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.

The Biggest Match in Europe

On the 28th of May the Football season closes with the biggest match in Europe, if not the world! No not Manchester United vs. Barcelona at Wembley but the final of the Clericus Cup between the Angelicum, (the Dominican University in Rome) and the Gregorian (the Jesuit University in Rome). A true classico if ever there was. The 'Ange' has three Dominican Friars among their players: fr. Juan Carlos Canoles (cooperator brother, Angelicum Librarian, from the Province of Columbia), fr. Emmanuel Albano (doctoral candidate in Patristics, from the Province of Southern Italy) and fr. Mirek Sander (doctoral candidate in Canon Law, from the Polish Province)..

The Angelicum's boys in blue are certainly seen as the underdogs but have battled through very tough opposition (including a 6-0 battering of the Mexican College) with a well organised team built on the solid goalkeeping of Alsaldi and the individual flair of Javier Ibarra. Comparisons to Manchester City are not totally without justification. For more information click here for the Italian site for the Clericus Cup.  I think it is fairly obvious where this site's allegiances lie but it should prove a great match.

The Feast of Saint Dominic 24th May

As we celebrate the feast day of Saint Dominic, we might wonder how our father Dominic would react if he came and saw the Order the way we live our vows today. Would he shake his head, sigh loudly and start a reform that would make any political reform of recent times look like kids playing in a nursery? Or would he nod with a little smile, happy with what he might see? Or should we imagine the diplomatic twist, proposing that he might say something in between?

If we want to know more about what Saint Dominic would say about the state of the Dominican order in 2011 and its present challenges, it may be a good idea to search for answers through his successors. In connection with the election of a new Master of the Order in September last year, the former Master, brother Carlos Alphonsus Azpiroz Costa, wrote his “Relatio”, a reflection on the state of the order as he handed over the Master’s office to Bruno Cadoré. As we are approaching the 800th Anniversary of the Confirmation of the Order, and as it is about 50 years since the Council of Vatican II, fr Carlos reflects on the present situation and on the main challenges of the Dominican life.

Vatican II announced the beginning of a renewal of the Church, a renewal that also affects our Order. The Council announced both a return to the sources (ressourcement) and a better dialogue with the society of modern times (aggiornamento). In other words, the Church felt the need to strengthen the bonds to the deeper mystery of the Church, and thereby enable herself to announce the good news with renewed force in a society that is changing rapidly. Such a programme has parallels with one of the mottos of the order: contemplata aliis tradere - to share with others the fruits of contemplation. In this motto we find both the personal and collective meditation on the Paschal Mystery, and the very foundation for the existence of the Dominican Order, preaching. The former Master introduces his first chapter by citing Saint Paul: ‘Woe to us if we do not preach the Gospel’ (Cf. 1 Corinthians 9:16) (§ 5). The Ordo Praedicatorum has from its very beginning been tied to the task of preaching. As preachers, the words of Saint Paul in the letter of Romans are of special importance: ‘How can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent?' (Romans 10: 14-15).

And brother Carlos continues: ‘Dominican itinerancy [...] is not being a vagabond or a globetrotter, [...] it is about being “sent”’ (§ 35). Our Father Saint Dominic transformed  Saint Paul’s words into reality in his own time as he sent brothers all over Europe to preach. Our vocation remains the same today, and in our time, where individualism and “self-centredness” mark the society, the Order calls for a strengthened readiness to be sent where it seems most useful, ‘for the needs of the Order and the work of Christ’. Evangelisation is what Dominicans are sent for; it is the essential part of our way of life realized through our apostolic activities.

The Order is founded for preaching the Gospel, but the context is not the same now as then. From preaching to a society strongly influenced by the life of Church in the 13th century, we are now facing a very different situation. We often hear about secularisation, and as Christian values and faith are being attacked from many sides, we may notice a tendency of the Church to victimize herself. But brother Carlos challenges us, exactly as we find ourselves in this position: ‘Do we know how to preach in the context of a secularized society? Perhaps we have become secular, too?’(§ 51) These questions are directed to the Dominican family. Nevertheless, it concerns the whole of the Christian Church as we are all members of the same Body of Christ, sent to preach, each in his or her way, the Good News of Redemption and full communion with God.

