Catholic Social Teaching: Economic Justice and the Dignity of the Worker

“Never discuss religion and politics”, they say. So one would appear to be straying into dangerous territory in seeking to discuss economic justice and the dignity of the worker in the context of Catholic Social Teaching; for if ever there was an area in which the taboo two meet head on, it is surely this?

In any event I often used to find at dinner parties that politics would come up, perhaps with the other guests hoping, in vain, that if they let me talk about politics they would not have to hear me out on religion. Conversation would inevitably involve one half of the table railing against the plight of the poor and the need for greater welfare provision, whilst the other half would talk about the evils of state welfare dependence, and need to empower people and reduce government intervention in people’s lives. Unwittingly, both positions point to the two pillars of Catholic Social Teaching: solidarity and subsidiarity.

Subsidiarity, implied throughout the whole of Catholic social theory and given its clearest expression in Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, means that in the adjudication of matters political and economic, a preferential option should be given to the more local level of authority. The state should not interfere in matters in which people are competent to decide for themselves. Furthermore the state should not presume its citizens are incompetent to determine what is best for them just because they are poor as this undermines their intrinsic dignity.

However, subsidiarity must always be balanced by solidarity, which is to say, a keen sense of the common good, of the natural and supernatural connections that bind us to one another, of our responsibility for each other. The message of the parable of the Good Samaritan is not vitiated by subsidiarity. Nor, as many point out, should the state discourage the individual from helping others; the elimination of charity is not the aim of solidarity. Nevertheless, the concept of solidarity acknowledges that sometimes the government is the legitimate vehicle by which social solidarity is achieved. There are things that we cannot achieve as individuals at a small community level, but which we can achieve on a larger scale with combined efforts and resources. However, it must always be remembered that “solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State” (Caritas in Veritate).

“Thus the principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need” (Caritas in Veritate) . . . the aforementioned dinner party tension!

Where though does economic justice fit into all this, and what might the Church usefully have to say about it? Is the Church even qualified to have an opinion on such matters? Well, almost no one predicted the global financial crisis which came to a head in 2008, including most economists, although in an interview back in 1996 when asked his opinion, on the Western economic system and its then trajectory, one churchman gave the following perceptive analysis, showing that we might just be worth listening to on such matters:

As a matter of fact, I understand too little of the world's economic system to say. But it is apparent that in the long run it can't continue as it is. First of all, there is the inner contradiction of the indebtedness of states, which live in a paradoxical situation; for, on the one hand, they issue money and, in general, guarantee the value of money but, on the other hand, are actually bankrupt, if we judge in terms of the debts. There is, of course, also the debt disparity between North and South. All of this shows that we live in a whole network of fictions and contradictions and that this process cannot continue on indefinitely. 

"We have just witnessed [Spring 1996] this curious situation in America. Suddenly the state can no longer pay its debts and must close shop, so to speak, and furlough its civil servants, which is a crying contradiction because the state has the responsibility for holding the whole together. The incident has shown in a drastic way that our system contains gross mistakes and that a considerable effort is required to find the corrective elements.

This critique of the prevailing system is characteristic of much Catholic Social Teaching on economic justice. It is not prescriptive, respecting their legitimate autonomy on such matters; it does not give detailed requirements of how states are to organise themselves, but rather with the benefit of critical distance identifies trends; what is potentially positive in them; what is less desirable; and also where excesses may lead.

Seeking to proclaim the truth in and out of season, inevitably finds the Church often teaching against the prevailing consensus; accusations have been levelled that its teaching on economic justice has been both in favour of Marxism and unbridled capitalism. The truth though is that when the Church looks at economic justice it never does so from a purely economic point of view. This point is key. The Church refuses to see the human person as purely an economic agent or utility maximiser. We are so much more than this and public policy must take this into account, as Pope St John Paul II sets out in Centesimus Annus:

The economy in fact is only one aspect and one dimension of the whole of human activity. [Where] economic life is absolutised, [and] the production and consumption of goods become the centre of social life and society's only value, not subject to any other value, the reason [for this] is to be found not so much in the economic system itself as in the fact that the entire socio-cultural system, by ignoring the ethical and religious dimension, has been weakened, and ends by limiting itself to the production of goods and services alone.

All of this can be summed up by repeating once more that economic freedom is only one element of human freedom. When it becomes autonomous, when man is seen more as a producer or consumer of goods than as a subject who produces and consumes in order to live, then economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up by alienating and oppressing him.

Thus any public policy which fails to take in account what it means to be human and to flourish fully as a human being, not just as an economic agent, is never going to benefit society truly. The idea that if we just get the economic system right everything else will take care of itself which seems relatively uncontested across all political parties at present is what Pope Francis rails against in Evangelii Gaudium. He asks the jolting question:

How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?

neatly illustrating the warped mentality that has led us in many cases to believe that we are ruled by the financial systems in place rather than their being at our service, as if somehow we did not have the free will to act differently and economic events just happen to us. We need to change, not just the system in the abstract.

