August 9th - St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was proclaimed a patron saint of Europe in 1999. Along with Catherine of Siena and Bridget of Sweden, she was chosen by Pope John Paul II "to emphasize the important role that women have had and have in the ecclesial and civil history of the continent down to our days." Each of these women was "connected in a special way with the Continent's history" and St Teresa in particular was described by John Paul II as "a symbol of the dramas in Europe in our time".

Born in 1891 to a Jewish family in Breslau, Edith Stein was a suffragette in university, a philosopher and teacher, and a nurse in the First World War. Although she had given up the practice of her Jewish religion at the age of 14, her study of phenomenology and her continual search for truth led to a realization that there is an objective reality that is the ground of all reality and makes all things knowable. So she came to recognize the reality of God. Based on her philosophical writings on 'The Problem of Empathy', John Paul II notes that Edith Stein saw that "this reality [of God] must be heeded and grasped above all in the human being, by virtue of that capacity for empathy, a word dear to her which enables one in some way to appropriate the lived experience of the other". Thus she began to read the experiences of God as related by Christians and especially the mystics. One evening Edith picked up the autobiography of St Teresa of Avila and read this book all night. She recounts: "When I had finished the book, I said to myself: this is the truth." Thus she came to faith in Christ and asked to be baptised in 1922.

St Teresa's search for truth and meaning, which led her through philosophy, to a discovery of the experience of God as expressed in the lives of great European Christians is instructive for us today, for European society seems to have forgotten its Christian heritage and seeks to divorce itself from the Christian experience of its past. In doing so, it can no longer empathise with its forebears and risks becoming uprooted, without an identity.

Conversely, Edith Stein not only empathised with the religious experience of great European saints but also remained rooted in her Jewish identity. She never saw her conversion to Christ as a rejection of her Jewish heritage and indeed she said that she "did not begin to feel Jewish again until I had returned to God". Although she went on to become a Carmelite nun, her Jewish roots never left her and indeed she suffered the Holocaust with her people. Her recorded last words, to her sister, when the Gestapo came to take them from her convent to Auschwitz on 2 August 1942 were: "come, we are going for our people" Already in 1933, when the Nazis took over Germany, Edith had written that "[Jesus'] Cross... was now being laid upon the Jewish people" and as a Catholic Jewess she felt that she was able to bring the suffering of the Jews to the Cross in a special way. She wrote: "I felt that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take it upon themselves on everybody's behalf".

St Teresa's understanding of the Cross was profound, and her last work, left unfinished by her arrest in 1942, was entitled "Kreuzeswissenschaft" (The Science of the Cross). Clinging to the Cross as our only hope, she knew that "those who are joined to Christ... will unflinchingly persevere even in the dark night of subjectively feeling remote from and abandoned by God... Getting to resurrection glory with the Son of Man, through suffering and death, is also the way for each one of us and for all mankind."

This eternal wisdom and gospel of hope is something that the Church proclaims and which Europe needs to hear. For without her ancient Faith, and feeling remote from God, Europe languishes in moral confusion and gropes for purpose and direction. It is not Brussels bureaucracy or European legislation that will save us but only, as Edith Stein learnt, a conversion to God who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

August 6th - The Feast of the Transfiguration

Living the life of faith is often hard when things are not going well in our spiritual lives. We sit and pray, yet no nice feelings of peace or warmth seem to come. It becomes just plain boring to spend time with the Lord, to the extent that when our time for regular prayer comes, even the most unimportant thing that we have been putting off for months becomes the most urgent task! Or we drag ourselves off to Church, or to our room and just sit there, wishing that time would pass..... Anyone who has ever made some sort of attempt to pray will have experienced the closeness of God - a mini Transfiguration moment, if you like, when God seemed very real and present to us. These kind of experiences are a gift, but often few and far between. When things seem less exciting, what should we do?

Well, there is much to learn from today's Gospel (Matthew 17:1-9). Once the disciples have experienced the presence of the Lord, in all its wonder and terror, they are told to rise, and it is all over. They wanted a moment that would last forever, but they have to get up, be on their way.... after all, there are things to do. But of course, this does not mean that they have to leave the presence of God. The appearance of Moses and Elijah with Jesus - the Law and the Prophets side by side with the one who fulfills both - serves as a reminder to them (and to us) of how God is continually present. For us it is a reminder of God's special presence in the scriptures and in the sacraments, which reveal Christ and offer him to us. So we need not tie God's loving care of us to feelings and emotions, but trust that through our prayer, our reading of the Bible and our participation in the liturgical life of the Church, we continue to receive Christ in our lives, and be transformed by him.... transformed so that we can go into the world and make him known.

A-Z of Paul: Marriage

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says it is good for a man not to touch a woman; yet to avoid immorality every man should have his own wife and every woman her own husband.

