Priesthood: Congregation for the Clergy

HT: Fr. Paul Johnson

Father Aidan Nichols: The Priest Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Faith Matters - Lent 2010 - Fr Aidan Nichols from Catholic Westminster on Vimeo.

Westminster Archdiocese

Return From School Retreat

I have just returned today from retreat with the Year 9 class at the school where I work as chaplain-coordinator. It was a really good residential retreat with 66 students in attendance. I was really impressed with how they all engaged in the retreat and the challenges that were set before them. With all that has happened in the news this week in our present sex-crazed society and government, I was thankful to hear students talk about the harm that the breakdown of the family is having on society, the need to return to traditional values and simple acts such as eating together again as families. I hope to be able to write some this weekend.

Equality Bill (Children, Schools and Families Bill) and Moral Theology: What Is Rightful Liberty?

As I was listening to what was happening with regards to the Equality Bill (Children's and Schools Bill), I was reminded of something very important for Catholics to remember that is in Romanus Cessario, O.P. book Introduction to Moral Theology. I have been quietly praying about this today and realise what a 'hot-button' issue it really is. Without going into a lot of negativity, I simply think an appeal to reason ought to be the approach when offering a critique as to what this present government is wanting to put into place. I believe what is obviously left out in this debate is what Cessario says quite wonderfully in the above book. He writes,

Because the fulness of ecclesial communion requires an equally full communion in love, Christian moral theology invariably finds itself at odds with those political philosophies that promote the broadest views concerning individual freedom and autonomy. For the Christian, personal liberties, even if guaranteed by civil constitutions, never serve as an excuse for falling short of "what is good and acceptable and perfect." Liberty does not in itself guarantee the fulness of moral goodness; nor does it, in and of itself, sufficiently embrace the moral constituents of the common good so necessary for political right order. Rather is it the case that rightful liberty itself is defined in terms of the fixed order of human ends. The existence of ordered liberty within society is itself a function of that natural hierarchy of ends that defines the common good (and without which, the common good would be either nearly contentless, merely instrumental, or wholly subjective--none of which provides an adequate understanding of a distinctively political order).

I find this such a refreshing voice of common sense and natural to human reason. How can we as a society push through the Equality Bill or a Children, Schools and Family Bill that goes against what is the natural law of political order and reason? Chesterton was quite right when he said,

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.

and

Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it.

So, like Chesterton, one really ought to be moved to pity. This last quotation says it all really.

As we should be genuinely sorry for tramps and paupers who are materially homeless, so we should be sorry for those who are morally homeless, and who suffer a philosophical starvation as deadly as physical starvation.

We are living amongst the slums of the morally homeless who are spiritually starving themselves to death. Lord, have mercy!

St John Vianney: The Purity of a Soul

Three things are wanted to preserve purity-the presence of God, prayer, and the Sacraments. Another means is the reading of holy books, which nourishes the soul. How beautiful is a pure soul! Our Lord showed one to St. Catherine; she thought it so beautiful that she said, "O Lord, if I did not know that there is only one God, I should think it was one." The image of God is reflected in a pure soul, like the sun in the water. A pure soul is the admiration of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. The Father contemplates His work: There is My creature!... The Son, the price of His Blood: the beauty of an object is shown by the price it has cost.... The Holy Spirit dwells in it, as in a temple.

We also know the value of our soul by the efforts the devil makes to ruin it. Hell is leagued against it – Heaven for it. Oh, how great it must be! In order to have an idea of our dignity, we must often think of Heaven, Calvary, and Hell. If we could understand what it is to be the child of God, we could not do evil – we should be like angels on earth. To be children of God, oh, what a dignity!

Pope Benedict XVI Address to Roman Seminarians

Your Eminence,
Your Excellencies,
Dear Friends,

Every year it is a great joy to me to be with the seminarians of the Diocese of Rome, young men who are preparing themselves to respond to the Lord's call to be labourers in his vineyard and priests of his mystery. This is the joy of seeing that the Church lives, that the Church's future is also present in our region and, precisely, also in Rome.

In this Year for Priests let us be particularly attentive to the Lord's words about our service. The Gospel Passage that has just been read speaks indirectly but profoundly of our sacrament, of our call to be in the Lord's vineyard, to be servants of his mystery.

In this brief passage we find certain key words that give an idea of the proclamation that the Lord wishes to make with this text. "Abide": in this short passage we find the word "abide" ten times. We then find the new commandment: "Love one another as I have loved you" , "No longer do I call you servants... but friends", "bear fruit"; and lastly, "Ask, and it will be given you... that your joy may be full".

Let us pray to the Lord that he may help us enter into the meaning of his words, that these words may penetrate our hearts, thus becoming in us the way and life, with us and through us.

The first words are: "Abide in me... in my love". Abiding in the Lord is fundamental as the first topic of this passage. Abide: where? In love, in the love of Christ, in being loved and in loving the Lord. The whole of chapter 15 explains where we are to abide, because the first eight verses explain and present the Parable of the Vine: "I am the vine, you are the branches". The vine is an Old Testament image that we find in both the Prophets and the Psalms and it has a double meaning: It is a parable for the People of God which is his vineyard. He planted a vine in this world, he tended this vine, he tended his vineyard, he protected his vineyard and what was his intention? It was of course to produce fruit, to harvest the precious gift of grapes, of good wine.

And thus the second meaning appears: Wine is a symbol, the expression of the joy of love. The Lord created his people to find the answer to his love. This image of the vine, of the vineyard thus has a spousal meaning, it is an expression of the fact that God seeks his creature's love, through his Chosen People he wants to enter into a relationship of love, a spousal relationship with the world.

Then, however, history proved to be a history of infidelity: Instead of precious grapes, only small "inedible fruits" are produced. The response of this great love is not forthcoming, this unity, this unconditional union between man and God in the communion of love does not come about, man withdraws into himself, he wants to keep himself to himself, he wants to have God for himself, he wants the world for himself. Consequently the vineyard is devastated, the boar from the forest and all the enemies arrive and the vineyard becomes a wilderness.

