‘Advent... draws us into a deeper and richer understanding of the fact that the Church is present everywhere, in every single action that she performs... Nowhere is this more forcefully expressed than in the famous Devotion XVII which John Donne, a seventeenth-century Dean of St Paul’s, wrote in a set of meditations during a period of serious illness in 1623, and which were published the year after. Illness - especially when it is potentially life-threatening - has a habit of underscoring what is important and identifying what is secondary. Life is never the same afterwards.

“Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The Church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptises a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another”.

To watch and wait for the “Root of Jesse” is another exercise in patience - not least a patience that enlarges our sympathies and our awareness of just how deeply we are united together by our actions and our prayers, our circumstances and our struggles’.

from Watching and Waiting: A Guide to the Celebration of Advent, 2007
by Kenneth Stevenson (1949-2011), Anglican Bishop of Portsmouth, 1995-2009

‘“O Wisdom”, prays the Church late every Advent. In words inspired by the opening words of the great Hymn to Wisdom well into the Book of Ecclesiasticus, which forms the centrepiece of that late Jewish work, we find ourselves looking at the origin and nature of Wisdom... [W]e invoke Wisdom in terms of her ubiquity – she is everywhere, as the Wisdom of Solomon teaches… Whereas Ecclesiasticus on its on its own terms sees wisdom as a gift from God, the Book of Wisdom goes one stage further in viewing her as a kind of person separate from but derived from God. No wonder Wisdom came to be applied by early Christian writers to the third person of the Holy Spirit… But here she is applied to God himself: not specifically at the Christmas festival, but in the mystery of Advent. The Book of Wisdom teaches that a wise king prays for this divine attribute, not because she is everywhere, but because she comes from God and is of God; her origins explain her ubiquity, not the other way round’.
 
from Watching and Waiting: A Guide to the Celebration of Advent, 2007
by Kenneth Stevenson (1949-2011), Anglican Bishop of Portsmouth, 1995-2009

‘On this Third Sunday of Advent, known as “Gaudete” Sunday, the Liturgy invites us to rejoice. Advent is a season of commitment and conversion in preparation for the Lord’s coming, but today the Church gives us a foretaste of the joy of Christmas that is now at hand. In fact Advent is also a time of joy, because in this season expectation of the Lord’s coming is awakened in the hearts of believers; looking forward to a person’s arrival is always a cause of joy. 
 
…The joy the Lord communicates to us must encounter grateful love in us. Indeed, our joy is complete when we recognise his mercy, when we become attentive to the signs of his goodness, if we truly perceive that this goodness of God is with us and thank him for all that we receive from him every day. Those who selfishly welcome God’s gifts fail to find true joy; but the hearts of those who make God’s gifts an opportunity to love him with sincere gratitude and to communicate his love to others, are truly filled with joy. Let us remember that!’

Pope Benedict XVI, 16 December 2012

​O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Collect for Gaudete Sunday, Divine Worship: The Missal.

Our second Rorate Mass of the Advent season was offered at 7 am this morning, the above photo shows the church, just after 6.35 am, ready to receive the faithful and to honour Our Blessed Lady. The Alma Redemptoris Mater was sung following the Mass.

‘The Church has willed – and what is more just? – that the liturgy of Advent should be full of the thought of the Blessed Virgin; she continually makes us sing the divine fruitfulness of the Virgin, a wonderful fruitfulness that throws nature into astonishment…
 
There is something truly ineffable about the Virgin during those days. She lived in an intimate union with the Infant God whom she bore within her. The soul of Jesus was, by the Beatific Vision, plunged in the divine light; this light radiated upon his Mother. In the sight of the angels, Mary truly appeared as “a woman clothed with the sun”, all irradiated with heavenly brightness, all shining with the light of her Son…
 
Let us humbly ask her to make us enter into her dispositions. She will hear our prayer; we shall have the immense joy of seeing Christ born anew within our hearts by the communication of a more abundant grace, and we shall be enabled, like the Virgin, although in a lesser measure, to understand the truth of these words of St John: “The Word was God… and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory… full of grace and truth… And of his fulness we have all received, grace upon grace”’.

