only interesting but exciting. Today's feast of All Saints reminds us of that fact by reminding us of the happiness of the saints in heaven, the saints who are happy simply because they fully know and love the Lord and are loved by Him.
I've been away on retreat this week, which means that I've just spent the last five days in silence, saying nothing.
Now you may wonder what I did on retreat, what I did while I was busy not speaking for five days. Well, I did some walking while I could reflect in the silence. And I did some spiritual reading to give me things to reflect on. But more than anything, and more important than anything, I prayed: I spent five or six hours a day in prayer, which even for a priest is quite a long time! You might think that spending six hours a day in prayer would get a little boring. And, I'd have to confess I did get a little bored. Somehow, the Lord God Almighty, the infinite Creator of the universe, the supreme being who holds all things in being, the one who is perfect beauty itself, and the Saviour who loves me and died for me: sometimes, I find Him boring!
This, of course, is a fault in me not at fault in Him, but it is a common fault in us human beings: If we loved Him more He would not seem boring. We find God boring because our intellect fails to fully grasp how wonderful He is, and, correspondingly, our will fails to be filled with the excitement of loving Him.
One of the reasons God might seem boring us that we easily forget is the character of God as being "personal" –we can think of Him as being just some kind of “thing”. When I went on retreat, I had gone away on retreat to be alone, but one of the things I remembered when I got there is that a Christian retreat is not primarily about going to be silent, and it is not primarily about going to be alone, it is about going to be with someone, a very particular Someone, namely, the Lord. And when we think about the fact that we are going to be with the Lord it is always important that we try to remember who He truly is. As I said, we know that He is the Lord Almighty, the Creator etc, but while we live in this world we don’t fully grasp Him as His is: we only see Him in an unclear manner, as St Paul says, “through a glass darkly”(1 Cor 13:12). In contrast, as we heard in our second reading, if we get to heaven then "we shall see Him as He really is"(1 Jn 3:3).
On today's feast of All Saints we recall the glory of all the saints in heaven. Our gospel reading today (Mt 5:1-12) on the Beatitudes is given to us today to remind us of the promise of the happiness, the Beatitude, of heaven. This is something we need to repeatedly remember when we try to think and understand what God is like, Who He is. God is the one whose very presence gives us that perfect Beatitude that our gospel text so weakly translated as "happiness", and he gives us this happiness -because He is love. At a theological level, St Thomas Aquinas teaches that “joy” within us, true joy, is only ever in us as a fruit of "charity" -the technical name for “divine love” (ST II-II q28 a1). And this is something that we all know the level of our own experience: love is what makes us happy. To be loved by other people, and to be loved by God, this makes us happy. And when we can let go of selfishness and love others and love God, this also makes us happy.
But we can only love somebody, and we can only KNOW the happiness of loving somebody and being loved by that somebody, we can only do this if we actually have knowledge of that Somebody, and if we spend time with that Somebody. And this is why it is important to pray, this is why the saints all prayed, and this is why I went on a five-day retreat: to be with the Lord, and being with Him to know Him better and love Him better.
God is only boring to us to the extent that we don’t know Him. The more we know Him, the more interesting He seems to us. And the more we love Him, the more He is not only interesting but exciting. Today's feast of All Saints reminds us of that fact by reminding us of the happiness of the saints in heaven, the saints who are happy simply because they fully know and love the Lord and are loved by Him.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
25th October 2009, On the new Anglican Ordinariate, Shaftesbury
I was going to preach a rather nice little sermon on Our Lord’s compassion on us in our spiritual blindness (c.f. Mk 10:46:52, today’s Gospel), but, the last few days everyone who has seen me has asked, “What about this business with the Vatican proposal on Anglicans coming into the Church, eh?”
If you’ve not heard the news, there was a major press conference this week (curiously, presented by both the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster and the Anglican Rowan Williams of Canterbury), in which it was announced that the Vatican is setting up a new organisational structure to receive Anglicans into Full Communion with the Catholic Church.
This comes in the general context of a century of ecumenism, a century of hoping, praying and working for the return of the corporate unity in the Church, in the hope that those in schism or heresy will come back to union with the See of Rome. In this task, as the Second Vatican Council reminded us, Catholics must also be willing to change, to reform and purify ourselves so that we are more perfectly what we should already be, so that what non-Catholic Christians object to in us should not be those things that should never have been there. Now, the vision of what corporate re-unification would look like has always been somewhat unclear, but Catholics have insisted, on one hand, that it must be unity in doctrine, in morality, and recognition of the authority of the See of Rome. While also, on the other hand, allowing diversity in certain traditions and rituals, for example: the Greek Catholic Rites (not the Greek Orthodox) believe in seven sacraments like we do, believe in the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady etc, believe in the Pope, but use their own rituals with piles of incense, very long liturgies, and major liturgical action happening behind an iconostasis (like a Western medieval rood screen). So it is possible to have unity, real unity, i.e. in faith and morals, while also having diversity in liturgical practice.
But, in the midst of the working for unity among the churches there have also been divisions and changes, in particular with how the churches relate to modernity: how much they reject modern thinking as the cause of the modern problems, and how much they embrace it. The most recent issue in this regard is homosexuality, with the Anglican Communion now having an American bishop who is a practicing homosexual, while the Catholic Church will always teach that deviant behaviour remains deviant and is not only bad for society but, tragically, is bad for the individuals who follow those inclinations.
For many Anglicans, this and similar issues have caused them to re-consider the claims of the Church of Rome. While others seem to be losing their nerve, the Catholic Church is keeping steady, we are not attempting to change right and wrong. In short, we are manifesting what our claim of infallibility claims: that Rome cannot help but stick to the truth, even when it might seem ‘convenient’ to do not do so.