But God does not give up. God finds a new way of reaching a free, irrevocable love, the fruit of this love, the true grape: God becomes man, and thus he himself becomes the root of the vine, he himself becomes the vine and so the vine becomes indestructible. This people of God cannot be destroyed for God himself has entered it, he has put down roots in this land. The new People of God is truly founded in God himself who becomes man and thus calls us to be the new vine in him and to abide in him, to dwell in him.

Let us also bear in mind that in chapter 6 of John's Gospel we find the Discourse of the Bread that becomes the great Discourse on the Eucharistic mystery. In this chapter 15 we have the Discourse on the Vine: the Lord does not speak explicitly of the Eucharist. Naturally, however, behind the mystery of the wine is the reality that he has made himself fruit and wine for us, that his Blood is the fruit of the love born from the earth for ever and, in the Eucharist, this Blood becomes our blood, we are renewed, we receive a new identity because Christ's Blood becomes our blood. Thus we are related to God in the Son and, in the Eucharist, this great reality of life in which we are branches joined to the Son and thereby in union with eternal love becomes our reality.

"Abide": Abide in this great mystery, abide in this new gift of the Lord that has made us a people in itself, in his Body and with his Blood. It seems to me that we must meditate deeply on this mystery, that is, that God makes himself Body, one with us; Blood, one with us; that we may abide abide in this mystery in communion with God himself, in this great history of love that is the history of true happiness. In meditating on this gift God made himself one of us and at the same time he made us all one, a single vine we must also begin to pray so that this mystery may penetrate our minds and hearts ever more deeply and that we may be ever more capable of living the greatness of the mystery and thus begin to put this imperative: "abide" into practice.

If we continue to read this Gospel passage attentively, we also find a second imperative: "abide", and "observe my commandments".

"Observe" only comes second. "Abide" comes first, at the ontological level, namely that we are united with him, he has given himself to us beforehand and has already given us his love, the fruit. It is not we who must produce the abundant fruit; Christianity is not moralism, it is not we who must do all that God expects of the world but we must first of all enter this ontological mystery: God gives himself. His being, his loving, precedes our action and, in the context of his Body, in the context of being in him, being identified with him and ennobled with his Blood, we too can act with Christ.

Ethics are a consequence of being: first the Lord gives us new life, this is the great gift. Being precedes action and from this being action then follows, as an organic reality, for we can also be what we are in our activity. Let us thus thank the Lord for he has removed us from pure moralism; we cannot obey a prescribed law but must only act in accordance with our new identity. Therefore it is no longer obedience, an external thing, but rather the fulfilment of the gift of new life.

I say it once again: Let us thank the Lord because he goes before us, he gives us what we must give, and we must then be, in the truth and by virtue of our new being, protagonists of his reality. Abiding and observing: Observing is the sign of abiding and abiding is the gift that he gives us but which must be renewed every day of our lives.

Next comes this new commandment: "Love one another as I have loved you". There is no greater love than this, "that a man lay down his life for his friends". What does this mean? Here too it is not a question of moralism. Some might say: "It is not a new commandment; the commandment to love one's neighbour as oneself already exists in the Old Testament".

Others say: "This love should be even more radicalized; this love of others must imitate Christ who gave himself for us; it must be a heroic love, to the point of the gift of self".

In this case, however, Christianity would be a heroic moralism. It is true that we must reach the point of this radicalism of love which Christ showed to us and gave for us, but here too the true newness is not what we do, the true newness is what he did: The Lord gave us himself, and the Lord gave us the true newness of being members of his Body, of being branches of the vine that he is. Therefore, the newness is the gift, the great gift, and from the gift, from the newness of the gift, also follows, as I have said, the new action.

St. Thomas Aquinas says this very succinctly when he writes: "The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit" (Summa Theologiae, i-iiae, q.106 a. 1). The New Law is not another commandment more difficult than the others: The New Law is a gift, the New Law is the presence of the Holy Spirit imparted to us in the sacrament of Baptism, in Confirmation, and given to us every day in the Most Blessed Eucharist. The Fathers distinguished here between "sacramentum" and "exemplum". "Sacramentum" is the gift of the new being, and this gift also becomes an example for our action, but "sacramentum" precedes it and we live by the sacrament. Here we see the centrality of the sacrament which is the centrality of the gift.

Let us proceed in our reflection. The Lord says: "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you".

No longer servants who obey orders, but friends who know, who are united in the same will, in the same love. Hence the newness is that God has made himself known, that God has shown himself, that God is no longer the unknown God, sought but not found or only perceived from afar. God has shown himself: In the Face of Christ we see God, God has made himself "known", and has thereby made us his friends.

Let us think how, in humanity's history, in all the archaic religions, it is known that there is a God. This knowledge is deeply rooted in the human heart, the knowledge that God is one, that deities are not "the" God. Yet this God remains very distant, he does not seem to make himself known, he does not make himself loved, he is not a friend, but is remote. Religions, therefore, were not very concerned with this God, concrete life was concerned with the spirits that we meet every day and with which we must reckon daily. God remained distant.

Then we see the great philosophical movement: Let us think of Plato and Aristotle who began to understand that this God is the agathon, goodness itself, that he is the eros that moves the world; yet this remains a human thought, it is an idea of God that comes close to the truth but it is an idea of ours and God remains the hidden God.

A Regensburg professor recently wrote to me, a professor of physics who had read my Discourse to the University very late. He wrote to tell me that he could not agree, or not fully, with my logic. He said:

"Of course, the idea is convincing that the rational structure of the world demands a creative reason that made this rationality which is not explained by itself". And he continued: "But if a demiurge can exist", this is how he put it, "a demiurge seems to me certain by what you say, I do not see that there is a God who is good, just and merciful. I can see that there is a reason that precedes the rationality of the cosmos, but I cannot see the rest".

Thus God remains hidden to him. It is a reason that precedes our reasoning, our rationality, the rationality of being, but eternal love does not exist, the great mercy that gives us life does not exist.