​Blessed Columba Marmion OSB, 1858-1923

‘Today’s feast can easily be harmonised with Advent themes. The very name Lucy pulsates with light, a living symbol amid the season’s darkness (the days are now the shortest of the year). As a wise virgin Lucy advances with a burning lamp to meet the Bridegroom. She typifies the Church and the soul now preparing their bridal robes for a Christmas marriage.
 
That the famous Sicilian martyr really lived may be deduced from the great popular veneration accorded her since most ancient times. The Acts detailing her sufferings, however, merit little credence. According to these she made a pilgrimage to Catonia with her mother, who suffered from haemorrhage, to venerate the body of St Agatha. After praying devoutly at the tomb, Agatha appeared to her in a dream and consoled her: “O virgin Lucy, why do you ask of me what you yourself can procure for your mother? For your faith too has come to her aid and therefore she has been cured. By your virginity you have indeed prepared for God a lovely dwelling”. And her mother actually was healed.
 
Immediately Lucy asked permission to remain a virgin and to distribute her future dowry among Christ’s poor. Child and mother returned to their native city of Syracuse, and Lucy proceeded to distribute the full proceeds from the sale of her property among the poor. When a young man, to whom Lucy’s parents had promised the virgin's hand against her will, had heard of the development, he reported her to the city prefect as a Christian. “Your words will be silenced”, the prefect said to her, “when the storm of blows falls upon you!” The virgin: “To God’s servants the right words will not be wanting, for the Holy Spirit speaks in us”. “Yes”, she continued, “all who live piously and chastely are temples of the Holy Spirit”. “Then”, he replied, “I shall order you put with prostitutes and the Holy Spirit will depart from you”. Lucy: “If I am dishonoured against my will, my chastity will secure for me a double crown of victory”.
 
Aflame with anger, the judge imposed the threatened order. But God made the virgin solidly firm in her place and no force could move her. “With such might did the Holy Spirit hold her firm that the virgin of Christ remained immovable”. Thereupon they poured heated pitch and resin over her: “I have begged my Lord Jesus Christ that this fire have no power over me. And in testimony of Him I have asked a postponement of my death”. When she had endured all this without the least injury, they pierced her throat with a sword. Thus she victoriously ended her martyrdom’.

​​from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954

‘[St Damasus] occupied the Chair of Peter from 366 to 384. The Church had recently acquired liberty and now it was the task of the popes to develop her potentialities, especially in matters pertaining to divine worship. Damsus proved himself equal to the task. It is to his credit to have given the Church a good translation of the Sacred Scriptures. He called upon St Jerome to render the Bible into Latin, the version later called the Vulgate. This translation is still used in the liturgy. On his feast day Damsus tells us: Read the Bible zealously.
 
He was also much interested in the liturgy. He is said to have introduced the chant of the psalms into all the Roman churches; the singing was to be by alternating choirs with the “Glory be to the Father…” added at the end of each psalm. In imitation of a custom at Jerusalem he introduced the Alleluia into Sunday Masses. Pope Damsus also provided honourable burial for the bodies of many martyrs and composed inscriptions in verse for almost all of the then-known martyrs, thereby becoming their highly distinguished panegyrist. St Jerome said of him: “He was the virgin teacher of a virgin Church”. A splendid encomium for any priest’.

​from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954

‘I believe that it is very important that we return as soon as possible to a common orientation, of priests and the faithful turned together in the same direction — Eastwards or at least towards the apse — to the Lord who comes, in those parts of the liturgical rites when we are addressing God. This practice is permitted by current liturgical legislation. It is perfectly legitimate in the modern rite. Indeed, I think it is a very important step in ensuring that in our celebrations the Lord is truly at the centre.
 
And so, dear Fathers, I ask you to implement this practice wherever possible, with prudence and with the necessary catechesis, certainly, but also with a pastor’s confidence that this is something good for the Church, something good for our people. Your own pastoral judgement will determine how and when this is possible, but perhaps beginning this on the first Sunday of Advent this year, when we attend ‘the Lord who will come’ and ‘who will not delay’ (see: Introit, Mass of Wednesday of the first week of Advent) may be a very good time to do this. Dear Fathers, we should listen again to the lament of God proclaimed by the prophet Jeremiah: “they have turned their back to me” (2.27). Let us turn again towards the Lord!
 
