REQUIEM FOR GRAND MASTER FESTING - AND HOMILY

A solemn Requiem Mass was held for our late brother Fra' Matthew Festing, 79th Prince and Grand Master of our Order, at the Church of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, Warwick Street; we are very grateful to Father Elliott-Smith, Rector, for his hospitality. The celebrant and preacher was Father Ronald Creighton-Jobe of the London Oratory, who has probably known Fra' Matthew longer now that most other members of the Order; he was assisted by Fathers Gerard Skinner and Gary Dench. We are grateful to a young member for the transcript of the homily, printed below. The music was provided by the choir of the Assumption, under the direction of Keith Brown.

The Mass may be watched in the video below.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Many of you were at Mass when Fra’ Richard [Berkley-Matthews] made his Solemn Vows and it was a very joyful occasion. And in a sense, I want to suggest to you that we are also here for a joyful occasion, praying for the repose of the soul of Fra’ Matthew and now of [his elder brother] Michael. But first we rejoice that Almighty God called him to Himself at the right time. It is always the right time when God calls us. But somehow it was particularly suitable. The last time I saw him, just before he went to Malta, he was surrounded by the young of the Order, and Matthew came alive – he always found the young very touching. He said, “I am going to Malta. After all, I tried to promote as best I could the Professed and now the Solemn Professions have been freed, I am going.” I said, “is that wise”, and he said, “Probably not”. 

 

Well in the end it probably was wise, in God’s sight, because there he was, amongst his own, in that very remarkable church, Matthew just after was taken to hospital, died, and is buried in the crypt of the Grand Masters. And let us not forget that he was the 79^th Grand Master. 

 

As we look back on his life, he would be the first who wouldn’t want us to spend the time talking about it. But like many priests, when someone says that, inevitable one does talk about it because it is right and proper in order to encourage us to the virtues that he practised. 

 

I remember Fra’ Matthew when he was made not the first Grand Prior but the restored Grand Prior after all those centuries, and he said to me afterwards, “What on earth do I do as Grand Prior?” I said, “You do your best”, and he did. And then after the funeral of Fra’ Andrew, and we were having a welcome drink in the Plaza Hotel, I said to him, “You do realise, that it is possible that you will be elected Grand Master”. He said, “Don’t be so stupid!”. And he was. And again, he said, “Now what do I do?”. “Do what you have always done: do your best,” and he did. Within his limitations (and we all have limitations), he tried to serve God, to love Him. He had a deep devotion to Our Lady, and he tried to help our Lords the Poor and the Sick. 

 

He was very good with the Poor and the Sick, with sometime rather unusual consequences. I remember him going to visit Our Lords the Poor at the Termini Station in Rome. He didn’t look too well-off himself, and one of the Poor said, “That poor old thing there, they ought to do something for him.” Matthew liked that very much. 

 

The other thing I remember (sorry about the anecdotes), is that when he was first elected, he came to Cortona in Tuscany where I was staying with friends. He had never been there. If you have ever been there, it is all up and down with hills, and he wasn’t best pleased about it (you will all recall a certain… linguistic tendency that Matthew could have). When we arrived at the celebration which was about the importance of the Order in Cortona (there were two Grand Masters) we were together, and our host in Cortona had his jacket and tie on, and Matthew didn’t, of course. When we arrived at the reception, they assumed it wasn’t Matthew who was the Grand Master, but our host. And he liked that too. Because humility has to be genuine, and it has to be heartfelt, and lived with a certain joy. Matthew had it. 

I can’t say (and he would certainly not have said) that he always felt joyful in Rome for various reasons. Let’s say, Rome was a little too complicated for him, so he would escape from time to time. His attempts to learn Italian were not vastly successful either, but caused a certain amount of joy and merriment amongst the Italians because unlike the French (we shouldn’t say this), the Italians don’t mind you making a hash of their language. But all the time he did his best in circumstances and in a context in which he was never entirely at home. We know where he was at home: he was at home in Northumberland, and he was also very at home in Lourdes. He loved Our Lady and there he could help the Sick in a very practical way. As you know, he off-loaded them at the station for many years, and he continued to do that when he was Grand Master. Again, the Sick didn’t have the slightest idea who he was. As he got weaker physically, he still insisted on going [to Lourdes]. Again, he overheard someone say, “O look at that poor old thing, why don’t they do something for him.”

 

Well, God did something for him: He gave him a great possibility to exercise patience and forbearance, under extremely difficult circumstances. And he did it, with obedience and with determination to try to do God’s will. And that’s all that any of us can ask for: to try to do God’s will. And so frankly we don’t have to mourn.

 

We do mourn his physical presence (and there was a lot of it). We also mourn his capacity for affection: like many Northerners, he didn’t know quite how to express it sometimes, but he was a deeply affectionate man and loved his friends, and depended on their prayers and friendship. And that is why he didn’t always realise the complexities with which he had to deal with in various circumstances, because he tended to think well of people. 

 

We are very grateful to be here tonight to have this opportunity and he would have most of all appreciated our prayers for him, and to be surrounded by (what I am sure is true) a deep sense of affection.

 

It is sad too that we are mourning Michael, but again: a thoroughly good man. Rather different in temperament to Matthew in some ways, but with that straightforward love of our Blessed Lord and Our Lady which he always felt he had particularly inherited from his mother’s family, the Riddells. 

 

So, dear Matthew, we pray for you. My instinct is that he won’t have very long (whatever that means in terms of eternity) in purgatory, because he suffered. He was not always well-treated. But, in the end, neither was Our Blessed Lord, and we follow the Crucified Saviour who makes sense of pain and sorrow and suffering. 

 

And so we can say with heartfelt devotion: Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him – may he rest in peace. Amen. 

FUNERAL OF GRAND MASTER FESTING - THE CARDINAL'S HOMILY

Homily preached by Silvio Cardinal Tomasi C.S. at the Funeral Mass and entombment on Friday 3rd December 2021 in the Conventual Church of Saint John of Jerusalem, now the Co-cathedral in Valletta, of Robert Matthew Festing, Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta from 11 March 2008 to 28 January 2017.

Mr. President, Your Excellency, Lieutenant of Grand Master Fra’ Marco, Excellencies, dear members of Fra’ Matthew’s family, dear confreres, dear friends.