And here, in Christ, God showed himself in his total truth, he showed that he is reason and love, that eternal reason is love and thus creates. Unfortunately, today too, many people live far from Christ, they do not know his face and thus the eternal temptation of dualism, which is also hidden in this professor's letter, is constantly renewed, in other words perhaps there is not only one good principle but also a bad principle, a principle of evil; perhaps the world is divided and there are two equally strong realities and the Good God is only part of the reality. Today, even in theology, including Catholic theology, this thesis is being disseminated: That God is not almighty. Thus an apology is sought for God who would not, therefore, be responsible for the great store of evil we encounter in the world. But what a feeble apology! A God who is not almighty! Evil is not in his hands! And how could we possibly entrust ourselves to this God? How could we be certain of his love if this love ended where the power of evil began?

However, God is no longer unknown: In the Face of the Crucified Christ we see God and we see true omnipotence, not the myth of omnipotence. For us human beings, almightiness, power, is always identified with the capacity to destroy, to do evil. Nevertheless the true concept of omnipotence that appears in Christ is precisely the opposite: In him true omnipotence is loving to the point that God can suffer: Here his true omnipotence is revealed, which can even go as far as a love that suffers for us. And thus we see that he is the true God and the true God, who is love, is power: the power of love. And we can trust ourselves to his almighty love and live in this, with this almighty love.

I think we should always meditate anew on this reality, that we should thank God because he has shown himself, because we know his Face, we know him face to face; no longer like Moses who could only see the back of the Lord.

This too is a beautiful idea of which St. Gregory of Nyssa said: "Seeing only his back, means that we must always follow Christ". But at the same time God showed us his Countenance with Christ, his Face. The curtain of the temple was torn. It opened, the mystery of God is visible. The first commandment that excludes images of God because they might only diminish his reality is changed, renewed, taking another form. Today we can see God's Face in Christ the man, we can have an image of Christ and thus see who God is.

I think that those who have understood this, who have been touched by this mystery, that God has revealed himself, that the curtain of the temple has been torn asunder, that he has shown his Face, find a source of permanent joy. We can only say "thank you. Yes, now we know who you are, who God is and how to respond to him".

And I think that this joy of knowing God who has shown himself, to the depths of his being, also embraces the joy of communicating this: those who have understood this, who live touched by this reality, must do as the first disciples did when they went to their friends and brethren saying: "We have found the one of whom the Prophets spoke. He is present now".

Mission is not an external appendix to the faith but rather the dynamism of faith itself. Those who have seen, who have encountered Jesus, must go to their friends and tell them: "We have found him, he is Jesus, the One who was Crucified for us".

Then, continuing, the text says: "I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide". With this we return to the beginning, to the image, to the Parable of the Vine: it is created to bear fruit. And what is the fruit? As we have said, the fruit is love. In the Old Testament, with the Torah as the first stage of God's revelation of himself, the fruit was understood as justice, that is, living in accordance with the Word of God, living in accordance with God's will, hence, living well.

This continues but at the same time is transcended: True justice does not consist in obedience to a few norms, rather it is love, creative love that finds in itself the riches and abundance of good.

Abundance is one of the key words of the New Testament. God himself always gives in abundance. In order to create man, he creates this abundance of an immense cosmos; to redeem man he gives himself, in the Eucharist he gives himself.

And anyone who is united with Christ, who is a branch of the Vine and who abides by this law does not ask: "Can I still do this or not?", "Should I do this or not?". Rather, he lives in the enthusiasm of love that does not ask: "Is this still necessary or is it forbidden?", but simply, in the creativity of love, wants to live with Christ and for Christ and give his whole self to him, thus entering into the joy of bearing fruit.

Let us also bear in mind that the Lord says: "I chose you and appointed you that you should go": This is the dynamism that dwells in Christ's love; to go, in other words not to remain alone for me, to see my perfection, to guarantee eternal beatification for me, but rather to forget myself, to go as Christ went, to go as God went from the immensity of his majesty to our poverty, to find fruit, to help us, to give us the possibility of bearing the true fruit of love. The fuller we are of this joy in having discovered God's Face, the more real will the enthusiasm of love in us be and it will bear fruit.

And finally, we come to the last words in this passage: "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you": a brief catechesis on prayer that never ceases to surprise us. Twice in this chapter 15 the Lord says: "Ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you", and he says it once more in chapter 16.

And we want to say: "But no, Lord it is not true". There are so many good and deeply-felt prayers of mothers who pray for a dying child which are not heard, so many prayers that something good will happen and the Lord does not grant it. What does this promise mean? In chapter 16 the Lord offers us the key to understanding it: He tells us what he gives us, what all this is, chara, joy. If someone has found joy he has found all things and sees all things in the light of divine love. Like St. Francis, who wrote the great poem on creation in a bleak situation, yet even there, close to the suffering Lord, he rediscovered the beauty of being, the goodness of God and composed this great poem.

It is also useful to remember at the same time some verses of Luke's Gospel, in which the Lord, in a parable, speaks of prayer, saying, "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" .

The Holy Spirit, in the Gospel according to Luke, is joy, in John's Gospel he is the same reality: joy is the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is joy or, in other words from God we do not ask something small or great, from God we invoke the divine gift, God himself; this is the great gift that God gives us: God himself.

In this regard we must learn to pray, to pray for the great reality, for the divine reality, so that God may give us himself, may give us his Spirit and thus we may respond to the demands of life and help others in their suffering. Of course he teaches us the "Our Father". We can pray for many things. In all our needs we can pray: "Help me!". This is very human and God is human, as we have seen; therefore it is right to pray God also for the small things of our daily lives.

However, at the same time, prayer is a journey, I would say flight of stairs: We must learn more and more what it is that we can pray for and what we cannot pray for because it is an expression of our selfishness.

I cannot pray for things that are harmful for others, I cannot pray for things that help my egoism, my pride. Thus prayer, in God's eyes, becomes a process of purification of our thoughts, of our desires.

As the Lord says in the Parable of the Vine: We must be pruned, purified, every day; living with Christ, in Christ, abiding in Christ, is a process of purification and it is only in this process of slow purification, of liberation from ourselves and from the desire to have only ourselves, that the true journey of life lies and the path of joy unfolds.

