Category Archives: Marian devotion

The feast of Our Lady of Walsingham

24 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Marian devotion

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Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Walsingham. It is my favourite site, and I am fortunate enough to live within driving distance. Jessica went on pilgrimage there in 2012, and it is worth re-reading (or reading for the first time) here here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. I append, by way of introduction, her first piece.

In the Middle Ages, Walsingham – ‘England’s Nazareth’ was a Marian shrine of a size which rivalled Compostella. It owed its origin to Richeldis de Faverches the Saxon wife of a Norman lord. Richeldis had a deep faith in God and devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and was well known for her good works.

In 1061, Richeldis was privileged to have a vision of the Blessed Virgin. She was transported, in her vision, to Nazareth and saw the holy house where the Holy Family lived. Our Lady made it clear she wanted it rebuilt in England’s green and pleasant land:

“Do all this unto my special praise and honour. And all who are distressed or in need, let them seek me here in that little house you have made me in Walsingham. To all that seek me there I will give my help. And there at Walsingham in this little house shall be held in remembrance the great joy of my salutation when Saint Gabriel told me that through humility, I should become the Mother of the Son of God.”

Legend has it that when the masons attempted to build the house, the ground would not yield to their spades, but that in the morning the angels had built it – as she intended.

Skilled craftsmen were commissioned  to carve a statue of Our Lady. Our Lady was enthroned on the Throne of Wisdom and crowned as the Queen of Heaven and Earth. She herself was a throne for the Christ-Child, Who was represented holding out the Gospels to the world. Her right hand pointed to Him, and He extended His arm in a double gesture of blessing and protection of His Mother. Each part of the statue was rich in symbolism, such as the seven rings on the throne standing for the Seven Sacraments, which Henry VIII defended centuries later, and the flowering lily-sceptre which she held in her right hand. It symbolised her Perpetual Virginity, and, in the teachings of the Cistercian saint, Bernard of Clairvaux, that She is the Flower of the Rod of Jesse. Miracles of healing were performed there from the start.

Every English King from Richard I to Henry VIII visited the great Shrine which grew there. In 1340 a final pilgrim chapel was built – the Slipper Chapel – so called because it was where pilgrims would remove their shoes and walk the last miles barefoot. It is dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria. Today it is the only part of the original shrine intact – and is the Catholic part of the modern shrine.

The rest of it was destroyed as part of one of the greatest acts of vandalism of the sixteenth century. In 1538 Henry VIII sent soldiers to dispossess the Augustinian Canons of Walsingham. Those who resisted were murdered on what is now called ‘Mary’s field’. The Shrine ands its buildings were gutted, the great statue of Our Lady destroyed. Sir Philip Howard’s lines from ‘The wrecks of Walsingham’ say it best:

Weep, weep, O WalsinghamWhose days are nights,Blessings turned to blasphemies,Holy deeds to despites.Sin is where Our Lady sat,Heaven turned into hell,Satan sits where Our Lord did sway,Walsingham, oh farewell!

There Is Something About Mary

24 Thursday Sep 2020

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In her first post here, Jessica said this:

Our Lord Jesus Christ (OLJC) told the Apostles that men would know His followers by their love for each other, and He counselled them to be united; knowing us as He does, He can’t have been all that surprised that we’ve fallen away from those ideals. Perhaps if we were better at them there would be less for the polemicists to reproach us with? Great crimes have been committed in the name of Christianity, that is true, as it is of any great cause entrusted to fallen mankind. It is in our fallen nature to pervert whatever good things we have from God. In our folly we use the consequences of our own sinful state to reject the opportunity to reach out for God’s love; and in our pride erect a superstructure of Pharisaism on OLJC’s words, before proceeding to live in it rather than the love of Christ.

How very true that is we demonstrate each and every day. Yet there are things that we revere that bring us closer together. Today our Catholic brethren will celebrate Our Lady of Walsingham. That dream of Richeeldis de Faverches, A Saxon noblewoman who founded the shrine in 1061. It prospered all through medieval times visited by every King of England from William the Conqueror to Henry VIII. It was destroyed in the second round of the Dissolution of the Monasteries with its renowned statue of Mary being taken to London to be burnt, either in Chelsea or at Smithfield along with many other statues from the monasteries. or was it?

In an article on his blog, Dr. Francis Young summarizes an article he and Fr Michael Rear wrote for the Catholic Herald a year or so ago, on the circumstantial evidence they have found that a statue of the Virgin and child (apparently 13th century) referred to as the Langham Madonna, (pictured above) now at the Victoria and Albert Museum may, in fact, be the statue that once adorned the Holy House at Walsingham. He really doesn’t go into enough detail for me to have an opinion in his blog post, and the Catholic Herald article comes up 404. But he makes a pretty good case for it. Apparently, it was a common form at that time and this is the only one that survived. It’s worth your time to read and wonder. Walsingham has always had something of the miraculous about it, as you’ll know if you’ve read our various posts about it.

It started with Jessica’s Pilgrimage there in 2012 only a couple months after starting this blog, which she detailed here, here, and here. She gives a very good outline history of the shrine in the course of these posts, and in a personal note, she did indeed light candles for her readers, and at that almost precise time, I felt a great peace go through me, and that is when our friendship became deep and unshakable.

The shrine is also connected with us in other ways, including her miraculous cure from cancer.

The Shrine which has been so central to this blog (if you search for ‘Walsingham” you will find many articles, from Jessica, from Chalcedon, and from me dealing with it. But the main thing bout it seems to me to be a unifying force for Christians of all types and places.

There is a Catholic Shrine at the Slipper Chapel which is historically connected with it, there is an orthodox Shrine and Methodist and (I think) even Coptic chapels. And that is also what we for eight years have attempted to do here, to be ecumenical without being syncretic. In the main, we have succeeded.

