The Ascension

Readings: Acts 1:1-11, Psalm 46, Ephesians 1:17-23, Matthew 28:16-20.

This Sunday, in England at least, we celebrate the feast of the Ascension. Interestingly, the lectionary gives us the final paragraph of Matthew as our gospel reading. In what is known as the 'great commission' Jesus commands his disciples to go and "make disciples of all the nations", and assures them that he is with them "always, to the close of the age" (Matt 28: 19-20), and here Matthew's gospel ends. There is no mention here of Jesus ascending.

Instead we have to turn to our first reading from the beginning of the book of Acts for the Ascension narrative. Acts ought to be read as the second volume of the gospel of Luke and has often been described as the 'gospel of the Holy Spirit'. In Acts, St. Luke tells the story of the early Church and its spread from Jerusalem through the Gentile world, finally reaching the very heart of pagansim and the empire: Rome. In relating this history St. Luke wants to emphasise two points: first, that the success of this mission was the fruit of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; and second, that the Church itself is the body of Christ.

For St. Luke, then, the great commission that we hear in Matthew's gospel is dependent on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit related in Acts at Pentecost, the great feast that we celebrate next Sunday. What then has all this to do with the Ascension? St. Luke has emphasised the Ascension, describing the event twice, both at the end of his gospel and at the beginning of Acts, in order to highlight the connection between Jesus, the Spirit, and the Church. Just as Elijah in the book of Kings passed on a double portion of his spirit to Elisha as he ascended into heaven riding a chariot of fire, so Jesus breathed his Spirit in the form of fire upon the apostles. After receiving the spirit of Elijah, Elisha became a great prophet and miracle worker. The apostles were similarly empowered by the Spirit of Christ. Whilst, after his Ascension, the apostles no longer saw Christ, he was in his Spirit closer to these disciples than he had ever been on earth. The fruit of this indwelling of Christ was a share in the divine life, and the power to share this gift with others so that Christ may be known even to our own day.

Graham Greene Anniversary 2: The End of the Affair

'This is a record of hate far more than of love.' So muses our narrator, as he begins to relate the story of how he came to be conversing, one rain-soaked evening on the Common, with the husband of his former lover. Maurice Bendrix is a man in hate, and there in the rain we are gathered into his loneliness to begin a journey which draws us into the depths of love, jealousy, and desire. a journey which forces us to question with our narrator that much pondered theme of Greene’s work; what is it that makes us human?

It is June 1946; six years after the beginning of the adulterous affair, nearly two years since its unexplained, sudden ending. A chance meeting with Henry, the dull and inattentive husband of Sarah Miles, reignites the jealousy and passion within Bendrix for his lost love, as he hears of how Henry suspects Sarah of some current infidelity. A chain of events is thereby set in motion as Bendrix pursues his quarry, determined to understand why Sarah ended the affair and who has replaced him in her affections. Bendrix is meticulously calculating in his methods – he engages a private detective to follow Sarah – and we begin to see, in his pursuit, the complex nature of the obsession that drives him. Closely interwoven in Bendrix are the book's opposing themes of love and hate, and we may even begin to warm to him in the depths of his suffering. Greene wants us to see the centrality of suffering in the human experience, to see pain as indispensible to a life fully realised. As Bendrix dryly states; 'happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity'.

Following the novel's multilayered and fractured nature, we dance back and forth in time as Bendrix relates the events of the passionate affair and its mysterious ending. On gaining possession of Sarah’s diary through his private snoop, he finds the reason why it abruptly ended, but his confusion is only exacerbated as we too are invited, to read her journey of the last few years. 'It’s a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved, when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or God to love.' Dismissing the reasons for Sarah’s abandonment of him, Bendrix sets out to reunite the pair. They begin again, but the affair is short-lived and brought to a tragic close. In the emotional debris that remains, hatred starts to give way to hope and to love, but love of a different kind. One starts to question who in this novel is really being pursued, and by whom?

To say more would be to spoil a beautifully crafted and profoundly moving read, for those not acquainted with this, the last of Greene’s overtly ‘catholic’ works. It is also not the place to pour over the apparent parallels between the book and the author’s own life. Let it suffice to end on a warning; Greene does not attempt to provide us with easy answers to life’s struggles. But, in the midst of the rain and suffering and hate, we too glimpse transcendent moments of pure love. But, like the characters, we too are left with more questions than we might find comfortable with The End of the Affair.

Dominican Animals

The dog is the traditional, and obvious, 'totemic' animal for the Dominicans, Domini canes, dogs of the Lord ... but they have on occasion been represented otherwise. The painting below, from the 1880s, is called Dominicans in Feathers and is part of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery collection. Some of our readers may know whether the artist, Henry Stacey Marks, had a personal connection with the Order or was simply aware of its black and white habit:

Eric Gill's dog is well known:

but not perhaps this painting from Santa Maria Novella in Florence which shows Saint Dominic as a 'master of the hunt':

Art of the Redemption 7 - Icon of the Resurrection

In the Byzantine tradition, it is the custom to put out an icon of the feast of the day in the middle of the church, depicting the saint or the event being celebrated. So it is interesting to see what image is used in this tradition for Easter Day (and indeed on all Sundays throughout the year) when Christ’s Resurrection is the particular focus of our celebration. The icon is entitled ‘The Resurrection’, sometimes even ‘The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ’, but what we see is not a scene at the tomb in the garden where the body of Jesus had been laid. It is possible, as we see in the West, to depict the risen Christ, the result of that moment of Resurrection, but the event itself, not witnessed by any human eye, is considered impossible to depict.