How may we respond to the challenge of preaching to a secularised society? The first part of the motto that we have mentioned, contemplata, may lead us an answer. To be able to preach, we need to nourish our faith by prayer and by studies. Without a personal relation with our Saviour, our words remain words, lacking the depth given by a living spiritual life. For a Dominican, the context for this is community life, and we may remind ourselves of how Saint Dominic himself begged his brothers to live in ‘community and obedience’. Just as every brother is asked to show willingness to be “sent” in mission and apostolic activity, every brother also has chosen the community life as the basis for all other activities. Brother Carlos describes the community life as ‘the soil in which our life and mission matures’, and he underlines that a majority of the younger generation of Dominican brothers are attracted by the call to community life, seeing the apostolic life and mission as “fruits” of the fellowship of brothers.

It is appropriate here to remind ourselves of the role of the liturgy within the community, and brother Carlos underlines how the common celebration of the liturgy deserves as among the main “works” of our vocation (§ 88), and he exhorts the brothers never to let “business” become an excuse for abandoning the common liturgical life. To neglect this part of the community life is to sacrifice our deep need of intimacy with the Lord, as it will deprive us from the source that feeds us in our study and mission of preaching. The letter of the former Master of the Dominican Order describes the present situation of our religious life, and exhorts us to remain faithful to our life as it is described in our constitutions. At the same time, he pays attention to the younger generations among the brothers, referring to how the vast majority of younger brothers are attracted to the call to community life and how they express a desire of visibility and faithfulness to tradition (§ 12/87). The Dominican Order is in constant movement, just as the Church, being the Body of Christ, seeks to follow the will of her head, Jesus Christ. I would like to end this reflection with some words of brother Carlos Alphonsus Azpiroz Costa that reflect the dynamic of the Dominican life:

If we really believe that every brother who makes profession inserts his life and history into the life and history of the Order, this means that “the brother”, in a sense, will never be the same and analogously neither will “the Order” be the same for having taken him under her wing (§ 12).

You can find the whole “Relatio” here.

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Walsingham 2011

This year's Dominican pilgrimage to Walsingham took place on the third Sunday of May, Good Shepherd Sunday. fr Benjamin Earl OP preached the homily at the Solemn Mass celebrated at the shrine. The William Byrd Choir sang at the Mass as part of the celebrations for the 950th anniversary of the establishment of the shrine.

Fr. Benjamin Earl OP preaching at Mass

Friars sitting tucking into a big picnic lunch

The Procession leaves the Slipper Chapel for Walsingham

fr. Lawrence gets "papped"

After lunch we walked the Pilgrims' Way into Walsingham, praying the rosary and singing hymns in honour of Our Lady. There was over an hour for looking around the village and spending time together before Vespers and Benediction in the parish church of the Annunciation.

Pilgrimage coordinator fr. David Rocks OP

Art of the Redemption 5: The Mosaic of San Clemente

One of the best-known representations of the Cross as the 'Tree of Life' is the 12th century mosiac in the Basilica of San Clemente, Rome. Where the Cross penetrates the earth a luxuriant tree bursts forth and sends its branches far and wide, covering the entire expanse of the apse. In doing so it reaches and enfolds all categories of people: teachers and preachers, chaplains and farmers, ladies and hunters, nobles and shepherds. All of human life is brought into contact with the life that flows from the Cross (John 12:32).

And not only human life, for the Cross's work has a cosmic dimension and so it includes fish, birds and animals, fills the earth and the heavens, and reaches up to touch the 'empyrean', the point where, in medieval cosmologies, material and immaterial worlds met. There the Father's hand can be seen, carrying the laurel wreath with which the victor is to be crowned, Christ, our champion, who has been slain. Christ himself is a thin, desiccated, champion, his body squeezed dry, since 'having loved to the end' (John 13:1), there is nothing left for him to give.

The cross is decorated with white doves, taken to represent the Apostles who will soon fly to all corners of the world carrying the message of Christ's victory (Psalm 19:4; Acts 1:8).

At the foot of the Cross four rivers flow out  (cf Genesis 2:10) and a little deer drinks safely, seemingly unaware of the dead serpent lying nearby. The larger deer below is one of the most cherished details of this mosaic, the human being given access to the river of the water of life (Ezekiel 47:1-12; Revelation 22:1-2), the deer that yearns for running streams (Psalm 42:1-3) quenches its thirst  at the fountain of living water that is Christ (Zechariah 12:10; 13:1; John 4:10; 7:37-39; 19:33-37).

Many other details in the apse repay contemplation, to say nothing of what is on the facade of the apse. A beautiful product of Byzantine-inspired Roman art, the mosaic is a rich meditation on our conviction that the Cross of the Lord is become the Tree of Life for us (Revelation 2:7; 22:19).