In a post on Our Lady Day in Harvest, in 2017 A Clerk of Oxford gave us a very good reading as to what Mary meant to our forbearers.

Though they contain plenty of miracles and marvels and angels, they’re somehow very human and ordinary. At the heart of them is a woman, loving and much loved, whose life is traced from the first wonder of her conception to her peaceful death. In a sequence like that at Chalgrove, or in Ely’s Lady Chapel, or in the Book of Hours or the plays, Mary’s life is mapped out through domestic, everyday scenes: parents rejoicing in the birth of a longed-for baby; a little girl learning to read with her mother, or climbing the steps to the temple like a child on her first day at school; a teenage Mary with her female friends, happy with her baby, at her churching, or in the last days of her life. These were familiar rituals of childhood and motherhood which resonated with medieval audiences – with women especially, but not only women. They are completely relatable, not only for mothers like Margery Kempe but for anyone who has ever had a mother, ever been a child, and there’s something beautiful about elevating such ordinary family relationships to the dignity of high art. In these scenes Mary is not an unapproachably distant figure but a woman imagined in relationship to others: a daughter, wife, mother, friend. In particular, the story of her passing is full of other people and their love for her – the apostles and her friends gathering around her bedside, Christ cradling her soul in his arms like a child. She is unique, but never alone.

Personally, I always like to end these posts with these words from St Isaac the Syrian

In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.

Handmaid

13 Sunday Sep 2020

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I think I must have noticed this before, but never thought about it. In some translations Luke 1:48 has Our Lady calling herself “handmaid” or “maidservant”, others, however, use the word “servant” because they don’t like the overtones of the gender-related noun. As someone who worked as a chambermaid in university holidays, I get where they are coming from, but oddly, those who in other contexts are most hostile to the use of gender-neutral language, have nothing to say (that I have been able to find) on the matter. As one who has no real beef with such language, I want to comment on it, because, well, I guess I find it offensive – the losing of the female element.

I know that it means when we say the Magnificat at Matins or Evensong, we can all join in, but as a woman I want to make a plea for keeping the older translation because the newer one, well-meaning though it is, actually erases the woman’s voice. I bet it was a man who decided that one!

What do I mean?

The Magnificat comes in the only passage of the Bible where we get no “male gaze”; no men were involved in the dialogue, and the unborn men are only witnesses. I don’t want (here and now) to stray into the delicate and difficult issue of gender in Scripture, but one thing is so obvious that we can miss it. The Bible is written by men and as such largely encapsulates things in terms of the ways men view the world. Nothing wrong in that, men and women often view the world in the same ways, you might say, and I might well nod and agree. But I would add that that’s not the same thing as capturing a purely “female gaze.” Some things are seen differently by the sexes – and nowhere is this more true than pregnancy and child-birth.

I have not had the good fortune to realise my childhood dream of being a mother, and I lost my own at a very early age and have few unmediated memories of her (I find it hard at times to know whether what I think I “remember” was real or simply half-recalling something my father told me), but I have friends and relatives who have been through the experience recently, and as a real and honorary “aunt” I have had the privilege of being part of conversations with them – and it is those female-only spaces which the Visitation recalls to me.

In this context “maidservant” is in no way, to my mind, demeaning. In calling herself this, Mary is expressing one of the virtues that show she is full of Grace and which has made her beloved by all subsequent generations – her humility. In the face of the awesome fact that you are going to be bringing another life into this world, I have noted friends often showing the same humility; it is literally, to be awestruck. How much more was Our Blessed Lady struck with awe, and what better way of expressing her humility than to call herself the handmaid of the Lord? Paul uses the masculine equivalent of the word in Romans 1:1 – δοῦλος there as opposed to δούλης.

Any of us, all of us, are servants of the Living God, but only a woman can be a handmaid in the way Our Lady was, and I want to reclaim that word for women – it is, if you like “servant plus” – and there’s a part of me doesn’t want to share that with men. Is that wrong of me?

I love the intimacy of the female space to which Luke gives us access. I know there are various theories as to the origin of the Magnificat, but there is a large part of me which knows it comes from Luke recording accurately what Our Lady told him. It’s a long time since I read literature at University, but I can spot a female “voice” when I hear it.

The image of the baby “leaping” in the womb moves our hearts, and is just what a woman would note – and the sheer joy, a word repeated several times – overwhelms us. As I say my Rosary I imagine it and am filled with joy myself. There is a very female acceptance of the will of God. Where Zacharias cannot believe that Elizabeth can get pregnant, and where even the wonderful and righteous Joseph (surely one of the most underrated men in history?) is minded to put his pregnant fiancée to one side quietly, Elizabeth knows who is in Mary’s womb, and Mary accepts the will of God with a willingness which can blind us to what she was accepting.

Mary was, after all, a young woman betrothed to Joseph. If we accept, as I and many do, that those called the “brothers and sisters” of Jesus were the progeny of Joseph by a previous marriage, then it is likely that he was much, much older than his betrothed. Twelve and a half was the minimum age at which a girl could be betrothed, and it was not uncommon for a marriage to follow as much as a year later, so she could have been as young as twelve or thirteen at the time of the Annunciation. She would have been aware that becoming pregnant might bring disaster on her. We know that the early enemies of Christianity spread the slander that she had become pregnant by a Roman soldier, and we know from Scripture that Joseph thought it necessary to put her aside before the Angel intervened. But the young Mary, she expressed no doubt, no hesitation, she cooperated with the will of God in a situation where doing so could have exposed her to extreme harm. It is easy to forget how wonderful her trust in God was.

We see something else too in her song of joy. We see traces of what the Kingdom of God will be like. Her lowliness will exalt her, and she who was last will be first. Those who are proud and wealthy, they who are first in their own estimation and that of the world will be humbled and will be last. We see here, for the first, but not the last time, how dangerous for the soul wealth and the pride it can engender can be.

