FEAST OF OUR HOLY PATRON SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST

The Grand Priory of England wishes you all the very happiest of feasts, though sadly remote from the fraternity we would expect to share together in the Order family, at altar and board.

But, Deo gratias, we are not remote from the voice of the Order, as our dear Brother, Fra' Paul Sutherland, has graciously sent a copy of his hymn to Saint John, for us to share individually in our devotions on the day.

If this organ were BBC Radio 3, we should all be encouraged to sing it simultaneously in the morning. Thankfully, the Grand Priory would never brook anything so vulgar.

HYMN IN HONOUR OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST

     O GOD almighty, by whose leave,

     We seek thy mercy to receive,

     And undertake with single voice

     To make thy will our only choice.

2   John, herald of thy Son, we thank

      For cleansing souls on Jordan’s bank;

      His words and deeds of such renown,

      Did earn him thus a holy crown.

3   Grant, Lord, like him, that we may know

     The Lamb of God’s triumphal glow,

     To swell the homage we should pay

     The One that taketh sins away!

 4   Beneath Christ’s ensign we repair,

      Thy foes to quell, thy Word declare,

      Yet humbly serve the least of men,

      That they may find thy grace again.

 5   O Father, that we ask be done,

      Through Jesus Christ, thine only Son,

      Who, with the Holy Ghost and thee,

      Doth live and reign eternally.  Amen.

Fra' Paul proposes the Tune 'Winchester New', which may be heard HERE.

BLESSED JOHN THE BAPTIST, PRAY FOR US

(The painting shows the Baptist by Anton Raphael Mengs, ca. 1760, housed in Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas.)

LITANY OF LORETO - NEW INVOCATIONS

The Litany of Loreto holds a very dear place in the piety of the Order of Malta, as indeed it should with all Christian souls, and it is therefore with great joy that we can thank the Holy Father Pope Francis for the addition, published by decree of the Congregation of Divine Worship last Saturday, the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, of three new invocations to the Lauretan Litany, following requests from pious bodies of the Faithful. The first two are titles of Our Blessed Lady in common piety, the third a reflection of our own troubled age, a long-standing feature of the Litany, which has grown as the needs of the people of God change. We give below the text of the Letter issued by the Prefect Robert Cardinal Sarah. At the end we give the new complete texts.

We rejoice in the reflection for the great Marian piety of the Sovereign Pontiff; may our Blessed Mother guide and guard him.

From the Vatican, June 20, 2020 

Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary 

Eminence, 

The Church, on pilgrimage to Heaven’s Holy Jerusalem, — to enjoy inseparable communion with Christ, her Spouse and Saviour –, walks along the paths of history entrusting herself to Her who believed in the Lord’s word. We know, in fact, from the Gospel that Jesus’ disciples learned from the beginning to praise the “blessed among all women” and to count on Her maternal intercession. One cannot name the titles and the invocations that, in the course of the centuries, Christian piety has given to the Virgin Mary, privileged and sure way of encounter with Christ. In our time also, which is going through reasons of uncertainty and bewilderment, pious recourse to Her, full of affection and confidence, is particularly dear to the People of God. 

Interpreter of this sentiment, the Sovereign Pontiff Francis, receiving the desires expressed, wished to establish that, in the formulary of the litanies of the blessed Virgin Mary, called “of Loreto,” the following invocations be inscribed: “Mater Misericordiae,” “Mater Spei” and Solacium Migrantium.” 

The first invocation will be inserted after “Mater Ecclesiae,” the second after “Mater Divinae Gratiae,” and the third after “Refugium Peccatorum.” 

While I am happy to communicate this disposition to Your Eminence, so that it is known and implemented, I take the occasion to express to you the sentiments of my esteem. 

Yours very devotedly in the Lord, 

Robert Cardinal Sarah Prefect 

Monsignor Arthur Roche Archbishop Secretary

Below we give for your convenience the new complete Litany in both Latin and English.

DISTRACTIONS!

Ah, dear Reader, we thought that headline would get your attention! Distractions in prayer, the enemy of the Covid-19 Retreat! Distractions in prayer, or "spiritual distractions," are not new. In the form of images or ideas, they parade through even the most pious minds. Is there a cure to rid ourselves of them? Yes, do not give them too much importance, and interpret them as an opportunity to turn back to the Lord; an opportunity for “conversion”. We are very grateful to the international Catholic news-site Aleteia, and to the author, Élisabeth de Baudöuin, for this article, to whom all credit.