The Indecipherable Writing of Thomas Aquinas

The host of Word on Fire, Chicago based priest Fr Robert Barron, discusses the experience of seeing a manuscript of the Summa Contra Gentiles in the Angelic Doctor's own hand.

Art of the Redemption 4: Christ of St John of the Cross by Salvador Dali

Christ of Saint John of the Cross was painted by the Spanish Surrealist painter, Salvador Dali in 1951 at a time when he was emerging from the strong anti-religious atheism of his youth and was re-embracing the Catholic faith. In my view it contains a lot of religious depth, but space will confine me to offer just a few reflections on how it explores and articulates the redemption.

It is partly inspired by a drawing Dali was shown by the 16th century Spanish Carmelite mystic, St John of the Cross (see right), hence Dali’s title. He has taken from the Carmelite the daring idea of portraying Christ viewed from above but he has changed much else. Gone is the tortured form of the body, the big nail(s) and the sweat. I would suggest that what we now have is an expression of the theology of the Cross and of Christ as found in the fourth Gospel. In a way, and despite its title, what we have is the ‘Cross of Christ of (that is ‘in’) St John’. Let me explain.

It has been said that the original 16th century version portrays a crucifix from the angle at which a dying person would view it as it is held up to them to venerate. Dali has us view Christ and the cross directly from above and looking down on the array of clouds below and earth below that. It is a heavenly perspective, indeed that of God the Father. Interestingly the Son, Christ, shares the same perspective as the Father: his view follows and continues that of the Father. The fourth gospel stresses that the Son proceeds from the Father and is one with him, seeing and doing whatever the Father directs him to do. In a way the Father also offers the Son to the world, to save it.

 

The fourth evangelist also stresses that Jesus is the master of his own destiny: he goes to his death because he chooses to. As St Catherine of Siena says he is held to the cross by love and not by nails. This majesty and freedom is brought out well by the lack of nails and the peaceful repose of the figure. John also stresses that the glory of Christ’s victory is already manifest in his actual death. As Jesus had said, ‘when I am raised up from the earth I will draw all people to myself (Jn 12:32). The glorious and serene Christ, situated above the clouds, speaks of a Christ already raised up, ascended to his Father.

While we can look down on the Christ, in a way our gaze is also drawn upwards to the cross. This is achieved because the painting in fact has 2 perspectives. As well as, at the top, looking down from above, at the bottom of the painting we look straight into it, sharing its level so to speak. The bottom scene is very particular. It reminds me of the account of John and James being called while they mend their nets (Mk 1:19-20). In fact, it is set in the contemporary setting of the Spanish fishing village of Port Lligat in which Dali lived. Jesus dies not just for us in a universal way but for every person in their concrete individuality, and not just people back then but here and now. Viewed from here we can look up and, penetrating the clouds with faith, see Christ, at once very clearly physically human but filled with divine glory, immense, embracing everything, and pointing to the Father from whom he has come.

The two perspectives found in the painting meet and produce an overall unity which destroys neither. Christ’s Paschal Mystery unites the divine and human and allows us to be caught up into the divine. The Father offers us his Son. But there is also a challenge. Do we, like John, want to get caught up in the redemptive work of Christ, a mystery known forever in God, but now made known for our salvation? And will we witness to it?

Preaching in the market place ...

Read here about Fr Tony Wall OP, an American Dominican who has taken to preaching in his local mall.

Graham Greene Anniversary 1: The Power and the Glory

The English novelist Graham Greene died on 3 April 1991. Godzdogz is marking the 20th anniversary of his death with a series of reflections on his novels. Greene was a Catholic, and many of his greatest works deal with 'Catholic' issues. Br Nicholas Crowe opens the series with an account of what many regard as Greene's greatest work.

Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory is set in 1930s Mexico at a time when the revolutionary government was aiming to stamp out the Catholic Church. The persecution was fiercest in Tabasco province, a state which Greene had explored in 1938 after his review of a Shirley Temple film provoked a law suit from 20th Century Fox that obliged him to flee the UK. Greene was impressed during his stay in Mexico by the raw and simple faith of the peasants, indeed he later claimed that their example had been instrumental in leading him to ‘live like a Christian’. The fruit of this sojourn was The Power and the Glory, published in 1940, a novel that shows all the power and depth of a spiritual awakening and is one of Greene’s most important works.