In the last few years “over 50 Anglican Bishops” have approached Rome and asked about being received into Full Communion. More specifically, they asked not that they be received into the Catholic Church as individuals but that these Anglican bishops can be received along with their congregations, as a group, retaining some form of ‘Anglican’ identity, but in Full Communion with Rome. Something similar happened over a decade ago when 6 Anglican parishes in America became Catholic but were allowed to continue largely as they were, adhering FULLY to Catholic doctrine but using a newly modified version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, a version purified to be made in keeping with Catholic doctrine.
The Vatican has responded to this request by issuing a new Apostolic Constitution that will create a new structure in canon law, a 'personal ordinariate'. People and priests in it will both relate to their local Catholic Bishop and to their new “Personal Ordinary” (“Thus the arrangement is different from the Uniate Churches in that the Personal Ordiariates are canonically within the Western Rite”). In addition, they will be allowed to keep certain aspects of their Anglican liturgy and traditions. We don’t know the details of the yet-to-be-issued “Code of Practice”, and we don’t know if many or any English Anglicans will join it (probably more in Africa, judging from certain reports).
What does this mean for us? Probably little change in Shaftesbury. But it is a call for us to be generous in our attitude, welcoming. A call for us to remember that we can differ in some significant liturgical practice and yet still be fully Catholic. This generosity must include a refusal to delight in the difficulties within the Anglican Communion –it is only a twisted mind that rejoices to watch a tragedy unfold. But, this is all also a reminder of the importance and joy of being ‘Roman’: for 4 centuries the Church of England has tried to be ‘catholic’ without being ‘Roman’, they have tried and failed, As the Anglican Bishop of Fulham John Broadhurst said recently, "the Anglican experiment is over". It has tragically failed because such an attempt is a contradiction –you cannot be in Communion with the worldwide Church without being in Communion with its head, without being united to the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of St Peter, the Pope, the visible head of the Church on earth –that others should seek this union should remind us of the importance of being in it.
Some web articles in descending order of being sympathetic:
http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2009/10/some-background-on-new-personal.html
http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2009/10/anglican-personal-ordinariates.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100014174/new-era-begins-as-benedict-throws-open-gates-of-rome-to-disaffected-anglicans/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6424562/Senior-Anglican-bishop-reveals-he-is-ready-to-convert-to-Roman-Catholicism.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6403586/The-Vatican-opens-its-arms-to-Anglicans---and-tightens-its-grip.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6885231.ece
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-provides-easier-path-for-anglicans-to-become-catholics-1806532.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-big-question-why-is-the-catholic-church-offering-a-home-to-congregations-of-anglicans-1806781.html
The new “ordinariate” would permit a “pattern of Catholic life” with space for some of the patrimony of the Anglican community that was “consistent with the Catholic faith”.
“A further group of Anglicans, we think, will begin to form a caravan, rather like the People of Israel crossing the desert in search of the Promised Land.”(Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet, Andrew Burnham)
If you’ve not heard the news, there was a major press conference this week (curiously, presented by both the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster and the Anglican Rowan Williams of Canterbury), in which it was announced that the Vatican is setting up a new organisational structure to receive Anglicans into Full Communion with the Catholic Church.
This comes in the general context of a century of ecumenism, a century of hoping, praying and working for the return of the corporate unity in the Church, in the hope that those in schism or heresy will come back to union with the See of Rome. In this task, as the Second Vatican Council reminded us, Catholics must also be willing to change, to reform and purify ourselves so that we are more perfectly what we should already be, so that what non-Catholic Christians object to in us should not be those things that should never have been there. Now, the vision of what corporate re-unification would look like has always been somewhat unclear, but Catholics have insisted, on one hand, that it must be unity in doctrine, in morality, and recognition of the authority of the See of Rome. While also, on the other hand, allowing diversity in certain traditions and rituals, for example: the Greek Catholic Rites (not the Greek Orthodox) believe in seven sacraments like we do, believe in the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady etc, believe in the Pope, but use their own rituals with piles of incense, very long liturgies, and major liturgical action happening behind an iconostasis (like a Western medieval rood screen). So it is possible to have unity, real unity, i.e. in faith and morals, while also having diversity in liturgical practice.
But, in the midst of the working for unity among the churches there have also been divisions and changes, in particular with how the churches relate to modernity: how much they reject modern thinking as the cause of the modern problems, and how much they embrace it. The most recent issue in this regard is homosexuality, with the Anglican Communion now having an American bishop who is a practicing homosexual, while the Catholic Church will always teach that deviant behaviour remains deviant and is not only bad for society but, tragically, is bad for the individuals who follow those inclinations.
For many Anglicans, this and similar issues have caused them to re-consider the claims of the Church of Rome. While others seem to be losing their nerve, the Catholic Church is keeping steady, we are not attempting to change right and wrong. In short, we are manifesting what our claim of infallibility claims: that Rome cannot help but stick to the truth, even when it might seem ‘convenient’ to do not do so.
In the last few years “over 50 Anglican Bishops” have approached Rome and asked about being received into Full Communion. More specifically, they asked not that they be received into the Catholic Church as individuals but that these Anglican bishops can be received along with their congregations, as a group, retaining some form of ‘Anglican’ identity, but in Full Communion with Rome. Something similar happened over a decade ago when 6 Anglican parishes in America became Catholic but were allowed to continue largely as they were, adhering FULLY to Catholic doctrine but using a newly modified version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, a version purified to be made in keeping with Catholic doctrine.