He then goes to on to criticise the idea that if one segment of society gets richer everyone else will automatically benefit:

“. . . some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralised workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.”

Some cheap headline seekers have sought to suggest that is the Pope saying that capitalism is wrong and advocating Marxism, however, this is badly to miss his point. What he is saying is that we can never delegate our responsibilities of justice, fairness and a concern for the poor, to the system. We, at an individual and a societal level, always have moral responsibilities to those around us, which no system, no matter how fair, will ever abrogate. As EF Schumacher wrote: “The economic problem . . . is a problem which has been solved already; we know how to provide enough and do not require any violent, inhuman, aggressive technologies to do so. There is no economic problem and, in a sense, there never has been. But there is a moral problem, and moral problems . . . are not capable of being solved so that future generations can live without effort.”

What particularly alarms me as we move beyond the economic crisis of 2008 is how wealth inequality is growing at an unprecedented rate once more, and there seems to be a presumption from some that if only the rich become even richer, the poor will eventually benefit. Eventually in and of itself is not good enough, irrespective of the absence of evidence that this will in fact eventually happen. Economic justice, not only demands that change occur to those structures of inequality that mean that those who were in large part responsible for the crash are the first to recover from it, but also that those currently reaping rewards do not ignore the plight of those less fortunate and assume that somehow they will be okay . . . eventually. We have a responsibility towards our fellow members of society that should compel us to do something now.

As the US Bishops have written on economic justice: “Our faith calls us to measure [the] economy not only by what it produces, but also by how it touches human life and whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the human person. Economic decisions have human consequences and moral content; they help or hurt people, strengthen or weaken family life, advance or diminish the quality of justice in our land.” We need as a society to become more keenly aware of all these aspects, and we need to do this quickly. At the same time as advocating for fairer systems, we must not lose sight of the fact that we can have an impact at an individual level too. We can think about where we shop and who benefits, if we have responsibility for setting somebody’s wages this also should give us pause for thought.

Today being the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, in this context, I want to reflect briefly on the dignity of the worker. The Church has always seen the dignity of work in and of itself. Work is not just viewed as a means to an end, but as something which has worth in and of itself. This is why we should never be content about having large numbers of people out of work, even if the benefits given to them were sufficient to support them and their dependents. There is a justifiable sense of self-worth to be derived from work and furthermore anybody who has ever watched The Jeremy Kyle Show will know that there is at least one good reason not to be idle at home during the day!

Mosaic of St Joseph the Worker, with Jesus and Mary

In Laborum Exercens, Pope St. John Paul II looks on work not just as a means of self-support but also as a contribution to society and one way in which Man is distinguished from the rest of Creation:

“Through work man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology and, above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family. And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very natures, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe and image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work.”

This is a very different conception of work and the worker from the mindset, all too prevalent, which sees the worker as a merely another production cost. Employers need to realise that their workers are human being with lives and aspirations outside of their work. Wages should never be viewed as just another necessary expenditure to be cut as far as possible for the sake of the profit margins. The argument that says paying higher wages, where people would work for less, is a dereliction of the duty to act in the interest of the shareholders rests on a selfish conception of the shareholder as one who is only interested in his own profits. If , though, we are to flourish fully as human beings this cannot be the dominant mindset. Nor is this pure pipedreaming, there are companies out there that treat staff equitably and continue to flourish in a difficult trading environment, John Lewis springs to mind.

The shrewd analyst who predicted the economic crash back in 1996 (Joseph Ratzinger) had something further to say on remedying the prevailing economic system:

“But I would like to add that we will not find [the corrective elements for our economic system] if there is no common capacity for sacrifice. For these correctives cannot simply be created by government prescription.

"This is the great test of strength for societies. We must learn that we cannot have everything we would like, that we must also go a notch below the standard that we have reached. We must once again find our way beyond what we currently possess, beyond the defence of our rights and claims. And this transformation of hearts is needed in order to make sacrifices for the future and for others. This, I think, will be the real acid test of our system.”

Christ crucified - the ultimate sacrifice

For the ultimate example of sacrifice, we need look no further that the inspiration behind all Catholic Social Teaching, Jesus.

Catherine of Siena

"Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." So was today's Dominican Saint, Catherine of Siena, quoted by the Anglican Bishop of London at a recent wedding. That the words of an illiterate Italian mystic of the fourteenth century, recorded by amanuenses, should be quoted at the wedding of the future King and Queen of an apparently post-Christian country is remarkable. Still more remarkable, however, is the influence that Catherine had in her own lifetime. Befriending popes and politicians through correspondence from the seclusion of her austere cell and through her adventurous travels, Catherine decisively engaged the political landscape of her day, playing an important role in resolving the Avignon schism. Catherine, then, had surely taken her own advice and discovered the gift and mystery of herself: daring to be a Daniel, speaking the truth to the powerful and mighty on behalf of the poor and marginalised, she was as concerned by the rights of political prisoners as she was by the unity of Christendom, and all this before her early death aged thirty-three.  