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to our Holy Father Francis who asked me to personally preside over this celebration in his name, and I add my personal greetings and thanks: to the President of the Republic of Malta, George William Vella; and to Archbishop Scicluna for having allowed this celebration and the entombment of Grand Master Festing in the Crypt of the Grand Masters of this glorious cathedral basilica dedicated to our patron saint, Saint John the Baptist.

Fra' Matthew's sepulchre in the centre of the Grand Master's crypt

As a faith Community we are gathered in this beautiful and historical cathedral to say farewell and commend to God the Bailiff Grand Prior, Knight of Justice and former Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and former Grand Prior of England, Fra’ Matthew Festing. A person of deep Christian convictions, Fra’ Matthew was aware and proud that in his mother’s English recusant family line is included Blessed Sir Adrian Fortescue, Knight of Malta, martyred in 1539. Through the choice of becoming a Knight of Justice, Fra­­’ Matthew dedicated his life to the mission of the Order, a mission that has remained constant through the centuries: Tuitio Fidei et Obsequium Pauperum, the defence of the Faith and service to the Poor. History doesn’t stay still but it constantly moves forward. Indeed today’s battles are fought by the Order not with the sword but with the more effective weapon of charity toward the Poor and the Sick. The Order is therefore engaged with its Professed, its Members in Obedience, its large number of Knights, its volunteers and Dames, in the vast field of the world in promoting justice, creating peaceful coexistence, aiming at realizing the dream Pope Francis has often placed before our eyes that we are all brothers and sisters, a fundamental message of the Gospel.

Fra’ Matthew Festing, 79th Prince and Grand Master of our Sovereign Military Order of Malta, had been elected in March 2008 and retired in full obedience and with great humility and discretion in 2017.

Fra’ Matthew had as one of his priorities to promote more vocations as Knights of Justice and Providence called him to eternal life when he came to Malta where a solemn profession was celebrated after many years of interruption.

This circumstance sends us a message at this moment when the reform of the life of the Order is underway, and will lead us to an updated Constitution and a Melitensis Code. It is a message that calls us to root ourselves in the religious identity of the Order and to pray that the Lord may send generous vocations to continue the mission of the Order in fidelity to the inspiration of Blessed Gerard, who formed a new religious family of lay religious in the Hospital in Jerusalem for pilgrims, sick people and people without resources, about one thousand years ago.

Fra' Matthew through his obedience and prayer life leaves us a legacy that strengthens the Order and invites us to follow the same path. 

The fruitful cooperation of the various categories of persons who together carry on the original charism of the Order is a strong witness of the united spirit and action that moves us on. As we look around this Island, there is plenty of evidence of its Christian tradition, beginning with the refuge provided to the Apostle Paul after his shipwreck. Storms and conflicts have not disappeared and they mark the course of our existence. There is no surprise in this, but mutual love and respect has always to prevail.

Fra’ Matthew contributed his part in pursuing this dream by encouraging the Order around the world.

If the whole Church takes up this missionary impulse, She has to go forth to everyone without exception. But to whom should She go first? When we read the Gospel we find a clear indication: not so much to our friends and wealthy neighbours, but above all the Poor and the Sick, those who are usually despised and overlooked, “those who cannot repay you” (Lk 14:14). There can be no room for doubt or for explanations which weaken so clear a message. Today and always, “the Poor are the privileged recipients of the Gospel”, and the fact that it is freely preached to them is a sign of the Kingdom that Jesus came to establish. We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our Faith and the Poor. May we never abandon them.

After nine centuries, the mission of the Order continues to inspire and to advance on the main road of the Church, faithful to her teaching, and to all those who like Fra’ Matthew – and may he rest in peace - tried without fear of their own limits to implement the Gospels’ message. Amen.

Requiescat in pace

Cardinal Tomasi imparts his blessing to the Conventus after Mass.

FRATER MATTHEW FESTING, RIP

OF YOUR FRATERNAL CHARITY 

PRAY FOR THE REPOSE OF THE SOUL OF 

HIS MOST EMINENT HIGHNESS 

FRATER MATTHEW FESTING

MOST HUMBLE SERVANT OF CHRIST'S POOR

SEVENTY-NINTH PRINCE AND GRAND MASTER

THIRD ENGLISH MASTER OF THE HOSPITAL

FIFTY-FIFTH GRAND PRIOR OF ENGLAND

AND FIRST OF THE RESTORED GRAND PRIORY

TITULAR BAILIFF GRAND PRIOR

WHO DIED TODAY ON THE ISLAND OF MALTA

FORTIFIED BY THE RITES OF HOLY MOTHER CHURCH

MAY HE REST IN PEACE

OUR LADY OF PHILERMO, PRAY FOR HIM

SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST, PRAY FOR HIM

BLESSED GERARD, PRAY FOR HIM

BLESSED RAYMOND, PRAY FOR HIM

BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE, PRAY FOR HIM

BLESSED DAVID GUNSON, PRAY FOR HIM

ALL HOLY SAINTS AND BLESSEDS OF THE ORDER, PRAY FOR HIM

HOMILY FOR OUR BLESSED FOUNDER GERARD

The Holy Mass for the feast of Blessed Gerard was celebrated by our Chaplain Father Stephen Morrison OPraem, at St James's Church, Spanish Place, by grace of the Rector. Fr Morriosn also preached. The text is given below.  

Reverend Fathers, dear Confreres, I wish you a happy founder’s day, a joyful feast of our brother in heaven, Blessed Gerard. 

Since the historians tell us that he left this transient life between the years of 1118 and 1121, we celebrated last year the 9^thcentenary of Blessed Gerard’s entry into eternal bliss. This year, being the latest date when the same anniversary might reasonably be marked, is no less an occasion of joy. (In fact, this year is also a jubilee for the Norbertine Order too, 900 years since our foundation! So much to celebrate!) Perhaps we can think of tonight, then, as the closing of a jubilee – and, we pray, the beginning of a new chapter in each of our pilgrimages. For we are all pilgrims and patients in a Hospital, the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem; the Holy Father once even referred to the Church as a “Field Hospital for Souls.” Since this is rather a beautiful expression, I shall refrain from the acid retort (tempting though it is) that, if the Church is a hospital, there are several parts of it (some rather prominent) that might qualify as its secure unit for the insane… 

But in all seriousness, yes, we are all pilgrims and patients. Blessed Gerard founded an Order, not a hospital; but it was in a hospital that he did so. And he founded it, by God’s inspiration, for us. Before we think of ourselves as running that Hospital, we need to remember that it was – and still is – run for us as well. 