The Vatican has responded to this request by issuing a new Apostolic Constitution that will create a new structure in canon law, a 'personal ordinariate'. People and priests in it will both relate to their local Catholic Bishop and to their new “Personal Ordinary” (“Thus the arrangement is different from the Uniate Churches in that the Personal Ordiariates are canonically within the Western Rite”). In addition, they will be allowed to keep certain aspects of their Anglican liturgy and traditions. We don’t know the details of the yet-to-be-issued “Code of Practice”, and we don’t know if many or any English Anglicans will join it (probably more in Africa, judging from certain reports).
What does this mean for us? Probably little change in Shaftesbury. But it is a call for us to be generous in our attitude, welcoming. A call for us to remember that we can differ in some significant liturgical practice and yet still be fully Catholic. This generosity must include a refusal to delight in the difficulties within the Anglican Communion –it is only a twisted mind that rejoices to watch a tragedy unfold. But, this is all also a reminder of the importance and joy of being ‘Roman’: for 4 centuries the Church of England has tried to be ‘catholic’ without being ‘Roman’, they have tried and failed, As the Anglican Bishop of Fulham John Broadhurst said recently, "the Anglican experiment is over". It has tragically failed because such an attempt is a contradiction –you cannot be in Communion with the worldwide Church without being in Communion with its head, without being united to the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of St Peter, the Pope, the visible head of the Church on earth –that others should seek this union should remind us of the importance of being in it.
Some web articles in descending order of being sympathetic:
http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2009/10/some-background-on-new-personal.html
http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2009/10/anglican-personal-ordinariates.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100014174/new-era-begins-as-benedict-throws-open-gates-of-rome-to-disaffected-anglicans/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6424562/Senior-Anglican-bishop-reveals-he-is-ready-to-convert-to-Roman-Catholicism.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6403586/The-Vatican-opens-its-arms-to-Anglicans---and-tightens-its-grip.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6885231.ece
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-provides-easier-path-for-anglicans-to-become-catholics-1806532.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-big-question-why-is-the-catholic-church-offering-a-home-to-congregations-of-anglicans-1806781.html
The new “ordinariate” would permit a “pattern of Catholic life” with space for some of the patrimony of the Anglican community that was “consistent with the Catholic faith”.
“A further group of Anglicans, we think, will begin to form a caravan, rather like the People of Israel crossing the desert in search of the Promised Land.”(Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet, Andrew Burnham)
Sunday, 18 October 2009
18th October 2009, 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, Shaftesbury
Mk 10:35-45, Isa 53:10-11
Suffering is something that none of us like, yet, we heard in today's gospel the Lord Jesus say of Himself not only that He would die but this is why He had come into the world: He had "come... to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45) -a reference to His approaching crucifixion. He came into the world to do this for us because He obviously felt that we needed this done for us -but I thought that today I would say a little about this word and concept of "ransom".
A "ransom" is a sum of money that is paid for something. If somebody has been taken prisoner or hostage then a ransom is the payment that is made that their release. And there are many places in the New Testament where the death of Jesus is referred to as a "payment" (e.g. 1 Cor. 6:19, 1 Pet. 1:18).
But this might seem like a curious thing because the death of Jesus is not a sum of money.
In addition, if the death of Jesus is a payment then WHO does Jesus need to pay? There are a number of answers to this question: He paid the devil, He paid Himself, we might even say that He paid us.
Scripture says many times, and we find it quite frequently on the lips of our Lord in the gospels, that Satan, the prince of all the devils, is also "the prince of THIS world" (e.g. Jn 12:31, Jn 16:11, Eph 2:2, c.f. Jn.8:34; 2 Pet. 2:19). Now, when Jesus says that Satan is "the prince of this world" he is referring to this world in as much as it exists as a place of sin: as a consequence of the Original Sin of our first parents and as a consequence of the personal sins of each one of us ever since, we live in a world that is intertwined with sin.
Scripture tells us that when Satan rebelled against God, Satan and all his fallen angels were cast out from heaven. But they have not yet been cast out from this world because WE choose to allow him to reign in this world, in our hearts.
Each time we sin we make ourselves slaves to sin and slaves to the one whom Jesus called "the Evil One"(e.g. Mt 13:19). We have given ourselves over into the captivity of the Evil One. And as slaves of the evil one we need to be bought back from him: we need someone to pay the price that will “ransom” us back from him. This is what Jesus did on the cross.
That said, God does not really NEED to pay the devil anything. The Lord God Almighty is called "Almighty" for a reason: He is Almighty over all things, even over the devil, even the devil whom He allows to continue to tempt us. So, when theologians speak of the death of Jesus being a ransom paid to the devil this cannot mean something that Jesus literally NEEDED to do. (And it was not a literal payment because it was not money.) Nonetheless, Scripture uses this language of "ransom" and "payment" because it expresses the truth that the demands of justice have been satisfied. God is not only merciful He is just as well, and in seeking to save us from our sins He did not wish to be seen to cheat the devil or even to cheat Himself: Scripture tells us that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23), and by the Lord Jesus dying for us He intended that none of us should doubt that the wages have been paid, and paid for us: paid for me, and paid for you.
So, if Jesus is more Almighty and the devil and thus did not NEED to pay a ransom to the devil, if the Lord did not NEED to satisfy justice and so did not need to pay a ransom to Himself, then many have noted that it was nonetheless "fitting" that He should pay such a ransom for us. But the ransom Jesus paid, the suffering He endured, was infinitely greater than it NEEDED to be, even for this “fittingness”: as the great hymn of Saint Thomas Aquinas puts it, "one drop" of the infinite merits of God's dying on the cross was more than "ransom for a world's entire guilt". As St Alphonsus sums it up, the cross was given to us as a sign of love, a sign that we might not doubt that God loves us -the cross is more about love than about justice. It is a sign to us, and thus, in a more extended sense, if we are pondering WHO the ransom was paid to we might even say it was paid to us.