Without any lack of admiration for this great mystic and theologian of our Order, however, I must confess that I find Catherine's heavily stylised writings very difficult to digest. Some of the images she deploys, particularly to narrate her mystical marriage to Jesus, are, perhaps, not immediately engaging to today's reader of Anglo-Saxon temperament. Nonetheless, there can be no denying that Catherine's admonition to us to 'become who we are' resonates deeply with the spiritual longings of modernity, which seem to be governed by the un-ending quest for self-realisation and self-determination. Some might even see in Catherine a medieval anticipation of Dr. Seuss: "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." 

Yet, for Catherine, self-realisation is emphatically not a matter of self-determination. If there is a single theme that unites her life and writings, it is that of discernment, the capacity to hear God's call in the individual particularity of daily life. Catherine's teaching on discernment is indebted to the thought of her brother, St Thomas Aquinas (mediated by her spiritual director, Raymond of Capua OP), and yet develops in a way that anticipates the later writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. In an era when the spiritual vocabulary of many of her contemporaries had shifted to speak primarily in terms of the moral virtue of prudence, Catherine prefers the more old-fashioned category of discrezione, usually translated as 'discernment'. Whilst the English 'discernment' suggests some sort of introspective search for hidden signals from the divine, Catherine's discrezione (perhaps more adequately rendered as 'discretion') is a much more expansive and thoroughly bodily reality: morality and mysticism, thought and action, coinhere in obedience to truth. For Catherine, true discretion, as the pathway to self-realisation, is primarily a matter of obedience to God: we do not realise our own potential by inward discovery, but through reception of the gift and obligation of ourselves in being personally claimed by God. 

It was not, then, for simply historical reasons that Pope St. John Paul II named Catherine as a patroness of Europe in 1999. The crisis of European Christianity—perhaps even graver today than the crisis that faced the Church in Catherine's day—demands the type of spiritual reform and radical obedience that characterised Catherine's life and ministry. If Christianity is to be something other than an antiquarian curiosity, or one amongst a smorgasbord of options on the salad bar of postmodern spirituality, then we too—collectively and as individuals—must experience the gift of self-realisation through obedience to Christ. This liberating experience of obedience will be, as St John Paul II put it, "the new experience, the powerful experience, that will generate, through [us], a more just society and a better world."

Divine Mercy Sunday

The Chapel of the Convent in Cracow - Łagiewniki
with tomb of Saint Sister Faustina

The first Sunday after Easter is Divine Mercy Sunday. This feast was inspired by a desire of Jesus which was conveyed by Sister Faustina. Jesus told her: "I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especilly for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender Mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the Fount of My Mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are opened. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter" (Diary 699). A special preparation for this Feast is the Novena to the Divine Mercy that begins on Good Friday and that includes the Chaplet to the Divine Mercy, which on each day should be offered in a special intention.

The Basilica of Divine Mercy in Cracow - Łagiewniki

In the revelations Jesus spoke also about the great promises related to this feast. The greatest of them is the grace of complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. "Whoever approaches the Fountain of Life in this day will be granted complete forgiveness of sins and punishment" (Diary 300). This promise is connected with a good confession, without any attachment to the smallest sin, as well as with a devotional act of sacramental penance and Holy Communion received on that day. "I want to grant complete pardon to the souls that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion on the Feast of My mercy" (Diary 1109). This Feast is a day of special worship of God in the mystery of His mercy which is the source and motive of all His acts toward man, and particularly of the act of redemption, but it is also a day of special grace for all souls, and particularly for sinners who are most in need of God's mercy.

The interior of the basilica

A privileged time of the devotion to the Divine Mercy is the hour of Jesus' death - 3 pm. Jesus said to Sister Fasutina: "At three o' clock implore My mercy, especially for sinners; and, if only for a brief moment, immerse yourslef in My Passion, particularly in My abandonment at the moment of agony. This is the hour of great mercy for the whole world" (Diary 1320). Jesus expressed also a desire that those who worship Him should exercise mercy toward other people. In this way a soul glorifies and pays reverence to His mercy. There are three ways to do so: the first by act, the second by word,  the third by prayer. Thanks to this the worship of the Divine Mercy does not have only a devotional character, but is a deeply experienced form of Christian life. Jesus reminds us through Sister Faustina that exercising mercy is the basic Christian duty and a proof of love for Him as well.

Today in Rome there takes place the canonization of Blessed Pope John Paul II, and his beatification also took place on Divine Mercy Sunday, 1st May 2011. Since he had been bishop of Cracow he was a great promoter of cult to the Divine Mercy. As Pope he instituted Divine Mercy Sunday for the whole Church on the day of Sister Faustina's canonization, 30th April 2000. On 17th August 2002 Pope John Paul II consecrated the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Cracow - Łagiewniki (Poland) and solemnly entrusted the world to the Divine Mercy.