Rather, in order to portray the event of the Resurrection, the Byzantine tradition depicts Christ’s descent into hell. This might seem a bit strange at first: however related the events are, they don’t seem to be the same thing, and we might initially think that the descent into hell precedes the Resurrection.

In fact, though, this image draws us into the very heart of the Easter mystery, for when we talk about the moment of the Resurrection, we are talking about the moment of Christ’s victory, and that is what this icon shows. Here we see Jesus standing on the broken gates of hell, which he has destroyed by his redeeming sacrifice. This is the moment of his conquest of the power of death and hell, and it is in that conquest of death that he rises, the first fruits of the dead, to the new life of the Resurrection. What is more, this icon reminds us that Christ’s Resurrection is not just something that happened to him, for this is the moment when the human race is set free from death, and so we see Christ raising Adam out of the tomb and drawing him to himself, He who is the Son of God and the source of life.

The message of this icon is summed up, too, in the words of the oft-repeated refrain of the Byzantine Easter liturgy: Christ has risen from the dead, conquering death by death, and unto those in the tombs giving life!

Jonathan Fleetwood OP RIP

Please join with us in praying for the eternal repose of our brother Jonathan Fleetwood OP who died on 23rd May 2011. Born in Birmingham in 1925, Jonathan qualified as an engineer before joining the Order in the late 1940s. He made profession in September 1951 and was ordained a priest in September 1956. He worked for some years in South Africa and returned to England in the late 1960s to be prior at Newcastle. He was prior provincial from 1974 until 1982 after which he lived briefly at Hawkesyard and Edinburgh before returning to London as provincial bursar. He returned briefly to Newcastle before moving to St Dominic's, Stone where he ministered as chaplain to St Dominic's Convent and St Mary's Home. He was indefatigable, working away until he was 85, and in spite of deteriorating health. He moved to Leicester in January, to die among his brethren. A full obituary of fr Jonathan will follow in due course.

Eternal rest grant to him, Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

May he rest in peace. Amen.

Columba Rabbett OP RIP

Please join with us in praying for the eternal repose of our brother Columba Rabbett OP who died on 3rd May 2011. Here is the homily preached at his funeral by fr Colin Carr OP. The readings were Wisdom 3:1-9, Romans 6:3-8, and John 14:2-7.

St Martin de Porres OP

Dominicans tend not to be like each other. But you may wander into the funeral of Dominican A and hear things said about him which sound rather like Dominican B. But in the case of Columba, or William or Billy as many of you called him, you couldn't mistake him for any other Dominican, or any othe human being, for that matter.

Let's be contrary in this Dominican funeral and quote a poet who was also a Jesuit, Gerard Manley Hopkins: you don't so much understand his poems as get a sense of the wonder and uniqueness of all creatures; in one, called "Kingfishers catch Fire" he writes:

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves – goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying 'What I do is me; for that I came'.
Acts in God's eyes what in God's eyes he is -
Christ – for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

It's our calling to be unique, to show Christ in the way only we can, to be the self only we can be. But that unique self is not just a passing piece of history. Our first reading showed a Jewish writer struggling towards a sense of an after- life, a life with God which is not quenched by death. Up till that time Jews had very properly been concerned to make sure people had a good life before death, but gradually they came to confront that niggling question which human beings ask themselves: is that all? And they were sure that the creative, life-giving God of their belief must welcome the dead into something better than extinction. Many people still have only a question mark around the possibility of eternal life; for many such, Columba – usually in the person of William – gave a hint, a rumour, that there is more to life than meets the eye. This was surely because he saw Christ in ten thousand places so that he could walk down a dangerous street in a Caribbean town and be completely safe because the "dangerous" people knew he didn't despise them.

Derry, Columba's birthplace

The Caribbean – two years in Grenada and five in Barbados – was one of his assignations as a Dominican. Having come over from Derry to work on the railways in London in his late teens – and I'm afraid there is nothing miraculous or scurrilous to report in his childhood, quite a portion of which was spent in the care of Granny Rabbett – he became a novice at Hawkesyard, and, in 1953, aged 21, was simply professed. It was another Columba who gave William his own religious name while he was Master of Novices; Columba Ryan himself died only recently, in August 2009; he was another unrepeatable character, and he and our Columba lived together again, in Glasgow, from 1967 to 1969.