From this, one might suppose that St Paul had a rather negative view of marriage; it is tempting to think he saw marriage as the lesser of two evils. On this basis, some people even attempt to analyze St Paul’s psychological makeup and come to very unflattering conclusions.

However, in interpreting what St Paul says on marriage, we need to understand the circumstances in which he was writing. There is little evidence to suggest that sexual immorality was common amongst the Corinthians. Yes there was the case of incest mentioned in 1 Cor 5, but in the wider context of the letter to the Corinthians, Paul is concerned with those who claimed to have a superior knowledge of God. The inability to deal with a particular case of sexual immorality was just an example to show how empty the Corinthians’ claim to superior knowledge was.

St Paul, in writing to the Corinthians about marriage was trying to heal a split in the community. Reading between the lines, it is likely that Paul was addressing a group of Corinthians who were not only celibate, but who also disapproved of any sexual activity, even within marriage. St Paul in mentioning “it is good for a man not to touch a woman” could be quoting a Corinthian slogan, a slogan which he agrees with to the extent that it forbids incestuous relationships or sexual intercourse with prostitutes, but to the extent that it forbids marriage or enforces sexual abstinence within marriage, he does not agree. St Paul does recognise celibacy as a gift, but he rejects the Corinthians’ attempt to make one particular expression of the spiritual life binding on all believers. So he does not see sex within marriage as sinful, but he advises believers to marry in holiness and honour.

Being married is no obstacle to living a holy life which is pleasing to God, but St Paul goes further than this. In the letter to the Ephesians, St Paul describes Christian marriage as mirroring the relationship Christ has with the Church. Husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ also loved the Church. Therefore marriage is a sign of the mysterious union of Christ with the Church, and the sign of marriage is a way in which this union with Christ can be actually realised by the individual, a way of participating in God’s divine life. Thus St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians helps us appreciate the great importance of Christian marriage and helps us understand why it is a sacrament.

John Paul II Pilgrimage from Ely to Walsingham

Last week, the annual John Paul II pilgrimage from Ely to Walsingham was held. The pilgrimage was a great success with over 30 people, both young and old, taking part, walking along some of the same paths that have been used by pilgrims for centuries.

It was organised by Sr. Hyacinth of the Dominican Sisters of St. Joseph, and Fr Ben Earl was the Dominican Chaplain. As we walked the fifty mile journey over two and a half days, there was a real sense in which we were capturing the Dominican spirit. Like St Dominic, we were on the road for the sake of the Gospel, for the salvation of souls, praying and singing hymns as we walked along.

Pilgrimage can be seen as a metaphor for the Christian life. A pilgrimage has a clear destination, a definite purpose and goal, and this is reflected in life, a journey in which our final destination is with God. On a pilgrimage we need to continually check that we are going in the right direction, and so too in life, we need to continually check that our lives are directed towards Christ. As we journey, we do not go it alone, but we travel down paths which others have trod, we journey as a community of believers helping each other along the way, always encouraging, building friendships and bonds of love, not letting anyone get left behind.

Pilgrimage can also be a way of discovering that ascetic dimension to life, a dimension in which in one way or another, all Christians are called to participate. Christ showed his great love for us by dying on the cross, and so in a small way by doing something arduous and renouncing ourselves, we can show our love for Christ and grow in the virtue of charity.

In the Middle Ages, pilgrimage was very much associated with penance. In the 12th Century, Pope Eugenius III gave St Gerlac the penance of making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and spending seven years there serving the sick and the poor. St Gerlac had asked for a severe penance in order to make amends for his former way of life. Whilst our two and a half day pilgrimage hardly compares with the efforts to which St Gerlac went, the penitential nature of our pilgrimage was still present. We were reminded of the great importance of the sacrament of reconciliation and we were encouraged to go to confession so that we could enter Walsingham having been forgiven of all our sins.

On arriving at the Slipper Chapel, we prayed to Our Lady for the conversion of England and Wales, before going into Mass in the Chapel of Reconciliation. We then walked the final mile into Walsingham, praying the Rosary as we went, joyful in the anticipation of reaching our final destination. Our pilgrimage came to an end with Benediction in the Church of the Annunciation in Walsingham; it was a chance to focus on our final goal, life with Christ, and an opportunity to be thankful for the many graces which we had received through the prayers of Our Lady of Walsingham on our pilgrimage.