I would like to appeal also to my brother bishops: please lead your priests and people towards the Lord in this way, particularly at large celebrations in your dioceses and in your cathedral. Please form your seminarians in the reality that we are not called to the priesthood to be at the centre of liturgical worship ourselves, but to lead Christ’s faithful to him as fellow worshippers. Please facilitate this simple but profound reform in your dioceses, your cathedrals, your parishes and your seminaries’.

Robert, Cardinal Sarah
​Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments

‘The scripture saith not in vain, “Them that honour me, I will honour”. Neither was it a vain word that Eusebius delivered long ago, that piety towards God was the weapon and the only weapon that both preserved the Emperor Constantine’s person, and avenged him of his enemies. But now what piety without truth? What truth (what saving truth) without the word of God? What word of God (whereof we may be sure) without the scriptures? The scriptures we are commanded to search. They are commended that search and study them. They are reproved that were unskilful in them, or slow to believe them. They can make us wise unto salvation. If we be ignorant, they will instruct us; if out of the way, they will bring us home; if out of order, they will reform us; if in heaviness, comfort us; if dull, quicken us; if cold, inflame us. Take up and read, take up and read the scriptures (for unto them was the direction), it was said unto Saint Augustine by a supernatural voice, “Whatsoever is in the scriptures, believe me”, said the same Saint Augustine, “is high and divine; there is verily truth, and a doctrine most fit for the refreshing and renewing of men’s minds, and truly so tempered, that everyone may draw from thence, that which is sufficient for him, if he come to draw with a devout and pious mind as true religion requireth”. Thus Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome, “Love the scriptures, and wisdom will love thee”’.

from the preface in the first edition of the King James Bible​, 1611

The above photo was taken at 6.50 am this morning, just before the first of our Advent Rorate Masses was offered at St John Henry’s. One lady commented afterwards that the Mass - her first experience - was both beautiful and peaceful; a fitting honour for Our Lady in this season of expectation.

‘Desire and reformation of life are human factors; God’s advent through grace is intrinsically divine. Here Mary is the sublime model. She desired the kingdom of God and based her life on the words “I am the handmaid of the Lord”. Then came the great moment when God made her His dwelling place. She hears the greeting, “Hail, full of grace...” With open heart she receives God; her soul becomes His kingdom in all its fulness. Again she knows of nothing to say but “I am the handmaid of the Lord”. This brought Christmas to her heart.

Her example must be our perpetual goal on earth. We must ever be ready and willing to receive the kingdom of God within ourselves as opportunities present themselves. Baptism was our first Christmas, and every Eucharistic Sacrifice is Christmas repeated. The feasts of the Church’s liturgical year are days of grace, days of the kingdom of God. Maintain a calm, reverent, and recollected attitude so as not to disturb God’s holy stirrings within you’.

​from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954

O God, who didst will that thy Word should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the message of an Angel: grant that we thy suppliants, who believe her to be in very deed the Mother of God, may be aided by her intercession with thee; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Collect for the Mass of Saint Mary: Advent to Christmas, Divine Worship: The Missal.

​‘This season, when the Church anticipates and prepares for the tolling out of the old and the ringing in of the new secular year, is surely a time for facing ultimate realities. The four words, death, judgement, hell, and heaven, stand for four great mysteries, about which we ought to arrive at a conclusion as well as we can. Death is a fact, and it is just as well to face facts.
 
What is death? When life is withdrawn from the material body, the material envelope in which it mysteriously swells, we say that that is death. But science teaches us very clearly that matter cannot be destroyed: it can only be redistributed. Even when anything is burnt, it is not destroyed but merely reduced to its ultimate elements. If matter cannot be destroyed, it would be unreasonable to think that spirit can be destroyed.
 
In our incarnate state in this life we have a material body which subserves the purpose of our self-expression here. We can trust God, Who has given to us a material body for this stage of our eternal life, to provide us with a spiritual body to subserve the purposes of our self-expression in that higher stage to which we believe that at death we pass.
 
