Easter Services 2014

The timings of services during the Sacred Paschal Triduum at the Priory of the Holy Spirit (Blackfriars, Oxford) are given in the poster below. We hope you will be able to join us.

Over the last few days of Passiontide, Godzdogz will continue to offer reflections on the Mass readings of the day. During and after the Triduum we will post some photos of the liturgies, especially for those who are unable to be here.

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Readings: Ezekiel 37:21-28, John 11:45-56

Christ before Caiaphas.

In today’s Gospel the Jewish leaders fear that Jesus will soon to convert all the people to him and, by doing so, cause a revolution that will destroy Israel. Against this false prophecy of annihilation comes the true prophecy of Caiaphas: “it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” Thus, the Jews began to plot the death of Jesus.

The Jews feared Jesus because they reckoned that he would rob them of their land and their position; Jesus’s Gospel, it seemed to them, disturbed the peace.  An assessment still made by people today. Sometimes a soul fears that following the Gospel, either in its entirety or some small part, will mean life is expunged of all the things normal folks regard as enjoyable.  Don’t Christians hate parties, alcohol and, fun? Don’t they impose strict moral codes of behaviour which suppress creativity and individuality? Indeed, doesn’t Christianity destroy everything that makes life good? If  Jesus is to ruin life; best then to be rid of him.

Sixth century image of Christ.

Hirst's shark in formaldehyde.

The fear that Jesus is going to take the gratification and pleasure out of life begs the question: Is life only worth living when it is pleasurable? Is time not ordered to gratification time wasted? If culture represents how a society views the world around it, and therefore how it values it, then what is there to learn from the fact that, while the apogee of Christian art is found in the works of Mozart or Michelangelo, what passes as the boundary-shattering examples of culture today are things like Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ or Hirst’s ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’?

Jesus offers a life worth living and celebrating, in all its stages and experiences; it is a life which reaches beyond itself into the eternal, into the dwelling of the Sovereign Love. To prove this it was, as Caiaphas unknowing observed, expedient that one man pour out himself for others; that they might not be destroyed by an empty and meaningless existence, but be granted life everlasting.

St. Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr

I'm sure that English readers know very well St. Thomas Becket, bishop of Canterbury, who engaged in conflict with  the English king Henry II and because of that he was murdered by followers of the king in Canterbury Cathedral. The history of the martyrdom of St. Stanislaus, bishop of Cracow, is in some ways very similar. Stanislaus (Polish name Stanisław) was born in Szczepanów, near Cracow, in 1030. He studied in a cathedral school in Gniezno (at that time it was the capital of Poland) and later in Paris. After his return he was ordained priest and after the death of the bishop of Cracow he was elected his successor in 1072. As a bishop he was a ducal advisor and he had some influence on Polish politics. His major accomplishments included bringing papal legates to Poland as well as the re-establishment of a metropolitan see in Gniezno and because of that the German metropolitan see in Magdeburg ceased its claims to supremacy over the Polish dioceses. But he was also regarded as a good pastor of his local church working with a great dedication. He cared for spreading the Christian faith and his preaching led many people to embrace faith or to live more fervently in a difficult time in Poland. He was known to be a truly holy man.

Because of his courageous attitude Bishop Stanislaus became a martyr. He opposed the Polish king Bolesław Śmiały (Boleslaus the Bold). According to tradition the main cause of conflict was his ineffective admonitions of the Polish king for his immoral practices as well as unjust behaviour in relation to the people. He confronted the king, calling on him to change his life and to care for people, threatening excommunication if he did not change his ways. The king responded with furious anger. He decided to kill the bishop. The king entered the church and killed him with his own sword when the bishop was celebrating Holy Mass. Then he ordered his soldiers to dismember the body. This happened in the year 1079. Stanislaus was soon acclaimed as a martyr, while Boleslaus lost his power and left Poland fleeing to Hungary where he entered the monastery to do penance for his crime.  The cult of St. Stanislaus began immediately after his death. In 1245 his relics were moved to Cracow's Wawel Cathedral and he was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in Assisi in 1253.

