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| All Saints Chapel hiding behind the palladian facades of the Castle |
There follows Father Rupert Allen's afternoon paper. The Day then closed with Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament.Our sincere thanks to Lord Talbot of Malahide and the Trustees of Wardour Chapel for their generous hospitality at the altar once again.
Let us invoke anew the aid of our heavenly patron. Holy Michael the Archangel …..
I hope that this morning I brought home to you the reality of the spiritual fight in which we are engaged as Christians and the great encouragement God gives us in such enormous generosity for every moment of our battle with darkness. Saint Michael offers each of us such guidance, protection and ready help in the age-old battle between good and evil, between God and Satan. The war waged by Michael and the heavenly host is of course not simply a far off moment in sacred history, but an ongoing battle for our souls and those of all. Quite simply St. Michael’s war is our war too.
Throughout all ages the Christian people have, in popular piety and heartfelt devotion, sought to unite their own struggles to the protection of our Heavenly standard-bearer. I recall a few years ago visiting a little village church just outside of Brussels. There was a great window of St. Michael which especially caught my eye. In it Saint Michael was depicted wearing a Belgian soldier’s helmet and his face was familiar if rather out of place; the serpent writhing at his feet sported a Prussian helmet and sported a large handle-bar moustache. The artist had so identified the struggle of his people at a particular moment in history with the spiritual battle that St. Michael had been transformed into King Albert of the Belgians crushing the Emperor Wilhelm. Such a depiction is obviously very much of its time and place, but recalls the truth that our battles for goodness, beauty, and truth – for the Truth – must be seen in the context of Heaven’s war too.
This sense of fighting for Christ; defending the Faith and the poor of Christ, against the powers of darkness and of this world is of course at the heart of what it means to be a member of the Order of Malta. Your history is a long and glorious epic of service for Christ and His Church and all the noble causes that spring from such devotion, such love for God and His people. The professed, as consecrated religious of a military Order, are set aside to give the entirety of your lives in the radical service of Christ and His Church. This consecration; lived through the evangelical counsels, calls you especially to be as the angels in the service of God – relying upon Him alone and serving Him with all devotion, without divided hearts or other interests. To the associates too the call to be the foot soldiers in the war against man’s inhumanity by being bold examples of Christian charity in a selfish world is itself a noble calling to the generosity with which the Christian fights all that is wrong.
To belong to the Order of Malta cannot without tragedy be simply reduced to belonging to a fraternity like any other, or to merely to work in some sort of Catholic-lite version of an NGO but rather it must be for its members to be really and totally utterly dedicated to the service of the poor and the defence of the Faith. That is the particular battle of the Order of Malta; to defend the Truth and to defend Christ in “our lords, the poor, of whom we profess to be the servants”. It is important, as any soldier knows, to look back and to know one’s history. Strategies in war that have proven successful against a familiar foe can and must be used again. This, combined with a real knowledge of the battle that is being fought to day, and a recognition of our enemies and their tactics, enables us to fight with every more ardour and conviction. It is for this that the Second Vatican Council recalled all religious orders to return to the original spirit and charism of their founding members. As members of an Order you must know where you come from, bring out therefore those old weapons so tried, tested and proved successful of the past and use them anew in a world no less ravaged by war and beset by lies and confusion. Do not be afraid of your history, and do not be afraid to live the best of it in the present.
I do not need to remind any of you what state the Church is in at the moment. The whitened sepulchres, indeed beautiful in appearance on the outside, have been cast down and thrown open to reveal so much stench within, so many enemies within our camp, and so much damage done by their wickedness, most especially to those we are bound by nature and by Faith to defend most vigorously of all; the vulnerable and the young. Instead of defending the most vulnerable there have been those wearing our own uniform and bearing our own flag, at least outwardly, and even in command, who instead have defended the wicked, the enemy and those who have done so much irreparable damage to so many lives.
This then, I suggest to you today, is your time. Your Order is the lay leadership in the Church which was called for by the Second Vatican Council. Please, take up that leadership which is so much needed at this time when the Church has been so badly let down by clergy. Take that lead, and do not be afraid to take it publicly, wilfully and with all the devotion of your heart. Give Malta to Michael by a renewal, especially in this country, of total devotion to God in the poor and a love, knowledge, and defence of the Faith that is compromised neither in our own words nor in our actions. In short do not be afraid to love God and our neighbour and to do so publicly.