As I have already said, all the Lord's words have a sacramental background. The fundamental background for the Parable of the Vine is Baptism: We are implanted in Christ; and the Eucharist: We are one loaf, one body, one blood, one life with Christ. Thus this process of purification also has a sacramental background: The sacrament of Penance, of Reconciliation, in which we accept this divine pedagogy which day by day, throughout our life, purifies us and increasingly makes us true members of his Body. In this way we can learn that God responds to our prayers, that he often responds with his goodness also to small prayers, but often too he corrects them, transforms them and guides them so that we may at last and really be branches of his Son, of the true vine, members of his Body.

Let us thank God for the greatness of his love, let us pray that he may help us to grow in his love and truly to abide in his love.

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

St John Vianney: The Holy Spirit, A Taste of Delicious Sweetness

The Holy Spirit is light and strength. He teaches us to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and between good and evil. Like glasses that magnify objects, the Holy Spirit shows us good and evil on a large scale. With the Holy Spirit we see everything in its true proportions; we see the greatness of the least actions done for God, and the greatness of the least faults. As a watchmaker with his glasses distinguishes the most minute wheels of a watch, so we, with the light of the Holy Spirit, distinguish all the details of our poor life. Then the smallest imperfections appear very great, the least sins inspire us with horror. That is the reason why the most Holy Virgin never sinned. The Holy Spirit made her understand the hideousness of sin; she shuddered with terror at the least fault.

Those who have the Holy Spirit cannot endure themselves, so well do they know their poor misery. The proud are those who have not the Holy Spirit.

Worldly people have not the Holy Spirit, or if they have, it is only for a moment. He does not remain with them; the noise of the world drives Him away. A Christian who is led by the Holy Spirit has no difficulty in leaving the goods of this world, to run after those of Heaven; he knows the difference between them. The eyes of the world see no further than this life, as mine see no further than this wall when the church door is shut. The eyes of the Christian see deep into eternity. To the man who gives himself up to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, there seems to be no world; to the world there seems to be no God.... We must therefore find out by whom we are led. If it is not by the Holy Spirit, we labor in vain; there is no substance nor savor in anything we do. If it is by the Holy Spirit, we taste a delicious sweetness... it is enough to make us die of pleasure!

From the Lenten Readings.

Ash Wednesday: I Will Be Away Until Thursday

After posting this note, I will be giving the Internet a break until Thursday evening to properly give time for Ash Wednesday. I thank God for all who read here and pray that he gives each of us the grace to the keep a holy Lent. God bless you all!

Saint John Vianney on the Eucharist

"Without the Holy Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be insupportable. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive our joy and our happiness. The good God, wishing to give Himself to us in the Sacrament of His Love, gave us a vast and great desire, which He alone can satisfy. In the presence of this beautiful Sacrament, we are like a person dying of thirst by the side of a river — he would only need to bend his head; like a person still remaining poor, close to a great treasure — he need only stretch out his hand. He who communicates loses himself in God like a drop of water in the ocean. They can no more be separated,"

FiF Australia Meets on the Holy Father's Apostolic Constitution

A Special General Meeting of Members of Forward in Faith Australia Inc. was held on Saturday 13 February at All Saints Kooyong in Melbourne to consider the following recommendations from the National Council regarding the future direction of the Association.

That this Special General Meeting of FiFA receives with great gratitude the Apostolic Constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus” of Pope Benedict XVI and directs the National Council to foster by every means the establishing of an Ordinariate in Australia. And furthermore this Special General Meeting reaffirms its commitment to provide care and support for those who at this time feel unable to be received into the Ordinariate.

That we warmly welcome the appointment of Bishop Peter Elliott as delegate of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the project to establish a Personal Ordinariate in this country.

That we note the formation of a working group with Bishop Elliott comprising Members of Forward in Faith Australia, the Traditional Anglican Communion, and the Anglican Church of Australia, to set in train the processes necessary for establishing an Australian Ordinariate.

That we give notice as to the establishing of Friends of the Australian Ordinariate and invite members of Forward in Faith Australia and other interested persons for expressions of interest by provision of names and addresses at this meeting, or by contacting the Chairman, noting that this does not commit interested persons to joining the Ordinariate. The Meeting passed each of these Resolutions unanimously.

The Right Reverend David Robarts OAM. National Chairman.

Priests and People Living by Grace in Lent and Beyond

This morning I was thinking about the grace that is needed in order for continued conversion to take place in our lives as we move more and more towards our formation whereby we model the life of Christ. I am sure we have all met people who live so much by "law" that they do not allow for grace and the Spirit to work in people's lives where God continues to deeply transform them. It can be a very oppressive feeling. Sadly, that can be how some priests relate to others as well as the laity to one another. We must always remember that the Church is holy, but there are sinners amongst her members. The call for priests and people is to live out Christian penance with humility and sincerity believing in the transforming power of God's grace in our lives. Sinners cannot and must not ever be treated as if grace can never pull them out of places where they should not be.

We are all called to be honest before God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and in our private prayer lives. Yet, we must be on guard against arrogant claims of setting ourselves up as judges of the earilier times in other's lives where perhaps they were failing and falling and treating them as if they are beyond God's calling. It is for this reason that Jesus took on flesh, went to the Cross and was raised for our justification. When Pope Benedict XVI addressed the clergy in Warsaw Cathedral he said to them

Humble sincerity is needed in order not to deny the sins of the past, and at the same time not to indulge in facile accusations in the absence of real evidence or without regard for the different preconceptions of the time. Moreover, the confession pecatti, [confession of sins] to use an expression of Saint Augustine, must always be accompanied by the confessio laudis--the confession of praise. As we ask pardon for the wrong that was done in the past, we must also remember the good accomplished with the help of divine grace which, even if contained in earthenware vessles, has borne fruit that is often excellent.

Undoubtedly the Holy Father is speaking of historical instances in the past with these words but they are very applicable to us all with regards to our own spiritual journeys. Humbly we confess our sins of the past but we cannot and should not indulge in facile accusations without the regard for preconceptions of the time in people's lives when they found themselves in those sins. This is not to make excuses by any means; it is simply to note how grace is ALWAYS needed in our lives. Of course we confess our sins in truth and sincerity but as the Holy Father has said, we must also add to that confession--confessio laudis. Good is always by the help of divine grace, even when it is within us mortals, that often bears much fruit that is excellent.