 

Distractions touch all forms of prayer (Holy Mass, communal prayer, holy rosary, private prayer, adoration).  They vary according to one's temperament, state of life, and circumstances: the philosopher reasons, the parents think of their children, the resentful harks back, the ambitious man builds his future... Their nature informs the person about himself: his worries, affections, passions, temptations. Who escapes distractions in prayer? No one, not even the saints! Saint Teresa of Avila speaks of it as a true "infirmity", as much painful as unavoidable. She recounts that sometimes, even in solitude, she could have "no fixed and settled thought, neither of God nor of any good thing", and that her spirit resembled "a madman that nobody can chain". She admits that she was thinking "of nothing bad, but only of pointless things". One day, she found herself counting the nails in the shoe of the nun who was praying before her. Nothing serious, if we consider some of our less bright distractions. But how are we to understand this "infirmity"?

 

“Prayer Disorders” That Prevent Concentration

Spiritual distractions are inherent in our condition as bodily beings. The explanation is simple: man is not merely a spirit. And as the spirit seeks to reach God, its efforts are thwarted by the weight of the "matter" which holds it down. The "matter"? First of all the five senses, constantly in activity, which grasp, despite themselves, "everything that passes": this or that noise (the ringing of the mobile phone that one’s neighbour forgot to turn off), some image (our new neighbour's hairstyle), some smell. True “prayer-disturbers”, the senses constantly provide food for the mind with what they capture, thus preventing it from concentrating on the supernatural truths that it is nevertheless seeking.

 

But the action of the senses does not explain everything: with earplugs, a blindfold and a clothes-peg on the nose, there are still distractions. Why? Saint Teresa of Avila replies: "The natural powers, that is to say, memory, imagination (the “madwoman of the house”) and understanding (the faculty of reason), which never cease to wander, divert the will from its objective: to settle on God”.

 

Faced with the often painful and disconcerting experience of distractions, one may be tempted to be discouraged. Indeed, when you have too many distractions, you can say to yourself: "I am not made to pray". The temptation may then be to abandon everything. This is what you certainly should not do. If we stopped praying because we have distractions, we would never pray! Distractions only reach the peripheral part of our being. But God gives himself to us in the depths of the soul, where distractions do not enter, where the bodily senses have no access. They therefore do not prevent prayer from working within the soul and transforming it.

 

Distractions are an opportunity to choose the Lord again

So what should we do? Persevere, of course! And don't pay distractions too much attention, much less dramatize them. But do not take pleasure in them. That temptation nevertheless exists, and can be strong. As long as one does not dwell on them voluntarily, spiritual distractions are not a sin. “They are even a grace!” says one priest loud and clear. Because they are an opportunity to turn back to the Lord, to actively chose him, whom we had temporarily abandoned. To come back to him in the form of the prayer which we were making before.

 

“To abandon a distraction that pleases us to return to Christ is to perform an act of love.” “They teach us to live on dry, black bread in the house of God”, so we read from the pen of Fenelon. Interest on such a modest allowance, on such a pittance? Yes, by making prayer difficult, distractions allow man to seek God for himself, and not for the consolations of the senses he can give. Likewise, because of the effort they involve to rid oneself from them, they strengthen the will to find Him and stir up the desire to unite  ourselves with Him.

 

Yet more graces: this concerns also our very poverty. Now, "the poorer we are […], the more we are fit for the operations of consuming and transforming love", writes Thérèse de Lisieux. The young doctor of the Church, however, poses two conditions: choosing to remain poor; and love of this poverty. Saint Paul says a similar thing: “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” (2 Cor. 12:9) 

 

And so here is the unexpected consequence: to live in praise, submission and thanksgiving; spiritual distractions allow God to establish his reign in the heart of man. They become then a pathway, far more than an obstacle, to come to God in humility.

 

Elisabeth de Baudöuin

Translation Grand Priory of England

 

FEAST OF THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

The Procurator and all the Members of the Grand Priory England wish you all a very happy Feast of Corpus Christi.