We too are pilgrims to the Holy Land, we are all patients in a hospital, we are all poor and sick, in some way. At the beginning of this and every Holy Mass, we have acknowledged our war-wounds, our impoverishment, our persistent complaints of thought, word, deed or omission – our sins. And we try to empty ourselves and “detox” from all worldly cares and cures, in order to be ministered to by the Divine Physician, to whom also we will one day submit ourselves for our final examination, so that, until then, we may receive from “His Holy and Venerable hands” the eternal and supernatural remedy, the medicine of the Blessed Eucharist, the pledge of future glory, a little piece on earth of Him to whom we shall be joined forever in Heaven. For the disease of our sinfulness need not be terminal, though often chronic: we can improve; we can change; the Doctor might look pleased with our progress. After all, He has administered the cure several times. 

What Blessed Gerard understood, and left the Church as his particular legacy, is that some of these poor and sick in that Hospital were themselves called to be Servants and Carers of other poor and sick souls, in both natural and supernatural ways, both physically and spiritually; think of the paradox: brothers were called to serve their brothers; the diseased were called to nurse the diseased; the lame were called to carry the lame; was this the blind leading the blind? Bear with me… From a hospital of patients would come the Knights Hospitaller. Some of these men wounded in battle had the divine vocation to be enlisted as soldiers, knights, and defenders of the embattled and shell-shocked faithful of Christ; this is what profession and membership of our Order means. This is what working in and for the Church means. In other words, the asylum was to be run by the inmates. It should not surprise us, then, when the Church of Jesus Christ sometimes resembles (at least to those outside her bounds) a replay of “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest”; for those of us who, like Blessed Gerard, are simultaneously patients and staff in the Field Hospital of the Church, know all too well our own wounds and our own suffering, but we also know the power of His wounds, His suffering, His agony – and we know that His Passion is the medicine for our own, that His Resurrection is the promise of our own, and that His care for the souls entrusted to Him by the Father is also our own task and special care. So we know what our treatment plan is. We know that one day we will leave the Accident and Emergency ward which is the world, and we hope immediately thereafter to ascend to the permanent rest of Paradise forever (with perhaps a little ‘Intensive Care’ in purgatory before we do). But we do not think only of ourselves; our task too, then, is to bring the patients in our care with us: to bring souls to Christ for Him to present them to the Father: holy, clean, and spotless, cared for, nursed, convalesced, and healed. After death, our bodies will lie in wait for His powerful “Rescuss” – when the Morgue will become as busy and as noisy as the wards – at that final day of Resurrection and Reward, when our broken bodies will rise again in a beauty and a glory that we could not possibly have imagined when our life was one of bandages and weeping sores. 

Our very presence here, as the Grand Priory of England and the British Association of Blessed Gerard’s Hospital, speaks loudly, nine-hundred years since preceding us into glory, of the power of this metaphor. For it is not merely an image for us – it is a hard reality, a practical endeavour, and a noble effort. The pilgrimage for us is real. The quest for the Holy Places is real. The building and defence of the Kingdom of God outre-mer – that is, beyond the visible boundaries of the known world – is real. Since suffering and poverty are real, our care for Our Lords the poor and the sick is real. The care we know that our own souls require is real. The Faith must be defended, and the poor cared for. Therefore, our need for chivalrous zeal and the highest standards of care is real. Blessed Gerard saw a need, and sought to supply the demand; to say that he saw only a practical need would be to miss the entire point of his life – but to say that he lived in a pious fantasy would also miss the point. Neither was true of him, and neither is (nor should be) true of us. For he was blessed to have had eyes to see and ears to hear; and he not only saw the Church and the world of his own time, but perceived a heavenly goal too, one for all time. He knew that what he did for the least of Christ’s brethren, he did for Christ Himself. Christ presented Blessed Gerard with a Cross, and He presents it to us also. Our Lord does not lie to us, as some doctors do, saying “this won’t hurt…much…” – in fact, He’s honest. He says, this will hurt; how could it not?, since it hurt Him. Yet, “by His wounds we have been healed.” Therefore we perceive reality for what it is, when we glimpse the saving power of the Cross, the nails, and the Crown of Thorns. Blessed Gerard knew the power of that Cross, and we who wear it today thank God for the White Cross of the Order and that first Hospital of St John in Jerusalem.  

Today, we remind ourselves of that origin, that first calling, which has allowed so many of our confreres since to follow in Gerard’s venerable footsteps. We too, nine hundred years later, are called to this holy endeavour. We recognise that we are the fortunate ones, poor and sick though we are, to be called to minister to the poor and the sick around us. When the Church, local or universal, starts to look and feel like a chaotic A&E after the pubs close, or if it looks like the lunatics are running the asylum, let us remember what we are offering: a Hospital run for patients by those who are patients themselves. So let us be patient… It is Christ’s Church, not our own. He is in charge, and we can have no better Physician. God diagnosed, and it is He who treats us – and with what tender compassion He does so, and with what wondrous medicine! He himself said, “it is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick;” He has come for this purpose, He will see it through, and He will care for Gerard’s Hospital and all within it. The devil said we could not be cured, we were done for, the poison within us was lethal, we were terminally doomed. But our guardian angels asked for a Second Opinion, and they who sang the Gloria when the remedy was born, sang joyfully again as it was first injected into us in Holy Baptism. Do they not sing still, at each absolution? No wonder we make our confessionals soundproof; after each good confession, it is filled with a heavenly chorus that would deafen our poor mortal eardrums. The devil’s gloomy prognosis has been confounded. For the Battle is indeed already won, though it rages on and still requires the service of knights in armour; the cure has already been found, though many still succumb to illness and require treatment; and while some show contempt and may even despise the Doctor, He nonetheless offers the remedy, inviting all yet forcing no one; He pays the price, bandages wounds, and whispers words of peace into anxious hearts. That he did so through Blessed Gerard is what we celebrate today; that He should now wish to do so through us, his Knights and Dames Hospitaller, is what must be our glad motivation tomorrow, and all our tomorrows, for at least the next900 years… For all Time belongs to Him; let us then use the time He has given each of us as wisely as Blessed Gerard did. 