A-Z of Paul: Love

Paul's most famous statement about love is in 1 Corinthians 13: 'I may have tongues of angels, I may prophesy, and I may give my body to be burned but if it is without love then I am nothing, I gain nothing'. Love is always patient and kind, never jealous or rude, believes all things, endures all things, hopes all things. It is important to remember how the passage is introduced as otherwise it can seem simply incredible: 'I will show you a WAY that is better than any other'. What Paul means by love is a way of living, an ideal towards which we must continually strive, a direction in which we ought to be moving. It is unlikely that anybody, on reading 1 Cor 13, would say 'I know someone like that', far less 'I'm just like that'. We can meditate on it replacing the word 'love' with the name Jesus and it still works. Meditating on it while replacing the word 'love' with your own name is a salutary, humbling exercise. Paul speaks elsewhere too of love as a way in which Christians are to walk (Col 3:14; Eph 5:2).

What had swept Paul off his feet and turned his life on its head was a realisation that the Christian gospel was true: Jesus was not only messiah but Son of God, the final and complete revelation of the Father's glory, a glory revealed as love. This is why Christians can dare to hope that they might one day love God and one another as Jesus has loved us, because 'God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us' (Rom 5:5). Paul is overwhelmed by seeing that the love of God revealed in Christ is the most powerful reality there is, the most real thing. Nothing can prevail against it, whether past, present or future, whether physical or spiritual, whether powers or heights or depths, nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:31-39).

Love is not a new law imposed from without. It is, certainly, a word in which the whole law is fulfilled (Gal 5:14) but it is a new kind of law, something bubbling up urgently inside us (2 Cor 5:14) , the first fruit of the Spirit in us (Gal 5:22). To know Christ's love surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:19). The Spirit we have received is a Spirit of power, love and self-control (2 Tim 1:7).

In spite of such profound statements Paul is not starry-eyed or unrealistic about love. He knows that God's love has been revealed in the suffering and death of Jesus. In his first recorded reference to it he speaks of 'the labour of love' (1 Thess 1:3). The truth is to be lived out in love, in many very practical ways of loving and supporting the neighbour (Romans 12-16; 2 Corinthians 8-10). The supreme and most ordinary example of human love, that of husband and wife, is itself a mystery that reveals something to us of the love Christ has for the Church (Ephesians 5).

Paul is not shy about proclaiming his love for the people who have come to faith through his preaching. So often at the end of his letters he says 'give my love to X', 'give my love to Y', 'you know how much we loved you, like a nurse, like a father, like a mother ...' The heart of the gospel is the great truth that 'God is love', that God has revealed his love in Jesus Christ, and that the Spirit of God's love has been given to us so that we can work in it and walk in it. All who come to believe in Jesus belong to a great communion of love, a body held together and given life by the same Spirit of love. Paul says we are to seek to outdo one another only in this matter of love, not allowing ourselves to be overcome by evil but overcoming evil with good (Rom 12:9-21).

A-Z of Paul: Koinonia

What does it mean for us to receive Holy Communion? The Greek word St Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 10:16 is koinonia, and so that verse may be translated thus: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." Paul used this word frequently to signify the relationship that we have with one another because of our common salvation in Christ. Through his saving body and blood, we are united and held in fellowship, koinonia, by the Holy Spirit.

This sacred fellowship of all the baptised who are united in the Spirit is called the Church. We become the Mystical Body of Christ because, having been baptised into Christ, we receive his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Holy Communion is thus a sign of the holy koinonia we share; it is a mark of our unity and love for one another, precisely because we have been called together as God's people and continue to be transformed by the Eucharist into the Body of Christ, the Church.

St Paul strongly berates those who gather for the Eucharist but remain divided from their fellow Christians (see 1 Cor 11:18-34). Indeed, he says that the one who "eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself". On one level we can say that this refers to those who do not realise that the Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Christ, but we can also see that St Paul refers primarily to those who receive Holy Communion but do not discern that our Eucharistic koinonia is a sign of the real unity and communion that exist among us in the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. Therefore, the Church also teaches that grave sin wounds our communion with God and one another. Thus, communion has to be restored through the sacrament of Reconciliation (penance, or confession) before one can receive the Eucharist with integrity.

Moreover, as Pope Benedict has said: "The Eucharist is the sacrament of communion between brothers and sisters who allow themselves to be reconciled in Christ, who made of Jews and pagans one people, tearing down the wall of hostility which divided them (see Eph 2:14). Only this constant impulse towards reconciliation enables us to partake worthily of the Body and Blood of Christ" (Sacramentum Caritatis 89).

Furthermore, since Holy Communion is an expression of the unity of the entire Church, we should not make the Eucharist into a celebration of private groups and cliques thus dividing the Church into various parties. Rather, as the Pope, when he was Joseph Ratzinger, reminded us, Holy Communion calls us out of ourselves into the Body of Christ, "beyond all boundaries and divisions [so that the Mass] becomes a point from which a universal love is bound to shine forth", drawing others into the unity of the Church and communion with God.

