The Year of St Joseph

What should we pray for?

Sat, 26 Jul 2025 18:59:31 GMT

Should we pray for good weather?

In 2002 and 2003 Fr John provided articles for a Catholic newspaper and below is one of those articles exploring why we pray and what should we pray for . . .

When we saw it reported that Pope John Paul had prayed for rain during the dry summer spell in Europe, I was puzzled and uncomfortable. Surely the Pope always prays for rain. His brothers and sisters in Christ live in some of the most arid regions on earth, where there is always fear of drought and consequent crop failures. No Pope would pray just for European rain: he would pray for all peoples and thus, indirectly, would always be praying for rain.

A day or two after I read of the Holy Father’s rain prayers we had rains and floods in Spain, and television showed us the devastation. No one wrote or said this was the answer to Pope John Paul’s prayers. Was it? How does God answer prayers for rain? Does God need directions about which region needs rain?

I am not to tell my Heavenly Father what we need. He already knows before we ask, Jesus assures us. If God knows what we need before we ask then why wait for our prayer? Am I really to believe that God would allow the suffering caused by extremes of weather, waiting on our prayers before ending drought, extinguishing fires, saving crops, stopping bloodshed? What idea of a loving God is that for people to have preached to them?

I refuse the mental gymnastics that tell me God takes into account our future prayers and arranges our earthly conditions and lives according to the value and sincerity of those prayers. That reflects a cruel God who needs placating with satisfactory prayer. Jesus did not speak of his father in that way, though some horrifying passages of the Old Testament do portray a fearful God, one willing the slaughter of everyone in conquered towns and cities “placed under a ban”. But surely that is the cruelty of a primitive people, creating God in their own image and likeness – as in today’s world when wicked fools preach a God of vengeance where there are earthquakes and floods, telling terrified people that their sins have brought these evils. Innocent children dying in flood or fire or earthquake because of other people’s sins? That’s hell on earth, not faith in a loving God.

A fourteen-year-old boy told me coolly that he despised prayer as taught him at primary school – they had to pray for a fine day for Sports Day, or for a school outing. “God doesn’t have anything to do with the weather,” he said. “Did they think we were stupid?” I wish he could have spoken with those who broke the story of the Holy Father praying for rain. He would have asked them some sharp questions about prayer and rain, about prayer and the horrors of the world – Uganda, the Congo, Kosovo, the Holocaust . . .

Prayer doesn’t change anything – not weather, not civil war, not slavery, not dictatorship, not the Church. We pray to understand and accept God’s will, not to change it. Weather patterns are the Creator’s will. What else that happens is God’s will?

Fr John Daley (2003)

Lourdes

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 17:35:57 GMT

Ponderings of a Lourdes Pilgrim

Pat Murphy has been travelling with us on our Watermead pilgrimages for many years and usually brings friends from Liverpool with her. She also travels to Lourdes each year helping on the Liverpool diocesan pilgrimage and has been writing a regular column of her thoughts and experiences relating to those pilgrimages in their diocesan magazine. Below she has shared with us two of her articles.

At the time of posting, Pat will next be travelling to Lourdes with the Archdiocese from 24th - 31st July 2025.

June 2025

As I write this month’s article, I realise the month of May is moving far too fast. The month dedicated to Mary our Blessed Lady. I can only think of three days during the month dedicated to our blessed Lady though. The feast of Our Lady of Fatima falls in the middle of the month. I was lucky enough to visit Fatima a number of years ago. It was slightly out of season and a much quieter shrine than Lourdes and in fact very different, but reverend just the same. The Lourdes and Fatima apparitions are less than 60 years apart. Our Blessed Lord realised what a troubled world there was, and sent his Mother to pass messages though the children in Fatima and Bernadette in Lourdes.

Many disbelieved Bernadette as we well know but in Fatima many witnessed a miracle. Our Lady promised the children she would perform a miracle, to show people the children were telling the truth. The crowds saw the sun make incredible movements in the sky. In our secular world of today its referred to a “solar phenomenon”.

From Lourdes we don’t need the sun to dance in the sky, we know there have been many miracles – many publicised, such as our own Liverpool miracle Jack Traynor, but everyone who visits Lourdes will have their story of a mini miracle to tell.

Then we have the feast of the visitation on the last day of the month. Mary visiting her elderly cousin Elizabeth who became the mother of St John the Baptist – the forerunner of Jesus. Or as one child preparing for first Holy Communion said to me recently “he invented Baptism” I always think of this feast as being very visual. The joyous meeting of the two expectant cousins, and we read in the gospel when Mary greeted Elizabeth the baby leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

So those of us who will be travelling to Lourdes this year look forward to celebrating once again the miracle of Jack Traynor in the little French village where he was cured of multiple ailments. In this Jubilee year we will remember all those who are sick and who need spiritual and physical support. There is still time to join the pilgrimage – enjoy the feast of our Blessed Mother.

July 2025

I think most of us have a fascination of reading old newspapers, often they are more interesting than the present ones! I recently came across an article from the Times dated Friday 21st May 1858

“A girl named Savy in the Haute Pyrenees gave out at the beginning of the year that the Holy Virgin had several times appeared to her in a grotto near the town”

It continues in a rather disbelieving manner…..concluding “that the persons who pretend to see visions shall be sent to the hospital in Tarbes and be subjected to medical treatment, and that those who spread absurd tales of heavenly visitation shall be prosecuted for propagating false news”

Oh dear oh dear. I wonder what that journalist would write now. There was a slightly more accepting report a little later in June of the same year. The journalist had travelled to Lourdes, and had spoken to Bernadette, her aunt, the police and Father Peyramale. However the grotto was said to be barricaded from people entering. It was an offence to enter the area and drink the water, a heavy fine being incurred for breaking the rules.

Just thinking, since 1858, the millions of pilgrim’s visiting the shrine of Lourdes year on year. The many miraculous cures, the healing waters. Lourdes has been a continued place of pilgrimage from the early days. A place not only of pilgrimage but spiritual, physical and mental healing. If only the Times journalists could have seen into the future, how their eyes would have been opened.

Let us all continue in this jubilee year our own personal pilgrimage, whether it’s a walking pilgrimage within our own deaneries, a visit to a Holy place or joining a jubilee year pilgrimage to Lourdes or Rome. Maybe your pilgrimage of prayer is from your own armchair – but we join together in prayer and unity. Here in Liverpool not only have we welcomed our new Pope Leo X1V, but also our New Archbishop John Sherrington, who will join those of us who are able to travel to Lourdes later this month.

Your petitions and prayers will travel with us on that pilgrimage. Our Lady of Lourdes pray for us. St Bernadette pray for us.

Pat Murphy (Liverpool Archdiocese)

The Real Presence

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 13:10:46 GMT

The Eucharist - A Classroom Discussion

Picture yourself in a Catholic classroom of 14-year-olds. The students have been asked to imagine they are on a bus going to visit someone at the hospital. Are they nearer to the person alongside in the bus or to the loved one in the hospital? They have no doubt: to the loved one in hospital. Why, they are asked.

They find it easy to explain that your heart brings you closer to people than mere physical proximity does. You would hardly notice or remember a fellow passenger, they agree, because you would be thinking of the one at the hospital – or other thoughts, maybe.

They have grasped an essential idea: physical presence is less important than other forms of presence – emotional, spiritual, personal. They accept they are “personally” present to a loved one, even if a distance away.

Suppose the hospital were twenty miles away? Makes no difference, they say. Suppose it’s the other side or end of the country? They laugh. Suppose the loved one who is ill is the other side of the world? A girl cries out “Oh, don’t be silly, Father. It doesn’t matter how far away or near. You don’t measure love by distance!”

So you love people the same no matter how far away they may be? The students have no doubt. You love someone the same whether in the next room, the next town, the other side of the world? Yes. And the other side of death?

They laugh with delight. They have already told themselves that love knows no distance and now they see they have decided that not even death separates. You love because you love. Alive or dead, they acknowledge, the loved one is in your heart.

I tell them of Victor Frankl and his wonderful moment of freedom, in the horror of a Nazi concentration camp. He suddenly knew that all the cruelty and horror around him could not take away the truth of his love for his wife and her love for him; and even though he did not know if she were alive or dead the truth stayed the same: their love for each other was invincible and nothing could take it from him.

The class was silent. They had glimpsed adult truth, young as they were. I told them of Frankl’s wonderful book, “Man’s search for Meaning” , and knew some of them would immediately want to read it.

Love makes us present to each other wherever we may be. Distance, death, do not lessen that love. They were ready to begin to explore Eucharistic sacramental love – which is not physical (“in the bread”), nor emotional (“a feeling of oneness or friendship”), nor even spiritual (“a remembrance of the Last Supper”) – but is personal, the sign of the fullness of God’s love in the Eucharistic bread and wine. Love transforms bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, and Christ is truly present in a personal way that we call sacramental – the bread and wine the sign, Jesus the inner reality. They questioned . . .

Imagine a bookshop, I suggested. Ten copies of a particular book that you know your friend (or brother, sister, mother, father) would like are on the shelf. You take one and begin to change it: it is going to be a gift. You hold it carefully, knowing the love with which you’re going to give it, and you imagine the love and happiness with which it will be received. The book will be transformed by your love and their love – to become gift. Before ever it is read – and even if it is never read! – the book is gift. Love has changed it.