As I started by saying, He did not choose to die because He liked suffering, rather, He chose to die that we might never doubt that the “price”, the "ransom", has been paid for our sins. “You are not your own, for you have been bought at a great price. [Therefore] glorify God and bear Him in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19).
Suffering is something that none of us like, yet, we heard in today's gospel the Lord Jesus say of Himself not only that He would die but this is why He had come into the world: He had "come... to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45) -a reference to His approaching crucifixion. He came into the world to do this for us because He obviously felt that we needed this done for us -but I thought that today I would say a little about this word and concept of "ransom".
A "ransom" is a sum of money that is paid for something. If somebody has been taken prisoner or hostage then a ransom is the payment that is made that their release. And there are many places in the New Testament where the death of Jesus is referred to as a "payment" (e.g. 1 Cor. 6:19, 1 Pet. 1:18).
But this might seem like a curious thing because the death of Jesus is not a sum of money.
In addition, if the death of Jesus is a payment then WHO does Jesus need to pay? There are a number of answers to this question: He paid the devil, He paid Himself, we might even say that He paid us.
Scripture says many times, and we find it quite frequently on the lips of our Lord in the gospels, that Satan, the prince of all the devils, is also "the prince of THIS world" (e.g. Jn 12:31, Jn 16:11, Eph 2:2, c.f. Jn.8:34; 2 Pet. 2:19). Now, when Jesus says that Satan is "the prince of this world" he is referring to this world in as much as it exists as a place of sin: as a consequence of the Original Sin of our first parents and as a consequence of the personal sins of each one of us ever since, we live in a world that is intertwined with sin.
Scripture tells us that when Satan rebelled against God, Satan and all his fallen angels were cast out from heaven. But they have not yet been cast out from this world because WE choose to allow him to reign in this world, in our hearts.
Each time we sin we make ourselves slaves to sin and slaves to the one whom Jesus called "the Evil One"(e.g. Mt 13:19). We have given ourselves over into the captivity of the Evil One. And as slaves of the evil one we need to be bought back from him: we need someone to pay the price that will “ransom” us back from him. This is what Jesus did on the cross.
That said, God does not really NEED to pay the devil anything. The Lord God Almighty is called "Almighty" for a reason: He is Almighty over all things, even over the devil, even the devil whom He allows to continue to tempt us. So, when theologians speak of the death of Jesus being a ransom paid to the devil this cannot mean something that Jesus literally NEEDED to do. (And it was not a literal payment because it was not money.) Nonetheless, Scripture uses this language of "ransom" and "payment" because it expresses the truth that the demands of justice have been satisfied. God is not only merciful He is just as well, and in seeking to save us from our sins He did not wish to be seen to cheat the devil or even to cheat Himself: Scripture tells us that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23), and by the Lord Jesus dying for us He intended that none of us should doubt that the wages have been paid, and paid for us: paid for me, and paid for you.
So, if Jesus is more Almighty and the devil and thus did not NEED to pay a ransom to the devil, if the Lord did not NEED to satisfy justice and so did not need to pay a ransom to Himself, then many have noted that it was nonetheless "fitting" that He should pay such a ransom for us. But the ransom Jesus paid, the suffering He endured, was infinitely greater than it NEEDED to be, even for this “fittingness”: as the great hymn of Saint Thomas Aquinas puts it, "one drop" of the infinite merits of God's dying on the cross was more than "ransom for a world's entire guilt". As St Alphonsus sums it up, the cross was given to us as a sign of love, a sign that we might not doubt that God loves us -the cross is more about love than about justice. It is a sign to us, and thus, in a more extended sense, if we are pondering WHO the ransom was paid to we might even say it was paid to us.
As I started by saying, He did not choose to die because He liked suffering, rather, He chose to die that we might never doubt that the “price”, the "ransom", has been paid for our sins. “You are not your own, for you have been bought at a great price. [Therefore] glorify God and bear Him in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19).
Sunday, 11 October 2009
11th October 2009, 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, Shaftesbury
Mk 10:17-27; Wis 7:7-11
We just heard Jesus give one of his many warnings against the love of money. The love of money is a curious kind of thing: it seems to me, that each and every one of us thinks that we don't have ENOUGH money.
Today’s readings offer us two tests for how we relate to money: the ‘camel’ test, and , to examine what we pray for. We’ll have collection at the end of Mass for the emergency tsunami relief, and our generosity is one test of our attitude of money.
What of the camel? This is typically taken to be a reference for our need to be inwardly DETACHED from the possessions that we outwardly use and own. The Lord Jesus said, "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God". Many scholars suggest that Jesus was referring to a night time gate into the city, a small little entryway, an entryway a man could crawl through even when the main day-time city gate was closed, in particular, an entryway that a camel could only enter when the belongings laden upon it, its riches, were first removed from it. Such an interpretation is echoed in the country western song that says, “I've never seen a hearse with a luggage rack” -you can’t take it with you when you go.
But the Lord Jesus is saying something more than just reminding us that we don't carry our riches into heaven: that my iPod, my mobile phone, and whatever is left in my wallet, will not be coming with me when St Peter is deciding whether to let me through the pearly gates. Rather, primarily, Jesus is speaking about how we RELATE to our possessions.
I may not have as much money as my friend, I may not have as much as many of you, but I am is as capable as any man of living in this world with my heart set on THIS world, at a DAILY level and a minute by minute level of valuing things and possessions more than I value God Himself. I am capable of being more ATTACHED in my heart to THINGS than I am to love of God and neighbour –I can be attached to such things even if I don’t have them, even if I am only looking at them with envy. The camel reminds me that I need to detached enough from things that I am capable of telling them go –the camel cannot get into the city unless its riches are removed from its back; I cannot get into heaven unless I am willing to leave the riches of this world behind me. And, of course, if I am going to be able to manifest that detachment when I get to the pearly gates then I have to live that detachment while on earth.