For to be wise is to know ourselves to be patients as well as carers. The Tabernacle is our Medicine Cabinet, and the Church has been given its key. As we receive from it tonight a perfect dose whose potency is beyond what our minds can comprehend, may it truly be for us an eternal remedy for body and soul. Let us not hold back, out of shame, from revealing to Him the dangerous infection of our sins, our gaping wounds and their foul stench, since it is in our interests to lay ourselves humbly before Him for healing; what would make others squeamish does not horrify Him. He has already taken up the challenge of our condition. A single tear of his loving anguish, and a single drop of His Precious Blood falling upon us, is able to clean, heal and make us whole. And He provides nourishment to keep us fit and strong: food for the pilgrimage. As we have been fed, so may we feed others; as we have been healed, so may we heal others; and as we have been so generously served, so let us be generous in serving others, at His command. 

Blessed Gerard, pray for us.  

 

EUCHARISTIC OCTAVE AND PROCESSION

This coming week sees the Westminster Eucharistic Octave, 11th to 19th September, a week of celebration of our Sacramental Life at the Altar, beginning with a Pontifical Mass with Cardinal Nichols at noon this Saturday, at Corpus Christi Maiden Lane, the Diocesan Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament. During the coming week, Holy Mass in various Catholic rites offered each day at 6.30 pm, with homily, in the same church. Full details are HERE.  The Octave follows the International Eucharistic Congress held in Budapest this week.

The week concludes with the London Corpus Christi Procession, which the Order has assisted with over several years, starting at 3.30pm on Sunday 19th September at the Assumption Warwick Street W1B 5LZ, with stations at Farm Street, and the Ukrainian Cathedral Duke Street, at each of which Benediction will be given, and concluding with pontifical Benediction in St James's Spanish Place, and the wonderful Mendelssohn Lauda Sion.

In preparation for the Octave, the Diocese of Westminster has prepared a podcast, linked HERE or click below.

Diocese Westminster · The Eucharist as the Sacrament of Unity

For those who wish to contribute to the considerable costs of the celebrations, please visit HERE.

Lauda Sion Salvatorem, in hymnis et canticis;

Ecce Panis Angelorum, datur manna patribus.

ST PANTALEON - REPORT ON SAINT JOHN'S DAY

This feast of Saint Pantaleon, which falls tomorrow, upon which the Order commemorates annually a great naval victory over the Turks in 1659, seems a good occasion to publish the somewhat belated report on the Saint John's Day Mass.  The observance was instituted by Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson, the greatest Master of Rhodes.

Saint John's Day was celebrated as a High Mass, with the Chaplain of the Priory, Monsignor John Armitage assisted by Fathers Stephen Morrison OPraem and Gerard Skinner.

Monsignor Armitage's homily is given below.

HOMILY ST JOHN’S DAY 2021

Zechariah, the Father of John the Baptist, doubted the message of Gabriel that his wife Elizabeth would give birth.  "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 20But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur." Zechariah loses his voice. Contrast the next visit of Gabriel to Our Blessed Lady at the Annunciation, for this was the encounter where Mary found her voice. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to his Word.”

A voice lost and a voice found. Zechariah’s voice will only return when the words of the Angel come true.  Marys “yes” was given for she was open in her heart to receive this gift for she had “conceived him in her heart before she conceived him in her womb”. 

Mary is troubled by the words of the Angel; Zechariah doubts the words of the Angel. Our Lady’s faith reassures her to put her fears aside, Zechariah’s doubt, silences him, he will not speak again until he sees, the words fulfilled in the birth of his Son John the Baptist. The words of Jesus to Thomas ring true. “Doubt no longer but believe.”

Our Lady and Zechariah, although they respond differently to the Angelic invitation, eventually arrive at the same point. It is a point of prayer and thanksgiving that became the foundation of the Churches daily prayer - Mary's Magnificat and Zechariah’s Benedictus. It doesn’t matter where we start on the journey, our faith and the mercy of God will always bring us to the encounter with the one who calls us friends.

Mary's Son will bring “his mercy on those who fear him from age to age and  fill the hungry with good things.” Zechariah and Elizabeth’s son will tell of the one who is to come who has visited his people and redeemed them, thus saving his people from the hands of those who hate us, giving us the mercy that was promised to us by our fathers. Mary is the bearer of the Word incarnate, Elizabeth will be the bearer of the Voice which will proclaim his coming. Mary the Mother of Mercy, Elizabeth the Mother of the prophetic voice who will proclaim our delivery from our enemies so that we might serve him without fear. 

These two patrons of our beloved Order, Our Lady and St John the Baptist, both announce the mercy of God, through the forgiveness of our sins, this is the proclamation of the Good News,  for he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.

The Hospital in Jerusalem was under the patronage of St John the Baptist. Since the earliest days of our Order his words “He must increase, and I must decrease” has lived in the noble hearts of our brothers and sisters, who like John have stepped aside to make a way for the Lord. Mary’s faith and John’s humility are the very spiritual foundation of our relationship with Jesus. Our vocation as a member of the Order calls us to “step aside” and to give all,  to follow Christ so that we may serve “Our Lords the Sick”; we are called to “step aside” from our doubts and fears, that we may be instruments of the Mercy of God; we are called to “step aside” from ambition and greed so that we may share what we have with those who have nothing, we are called to “step aside” from the hardness of heart that restricts the flow of God’s grace and generosity in our life, so that we may become experts in humanity who by our loving service have penetrated the depths of the hearts of the men and women of today, sharing  their joys and their hopes, their anguish and their sorrows, thus we defend the Church, by serving the Sick and the poor. 