Our holy religion, though it is pre-eminently a way of life, does face the fact of death. Its great central service is the remembrance and the showing forth of a death, and its chief symbol is the crucifix, which holds up to us death – death revealing love, and love revealing death as sacrifice and prayer. Our religion interprets for us the fact of life, and gives us the truest philosophy about the fact of death’.

Father Andrew SDC, 1869-1946

‘Today the Church begins the fast of the Quattuor Tempora, or as we call it, of the Ember Days. As we have seen, this observance is not peculiar to the Advent Liturgy; it is one which has been fixed for each of the four seasons of the ecclesiastical year. The intentions which the Church has in the fast of the Ember Days are the same as those of the Synagogue - namely, to consecrate to God by penance the four seasons of the year. The Ember Days in Advent are known in ecclesiastical antiquity as the fast of the tenth month (the ancient meaning of ‘December’); and St Leo, in one of his sermons on this fast, of which the Church has inserted a passage into the Office of the Third Sunday of Advent, tells us that a special fast was fixed for this time of the year, because the fruits of the earth had then all been gathered in, and that it behooved Christians to testify their gratitude to God by a sacrifice of abstinence - thus rendering themselves more worthy to approach God, the more they were detached from the love of created things. “For fasting,” adds the Holy Doctor, “has ever been the nourishment of virtue. Abstinence is the source of chaste thoughts, of wise resolutions, and of salutary counsel. By voluntary mortifications, the flesh dies to its concupiscence, and the spirit is renewed in virtue. But since fasting alone is not sufficient whereby to secure the soul's salvation, let us add to it works of mercy towards the poor. Let us make that which we retrench from indulgence, serve unto the exercise of virtue. Let the abstinence of him that fasts, become the meal of the poor man”.

Let us, the children of the Church, practice what is in our power of these admonitions; and since the actual discipline of Advent is so very mild, let us be so much the more fervent in fulfilling the precept of the fast of the Ember days. By these few exercises which are now required of us, let us keep up within ourselves the zeal of our forefathers for this holy Season of Advent. We must never forget that although the interior preparation is what is absolutely essential for our profiting by the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, yet this preparation could scarcely be real unless it manifested itself by the exterior practices of religion and penance’.

from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger OSB, 1805-1875

A few snaps of today’s Litany and Solemn Mass for Advent Sunday at St John Henry’s. A perfect liturgy to begin our preparations for the two comings of Christ to which we look forward in this holy season. A number of visitors - always welcome - and great fellowship afterwards. 

‘Our journey sets out from God in our creation, and returns to God at the final judgement. As the bird rises from the earth to fly, and must some time return to the earth from which it rose; so God sends us forth to fly, and we must fall back into the hands of God at last. But God does not wait for the failure of our power and the expiry of our days to drop us back into his lap. He goes himself to meet us and everywhere confronts us. Where is the countenance which we must finally look in the eyes, and not be able to turn away our head? It smiles up at Mary from the cradle, it calls Peter from the nets, it looks on him with grief when he has denied his master. Our judge meets us at every step of our way, with forgiveness on his lips and succour in his hands. He offers us these things while there is yet time. Every day opportunity shortens, our scope for learning our Redeemer’s love is narrowed by twenty-four hours, and we come nearer to the end of our journey, when we shall fall into the hands of the living God, and touch the heart of the devouring fire’.

from The Crown of the Year, 1952, by Austin Farrer, 1904-1968

‘“May they rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them” - those millions among whom our friends are lost, those millions for whom we cannot choose but pray; because prayer is a sharing in the love of the heart of God, and the love of God is earnestly set towards the salvation of his spiritual creatures, by, through and out of the fire that purifies them. 
 
The arithmetic of death perplexes our brains. What can we do but throw ourselves upon the infinity of God? It is only to a finite mind that number is an obstacle, or multiplicity a distraction. Our mind is like a box of limited content, out of which one thing must be emptied before another can find a place. The universe of creatures is queuing for a turn of our attention, and no appreciable part of the queue will ever get a turn. But no queue forms before the throne of everlasting mercy, because the nature of an infinite mind is to be simply aware of everything that is. 
 