More briefly, the second of the two ‘wealth’ tests in today’s gospel concerns what we pray for:
In our first reading (Wis 7:7-11) we heard the words attributed to the great King Solomon, the great King who had many riches and yet sought and prayed more for divine Wisdom than for earthly wealth. It is Wisdom this enables us not only to know the right things but know the right things to DO, know the right way to love, to know how we should use our money, to know how to measure whether we have enough money.
If we want to test ourselves to know what we love, then one of the ways we can measure this is by looking at what we pray for: if I love just myself then I will pray for just myself; and, if I love money and possessions then I will pray asking for money and possessions; but, if I love my neighbour and I love my family and if I love my parishioners then my time in prayer will be spent praying for them.
And if, at present, my prayer IS just about me and is not about others, then if I want to start detaching myself from an excessive love of money, then making the prayer of Solomon my own is a good way to start: to pray to God for the gift of Wisdom, “ I prayed, and understanding was given me, I entreated, and the spirit of Wisdom came to me”(Wis 7:7). To pray for the Wisdom to know when we have enough, to know when to give it away, and to know how to own things without being attached to them.
[Excursus paragraph deleted from middle of sermon:
Money, of course, is something needed to live by. We didn't hear Jesus say so in today's Gospel passage, but we know that Jesus elsewhere not only tolerates but recommends that we "USE money, tainted though it is" (Lk 16:9). We know too that although Jesus called the rich young man in today's passage to "sell EVERYTHING you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" (Mk 10:21) there were other followers of Jesus, like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, and the group of women who accompanied him, who continued to BOTH have money AND follow Jesus -while using their money to support the Lord Jesus in his work.
The Christian Tradition has always interpreted the call we just heard, the call to the rich young man to give up all his possessions, the Tradition has interpreted this as, on the one hand, a specific vocation addressed to some and not others, an invitation to follow a yet higher away, and, on the other hand, a warning to ALL of us of the danger of loving money: “how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven”.]
We just heard Jesus give one of his many warnings against the love of money. The love of money is a curious kind of thing: it seems to me, that each and every one of us thinks that we don't have ENOUGH money.
Today’s readings offer us two tests for how we relate to money: the ‘camel’ test, and , to examine what we pray for. We’ll have collection at the end of Mass for the emergency tsunami relief, and our generosity is one test of our attitude of money.
What of the camel? This is typically taken to be a reference for our need to be inwardly DETACHED from the possessions that we outwardly use and own. The Lord Jesus said, "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God". Many scholars suggest that Jesus was referring to a night time gate into the city, a small little entryway, an entryway a man could crawl through even when the main day-time city gate was closed, in particular, an entryway that a camel could only enter when the belongings laden upon it, its riches, were first removed from it. Such an interpretation is echoed in the country western song that says, “I've never seen a hearse with a luggage rack” -you can’t take it with you when you go.
But the Lord Jesus is saying something more than just reminding us that we don't carry our riches into heaven: that my iPod, my mobile phone, and whatever is left in my wallet, will not be coming with me when St Peter is deciding whether to let me through the pearly gates. Rather, primarily, Jesus is speaking about how we RELATE to our possessions.
I may not have as much money as my friend, I may not have as much as many of you, but I am is as capable as any man of living in this world with my heart set on THIS world, at a DAILY level and a minute by minute level of valuing things and possessions more than I value God Himself. I am capable of being more ATTACHED in my heart to THINGS than I am to love of God and neighbour –I can be attached to such things even if I don’t have them, even if I am only looking at them with envy. The camel reminds me that I need to detached enough from things that I am capable of telling them go –the camel cannot get into the city unless its riches are removed from its back; I cannot get into heaven unless I am willing to leave the riches of this world behind me. And, of course, if I am going to be able to manifest that detachment when I get to the pearly gates then I have to live that detachment while on earth.
More briefly, the second of the two ‘wealth’ tests in today’s gospel concerns what we pray for:
In our first reading (Wis 7:7-11) we heard the words attributed to the great King Solomon, the great King who had many riches and yet sought and prayed more for divine Wisdom than for earthly wealth. It is Wisdom this enables us not only to know the right things but know the right things to DO, know the right way to love, to know how we should use our money, to know how to measure whether we have enough money.
If we want to test ourselves to know what we love, then one of the ways we can measure this is by looking at what we pray for: if I love just myself then I will pray for just myself; and, if I love money and possessions then I will pray asking for money and possessions; but, if I love my neighbour and I love my family and if I love my parishioners then my time in prayer will be spent praying for them.
And if, at present, my prayer IS just about me and is not about others, then if I want to start detaching myself from an excessive love of money, then making the prayer of Solomon my own is a good way to start: to pray to God for the gift of Wisdom, “ I prayed, and understanding was given me, I entreated, and the spirit of Wisdom came to me”(Wis 7:7). To pray for the Wisdom to know when we have enough, to know when to give it away, and to know how to own things without being attached to them.
[Excursus paragraph deleted from middle of sermon:
Money, of course, is something needed to live by. We didn't hear Jesus say so in today's Gospel passage, but we know that Jesus elsewhere not only tolerates but recommends that we "USE money, tainted though it is" (Lk 16:9). We know too that although Jesus called the rich young man in today's passage to "sell EVERYTHING you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" (Mk 10:21) there were other followers of Jesus, like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, and the group of women who accompanied him, who continued to BOTH have money AND follow Jesus -while using their money to support the Lord Jesus in his work.