The Visitation is a precious moment of female intimacy where we glimpse something so often missing from a book compiled by men. Please don’t see this as a criticism of men, I wouldn’t expect them to be familiar with female spaces any more than I am with male ones. But I do reclaim that “handmaiden” translation. If, as many believe, there is something special in men because of Jesus which means only they can serve the Lord as priests and bishops, then there is, equally, something special in women, as only they can serve the Lord through pregnancy.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

15 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Catholic Tradition, Faith, Marian devotion

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…we can affirm together the teaching that God has taken the Blessed Virgin Mary in the fullness of her person into his glory as consonant with Scripture and that it can, indeed, only be understood in the light of Scripture. Roman Catholics can recognise that this teaching about Mary is contained in the dogma.

[2005 report by Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians]

Thus, as so often in spite of the best efforts of men, Our Lady unites.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII, in Munificentissimus Deus, proclaimed:

We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

It was only the second occasion on which a Pope had made such an Infallible pronouncement, the first being the Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX, in Ineffabilis Deus, 1854.

I remember some years ago reassuring Jessica, whose devotion to Our Lady is intense, that as an Anglican she was not in breach of anything her Church held in celebrating the Assumption.

One of her many Protestant friends had asked her where the Biblical warrant for such a feast was. The answer is simple. If Jesus is who the Bible says He is, then His mother must have been conceived without sin, because we are told that He was like us in all things except for sin. Death is the wages of sin, so if Mary was not conceived in sin, then she could not have been subject death. If Jesus is the first fruits of the Resurrection, the new Adam, Mary is the new Eve. There’s your Biblical evidence. And that is before tradition kicks in, going back to the early second century. If Jessica wanted to bring in the third leg of the stool, Reason, it’s entirely reasonable that Our Blessed Lady did not die and was not separated from her Son.

We do not know the details. There’s a tradition that she stayed in Jerusalem and died there. But given our belief that St John looked after her, there is another tradition that she was assumed into Heaven at Ephesus. The Orthodox call it the Dormition, or the falling asleep. 

In short, Our Lady unites the majority of Christians. That she is an object of division to some is a sad reflection on our fallen state. Along with St John Henry Newman, the Blessed Virgin has been one of my invariable sources of refuge in need. However far away I have sometimes felt her Son was because of my sin, she has always been there, her veil protecting me, one hand reaching out while pointing to her Son with the other. How often has she guided me home? How could I ever express what I owe to her intercession?

I grew up in a port town in the north-west, and navigation by the stars mattered. So when I discover that Our Lady was the Star of the Sea for the first time, it all made sense. As I pray my Rosary I sometimes hear the hymn in my head … and surely she guides me homeward.

Virgin most pure, Star of the sea,
⁠Pray for the sinner, pray for me.

 

Luminous Christianity (1)

09 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in Bible, Commentaries, Faith, Homilies, Marian devotion

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2-the-light-of-the-world-william-holman-hunt9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Thus we read in St Mark, and thus did St John Paul II begin the Luminous Mysteries of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

One of the most frequent words used in Scripture to describe Jesus is “Light.” Jesus tells the people that He is “the light of the world,” while St John reminds us that the “light” came into the world but the world heeded it not because men preferred the darkness which hid the evil that they did. But we are told, also, that the darkness did not overcome the Light. Here, in the first of the Mysteries of Light, the Light of the World is revealed, and as we know, though the world, in the sense of the worldly, rejected Him, He prevailed and will triumph; but here, for the first time, parts of the world see Jesus for who He is – the Son of God.

And yet how strange. Isaiah told us that:

The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.

But why does it dawn in this way? We are told in Hebrews:

15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

So why, if He is without sin is baptism the first revelation to the wider world that Jesus is the Light of the world? It is precisely because He is like us in every way, and in being baptised He makes baptism sacramental. It is our entry into His Church. Just as Jesus submitted to the humiliation of death upon the Cross for us and for our salvation, so He submits to baptism; where we go, the Incarnate Word has already been.

We see, in the Baptist’s reaction a recognition that he is not worthy to baptise the Son of God, yet Jesus insists, and John submits his will to that of God. The result of that obedience is that the Heavens are opened and God speaks. We see, here, how close Heaven is and the way to it; if we will submit our will to God’s, then the Kingdom of Heaven is, indeed, at hand.

Jesus begins His Ministry as He would continue it, identifying Himself with the sinners and the outcasts. The Baptist, like us, questions when he thinks he knows the answer. Jesus is the one for whom he has been preparing the way, so there is no way He needs to be baptised. God knows better. How often are we like the Baptist?

In Christ’s obedience the eyes of others are opened and His identity confirmed. If we love Him then we will respond to His love, and one of the fruits of that is obedience. We are not left alone, the Spirit is with us always, and the Church into which we are baptised is His Church and is here for us. The recognition of who Jesus is was the beginning of His earthly Ministry, and for us, it is the beginning of our life in Him.

I understand the arguments of those who would restrict baptism to adults, but my heart tells me that if the Apostles baptised whole families, so should we, and I know from my own experience, that the mark of infant baptism has been a gift of Grace for which I have always been grateful to my parents, well, to be honest, to my mother, as my father could not have cared one way or the other.

But Baptism is just a beginning, a vitally important one, but unless we persevere, then its fruits will be limited. How often do we wish we could see more clearly, rather than through a glass darkly? But how often do we remember that too much light in this world can be used as an instrument of torture? There is a limit to the light mankind can bear. We need faith, for, as the author of Hebrews reminds us:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2For by it the people of old received their commendation.

The Baptist is shown the Truth, we are given the assurance of hope.

