Thursday - First Week of Advent

Isaiah 26:1-6; Psalm 118; Matthew 7:21. 24-27

When adverse weather hits closer to home, such as flooding in Cornwall, or severe winter weather in Britain, we realize that we’re just as vulnerable and helpless as our fellow men and women in less developed countries. But at least many are able to stay snug in our centrally-heated homes, connected to the world via the internet, and with electric lights by which to read. All the comforts of technology and modern living tend to insulate us from the realities of life, until we receive a sharp awakening from the rain, floodwaters, and winds of life which blow and assail us.

For some, these may be natural calamities: about ten major typhoons a year strike the Philippines, so having one’s house collapse is a real possibility and a fact of life. But for others, it may be personal illness, accidents, or bereavement. For others still, it may be financial hardship, unemployment, or even loneliness. And sometimes, these afflictions are by no means mutually exclusive.

The crucial difference, in the face of these trials of life, is whether we remain standing, or collapse, and there is no doubt that those with faith, who have something to live for, carry on. It is a faith that I have seen most evidently in the poorest, and not just in the Third World, but also on the streets of Oxford. On the other hand, those who trusted in themselves, and in their wealth, security, and possessions, will often despair as these things are taken away or become meaningless and empty.

Advent challenges us to re-focus our vision, looking to Christ as the source of our hope, and to ensure that he is the foundation of our lives. And we do this not just with words, but with actions that make it a reality. Then, when the wind and ice hits, we will be prepared and not caught adrift in the snow.

News from Around the World

Our Irish Brothers based at San Clemente in Rome celebrated the feast of Saint Clement (November 23rd) with the seminarians of the Irish College. The procession in honour of its patron has now become a valued tradition in the San Clemente neighbourhood.

(h/t to orbiscatholicussecundus for the photos)

When you visit Rome, San Clemente is a 'must see': find out more about it here.

The Holy Father held up St. Catherine of Siena as an example of spiritual maternity in his audience last Wednesday

After a lot of very positive response to their first appearance, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist were featured again on Oprah Winfrey's show. You can view an excerpt from their return visit here.

The friars across the pond are also keeping busy. Our brothers in the studentate of the province of Saint Albert the Great (popularly known as 'the Chicago province') have launched a new website just in time for Advent. You can find the site here.

This is an exciting time for the Chicago Province's studentate. They begin construction and renovation next week on the former Loretto Academy building in St. Louis. The works will create a new Priory, where the studentate will be housed.

Two friars from the Province of St. Joseph were interviewed on EWTN Live with Mitch Pacwa SJ. The whole show is available here.

November 30 - Feast of Saint Andrew

 Readings: Romans 10:9-18; Matthew 4:18-22

The first reading for the feast of St Andrew is a short but insightful outline of the role of preaching in God’s saving work. It states that faith comes from hearing but asks ‘how can they hear unless there is a preacher for them?' Though this text could in general terms by applied to all the apostles, and others besides, it is particularly appropriate for St Andrew based on what the New Testament records about him. He had no sooner come to faith in Christ than he proclaimed this to his brother, Peter - "we  have found the Christ” – and he took Simon to Jesus (John 1:40-41). Later he was involved in introducing the Greeks to Jesus, a very significant portent of the later spread of the Gospel beyond the confines of Palestinian Judaism and indeed of Judaism itself (John 12:20-22).

Andrew’s example highlights certain things at the heart of preaching. Being a preacher involves having a conviction of just how important faith in Jesus can be to others. It also means having the love, genuineness, and sensitivity necessary to share the Gospel appropriately with others. It means having the faith to point the other person to Jesus and even to usher them gently into the presence of the living Christ. It also involves realising that Jesus then has to make the crucial difference and leaving space for this direct encounter between others and Jesus.

In these ways St Andrew still serves as a model for all who would preach the Gospel, not least the Order of Preachers itself.

St Andrew, pray for Dominicans and for all preachers that we may have the zeal and love to speak appropriately of Jesus and the Gospel, as well as the expectant faith and prudent patience to trust Jesus to make himself real to people in God’s own timing and way, Amen.

Austin Milner OP RIP (1935-2010)

Please pray for our brother Austin Milner of the Oxford community who died peacefully at Blackfriars this morning. He was born on 9th August 1935 and made his profession in the Order on 27th September 1954. He was ordained to the priesthood on 30th April 1960. He spent much of his life in the Caribbean, working in Grenada, Jamaica, and Trinidad. For the past few years he was a member of the Oxford community, lecturing and tutoring in sacramental theology and liturgy. The photograph below was taken during the celebrations to mark the golden jubilee of his ordination earlier this year. A full obituary of fr Austin will appear in due course.

Lord, you gave Austin your servant and priest the privilege of a holy ministry in this world.