As we approach, this coming week, the easing of the 'lockdown' and the reopening of our churches (Deo gratias!), making available again to Catholics that Sacred Space which is their birth-right, and access to the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, our daily Food, we are grateful to our chaplain Father John Osman for this little meditation upon returning in the correct attitude. It is indeed a very good thing that, for a few weeks ahead, we can go to adore, but not to receive; this is the concluding chapter of all we have learned over the last three months. Let us not forget this lesson, every natural thing has a supernatural purpose, and God intended us to benefit from this strange period of virus.  Let there be no going back to our old ‘normal’. 

For many, it seems the idea of a ‘Spiritual Communion’ has been a novelty, with prayer formulae to be learned anew. Yet every Holy Communion we make of Our Lord’s Body and Blood in the Sacred Host should be accompanied by an act of spiritual communion, with the same sense of awe we felt at our First Holy Communion (and if we cannot remember that, we should try! do you remember the date?) Let us heed Father Osman’s words and go back into the world as new men and women, armed with Our Lord’s Sacred Body in our hearts, ready for the spiritual battle which awaits us. And with Our Lady, rejoice in it!

CORPUS CHRISTI

Fr John Osman,  Conventual Chaplain

This year because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the forced closure of our churches, we shall not be able to keep the great solemnity of Corpus Christi as heretofore. The impressive act of witness of the Blessed Sacrament Procession in London, to which Knights and Dames have been committed over recent years, will not take place. Let us hope that next year we shall be able to restore this wonderful tradition of witnessing to the True Presence of Jesus Christ and the blessing that this Presence brings us in our lives. 

The lack of a Procession should not deter us though from deepening our appreciation of this great Sacrament and of thanking Our Lord more profoundly for this wonderful gift, hopefully to be the greater appreciated because of deprivation in this time of lock down. The desire to receive Jesus Christ, truly Present in His humanity and divinity in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar can be intensified by not being able to receive Him in the Eucharist at this time. Deprivation should lead us to a deepening of faith and trust in Our Lord and His love for us and His desire to be close to us. 

Archbishop Fulton Sheen was one of the first priests to promote the Catholic Faith through the media; he was declared Venerable in 2012. He tried to spend an hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament every day, remembering Our Lord’s request to the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Could you not watch with me one hour?”

Asked what inspired his great love of the Holy Eucharist, Archbishop Sheen shared a story about Communist soldiers overrunning a Catholic village during the Revolution.  He recounted how the Communists rounded up the village’s inhabitants, forced them to gather in the church, and made them watch as they destroyed the Tabernacle, throwing the consecrated Hosts down on the floor. The soldiers’ captain warned the people never to return to the church. But that night, one little girl went to the church, despite the risk to her own life. After an hour of prayer in reparation for the desecration, she knelt and received Jesus in Holy Communion, picking up the Host from the floor with her tongue. The little girl came back every night and kept this up for more than a month, but on the thirty second night, after reverently receiving the last remaining Host with her tongue, she was discovered and shot dead.

What a wonderful witness to Faith and reverence for the Holy Body of the Lord!

At this time, as we celebrate Corpus Christi, let us examine our conscience and ask some pertinent questions, with this little girl’s example in mind:

Do I receive Our Lord’s Body in a state of grace?

When did I last confess my sins and receive absolution?

Do I receive Our Lord devoutly and with love for Him in my heart?

Do I prepare to receive Him?

Do I offer thanksgiving each time for having received Him?

Let us use this time therefore when we are deprived of the Blessed Sacrament to prepare ourselves to receive Him with even greater joy and devotion when we return to His Presence once again.

O SACRAMENT MOST HOLY, 

O SACRAMENT DIVINE, 

ALL PRAISE AND ALL THANKSGIVING BE EVERY MOMENT THINE.

PROTECT THE YOUNG FROM TRUE EVIL INCARNATE - POPE'S WEEKLY AUDIENCE

At the Weekly Audience yesterday the Sovereign Pontiff made an urgent appeal to us all to protect the young from the various evils which assail them anew every day in the modern world.  To us in the Order of Malta the young, as they set out on their Pilgrimage through life, are the successors of the pilgrims to Jerusalem whom we tended in the first centuries of our existence, beset by the Evil One in many enticing guises.

As His Holiness said : "Every effort must be made to protect children …", "Children are the future of the human family: all of us are expected to promote their growth, health and tranquility." He referred specifically to economic exploitation, saying "I appeal that every effort be made on the part of institutions to protect minors, by filling the economic and social gaps that underlie the distorted dynamic in which they are unfortunately involved."