Our students are intense. They recognise this truth. They have all seen it. Love can make something small, and apparently of little value, into something beautiful for ever: a gift treasured, a gift remembered; something for ever, even when it is worn out or lent and not returned – or even stolen! Only the book is worn out or lost – the gift lives on in the hearts of the one who gave and the one who received. It is for ever.

They knew. The bread is so small and so simple. But in the hands of Jesus it became (becomes) gift, a total giving in love. “I give you myself as I give you the bread (and wine)” he said. The perfect gift, bread transformed by love to become the love of God made visible – “the outward sign of inward grace” says the old catechism.

The students talked of how beautiful a gift love can make anything, no matter how small or apparently trivial. Love transforms an object into something forever and that gift will never cease to be, even though the item fades away (or the bread and wine are consumed). The gift is for ever.

You can imagine the further questions. The celebration of mass as the Last Supper – the same miracle! The priest speaks Jesus’ words, obeying in faith “Do this in memory of me”, and we receive the Eucharist in that same memory. They wondered about non-believers taking Holy Communion. They couldn’t, they saw. Unbelievers would not see the love of God, but only bread and wine. And if a dog ate the consecrated host, a boy asked, hesitatingly not flippantly: was it Holy Communion?

Did the sacramental presence cease, they asked, for unbelievers, for animals and in other circumstances? If the host fell to the ground, on mud, was spat out of the mouth accidentally – was Jesus still present? If a priest said the words of consecration outside the celebration of mass, would Jesus become present? No, to that, straight away. The words of consecration spoken by the priest, the placing of his hands over the bread and wine whilst asking God to send the Holy Spirit upon this bread and wine, are only effective in the celebration of mass. The words of consecration are not powerful of themselves, they are not magic: the words belong only within the celebration of mass, when believers gather to do as Jesus did at the Last Supper.

They understood. The invoking of the Holy Spirit, the words of consecration, are the Church at prayer – as were Jesus and his disciples. The priest cannot speak as for himself but only as sharing in the priesthood of Christ. What he does, he does in the name of the Church – takes bread, blesses, breaks and gives – as Jesus did at the Last Supper.

Bread becomes food when it is eaten. If it is not eaten it was not food. The students saw the difference between bread and food. They saw the sign of bread as the food of life, knew Jesus’ title as the “Bread of Life” when received in Holy Communion. Thus they had answered the question about the host that fell to the floor, or was spat out, that was impossible to eat: it was not food, so the sacramental presence of Jesus ceased, just as bread ceases to be food if it cannot be eaten.

They saw the love of reserving the sacrament in the tabernacle – to be taken to the sick at home and in hospital: the “waiting Lord” ready for the frail members of the Mystical Body; and they saw the consequent reverence of praying in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. A beautiful logic featured for them in the questions and answers; and they saw they had answered their own question about the unbeliever.

Just as a thief cannot steal the book-gift, but only the book; just as a borrower cannot borrow the gift but only the book; so the gift always stays with the one to whom it was given. The believer who understands the gift of the Eucharist receives the gift, whilst others receive only the bread. The sacramental presence of Jesus is not physical, it is personal. It is love.

Jesus is present in love to all who accept him, and supremely in the sacramental sign of bread and wine. He chose to make himself present in (the giving of) the gifts of bread and wine at the Last Supper.

The students wanted to explore the difference between Jesus being present in the gifts of bread and wine and being present in the giving of bread and wine. We had reached the Reformation! Now they would begin to struggle with words like transubstantiation, transignification, transfinalisation. I sensed the heaviness. The beauty of Jesus’ giving of himself in bread and wine, the beauty of giving ourselves in any gift we make, the wonder of being present in love to anyone in any part of the world, the wonder of the Communion of Saints when love passes through death into eternity . . . Such beauty and wonder, they saw, can be reduced to a slanging match of theologians and believers as to “who is right?”

Dear Lord, we thank you for the Eucharist (“Thanksgiving”), for your personal love for each of us, for the gift of love in every gift, for the gifts of sacrificial love in the bread and wine of the Last Supper and Calvary.

St Mary Magdalene

Sun, 21 Jul 2024 14:33:47 GMT

"Apostle to the apostles"?

Noli me tangere, fresco by Fra Angelico (circa 1395–1455)

The title “Apostle to the apostles” given to Mary is meaningless. She wasn’t alone (“ we don’t know . . .” John 20:2) and the title presumes she and the others had authority to go to Joseph’s tomb to carry out the burial rites. She had no authority.

Joseph and Nicodemus, along with John and Mary the mother of Jesus, carried out those rites on the Saturday evening when sabbath was over. Nicodemus brought myrrh and aloes (John 19:39) and the four of them did all that love and the law required. The final act was the wrapping of the cloths ( ‘othnia’ ) around Jesus’ body and the headband ( ‘sudarium’ ) around Jesus’ face and head.

Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to pray. The tomb was open and she saw the cloths lying flat on the ground. There was no body. She ran to tell Peter and John (John 2:1). They ran to the tomb, John arriving first. He saw the cloths but waited for Peter to enter the tomb. Peter noticed the cloths and face-band were separate (John 20:7-8) before John entered the tomb and “saw and he believed” (John 20:8). What did John see close up that he had not seen from outside? The othnia and sudarium were as he and the others had left them a few hours before, wound around the body, face and head. Jesus had passed through them, they had not been unwound. “He saw and he believed” (John 20:8) are amongst the most powerful words in the Bible.

Where is the shroud of Friday afternoon? The Shroud of Turin offers an unconvincing answer. Far sharper was the judgment of Professor Spadafora, senior lecturer in Scripture at Rome’s Lateran University, whose reply to that question was “It serves the piety of the faithful.” If the shroud of Turin inspires prayer it is doing good. By their prayer people create places of pilgrimage even when there are no authentic visions or events. Medjugorje and the shrine in honour of St Philomena are examples of other places which inspire prayer.

I studied Scripture under Professor Spadafora at the Lateran University. He was part of a group (Parente, Piolanti, Ottaviano and others) who drained the life from Pope Paul VI, separating him from new biblical scholarship and from the commission on birth control which Pope Paul VI himself had expanded from the original group set up by Pope John XXIII. That commission unanimously agreed that a ban on birth control could not be justified by reason, but four of them (Ford, Zalba, De Lestapis and Visser) wanted no change in Church teaching because that would admit the Holy Spirit had allowed error in such an important matter. Pope Paul followed the reasoning of the minority report, even repeating justifications unanimously rejected by the full commission, including the minority.

‘Humanae Vitae’ died on the day it was published. Around the world bishops’ conferences gave pastoral advice to their people, effectively guiding them to follow their consciences. They did. They do. We saw Pope Paul fade from us. He did not write another encyclical and the conservative-progressive tensions of Vatican II split loyalties everywhere.

The press conference to present ‘Humanae Vitae’ was introduced by Professor Lambruschini who taught me Pastoral Theology at the Lateran. His first words were “This is not an infallible statement.” The argument was over. If not infallible then open for discussion and therefore to the pastoral advice of bishops.

Moral theology works from principles which people accept or reject, but the principles do not change. Pastoral theology starts with the person and the truth that no one is outside God’s love and forgiveness. Moral and Pastoral theologies are two different disciplines but complement each other: without moral principles pastoral thinking might fall into situation ethics, and without pastoral awareness moral teaching might become an unbearable burden of perfection or failure, such as was loaded on the people by the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. We students at the Lateran University heard Vatican II reports at evening progressive press conferences and conservative lectures the following day at the university. It was a fascinating involvement.

A Vatican III now would serve no purpose. Vatican II is still moribund, stifled by Rome’s control in appointing bishops in the years following Vatican II. A synod that invites the people of God to be involved seems to be Pope Francis’ way of bypassing that control with his own blend of pastoral and moral and asking the people to come with him. Yet he seems doomed to failure. The millions of abused children and women have cried their suffering to church and world. We have heard. We acknowledge that the Church as it is cannot go on gospel mission. The dreadful abuses have not been addressed and it is the suffering of our children and women and others which is witness to our Catholic shame. As we support Pope Francis we sadly recognise the papacy has been our shame for most of Church history. Our first criminal pope was Callistus, twice imprisoned (embezzlement and public brawling but mitigating circumstances) and our first murderer was Damasus. Both are honoured as saints!

Pope Liberius died in September 366 and two of his deacons, Damasus and Ursinus, were determined to succeed him. They were thugs. Each hired gangs of assassins who fought in the streets of Rome. Damasus won and became pope in the October. Most of our popes were venal, stooges, puppets, under the control of powerful families. The papacy is a history of lust for power, wealth and sex. ‘The Donation of Constantine’ is part of this amazing story and the history of the Papal States is a tissue of deceit. When the Italian peoples longed for unity and wanted Rome as their capital in the 19th century, a brave Antonio Rosmini told Pius IX that the city and states should be given to the people of a united Italy. He suffered what those who speak truth to power suffer – exclusion. Rosmini’s ‘Five Wounds of the Church’ was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books.