Everything is simply present to an infinite mind, because it exists; or rather, exists because it is present to that making mind. And though by some process of averaging and calculation I should compute the grains of sand, it would be like the arithmetic of the departed souls, an empty sum; I could not tell them as they are told in the infinity of God’s counsels, each one separately present as what it is, and simply because it is. 
 
The thought God gives to any of his creatures is not measured by the attention he can spare, but by the object for consideration they can supply. God is not divided; it is God, not a part of God, who applies himself to the falling sparrow, and to the crucified Lord. But there is more in the beloved Son than in the sparrow, to be observed and loved and saved by God. So every soul that has passed out of this visible world, as well as every soul remaining within it, is caught and held in the unwavering beam of divine care. And we may comfort ourselves for our own inability to tell the grains of sand, or to reckon the thousands of millions of the departed. 
 
And yet we cannot altogether escape so; for our religion is not a simple relation of every soul separately to God, it is a mystical body in which we are all members one of another. And in this mystical body it does not suffice that every soul should be embraced by the thoughts of God; it has also to be that every soul should, in its thought, embrace the other souls. For apart from this mutual embracing, it would be unintelligible why we should pray at all, either for the living or for the departed. Such prayer is nothing but the exercising of our membership in the body of Christ. God is not content to care for us each severally, unless he can also, by his Holy Spirit in each one of us, care through and in us for all the rest. Every one of us is to be a focus of that divine life of which the attractive power holds the body together in one. 
 
So even in the darkness and blindness of our present existence, our thought ranges abroad and spreads out towards the confines of the mystical Christ, remembering the whole Church of Christ, as well militant on earth as triumphant in heaven; invoking angels, archangels and all the spiritual host’.

from a sermon preached, 1960, by Austin Farrer, 1904-1968

Today marks the third anniversary of the death of one of our Parochial Vicars here at St John Henry’s, Victoria, Fr Michael Birch. Fr Michael was my predecessor as Rector of St John the Evangelist, Calgary (1974-1984), and he did much to build up the Catholic tradition in the parish, laying the foundations for its future entry into the Catholic Church in 2011. The top left-hand photo shows Fr Michael with the then-Anglican Bishop of Calgary, Morse Goodman. Fr Michael was received into the Catholic Church in 2012 and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood, for the Ordinariate, at St Andrew’s Cathedral, Victoria, in 2013. I had the honour of preaching at his First Mass, and the sad privilege of preaching at his Funeral Requiem Mass in the same cathedral in 2016. May he rest in peace, and rise in glory. Jesu, mercy. Mary, pray.

​O God, who didst cause thy servant Michael, for whom we pray, to enjoy the office of Priest after the order of thine Apostles: grant unto him, we beseech thee; finally to rejoice in the company of those thy Saints in heaven whose ministry he did sometime share on earth; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Divine Worship: The Missal.

‘In this final Sunday of the liturgical year, the Church invites us to celebrate the Lord Jesus as King of the Universe. She calls us to look to the future, or more properly into the depths, to the ultimate goal of history, which will be the definitive and eternal kingdom of Christ. He was with the Father in the beginning, when the world was created, and he will fully manifest his lordship at the end of time, when he will judge all mankind. Today’s three readings speak to us of this kingdom. In the Gospel passage which we have just heard, drawn from the Gospel of Saint John, Jesus appears in humiliating circumstances – he stands accused – before the might of Rome. He had been arrested, insulted, mocked, and now his enemies hope to obtain his condemnation to death by crucifixion. They had presented him to Pilate as one who sought political power, as the self-proclaimed King of the Jews. The Roman procurator conducts his enquiry and asks Jesus: “Are you the King of the Jews?” (Jn 18:33). In reply to this question, Jesus clarifies the nature of his kingship and his messiahship itself, which is no worldly power but a love which serves. He states that his kingdom is in no way to be confused with a political reign: “My kingship is not of this world… is not from the world”.
​
Jesus clearly had no political ambitions. After the multiplication of the loaves, the people, enthralled by the miracle, wanted to take him away and make him their king, in order to overthrow the power of Rome and thus establish a new political kingdom which would be considered the long-awaited kingdom of God. But Jesus knows that God’s kingdom is of a completely different kind; it is not built on arms and violence. The multiplication of the loaves itself becomes both the sign that he is the Messiah and a watershed in his activity: henceforth the path to the Cross becomes ever clearer; there, in the supreme act of love, the promised kingdom, the kingdom of God, will shine forth. But the crowd does not understand this; they are disappointed and Jesus retires to the mountain to pray in solitude, to pray with the Father. In the Passion narrative we see how even the disciples, though they had shared Jesus’ life and listened to his words, were still thinking of a political kingdom, brought about also by force. In Gethsemane, Peter had unsheathed his sword and began to fight, but Jesus stopped him. He does not wish to be defended by arms, but to accomplish the Father’s will to the end, and to establish his kingdom not by armed conflict, but by the apparent weakness of life-giving love. The kingdom of God is a kingdom utterly different from earthly kingdoms’.