O God, merciful Father,

Who have revealed your love

in your Son, Jesus Christ,

and have poured it out upon us in the Holy Spirit,

the Comforter.

We entrust to You today the destiny of the world

and every man and women.

Bend down to us sinners,

heal our weaknesses,

conquer all evil,

and grant that all the inhabitants of the earth

may experience Your mercy.

May they always find the source of hope

In You, the Triune God.

Eternal Father,

For the sake of the sorrowful Passion,

and the Resurrection of Your Son,

have mercy on us

and on the whole world. Amen.

New series: Catholic Social Teaching

As Christians, we are hopeful of the establishment of God's kingdom and that his will is done on earth, as it is in heaven. The Church has a rich compendium of social teaching that has been developed over centuries. This teaching examines the moral dimension of human relationships and interactions in society. Catholic Social Teaching does not present a blueprint of policies for running society, but it does provide the principles to ensure that society can be organised and run in conformity with the dignity of the human person. Our social teaching is therefore not in conflict with political authority nor does it attempt to restrict the legitimate freedom of people to act in society. Instead it gives insights on how society can better respect the wellbeing of all people through proper cooperation and respect for the common good of all.

But we perhaps have a potential problem on our hands in addressing our readers. Who wants to think too much about politics, death or religion? Or indeed all of these combined! What is so important about our social teaching, is that it has brought about positive change for all of us in modern Britain, and has achieved lasting effects that benefit us today. Catholic Social Teaching has been, and remains, a great inspiration to many involved in politics.

A bit of history as part of introducing the series - the 1891 Papal Encyclical Rerum Novarum, on the Rights and Duties of Capital and Labour, was the first major encyclical to address the condition of workers and the duties of the owners of the means of production. The Church recognised that employment conditions of workers were degrading to the human condition, and negatively also impacted the family as well as other fundamental aspects of life. Everything from excessive working hours and unjust wage deductions, to unethical industrial practices and hazardous working conditions were the issues that had to be addressed at the time. Rerum Novarum also sees the first use of the term 'preferential option for the poor'. Although some aspects of Catholic teaching might parallel socialist ideology, Pope Leo XIII condemned both socialism as well as unfettered capitalism. The solutions presented to remedy the chronic working conditions of the poorest in society, included promoting trade unions and collective bargaining. Catholic solutions to the problems of industrialised society were to be gradual and peaceful rather than the revolutionary agenda proposed by Marxism. Such an astounding encyclical for its time was distributed initially to a small number of priests and religious superiors. At least as a Church nowadays we have practically unlimited access to what the Pope posts on Twitter, never mind being able to read and discuss the latest Papal encyclical!

Although the Church has historically opposed state intervention, the reality was that Catholics involved in politics since Rerum Novarum, favoured state intervention to regulate industry and to provide welfare and national insurance for the poor. It should be noted that working class Catholics formed the bedrock of the Labour Party in British industrial cities, particularly from the 1920s until the post-war period. Legislation on housing, healthcare, education, unemployment, and ownership of industry, drew inspiration partly from the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. For some reason, historians and the media today, pay remarkably little attention to the huge involvement of many Catholic working class activists and politicians in building the welfare state. Perhaps what causes discomfort to historians and today's media, is the notion that Catholics still held on to a deep conviction in their religion rather than support an atheist socialism?

Oh, the problems of mixing politics and religion! Over-simplifying the issues is often the trap that we can fall into when putting into practice what our rich and comprehensive Catholic Social teaching proposes. So, over the next few months, the Godzdogz team will cover some of the key areas of our rich social teaching to try and inform the debates:

• Economic justice and the dignity of the workers 
• Health and public services 
• Education 
• Law, Order and Constitutional issues 
• Stewardship of creation and the environment 
• International issues 
• Right to life 
• Marriage and the Family 

Alleluia Alleluia!

Christ is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia, alleluia!

Here is a Polish setting of Alleluia, that word par excellence to express praise and love of God, especially in Eastertide.



A more familiar version would be the following, which I for one never tire of listening to.

But this has to be my favourite of all:

Happy Easter to all our readers!

Easter Sunday 2014: The Living Christ

Reading: John 20:1-9.

We do not preach the empty tomb, but the living Christ. The essence of our Easter joy does not reside in the disciples’ finding the place of death to be empty, but in the disciples themselves being found by the One whom we lost in death, now seeking them out as the Resurrected Lord. The empty tomb remains a sign—albeit an indispensable one—of this central Easter mystery, from which it derives its meaning. The discovery of the empty tomb itself constitutes a pregnant silence, a moment of ambiguity: has Christ risen, or have they stolen Him away? 