Honesty and self-knowledge are always necessary for spiritual direction to be the most successful. Spiritual directors can work well with us when we are honest and self-aware. But a good spiritual director does not judge somebody by their past but looks to the help of divine grace that bears fruit in people's lives in the present. That is because when we are living under divine grace God is always transforming us and will do so until that day when we see him face to face. There is not a person I have ever met that does not have wounds from living in this broken world. These wounds need healing and the opening up of ourselves to divine healing is what God is calling us to do. Living by grace and forgiveness is the call for both priest and people where we seek God's help by making sure we are not being controlled by our past lives as we live in the present. As we quickly approach Lent, perhaps we can begin the season well. May God give us the grace to keep a holy Lent!

Some Historical Advice and Wisdom

One of the very important problems we are facing today is the absence of our learning from history; both positive and negative lessons. I find this repeatedly being done in arguments put forth over certain issues surrounding the culture and the Church. There are all sorts of accounts we may have to settle for the past but we cannot judge the past on "present" vaules of the culture. This is where it seems that we are going wrong in so many ways. I was reading Louis-Marie Chauvet Symbol and Sacrament this morning and came across a good quotation that addresses this issue. I was looking at the anti-sacrificial status of symbolic exchange in Christianity when I came across a very good point that is applicable in so many areas that I found it worthy of sharing here. He writes,

we must be on guard against judging it [Christianity] according to a more recent cultural sensibility--it is a golden rule in history to never judge the past by the cultural values of the present--and against too hastily denigrating what we have only recently--and perhaps equally uncritically--eulogized. The temptation is the more dangerous for many Christians in that they have accounts to settle with their past.

That point is true of so many things pertaining to faith in an unbelieving culture and how the Church responds to present issues. I am certain the readers here can point out instances where this 'golden rule' is grossly abused today. Why don't you leave some for discussion!

Eucharist: The Sacramental Sacrifice of the One Offering of Christ

There are all sorts of improper ways of looking at the Eucharist as the Christian sacrifice. The main question of the Protestant rejection of the Eucharist as sacrifice is that it seeks to repeat that which was only performed once on Calvary never again able to be repeated. Well, of course that is true and that understanding of Christ's one offering as the 'natural' offering is indeed limited to the one act. But, the apostles were commanded to "do this" or "offer this" as a Sacramental sacrifice of the one offering of Christ making present and effectual the one offering of Christ on the cross. It is important for us to remember and think about how symbols communicate reality and make what is in the past effectually applicable to us in the present when we look at the Eucharist as the Christian offering effectual for the 'forgiveness of sins' committed in the present.

The offering of Christ in the Mass is not a new and different offering for the Church as if she were thinking there was something lacking in the offering of Christ on the cross. There as nothing lacking in it at all. But, what happens on the altar is that one offering being made present on the altar and like the coal coming from heaven and touching the lips and cleansing Isaiah, so also when the coal from heaven comes to our altars and touches our lips we are cleansed. The Eastern liturgy sets this out in a particular way that is quite helpful in the Offertory. The symbolism is clearly seen in the words of Theodore of Mopsuestia.

By means of the signs we must see Christ now being led away to His passion and again later when He is stretched out on the altar to be immolated for us. When the offering which is about to be presented is brought out in the sacred vessels, on the patens and in the chalice, you must imagine that Christ our Lord is being led out to His passion....They bring up the bread and place it on the holy altar to complete the presentation of the passion. So from now on we should consider that Christ has already undergone the passion and is now placed on the altar as if in a tomb....When we see the offering on the altar like a body laid in a tomb, recollection takes hold of all present because of the dread rites that are performed. So they are obliged with recollection and fear to watch what is being done, according to priestly rules, Christ our Lord is to rise from the dead, proclaiming to all a share in His sublime blessings. This is why in the offering we recall our Lord's death: it is the proclamation of the resurrection and the sublime blessings.

The Devil's Beatitudes

Blessed are those who are too tired, busy or disorganised to meet with fellow Christians on Sundays each week. They are my best workers.

Blessed are those who enjoy noticing the mannerisms of clergy and choir. Their hearts are not in it.

Blessed are those Christians who wait to be asked and expect to be thanked. I can use them.

Blessed are the touchy. With a bit of luck they may even stop going to church. They are my missionaries.

Blessed are those who claim to love God at the same time as hating other people. They are mine forever.

Bleassed are the troublemakers. They shall be called my children.

Blessed are those who have no time to pray. They are easy prey for me.

Blessed are you when you read this and think it is about other peple and not yourself. I've got you!

Archbishop of Westminster: Introducing Lent

Lent 2010 from Catholic Westminster on Vimeo.

Love is Strong as Death; Jealousy is Cruel as the Grave"

I am planning on returning to more short posts on the Mass soon but I haven't had much time to write the last few days due to illness in the family and a lot of sick tummies of children, which has not been pleasant. So, I thought I would put this piece from Hans Urs Von Balthasar out for readers as we are quickly approaching Lent. Enjoy and do comment!

Love is quite definitely present, therefore; it shines out from all the cracks, but, in the face of men's tepidity and lack of love and their habit of accusing others of sin and excusing themselves, it has to assume the features of a ruthless and resolute power. "Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave." Eventually there comes a point at which God's long animity is all used up, when man will not take advantage of the time remaining to him. Then God's love has to resort to other methods. But please understand that I am talking of God's love. I am not saying that God's love is inwardly limited, by his justice, for instance. This is how many people think of it. But none of God's qualities is limited, least of all his love. Nor is his justice, either, or his mercy. All these qualities totally interpenetrate. We cannot say that God is unjust when, in the parable of the laborers hired to work in the vineyard, he pays the latest-hired man the same as those who have worked from morning. The fact that justice and love coincide in God was one of the most felicitous discoveries of little Therese. It is true, however, that after a certain point has been reached God's love must use severe measures in order to achieve its goals. The judgment that all sinners must undergo, and from which they will not emerge without being purified, after a shorter or longer time, this judgment must be unyielding. It must be completely irrevocable, precisely because what is at stake is access to ultimate pardon.