​Pope Benedict XVI

Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate’s severest rage disarm:
Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please:
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.
This the divine Cecilia found,
And to her Maker’s praise confin’d the sound.
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,
Th’immortal pow’rs incline their ear;
Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire,
While solemn airs improve the sacred fire;
And Angels lean from heav’n to hear.
Of Orpheus now no more let Poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater pow’r is giv’n;
His numbers rais’d a shade from hell,
Hers lift the soul to heav’n.

from Ode on St Cecilia’s Day by Alexander Pope, 1688-1744

Scarce lay the blossoms of her golden hair
Warm as a leveret in her mother’s hand
When on the wall her shadow gliding there
Haunted her young years with its stern demand.
She coveted no worldly vanity
As the tall steps she climbed with girlish grace,
Approaching unperturbed the galaxy
Of aged priests who kept the holy place.
 
She looked not back. There on the stone floor lay
The apple that her father gave as token
Of tenderness for all her tenderness.
She entered joyfully that blessed day
The templed walls, herself a shrine unbroken,
To wait till time shall reach its fruitfulness.

Ruth Schaumann, 1899-1975

On this memorial of St Edmund, King and Martyr, photographs from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk (Anglican cathedral and St Mary’s Church, formerly part of the dissolved abbey), taking during two pilgrimages from St John the Evangelist, Calgary to England in 2010 and 2015. 

‘No Christian can be surprised that innocence should suffer. Prosperity is often the most grievous judgment that God exercises upon a wicked man, who by it is suffered, in punishment of his impiety, to blind and harden himself in his evil courses, and to plunge himself deeper in iniquity. On the other hand, God, in his merciful providence, conducts second causes, so that afflictions fall to the share of those souls whose sanctification he has particularly in view. By tribulation a man learns perfectly to die to the world and himself, a work which without its aid, even the severest self-denial, and the most perfect obedience, leave imperfect. By tribulation we learn the perfect exercise of humility, patience, meekness, resignation, and pure love of God; which are neither practised nor learned without such occasions. By a good use of tribulation a person becomes a saint in a very short time, and at a cheap rate. The opportunity and grace of suffering well is a mercy in favour of chosen souls; and a mercy to which every saint from Abel to the last of the elect is indebted for his crown. We meet with sufferings from ourselves, from disappointments, from friends and from enemies. We are on every side beset with crosses. But we bear them with impatience and complaints. Thus we cherish our passions, and multiply sins by the very means which are given us to crucify and overcome them. To learn to bear crosses well is one of the most essential and most important duties of a Christian life. To make a good use of the little crosses which we continually meet with, is the means of making the greatest progress in all virtue, and of obtaining strength to stand our ground under great trials. St Edmund’s whole life was a preparation for martyrdom’.

from The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints by Fr Alban Butler, 1710-1773

‘Now it is certain that amongst our neighbours are to be reckoned the souls in purgatory, who, although no longer living in this world, yet have not left the communion of saints… Therefore, we ought to succour, according to our ability, those holy souls as our neighbours; and as their necessities are greater than those of our neighbours; and as their necessities are greater than those of our other neighbours, for this reason our duty to succour them seems also to be greater.