Pope Pius XII made this point to you during the last European war. He was a great friend of your Order and knew the unique part you have to play in the Church’s battle. He urged a heartfelt return to the two-fold mission of the Order in service of the poor and defence of the Faith as a powerful weapon in the Church’s armoury in the fight for the cause of right in the modern world. Let us hear Pius XII’s words now:
“Long before nations succeeded in establishing international law, long before they could form the dream, still unrealised, of a common force for the protection of sound human freedoms, the independence of peoples, peace and of equity in their mutual relations, the Order of Saint John had united in a religious fraternity and under a military discipline men of eight different "langues", dedicated to the defence of the values which constitute the common prerogative of Christendom; faith, justice, social order and peace. During two centuries in Palestine, two centuries in Rome, two and a half centuries in Malta, this generous militia, formed of knights, that is to say of men with a noble and proud soul, more ready to die than to fail in their duty and honour, was able to light in each of them the sublime desire to struggle not for conquest or vain glory, but for the sacred rights of God, for the protection of the weak and the oppressed, in a word for all that had been the incomparable ideal of the chivalry of the Middle Ages. On the heights of Sion framed by olives, on the point of Saint-Jean d'Acre crowned with white houses, on the citadel of Rhodes that surrounds the roses, on the high rocky sides of Malta that surround the waves of the sea, this chosen Order was vigilant in listening to whence came the calls for help, while its galleys crisscrossed the two basins of the Mediterranean to contain the Barbary pirates and assure the Christian peoples the freedom of their commercial, civil and political relations. Magnificent in her victories, indomitable even in her defeats, this militia could lose a battle without losing the ardour of fighting. For a lost kingdom, she founded another, her capital changed, her name too, yet her will did not change for another object. That is why it might seem that the Order’s mission was over when the storm of the revolution, affecting the noblest and most ancient institutions of the Christian ideal, was unleashed on Europe and on the world. But no. The Order of St. John seemed to disappear for a moment, but indeed rose up in a way more active and beneficent, reviving the primitive spirit, that of the Amalfi merchants who had founded in Jerusalem in 1048, half a century before first crusade, their hospice for pilgrims. This duty of the good Samaritan your ancestors never forgot. Even as they pulled the sword from the scabbard, they remembered to be true religious and as such above all disciples of the God of love and charity. They saw this God present, according to his word, in neighbour and especially in the poor, the orphans and those who suffer.”
How marvellously and with what eloquence Pius XII urges you anew to fight the good fight of Faith! This two-fold mission of defence and of service which is the hallmark of all that you are is precisely the gift you have to offer to the Church, and moreover it is precisely this that the Church cries out for. When we speak of an Order, and of a spirit, and of a particular mission it is perhaps easy for us to think how nice that is and how glad we are to belong to such a fine purpose. But it is pointless unless we make it our own. An Order is only the measure of the dedication of its individual members. It is up to each of you to personally defend the Faith in your own lives, amongst your friends, in your occupations, in your families and in your conversations. It is incumbent upon each of you to show that you really do believe, really do fight the cause of God, by actually living it yourselves. Every one of you must not only do something for the poor, but know them, have them as your real friends and live also their struggles and their dependence upon love. The poor are not only those who come to you for food and for the very basics of life, but those who know who need spiritual food and encouragement.
Pope Pius recalled that this real living out of what it means to belong to Malta has been a costly battle in the history of your Order. Persecution, exile (quite a lot of that), ridicule and spiritual and physical sufferings have cost your members dearly and won for them the victory of life everlasting. But Christianity is meant to be costly – all love is.
Our living out of our Faith, and your living out of the defence of it will cost you. Be prepared for that. You, dear knights, wear the cross of Christ above your hearts, do not be surprised therefore when heavier crosses fall upon your shoulders. We are at war and the Enemy will fight back. If each day you do take up the arms of defence of the Faith and service of the poor in God’s war against the powers of darkness you will soon become aware, perhaps evidently or perhaps subtly, that you are fighting an enemy made all the more outrageous by the futility of his war against God. But if you are prepared for it, you will know it when it comes and rejoice to stand with Christ before the Pilates of our day, and thus be glad to suffer something for your Master.
It is will be subtle often, that is his way. If you really do defend the Faith and become slaves of the poor then the enemy will go for you. Through his friends he will slur your reputations, he will whisper with them about you at parties and give knowing looks in your direction at dinner. Our cunning and wily enemy will divest you of your treasured connexions, heap disgrace and exile upon you and tempt you to despair, perhaps even propose to you the passing joys of an easier and quiet life. He and his cohort will exact revenge upon you for your loyalty to Christ because he hates all those who serve the good Lord. Indeed we can say that in fact if we do not feel in some sense persecuted or challenged because of our fidelity to Christ then perhaps we are not fighting with all our might on the side of the angels. Satan’s little ‘wins’ over you will hurt you, but he never ever has a victory unless you say ‘yes’ to him – victory, victory over Satan and all his empty promises, belongs to Christ who defeated him and who will defeat him for ever, and who will conquer him even in you.