The Christian Tradition has always interpreted the call we just heard, the call to the rich young man to give up all his possessions, the Tradition has interpreted this as, on the one hand, a specific vocation addressed to some and not others, an invitation to follow a yet higher away, and, on the other hand, a warning to ALL of us of the danger of loving money: “how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven”.]
Sunday, 4 October 2009
4th October, On Contraception, 27th Sunday Ordinary Time, Year B, Shaftesbury
Mk 10:2-16; Gen 2:18-24
[This is a longer text than the actual sermon preached]
In our Gospel we heard Jesus speak on marriage, speak a hard teaching against divorce. He reminded His hearers that there is a meaning to marriage, the body, and sex, a meaning that pre-exists us, a meaning established at Creation, a meaning that we need to respect and observe if we are to be happy. For the first Christians, that meant living a sexual lifestyle radically different to that of the hedonistic pagan Romans around them. For us, today, it likewise means living a lifestyle different to non-Catholics.
As I said at the start of Mass, I’m going to preach on a matter of sexual morality, and today I want to address one very particular issue: contraception. I don’t know when you last heard a sermon on contraception –possibly never, many older priests have told me how they have had people shout and spit at them for preaching on this, and, understandably, such priests have often fallen silent on this part of the Gospel. But as St Paul said, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16-23) -I want to give a few points on the importance of this issue. If you’re going to shout or spit at me please wait until after Mass. The points I want to make are that: First, that sexual morality is a part of the gospel; second, that the Church deserves to be taken seriously about this; third, contraception is bad for you, and is in fact a sin; and finally, that, there is an alternative.
Now first, preaching the gospel involves preaching a way of life, preaching about what is sin and what is not sin. That includes preaching about sexual morality, and this has been the case since the very beginning of the Church, and the Christian way of life was preached to the pagan world that lived a debauched and promiscuous lifestyle completely opposed to Christian morality. Adultery, abortion, and contraception, were all common in the Greek world, but the early Christians preached a different way of life. People sometimes talk about contraception as it was just a modern question, but actually contraception existed in the ancient world. It was less effective and less predictable but the ancient Jews knew about it and knew that it was forbidden to them, the early Christians likewise knew that contraception was something that belonged to pagan morality and was not part of the chastity to Christ calls us to. We can note too that in the ancient world (as in the modern world) contraception and abortion are very much related. Today, the most common form of contraception, i.e. typical modern forms of ‘the pill’, are deliberately designed so that when it fails as a contraceptive it will then act as an abortifacient aborting the young embryo by making it unable to implant in the womb.
My second point, is that the Church deserves to be taken seriously. Over two generations ago, modern contraception seemed new, and those who promoted it thought it would usher in a brave new world. They said the contraception would bring happier marriages, with less family stress, less divorce, less teenage pregnancy, and less abortion, “every child a wanted child". In the midst of these expectations, in 1968 Pope Paul VI warned that contraception would introduce a barrier in the relationship between a husband and wife, would lead to more divorce, more promiscuity, less family stability, and an increase in women being seen as sexual objects. Tragically, it is the Church and not the secular world that has been proved right on this. The fact that two generations on the Church's expectations have been tragically realised and that the ‘brave new world’ has instead been a fractured society, means that the Church deserves to be heard again, and those who promote contraception, the Planned Parenthood, United Nations, or our own government, deserves to be treated with suspicion.
My third point, is that contraception is not only bad for society at a general level, this is bad for individuals, and it is bad for the marriages where it used. What is a disaster at the level of a society may not prove a catastrophe in an individual marriage, but nonetheless that marriage is weakened not strengthened. Divorce statistics show this. American studies, including people of all religions and none, show that while divorce rates among those who use artificial contraception are nearly 50%, divorce rates among those who use various methods of natural family planning between 2 and 4%. These statistics point to a further truth: the Church teaches that artificial contraception is not only bad for you but it is a sin. The higher divorce rate is not a proof in itself, but it is a sign. Divorce is the separation of a husband and wife, and contraception separates things that belong together, things that if they are separated in the marriage act tend to the separation of the whole marriage.
The marital act, namely, sex, is a gift from God, a gift destined to be shared by wife and husband committed to each other in lifelong marriage. In sex two bodies are as fully united as they can be, and this only has its proper context in a relationship where two people are not only bodily united but spiritually and legally united in marriage. The sexual act is not something that a couple invent themselves, rather, it is something they receive as a gift from God, God who planned and made all things. The meaning of sex is a meaning that God has established, and there are two things, two meanings, that God has intertwined in the marital act.
One meaning is union, so that sex both expresses the union of a husband and wife, and fosters that union. But there is another meaning in the marital act, and that meaning is procreation, i.e. that sex is naturally ordered to the creation of new life. So that new life finds its home in a loving embrace. Now, sex does not always lead to new life, but sex always has this as part of what it means, and to directly oppose this is not only to directly oppose new life, but it is to violate the integrity of the marriage act: it violates the meanings that God has written into this act.
My last point, is that there is an effective alternative. 200 years ago, condoms were made of leather -they were immoral then and they are immoral now, but they are more effective now. Half a century ago, the only known method of natural family planning, i.e. approved by the Church, was the rhythm method which assumed that a woman had a regular cycle. The science of fertility awareness has improved, and the accuracy of methods like the Billings Method have improved also. As research you can read yourself on their website indicates, www.woomb.org, methods like the Billings Method are 99% effective, a statistic also on the NHS Direct website, which is as good a statistic or better than anything claimed by the pill or implants (though admittedly different NHS websites vary in their reports).