So, we begin the Mysteries of Light on Jordan’s bank with the Baptist night and with the Lord setting us an example. We shall continue them with His first public miracle, which is another sign that the Dayspring from on high had dawned on the world.

 

Mary’s Dowry

29 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Marian devotion

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Today, at noon (UK time) England will be rededicated to Our Lady. The illustration above is the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. As long-time readers of this blog will know, Walsingham is close to the heart of Jessica, who founded this blog and who has written most movingly about it in pieces to which links can be found here.

In the Middle Ages, Walsingham – ‘England’s Nazareth’ was a Marian shrine of a size which rivalled Compostella. It owed its origin to Richeldis de Faverches the Saxon wife of a Norman lord. Richeldis had a deep faith in God and devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and was well known for her good works.

In 1061, Richeldis was privileged to have a vision of the Blessed Virgin. She was transported, in her vision, to Nazareth and saw the holy house where the Holy Family lived. Our Lady made it clear she wanted it rebuilt in England’s green and pleasant land:

“Do all this unto my special praise and honour. And all who are distressed or in need, let them seek me here in that little house you have made me in Walsingham. To all that seek me there I will give my help. And there at Walsingham in this little house shall be held in remembrance the great joy of my salutation when Saint Gabriel told me that through humility, I should become the Mother of the Son of God.”

Legend has it that when the masons attempted to build the house, the ground would not yield to their spades, but that in the morning the angels had built it – as she intended.

Skilled craftsmen were commissioned  to carve a statue of Our Lady. Our Lady was enthroned on the Throne of Wisdom and crowned as the Queen of Heaven and Earth. She herself was a throne for the Christ-Child, Who was represented holding out the Gospels to the world. Her right hand pointed to Him, and He extended His arm in a double gesture of blessing and protection of His Mother. Each part of the statue was rich in symbolism, such as the seven rings on the throne standing for the Seven Sacraments, which Henry VIII defended centuries later, and the flowering lily-sceptre which she held in her right hand. It symbolised her Perpetual Virginity, and, in the teachings of the Cistercian saint, Bernard of Clairvaux, that She is the Flower of the Rod of Jesse. Miracles of healing were performed there from the start.

In 1381, in the middle of the turmoil we call the “Peasants’ Revolt,” King Richard II dedicated his realm to Our Lady in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey; this meant that England was given over to her protection. The prayer of Entrustment for 2020 can be found here.

This moment has been three years in the planning, and no-one could have envisaged then the circumstances in which it will now take place. I had hoped, being in Norfolk, to be able to be there; now none of us will be.

The illustration above is the Wilton Diptych, a late medieval portable altarpiece which depicts the Dedication of England to Our Lady. It was painted toward the end of Richard’s reign, one which had seen the realm ravaged by the Plague and by civil strife; the King himself would soon be overthrown by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV, and part of whose legacy would be the rivalry between the Houses of Lancaster and York which would plunge England into years of civil strife.

It would be Bolingbroke’s son, Henry V, who would invoke the help of England’s Protectoress on the eve of Agincourt; his appeal enjoyed more success than that of his dead cousin, Richard II. Like every other king of England since its construction, Henry V visited the Holy site. The last one so to do was Henry VIII, who was responsible for its destruction during the orgy of iconoclasm which followed his break from Rome.

One effect of the Reformation and its legacy was that for hundreds of years the tradition of Marian veneration was lost in this country. No doubt in Recusant houses in half-forgotten corners of the realm Our Lady was held in reverence; but that really was a faith which could not speak its name. But the tradition was not wholly lost in Angicanism, and divines like Launcelot Andrewes, continued the ancient tradition, as I explained here.

The Oxford Movement helped create the context in which a Shrine was once more estabished at Walsingham in the late nineteenth century. In 2016 the old Slipper Chapel became a Catholic Basilica, and under the formidable Rector, Mgr. John Armitage  huge strides have been made toward making the Shrine what it was in medieval times – a centre of international pilgrimage. The Rededication was meant to mark a milestone in this process, and will do so, but not in the way planned at the time.

With England on lockdown because of the Coronavirus, everything will have to take place at a distance except for those on the ground doing the Rededication. But perhaps, as has happened elsewhere, more will follow on-line than might have done in normal times.

There will, of course, always be those who protest at Marian “idolatry,” but for faith illiteracy which seeks not to remedy its own ignorance there is no remedy. I have written elsewhere in this blog on the subject, and those who wish to rehearse the arguments can find them set out in that place. For my part, I prefer the simply piety expressed by Jessica in a moving post here.

Christ is the Word made flesh. Our Lady was chosen by God to bear Him and to raise Him, and she chose willingly to accept that responsibility; she was the gateway through which the author of our salvation entered the world. Of all of us, she is the best. What more natural sentiment could there be than to be grateful to Our Lady? What more natural reaction in times of travail could there be for the pious king than to seek her as protector for the realm? As the history of Walsignham shows, Our Lady is deeply threaded into the history of England.

So it is, in God’s Providence, that this special moment, long in the planning, takes on a significance far deeper than any of us could have imagined. As we sit in our homes in the shadow of this pestilence, after a period of political turmoil, we are all, alas, better placed to empathise with Richard II and the emotions which prompted him to the Dedication in the first place. Let us pray, in hope, for the spiritual blessings which wil follow on this act of national piety. And let us remember the Marian prayer of Pope Francis for this time:

O Mary, you shine continuously on our journey as a sign of salvation and hope.

We entrust ourselves to you, Health of the Sick.

At the foot of the Cross you participated in Jesus’ pain,

with steadfast faith.

You, Salvation of the Roman People, know what we need.

We are certain that you will provide, so that,

as you did at Cana of Galilee,

joy and feasting might return after this moment of trial.