Greene tells the story of the ‘Whiskey Priest’ whose real name the reader never discovers. This priest is an alcoholic who, in a moment of drunken loneliness, has fathered an illegitimate child. His need for alcohol and his fear of capture continually lead him into shamefully humiliating situations, and at first glance he appears a dismal failure both as a priest and as a man. Yet as the novel progresses one comes to recognize that God’s grace is made perfect in weakness. Almost by accident, the Whiskey Priest stayed serving his people in the teeth of persecution while his brother priests fled, married, and accepted government pensions, or were captured and shot. It is only when the sterile and pristine Lieutenant who has pursued him from village to village begins to shoot the peasants who have offered him refuge that the Whiskey Priest turns his mind to escape.

Henry Fonda in The Fugitive, John Ford's 1947 film of the book

Greene paints a painfully vivid portrait of a man weighed down by his own demons and a terrible sense of sin, struggling to do his duty, striving to do what is right. The tale of Juan, as related by a pious mother to her children, is offered to us as a foil to this anti-hero: Juan was a perfect child, he was a perfect priest, and when he faced the firing squad without a tremor of fear or doubt he died a perfect death. Juan is a tedious and unattractive figure, and his martyrdom is a sentimental fiction. The Whiskey Priest, in contrast, is a character one cannot help warming to and pitying. When the soldiers come for him he is so frightened that he cannot stand, yet he is the true saint.

Greene dedicated The Power and the Glory 'For Gervase', that is Gervase Mathew OP (d.1976). An English Dominican who lived for many years at Blackfriars, Oxford, he was a member of the famous ‘Inklings’, a group that included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

From the the Field to the Altar...

Once I had been accepted by the Order, one of the last preparations I made before taking the habit was to retire from international football. Now I imagine both the FAI and FA were slightly surprised by my letter as I have very limited footballing ability and have never even come close to making a school second XI, never mind a nation's. I suppose on one side my actions were self-indulgent cheekiness but on the other hand they were putting aside childish dreams and ambitions.

However this month's Knights of Columbus Magazine highlights several young men in America who gave up serious sporting careers to enter religious life or the priesthood. One of the featured men is our Brother Peter Hannah OP, of the Western Province, who gave up a career as a professional golf to enter the Order.

Professional sportsmen are some of the most revered members of society and the fame and money that can be gained through this life is huge. The young men in this article are great examples to all of us in their giving up of such potential wealth for Christ. The article can be found here.

Saints this Month - 10th May: St Antoninus

St Antoninus is not one of the best known Dominican saints, and in a certain sense, he’d probably have wanted it that way. In an age when the Church had huge power and influence in Italy, as well as great wealth, it was all too tempting for many clerics and friars to seek to use these for their personal advantage, living lives of luxury and seeking high ecclesiastical office in order to get involved in the often bloody politics of the Italian city-states. Antoninus, on the other hand, tried everything to avoid his election as Archbishop of Florence in 1446, knowing the secular status it would involve and preferring the life of an ordinary friar: eventually he had to be forced by the Pope on pain of excommunication to accept the appointment!

Indeed, to go a little further back in time, it was in response to the political and ecclesiastical situation in Italy that that rather more famous Dominican saint, Catherine of Siena, had left her anchorite’s cell to pursue peace between warring cities and reform and renewal in the Church, renewal that was needed even in the Dominican Order of which she was a tertiary. Though Antoninus was only a boy when she died, the ideals of St Catherine lived on in the Order, and it was to the new Dominican community at Fiesole, founded by one of Catherine’s disciples, that Antoninus sought admission at the young age of 16. Here he learned the value of a life devoted to strict observance of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience not only as a spiritual discipline but as the basis of his, and his community’s, effectiveness as preachers.

When made a bishop, he continued as far as possible to live in the manner of a simple friar, and his popularity among the citizens of Florence on account of his humility and great generosity show just how attractive that simple and genuine character was.

Today, too, we need to look for ways to get people to listen to the Christian message we have to preach, to persuade them we have something to say worth listening to: the life of St Antoninus can be an inspiration and a model, with his radical following of Christ flowing over into a profound and genuine care for others – a care which was attractive in itself as well as motivating him in his work of preaching.

'Great houses make not men holy'

See here for an interesting account of the pre-Reformation foundations of Dominicans and Franciscans at Oxford.

Art of the Redemption 3:Josef Žáček, Resurrection

No artistic representation of the resurrection will ever display the depth and vastness of this central mystery of the faith. As it is impossible to reproduce an illusion of the visible reality of the resurrection, many artists have turned towards an abstract portrayal of Jesus’ victory. Some have argued that the freedom found in abstract art allows them to more fully display the message of the resurrection.