The renewal called for by our Holy Father Pope Francis is a spiritual renewal, that must be rooted in the hearts of every member, or it will not bear fruit.  Many fine words might be said and written, but they will fall on barren soil, hardened hearts.  “You renew the Church in every age by raising up men and women, outstanding examples of your unchanging love.” These words from the preface of saints must become the heart of our own personal renewal, where we will understand Why we do, what we do.  What we do in the service of Our Lords the Sick and Holy Mother Church must  be grounded in prayer and  truth,  and the fruit will be a radical generosity arising from a humble contrite heart the fountain of all nobility.   Prayer will change us, the truth of the Word of God and the teaching of the Church will set us free, and radical generosity will bring to life the words of Our Lord, “when you did this to the least of your brothers you did it to me." 

We do not seek to renew the Order for the sake of the Order, we seek to embrace the words of Our Lord. “I have come bring you life and life in abundance” and we wish to share this abundance in the service of our brothers and sisters in their need.  

The challenges we face today are challenges that all of humanity faces in these difficult times. Governments and humanitarian organisations provide material resilience in the face of need, but man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. As servants of the Church, we are witnesses to the Spiritual resilience which is the Body of Christ; once again we gather around the Sacrifice of the one who says, “This this is my body and I give it to you.”  Let us “step aside” from our fears and anxieties.

St John the Baptist, pray for us

St Pantaleon, pray for us

FEAST OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL

Our Order owes much of its liturgical origins to the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us.

HOMILY FOR BLESSED DAVID GUNSON PILGRIMAGE

Once again (both as he preached Blessed Hadrian Fortescue last week, and also the 'virtual' homily for the very depleted pilgrimage last year in lockdown) we are overjoyed to present the Pilgrimage Homily given formally, and in person, by Fr Stephen Morrison, OPraem, last night.

The Mass was offered by Fr Morrison at the Church of Our Lady of La Salette, Bermondsey. We had the added privilege of a visiting Oscott seminarian to serve the Mass, Mr Gregory Becket, a most felicitous circumstance, as he is of the family of Saint Thomas a Becket, to whom Blessed David's mother was related, so a cousin of our Martyr.

Grand Prior emeritus Fra' Ian Scott, and Monsignor Armitage, Chaplain of the Grand Priory, were present.

As every year, the Mass was followed by a silent walk along (to refer the Fr Stephen's homily) the Via Dolorosa of the Old Kent Road, also in happier times the Pilgrimage route to St Thomas's shrine in Canterbury.  While much of London was apprently being flooded, we hardly had any rain. The Shrine prayers at St Thomas Waterings were followed by an al fresco supper.

Here, then, is Father Stephen's wisdom.

Feast of Blessed David Gunson, Martyr

(preached the day after the EUFA Cup Final in which England lost to Italy)

 

It was my privilege to preach at this year’s Grand Priory patronal feast of Bd Adrian Fortescue, last week, and it is therefore a double honour to have been asked to preach also for Bd David Gunson today. While my words this evening are not exactly a “second episode,” I will begin by picking up on just one of the points I made last Thursday, which will serve as our starting point today. And it is this: it happened here. 

Last week I suggested that we take a special pride in the place and manner of our martyrs’ victory. “How proud we are that this via crucis was on our streets: the way to Tower Hill became Adrian Fortescue’s and Thomas Dingley’s climb to Calvary Hill, and the way to the famous pilgrims’ “stopping point” of St Thomas Waterings became the “statio ad Crucem” for Blessed David.” It happened here. Even more reason, surely, to pray that we, who carry the white Cross of the Order of St John, should be inspired to place our footsteps in those of Christ’s, and to climb Calvary’s hill ourselves, wherever that may be, as they did. As we make our little walking pilgrimage this evening, we might reflect that “it will be the greatest honour of our chivalry to walk in the train of the King of Kings, following the supreme witness of our confrere who once waited on and fought for an earthly Prince, and learned to do the same for the Prince of Peace.”

The events of 1539 and 1541 are not mere historical data. The red ink printed on our liturgical ordo is symbolic of innocent blood valiantly offered, the martyr’s palm, the victory laurels of heroes, and a trumpet call to the entire Church throughout the world – “Salvete, flores martyrum!” For the worldwide Order of St John keeps the feasts of Blessed Adrian and Blessed David, looking to these Englishmen for inspiration today, almost five hundred years later. Our confreres throughout the world turn to England. And what do they see? A fine sight! Not, or perhaps not only, our own delightful eccentricity…(!): rather, they see the tradition of chivalry and noble service going back centuries, with its various flowerings throughout that time, as Mary’s Dowry reveals her jewelled treasures one by one, century by century – the sons of England walk tall amid that hallowed number who distinguished themselves both in their tuitio fidei and their obsequium pauperum. And as if to reinforce my point about the “here and now” nature of our feast, even last night’s football game saw the secular world turn their eyes to our capital and see if England’s sons were up to it. They were also treated to an eccentric sight. The cup final may have ended in defeat for England, but there are some obvious caveats worth pointing out: firstly, “at the end of the day” (as they seem always to say to the press, after a game…) there are no real winners nor losers, and the comparison may seem trivial in the extreme: both teams in the cup final can surely shake hands and acknowledge each other’s strengths and weaknesses; but secondly, and more to the point, may I confess experiencing a little frisson of spiritual joy as I hung the flag of St George from our Priory window yesterday afternoon? Yes, there is the excitement of patriotic spirit; but to those of us with the eyes of faith to see, the red Cross of our Saviour, the emblem of our martyr-patron, is perhaps enduring because it is almost a sacramental. How many red crosses like this, I thought, are now fluttering in the breeze over our land? How many are hung out by unbelievers, or even by infidels and atheists? Are they not a silent but eloquent sign to Heaven that England, somewhere deep in its soul, has not forgotten Jesus Christ and His Cross, even if it might at face value be read as if they have? Could we who believe, therefore, not turn this gesture into a prayer, sent to Heaven by semaphore, in which England begs the Lord of Calvary not to forget her, even if she has so long forgotten him - yet not quite entirely? Is not this ancient sign of knightly service, taken up by crusaders – both saints and sinners – in years gone by a reminder to us, and perhaps also to God, of His formerly bestowed gifts, and our formerly returned service? 

Call me a romantic if you will – but all it takes is a conscious act of the will, and even a humble flag-waving at a cup final can become an earnest prayer for a far more important victory. 