Today, the good news of Jesus “love one another” is coming alive through our feeling more free with Pope Francis than we were with John Paul II and Benedict XVI. At the Good Friday Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum in Rome in 2005 the then Cardinal Ratzinger read these words: “What filth there is in the Church and even in the priesthood which ought to belong entirely to him”, quoted in ‘Light in the Darkness’, a full length interview given by Pope Benedict. The words were written by Pope John Paul II who died a few weeks later and he was followed by Pope Benedict XVI who resigned a few years later. Both men were defeated by the filth of the Church. They knew the truth. They failed us, the people of God, disastrously.

Pope Francis inherited the failures and has appealed to us, the people, directly. In only a small number of countries has the Church yet accepted independent commissions of enquiry into sexual abuse of children and women. There have been none in Africa or Asia, nor in Central or South America except for the extraordinary one in Chile where the details of Archbishop Scicluna’s huge report were so damning that the whole hierarchy offered to resign. Pope Francis and Archbishop Scicluna know the details and owe us the truth. We are left in the ignorance of guessing. We guess the worst. Italy, Spain and Portugal have recently and reluctantly begun enquiries, terrified by what has been revealed in France. What did Benedict discover in Cuba?

We are aware of new emphasis on our sharing in the priesthood of Christ by our baptism, women and men equally, the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene inspiring a fresh understanding in this primacy. Given that, it is suggested that women do not need a place in the ministerial priesthood. Is that true, is that true equality?

In a beautiful Maundy Thursday meditation Pope John Paul II imagined the Last Supper. The apostles are there, though

only seven are mentioned by name in the four gospel accounts, and so are their families. At least six of Jesus’ apostles were his relatives, their parents his aunts and uncles. Jesus’ mother is next to him. Jesus gives her the sacrament of his body and Pope John Paul II imagines Jesus’ thoughts reflecting his beautiful words at Cana: “Woman, chosen for me by my father, awaited down the ages by our people to be the mother of the Messiah, you gave me my human body: I give you my sacramental body.” When Mary held her baby did she ever think “This is my body”?

I return to the four accounts of the Resurrection. They cannot be fitted together to make one. We have to know all four or we speak nonsense, this year’s gospel story, rather than offer the four different accounts to the people and students. It is also unbalanced to concentrate on one account and then dramatise an empty title like ‘Mary Magdalene, apostle to the apostles.’

None of this is new. I knew it in the early 1970’s from the excellent Liturgical Press of Collegeville in the United States. It discussed the Friday afternoon shroud and the Sunday morning cloths and saw how to reconcile the two. The true witness to the resurrection in John is that the othnia and sudarium were still in the shape of Jesus’ body, but only John would recognise that. Jesus had passed through the cloths. “He saw and he believed” (John 20:8).

John is the apostle to the apostles, the first witness to the resurrection, not Mary Magdalene. Mary came to the tomb to pray, saw the tomb was open, saw the cloths lying flat and the body not there. She ran to tell Peter and John and returned to the tomb after they had gone. Jesus was waiting for her and Mary mistook someone early in the garden as a gardener. He spoke her name (was it the name on the white stone – Book of Revelation 2:17?) and it was then she recognised him. “Noli mi tangere” (“Do not touch me”) is John’s telling us of Mary’s being overwhelmed.

John was on his way to tell the other apostles but we would assume he went first to his two mothers, his own and her sister, his new mother, who would be talking about the Saturday evening and its sadness. They surely had to be first to know. Then he would tell the other apostles.

We need better understanding of women’s place in the story of Gospel and Church and women are capable of speaking for themselves, equal in scholarship and sensitivity to the partnership: “Let us make humankind in our own image and likeness” (Genesis 1:27). Male and female we were created – together we are God’s stewards of creation.

John Daley IC

March 2023

Original Sin

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 18:49:10 GMT

Truth does not change but understanding of truth does

The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Chapter one is a poem in which the author imagines God as a working man, working for six days and then taking a day of rest. God’s final act on the evening of the sixth day is to create human beings in “our own image and likeness.” God created them male and female. God is talking to Sophia, we discover, whose name means “Wisdom”, and in the Book of Wisdom she speaks of her delight at being with God in the Creation and then being with the human race for all ages.

The first three chapters are about man and woman. Eve appears only at the end of chapter three and Adam not until the end of chapter four. Adam and Eve’s family story (Cain, Abel, Seth, etc.) is grafted on to the opening three chapters. What we call ‘original sin’ is not of Adam and Eve – it is the sin of man and woman, a universal story of every age.

A baby is conceived innocent, born innocent, but into a world scarred by its history of wrong-doing, hatred, wars, slavery and even genocide – as our world is today. God saw all that was made as good but human history has brought evil in every age to spoil that goodness. Human beings can be so evil that they justify killing and even genocide as honouring God. All religions have lived that blasphemous belief, including Jews in the Book of Joshua, Muslims in their ‘holy wars’, the Catholic Church in its lie of the ‘Donation of Constantine’ and defending its history of persecution, inquisition, torture and execution.

Each of us shares in the sin of the world because we inherit the guilt of the first sin or because by our own first (original) sin we link ourselves to sin going back to the beginning. Are we born with original sin (guilty) or in original sin, sharing the effects of sin? The translation of St Paul’s words in his letter to the Romans (5:12) is the crux. The old translation was interpreted to mean we are guilty because of the first sin, but a new understanding was suggested in the 1960’s in Rome that our guilt begins only with our own first sin.

The protagonists were Prof. Spadafora at the Lateran University and Prof. Lyonnet at the Biblicum. The comment in the Jerusalem Bible simply says “Meaning disputed.” I was taught the old understanding when young but I believe the new understanding from my studies: each of us is good as created by God but in our own first (original) sin we add our guilt to all previous guilt. We can thus speak of two original sins in our lives: our own and the sin that belongs to human history going back to the beginning. I don’t remember my first sin and I wasn’t there for the first sin of the human race, but I know they both happened. We all know wrong-doing.

Baptism is a cleansing from sin (“I believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins”) but much more it is the water of new life, as at the baptism of Jesus “beloved son, listen to him.” Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would guide his followers to new understanding: this is the Church’s development of doctrine. Some of today’s challenges for guidance include same-sex relationships, divorce from unbearable marriage with freedom to marry again, the exclusion of abusers of children and women from any part in the mission of the Church except by quiet lives of repentance and prayer . . . .

We need and pray to be open always to understanding God’s loving mercy. Truth does not change but understanding of truth does. We all experience new understanding in various areas of life. To give Yesterday’s answers to Today’s questions suggest we don’t want Tomorrow but prefer looking back to Yesterday . No children are going to be born Yesterday . They have Today’s questions that require fresh answers. The biggest is still whether we kill our enemies or offer friendship. Religions are the frightening monsters of world history, justifying their horror by claiming they are doing God’s will. No child will accept that unless persuaded (indoctrinated) by evil people - to hate rather than befriend.

The Holy Trinity

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 17:44:40 GMT

Human life is three and one

Each of us is the third person of the human trinity. We know that two other people have been involved, however that happened. The life of the third person, the child, confers a new title on those two others. Until the conception of the child they were man and woman, husband and wife, partners, surrogates, etc., but the child gives them the new name of ‘parents’.

Human life is three and one and those who believe in God proclaim we are made in God’s image and likeness. But if you ask believers to explain the life in God you will be disappointed: the human mind cannot express or explain the divine mystery. It is by revelation that we know the divine mystery, through the words and actions of Jesus.

A similar truth of revelation we can see in our own lives. We pass an ordinary couple on the street who might overwhelm us if they revealed to us their deep love. It is not visible, it needs to be revealed. True love, beautiful friendships, are not visible unless revealed, then we share the mystery.

Jesus speaks of saying and doing what his Father wanted of him – to be a channel of the Father’s love for everyone, but no one knew that and naturally took Jesus’ words and actions as his own. Jesus spoke of this mystery at the Last Supper but there are hints throughout the Gospel, especially in the times of prayer in the early morning and late evening when we imagine his asking for blessing and guidance for the day ahead, as we all can do, and expressing thanks for good days and disappointment at not-so-good days in the evening, as we can all can do.

The truth is within. The love of the divine and human trinities is known when revealed. The truth of the love of the Holy Trinity is known because Jesus revealed it. The human trinity can see the ‘third’ of their image and likeness in creaturehood at every level in our fascinating world where the young and the new are consequences of the passing on of life. Three-in-one is the mystery of life on earth and Science studies the ‘how’ of life but wonders if we shall ever know the ‘why’. Shall we know a divine mind, some of our brilliant scientific minds have wondered.

Science seems to think that an extraordinary event took place about 14 billion years ago, so powerful that the explosion is still expanding. Humanity as we know it less than a million years and seems to be at the beginning of its story. We ask of those who believe why God waited so long before the human race arrived and wonder what humanity will eventually come to be. Those who cannot or do not believe in God reach the understanding that co-operation and kindness are life’s greatness blessings and thus believers and non-believers share the best ways to shape our world.

The life of the Holy Trinity is a life of love and giving (co-operation), the life of the human trinity can reflect that life, and life in creation reflects the human trinity. Trinity is the shape of perfect love: divine, imaged in the human trinity which is imaged in all giving of life.

Dwelling in God's Love

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 18:17:00 GMT

We are born into the eternity of God's love

Think of two people that you love. They dwell within you. Wherever you are so are they, dwelling within you. I think of my mother and father. They dwelt and dwell within me and I know I always dwelt within them. Death has made no difference – they are with me, I with them. It is eternity, heaven.