As the first native Polish saint, Stanislaus is the patron of Poland and Cracow. He shares the patronage of Poland with St. Wojciech (Adalbert) and Our Lady the Queen of Poland. Almost all the Polish kings were crowned in Wawel Cathedral kneeling before his sarcophagus, which stands in the middle of the cathedral. Saint Stanislaus's veneration has had great patriotic importance. Each year on 8th May a procession led by the Bishop of Cracow goes out from Wawel to Skałka (the Church on the Rock). The procession was popularized in the 20th century by Polish Primate Stefan Wyszyński and Arcibishop of Cracow, Karol Wojtyła, who as Pope John Paul II called St. Stanislaus the patron saint of Christian moral order. For many years St. Stanislaus feast day was celebrated on 8th May, but in 1969 the Church moved the feast day to 11th April. In Poland since 1254 the Solemnity of St. Stanislaus is celebrated on 8th May.


Father, may the example of St. Stanislaus of Poland inspire the people of Poland and throughout the world to follow Jesus Christ even in the midst of oppression form ungodly governments. May his holiness of life and dedication to prayer be an example to each one of us in our own state in life and vocation. May his holy priesthood and episcopal service inspire priests and bishops in our own time to care for the faithful and stand up to those who persecute the Church, without fear for their own safety, willing to even shed their blood if called to do so.

Dominican Study Week: 7th-11th July 2014, Buckfast Abbey

Thursday of the 5th Week of Lent: The true Temple

In today’s Gospel we find Jesus preaching in the Temple. Now not only was the Temple the heart of the Jewish religion of the period, it was also understood in the Jewish imagination to be the centre of the universe because it was the place where God had made his home on Earth. We can think of the Temple, then, as the point in which the moral, judicial, and liturgical dimensions of the Law of Moses intersect. The moral and judicial precepts instructed Israel on how to live in holiness and justice. The liturgical precepts offered Israel a way of undoing the sin and disobedience of humanity from our first parents onwards through the sacrifices, prayers, and thanksgiving of the Temple liturgy. Through the God-given precepts of the Law of Moses, then, Israel is made able to live with God and the point of contact between God and humanity is the Temple.

The Cross held aloft

Yet this undoing of sin that the Temple liturgy represents is incomplete. Whilst the Law of Moses draws those who keep it into a certain kind of life with God, neither this Law nor the Temple liturgy was able to overcome humanity’s fundamental alienation from God which is manifested in death. Now as John makes clear to his readers in his Gospel, this is because the Temple itself is only a sign or a figure of the true reconciliation between God and Man that will take place in the person of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh (John 1:14). Jesus is the true Temple, his humanity is the true place of grace, the true place of contact between God and humanity (John 2:19-21). 

In our Gospel reading, Jesus the true Temple declares, whilst standing in the Temple in Jerusalem which is itself a figure or a metaphor of his Incarnation, ‘whoever keeps my word will never see death’ (John 8:51). Those who keep the Word-made-flesh - those who hold on to Jesus - will live forever in friendship with God and friendship with the rest of humanity, because Jesus is God. The Law of Moses did not bring fullness of life because it was not a full share in the eternal and infinite life of God. In contrast, those who keep the Word made flesh enter into the true Temple and themselves become part of that Temple, members of Christ, ‘living stones build up into a spiritual house’ (1 Peter 2:5) which will stand for ever and ever.

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent: Strange Gods and Modern Idols

Readings: Daniel 3:14-20,24-25,28; Canticle Daniel 3:52-56; John 8:31-42

In today’s first reading we can admire the fidelity and integrity of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who refuse to submit to King Nebuchadnezzar’s command that they worship the golden statue that he had erected. Clearly their example is one that we should follow if confronted with the same circumstances, even when threatened with being burned to death as they were. We may think of the Christians who are being persecuted for our Faith each day, and perhaps this Lent we might think how we can help them more. Giving to charities like Aid to the Church in Need is one straightforward way in which we can show some solidarity with our fellow Christians. We might also do well to learn more about the grievous persecution of so many Christians in a world which seemingly holds out tolerance as its chief value. Titles such as John Allen’s The Global War on Christians and Rupert Shortt’s Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack draw much-needed attention to the inconvenient truth which much of the secular press ignores. However, what at first sight we don’t really need to concern ourselves with is worship of a golden statue because that sort of thing does not happen in the 21^stcentury.

This casual dismissal of idolatry as a present concern is exactly what Elizabeth Scalia warns against in her excellent book Strange Gods: Unmasking the Idols of Everyday Life. She forcefully argues that whilst our present day idols are much less obvious, alarmingly, they are much “less distant and more ingrained in us”. The golden statue acted as a reflector of the ego of King Nebuchadnezzar, similarly the golden calf of the Jews in Exodus, and today’s modern idols do much the same.