In the New Testament, the precise moment of the resurrection—the genetic moment of meaning—is indicated, but never described in a way that satisfies our avid curiosities, let alone the rigorous demands of empirical science. We cannot study the moment of the resurrection directly, but we can encounter its effects. There are, indeed, many witnesses of Christ’s resurrection, those blessed to encounter The Lord risen and dwelling amongst them, but there are no witnesses to the moment of the resurrection itself: we’re left with a battery of questions—how? when? why?—and the empty tomb, a pregnant silence broken by the Risen Christ’s approach. “As I had always known He would come, unannounced, remarkable merely for the absence of clamour.” (Suddenly).

Perhaps even desiring to isolate the perfunctory moment of the resurrection is wrong-headed in a distinctively modern kind of way. The very silence of Christ’s resurrection points to its unique status. The resurrection of Jesus is not a re-birth: there are no cries of labour, there is no traumatic separation of mother and child. Nor is the resurrection a resuscitation: there are no panic stricken medics, no recourse to the grunting sweaty business of mechanical resuscitation. The time of trauma has passed now, the spectre of death no longer hangs over Jesus as a fearful inevitability: he will never again taste death, for the power of God’s life-giving mercy is stronger than death could ever be. The finality of death’s inevitability is thus destroyed, not by the violent triumphalism of battle, but by the peace of a silent love. The destruction of death is not a violence against death's violence, but the peaceful overcoming of all violence in the silence of eternity. 

Whilst not yet the appearance of the living Lord, then, the empty tomb is nonetheless implied by the resurrection, standing as a sign that, paradoxically, points backwards from heaven to earth: “He is not here”, he who lives and reigns is not to be found amongst the dead. The empty tomb is a “room [...] from which someone has just gone, a vestibule for the arrival of one who has not yet come” (The Absence), but it stands as an icon of vindication for Christ's preaching, a confirmation that “Truth Himself spoke truly,” that this Man was, indeed, the Son of God. 

The horrors of Calvary remain horrors. They still indicate the gravity of sin, the seriousness with which God—acting out of a covenantal love—regards our transgressions. From the perspective of the empty tomb, however, it is clear that our sins—the sins that nailed The Lord to the tree—will not be allowed to have the final word. Divine love, and not human sinfulness, is definitive, for God is Lord of our lives, not the servant of our sinfulness. The sufferings of the Cross continue to cast a shadow over our fallen world, but the light that falls is that shed by the glory of the resurrection, in which all human sufferings take on light and every tear is wiped away.   

The resurrection cannot be contained within the space left vacant by the death that Christ defeated by enduring. The backward-looking perspective of the empty tomb is a function of the forward-looking resurrection-life of Jesus, which has cut a new pathway for humanity to enjoy an eternal resurrection-life with the Trinity. The passion is a remedy for the fall of Adam, yes, but the the meaning of Adam is found in Christ, not the meaning of Christ in Adam: the gift Christ offers for our enjoyment—a share in The Lord’s corporal glory—is greater even than the gift of Eden.  

The uniqueness of Christ’s resurrection stands out in stark relief against the backdrop of one of its most obvious New Testament analogues, the miraculous raising of Jesus’s friend Lazarus. Lazarus, who would taste death again, returns to a world that was much the same as the one that he left, structured by the same principles of human possibility. Was not Christ's weeping for Lazarus at least in part a mourning for the trauma of Lazarus’s second death, even if this culmination will be death to eternal life in Christ? The uniqueness of Christ’s resurrection, by contrast, is a unique uniqueness, altering the parameters of human possibility and definitively moving human history forward, by offering—in grace—a  new life of unimaginable joy, which we in the Church taste, share and celebrate this Easter, looking forward to its consummation in our own particular resurrections to come. 

As the world slept, whilst nobody was looking, the seemingly fixed coordinates of our suffering world were silently transformed by divine love. Yet, “[t]he gamblers / at the foot of the unnoticed / cross went on with / their dicing; yet the invisible / garment for which they played was no longer at stake, / but worn by Him in this risen existence” (Suddenly). 

Good Friday 2014: Liturgy of the Lord's Passion

The following pictures were taken during today's Liturgy of the Lord's Passion, at the Priory of the Holy Spirit, Oxford.

Chanting the Passion narrative from the Gospel according to St John

Unveiling the Holy Cross

The choir

 During the Veneration of the Holy Cross, the choir sang O Vos Omnes (Victoria), Drop, drop slow tears (Gibbons), Caligaverunt oculi mei (Victoria) and Adoramus te (Palestrina). The schola also sang Christus factus est, by Anerio, and the Cantors sang the 'Reproaches' sequence, whose first verse and refrain, in English translation, are as follows.

My people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me! 

I led you out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom, but you led your Saviour to the cross. 

Holy is God! Holy and strong! Holy immortal One, have mercy on us.

Laying the high altar for Holy Communion

'Behold the wood of the Cross, on which was hung our salvation. Come, let us adore.'

The Easter Vigil will be celebrated tomorrow night at 10pm.