If such symbolism is not lost on us, then we are ready to undertake this evening’s act of devotion. Our commemoration of Blessed David Gunson is also a sign to the whole world that a Calvary was climbed here, a passion undergone here, a sacrifice offered here, one which was a conscious and free imitation of that Calvary of Christ, that Passion of our Saviour, that Sacrifice of the Son of God, offered once far away and long ago, and renewed here on our Altars. Just as the miracle of the Holy Mass brings Calvary to us, and us to Calvary, the martyrs’ deaths provide a similar point of focus, since they died in imitation of Christ and following in His footsteps. Calvary came to London, and London to Calvary. A betrayal had already taken place. Herod, Pilate, the mob – they were all there. Paradise was promised to the penitent, and fruitfulness promised to the Church, by the bravery of an English sailor, stretching out his limbs to the butchers as once a Galilean carpenter did. Oh to have the eyes of faith in which to see the realities of this mystery! It happened here. 

Suffering, in imitation of Christ, is something to which you and I are all called. And how we rebel against it! Each little inconvenience or trial, each experience of pain or sorrow, each twinge of our aching bodies and each thorn of anxiety in our souls – they are all invitations to participate in something glorious, and yet we naturally run away from them, ask the Lord to take such nails and thorns away, and may even think that we deserve better. Such a thought makes us feel ashamed, and unworthy of our calling. Don’t ask me for an easy answer to this, but how do we learn to embrace the Cross, as the saints did? Is there a way to open the eyes of our souls to see in the discomforts and sufferings of this life a real business-proposition from the King of Kings, to join Him in the enterprise of Saving the world? The currency used for this transaction is the Precious Blood, which we meditate upon this month. He pays the sum up-front, on the Cross, wiping out the debt of human iniquity. He asks only for our cooperation, our willingness to take up our own cross and follow Him. I say ‘ask’ but of course He really demands this of us, as a commandment of love, saying that if a man does not do so, he is not worthy of Him, as we read in the Gospel of the Mass (Jn 12:24-26), “Whoever serves me must follow me”. When the eyes of our confreres in the Order turn to London this evening, they see with us the worthy example of one who nobly cooperated with Christ, and took part in the economy of Salvation, wishing to lose his life in order to find it, and what a transaction it was! O admirabile commercium… The returns on his investment were beyond human imagining. In the eyes of the world, he lost everything, and England seemed to lose too. But in reality, having given everything, he gained even more – and so did England. In doing so, he was only paying in full what had already been promised before: On 12^thJuly 1541 he completed the transaction first promised at his postulancy on 20^thOctober 1533 and at his profession on 25^thMay 1535. The First Class has many examples among its ranks of those who sealed their solemn vows in blood: “It is accomplished.” And so the passion was complete; tetelestai; and it happened here. 

Our witness today is a martyrdom of sorts; we will silently witness to the fact that grace won a victory on our streets, while the secular authorities scored an own goal. No commemorative plaque would quite do it justice. In Nazareth, the proclamation over the Altar marks the spot of the Incarnation thus: “Hic Verbum caro factum est;” the Word became flesh here. We might need something more like that for St Thomas Waterings… This station along a pilgrim’s way became a calvary for David Gunson, Knight and Martyr. Here his blood was shed, in imitation of Christ, for you and for many. But let the real commemoration not be in brass; let it be writ large in our hearts this evening. Let us tell ourselves – I will accept the Cross, I will not run away from it, I will embrace it. And let us tell Our Lord – I wish to love and follow you, my Lord, I wish your footprints to be the path for my own rebellious feet to follow. Let me do it out of love. “This is my body, given for you, this is my Blood, poured out for you.” These words of yours, Lord, Blessed David made his own… and with trepidation, I wish to make the same offering of myself, here, and now. Whatever calvary you choose for me, Lord, here – take – this is my body. Here, take – this is my blood. De tuis donis ac datis –you gave it to me, and it already belongs to you, I have already promised it back to you as a down payment for Heaven: I complete the sacrifice, I see only endless mercy in your plan for me, I’m all yours. 

And so, one man’s loss is a nation’s gain, an Order’s gain, Heaven’s gain – a win, finally, for our beloved country. 

 

Blessed David Gunson, Pray for us. 

LATE NOTICE - REQUIEM FOR MGR CONLON

We are advised that the Church of the Assumption Warwick Street, together with the Latin Mass Society, of which he was long-time chaplain, will have a sung Requiem for the late Dr Conlon, 26 years Chaplain to the Grand Priory, this coming Wednesday, 14 July, at 6.30 pm. The Mass will be celebrated by the Rector of Warwick Street, Fr Mark Elliott-Smith.

This most fitting day is Mgr Conlon's birthday.  Those who celebrate it will not have to think of Bastille Day.

You are all firmly encouraged to attend.

Requiem æternum dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.

HOMILY FOR BL. ADRIAN FORTESCUE

The Solemnity of the Patron of the Grand Priory was celebrated with joy and pomp in a High Mass (OF) at Warwick Street, the celebrant being Fr Michael Lang of the Oratory, assisted by Fathers Stephen Morrison OPraem and Gary Dench. The music was sublime, under the direction of Toby Ward.

We are delighed to publish below the meditation upon one of Blessed Adrian's maxims, preached by Fr Stephen.

Fr Stephen will also be preaching for the Blessed David Gunson pilgrimage on Monday, to which people are encouraged to come (Our Lady of la Salette Bermondsey, 6pm, Monday 12th July).

Bd Adrian Fortescue, Patron of the Grand Priory of England

 

“Obey well the good Kirk, and thou shalt fare the better.”

- Bd. Adrian Fortescue, collected proverbs.