In present months there have been grotesque attacks on the young in the form of sexual exploitation, using them to make publishing profits through the many 'youth' magazines aimed at corrupting their innocence. This is child abuse, quite simply, and an example of much that Pope Francis has in mind.

CitizenGo have teemed up with Enough is Enough to protest Condé Nast's Vogue magazine's youth imprint 'TeenVogue" which is encouraging children in lockdown to indulge in 'sexting' – for the majority of you who don't know what this means, it is the sending of immodest photographs of themselves by text message to friends. This is both morally corrupting, and deeply compromising to their future careers, as these images remain forever online, frequently resulting in blackmail and suicide.  Please sign the protest petition HERE. as they rightly say, "a parent's worst nightmare."

If you have the stomach for it, you may see TeenVogue HERE. Not a pleasant sight. 

NEXT: The United Nations is using the Coronavirus to dramatically promote Abortion across the developing work, as its humanist solution to the health problems. Dead children cannot catch a virus, and don't cost money – problem solved. Again CitizenGo has a petition. Please sign it HERE. This is extremely urgent. Do this before you leave this page.

The Devil is having ball during Coronavirus, but Knights of Malta have taken him on before – and won.

We must never loose heart, as Pope Francis tells us: "In our darkest moments, when we sin or are disoriented, we always have an appointment with God. We do not need to be afraid, because God will change our hearts and give us the blessing reserved for those who allow Him to change them." (from Yesterday's General Audience).

O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy up on us.

O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy up on us.

O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy up on us.

Our Lady of Philermo, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Blessed Gerard, pray for us.

THE MOST HOLY AND UNDIVIDED TRINITY

We are grateful to our friend and Chaplain, Father John Osman, priest of Saint Birinus, Dorchester-on-Thames, for this reflection upon the Most Holy Trinity for today's feast. It is very poignant this year, as we leave Paschaltide and enter the long summer of green Sundays, to reflect that we have spent the whole of Lent and Easter nearly completely alone - involuntary anchorites. God grant, with our eyes fixed firmly upon the Trinity, that this is not lost time, but may be turned to our spiritual advantage and to building our strength against the Enemy. The illustration shows a knight, such as you might be, gentle Reader, bearing into spiritual battle the shield of the Most Holy Trinity. May it always be yours.

The Sunday following the great Feast of Pentecost and the Giving of the Holy Spirit, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. We contemplate the Mystery of God as He is in Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and as He has been experienced by the Church throughout History. It is difficult, indeed impossible, for us to contemplate the Mystery of God Who is infinite in His perfections. How could we who are finite and limited comprehend God Who has no limitations?  We can know something about the Creator if we look intelligently at the created order – the work of His hands, but we cannot know Him unless He reveals Himself to us in a language which we can understand. The profound question in every human heart whether articulated or not is “What is God like?” and then perhaps a concomitant question: “How do I know Him?” God answers this question for us by speaking our language, that is by taking our human flesh by becoming man and taking human flesh of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The WORD, that is the Second Person of the Trinity who threw the stars into space and is the agent of creation, that Person takes flesh and becomes Man born of woman.

That is the Mystery of the Incarnation, the mystery of Emmanuel – God with us. It is Jesus Christ Who reveals to us His Father and tells Philip “To have seen me is to have seen the Father, for the Father and I are ONE." Furthermore, Our Lord told us that He goes to the Father and that the Father will send us the Gift of the Holy Spirit after Our Lord’s Ascension into Heaven. The Holy Spirit who will be with us until the end of time and Who will lead us into all truth. Our Lord tells us that He will not leave us as orphans but that He will come back to us and be with us. 

Trinity Sunday, in a certain sense, sums up God’s Revelation which was brought about through the Paschal Mystery – that is Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, His Ascension to the Right Hand of the Father, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The human mind and human language are inadequate in seeking to explain the relationship that exists between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – yet the Fathers of the Church sought to illustrate the Mystery of the Triune God by living it with deep faith in their own lives.

The Divine Trinity takes up His abode within us on the day of our Baptism, when the priest says: “I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Every time we sign ourselves with the sign of the Cross we remember Gods’s Name and the Mystery into which we have been immersed through the waters of Baptism. With regard to the Sign of the Cross, it should always be done with care and devotion and with a remembrance of our Baptism. The Theologian Romano Guardini said: “We make the Sign of the Cross before praying, so that we may bout ourselves spiritually in order, focus thoughts, heart and will on GOD; after praying that what God has given us may remain with us.