Tenebrae: Good Friday

Although the name of the 'Tenebrae' service (Matins and Lauds during the Triduum) derives from the extinguishing of the candles, leaving the church in darkness (tenebrae in Latin), it is also the name of one of the chants used. Tenebrae factae sunt, meaning 'darkness fell', uses texts from the Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion (Matthew 27:45-46; John 19:30; Luke 23:46).

This recording was made during this morning's service in the church at the Priory of the Holy Spirit, Oxford. The text is given in Latin and English below.


Tenebrae factae sunt, dum crucifixissent Jesum: 
et circa horam nonam exclamavit Jesus voce magna: 
Deus meus, Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti?
Et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum.

Cum ergo accepisset acetum, dixit:
Consummatum est.

Et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum.

Darkness fell when they crucified Jesus:
and about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice:
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And bowing his head he gave up the ghost.

And when he had received the vinegar, he said:
It is finished.

And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost.

Mass of the Lord's Supper 2014

Here are some pictures of the Mass of the Lord's Supper celebrated last night (Maundy Thursday) at the Priory of the Holy Spirit, Oxford. The washing of the feet (Mandatum) occurred as usual, though it is not shown below.

The empty tabernacle and the high altar

The ministers, and the vessels for Communion

The Deacon begins to prepare the altar

The choir sang Ubi caritas by Duruflé and Ave Verum by Byrd

The altar of repose, where the brethren and others watched till midnight

Tenebrae: Maundy Thursday

On Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Saturday, the Morning Offices of Matins and Lauds take a slightly different form. The offices are combined and become Tenebrae, meaning "darkness" or "shadows". The liturgy is so called because it takes place in darkness or at least no additional light save for a triangular hearse upon which 15 unbleached candles are lit. As the office proceeds, each of the candles are gradually put out until all are extinguished at the end, representing the abandonment of Christ by his disciples.

The hearse with unbleached candles in the Priory Church

Solemnity, sorrow, stillness - these are the hallmarks of this "Office of Darkness". It is a fitting way, in addition to the other great liturgies of the Triduum, to enter more deeply into the mystery of Christ's Passion and Resurrection.

Below is a recording of the Third Responsory from this morning's liturgy (Maundy Thursday, Year B), in which we sung, with a sizeable congregation, the words:

R. Revelabunt caeli iniquitatem Iudae

et terra adversus eum consurget

et manifestum erit peccatum illius in die furoris Domini

cum eis qui dixerunt Domino Deo

recede a nobis scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus.

V. In diem perditionis servabitur malus 

et ad diem furoris ducitur.

This Latin text can be translated into English as:

R. The heaves will show forth the iniquity of Judas

and the earth will rise against him

his sin will be published on the day of the Lord's wrath,

together will those who said to the Lord:

"Away from us. We do not want to know your ways."

V. He is reserved for the day of doom

and he is to be brought to the day of punishment.

We will continue to post some highlights of Tenebrae over the Triduum. Please join us if you are near Oxford. Click here for details.

The third responsory, Revelabunt cæli, from the Tenebrae service on Maundy Thursday

Wednesday of Holy Week: Surely not I?

Readings: Isaiah 50: 4 – 9; Psalm 69; Matthew 26: 14 - 25 

It often surprises both Catholics and non-Catholics alike to learn just how much of what we say and hear every time we come to Mass is drawn from the Bible. Indeed, the Church’s liturgy is so suffused with Scripture that can think of the liturgy itself as a kind of performance or acting out of the history of our salvation as revealed in the Scriptures. However, unlike a play or a film, the Church’s liturgy does not simply re-tell the story of our salvation: our re-enactment of the Scriptures re-presents the saving life of Christ to the present moment. In other words, it is through the liturgy that the merit of Christ’s one sacrifice is applied to the here and now.

This sense that the liturgy is a dramatic re-presentation of salvation history through which Christ becomes really present is true of all the Church’s liturgies. The drama is especially ‘full’, however, during the Easter Triduum when we trace in detail the events that led to Jesus’s death, and then on to the glory of his Resurrection. We tell this story so carefully during this Easter season because through a deep involvement and immersion in the true story of our salvation, we become better disposed to embrace more deeply the new life of the Resurrection that Christ offers us. The liturgy invites us to put ourselves in the story and see the history of our salvation not as a gift given to a people that lived long ago, or to humanity corporately, but to each one of us personally.

Yet if we are to put ourselves into the story of this Easter Triduum then this immediately raises the question of which part we are to play, and as we know there are a wealth of characters to choose from. Some loyally stand by Jesus as he prays, they follow him to his trial, they help him carry his cross, they stand beside the cross in sorrow as he dies, they take care of his body and lay it in the tomb. Others sympathize with Jesus’s predicament but do not care enough to get involved and wash their hands of the affair. Still others plot his downfall and demand his crucifixion. In today’s Gospel we confront perhaps the most tragic figure of all, Judas, who sold both his friend and his hope for thirty pieces of silver.