Jesus told the disciples that he must go so that he and the Father could come and dwell within them. It is the same truth: Jesus and the Father dwelling within each one of the disciples, each of the disciples dwelling in God. It is eternity, heaven. The indwelling of those we love and the indwelling of God come together: it is eternity, now.

Think of as many others as you want to. They are dwelling in you. If they do not know you, or know of you, are you dwelling in them? Not that they can know, but you can because you are choosing to be in them through your love, sympathy, sorrow, admiration. Refugees, terrified migrants, victims of war, violence, floods and fire – they dwell in you because you care about them (as God dwells in everyone because God cares about and loves us) but they don’t know unless someone tells them. Dwelling within, indwelling, is complete when mutual - but partial when only one knows and the other doesn’t. God knows and dwells within everyone and it is the mission of the Church to share that truth with the world. God’s indwelling is eternal because God is: ours is forever - waiting to become eternal when we know each other.

Think of two people that you detest. They dwell within you. You think of them as easily as of those you love. There is an indwelling of hatred as well as of love. Everyone we know or know of dwells in us. Every moment we have lived stays within us. We are each a wonderful world, capable of an unlimited number of loving friendships and of hateful relationships.

I always loved, shall always love, my mother and father and believe they would say the same. I knew eternity when they were here and I know eternity now they are there: but there is no here and there in eternity, nor then and now; eternity is now and here. I’ve been living in eternity since I began to live, and so have you. Parents’ love begins when they know the child is alive. God’s love was already awaiting the child. We began to live in eternity from our first moment. Does everyone?

Look honestly at the horrifying reality of the ways that men have abused women and children. Am I to see eternity there, God’s love there? If I can’t, what do I see? Some of the answers are too brutal to be put into words – but not all of them are: I might choose to say that God is present sometimes and not at other times; I might ignore the possibility of God’s being involved because what has happened is too ugly even to be human, so could not be divine; I might see all life-giving as accidental or incidental (one cruel father told his daughter she was a mere biological incident and didn’t need to call him father). Life begins the same way for everyone and might be beautiful or horrifying. Do we dare say God’s love is always present? Can God be absent? Those who believe in God may find it easy to express love and faith when conditions are easy; but the truth of God has to be recognised in all circumstances, otherwise it is selective truth and only partial. We must face and speak the truth, not cosy inward-looking versions of it. Is God always there?

Fr John

Free Education for All

Sat, 18 Sep 2021 14:56:00 GMT

Memories of Schooldays

Gerald McCarthy was my cousin. He was a brilliant rugby player and captained the Welsh Schools XV at 15 and 18. My school friends, from four and a half, were Gary Sullivan and Paul Donovan and our friendships lasted right through our lives.

A fight began as Upper Sixth were coming out of class and Lower Sixth going in . . . Gary told Gerald he should be ashamed of playing for Wales: he was false to his name and to his Irish people. Gerald angrily replied that he was born in Wales, as his parents had been, and he knew his Irish history; but his home and his family were all in Wales.

“You can’t be Irish and Welsh” shouted Gary, “you have to choose!” Suddenly it was ugly. They went for each other but we held them back. There was anger, bewilderment, involvement, tension. We all knew it.

We each had that familiar story each in our own way – Irish immigrant families, Welsh home and upbringing – but how differently we had been growing up. Jack and Paul F were already Welsh nationalists, Gary and others only looked back to Ireland, others wanted to claim belonging to both. What united us was our Catholic faith and school, and the privilege of being the first generation to be offered higher education by the State.

The 11+ exam had opened for us doors closed to the preceding generations of our families. We were the first on the path which was to become a glorious vision of education for the whole world, free and provided by the State.

Education beyond the dreams of our parents and families was ours because of success at the 11+ exam. Better was to come. Comprehensive Education with no division was better – and then the Academies have become a further development, all students encouraged to achieve their best, “Streaming” within schools a good system, the blending of strengths, coaching of weaknesses, the best pace for each student, good challenging at every level.

SWITZERLAND was the first school where I saw that comprehensive fullness: SW were the strongest, ITZ the middle, ER the slowest and most needy (LAND not needed but in reserve). There was easy movement between the various subjects and groups.

That post World War II generation led the way to a higher education for all. We have a sense of responsibility so that today we can claim an awareness of a universal right to education. This right may be stifled by powerful religious and political powers, by bigots, these battles to be won - but equality of education for girls is more recognised – someone as brave as even Malala risking her life to speak out.

In a previous parish newsletter I summarised the book “Small is Beautiful” by E.E. Schumacher (summary below) which reminded the developed world that projects which served the poor best are those that allow them to be involved. Great projects, demanding huge capital outlay, benefit the investors: projects that engage huge numbers of the poor to develop their skills and co-operation are far better. Education, said Schumacher, is the best form of aid.

“Small is Beautiful” E.E. Schumacher

Schumacher set himself against the geo-political thinking of the mid-twentieth century and brought economics back to its people-centred setting:

1. The world’s greatest gift is human life to tend and cultivate the earth in all its richness.

2. Share the earth, do not possess or control it.

3. Everyone has a valued place in a good society – no one is useless, everyone encouraged, new personal insights alway appreciated.

4. We are all gifted and need to give. We thrive in a healthy society.

5. Towns and cities should feel like “home”, not jungles of streets and brick and shanty hovels.

6. He quotes Byron “The Tree of Knowledge is not The Tree of Life”, and Charles Darwin who had watched himself die to all sense of beauty in music, poetry and art, and make of his mind a sort of machine for grinding out general laws.”

7. Appreciate the world of nature, land, creatures.

8. Abuse of creation leads to waste-land, deserts, and the destruction of top-soil on which all life depends.

9. It is our duty to constantly restore, replace, preserve, renew.

10. Nature offers clear guidelines and good education leads to best local understanding of resources: land, water, forestation, rotation of crops, fallow years . . .

11. The large cities in the poorer countries offer no vision: they look to the wealthy world and ignore the poverty-stricken, unemployed and unemployable, the drop-outs, those living in the shadows.

12. Encourage positive relationships based on a sense of equality and mutual appreciation of different ways.

13. Plant a tree every few years.

14. Plan carefully together for a shared prosperity, rather than leave such tasks to boastful and deceiving forecasters.

15. Stop. Look. Listen.

16. With good organisation and individual freedom – work together.

17. People are at the centre of good economics.

18. Education is the best aid we can give.

We have a world vision to share – good education, overcoming of religious bigotry and divisions, justice and freedom for every one in the human family. Private education must remain family choice - choice is precious - but as a world we must choose to make general education ever better. It is a challenge, but we must rise to the challenge. I feel privileged to have been there at the beginning: after World War II Great Britain accepted its responsibility to educate its citizens and not leave it to private enterprise. Slowly the world has been following.

Were our parents and families proud of us, moving into the wider world, fulfilling the hopes and dreams they’d had no chance to realise. Yes. We fulfilled their dreams. But we must be aware that others want to dream, too.

Fr John Daley

FOOTNOTE

What happened to my friends?

Gerald McCarthy was accidentally killed on army manoeuvres the following year whilst doing National Service in the British army. Alec (also on National Service) died when the engine of the plane he was flying failed and the people saw him guide it to a safe place to crash. He had chosen not to bale out. A plaque in his memory is in the local church: he died to save them.

Gary, feisty always, had the happiest of marriages to a lovely Welsh girl and died at forty-eight waiting for a transplant. I was with him at the hospital. He had mellowed to the perfect Irish Welshman. My friend from four and a half.

Paul D played rugby for London Welsh and seemed certain to be chosen for Wales, but made clear his opposition to apartheid in South Africa and would not play against South Africa, so he was shelved. Paul became a lawyer. I was at his wedding in London and our friendship, from four and a half, continued until the end of his life.

Jack and Paul F never lost their Welsh Nationalist feelings, nor their wonderful sense of humour. My friends throughout their lives from our first year in secondary school.

Fr John's Dream

Sat, 14 Aug 2021 14:49:00 GMT

"Pensare in Grande"

We have lost the Climate Change war. Suddenly, we know. We cannot reclaim lost opportunity but we can prepare for what is coming and learn how to cope. Human intelligence is immense. We shall learn to adapt. China (28%) and the USA (23%) – 51% between them! - are the great polluters, more than the rest of the world put together. The UK is responsible for 1% (Wales for .001%). We must create a new world order and part of that will be seeing each other again. We must. Our inter-national relationships are of great value and we must redevelop them. The alternative is to simply shield and shrivel inside our own countries. We must reach out.

Last week I emailed our friends where we have been on our happy and blessed pilgrimages. Sad replies: “We are longing to welcome you back,” was the common theme of their replies. Life has been very difficult for them all. Few pilgrims and tourists, little income, bleak prospects. Stefano in Rome has used all his savings in order to keep the staff in employment on a minimum wage; our Rome hotel and favourite restaurant have barely survived; only half of the hotel in Stresa is open and the staff have urged Simona to tell Padre Giovanni and his friends (the nicest group, they call us) to come and visit again; Giampaolo and Francesco and the little bus and taxi company are surviving but they long for a genuine income . . . . so I give you my dreams for 2022 and 2023.

