We are indebted to Monsignor Philip Whitmore, former Rector of the Venerable English College, for the Lenten Recollection he preached to the Order last Tuesday, in the presence of the Procurator of the Priory, Fra' Max Rumney, of the President, Chancellor and Vice-President of the British Association, and many knights and dames, in the Lady Chapel of St James's Spanish Place, by grace of the Rector.
For the benefit of those members of the Order unable to be present, the text is given below. We extend our prayers and commiserations to the two members of the British Association who had intended to make the Promise of Obedience that evening, but were unable due to having Covid. May they soon be fully recovered and pursue their religious conviction
The evening concluded with Sung Compline of the Little Office, for which we are grateful to Fr Stephen Morrison, OPraem, for his melifluous services as Hebdomadarius.
We would ask for the prayers, as a matter of obligation, of every member of our beloved Order tomorrow, the Feast of Saint Joseph, on which day senior members of our Order, including our Procurator, will be meeting the Holy Father to further discuss the ongoing reforms of the Order.
FASTING IN LENT
Monsignor Philip Whitmore
As we heard in the Gospel on the first Sunday of Lent,
Jesus was led by the Spirit through the wilderness, being tempted there by the devil for forty days. During that time he ate nothing and at the end he was hungry.
During Lent, we join Our Lord in his fast of forty days. I want to speak to you tonight about fasting. We’re asked, as you know, to include in our Lenten observance prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and of the three I think fasting is probably the one people find most difficult. Difficult, not only to do, but difficult even to understand why we do it. Of course it’s important for us to be able to explain the reasons why we Catholics do the things we do and why we believe the things we believe. “Always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you”, as we read in the first letter of Saint Peter. Because even if there are plenty of people today who find our faith baffling, you only have to scratch the surface to discover that most of them are searching for a way to make better sense of their lives. So there’s a great opportunity for us, and a great challenge, to find a way of getting our message across to people who are hungry for the truth. Obviously, the better we understand it ourselves, the better equipped we are to do that. So let’s focus this evening on the ancient practice of fasting, and try to see how it fits into the grand scheme of our faith and our spirituality. Our faith should touch us on every level of our being, and fasting obviously affects us right down there in the gut.
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