Now Judas’s betrayal is a warning to us that we ought not to approach this Easter season too complacently and assume too quickly that we always stand on the side of righteousness. Over the course of our Christian lives most of us, to a greater or lesser extent, will play most of the roles I have outlined above: there will be times when we serve Christ with enormous generosity and love; there will also be occasions when through weakness we betray him. In our Gospel reading, all the apostles ask when they learn that there is a betrayer among them: ‘Surely not I?’ Yet all would be scattered when Jesus’s hour finally arrived. Crucially, however, all bar Judas had the courage to repent and come back: and Christ perfected these frail foundations and upon them built his Church.

Tuesday of Holy Week: Brighton Rock, sin and the point of no return

Poster for the original (and best) film adaptation of Brighton Rock

William Holman Hunt - The Light of the World - Keble College

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm 70:1-6,15,17; John 13:21-33,36-38

In Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, Pinkie Brown, the anti-hero, is keenly aware that the pattern of his life is leading him to damnation. He is constantly worried that come the hour of his death the opportunity of repentance will be denied to him. He becomes bitter against the world and against God considering that he must, in fact, have been pre-destined to hell. He is unable to see that it is his choices, his free will that is leading him along this path.

In the book there are three standout moments where a chink of light pierces into his life, offering the chance for a real conversion. The first comes when he reflects on his relationship with Rose - the bride he has taken to prevent her from testifying against him in court - he discovers, to his surprise, that he remembers it "without repulsion" and the possibility of affection for Rose occurs to him; "somewhere, like a beggar outside a shuttered house, tenderness stirred, but he was bound in a habit of hate".

The second occasion is in a bar, where Pinkie, never normally affectionate nor caring for anyone but himself, feels almost protective of Rose in response to the comments of wealthy men in the bar: "Tenderness came up to the very window and looked in". Yet once more he refuses to repent of his old ways and start afresh.

The third and final time is shortly afterwards as he drives away from the bar, Pinkie becomes aware of "an enormous emotion", likened to "something trying to get in; the pressure of gigantic wings against the glass. Dona nobis pacem...If the glass broke, if the beast - whatever it was - got in, God knows what it would do.” But once again the habits of hate and scorn are too hard to break. Jesus is knocking at the door, but as in William Holman Hunt’s famous painting, the handle is always on our side, he will never force his way into our lives.

There are parallels in today’s dramatic gospel which takes up the scene shortly after Jesus has washed his disciples’ feet and is foretelling his betrayal. When asked who will betray Him, Jesus says that it is the one to whom he will give the morsel when he has dipped it. This action far from making it inevitable that Judas will betray our Lord, shows Judas the path that he is taking. If in his greed or his frustrations with the reality of the Messiah, he is unthinkingly accepting money without thinking of the nature of the betrayal, here, in this intimate act of friendship and confidence – the dipping of bread and feeding to a friend – is his chance to open himself up to love once more. Yet Judas, like Pinkie, is unable to summon the courage to turn to the light; the darkness has become too familiar, too comfortable. Perhaps as he approached the chief priests to take their money, he paused one moment to consider once more what he was doing, yet felt he was just too far along now?

This is certainly something to which I can relate: times where it simply seems easier to carry through with wrong-headed decisions. Occasions where it is difficult to muster the strength to face the loss of face which comes with saying I was wrong and instead continued deceit seems simpler. It is easy to think that we have passed the point of no return and that we are committed to our sinful choices now. Yet this is the trap of the devil. Christ is constantly calling us to repentance; His mercy is never further from us than a turn of the heart.

We often use the phrase “the point of no return”, but when it comes to our sin, no matter how grave, this phrase has no place in the Catholic lexicon. We are not like the fallen angels, whilst we still breathe it is never too late to repent. Judas repented after his betrayal; he goes to give the money back. What compounds the tragedy of his actions, however, is that he no longer believes in forgiveness. As Pope Benedict wrote in volume two of his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy: “His remorse turns into despair. Now he sees only himself and his darkness; he no longer sees the light of Jesus, which can illumine and overcome the darkness. He shows us the wrong type of remorse: the type that is unable to hope, that sees only its own darkness, the type that is destructive . . . . Genuine remorse is marked by the certainty of hope, born of faith, in the superior power of the light that was made flesh in Jesus.”

Pope Francis leading by example as he makes his confession in St Peter's

So this Holy Week, let us reflect, repent and rejoice in God’s forgiveness through the sacrament of reconciliation. Let us follow the advice of Pope Francis: "Everyone say to himself: ‘When was the last time I went to confession?’ And if it has been a long time, don’t lose another day! Go, the priest will be good. And Jesus, (will be) there, and Jesus is better than the priests - Jesus receives you. He will receive you with so much love! Be courageous, and go to confession!”

Monday of Holy Week

Readings: Is 42:1-7; Ps 27; J 12:1-11

We have started Holy Week, the last days leading us to the most important Christian mysteries. The readings of this week allow us to undesrtand better the significance of these days. In today's Gospel we hear that Jesus, six days before Passover, came to Bethany where lived his friends - Mary, Martha and Lazarus. It was their last meeting. Jesus had a dinner with them. Martha served and Lazarus was reclining at table with him. But in this Gospel the most important and meaningful thing is Mary's action: "Mary took a litre of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil" (John 12:3).