It is worthwhile dwelling for a moment on this idea of judgment. Catholics believe in the existence of purgatory, a period of purification. Paul explicitly speaks of it in the First Letter to the Corinthians:

"Each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Cor 3:13-15)."

There we have it exactly, this ruthlessness on the part of love. But now, instead of being in the form of a warning in the dimension of time, it actually begins to take measures on the threshold of eternity. Purgatory is nothing other than a dimension of judgment; it is the undergoing of judgment, in which we are measured against the unyielding norm and conformed to it, as we must if we are to be allowed into the kingdom of eternal love. For that is our destination. So the fire of the divine love must burn up everything in us that does not correspond to it. And, depending on how we have lived here on earth, this can be more or less painful; indeed, it may involve appalling pain. Then it may come about that all our earthly superstructure, all we thought we had to identify ourselves with here on earth, will go up in flames, and the burning ruins will fall on us like the tower of Siloam. "He will suffer loss", says Paul, he will grieve over the futility and perversity of his life, and in shame and disgrace he will have to sit down among the dunces to learn the ABCs of real love. Up to now all he knew (and that by heart) was the ABCs of egoism. What can divine mercy do with such a person? He would not even understand it; he would not even know how to accept it. The sinner needs a kind of brainwashing to make him grasp the ideas that lie behind God's love. In the end, however, the ideas God has are the only true ones, and ultimately we simply have to submit to them. In judgment and the fire that goes with it we shall have to walk slowly toward the final, all-embracing idea, the final notion of God's inventiveness, namely, the crucified Son of God. He is the truth, and I must allow myself to accept this truth. The truth of sin: that is your contribution. The truth of grace: that is what God has done for you. Conversion is always a painful and lonely process. No one can do it for me, and I must learn to love things I previously disliked and renounce the very things I previously held dear.

But now let us leave purgatory and return to the world. As Christians we cannot interpret suffering in the world in any other way than as divine love veiling its face when confronted with the world's terrible sinfulness. It may seem to us that those who are less sinful have more to suffer. In that case, no doubt, their suffering is on behalf of the others. The Galileans mentioned in the Gospel were actually having their sacrificial animals slaughtered in the Temple when they themselves were butchered along with them. Compared with others, they were God-fearing sinners. The least guilty can be imprisoned in concentration camps or banished to the Gulag Archipelago. This arises from the Cross of Christ: the better can suffer on behalf of the worse. Or rather, let us say, "are privileged to suffer" on their behalf. And this suffering can be genuinely harsh and pitiless. This is something for us to remember if, in our suffering, we reach the end of our patience; it will support us and prevent us from becoming bitter.

A Transforming Call to Follow

"In these three experiences we see how the true encounter with God brings man to recognize his own poverty and inadequacy, his own limits and sin. "But," said Pope Benedict, "regardless of the fragility, the Lord, rich in mercy and forgiveness, transforms the life of man and he calls him to follow him."

The humilty of these three witnesses in Sunday's Liturgy "invites all who have received the gift of the divine vocation to not concentrate on their own limits, but to keep a fixed gaze on the Lord and on his surprising mercy, to convert their hearts and continue, with joy, to 'give up everything' for Him," Benedict XVI taught.

The Lord sees the heart of man, and makes "intrepid apostles and announcers of salvation" of weak and poor, but faithful, men.

In conclusion, noting the occasion of the Year for Priests, the Holy Father prayed to "the Patron of Masses" to send workers that know how to respond to the Lord's invitation to follow him with generosity, "not trusting in their own strength, opening themselves to the action of His grace."

"In particular," he finished, "I invite all priests to revive their generous availability to respond each day to the call of the Lord with the same humility and faith of Isaiah, Peter and Paul."

CNS Story

Archbishop of York: Anglicans Not True Catholics Who Take up Apostolic Constitution

Discuss

Archbishop Sentamu: "If people genuinely realise that they want to be Roman Catholic, they should convert properly, and go through catechesis and be made proper Catholics. This kind of creation [the Apostolic Constitution] -- well, all I can say is, we wish them every blessing and may the Lord encourage them. But as far as I am concerned, if I was really, genuinely wanting to convert, I wouldn't go into an ordinariate. I would actually go into catechesis and become a truly converted Roman Catholic and be accepted."

William Crawley: "So those Anglicans who take advantage of the Apostolic Constitution, you're saying, would not be 'proper Catholcis'?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "Well, I mean, I'd be very surprised --"

William Crawley: "What would they be if they are not 'proper Catholics'?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "They would be what they are: an ordinariate of the Vatican."

William Crawley: "Anglican Émigrés?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "(Laughter) Well, if I was a Roman Catholic bishop and I had this group within my diocese being looked after by an ordinariate whose reference was back to the Vatican, I'd have to ask a number of questions."

Eucharist: Incarnating the Memory of God as Life for the World

Waking up this morning and reading through the news that concerns faith and life in our culture produced in me what felt like a great tension and battle. What I mean is that there is a faith crisis that not only exists outside the Church but sadly within her as well. Faith gives us the aim for what it means to live. Faith is how we acquire life; a life that is worth living as Cardinal Sheen used to say. Faith produces a life that is worth living for eternity. Faith is life because it is relationship with God in his incarnated love seen in Jesus Christ our Lord. Faith is the means by which we have the ability to really live. Faith is knowing and being known in Christ. When we talk about "our" faith it is not simply a personal faith that we express but the "I" is the collective "I" of the communion of saints in the Church. Faith must always go beyond our private subjectivity so as to enter into the collective which is why we are not autonomous believers and all the news story items today make the point that this is the battle raging in the western world today.

This post is a further development of the post below on the Mass as the incarnation of God's memory with the added qualifier of "life". Memory is a wonderful gift given by God. Though, memory can also be a painful experience for humans. Memory is present only within mankind. Man alone is able to resurrect the past as something more than "instinct" within the animal world. But there is a lot more about memory that we tap into that goes beyond the ability to resurrect the past that allows us life in the present and the future. That is the memory of God being exercised in the Eucharistic offering of the Church.