“Dreaming with the Lord, Rebuilding our Friendships, Loving and Re-shaping our World with Reverence, Putting People First”
2022 : February – Pilgrimage to Rome; Early May – 5 days in Lourdes; Late June – Montecatini in Tuscany (4 days) visiting Florence (2 days) and Pisa, then 3 days in Assisi; August - Lake Maggiore and Stresa in Northern Italy; November - Pilgrimage to Rome.
2023 : February – Pilgrimage to Malta; May - Padua and Venice; August - Lake Maggiore and Stresa in Northern Italy; Late September (Surprise) - British Columbia and the Canadian Rockies, visiting the missions where Fr John was so happy; November – Pilgrimage to Rome.

It’s a DREAM that I would the Lord to bless to become a vision. We must move and be moved. That’s how God has made us, needing each other, none of us self-sufficient. One world, no longer first or second or third worlds. We must plan for higher sea and river levels, bring populations to live on higher ground; we must learn to deal with weather extremes, develop more skilful agricultural methods, explore engineering and manufacturing improvements. A new world, shaped with greater care, mutual understanding and respect and reverence for all peoples.

When I was a young man, television was a box in the corner with panel games and the news; mobile phones were a possibility but would never catch on; the average age in this country was less than seventy for a man, a little more for lady; a job was normally yours for life unless you decided to change; Christian Europe had twice torn itself apart with war; the Catholic Church in Germany and Italy had ignored the horrifying persecution of the Jews but protected its churches and schools; Baptism in this country promised a place in heaven and a Catholic school; Catholics were forbidden to pray with other Christians without permission; there was religious control of timid minds, but the people were breaking free; the Popes spoke of the sanctity of the life of the child in the womb (yes, always a child!) but strangely, without any human reasoning as the Papal Commission unanimously agreed, told married couples how to express their love; the world was divided in a Cold War between East and West.

God’s call is always to love. We are planning a Catechism written by our children. “Tell me about God, Creation, the Human Family”, and “God is Love” is the sub-title. Love will save the world – God’s love in Creation, Christ’s love in his teaching and death and resurrection, and our human love. We learn (so slowly) that we belong together and are not enemies or rivals. We see the hatred of the Taliban, Boko-haram, Isis, Genocide butchers, nationalists, war-mongers – but the voices we want to listen to are of Malala, St Oscar Romero, Franz Jägerstätter, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela – God’s prophets of hope and healing.

It's been a busy week but here is the last item . . . The only Catholic weekly paper in this country is The Tablet. It is good. We have lost the Catholic Universe and the Times, The Catholic Herald has become a monthly magazine, so at the popular level we have nothing. We should do something about it.

I have contacted two fine Catholic journalists to ask them to write a weekly summary of Catholic news. We shall host it on the St Joseph’s and Watermead websites and the Catholic Men’s Society of Great Britain on their home and society sites. It will be freely downloadable around the country. More. Years ago the Sunday Observer carried a brilliant one-page summary of the week’s world news on its final page. A lady named Katherine Whitehorne was its editor. I used that page week and after week for a Current Affairs course I was teaching and the students were fascinated: a full glimpse of world news each week.

Can we do it for our Catholic community? How best, we shall discover together. I spoke to John Clawson, the very good editor of our own Nottingham diocesan newspaper and we would then hope to print every month those four weekly sheets as a newspaper for those who do not use the internet.

“Pensare in Grande” meaning ‘think big’ was a motto of Antonio Rosmini, the founder of the religious institute to which I belong. Tom Concannon, Alison’s father, and co-founder of the Watermead Apostolate, had his education limited by a chronic health condition, but had as his motive “Think Big”. He published seven historical novels and was working on his biography when he died suddenly. Doreen, his wife, completed the book. We shall “Pensare in Grande” with Tom and Antonio.

Fr John

Easter and new life . . . .

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 18:40:00 GMT

Jesus rises to new life - and so shall we . . .

Holy Week and Easter are complete. We have shared in prayer and memory the sufferings of Jesus, his death and resurrection. We rejoice at the faith that allows us to look towards him in sorrow and joy – and to share God’s love as he did. Holy Week and Easter are complete when we share blessings with others.

Around the world the sufferings continue – the pandemic growing in numbers, particularly in the poorer parts of the world; the civil wars and hatreds that the news media bring us each day; the agonies of refugees fleeing their home or homeland to save their lives – and receiving little sympathy from so many, but great love from some. We share their sorrow and pray for them.

At the beginning of the pandemic the divided countries of the world seemed to co-operate in order to help each to come through: but selfishness, national and international, have become more visible as the months went by. Tensions in and between nations seem to be greater and the United Nations and the World Health Organisation, begging for understanding and peace, are no more listened to now than before the pandemic. We pray for good human sense to become love and to bring salvation to our world – political, social, tribal, religious, etc.

God gives us a world to share. This last year showed glimpses of greater generosity in that sharing – but also a greater selfishness in taking advantage of the weakness, helplessness, of others. We pray with those who long for freedom, justice, peace, end of conflict, love and security. We know what needs to be done, and how many good people have shown us that in their caring, healing, sharing, sacrifices. Day after day we have heard of inspiring family and neighbourly love.

In our parish family (and how wide that seems to have become now – local, national and even international) we have learned of the sorrows, sadness, insecurities of many. There has been generous and loving help where it could be given, and we ask that that generosity be always with us.

Easter and Christ’s risen life are a sign of eternal hope – but we must make it real by making it local and now. Christians may speak, and even intend, well - but it is our deeds that make us genuine. How might we help one another as we start to prepare our Church and society for after the pandemic in our country, whilst vividly aware of the continuing ravages of the pandemic in many other parts of the world. We belong to one another and to God with Jesus: standing near the cross and believing in the resurrection.

God bless us to be good neighbours,

Fr John

The Finger of God

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 17:39:00 GMT

The Finger of God - and the bias again left-handedness in the Bible

"Whichever of you is without sin - you throw the first stone"

(Picture: Pieter Brueghel the Elder: Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery )

Was Jesus right-or-left-handed? He was right-handed. When he wrote on the paving stone of the Temple (in the story of the woman guilty of adultery) what did he write? Nothing. He did not need to. The act of writing-on-stone is what the Bible calls “a parable-in-action” where no words are spoken but the action is the message. We read of such parables in the prophets: doing something God asks them to do, without words.

Can you see the parable in Jesus writing on the ground with his finger? His action recalls God’s writing the commandments on the tablets of stone given to Moses on the holy mountain (Horeb/Sinai), the commandments that would guide the rabble of slaves leaving Egypt to become the People of God.

God wrote the commandments on stone? God has no hands, God has no body, God is spirit. This is “our” translating the work and word of God into images we understand. God had no finger with which to write the commandments.

“The finger of God” is a biblical image for the power of God. Everything God did/does is by the Word of God – “dabar”, a word that creates as it is spoken. “God saw all that was made and it was good.” God has no eyes. Again, it is our expressing understanding our way, not God’s way.

“The finger of God” is a phrase used by the Pharoah’s magicians to describe the plagues brought about by Moses when trying to convince the Pharoah to let the Hebrews go free. The magicians can do some of what God can do but not all, as they admit after the third plague, the mosquitos.

The finger of God “wrote” the commandments on stone, and the son of God wrote on the stone of the Temple pavement. The woman’s accusers understood this parable-in-action. So should we. They walked away defeated, leaving Jesus with the woman, not condemning her, nor forgiving her, either, but sending her home to be forgiven by her husband and family and neighbours. Was she?

Jesus was right-handed. He was taught to write, as we all are. His teachers would never have allowed him to write left-handed, and not so long ago pupils in our schools were punished if they tried to write naturally with their left hand. Why the bias against left-handedness? It is rife. It is everywhere.

In the whole of the Bible only one man is left-handed, Ehud, in the Book of Judges (chapter 3), and he is remembered for his treachery by being able to kill, unexpectedly, using his left arm and hand. In the same Book of Judges (chapter 20) we read of seven hundred soldiers of the tribe of Benjamin who could fight with either hand – in an army of 25,000! They were ambidextrous, we say, equally confident with either hand: it actually translates “having two right hands”, “dexter” being the Latin for “right”. “Sinister” is the Latin for “left”. To be left-handed is to be sinister, not trustworthy, unnatural.

Being left-handed is unusual, we accept that; but “evil”, “unnatural”, “inferior”, why? It is the way that God has made them and who are we to judge? Perhaps they need some conversion therapy. “We’ll try the cane if you dare write with your left hand,” and so they did, in our strangely biased schools.

Sheep on the right, “Come, you blessed” . . . goats on the left, “Go you cursed.” Left-handed compliments, poor footballers with two left feet, Catholics as left-footers, Jacob’s blessing Ephraim and Manasseh in chapter 48 of the Book of Genesis – and see why Joseph was so upset.

The Bible reflects bias against left-handedness. In London there is a left-handed shop with a fascinating variety of everyday utensils. Do you think we should get up a petition to have it closed as being against Bible teaching, and then try conversion therapy? Capital punishment, genocide, divorce, blood revenge are approved in the Bible, but same sex relationships and eating black pudding are condemned. Puzzling. Do you quote the Bible to prove yourself right and other people wrong? Dangerous ground if they read the Bible better than you do.

God bless us to ask to understand.