But now, what are the necessities of those holy prisoners? It is certain that their pains are immense. The fire that tortures them, says St Augustine, is more excruciating than any pain that man can endure in this life: “That fire will be more painful than anything that man can suffer in this life”… And this only relates to the pains of sense. But the pain of loss (that is, the privation of the sight of God), which those holy souls suffer, is much greater; because not only their natural affection, but also the supernatural love of God, wherewith they burn, draws them with such violence to be united with their Sovereign Good, that when they see the barrier which their sins have put in the way, they feel a pain so acute, that if they were capable of death, they could not live a moment.
 
…They are destined to reign with Christ; but they are withheld from taking possession of their kingdom till the time of their purgation is accomplished. And they cannot help themselves (at least not sufficiently, even according to those theologians who assert that they can by their prayers gain some relief,) to throw off their chains, until they have entirely satisfied the justice of God’.

from ‘Prayer, The Great Means of Obtaining Salvation and All the Graces
Which We Desire of God’ by St Alphonsus di Liguori, 1696-1787

‘[A] characteristic of the divine household is the protection it affords us. It is not for nothing that a well recognised symbol of the Church is the ark. As Noah’s ark was a refuge for his family amid the swirling waters of the flood, so the Church is a place of safety for all who would escape from the dangers and temptations of the world.
 
We need not be ashamed of the desire for such safety. It is no mere “escapism”. We do not desire to be taken out of the world, or even from its harsher elements; we only ask to be protected from harm, and to be strengthened by the rest and refreshment so that we may fight again with renewed vigour and certainty of success’.

from Reflections on the Collects, 1964
​by William Wand KCVO, 1885-1977 (Bishop of London 1945-1955)
 
Lord, we beseech thee to keep thy household the Church in continual godliness: that through thy protection she may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve thee in all good works, to thy glory of thy Name, through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. – Collect for the Twenty Second Sunday after Trinity, Divine Worship: The Missal.

‘Weep for those who die in their wealth and who with all their wealth prepared no consolation for their own souls, who had the power to wash away their sins and did not will to do it. Let us weep for them, let us assist them to the extent of our ability, let us think of some assistance for them, small as it may be, yet let us somehow assist them. But how, and in what way? By praying for them and by entreating others to pray for them, by constantly giving alms to the poor on their behalf. Not in vain was it decreed by the apostles that in the awesome mysteries remembrance should be made of the departed. They knew that here there was much gain for them, much benefit. When the entire people stands with hands uplifted, a priestly assembly, and that awesome sacrificial Victim is laid out, how, when we are calling upon God, should we not succeed in their defence? But this is done for those who have departed in the faith, while even the catechumens are not reckoned as worthy of this consolation, but are deprived of every means of assistance except one. And what is that? We may give alms to the poor on their behalf’.
 
from Homilies on Philippians 3.4-10 by St John Chrysostom, d.407

For the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night.

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon CH, 1869-1943

Some photos of today’s Solemn Mass of Requiem, which began with an Act of Remembrance and concluded with the Absolution of the Dead at the Catafalque. The setting of the Mass was the Missa pro defunctis, in Latin, and we sang ‘O God our help in ages past’, ‘I vow to thee my country’, and ‘O valiant hearts’, as well as a verse each of the National (‘O Canada’) and Royal (‘God save the Queen’) Anthems. The Offertory motet was Richard Farrant’s ‘Call to Remembrance’. The Dies irae was sung in English, according to Burgess’ plainsong setting, and the Libera Me was sung in Latin. We were very grateful to have a bugler from the 5th (British Columbia) Field Artillery Regiment of the Royal Canadian Artillery to play the Last Post and the Rouse for our Act of Remembrance. A very observance of Remembrance Sunday. The national celebration, tomorrow, of Remembrance Day will be kept with a Requiem Mass at 9.30 a.m.

O Lord our God, whose Name only is excellent and thy praise above heaven and earth: we thank thee for all those who counted not their lives dear unto themselves but laid them down for their friends; grant us, we beseech thee, that having them always in remembrance we may imitate their faithfulness and sacrifice; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Divine Worship: The Missal.