Scalia writes that our modern idols begin with ideas and that “from there we shape them in the psyche, grow them in the ego, and then engage with them intimately, throughout our lives, in our families, our culture, our entertainments, and our political discourse. We create idols out of norms of behaviour, our material possessions, and social status. We even create them out of faith.”

One fascinating example of seeing our reflection in the idols we construct is found by Scalia in the great polarisation at the US 2008 elections. There were those who self-identified as “urbane, sophisticated, polished, and well-educated” that saw themselves in Barack Obama. At the other end of the spectrum were those who identified as “plain-speaking, hard-working, up from the middle classes” who saw themselves in Sarah Palin. In each case the idolisers were hyper-sensitive to any criticism of their preferred politician. Beyond any sane degree to be found in reality, they had allowed that candidate to represent them entirely and any criticism of the idol was thus viewed as personal to them.

Closer to home we might do well to think about how we speak about Pope Francis and Pope Benedict. There are vocal parties in the Church; some of whom hung on every word from Pope Benedict and now wish to underplay the role of the papacy, and there are those who had no time for anything that Pope Benedict sought to do, but who are now fawning over Pope Francis’s every gesture. We must be careful that we do not start ascribing greatness to people on the grounds that they happened to agree with us and creating a false dichotomy between the two Popes in the process. Perhaps our ascribing greatness should be more dependent on the degree to which either is able to encourage us to act with less self-interest and more faith in the manner of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego?

Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent: Snakes on the Plain

Readings: Numbers 21:4-9; John 8:21-30.

Few would accuse David R. Ellis of mis-selling his 2006 film Snakes on a Plane: the combination of snakes, an enclosed space and vulnerable human beings is certain to produce an action thriller. From behind the safety of the 'fourth wall' of the screen, of course, we can chuckle at the ridiculous ways the passengers respond to the serpentine threat (dare I suggest the film was also intended as something of a dark comedy?)... but if a snake were to transgress that boundary we can be sure that all laughter would cease and we too would inevitably be caught up in the panic. Indeed, it's easy to sense the panic of the Israelites in today's first reading, trapped as they are on a plain and surrounded by venomous serpents, how could they not be filled with gratitude for God's provision of an antidote, the fiery bronze serpent crafted by Moses and lifted up as a sign of salvation and hope? 

Thankfully, we're fairly unlikely to find ourselves surrounded by venomous snakes of the literal variety. Nonetheless, we too are surrounded by the chaos wrought by the first serpent, the tempter of Genesis 3, through whose enticements suffering, sin and death first entered the world. If we could take a step outside the 'fourth wall' and view the cycle of sin and suffering from God's perspective, I imagine that at times we'd look as chaotic as the panic-stricken passengers of Snakes on a Plane. But try as we might to avoid getting contaminated by sin (like the passenger "Three Gs", who refuses even to touch another person without sanitising his hands), we are inevitably bound up in a world scourged and damaged by our sins and those of our fellow sojourners. Whereas the passengers try to simply hide themselves from the threat (Flynn announces "We need to put a barrier between us and the snakes!"), what is really needed is not only an anti-venom but an ultimate defeat. Salvation must break in from outside the cycles of sin, but it must also break out from inside: what is needed is the incarnation, God's entry into human history without contamination by sin, opening the life of God to man and the life of man to God. 

Indeed, as St. John stresses in today's gospel, God - who stands over and against all the chaotic structures of sin and human disorder - has intervened to lift up for humanity a definitive sign of salvation: his own crucified son, a sign that both points forward to the life of the world to come, and makes that life possible by opening up for us a route out of self-destruction. Whereas the Israelites cast their eyes on the serpent made of molten precious metal, we look to a crucified man as the sign of our hope: the crucified God-man, lifted up before our eyes on the cross, rejected and despised, devalued and discarded. 

Jesus's description of his death as a 'lifting up' simultaneously connects the crucifixion to the Israelite's sign of salvation whilst pointing forward to Christ's 'lifting up' at the resurrection and the consummation wrought by the 'lifting up' of the ascension. Whereas the serpent is repeatedly lifted up, Christ is lifted on the cross but once, a single and unrepeatable offering that is re-presented each time the priest 'lifts up' Our Lord in the celebration of Holy Mass, an oblation that makes possible the many resurrections of the world to come. "The Glory of God is a man fully alive", as St. Irenaeus said. But the paradox of faith is that in order to have our eyes opened to that reality, we have to first fix our eyes on a man fully deceased.