Help us, Mother of Divine Love,

to conform ourselves to the Father’s will

and to do what Jesus tells us:

He who took our sufferings upon Himself, and bore our sorrows to bring us,

through the Cross, to the joy of the Resurrection. Amen.

We seek refuge under your protection, O Holy Mother of God.

Do not despise our pleas – we who are put to the test – and deliver us from every danger, O glorious and blessed Virgin.

Let me conclude with one of the moving prayers which forms part of the Rededication:

We your faithful people assembled here offer you this country in which we live. Once it was yours, all its children were your children and you were honoured throughout England as its Protectress and its Queen. Again do we consecrate it as your Dowry, and entrust it to your maternal care.

In this time of trial

28 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by in Faith, Marian devotion, Pope

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Pope Francis has been a controversial figure, at least in Catholic circles; the general public, happily ignorant of the internal strife, has tended to see him differently. After yesterday’s extraordinary “Urbi et orbi” address, perhaps we can lay aside rancour and strife and agree that in this time of trial he rose to the occasion magnificently? I know I was not the only one who, in the viewing of it, was moved.

It has been a long time since I have contributed to this blog, but these are extraordinary times, and for a while, at least, I shall be here.

The “urbi et orbi” address is usually confined to Christmas and Easter, so the delivery of one at this time was, in itself, extraordinary; the circumstances which prompted it, and in which it was delivered, made it even more so.

The usually crowded St Peter’s square was empty. The rain poured down as it can in Rome. As he stood there, with the rain falling, he used the two resources available to the heir of St Peter – words and symbols: together they made a compelling and moving spectacle.

In the beginning was the Word, and the words of the Pope spoke to our hearts:

“For weeks now it has been evening, thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice it in people’s gestures, their glances give them away.”

We have all felt this in our daily lives as the depth of the crisis sinks in. The ordinary niceties of everyday life are suddenly rendered exotic: there is no handshaking, no hugs, no kisses; there is something rather like passing by on the other side. Under the bravado lies an understandable fear; people cope with this in various ways; but it is palpable, all the same.

In these circumstance Mark 4:35-41 were especially apposite. As the deluge continued, almost illustrating the Pope’s words, he reminded us of the frightened Disciples at sea who woke Jesus because they feared for their lives amid a strom of the sea of Gallille:

39 Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace,[a] be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. 40 But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How[b] is it that you have no faith?” 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!”

Like the Disciples, we are fearful, but the Pope reminded us of something pertinent. The storm exposes:

 “our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules” and lays bare “all those attempts to anesthetize ourselves”.

In this crisis, our blithe expectation that we could stay well in a sick world looks like what it is – folly. The Christian knows this. We know that only the saving grace of Christ can heal and save us; but how often, amid the hustle and bustle of daily life do we recall this, even to ourselves? Now, as the Pope said, our common humanity is highlighted; in Christ we are one.

We see this, too, in our new everyday reality. For each example of someone behaving badly, we see examples of people doing the opposite. I much appreciated a call from my own church to see if I was “okay” or “needed anything.” Daily acts of such kindnesses bind us back together; they remind us that God is love, and even as He poured His love out for us, we can imitate that example by helping each other.

Some have said that this pandemic is a judgement on mankind. God alone knows what we deserved and need, and not being Him, I leave such things to Him. The Pope, reminding us that Jesus is calling out to us to follow Him, reminded us that there is a judgment to be made – by us. Now is our “time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not.” Faith begins, he reminded the world, “when we realize we are in need of salvation” and are not self-sufficient.”

If we would turn to Jesus then He will do for us what He did for the Disciples. He will calm our fears: “Because this is God’s strength: turning to the good everything that happens to us, even the bad things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God life never dies.”

His words moved me close to tears:

Jesus’ cross, said Pope Francis, is the anchor that has saved us, the rudder that has redeemed us, and our hope, because “by His cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from His redeeming love.”

“In the midst of isolation when we are suffering from a lack of tenderness and chances to meet up, and we experience the loss of so many things,” he said, “let us once again listen to the proclamation that saves us: He is risen and is living by our side.”

So we embrace His cross in the hardships of the present time, and make room in our hearts “for the creativity that only the Spirit is capable of inspiring.”

The Pope spoke in the presence of that great symbol of suffering and redemption, the Crucifix; but this was a special crucifix. Usually displayed in the church of San Marcello on the city’s Via del Corso, the Crucifix we all saw dates from the fourteenth century as has survived fire and plague. St Pope John Paul II embraced it in the year 2000 to mark the Day of Forgiveness during that Jubillee year.

The other symbol was the ancient icon of Mary Salus Populi Romani – usually housed in the Basilica of St. Mary Major. In 593 Pope St. Gregory the Great carried the icon in procession to stop a plague. And in 1837 Pope Gregory XVI invoked her to put an end to a cholera epidemic. The Pope’s devotion to this icon is well-known, and this act of Marian devotion culminated in a moving appeal:

“Dear brothers and sisters, from this place that tells of Peter’s rock-solid faith, I would like this evening to entrust all of you to the Lord, through the intercession of Mary, Health of the People and Star of the stormy Sea. From this colonnade that embraces Rome and the whole world, may God’s blessing come down upon you as a consoling embrace. Lord, may you bless the world, give health to our bodies and comfort our hearts. You ask us not to be afraid. Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell us again: ‘Do not be afraid’ (Mt 28:5). And we, together with Peter, ‘cast all our anxieties onto you, for you care about us’ (cf. 1Pet 5:7).”

In the shadow of the Cross, and through the Grace of Our Lady, the Pope provided a perfect example of Christian leadership. Let us hear his words, and through those words, let us hear again, the Word of God.

In this time of trial there is no other help; nor is there need for any other. As we are reminded in Romans:

38 For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let us pray for one another, and may the peace and love of Christ be with each one of us now and always.