There is a difference between contraception and NFP. In contraception the couple have directly thwarted the procreative meaning of the act; the act they engage in is an altered act. In contrast, when a couple use Natural Family Planning they track the wife’s cycle and fertility and so decide when to abstain and when not to abstain, but when they engage in the marriage act it is a normal act that they are enjoying. The act they enjoy is as God planned and intended it to be.
What contraception does is, it violates the nature of the marital act by forcibly separating two things that the Church says inherently belong to each other in the marital act, namely, the unitive dimension and the procreative dimension. While the unitive and procreative dimensions are not always actualised at the same time for example when the wife is not fertile, forcibly separating these two meanings is different to engaging in the act when one of the two meanings will not be realised.
Returning to natural family planning, i.e. what the church promotes, how is it different to contraception? Well, the Church does indeed teach that there are times when it is right for a couple to not want to have a child, for serious reasons. So, both natural family planning and artificial contraception, both have the same intention of not wishing to have a child right now. But the Church teaches that the two acts are different because contraception changes the act itself, while natural family planning either abstains from the marital act or it engages in a normal unaltered act. A couple who use natural family planning track the wife’s cycle and fertility and so decide when to abstain and when not to abstain, but when they engage in the act it is a normal act that they are enjoying.
Natural family planning is moral because it never directly separates the two meanings the marital act, union and procreation. But not only is it moral, it can also benefit the relationship between a husband and wife. I have repeatedly had men tell me, men in marriages where they have switched from contraception to natural family planning, that it changes how they relate to their wife. It makes them communicate more with their wife, it makes them more sensitive to their wife, as well as the fact that it follows God's law and receives God's blessing. Regular abstinence can introduce discipline and self-mastery, an awareness of the woman's cycle and bodily integrity, and with this a greater consideration for the woman. I make this point because some people say that the church is imposing too great a burden by calling for the regular abstinence that is involved in natural family planning. Well, contraception is also a burden, not least in the higher divorce rates I referred to.
In conclusion, What does all this mean for you today? For many of you, this may simply be a re-affirmation of what you practiced for many years, if so, I hope you don’t object to me preaching to the converted. For others of you, it may be that in hearing what I have said, you might re-examine some of your own practice, either from years gone past, or in the present. For some of you that may mean repenting and going to confession for the past. For others of you, it may mean that now is a good time to find out more at a practical level about what natural family planning involves. We are fortunate in this parish to have a trained teacher in the Billings Method, Valeria Findley-Wilson -if you don't know who she is, then there is a photo of her on the porch notice board. And she’ll be speaking at a parish meeting on this 10th December, 7pm.
I started by noted that the early Christians in ancient Rome realised that they had to follow a sexual lifestyle different to that of the pagan world around them: sexual morality is an integral part of following Christ. There are some people who say the Church should not get involved in the bedroom, but that is like saying that Christ should be involved in one part of my life but not in other parts of my life. However, Christ is ‘Lord’, and He wants to be Lord of all my life, and if He is not Lord of all then He is not Lord at all. And that means He must be Lord of the bedroom too.
The following is a link to the newsletter insert on contraception and natural family planning: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20563258/Contraception-and-Natural-Family-Planning-Handout
[This is a longer text than the actual sermon preached]
In our Gospel we heard Jesus speak on marriage, speak a hard teaching against divorce. He reminded His hearers that there is a meaning to marriage, the body, and sex, a meaning that pre-exists us, a meaning established at Creation, a meaning that we need to respect and observe if we are to be happy. For the first Christians, that meant living a sexual lifestyle radically different to that of the hedonistic pagan Romans around them. For us, today, it likewise means living a lifestyle different to non-Catholics.
As I said at the start of Mass, I’m going to preach on a matter of sexual morality, and today I want to address one very particular issue: contraception. I don’t know when you last heard a sermon on contraception –possibly never, many older priests have told me how they have had people shout and spit at them for preaching on this, and, understandably, such priests have often fallen silent on this part of the Gospel. But as St Paul said, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16-23) -I want to give a few points on the importance of this issue. If you’re going to shout or spit at me please wait until after Mass. The points I want to make are that: First, that sexual morality is a part of the gospel; second, that the Church deserves to be taken seriously about this; third, contraception is bad for you, and is in fact a sin; and finally, that, there is an alternative.
Now first, preaching the gospel involves preaching a way of life, preaching about what is sin and what is not sin. That includes preaching about sexual morality, and this has been the case since the very beginning of the Church, and the Christian way of life was preached to the pagan world that lived a debauched and promiscuous lifestyle completely opposed to Christian morality. Adultery, abortion, and contraception, were all common in the Greek world, but the early Christians preached a different way of life. People sometimes talk about contraception as it was just a modern question, but actually contraception existed in the ancient world. It was less effective and less predictable but the ancient Jews knew about it and knew that it was forbidden to them, the early Christians likewise knew that contraception was something that belonged to pagan morality and was not part of the chastity to Christ calls us to. We can note too that in the ancient world (as in the modern world) contraception and abortion are very much related. Today, the most common form of contraception, i.e. typical modern forms of ‘the pill’, are deliberately designed so that when it fails as a contraceptive it will then act as an abortifacient aborting the young embryo by making it unable to implant in the womb.
My second point, is that the Church deserves to be taken seriously. Over two generations ago, modern contraception seemed new, and those who promoted it thought it would usher in a brave new world. They said the contraception would bring happier marriages, with less family stress, less divorce, less teenage pregnancy, and less abortion, “every child a wanted child". In the midst of these expectations, in 1968 Pope Paul VI warned that contraception would introduce a barrier in the relationship between a husband and wife, would lead to more divorce, more promiscuity, less family stability, and an increase in women being seen as sexual objects. Tragically, it is the Church and not the secular world that has been proved right on this. The fact that two generations on the Church's expectations have been tragically realised and that the ‘brave new world’ has instead been a fractured society, means that the Church deserves to be heard again, and those who promote contraception, the Planned Parenthood, United Nations, or our own government, deserves to be treated with suspicion.