Josef Žáček’s hangs in the Gallery of Modern Art in Roudnice in the Czech Republic. This 1988 picture is from his “Period of Light”, which was influenced by Žáček's own spiritual journey and the embryonic rumblings of the 'Velvet Revolution' amongst the intellectuals of communist Czechoslovakia. The first thing one notices about the piece is that the light has no source but itself. The light is not like natural light but has a fluid-like otherworldly appearance, yet it easily and naturally integrates itself with it surroundings. The light radiates into the darkness, a beacon of hope and illumination, The central rectangle of light is surrounded by the shadow of cross, a reminder of the unity of the paschal mystery. Christ’s death and resurrection cannot be separated and it is only through entering into both that we can share in His new life. Through the framing of the cross, a door is created;on one level referencing the empty tomb, but on another level enticing and calling the observer to enter through the portal into risen life with Christ.

The English Martyrs

Today we celebrate the feast of the English Martyrs, and call to mind not only the forty priests, religious and lay men and women canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970, but the further two hundred and forty-two declared ‘blessed’ and those many unknown Catholics who died defending the faith in a period of around 150 years following the Reformation.

Shrine of the English Martyrs, Holy Cross, Leicester

For most of us practising our faith in this country today, the idea of laying down our lives for the supremacy of the Pope, the unity of the Church, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is a remote concept. True the Church here has its struggles - where does it not - but few of us would worry about persecution unto death and it is for this very reason that today’s feast is of such importance. It reminds us of the selfless sacrifice made by so many that the faith might live in England through the shedding of their blood, and of the continuing sacrifice made by so many in others in less tolerant areas of the world today.

Much has been written on the sufferings of these martyrs; they often endured trials that are difficult for us to dwell upon today and yet their sacrifice was not in vain. Quoting Tertullian, Pope Paul VI in his homily at the canonisation of the forty martyrs wrote; “‘The blood of Christians is the seed that is sown.’ As it was with the shedding of Christ’s own blood, so it is with the sacrificial offering of her Martyrs in union with His: a source of life and of spiritual fecundity for the Church and the entire world.”

As it was then, so it is today; the sacrifice of the martyrs, united to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ, goes far beyond the geographical constraints of nation states and the limits of their own time, to provide a rich source of spiritual life and nourishment upon which the Church can draw in times of peace and travail.

The Beatification of John Paul II

Cardinal Karol Wojtyła was very much an outside candidate in the October conclave of 1978, so the news of his election as pope was met with great surprise by the world. As it turned out, he was a truly inspirational choice. Being the first non-Italian pope in over 450 years, his style was to be markedly different from what had gone before. Within the first hour of his election, he broke with Vatican protocol by making a speech to the Italian crowds rather than just giving a blessing, despite a member of the Roman Curia beckoning him to bring his speech to an end. In that opening speech he said:

I was afraid in receiving this nomination, but I did it in the spirit of obedience to Our Lord and with total trust in his Mother, the Most Holy Madonna. I don't know if I can express myself well in your – in our – Italian language. But if I make a mistake, you will correct me. And so I introduce myself to you all, to confess our common faith, our hope, our trust in the Mother of Christ and of the Church, and also to begin again on this path of history and of the Church with the help of God and with that of men.

Placing his total trust in the Mother of Christ and the Church enabled John Paul to overcome his fear and bring great confidence to his role as pope. As universal pastor, he showed a remarkable ability to extend to world the pastoral devotion he had displayed as Bishop of Krakow. His famous gesture of kissing the ground when he visited a country and his travelling around in the popemobile endeared him to millions.

His influence on the world stage can hardly be underestimated – Mikhail Gorbachev said that the collapse of the Iron Curtain would have been impossible without John Paul II. Within the Church, his influence was no less significant with his development of the theology of the body, the addition of the luminous mysteries of the Rosary, and the unprecedented number of beatifications and canonisations under his pontificate. These initiatives expressed his belief in the universal call to holiness.

It is now just over 6 years since Pope John Paul died, and the time for his beatification so soon after his death is the shortest in modern history. There are voices which raise concerns about how quick this process has been. Some may be keen to highlight the mistakes he made or worry that troubling revelations about him might one day come to light. But even if he did make mistakes, his beatification does not imply every single action he did was free of error. Rather it is a recognition of a life that has been transformed by God's grace. I think if we truly reflect on the whole of John Paul's life, how the virtues of faith, hope and charity overcame his fear, we can easily recognise the transforming power of God's grace. Pope John Paul, pray for us.