Fr John

The Year of St Joseph

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 17:12:00 GMT

St Joseph - Universal Patron of the Church

In 1870 St Joseph’s was declared Patron of the Universal Church. Pope Francis has declared this year a “Year of St Joseph”, celebrating the 150th anniversary. “Patris Corde” is the title of the Pope’s letter and he speaks of St Joseph as a beloved father, a tender and loving father, and as a “father in the shadows”.

Pope Francis uses St Joseph to show us the importance of the ordinary people in everyday life who, though far from the limelight, show patience and give hope every day in our Covid-19 pandemic world. These wonderful people, he says, go almost unnoticed but are a discreet and loving presence.

The Pope speaks of Joseph as a father in obedience to God, and refers to the “Fiat” that he gave to God, just as Mary did: “Let is be done to me as you will.” St Joseph would have taught his son to be a good boy, as a father does, both of them obedient to the heavenly Father. “In our world where psychological, verbal and physical violence towards women is so evident”, Joseph’s love of Mary is an inspiring example. He puts her first, trusting in the Lord. His spiritual path is not one he would have chosen but he accepts what God has chosen for him.

The carpenter of Nazareth, explains the Pope, was able to turn his life towards God in a complete act of trust in divine providence and had to deal with family problems in a way that he would never have expected. More: St Joseph is “the patron of all those forced to leave their native lands because of war, hatred, persecution and poverty. Every poor, needy, suffering or dying person, every stranger, every prisoner, every infirm person is the child Jesus whom Joseph continues to protect.” From St Joseph “we must learn to love the Church and the poor.”

Joseph was a carpenter who earned an honest living to provide for his family and thus teaches us the value and dignity of good work – that everyone has the right to have. Work is one of the ways of sharing in the work of salvation, developing our talents and abilities and serving society. In our work we co-operate with God and in a wonderful quiet way become creators of the world around us. Joseph is an inspiring example.

“Fathers are not born, but made,” says Pope Francis. “A man does not become a father simply by bringing a child into the world, but by taking up the responsibility to care for and love that child.” Children need fathers who will encourage them to be capable of making their own decisions, freely living their own lives, guided and loved. St Joseph was such a father.

Pope Francis shares with us a prayer he says every day: “My beloved Father, all my trust is in you. Let it not be said that I invoked you in vain, and since you can do everything with Jesus and Mary, show me that your goodness is as great as your power,” and he adds another prayer for us to share:

“Hail, Guardian of the Redeemer, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to you God entrusted Jesus; in you Mary placed her trust; with you Christ became man. Blessed Joseph, show yourself a father to us and guide us in the paths of life. Obtain for us grace, mercy and courage, and defend us from every evil. Amen.”

We shall celebrate the Year of St Joseph in God’s blessing.

Fr John

Easter and Holy Week

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 11:52:24 GMT

Telling the Story

Can you tell the story of Easter morning? There are four different times given in the four Gospel accounts. Which one would you choose in your telling the story? How many women went to the tomb? John says one, Matthew two, Mark three and Luke three – but not the same three. How many women in your version of the story?

The details don’t matter, you may say: what matters is that I believe in the resurrection. Agreed. But would you allow a Catholic teacher to say that, or a Catholic priest or deacon? What sort of teachers or preachers would they be if their attitude was “Who cares, as long as you believe.” Poor students, poor people, with teachers and preachers like that. They have studied to be able to teach and preach. How well did they study if they have no answers to questions as straightforward as what time was it, how many women were there?

How about the angels. They are in each account – one in Matthew and Mark, but two in Luke and John. Would you know that in your telling the story of Easter morning? What do you really know of what you say you believe? You can’t share your belief if you know nothing. Time, women, angels – how is your version of the Easter story shaping up?

In one account the women meet Jesus. Which one? In Luke, Peter believes the women’s message and goes to the tomb alone. He looks in and sees the cloths. Cloths? Surely there was a shroud? Luke and Matthew and Mark all say that Jesus’ body was wrapped in a shroud late on the Friday afternoon. Where has it gone? Who took it, and when (Peter sees there are cloths in Luke’s account)?

Look at John’s account and be even more puzzled. Here, Peter and the other disciple go running to the tomb, the other disciple running faster than Peter, reaching the tomb first, sees the cloths but does not go into the tomb. Peter arrives, goes straight into the tomb and sees the cloths, especially the one that had been around Jesus’ head rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple enters and sees the cloths close up. “He saw and he believed.” What did he see close up that he had not seen from outside the tomb?

The cloths were undisturbed, still in the shape of the body they had enwrapped, and the headband in its place around the head. They had not been unwound! They were still as wrapped around Jesus’ body and head, but the body was not there and no one had unwrapped the cloths – Jesus had passed through them, leaving them undisturbed!

Impossible! No, resurrection. Work out what happened.

Joseph and Nicodemus took Jesus’ body down from the cross late on Friday afternoon. There was no time for the full burial rights, so they planned to return when the sabbath was over, on the Saturday evening, and give the cleansing and anointing that there was no time for on the Friday.

Did they come alone? Of course not. They invited Mary to come with them. It belonged to her motherly love to perform that final duty. With her came the beloved disciple into whose care Jesus had given her: “Behold your Son,” “and the disciple took her to himself.”

Picture the four of them on that Saturday evening. It is Joseph’s own tomb and he and Nicodemus, as members of the Sanhedrin, had authority over the soldiers. They wash and anoint the blood-stained body, take away the bloodied shroud and wrap the winding cloths around Jesus’ body and the last one, the one which went around his head – the sudarium. Late on Saturday night they finish their task and go home. And there it is written in John’s gospel: Nicodemus brought one hundred pounds of spices and ointments for the burial.

Early the following morning Mary Magdalene tells the apostles that Jesus’ body has gone. Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb. The disciple follows Peter into the tomb and the cloths are as he and the others left them the previous night, but there is no body. The body had passed through the cloths. Resurrection. “He saw and he believed”. That is the story. How would you tell it?

In school, at the beginning of every Year 11 (Form 5), I asked the youngsters to read the four accounts of the resurrection and make a summary. In a few moments they saw the impossibility. Have you ever given a few minutes to read the four accounts?

* * * * * * * * * *

The Passover Meal, the Last Supper , was held in the evening, the beginning of the Jewish day. After the meal, Jesus and the disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. There he was arrested. On Friday morning he was crucified at the third hour (9 am) we learn from Mark’s Gospel.

Was Jesus at the houses of Annas and Caiaphas, in court before the Sanhedrin (“and many witnesses were called”), at the palace of Pontius Pilate, the court of King Herod, scourged and crowned with thorns – between late Thursday evening and early Friday morning? Surely, impossible.

By law, a trial had to take place, in the hours of daylight. There is no hint in the gospel that due process was not followed. A verdict of the death sentence required a waiting period of twenty-four hours during which new evidence might be brought to mitigate the sentence. Pontius Pilate would never have allowed the process of law not to be observed, nor would members of the Sanhedrin, especially members like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.

Thursday as the evening of the Last Supper seems not possible. There is too little time for all that happens between the arrest and the crucifixion. So, when was it, and was it actually a Passover Meal?

Tuesday looks to be a good answer. The Passover is celebrated, and Jesus becomes the new Passover in the wonder of the Eucharist, bread and wine: “This is my body, this is my blood.” After the meal they go to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is arrested and taken to the house of Annas and, later or early morning, to the house of Caiaphas. (Research the relationship and relative powers of Annas and Caiaphas – you will be fascinated.)

On Wednesday, Jesus is brought before the court, the Sanhedrin. Many witnesses are called. At the end of the trial he is declared guilty and condemned to die. Now twenty-four hours must pass before sentence can be carried out.

On Thursday, Jesus appears before Pilate, then Herod, and returns to Pilate where his sentence of death is confirmed. Early on Friday morning he is crucified at the third hour (9 o’clock) and dies at the ninth hour (3 o’clock in the afternoon).

His body is wrapped in a shroud and placed in Joseph’s new tomb. All go home to celebrate the Sabbath and the Passover. When the Passover ends at 6 o’clock on the Saturday evening, Joseph and Nicodemus (bringing one hundred pounds of spices and ointments, says John’s Gospel) come with Mary and the beloved disciple to wash and anoint Jesus’ body, the full burial rights. Their loving task completed late that Saturday night, they go home.

On the Sunday morning there is no body. There are cloths, still unwound. There has been resurrection.

That the Passover was on Tuesday seems probable. An actual Passover or an anticipated one? The Gospel makes clear that Jerusalem celebrated the Passover on the Friday evening and Saturday, following the lunar calendar which was in general use in the Holy Land, but Jesus and the disciples seem to have been following the solar calendar.

The Passover is celebrated on the 14th day Nisan. In the solar calendar the 14th Nisan is always a Wednesday and thus the Passover meal would have been on the Tuesday evening. Following the lunar calendar, however, the 14th Nisan might be any day of the week (like our Christmas Day) and in the year of Jesus’ death and resurrection the Passover was on the Saturday and the sacred meal on the Friday evening.

We have known about the two calendars since early in the 20th century when the solar calendar was rediscovered during research into the life of the Qumran Community. We had lost sight of it for centuries but now understand there were two calendars, solar and lunar, in use in Jesus’ time, and 14th Nisan always a Wednesday in the solar, but any day in the lunar. Jesus celebrated a true Passover Meal.