May he rejoice for ever in the glory of your kingdom.

We ask this through our Lord, Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Nos iunge beatis, 'join us to the blessed'

The salvation of souls (other people's, but also our own) has always been considered the goal of the Order of Preachers. As Dominicans, we must always pray that our preaching may bear fruit, and bring people to see and know Christ: it will never be able to do that, though, if we do not ourselves come to share more deeply in his divine life, that grace of which St Dominic was such an ardent preacher.

Of course, there is a sense in which we can only be joined to the blessed once we die; only then may we be admitted to the fullness of the beatific vision, and, indeed, when we say ‘nos iunge beatis’ we are asking for the assistance of St Dominic’s prayers for our own salvation. However, salvation is not just a one-off event at the moment of death, but rather a process which works itself out from the moment of our baptism, in which we first received God’s sanctifying grace. So we pray that already now in this life we may share something of the fullness of that blessed life which God offers to all mankind through his Son’s saving death in order that, by knowing it more deeply ourselves, we too may be preachers of grace.

First Sunday of Advent - Being Ready for the End

Readings: Is 2:1-5, Ps 121, Rm 13:11-14, Mt 24:37-44

Beginnings are an ideal time to think about ends. After all, if we are setting out on something new, we need to know where we are headed. Now the first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the new liturgical year and as we begin the new year, the Church invites us to think about the future. We look forward to a time when there will no longer be wars, a time of salvation, a time when the Son of Man will come.

The final coming of Christ is something that we can easily lose sight of. Some theologians believe that when Christ talked in apocalyptic terms, he was just using the language of a first century Jew. They argue that Jesus wasn't really talking about the end of the world, but rather he was just emphasising what the demands of Christian discipleship are. That is, we must constantly remain alert. In this realized eschatology, there is no need to focus on the end times, because the end has already happened. Christ has already come and he is with us now.

Of course Christ is truly with us and so we are living in the end times, but if we over-emphasise this realized eschatology, there is a real danger that we will go against what the Church has always taught. Every week in the Creed we proclaim 'He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead ... We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.' This will be a marvelous and miraculous event. It is not something we can deduce by studying the laws of physics. There is no way we can predict when it will happen or what it will be like, but our faith in Christ's resurrection demands that we believe in a general resurrection which will be a corporeal reality. This is something we have to be ready for. A human soul can only be perfected if it is united to a body, so we can't attain our final happiness as immaterial beings or as material beings which are subject to decay. Our faith in Christ means that we really can hope for a true and final happiness with God in which body and soul will be perfectly united.

So how should we be ready? Well, we need to come to terms with what we are. In today's reading, St Paul gives examples of certain types of behaviour which are unbecoming of human beings: reveling and drunkenness, debauchery and licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy. It is not that the Christian life means we can't enjoy ourselves, but rather our true joy cannot consist in these sorts of behaviour. In each of the examples that St Paul gives, there is some kind of contradiction with our true human nature. Getting drunk is damaging to our health and our judgement. Being licentious means our actions are not ordered to their proper end. Quarreling and jealousy undermine the social structures by which we discover who we are.

The big struggle in life is accepting our human nature, living as God intended us to live. We live in a fallen world, a world in which the spiritual is at war with the material, a world in which our souls are out of step with our bodies. We may see our bodies as letting us down, as an obstacle to our perception of reality, as tempting us do things we would rather not do. Yet we may also find ourselves being attracted to this fallen world and giving in to the unreasonable demands we feel our bodies are making of us. St Augustine understood this attraction very well. In book 8 of the Confessions, he writes about the period shortly before his conversion:

The burden of the world weighed me down with a sweet drowsiness such as commonly occurs during sleep. The thoughts with which I meditated about you were like the efforts of those who would like to get up but are overcome by deep sleep and sink back again. No one wants to be asleep all the time, and the sane judgement of everyone judges it better to be awake. Yet often a man defers shaking off sleep when his limbs are heavy with slumber. Although displeased with himself he is glad to take a bit longer, even when the time to get up has arrived.

St Augustine goes on to describe the actual moment of his conversion, how he was in the depths of despair, weeping under a fig tree. At this point he heard the voice of a child from a nearby house repeating over and over again: 'Pick up and read, pick up and read.' He suddenly stopped crying, he hurried to pick up a bible, he opened it and read the first passage on which his eyes fell.

Not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

The passage he read was the passage from St Paul, the one we heard in today's reading. This was the moment of St Augustine's conversion. On reading these words, he describes how at once it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety had flooded into his heart. All the shadows of doubt were dispelled. The story of Augustine's conversion shows the dramatic power of the Word. Christ is with us now and he is our light. He heals our human nature and in him we will find our ultimate happiness.

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