PRAYER embraces the whole of our being, body and soul, and everything is consecrated in the Name of the TRIUNE GOD.”

Let us make our own prayer that of St Hilary of Poitiers:

“Keep uncontaminated, the Faith that is in me until my last breath. Protect my conscience that I may be faithful to what I professed in the waters of regeneration, when I was baptized in the Name of the Most Holy Trinity”  (St Hilary: de Trinitate XII)

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is at the heart of our Catholic Faith and the in the experience of the Church throughout the ages. It is not a mathematical problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.

(Illumination by the Dominican Guillaume Perrault, 'Peraldus', 1190-1271, of a Christian preparing to do battle against the Seven Deadly Sins, from his volume 'Summa de virtutibus et vitas'.)

SIR GEORGE BOWYER ANNIVERSARY - RIP

Today is the anniversary of the death of Sir George Bowyer, Bt, the pious and romantic founder member of the British Association, one-time possible Grand Prior of England, patron of 'our' Sisters of Mercy, and benefactor and builder of our Conventual Church of Saint John of Jerusalem in St John's Wood, in the pavement of which, before the high altar, his heart is buried.

Of your charity, pray for his soul. If you happen to be in St John's Wood, do make a visit to the church, where for various reasons he has been rather neglected of late. Chaplains are invited to remember him at the altar at Holy Mass. Gone are the days of an annual chantry Mass in the beautiful church he so generous gave us.

The engraving above is from the Illustrated London News of June 8 1860, in the possession of the Editor.

The window below of St Edmund of Abingdon shows Bowyer presenting his new church in that town to its holy patron. (Click  to enlarge.)

REFLECTION ON OUR REDEMPTION 15 - PENTECOST

This is the 15th and last paper in our series Reflections on our Redemption which have been running since Passion Week. They may all be revisited using the search box top-left.

We are grateful, yet again, to Fr Joseph Hamilton for this final meditation upon the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.

Please pray for our beloved Order at this time, that it may be guided by the Holy Spirit into the path of Truth and Humility, not easy virtues for those living in the modern world which hates both; pray for our Chaplains, without whom we could not hope to be a Catholic order, that they may have the courage to give us the teaching we need; pray this weekend for the 20,000 or so Chartres Pilgrims who cannot walk due to the virus, and for our own small band of British Order Pilgrims who walked valiantly in Our Lady's path in London yesterday, praying for your intentions. Above all pray of the Church, that it in this time of crisis She may be given the strength to restore the awesome sway of Christ in our fallen world. We must each play our little part; the choice is yours.

The painting in the video shows the 'Descent of the Holy Ghost' by Sir Anthony van Dyck, 1618-20, in the collection at Sanssouci, Potsdam.

VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS, REPLE TUORUM CORDA FIDELIUM

SAINT UBALDESCA, VIRGIN

Gentle Reader, please accept our apologies for posting on this great saint a day late. Yesterday as every year, Saint Ubaldesca coincided with Saint Augustine, Apostle to the English. So, with apologies to the great Carmelite saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, her near neighbour, and today's feast of the altar, we now offer her to your undivided devotion. The painting illustrated is in the possession of the Museum of Saint John in Clerkenwell. It is of course due to the late date of the painting that our Saint is shown wearing a black habit, not red, see below.

Saint Ubaldesca Taccini represents the perfection of female service in the Order of Saint John.

Born at Castello di Calcinaia, in the county of Pisa in 1136, to farming stock, her parents pious people who practiced the virtues of obedience and silence, qualities they encouraged in our Saint from infancy. She learnt to pray constantly and practiced bodily mortifications, a spirituality which seems so foreign to our modern ears, but which throughout Europe produced the great age of Christendom, in the ashes alone of which we live now.

This life of virtue instilled into Ubaldesca a profound sense of charity and kindness, and she gave regularly to the Poor – having so little herself she frequently gave only time and understanding, often the most cherished gifts even by those who have no material goods. We see in all this the true and full vocation of womanhood.

The essential practice of examination of conscience led her to seek, in prayer for guidance, the true form her vocation should take.