In the early Church there were severe disputes about the date to celebrate Easter. In the background we see two traditions of the Jewish Passover, following the lunar and the solar calendars.

John Daley IC

March 2020

Get to Know the Bible

Sun, 26 Jan 2020 18:14:37 GMT

Through the "Year of the Word"

The first three chapters of the Bible are about man and woman, you and me, and our turning away from God. It is a powerful story - a myth, which means a story teaching religious truth, and tells us we human beings have chosen to bring evil into God’s good world. We have all “eaten fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”.

In chapter four, the story of Adam and Eve begins, of their sons Cain and Abel, of jealousy and murder. Cain goes in exile to the land of Nod, east of Eden, where he marries a local woman. Adam and Eve are not the only people on earth.

The story of human life and sin continues to Noah when God despairs of the human race and decides to end its sinful history, saving only Noah and his family and the innocent animals and living creatures. Two amazing stories of Noah’s Ark are woven together and after the Flood purified life continues. The human race, as we understand it, is thus descended from Noah and his family, not from Adam and Eve: that’s what the Bible myth indicates.

In chapter eleven the history of Israel begins with the call of Abraham to be the father of a great people from whom will come a Messiah to bring God’s blessing and love to the world. That story, the history of Israel and its growing understanding of God’s love, which we call The Old Testament, continues until the birth of Jesus.

The Gospel (accounts by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) begins The New Testament. Jesus is the Messiah, the messenger of God’s love, the fulfilment of the Old Testament promise. The story begins at his baptism in each Gospel account but Luke and Mattthew, unlike Mark and John, preface their Gospel accounts with nativity stories, narratives full of symbolism.

Luke tells of Mary’s being chosen to be the mother of the Messiah (she is the woman promised in chapter three at the opening of the Bible) and her journey to Bethlehem with Joseph where the baby is born. The journey would have been made in good time, taking at least five or six days, and “whilst they were there the time came for her to have her child.” Luke pictures them surrounded by family love and the shepherds speak to the family. The shepherds symbolise the leaders of God’s people - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, all shepherds. Israel’s waiting is over, the Messiah has been born.

Matthew tells the story very differently. He sees the wise of the world coming to adore in a baby their King (gold), God (incense), Saviour (myrrh). We cannot fit together the two nativity stories, they have in common only the names of the Holy Family and a birth at Bethlehem.

The number of books in the Bible varies. There are seventy-two books in the Greek Bible (used by the Catholic Church) and sixty-six books in the Hebrew Bible (used by other Christian Churches), all written at various times by many different authors. There is poetry, drama, legend, myth, parable, fable, history, epic. We need to understand how and why the authors wrote. We need common sense to ask intelligent questions and teachers and preachers unafraid of questions they cannot answer. It is no answer for teachers and preachers to tell children and people not to be cheeky or offensive if they ask questions difficult to answer.

God bless us to want to explore, to ask questions, to learn and understand more.

John Daley IC

(Fr John is the author of " Getting to Know the Bible " and also writes the background to our " Lord's Day Newsletters ")

Heaven, Hell, Purgatory

Sat, 23 Nov 2019 17:39:47 GMT

Saint or Holy Soul - what is the difference?

The Feast of All Saints is 1st November, of the Holy Souls is 2nd November. What is the difference between a saint and a holy soul? The old answer was: “A saint is in heaven, a holy soul in purgatory.” It is the wrong answer now - don’t use it.

Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Catechism (published 1994, 691 pages) which they put together, in homilies they gave, books they wrote witness to the Church’s understanding that there are no places heaven or purgatory or hell. They are “states of being” because all of them are in the presence of God who is everywhere in and by love.

Heaven is being with God, purgatory is being with God and longing for the purifying pain of forgiveness, hell is choosing not to accept God’s loving purifying forgiveness. (Would, could, anyone refuse God’s forgiveness?)

Our human life is completed in our dying. We all know the moment of that completion. In that final glorious moment (I know it doesn’t look glorious, but it is) you have become the person you allowed yourself to become over the years. You always had the possibility of changing, and maybe you did - for better or worse - but in the moment of truth, the moment of dying, you have become you fully.

You come before our loving God, full of the love you have lived, the regrets that you carry, the wrongs you remember, and you see in God the love that was always open to you, hear the name God always had for you, and long to be forgiven. That longing to be forgiven in God’s loving gaze is what Pope Benedict called “purgatory or purifying” and we know the pain it will bring us because we know that pain in this life. “I hurt you, and you love me,” “How can you forgive me when I have hurt you so much?” “How can I ever forgive myself for what I said, did, to you?” You know the pain, have suffered and caused it. Love is the cause and brings terrible regret and heartbreaking sorrow.

That’s purgatory. Not a place, but seeing ourselves reflected in God’s loving gaze. Heaven is being purified, purgatory is longing to be purified. Hell is - what is it?

Dear Lord, forgive us who know no more about our faith than what we learned and vaguely remember from school and pulpit.

John Daley IC

Guardian Angels

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 15:15:27 GMT

When I was small and heard at school of guardian angels I thought it was beautiful, each of us having an angel of our own to be with and guide us. A little older and I wondered if my angel was my own or had been someone else’s who was now dead and would be someone else’s when I died. The notion of recycled guardian angels was not so appealing.

When we were told about a bad angel on our left shoulder and a good angel on our right I became suspicious. Why the bias against left-handedness? I already knew of children being caned for writing with their left hand. Why? Why so cruel? What was wrong with being left-handed?

I learned Latin at the age of eleven and discovered that the word for “right” was “dexter”, and for “left” was “sinister”. I already knew the words “dexterous” - meaning able to do things well, and “sinister”, someone or something to be wary of, not to be trusted.

A bad angel on my left shoulder was a repulsive idea. Would God create a bad guardian angel for each of us as well as a good guardian angel? Suddenly the whole idea was nonsense. If, in today’s world, we have over 7,000,000,000 good guardian angels do we also have over 7,000,000,000 bad angels? And I was angry. Teachers had misled us in our Catholic classrooms. Billions of angels, recycled or not, made nonsense of the beautiful idea of God’s being with us.

Already I had been put off by “God is watching everything you do”, like a mean-minded spy, when we should simply have been taught that God was looking out for us, loving us, watching over us, divine love wherever we were.

Then I discover that in the Bible angels appear as human beings! Of course! The puzzle began to unravel and reshape itself.

“The angel of the Lord” in the Bible is God, communicating with human beings. The angel guiding the people of Israel through the desert is Michael (“who is like God”) - Israel’s guardian angel. Only two other angels in the Bible have names - Gabriel (“strength of God”), Raphael (“healing of God”).

Angels are reflections of God’s love and blessings. You! Be an angel . . .

The Assumption

Tue, 27 Aug 2019 20:33:13 GMT

And God took her, body and soul, completely into heaven . . .

You meet a friend on your way to church who asks where you are going. Church, you reply. On a Thursday! Yes, it’s a Holy Day of Obligation. What does that mean? I’ll go to hell if I don’t go. I can’t believe that! Neither can I, you smile, but I used to. Isn’t it sad. In our Catholic schools we frightened our children that if they didn’t go to mass on Sundays and Holydays they would go to hell for a mortal sin.

How cruel such teaching. I was taught that. We don’t teach or believe it now, and should never have taught like that. Fellow students for the priesthood in Rome were amazed at the teaching of fear that our Catholic schools in the English-speaking world taught. “We’d send most of our Italian people to hell every week if we taught that,” said one of my Italian brethren.

There is a ferocity in Celtic spirituality that others do not admire. Their trust in a loving merciful God they offer in contrast to our fear of God and mortal sin that seems to have been a mark of our Catholic education. Today the Church invites us to mass on Sundays and Holy Days to celebrate God’s blessings and love and various themes of our faith. A Holy Day is an invitation and today we celebrate the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven.

Would you be able to give a sensible answer to anyone who sincerely asked you to explain Mary’s Assumption? If not, why not? It’s worth answering that question to know what you believe.

We celebrate her beautiful life and her offering herself to God in that wonderful final moment: completely, body and soul, we say in loving admiration. Having lived her life for God she was able and blessed to make the offering of herself in that final moment, knowing, we believe, she had lived every moment for God.

We are not like that. We are all aware of wrong-doings, regrets. When we come before God we shall regret not having lived more sincerely in that divine love. In God’s loving gaze of mercy we shall see clearly for the first time the love with which we have been loved all our lives, from the womb and before: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” says the Book of Jeremiah. We have always been in the mind and love of God.

We have failed that love. That is our sinfulness. We know it now and we shall know it so clearly when we meet God in our final moment, life complete. In that moment you will be the person you have allowed yourself to become down the years of your life. The choice is yours. If, today, you are bad-tempered, stubborn, selfish, cruel, prejudice, that is what you have chosen, and you will see in God’s loving gaze what you might have been.

Such regret. Longing to be purified. That is purgatory. Purgatory is not a place. It is a coming before God to be purified in that loving merciful gaze. Pope Benedict XVI is one of a number of writers who thus explains “purgatory”: as a being purified, not a place.