Reformation Day: Prelude

23 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by in Faith, Lutheranism, Marian devotion, Pope

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We’re coming up on the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation, and like the author of this article, I have many Catholic friends (here and elsewhere). What do I want them to know? In this article from The Federalist, Anna Mussmann does a pretty good job of explaining.

[…]In their eyes, our admiration for Martin Luther is as misguided as holding a big party in honor of one’s divorce. They argue the Reformation ushered in a world where each individual’s personal taste in interpretation became supreme, leading to the moral chaos and postmodernism that riddles the cultural landscape today. At best, they see Protestants as limping along without the spiritual blessings God bestows through their church yet, like anorexics, rejoicing in this near-starvation.

I readily concede that the Reformation brought costs as well as benefits. Yet as a Lutheran, I am profoundly grateful for the sixteenth-century return to Scripture that reminded us of Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, and Solus Christus. I deeply appreciate the Lutheran determination, demonstrated in the “Book of Concord, “to find and cling to biblical truth. That is why I want my Catholic friends to know three things about the event I will be celebrating on October 31.

1. It’s Not about Individualism

Secular historians, like secular journalists writing about Pope Francis, often misunderstand religion. Mainstream history textbooks portray Luther as someone who struck a blow for the individual by rejecting the authority of people who wanted to tell others what to believe. As long as these historians don’t peruse his actual writing, they see Luther as a pretty progressive guy by the standards of 1517. My Catholic friends read this stuff and, quite naturally, pick up the idea that Luther’s teachings led to hyper-individualism.

Yet Luther’s actual theological legacy is not conducive to extreme individualism. He intended to participate in a conversation about reforming errors that were harming the Catholic Church. That is because he wanted to point out where individuals were going wrong by failing to submit themselves to the authority of scripture. […]

It’s true, we are just about as hidebound to what Christians have always believed everywhere as the most traditional Catholic. We don’t do novelty (well some of us do). The Rev Dr Luther was essentially what we would call today a whistleblower. I too have taken Catholic friends to church with me, and especially in the LCMS, they are surprised, if anything we are more liturgical than many Catholic parishes. What Old Luther tried to do was to go back to our roots, in the early church. To be sure there are places we disagree.

The Lutheran Reformation was not about making up new traditions from scratch, but about identifying the parts of the historic liturgy that convey the gospel well. One reason it’s so much fun to talk about philosophy and literature with my Catholic friends is that we share a rich sense of history and see ourselves as taking part in a conversation that has been going on for centuries.

However, we Lutherans disagree with Catholics in a highly significant area. They say church tradition is as reliable a guide as scripture, and that one can safely construct theological dogmas on promises and statements that aren’t found in scripture. Thus they accept concepts like the bodily assumption of Mary as doctrine even though the Bible says nothing on that subject.

Now, Lutherans respect church tradition. The Lutheran reformers frequently referenced the writings of the early church fathers. We, too, are grateful for the history that ties us to the church universal throughout time, and we, too, commemorate the faithful saints who have gone before us (although we don’t ask anyone dead to pray for us—the Bible offers no promise that we will be heard that way).

There is considerably more. Do follow the link above.

I do note that Luther believed in the bodily assumption, but it was something that he took on faith, because, well it isn’t mentioned in scripture. We do, some of us anyway, following Luther’s practice, venerate Our Lady, though.

One of the main points that I always make though is that (so does Anna) without Luther, there is no Trent. He was causal in the reform that the Catholic Church needed badly.

In truth, many Lutherans do as she said, refer to our Reformation as a conservative one, in keeping with the traditional definition, keeping the good and reforming the bad. Some of those that followed had different goals, such as being as not-Catholic as they could be. We (and perhaps the Anglo-Catholics) sit firmly in the middle, Catholic but not Roman, Evangelical but traditional.

Occasionally it’s an uncomfortable spot, as we have neither the Pope nor do we get to make it up as we go. For me, it’s the right spot, as it is for many of us.

The Touch of a Woman

21 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by in Early Church, Faith, Marian devotion, St Luke's Gospel

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In my last two posts, I have highlighted how in medieval days Mary was revered, not least because she was approachable. That’s important, I think. Women, as a rule, are seen as non-threatening as compared with even the best-intentioned men, by men but perhaps even more by women. It’s certainly true for me.

The idea of telling my sins to a man (especially when I was young) was a very frightening thing. Not so much Christ, of course, because He knew me better than I did anyway. But I wonder, and always will if Marian devotion had been available to me in those days if it might have made a difference. Not that I was any terrible ogre, mind, but I did things that even then I wasn’t proud of, and would have been embarrassed to tell my mom, so I wonder if knowing Mary then would have made a difference.

And now, as I start to draw near the end, Mary indeed provides me much comfort. Those of you who know me will know that I am divorced and without kids, and sadly see no possibility of that changing. And yes, Mary provides a comfort, nearly a companionship, that I find in no other way, anymore. She is the one I can talk about anything with. Strange how life works out isn’t it? But so it is.

But she is much more than that, of course. She is Theotokos, the Mother of God. And that is surely much more important than my little problems, but still, she finds time to tell me that she has talked to her Son about me and to comfort this old man, not that it is overt or anything, just a feeling.

But this very human and attractive side of Our Lady goes way back in our history. In our archives there is an article, bylined by Jessica (although I wonder, as it reads more as Chalcedon) speaking of The Protoevangelium of St. James

The Protoevangelium of St. James, which dates from the mid second century, belongs to that group of works which, whilst never canonical, was treasured by Christians for centuries because it filled in the gaps left by the Gospels. Nothing will shake my conviction that in St. Luke we have portions of the memoirs of Our Lady herself; where else could the Magnificat come from, or the story of the Annunciation. It thrills me to know that when I read these things, I am reading what the Blessed Virgin herself said; so I understand why it is early Christians wanted more.