Before and after that period he spent time in the Oxford and London Priories, doing things which Lay Brothers were expected to do, cooking, cleaning, sacristy work, counting the collections, answering the door, making beds for guests – in general making a Priory a home. He also spent an amount of time doing things which Lay Brothers were not supposed to do, like drinking uproariously in local pubs and coming home 'worse for the wear'. He would not want us to paint a picture of himself which did not include that aspect. Conviviality was part of his life, and he didn't always avoid the attendant dangers of it. But he was a homemaker both for his brethren and for guests, like two law students from Newcastle, Michael Joyce and Paddy Cosgrove, who found in the London Priory a special kind of home from home.
And much earlier he encouraged at least one young lad who became an altar-server and later helper around the house in London and finally decided to join the Dominicans the year I joined: Malcolm McMahon who went on to become our Provincial and then Bishop of Nottingham and who is with us today. Perhaps that home-making instinct was what made Columba choose the Gospel we have just read, in which Jesus is heard speaking of the home he is preparing for us in the Father's spacious house.

St George's, Grenada

Before he came to us he spent 7 years in the Caribbean, first in Grenada and then what seem to have been mainly very happy years in Barbados as a close personal assistant to Bishop Dixon for whom he clearly had great respect. He took on not just domestic tasks but considerable ecclesiastical responsibilities such as dealing with marriage cases. But his relationship with ordinary people was what was most important, both to him and to Bishop Dixon who really took seriously the priestly vocation of all God's people.

And so to Newcastle in 1996. If I didn't know I'd have said he'd been here longer than that, because as usual he managed to cram a lifetime into those 15 years. Our then Provincial, now Bishop Malcolm, begged us to take him because he couldn't think of anywhere else to place him; he was seen as some kind of a problem. I just wish all my problems were Columba-shaped.

As usual he buckled down to cooking, cleaning, sacristy work, befriending local people, giving everyone nicknames – I'm not too sure if I want to find out what mine was. Monday was his day off, but before he went out he had put in what most of us would consider a day's work. He loved chopping vegetables for his home-made soup, and would buy more food than we needed on the grounds that you never knew who might turn up and need feeding. He was known to parishioners and to many who would never normally come to church; he was a voice for the gospel way beyond the confines of those who know what "Gospel" means; but they would hear good news about their not being judged and condemned from this one representative of the church whom they knew. Persecution and straight opposition never silenced the church, but respectability has silenced it in the ears of many people, and William made sure that a voice was heard where there had been silence.

As he learned of the nature of his illness he set about the business of dying with characteristic vigour. He specified what kind of a funeral service he would have, and while we haven't been able to cross all the t's and dot all the i's we are doing our best. He was a massively forthright and energetic person, one who would not suffer fools gladly, but what people noticed about him latterly was a gentleness and almost an innocence, which goes to show that innocence is not something you have once and then lose, but something into which you grow.

Newcastle, where Columba spent the last years of  his life

Leo and I could not have dealt with the necessary caring without the help of the two Johns – it gets dangerous to start mentioning names, because many others, men and women were supportive too. The last woman parishioner to visit him, on the Sunday night, was struck by his gentleness and what she described as an angelic look or the look of a young lad: his skin had quite suddenly become much smoother, and what with his brand new white dressing gown he looked the part. When she asked him if he was afraid to die he said he was just sorry for all the people he had hurt; there are plenty of people whom he deeply affirmed who would speak up for him. He knew the end was near when he summoned me back to the hospital after 11.00pm on Monday night, wishing to make his peace with God; he had already been anointed, but that night he received absolution and communion. Not more than 3 hours later he was dead. The death he had died in Baptism 79 years previously helped him to discover in his own death the gateway to life.

Eternal rest grant to our brother Columba, Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

May he rest in peace. Amen.

Art of Redemption 6 - Handel's Anthem for the Foundling Hospital

God created you without you, but he does not redeem you without you.

This quote from St Augustine reminds us that God invites us to participate actively in His redeeming work by living lives of Christian charity. One of the great values of Christian art is its ability to move us to live such charitable lives. A piece of music I find particularly inspiring in this regard is Handel’s Anthem for the Foundling Hospital. The Foundling Hospital was an orphanage for abandoned children set up by the philanthropist Thomas Coram in 1741, and Handel wrote his anthem in 1749 as part of a fundraising effort for the hospital. The anthem sets to music various scriptural passages which encourage acts of charity such as Psalm 40:

Blessed are they that considereth the poor and needy: the Lord will deliver them in time of trouble, the Lord preserve them and comfort them.

One of the climaxes of the anthem is a quartet and chorus set to words taken from Psalm 111:6 and Daniel 12:3:

The Charitable shall be had in everlasting remembrance and the Good will shine as the brightness of the firmament.

Whilst Handel’s anthem stands in its own right as a piece of musical genius, it is still only one example of art associated with the Foundling Hospital. Handel also organised many performances of his most famous oratorio Messiah which helped to raise £6700 for the Foundling Hospital, a sum equivalent to several million pounds in today’s money. Many other eminent 18th Century artists also donated works of art to the Foundling Hospital so that in effect it became a museum as well as an orphanage. The hospital’s founder, Thomas Coram, ended up spending nearly all his vast wealth on his charitable work so that when he died in 1751 there was barely enough money to pay his funeral expenses.

The effective use of the arts in the establishment of the Foundling Hospital helped to bring about a change in culture so that charitable endeavour became something that the people of 18th-century England wanted to get involved with. No doubt this legacy is still with us today.