We do it with each other. The deep regret of having hurt someone who loves us. Having no adequate words to say how sorry we are, helplessly looking at the loved hurt one – and seeing in their smiling eyes that we are forgiven, they still love us, they have wanted to forgive. Without words we have said we are sorry; without words we are told we are forgiven. What blessing. Purifying, not purgatory.

Mary did not know that moment. In her beautiful life she did not turn away from God nor from anyone, we believe. She lived a quiet perfection of love every day, so that in her final moment she was able to offer herself totally to God.

And God took her, body and soul, completely, into heaven. The Assumption.

John Daley IC

Lourdes

Fri, 07 Jun 2019 10:57:14 GMT

A Taste of Heaven on Earth

Thousands visit Lourdes Domaine each day, welcomed by a beautiful statue of Holy Mary which is surrounded by stunning white rose bushes. The Domaine is filled with the sound of prayer, choirs, bells ringing out Ave Maria and mass or processions in progress. Wherever you walk the brightest green trees surround you and it’s clear Lourdes is situated within a beautiful mountain valley. Quiet spaces are in abundance. Birds can be heard singing. The river Gave runs through at a captivating speed and provides a hypnotic rushing water sound. Wherever you choose to sit, it’s peaceful, calming and prayerful.

Everyone is as one at Lourdes no matter age, race or physical ability. Hundreds of angelic care staff, nurses and volunteers are so sincere, so kind, so patient and full of love for every visitor. Their faces show total concern for each person they assist. The spirit of Holy Mary can be glimpsed in the eyes of each of them.

Two separate walking options provide the Stations of the Cross. A very thought provoking, peaceful and prayerful experience.

An arched area is set aside for lighting candles. It is possible to purchase different sized candles here although the shops around Lourdes Domaine also have candles of extreme sizes, some in the range of 2 metres high!

The Basilica and the Three-Tiered Church are breath-taking. Look out for the huge, intricate mosaics. Both buildings are supported by a choir who offer the amazing opportunity for visitors to join them as they accompany the Candle-lit procession, Mass and Procession of the sick.

The Grotto where Holy Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous is a calm, reflective place to sit and pray. A statue of Our Lady is positioned where she appeared during the apparitions. The first flow of water, dug up by Bernadette, is viewable here. Water still drips and can be touched, adding to this blessed place.

Visitors fill bottles, drink and wash in the water of Lourdes. A visit to the, very personal and spiritual, baths of Lourdes is an emotional and moving opportunity. For those who feel the strong pull to join the queue of people who wait to bathe in the waters of Lourdes this is an amazing experience. For those who don’t, just standing outside and watching visitors going in and out of the baths aided by nurses and volunteers, is a peaceful and uplifting vision to behold.

Holy Mary’s presence can be felt throughout Lourdes. Our Lady’s wish for the sick to bath in the waters and for processions and prayers to happen each day is truly being satisfied. Being at Lourdes felt spiritually cleansing and so challenging to describe in words. I hope you like my effort. Lourdes really is a true taste of Heaven on Earth.

Disciples Watch

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 16:15:21 GMT

from "Words of Prayer and Reflection" (published by Watermead 1998)

You lay there and you slept.
You heeded not that he was kneeling, anguished, on the ground.
Within your dreams you heard the cry “Please take this cup.
Yet, Father, not my will but yours be done,”
and still you slumbered on.
“Come, watch with me,” he’d said;
but love of him was not so strong as need for rest.
And so you slept.

Tonight, he asked me “Stay and watch with me.”
But I, more eager, far, to hear the news
of Ambridge,
heeded not, and switched the radio on.
So small a thing it seemed –
just fifteen minutes of my favourite soap.
Yet, Peter, now I feel as once you must have done.
It was not much he asked –
just fifteen minutes given to comfort him.
My love for him was not so strong as my desire for pleasure.

Now my soul is weeping
for I, too, have failed to watch and pray;
have, in my way, denied my Lord
by thinking trivial tales
of greater worth than he.
In frailty of flesh, dear saint,
we two are one.
Peter, Rock on whom the Lord his church did build,
pray now for me.
And as, at last, you triumphed over things of flesh,
obtain for me a greater faith, a deeper love,
a willingness to sacrifice and to wakeful be.

So, if, or when, the time of trial comes
I, too, may have the courage
to proclaim with you that Jesus is my Lord;
and, if needs be, the grace to give my life
for him who gave his life for me.

Copyright © 1998 Celia Cates, Watermead Publishing Ltd

Make Time

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 16:15:06 GMT

There is a time for everything . . . . (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

People don’t like going out in the evenings. We must accept that. Maybe for a meal, for a drink, to play bingo, to watch a football or rugby match, to go shopping, to go to the cinema or theatre, visit family or friends, to go for a walk or run or a cycle ride. But that’s all. Church and church meetings - people don’t going out in the evenings.

People make time for what interests them. We don’t find time to do things, we make time to do them. “I’m sorry I couldn’t visit you (in hospital, home, nursing or care home) but I’ve been so busy! You’ve no idea. I’m as busy as when I was working. I even wonder how I found time to go to work, ha, ha!” Not convincing, is it. How can the ten hours that work entailed, including going and coming home, disappear? 10 hours!

Everyone throughout history has been given the same amount of time each day - 24 hours. Hours of daylight and darkness may vary, but the time is the same. People have composed music, written books, walked the earth, organised great charitable works, explored and discovered new worlds, developed businesses, and other people have told them how they should have done it, how they themselves would have done it better if they had only had enough time. All those wonderful people who would have done so much more if only they had a 48 hour day. Two days gives them 48 hours.

The secret of time is eternity. When you are lost in time, lost in what you are doing, you are in eternity. Shakespeare wrote “King Lear” - do we ask how long it took? Beethoven composed the “Pastoral Symphony”, Leonardo painted “The Last Supper”, Michelangelo sculptured “The Pieta”, George Eliott, our greatest English novelist, wrote her books in beautiful neat handwriting. Such works of art are forever. Do we ask how long they took? Acts and words of kindness are also forever. Do we ask how long they took?

Say you can’t do it, say you are not interested, but don’t pretend to yourself you don’t have time. You make time for what matters to you. Make time for God. Prayer is easy. Just being with God. You don’t even have to move - out of bed, your chair, your house. Make time for God and you are in eternity. You can pray anywhere, any time. “No, I’’m too busy.” No, you’re not interested, sadly. Do you believe in God?

Loving God, and in prayer with God, we take time into “the silence of eternity”. Without love and prayer we only have religion, empty religion. But with love we pray.

Dear God, bless us to be real and bring your love and ours through time into eternity.

Copyright © 2018 John Daley IC, Watermead Publishing Ltd

Six Going on Seven

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 15:20:16 GMT

excerpt from "Faith Gift" (Watermead Pathways)

In 2009 we persuaded Fr John to let us publish some of his memories and reflections into booklet style themed books, each holding between 30-40 short articles. These have proved a very popular addition to our Watermead publications and so we thought a good way to start this "Watermead Voices" blog was to share the opening reflection from the first book, ChristGift . (More information on this book and the series can be found on our shop website ).

"SIX GOING ON SEVEN"

When I was six I knew I could not be an explorer. It came as a sudden understanding when I heard teacher say that missing mass on Sunday was a mortal sin. Only if we were too ill would we have an excuse to miss mass.

Realistically I saw that I couldn’t be too ill if I were up the North Pole or down in the jungle. I would have healthily and freely gone there. No excuse. I knew in that moment of enlightenment that I could never go anywhere unless I could get back for Sunday.

The other two mortal sins I could cope with: eating meat on Friday wouldn’t be a problem because Mum and Dad didn’t, and murder wasn’t on my mind and I didn’t think I’d plan one.

Venial sins that would be on offer when I was seven were: missing morning and evening prayer, being cheeky to my parents and teachers, and fighting. A good Act of Contribution would be sufficient to bring God’s forgiveness for these, but only Confession was good enough for missing mass on Sunday (“Please Father, I was at the North Pole and couldn’t get back”) or eating meat on Friday (“Please Father, I thought it was Thursday”) and murder (no excuse). Confession was a wonderful secret in the dark between you and God and the priest, and you would come out of the box full of joy, said teacher.

I was quite happy to be six but saw some Catholic promise in being seven. My school friends would share it with me but my street friends had only their birthdays and then nothing till Christmas. We’d have Confession and First Holy Communion. It was good being a Catholic, teacher said.

She was right. First Holy Communion and breakfast were happy and First Confession was easy. Father knew my sins before I got to him – we only had a few to share amongst us, “Choose any three out of these five,” teacher had said.

I never did make the North Pole, I’ve not yet committed murder (I have a short list), and I can eat meat on Friday because it hasn’t been a mortal sin for ages. I’m sorry for those who might be in hell because they ate Friday meat in the old days, just as I’m sorry for my Catholic friends who went to non-Catholic schools when the bishop in his pastoral letter (what a name!) told parents to send their children to Catholic school “under pain of mortal sin”.

So different today, aren’t we. As I look at our six and seven-year-olds in school I think sadly of the fear of God that we were taught. I wish I’d heard more about God’s love. I wish some of my friends, who have long left the Church, had heard of God’s love, too. When they met the real world they found the unreality of going to hell for eating meat on Friday or missing mass on Sunday too much. They had come to know much greater evil.

Copyright © 2010 John Daley IC, Watermead Publishing Ltd