The Protoevangelium filled the gap admirably. It described the circumstances of Our Lady’s birth, and how at the age of three she was brought by her parents to the Temple. It contains one of my favourite accounts of Our Lady. When she came to the Temple she was given to the High Priest who

 set her down upon the third step of the altar, and the Lord God sent grace upon her; and she danced with her feet, and all the house of Israel loved her

How adorable is that?

Here is where those charming legends that we looked in my article on Lady Day in Harvest got their start. In the 2d century, well before the Scripture was canonized. We have always venerated Mary, she is one of the things that sets Christians apart. It is our kinder gentler side and something that is lacking in most religions which tend to be ‘by the book’ and the book alone. She introduces mercy into the whole thing, and yes, it shown forth in her Son as well. But it is, I think, one of the singularities that divide the Second Covenant from the First.

Our Lady Day in Harvest

18 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Early Church, Marian devotion

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You’ll forgive me, I hope, as usual, I am a few days late (we won’t talk about how many dollars short, OK?). In any case, the other day was the Feast of the Assumption, which used to be called, “Our Lady Day in Harvest”. You’ll find there is still another Lady Day next month. As per usual, I’m going to lean on my favorite Medievalist A Clerk of Oxford heavily here.

On þone fifteogðan dæg þæs monðes bið seo tid þæt is sancta Marian tid. On þone dæg heo geleorde of middangearde to Criste, ond heo nu scineð on þam heofonlican mægene betwyh þa þreatas haligra fæmnena, swa swa sunne scineð on þisne middangeard. Englas þær blissiað, ond heahenglas wynsumiað, ond ealle þa halgan þær gefeoð in sancta Marian. Sancta Maria wæs on feower ond sixtegum geara þa þa heo ferde to Criste. Sancta Maria is godfæder snoru ond godes suna modur ond haligra sauwla sweger ond seo æðele cwen þara uplicra cesterwara; seo stondeð on þa swyðran healfe þæs heahfæder ond þæs heahcyninges.

On the fifteenth day of the month is the feast which is St Mary’s feast. On this day she departed from the world to Christ, and now she shines in the heavenly host among the crowd of holy virgins, as the sun shines upon this middle-earth. Angels rejoice there, and archangels exult, and all the saints are glad with St Mary. St Mary was sixty-four years old when she went to Christ. St Mary is daughter-in-law of God the Father and the mother of God’s son, and mother-in-law of the holy souls and the noble queen of the citizens of heaven; she stands upon the right side of the great Father and High King.

She reminds us that all these feasts grew out of ancient traditions, some scriptural, some apocryphal, and some popular legend. Many of them were fully formed by the fifth century.

The Clerk tells us, “This is a translation of a text known as the Transitus Mariae, a widely-known apocryphal account of Mary’s life which circulated in several different versions and in multiple languages in the Middle Ages. The English translation comes from the tenth-century Blicking Homilies; it’s too long to give in full, but the whole text can be found at part 1 and part 2. ” Here is one excerpt that she gives us

& þa æfter þysum wordum þa com þær ure Drihten & he hie gemette ealle anmodlice wæccende, & he hie onlyhte mid his þæs Halgan Gastes gife. & he wæs cweþende to him, ‘Broþor þa leofestan, ne sy eow nænigu cearo þæt ge geseon þæt þeos eadige Maria sy geceged to deaþe, & ne biþ heo no to þæm eorþlican deaþe ac heo bið gehered mid Gode, forþon þe hire bið mycel wuldor gegearwod.’ & mid þy þe he þis gecweden hæfde, þa ascean samninga mycel leoht on hire huse þæt ealle þa fynd wæron oferswiþde þa þe þær wæron, & þa þe þæt leoht gesawon þa ne meahton asecgan for þæs leohtes mycelnesse. & þa wæs geworden mycel stefn of heofenum to Petre & wæs cweþende, ‘Ic beo mid eow ealle dagas oþ þa gyfylnesse þisse worlde.’ & þa ahof Petrus his stefne & wæs cweþende, ‘We bletsiaþ þinne naman mid urum saulum & we biddaþ þæt þu fram us ne gewite; & we bletsiaþ þe & we biddaþ þæt þu onlyhte ure world, for þæm þe þu eallum miltsast þæm þe on þe gelyfaþ.’ & þis wæs cweþende se eadiga Petrus to eallum þæm apostolum & he trymede heora heortan mid Godes geleafan.