In ancient Israel anointing was a profoundly symbolic ritual act. Among thosewho were anointed in a special way, because of their role, were prophets, priests and kings. Mary anointed the feet of Jesus, these part of human body which are related to action. This is the beginning, a ritual initialization of what will happen in this Holy Week. Jesus himself announces these events saying that "this is for the day of his burial" (cf John 12:7), because according to Jewish tradition only the dead had their feet anointed. But this anointing is something more. It is a recognition in Jesus the Messiah. Jesus realized meaning and significance Mary's gestures. Thinking about his death and burial, he appreciates her act of anointing him as an anticipation of this honour and dignity, which his body inseparably linked with the mystery of his person, will have even after death. In this Holy Week Jesus reveal himself not only as the Messiah, but also as Priest, Prophet and King.

Palm Sunday: Why have you forsaken me?

Readings: Mt 21:1-11 (Procession Gospel); Is 50:4-7; Ps 22; Phil 2:6-11; Mt 26:14-27:66

Has it ever bothered you that Jesus on the Cross seems to be abandoned by his Father in heaven? I have certainly wondered why on earth Jesus would cry out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? After all, we believe he is the eternal Son of God, who never left his Father's side in heaven even while he walked on earth as a man. Even if in some sense we accept that the divinity of Jesus means he can never be truly separated from the Father, nevertheless we may still be troubled by the apparent aloofness of the Father. How could a loving Father look on while his only Son was tormented and crucified, without doing anything to stop it? In other words, we can easily find ourselves joining the chorus of mockers: He saved others, he cannot save himself.... He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, 'I am the Son of God.'

El Greco, The Crucifixion

It is astonishing how quickly we find ourselves on the wrong side! How easily we slip into the mindless stampede of the herd! We are barely into Holy Week, which begins with the crowds chanting Hosannah to the King of Kings, and already we find ourselves echoing the words of the mob on Good Friday: Crucify! Crucify! It is not just the Lectionary which encourages us to connect these two scenes, by giving us both Gospel readings on the same day. It is our very own patterns of thought and behaviour which betray us, which reveal how fickle our hearts truly are. We see a man in distress and think he must have deserved it somehow. This is exactly the attitude Jesus was trying to extirpate in the story of the man born blind, which we heard two Sundays ago. We succumb to this attitude time and again, thinking we are competent to judge the moral or spiritual worth of another, when only God can do that. And that is why we are fickle: we are too quick to acclaim, too hasty to condemn.

But where does that leave us with the cry of Christ from the Cross? The first thing to notice is that it is a quotation, the opening lines of Psalm 22. Jesus knew the Scriptures – and is indeed, as God, their ultimate author – and knew exactly what he was saying. So, what does Psalm 22 mean? Following St Augustine, we can say that the psalms can be analysed in terms of the different voices, or personae, which they adopt. Very often, a psalm will change voice suddenly, without warning, and the reader must be attentive to the shift in position. Modern editions, of course, can use quotation marks and paragraph breaks to suggest how the text should be read; but this does not clear things up entirely. Augustine also insisted that we read the psalms in the light of Christ. They are either about Christ, the head of the Church, or about the Church, which is Christ's body. Sometimes, we hear speaking the whole Christ (totus Christus): Christ united with the Church.

Now, Psalm 22 begins with a pitiful lament, and Augustine argued that Christ is speaking here, not for himself, but on behalf of sinful humanity. And then we can notice the crucial thing: it is not God who has abandoned humanity (let alone Jesus, his beloved Son), but we who have abandoned God. In his own humanity, Jesus takes on the full weight of our fallen state – all the sin and wretchedness of the ages, past, present and future – and can speak truly for humanity when he cries out to reveal how deeply we have cut ourselves off from God. It is as though he is saying, My God, my God, see how far we have run away from you! 

But that is not the end. Read to the end of Psalm 22 and you will see the darkness turn to light, the lament into praise and thanksgiving. For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; and he has not hid his face from him, but he has heard, when he cried to him (v. 24). The moral of the story of Psalm 22 is that the upright person will be vindicated by God. They will be glorified, no matter how afflicted they seem at present to us. To achieve this in our own lives, we must first empty ourselves before God. Although God fills us with life, so often we try instead to be fulfilled without God. The readings from Isaiah and Philippians show us a better way: Christ humbled himself, offering no retaliation to his beastly tormenters, but being obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. In his loving obedience, Christ was perfectly united with his Father, not abandoned by him. And so, in the moment of his final agony and death, that is when the bystanders recognise him for who he really is: the Son of God. Let us walk together towards the Cross this Holy Week, and join our sufferings with Christ, in order to share his glory in the Resurrection.