One day while baking the bread, as if miraculously, she had a vision of an angel, who told her to seek admission to our Sisters of Saint John of Jerusalem of Carraia in Pisa. Knowing how poor her family was, and unable to provide the usual dowry, she doubted, but was assured by the angel that the Reverend Mothers were so rich they had no need of any dowry but her virtues, which, to dispel her further doubt, the Holy Spirit would provide where she lacked.“There is no woman in Pisa who will be more full of virtues than you. And because of your merits, the city will be delivered from great perils,” the angel told her. Pious as they were, her parents, through love of God and faith in their only daughter, took her the next day to Pisa.

THE HOLY EUCHARIST AND CORONAVIRUS

We give below the text of a paper by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, as part of our continuing Tuitio Fidei, upon the current Coronavirus crisis and the Most Holy Eucharist. It challenges us, and the Church, at pastoral, liturgical and theological levels.

It is particularly good for us here in England that His Excellency cites, at length, the spiritual care for the 19th Century urban poor by the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, which tradition has continued to enhance the numbers of English Catholic clergy, and indeed members of our own Order, over the past century and a half.

It is also good in the light of the continuing friendship and mutual hospitality between our beloved Order and the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the true successors of the Oxford Movement, working together as we do in the care of the Our Lords the Poor. There is something wonderfully Catholic and international (tautology?), firmly in the tradition of the Venerable Bede whose feast we celebrate today, and of Newman, about a German from the Ukraine, now bishop in Kazakhstan, citing 19th century Anglicanism in the context of eucharistic theology! Ad maiorem Dei gloriam!

We are thus deeply grateful to His Excellency for this challenging contribution, which fits well into our series "Reflections on our Redemption" as Paschaltide draws to a close, with the triumphal descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church – "Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire."

The Eucharist, the greatest treasure of the Church, in time of tribulations 

H.E. Bishop Athanasius Schneider 

WE ARE WITNESSING a unique situation: It is for the first time in the history of the Church that the public celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice has been prohibited almost on a worldwide scale. Under the pretext of the Covid-19 epidemic, the inalienable right of Christians to the public celebration of the Holy Mass has been infringed, disproportionately and unjustifiably. In many countries, and especially in predominantly Catholic countries, this prohibition was enforced in such a systematic and brutal way, that it seemed as though the ruthless historical persecutions of the Church were brought back. An atmosphere of the catacombs was created with priests celebrating Holy Mass in secrecy with a group of the faithful.

The unbelievable fact was that in the midst of this worldwide ban of the public Holy Mass, many bishops even before the government banned public worship, issued decrees by which they not only forbade the public celebration of Holy Mass, but of any other sacrament as well. By such anti-pastoral measures those bishops deprived the sheep from the spiritual food and strength which only the sacraments can provide. Instead of good shepherds those bishops converted into rigid public officials. Those bishops revealed themselves to be imbued with a naturalistic view, to care only for the temporal and bodily life, forgetting their primary and irreplaceable task to care for the eternal and spiritual life. They forgot the warning of Our Lord: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Mt. 16:26). Bishops who not only did not care but directly prohibited their faithful access to the sacraments, especially to the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and the sacrament of Penance, behaved themselves as fake shepherds, who seek their own advantage...

FEAST OF SAINT PHILIP NERI

Please pray today for our late confrère and chaplain of the Priory, Mgr Antony Conlon, whose 41st anniversary of priestly ordination falls today.

Tu es sacerdos in æternum.

The photograph was taken two years ago on pilgrimage with friends at Shepherd's Field at Beit Sahur outside Bethlehem.

Tu es pastor bonus.

Dr Conlon, lately parish priest of Goring-on-Thames, died on Low Sunday this year.

Requiescat in pace. 

Please pray also for our many Oratorian friends and chaplains, as they celebrate the festival of their Founder and Patron.

Sancte Philippe Neri, ora pro nobis.


(Photo courtesy of James Barton.)

REFLECTIONS ON OUR REDEMPTION 14 - AWAITING THE HOLY GHOST

We are grateful, yet again, to Father Joseph Hamilton for taking the time from his PhD to provide us with a meditation on the events at the close of Eastertide, as, with the Twelve Apostles in the Upper Room, we await the coming of the Holy Ghost.

VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS, REPLE TUORUM CORDA FIDELIUM

PLEASE HELP TO OPEN OUR CHURCHES!