 

Although today is a feast for all of us, whatever our level of association with the Order of St John, it is a particular patronal solemnity for those members of the First and Second Classes, all those on the roll of the Grand Priory, since it is of the Grand Priory that Blessed Adrian is principal patron. Along with the sacrifices commemorated this month of the Venerable Sir Thomas Dingley and the Blessed David Gunson, we remember with pride the sons of this country who exchanged an earthly for a heavenly crown as members of the Order, all of them good servants of the Crown, but God’s servants first and foremost. Blessed Adrian died because he preferred “to obey God” rather than compromise his Catholic faith. Since Knights of Justice, and Knights and Dames in Obedience, have in common either the vow or the promise of obedience, it seems right to meditate this evening on that Evangelical Counsel, especially in the light of the palm of martyrdom. For those of us who have made a vow of that counsel, on this your solemnity, I pray that the words of Blessed Adrian scribbled at the end of a volume written in his own hand seven years before his death, may inspire you today: “Obey well the good Kirk, and thou shalt fare the better.” Taking a look again at his collection of proverbs, there are many that are wonderful. I suggest that this one - “be blythe at thy meat, and devout at thy Mass” - is one that you already keep rather well! And just as I do not reproach any of you of any lack either of blitheness or devotion, neither do intend a sermon on a martyr’s obedience to be a reproach to any of you. Far from it. No sooner do we examine the notion of holy obedience than we realise that all of us, daily, are disobedient…even though we try to obey God, our superiors, and legitimate authority, we so easily fall into sin. As my novice master told me, the conventual life will hopefully keep you poor, and chaste, to a far greater degree than if you were in the world. What it cannot make you is obedient. Obedience is tough. Those of you in vows, and those of you in obedience, stand to gain a great deal from our confrere Blessed Adrian’s intercession, who urges us with a smile to obey well the good Church, that we may fare the better for it. 

Before examining the virtue of obedience, let us remember that, one thing that makes it easier is precisely our conventual life, in whatever form that takes. We obey God and our superior together. Yes, only I am responsible for my own will, my own decisions, my own free choices. But this virtue is not lived individually, but collectively. Obedience makes collective existence possible and indeed fruitful. We will see how it brings freedom, the freedom to choose God above all else as the martyrs did, but it is a collective freedom, one which brings a common purpose, a common peace, and a common good. So, together with Adrian, Thomas and David, our saintly confreres, let us seek and find that purpose, that peace, that good. 

“Obey.” Obedience is at the heart of the life of the Trinity – because the Son obeys the Father. St Paul reminds us that Christ was humbler yet, “obediens usque ad mortem,” when He embraced the Cross to accomplish the Father’s plan of salvation. Every martyr adds his own blood to Christ’s when he walks the via crucis to martyrdom. How proud we are that this via crucis was on our streets: the way to Tower Hill became Adrian’s and Thomas’ climb to Calvary Hill, and the way to the famous pilgrims’ “stopping point” of St Thomas Waterings became the “statio ad Crucem” for Blessed David (come with us on Monday to retrace this latter sorrowful and glorious way). Obediens usque ad mortem. Our Beatus was obedient to the Good Church, because he was united with Christ in His obedience to the Father, led on that way by the Spirit. Let the Holy Ghost then so inspire us, who carry the white Cross of the Order, to place our footsteps in those of Christ’s, and to climb Calvary’s hill ourselves, wherever that may be. It will be the greatest honour of our chivalry to walk in the train of the King of Kings, following the supreme witness of our confrere who once waited on and fought for an earthly Prince, and learned to do the same for the Prince of Peace. 

The “Good Kirk” reminds us that there was also a bad one – the pretence of the monarch in the Act of Supremacy rendered sour the once loyal and most Petrine of churches, cutting it off from that lifeline which is communion with the Holy See. The Good Kirk, the Church of God, is that which is faithful to the deposit of Faith, and united to Peter. And this faith of Blessed Adrian in obedience to the Church was not dependent on who precisely it was who occupied the chair of the prince of the Apostles: Paul III was no saint; he had five children by his mistress, and there is a famous portrait of him and his grandchildren by Titian! It might be easy to mock, but the Farnese at least had a catholic understanding of family planning (!) and it was Paul III who bravely issued the two excommunications of King Henry VIII, the first having been suspended in the wise hope of his repentance, failing which the second was then issued. It was the principle, not the persons, which mattered; the office, not the particular office-holder. The Pope was the Pope, and the King’s good Majesty was that of the Lord’s Anointed – even “Defender of the Faith” at one stage – but when the Pope’s spiritual and temporal authority in this realm was seized by the King, a faithful Catholic had no option but to obey God over the King. Obedience, dear brethren, is to legitimate authority. Pilate was told by Christ that he would not have authority, were it not given to him by above. Our Blessed Lord did not deny even Pilate’s right to execute the death penalty, as legitimate (though resented) authority in that place – but he made clear the injustice of His own condemnation as King of the Jews: “My Kingdom is not of this world.” And Blessed Adrian faced the dilemma of those who love this realm, but seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. Obey well the good Kirk, and thou shalt fare the better. I wonder whether, before his execution, the martyr thought of this proverb he had recorded several years earlier, with a wry smile… was this faring better? The martyr, by a special grace, knows that it is indeed to fare better to die for Christ in obedience to him. It was the same grace that made Sir Thomas More regret the clemency of death by beheading rather than the passion of Tyburn, and wish it otherwise for himself and for his children. “How sweet would be our children’s fate, if they, like them, could die for Thee.” I think Blessed Adrian would have received that same grace of courageous submission to the will of God in faith and obedience. 

“Faring better.” Submission of one’s will to the Will of God is a fiat which, like Our Blessed Lady’s, renders us free, and ostensibly so. Obedience brings freedom, not chains. There is a difference between genuine liberty and license, as we know – the former is a virtue, the latter a real enslavement. The obedience of those in the Grand Priory, whether by vow or by promise, gives you the freedom to serve, and to serve above all else. We are commanded to love, but we have volunteered to serve. The feudal obedience of serfdom leaves no personal choice to those recruited, leaving room for the ego to grow, but not for the soul to flourish; the chivalrous obedience of the religious means the channelling of one’s will towards God, the source and goal of its flourishing; as our prayer has it, “may I forget myself, and love God more.” This is a loving service which can be summed up in the word “friendship.” Our Lord says, I call you servants no longer, I call you friends.” Our obedience gives us this intimacy with God, where we truly find Him, and His Will, and truly find ourselves, having placed our wayward will under the harness of his Providence. And since “greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends,” we can see that friendship with God leads to that loving devotion to God’s own – friendship in our common obedience with our confreres, and friendship with the poor and the sick. Blessed Adrian knew that fiat, and lived it to the end.