Æfter þyssum wordum gefylde, þa wæs Maria arisende & wæs ut gangende of hire huse, & hie gebæd to þæm gebede þe se engel hire tocwæþ þe þær com to hire; þa þis gebed wæs gefylled þa wæs heo eft gangende on hire hus & heo þa wæs hleonigende ofer hire ræste, & æt hire heafdan sæt se eadiga Petrus & emb þa ræste oþre Cristes þegnas. & þa ær þære syxtan tide þæs dæges þa wæs semninga geworden mycel þunorrad, & þær wæs swiþe swete stenc swa þætte ealle þa slepan þe þær wæron. & þa apostolas onfengon þære eadigan Marian & þa þre fæmnan þe him Crist ær bebead, þæt hie wacedon buton forlætnesse & þæt hie cyþdon Drihtnes wuldor be hire & ealle medemnesse be þære eadigan Marian. Þa slepan þa ealle þe þær wæron; þa com þær semninga ure Drihten Hælend Crist þurh wolcnum mid myccle mengeo engla & wæs ingangende on þære halgan Marian hus on þæt þe heo hie inne reste. Michahel se heahengel se wæs ealra engla ealderman, he wæs ymen singende mid eallum þæm englum, mid þy þe Hælend wæs ingongende. Þa gemette he ealle þa apostolas emb þære eadigan Marian ræste, and he bletsode þa halgan Marian & wæs cweþende, Benedico te quia quicumque promisisti — ‘Ic þe bletsige min Sancta Maria; & eal swa hwæt swa ic þe gehet eal ic hit gesette.’ Ond þa andswarode him seo halige Maria & wæs cweþende, ‘Ic do a þine gife, min Drihten, & ic þe bidde for þinum naman þæt þu gehwyrfe on me ealle eaþmodnesse þinra beboda, forþon þe ic mæg don þine gife. Þu eart gemedemod on ecnesse.’ & þa onfeng ure Drihten hire saule & he hie þa sealde Sancte Michahele þæm heahengle, & he onfeng hire saule mid ealra hisleoma eaþmodnesse. & næfde heo noht on hire buton þæt an þæt heo hæfde mennisce onlicnesse; & heo hæfde seofon siþum beorhtran saule þonne snaw…þa cleopode semninga þære eadigan Marian lichoma beforan him eallum & wæs cweþende, ‘Wes þu gemyndig, þu gewuldroda Cyning, forþon ic beo þin hondgeweorc, & wes þu min gemyndig, forþon ic healde þinra beboda goldhord.’ & þa cwæþ ure Drihten to þære eadigan Marian lichoman, ‘Ne forlæte ic þe næfre min meregrot, ne ic þe næfre ne forlæte, min eorclanstan, forþon þe þu eart soþlice Godes templ.’

And then after these words our Lord came there, and found them all watching together, and he enlightened them with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and said to them, ‘Dearest brethren, have no sorrow because you see that this blessed Mary is called unto death; for she is not called to earthly death, but she shall be favoured by God, for great glory is prepared for her.’ And when he had said this, there suddenly shone a great light upon her house, so that all the fiends who were there and those who saw the light were overpowered, and were unable to speak because of the greatness of the light. And then came a loud voice from heaven to Peter, saying, ‘I am with you always unto the end of this world.’ And Peter lifted up his voice, and said, ‘We bless your name with our souls, and we beseech you never to depart from us; and we bless you and beseech you to bring light to our world, for you have mercy upon all those who believe in you.’ And blessed Peter said this to all the apostles, and he strengthened their hearts with the faith of God.

After he had finished these words, Mary arose and went out of her house, and she prayed the prayer that the angel who came to her had told her. When this prayer was finished, she returned to her house and rested on her bed, and at her head sat the blessed Peter, and about the bed Christ’s other disciples. And before the sixth hour of the day there suddenly came a loud thunder, and there was a very sweet smell, so that all that who were there slept, and the apostles and the three women, whom Christ had commanded to watch without intermission, took charge of the holy Mary, so that they should make known the glory of the Lord in her and all his kindness to the blessed Mary. And while all who were there were sleeping, our Lord Christ suddenly appeared there in a cloud with a great company of angels, and entered the house of the holy Mary where she was at rest. The Archangel Michael, the leader of all angels, was singing hymns with all the angels, as the Lord entered. He found all the apostles round the blessed Mary’s bed, and he blessed the holy Mary, and said, ‘Benedico te quia quæcumque promisisti — ‘I bless you, my holy Mary, and all I have promised you, I will perform.’ And holy Mary answered him, and said, ‘My Lord, I give forth your grace always, and I beseech you for your name’s sake that you grant me obdience to your commands, so that I may give forth your grace. You are honoured for ever.’ And then the Lord received her soul, and gave it to Saint Michael the archangel, and he received her soul with reverence in all his limbs. She had nothing upon her save only a human body, and she had a soul seven times brighter than snow…

Then suddenly the body of the blessed Mary cried out before them all, and said, ‘Remember, glorious King, that I am your handiwork; and be mindful of me, for I keep the gold-hoard of your commandments’. And then our Lord said to the blessed Mary’s body, ‘I will never leave you, my pearl; I will never leave you, my arkenstone, for truly you are the temple of God.’

The Clerk then sums up some on why Mary is so appealing to our ancestors, especially but not only women, saying this

Though they contain plenty of miracles and marvels and angels, they’re somehow very human and ordinary. At the heart of them is a woman, loving and much loved, whose life is traced from the first wonder of her conception to her peaceful death. In a sequence like that at Chalgrove, or in Ely’s Lady Chapel, or in the Book of Hours or the plays, Mary’s life is mapped out through domestic, everyday scenes: parents rejoicing in the birth of a longed-for baby; a little girl learning to read with her mother, or climbing the steps to the temple like a child on her first day at school; a teenage Mary with her female friends, happy with her baby, at her churching, or in the last days of her life. These were familiar rituals of childhood and motherhood which resonated with medieval audiences – with women especially, but not only women. They are completely relatable, not only for mothers like Margery Kempe but for anyone who has ever had a mother, ever been a child, and there’s something beautiful about elevating such ordinary family relationships to the dignity of high art. In these scenes Mary is not an unapproachably distant figure but a woman imagined in relationship to others: a daughter, wife, mother, friend. In particular, the story of her passing is full of other people and their love for her – the apostles and her friends gathering around her bedside, Christ cradling her soul in his arms like a child. She is unique, but never alone.

And you know, when I was introduced to her, mostly here as Our Lady of Walsingham, that is what drew me to her. I don’t care who you are, the Son of God can appear intimidating, even if He tries very hard not to be. But it is different with His mom, somehow we can more easily talk with her, she’s just more sympathetic. A lot of this was lost at the Reformation, although there is little in our documents precluding her. Luther, particularly, venerated her all his life, and I think him right.

There is much more at A Clerk of Oxford, and I highly recommend the article linked above. And I do hope you had a Happy Marymass.