Throughout the writings of sacred scripture we find God 'remembering' his people and his promises made to them. For God, this memory involves the resurrection of the past but it always brings life into the present and promises it for the future. Our memory alone is limited to the ability to resurrect the past when we live outside God's memory. This is what Schmemann means when he reminds us that our own memories are limited to "death and time rule on the earth." God's memory always shows how imminently he is involved in our personal lives and the life of creation itself. God's memory is real; it is real because it produces life and it is his eternal overcoming of all things that produce death, namely our sin. So, in the Mass we respond to God's memory when the priest in persona Christi incarnates the memory of God on the altar and we receive God's memorial life-giving offering. In this way, it is given only to mankind to remember God as we declare his praise and glory. It is at this point in the Mass where we really come to the knowledge of what it really means to have life.

God has not forgotten us and the Mass is the memorial of life that he gives so that we can give the very gift of Christ himself back to the Father in the celebration of God's memory. God has given that we might offer back his love and life in the self-offering of Christ. Therefore, memory--rather than destroying us due to a culture of death that we now are trying so hard to live within--is turned on its head in the Mass by God's memory incarnating his life to us. God's memory is his divine power to transform his love to life and our memories are renewed to respond to his love by our love for God. When we respond to God's memory in love for God we produce new memories that are no longer limited by "death and time ruling on earth". Our minds (memories) are renewed and being renewed whereby we, in partnership with God's love, create new memories of life and love within us and in others.

In conclusion, God has not forgotten us because he cannot. He cannot forget us because to do so would be to deny himself. A loss of memory is a reminder of death and God's memory is life and overcomes time and everything that seeks to destroy life. This is why faith is the response called for today by all in the Church. It is a faith that is to move from the "we" to the "world". It is a memory that is to be perpetually passed on as the power and life of life itself. In the Mass God remembers and that memory is life for the world.

Lenten Book Plug and Firefox

This is an advert to let the readers know that I have added a link on my sidebar for Father Dwight Longenecker's book in case the readers were looking for something to read through during Lent this year or if you might be looking to send a gift to someone to help them find something to read. All the details are on the left column under Catholic Resources.

If you read this blog, can I HIGHLY recommend that you do so with Firefox and not IE. One would think that Microsoft could get things together by now with the blogging world as busy as it is but they seem to keep missing the mark completely when publishing blogs. So, please, download firefox if you haven't!

Archbishop Vincent Nichols' Address to Holy Father

Most Holy Father,

It is my privilege and delight to address you in the name of the Bishops of England and Wales and all Catholics in our countries.

The visit ‘ad limina Apostolorum’ gives us a precious opportunity of thanking you personally and most warmly for the years of service you are giving to the Apostolic See as our beloved Holy Father. Nor do we forget the years in which you were Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where you always received us with the utmost courtesy and interest.

We wish to assure you of our prayers and heartfelt support for you in the exercise of this supreme Office. We are proud of the strong tradition of profound loyalty to the Holy Father which is part of our heritage in England and Wales. It is very much a feature of our Catholic life.

We would like to take the moment to thank you in particular for your inspiring teaching in the Encyclical Letters you have issued for the whole Church. The most recent of these, ‘Caritas in Veritate’, has been well received in our countries and is making a significant contribution to the debate about and examination of those circumstances and conditions which lead to the recent financial crises and the world wide hardship it has caused.

Your insistence on the central place of the human person, and of integral human development, is a powerful reminder that the most important truths have to shape economic and social programmes if they are to be of genuine service to the common good. First among these are, of course, the respect for life from its beginnings and the crucial role of marriage and family for the well-being not only of children but also for the good of society.

We thank you for the leadership you have given, even in recent months, on the questions of our care for the environments of our world: both the natural environment and, crucially, the human ecology necessary for our proper development.

These matters are of deep concern to many in our countries, including many young people, who have accepted the invitation, in large numbers, to look closely at ways in which they can live more simply, so that others may simply live.

We thank you, too, for your constant encouragement to us through the initiatives of the Year of St Paul and the Year for Priests. In our different dioceses we have built on these invitations both in the deeper appreciation of the Word of God and of the gift of the Eucharist. At this time we appreciate your concern for the dignity and reverence with which the Mass is celebrated. This is a central part of the life of every priest and bishop and we are committed to constant effort in this regard.

In particular the new translations of the Roman Missal offer us an opportune moment to deepen our appreciation of the Mass. Through catechesis we can renew our reception of the richness of the Church’s faith through the ages which, in faithfulness, is now handed on to us in these texts.

Of particular delicacy for us is the response made by you, Holy Father, to those Anglicans who, from different parts of the world, asked for a pathway to be established by which they could come into the full communion of the Catholic Church bringing with them elements of the Anglican patrimony which fully accord with Catholic faith.

Years of close cooperation and deepening friendship and communion with our brothers and sisters in the Church of England have helped us to ensure that the various interpretations of and reactions to ‘Anglicanorum Coetibus’ have not seriously disrupted the relationships between our Ecclesial Communions.

Indeed the commitment to commence a third round of discussions as part of the work of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission has reinforced this relationship. We remain ready to explore with those Anglicans in England and Wales who wish to take up your generous and paternal response to their requests the ways forward towards full communion. We ask for your prayers in these important and sensitive matters.

But most importantly of all, Holy Father, we wish to express our joy at the prospect of your visit to our countries. We are grateful to Her Majesty the Queen, and to her Government, for the invitation extended to you and for the manner in which preparations are being undertaken. The entire Catholic community looks forward to this much hoped-for visit and the encouragement you will give not only to us but to all our fellow citizens.

There are, of course, great challenges facing the Catholic community in our land, as we strive to be faithful to the Lord in both word and deed. But there is also an openness to the things of faith, not least in a time of uncertainty and anxiety about many aspects of our society.

We are confident that your presence and teaching, with its consistent and reasoned appeal to all people, will be warmly received, as will you be personally. The Beatification of the Venerable John Henry Newman, who spoke so eloquently to our English tradition and culture, is, we trust, the eagerly anticipated climax of your proposed visit.