My third point, is that contraception is not only bad for society at a general level, this is bad for individuals, and it is bad for the marriages where it used. What is a disaster at the level of a society may not prove a catastrophe in an individual marriage, but nonetheless that marriage is weakened not strengthened. Divorce statistics show this. American studies, including people of all religions and none, show that while divorce rates among those who use artificial contraception are nearly 50%, divorce rates among those who use various methods of natural family planning between 2 and 4%. These statistics point to a further truth: the Church teaches that artificial contraception is not only bad for you but it is a sin. The higher divorce rate is not a proof in itself, but it is a sign. Divorce is the separation of a husband and wife, and contraception separates things that belong together, things that if they are separated in the marriage act tend to the separation of the whole marriage.
The marital act, namely, sex, is a gift from God, a gift destined to be shared by wife and husband committed to each other in lifelong marriage. In sex two bodies are as fully united as they can be, and this only has its proper context in a relationship where two people are not only bodily united but spiritually and legally united in marriage. The sexual act is not something that a couple invent themselves, rather, it is something they receive as a gift from God, God who planned and made all things. The meaning of sex is a meaning that God has established, and there are two things, two meanings, that God has intertwined in the marital act.
One meaning is union, so that sex both expresses the union of a husband and wife, and fosters that union. But there is another meaning in the marital act, and that meaning is procreation, i.e. that sex is naturally ordered to the creation of new life. So that new life finds its home in a loving embrace. Now, sex does not always lead to new life, but sex always has this as part of what it means, and to directly oppose this is not only to directly oppose new life, but it is to violate the integrity of the marriage act: it violates the meanings that God has written into this act.
My last point, is that there is an effective alternative. 200 years ago, condoms were made of leather -they were immoral then and they are immoral now, but they are more effective now. Half a century ago, the only known method of natural family planning, i.e. approved by the Church, was the rhythm method which assumed that a woman had a regular cycle. The science of fertility awareness has improved, and the accuracy of methods like the Billings Method have improved also. As research you can read yourself on their website indicates, www.woomb.org, methods like the Billings Method are 99% effective, a statistic also on the NHS Direct website, which is as good a statistic or better than anything claimed by the pill or implants (though admittedly different NHS websites vary in their reports).
There is a difference between contraception and NFP. In contraception the couple have directly thwarted the procreative meaning of the act; the act they engage in is an altered act. In contrast, when a couple use Natural Family Planning they track the wife’s cycle and fertility and so decide when to abstain and when not to abstain, but when they engage in the marriage act it is a normal act that they are enjoying. The act they enjoy is as God planned and intended it to be.
What contraception does is, it violates the nature of the marital act by forcibly separating two things that the Church says inherently belong to each other in the marital act, namely, the unitive dimension and the procreative dimension. While the unitive and procreative dimensions are not always actualised at the same time for example when the wife is not fertile, forcibly separating these two meanings is different to engaging in the act when one of the two meanings will not be realised.
Returning to natural family planning, i.e. what the church promotes, how is it different to contraception? Well, the Church does indeed teach that there are times when it is right for a couple to not want to have a child, for serious reasons. So, both natural family planning and artificial contraception, both have the same intention of not wishing to have a child right now. But the Church teaches that the two acts are different because contraception changes the act itself, while natural family planning either abstains from the marital act or it engages in a normal unaltered act. A couple who use natural family planning track the wife’s cycle and fertility and so decide when to abstain and when not to abstain, but when they engage in the act it is a normal act that they are enjoying.
Natural family planning is moral because it never directly separates the two meanings the marital act, union and procreation. But not only is it moral, it can also benefit the relationship between a husband and wife. I have repeatedly had men tell me, men in marriages where they have switched from contraception to natural family planning, that it changes how they relate to their wife. It makes them communicate more with their wife, it makes them more sensitive to their wife, as well as the fact that it follows God's law and receives God's blessing. Regular abstinence can introduce discipline and self-mastery, an awareness of the woman's cycle and bodily integrity, and with this a greater consideration for the woman. I make this point because some people say that the church is imposing too great a burden by calling for the regular abstinence that is involved in natural family planning. Well, contraception is also a burden, not least in the higher divorce rates I referred to.
In conclusion, What does all this mean for you today? For many of you, this may simply be a re-affirmation of what you practiced for many years, if so, I hope you don’t object to me preaching to the converted. For others of you, it may be that in hearing what I have said, you might re-examine some of your own practice, either from years gone past, or in the present. For some of you that may mean repenting and going to confession for the past. For others of you, it may mean that now is a good time to find out more at a practical level about what natural family planning involves. We are fortunate in this parish to have a trained teacher in the Billings Method, Valeria Findley-Wilson -if you don't know who she is, then there is a photo of her on the porch notice board. And she’ll be speaking at a parish meeting on this 10th December, 7pm.
I started by noted that the early Christians in ancient Rome realised that they had to follow a sexual lifestyle different to that of the pagan world around them: sexual morality is an integral part of following Christ. There are some people who say the Church should not get involved in the bedroom, but that is like saying that Christ should be involved in one part of my life but not in other parts of my life. However, Christ is ‘Lord’, and He wants to be Lord of all my life, and if He is not Lord of all then He is not Lord at all. And that means He must be Lord of the bedroom too.
The following is a link to the newsletter insert on contraception and natural family planning: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20563258/Contraception-and-Natural-Family-Planning-Handout
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