Finally because of the essential communion that exists among Christians, St Paul also speaks of koinonia as a sharing of finances, of helping to further the preaching mission, and of sharing in the sufferings of Christ and of the members of the Church. Thus, ideas of Christian charitable aid, prayers for one another, and solidarity with poor and persecuted Christians around the world, are all expressions of our sacred communion in Christ that is rooted in the sacrament of Holy Communion.

July 25 - Saint James

Readings: 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Psalm 125; Matthew 20:20-28

The Gospel lists of the twelve disciples appointed by Jesus to be his companions mention two who share the name James: James, the son of Zebedee and James, the son of Alphaeus (Mark 3:17-18; Matthew 10:2-3). To distinguish the two, the first James, whose feast we celebrate on the 25th July, has commonly been styled "James, the Greater" while tradition has designated the second "James, the Lesser". These titles perhaps refer to the different degrees of attention each of these disciples receives in the New Testament accounts of Jesus´ministry.

James the Greater and his brother, the disciple John, received from Jesus the nickname Boanerges, or "Sons of Thunder". Several incidents in the Gospels point, in fact, to their fiery, impetuous temperaments. For example, when some Samaritans refuse to receive Jesus into their village James and John ask that they might be allowed to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans (Luke 9:54). Together with Peter, James and his brother John form part of a privileged group within the circle of the Twelve permitted to witness important moments in the life of Jesus. The three disiciples are present at the miracle of the raising of Jairus´daughter (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51), at the Transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:28) and during Jesus´agony in the garden of Gethsemene (Matthew 26:37; Mark 14:33). They are thus witnesses both to the divine splendour and glory of Jesus and to his suffering and humiliation as the moment of his Crucifixion draws ever closer. It is within the context of these events that James and the other disciples had to learn what kind of Messiah Jesus was to be. In particular, they had to adapt their triumphalist understanding of Jesus seen, for example, in the request of James and John to sit in glory, one on the right and one on the left of Jesus, in his kingdom (Mark 10:37), learning instead that Christian discipleship involves drinking the same cup that Jesus was to drink, that is to say, sharing in his suffering and in his Cross. It is precisly this cup that James was later called to share. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that several years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, perhaps in AD 44, James suffered martyrdom at the hands of King Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great (Acts 12:1-2).

Various traditions exist claiming that Saint James preached Christianity in Spain and that his body was later translated to Compostela, in the north-western corner of the Iberian Peninsula. During the Middle Ages Compostela became one of the most frequented pilgrimage sites and even today it continues to be the destination for many pilgrims. Pope Benedict XVI has pointed to three important features in the life of James the Greater that continue to provide an example for Christians today: "promptness in accepting the Lord´s call even when he asks us to leave the "boat" of our human securities, enthusiasm in following him on the paths that he indicates to us over and above any deceptive presumption of our own, readiness to witness to him with courage, if necessary to the point of making the supreme sacrifice of life".

A-Z of Paul: Justification

The arguments that broke out at the time of the Protestant reformation ensured that 'justification' became one of the best known and most controversial of Paul's words. Justification is the usual English translation of the Greek term dikaiosune when it is applied to human beings: in what Christ has done, God has 'justified' us. When the same term is applied to God it is usually translated 'righteousness'. So Paul says that 'the righteousness (dikaiosune) of God is revealed in the gospel by faith for the purpose of faith, as it is written 'the righteous one (ho dikaios) by faith shall live'' (Romans 1:17, quoting Habbakuk 2:4). God who is just and faithful has put forward his Son as atoning sacrifice, Paul continues (Romans 3:24-26). The faithfulness of Jesus seen in the shedding of his blood reveals God's righteousness, that God has been patient and 'passed over former sins'. The action of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus has not only shown God to be righteous but has revealed also that those who participate in the faithfulness of Jesus are 'justified' and 'made righteous', 'brought into right relationship' with God.

So 'justification' is another in that list of terms needed to bring out the implications of what God has done in and through Jesus. Paul speaks of it as grace, salvation, redemption, reconciliation, life, freedom, sanctification, new creation, and also as justification. In Romans 5, he contrasts the consequences of Adam's trespass (death, condemnation, judgement) with the consequences of Christ's obedience (grace, justification, acquittal and life). In Romans 8 when speaking of the life in the Spirit made possible for those who believe in Christ he speaks of predestination, vocation, justification and glorification: 'We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified' (Romans 8:28-30).

Justification is by faith, our participation in the faithfulness of Jesus. This is made possible by the gift of the Spirit, the love of God poured into our hearts who assures us that we are children of God, heirs with Christ, destined to be glorified with him if we share his sufferings (Romans 8:17). 'For in Christ Jesus we are all children of God, through faith' (Galatians 3:26).

Click here for the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification of the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church