Most Holy Father, we are honoured to be received by you today. In this visit we strive to deepen the bonds of ecclesial communion not only between the Apostolic See and the Conference of Bishops, but more importantly between the Catholic community we serve and you yourself, Holy Father. You remain a vital sign and source of our visible unity in the Lord. We thank you most profoundly for this ministry and we assure you of our unwavering loyalty and prayers. We ask of you, Holy Father, your Apostolic Blessing for ourselves and for our people.

+Vincent Nichols

Archbishop of Westminster

Pray for the Bishops of England and Wales

Let us also please remember to pray for our bishops as they will need it in the coming days.

Pray for Pope Benedict XVI

The BBC reports the following comments about the Holy Father. What a sad testimony to reasoned sanity in public debate. I honestly wonder if something of this magnitude of abusive language would go unchecked if it were a leader of other faith groups? The BBC quotes these antagonist to say the following about the Holy Father:

President Terry Sanderson said: "The taxpayer in this country is going to be faced with a bill of some £20m [What a silly figure! Try £3-£6 million] for the visit of the Pope - a visit in which he has already indicated he will attack equal rights and promote discrimination."

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said the Pope's comments were a "coded attack on the legal rights granted to women and gay people".[So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, 'Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God; you must judge; for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.']

"His ill-informed claim that our equality laws undermine religious freedom suggests that he supports the right of churches to discriminate in accordance with their religious ethos," he said.[Does the State have the right to dictate to Faith groups their doctrine? What sort of neo-Erastian rubbish is this? 'Why do the nations rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth set themselves in array, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed.]

"He seems to be defending discrimination by religious institutions and demanding that they should be above the law."[God's law is above man's law.]

Jesus says the following to Pope Benedict XVI and all of his flock:

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persectuted the prophets who were before you." Matthew 5:11-12.

While they persecute the Holy Father, you can bet that he will be praying for those who persecute him. 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.'

Pope's Ad Limina Address to the Bishops of England and Wales

Dear Brother Bishops,
I welcome all of you on your ad Limina visit to Rome, where you have come to venerate the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. I thank you for the kind words that Archbishop Vincent Nichols has addressed to me on your behalf, and I offer you my warmest good wishes and prayers for yourselves and all the faithful of England and Wales entrusted to your pastoral care. Your visit to Rome strengthens the bonds of communion between the Catholic community in your country and the Apostolic See, a communion that sustained your people’s faith for centuries, and today provides fresh energies for renewal and evangelization. Even amid the pressures of a secular age, there are many signs of living faith and devotion among the Catholics of England and Wales. I am thinking, for example, of the enthusiasm generated by the visit of the relics of Saint Thérèse, the interest aroused by the prospect of Cardinal Newman’s beatification, and the eagerness of young people to take part in pilgrimages and World Youth Days. On the occasion of my forthcoming Apostolic Visit to Great Britain, I shall be able to witness that faith for myself and, as Successor of Peter, to strengthen and confirm it. During the months of preparation that lie ahead, be sure to encourage the Catholics of England and Wales in their devotion, and assure them that the Pope constantly remembers them in his prayers and holds them in his heart.


Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed. I urge you as Pastors to ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended. Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others – on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth. Continue to insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society. In doing so, you are not only maintaining long-standing British traditions of freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion, but you are actually giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them: when so many of the population claim to be Christian, how could anyone dispute the Gospel’s right to be heard?

If the full saving message of Christ is to be presented effectively and convincingly to the world, the Catholic community in your country needs to speak with a united voice. This requires not only you, the Bishops, but also priests, teachers, catechists, writers – in short all who are engaged in the task of communicating the Gospel – to be attentive to the promptings of the Spirit, who guides the whole Church into the truth, gathers her into unity and inspires her with missionary zeal.

Make it your concern, then, to draw on the considerable gifts of the lay faithful in England and Wales and see that they are equipped to hand on the faith to new generations comprehensively, accurately, and with a keen awareness that in so doing they are playing their part in the Church’s mission. In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate. It is the truth revealed through Scripture and Tradition and articulated by the Church’s Magisterium that sets us free. Cardinal Newman realized this, and he left us an outstanding example of faithfulness to revealed truth by following that “kindly light” wherever it led him, even at considerable personal cost. Great writers and communicators of his stature and integrity are needed in the Church today, and it is my hope that devotion to him will inspire many to follow in his footsteps.

Much attention has rightly been given to Newman’s scholarship and to his extensive writings, but it is important to remember that he saw himself first and foremost as a priest. In this Annus Sacerdotalis, I urge you to hold up to your priests his example of dedication to prayer, pastoral sensitivity towards the needs of his flock, and passion for preaching the Gospel. You yourselves should set a similar example. Be close to your priests, and rekindle their sense of the enormous privilege and joy of standing among the people of God as alter Christus. In Newman’s words, “Christ’s priests have no priesthood but His … what they do, He does; when they baptize, He is baptizing; when they bless, He is blessing” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, VI 242). Indeed, since the priest plays an irreplaceable role in the life of the Church, spare no effort in encouraging priestly vocations and emphasizing to the faithful the true meaning and necessity of the priesthood. Encourage the lay faithful to express their appreciation of the priests who serve them, and to recognize the difficulties they sometimes face on account of their declining numbers and increasing pressures. The support and understanding of the faithful is particularly necessary when parishes have to be merged or Mass times adjusted. Help them to avoid any temptation to view the clergy as mere functionaries but rather to rejoice in the gift of priestly ministry, a gift that can never be taken for granted.

Ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue assume great importance in England and Wales, given the varied demographic profile of the population. As well as encouraging you in your important work in these areas, I would ask you to be generous in implementing the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, so as to assist those groups of Anglicans who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. I am convinced that, if given a warm and open-hearted welcome, such groups will be a blessing for the entire Church.

With these thoughts, I commend your apostolic ministry to the intercession of Saint David, Saint George and all the saints and martyrs of England and Wales. May Our Lady of Walsingham guide and protect you always. To all of you, and to the priests, religious and lay faithful of your country, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of peace and joy in the Lord Jesus Christ.

From the Vatican, 1 February 2010