We are at war, and thus there will be casualties. We will see others whose sins have become festering wounds on the battlefield of the salvation of souls or who have been pierced to the heart by the sins of others. We may all know some person, some Christian, who is flagging in the fight. They might be one of the thousands of souls scandalised to the point of the loss of Faith by the crimes of churchmen, they might be a consecrated soul wallowing in the unholy or perhaps we may think even of our own selves struggling and weary with the fight. But for souls such as these there is a place of healing and of strength; did not the Pope himself say recently that the Church is precisely the “field hospital” which offers uniquely the “ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful”? Our loyalty and love of the Church, even when we are persecuted by it and in it, assures us that we shall be on the side so victorious and triumphant when battle is finally done.
Does all of that sound a bit scary and extreme? Perhaps. But I also think many of you, if not all of you, will know already the real cost of following Christ and bear the wounds of so many years in His service. We do not fight for ourselves, but for Him, and that is why we fight on isn’t it?
Let us return to Pius XII. He says to you “When your ancestors roamed the tracks, then scarcely finished in Palestine, they had to stop more than once between Jerusalem and Jericho, in a still wild-looking gorge. It is there, says Jesus in the Gospel, that a traveller attacked and stripped by assassins was left as dead. But a Samaritan who was passing by the same path, seeing him, was moved with compassion and bandaged his wounds, then brought him to the next inn and had him healed at his own expense until he was completely cured.”
That holy pope, so cognisant of the battles of our age, identified the mission of the Order of Malta with that of the Good Samaritan. Whom do we see wounded by the wayside of the world and left as if for dead? We know them in our own life – individuals ravaged by an uncaring world or else simply beaten down by life and its difficulties. Yet perhaps more than even today we see the Church of God, wounded and lying in need of healing. Do then be the good Samaritans to the wounded Body of Christ. Take its members into your care; through your love and devotion, your Faith and your zeal, bring the members of Christ’s body into the healing inn of the love of your Order. Do not hide who you are as members of the Order, but be who you are and, as St. Catherine tells us, in so doing “you will set the world on fire”.
Never hide away. Do not downplay your mission to fight in defence of the Faith and love of the poor. I said it earlier and I say it again now – the Church needs you. The Church needs an Order that will fight like a devoted army in the service of God. The Church needs members of Her body who will defend Her unique ability to offer Truth in a world so confused, who will live the reality of God’s love by tending to Her most wounded children; above all the Church needs you simply to be who you are.
Pius XII again “It seems to us that even today humanity lies wide open and impatient on the paths of the times. As she descended foolishly from Jerusalem to Jericho, from the city of prayer to that of pleasure, from the regions of the ideal to those of gain, she fell into the hands of thieves who call themselves pride, unbelief, ambition, violence, disloyalty, hatred. They have stripped humanity of its riches, of the highest moral values which make the worthy and holy man proud of faith in God, fraternity, mutual trust. They violently removed a precious treasure from her. So you, dear sons and illustrious knights, Jerusalemites by origin, good Samaritans by vocation, hospitallers by destiny, charitable by collective tradition and by personal devotion, you, who were former founders of inns for pilgrims and travellers in danger, give a wide and charitable asylum in your prayers, in your alms, in your solicitude, to the millions of beings afflicted by misery, misfortunes and by the scourge of war. As the innkeeper of the Gospel parable once did, you can rest assured that the divine mercy will return to you, not exactly but rather a hundredfold, the resources you have advanced, that is to say, all that you have generously offered; prayers, sacrifices, riches, influence, efforts, to relieve suffering humanity.”
Heaven; that is what the pope calls you to fix your sights upon. That is all the prize that awaits us in this fight, in this war which we wage under the banner of Christ and led by St. Michael.
My dear brethren, that is where I end, for that is the end which we all must have in sight. I hope I have encouraged you to keep up the good fight that is yours by tradition and by vocation; as members of the Order and as Christians. I hope I have reminded you of how far we are from being alone in that fight; of how we have St. Michael so ready to help us and lead us, of how Our Lady is ever on hand to crush the serpent’s head.
Yes, there is a price for our singlehearted devotion to Christ and His poor, but there is also a prize. One day we shall see the holy angels and we shall stand before the judgement seat of God. How wonderful if we should be able to display before God a soul that has really tried, really fought, really battled for Him and for love; a soul that has been wounded, yes, but persevered. How glorious if we might have as our advocates the angels and saints who see in the battles we have waged their own cause too. How comforted we shall be if we are surrounded by souls that our efforts have helped, healed and led to God. But besides all else, how we must fight and labour and wage battle in love and in charity and in the Church so that each one of us may hear those most blessed words our souls can ever dare to hope for “Well done, good and faithful servant, ….. enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” And seeing the reward of battle what else shall we exclaim but Mi-k-el, Michael, “Who is like God?”
A blessing I wish you all.
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