Finally: Friendship, service, chivalry, these all seem like a young man’s ideals. But our martyr was a full 57 years old when he joined the Order, and 62 when he died. We’re never “past it” to do the right thing. He went up to the Altar of God, the God who gave joy to his youth – and indeed, he looks remarkably young in his iconography; whether this is the result of graceful ageing and good genes, or whether it is the artist’s way of showing a sort of timeless holiness, I leave to you to decide. But I think that, reading the accounts of their deaths, many martyrs who face the scaffold later in life seem to bounce with the energy of the young, and radiate a youthful holiness, God restoring in them the joy of their youth – perhaps there is something of the Holy Innocents in all God’s martyrs, the babes and sucklings in whose mouths, the psalmist says, God has found praise to foil his enemies. “My beloved comes, leaping over the mountains like a gazelle, like a young stag,” as we read in the Song of Songs. We are never too old to further our conversion, to further our progress in obedience. To say we are “past changing” or “past improving” is the lament of the coward, and it is not worthy of a Christian, let alone a Knight of the Order of St John. 

So let us be rejuvenated tonight, by our Confrere’s example and merits. By his prayers, may the Grand Priory flourish. May our obedience, in imitation of Christ’s own obedience to the Father, make progress along the way of perfection. Together, may we seek and find a common purpose, a common peace, and a common good. May we discern the limits of temporal authority, so as to obey heavenly authority with a good conscience. May we find in our obedience that liberty and that friendship which was the special virtue of Blessed Adrian and a grace which led him to victory. And may our promise of fidelity to Christ in His “Good Kirk” mean that we indeed ‘fare the better’, usque ad mortem in this life, and eternally with the Saints in the next. 

Blessed Adrian Fortescue, Pray for us.

WHY DIDS'T THOU NOT LOOK UPON ME, IOKANAAN?

As we may not, this year, come together beneath the domes of the Brompton Oratory for the feast of our Blessed Patron (though there is an evening Mass, see below), we may yet, virtually, do that other thing which people do when they come together in large numbers, namely to watch a play.

In this case the Martyrdom of the Holy Baptist, as recounted by Oscar Wilde in his play “Salomé”. Richard Strauss based his eponymous opera upon the same play, so 15 years before.

This powerful and aesthetic silent film from 1923 has all the art-deco hallmarks of Eastern European art cinema of the period. It was neverthess, and surprisingly, made in Holywood, directed by Charles Bryant, with a mise-en-scène by Peter M Winters. The artistic design and costumes are by Natacha Rambova (actually a rich American-Irish woman called Winifred Shaughnessy briefly married to Rudolph Valentino), based upon Aubrey Bearsley’s sensual illustrations for the play. The dancer playing Salomé (who was 40 years old at the time but looks 20) is Alla Nazimova, who had paid for the film herself, to her great financial detriment. It was a complete flop at the time, despite the review – “a hothouse orchid of decadent passion.” Yet surely Salomé herself could not have been more seductively evil?

Herod, played by Mitchell Lewis, is also magnificent, the personification of the spiritual effects of a life of sensuous desire, dissipation and neglect of the soul. This is what unbridled worldly pleasure and pride truly looks like to the sane observer. This is how Dorian Gray might have played it – the corruption of all that is good and lovely into something both monstrous, yet at the same time feeble and pathetic. We see here the corruption of the human body, male and female, of kingship, of marriage, of friendship, of love. All that is noble and lovely, all God’s greatest gifts, inverted. Horrible.

And against this monstrous reflection of reality we see Saint John, as chaste is his words as in his body, proclaiming only the Truth. Lean, spare, pure. Only through the lens of Evil, as we see laid bare before us this night, can God’s beauty become a source of unnatural desire.

How many lessons has this film for us today in our licentious world?! For each of us, as we strive against the Zeitgeist? Circumspice! To watch this film in a spirit of prayer, and to convert its undeniable external loveliness in our minds into God’s true Beauty, is a truly spiritual exercise, and a good way to spend the Feast. By rejecting ugliness within, we may love beauty all the more. Like the world around us, this film may be taken either way, but it is not the filmmaker’s, nor Oscar Wilde’s fault, nor Saint John’s, if we choose to see it through the world’s smeared lens.

The only downside of it being a Holywood production is that the text of the intertitle cards is in English, whereas Wilde very specifically, and for good reason, wrote his play in French, the language of passionate and dissipated love in his own post-enlightement age. A shame. “Ah! J’ai baisé ta bouche, Iokanaan, j'ai baisé ta bouche.”

The musical score to this version is by Mike Frank, 2015. 

    

There is another excellent instrumental and vocal score written by Charlie Barber (2009) using arabic musical forms, and performed and produced by soundaffairs.co.uk, HERE, but is only available in a dozen separate short videos.  The dance of the Seven Veils is HERE.

Please note, there is a Sung Mass of the Feast at 7pm at St James's Spanish Place, Thursday 24th June. All members who can should attend.

Beate Ioanne Baptista, ora pro nobis!

EU, ABORTION AND ETHICS

Following our post last week (HERE) about the WHO and conscientious objection for doctors and nurses in abortion matters, early next week the European Parliament is to take a final vote on declaring abortion to be a fundamental human right.  You read that correctly.

To quote CitizenGO: "On June 7 the European Parliament votes on the so-called "Matic Report" where among other things abortion is defined as a "human right." 

The report has the official title "The situation of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the EU from the perspective of women's health." 

The most serious aspect of the report is that it considers abortion as a "human right" and advocates for abortion without any restriction: 

The report “calls for the removal of barriers” to access abortion like "waiting periods", "the denial of medical care based on personal beliefs", "counselling" or any "third party authorization".

This ruling will override national parliaments, including Poland, which is valiantly trying to turn the tide of Evil. It flies in the face of  the international human right to conscientous objection by medics.

Furthermore, the "Matic Report" calls for unlimited contraception at any age, without parental consent; LGBT programmes in schools; and 'sex-change' for minors, all without parental consent. Parents will have no say and be allowed no responsibility.

Our Catholic brethren in Europe are pleading for our support, please take the brief moment needed to sign their petition HERE, and please pray.

Our Lady of Philermo, pray for the unborn.

Our Lady of Philermo, pray for the young.

Our Lady of Philermo, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, champion of Christan marriage, pray for us,

Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, pray for all children.