A group of inspired young Catholics, many of them within our Order and its wider family, is organising a wonderful volunteering initiative to assist our Bishops is opening churches safely and quickly.  We have posted about this previously HERE.  They already have 500 volunteers!

They have issued a press release, below. Please support them as much as you can, and pass the word to you families.

Please also write to your bishops to give the support from the laity which they badly need to influence the civil authorities. We have recently posted a letter with many good arguments you may use HERE. Write a short letter, they know the situation, they simply want encouragement.

Remember, the return of the Sacraments is for our benefit as laity.  The Mass is still being offered, the immeasurable graces promised by Christ are still being gained. God has not abandoned us, nor has His Holy Church. It is the comfort of their presence we are lacking, most especially in the confessional, which, as the French Conseil d'Etat states, is our "fundament right" in a free society. Public worship is restored in that great once-Catholic country this weekend, as in the USA and Italy. God helps those who help themselves.

In Britain, which has known centuries of religious persecution, perhaps we still have to try a little harder. Let us ask the Martyrs to assist us!

Press release for immediate release 22/05/20

Young Catholics launch website to help reopen churches, encourage lay volunteers. 

A group of young London based Catholics have today announced the launch of a new initiative aimed at enabling the swift reopening of Catholic Churches across the UK. The website, Open Church Doors, encourages lay Catholics to indicate their willingness to volunteer at their local parish in order to safely enable private prayer and liturgy in Catholic churches once again. Following an initial soft launch, slightly under 500 volunteers have signed up so far.   

The website https://opendoors.church/ forwards the name and email address of each volunteer to their local parish, in order for each parish priest to know that they have sufficient help to, among other things, disinfect surfaces and manage social distancing inside.  

In addition, the website is designed to show national support for the Bishop’s efforts in negotiations with the government in order to reopen churches as soon as possible. The volunteer counter on the website keeps track of the national total in a way individual emails to parishes otherwise would not be able to demonstrate. 

Co-founder and Spokesman Anton’ de Piro said:

‘This initiative is designed first and foremost to be of support and help to bishops and priests in their efforts to get churches open again. Everybody involved in the project is rooting for all of them and praying for them and we hope that the numbers that sign up can be a concrete source of encouragement for all.’ 

Contact:  openchurchdoors@gmail.com

07748 272 908

BLESSED VILMOS APOR, MARTYR OF OUR ORDER

Today is the feast of one of the 20th Century's martyrs of our Order.

Vilmos (William) Apor, was born as a baron into a noble family in 1892, the son of Baron Gábor Apor and Countess Fidelia Pálffy ab Erdöd. He was an Hungarian bishop who earned a special reputation for his service to the poor, especially during the months of hardship that came at the end of the Second World War. He was a Chaplain and Prelate of our Order.

As a child he already felt his vocation to the sacred priesthood, and had asked his mother for a chalice and paten as a Christmas present when a small boy. He excelled in the study of Latin at school. Against his mother’s initial wishes, he was was eventually ordained to the priesthood in 1915, having studied under the Jesuits at Innsbruck, and celebrated his first Mass on 25 August with his mother and sisters in attendance.

He was famous for his commitment to the protection of abused women, the cause which would ultimately lead to his martyrdom. In this he shares with our Patron Saint John the Baptist the defence of the dignity of women and of marriage. Named Bishop of Györ by Pope Pius XII in 1941, he chose as his motto: “Crux firmat mitem, mitigate fortem” - The Cross strengthens the weak and makes the strong gentle. He was insistent in protesting to the Nazis against the persecution of the Hungarian Jews during the occupation, and during the many air raids on the city he opened his home to those whose houses had been destroyed. When Russian troops entered the city in 1945, many women, including Jews and religious, took refuge in the episcopal palace, he himself withdrawing to a small room.

On Good Friday 1945 three drunken Russian soldiers broke into the residence and demanded that the women be taken to their barracks, the women petrified of being raped. Monsignor Apor refused and placed himself in front of the women, to whom he was knows simply as ‘Uncle Vilmos’. One of the Russians shot and wounded him in the abdomen; out of fear at their cowardice they then fled, leaving the women unmolested. Bishop Apor survived in great agony for three days, operations to save him being unsuccessful, and died on 2nd April, Easter Monday, having made his confession and received the last rites. His death was witnessed by István Sándor, a young Salesian priest, himself also to be a martyr and blessed, who was at the time forced to work as a labourer by the Russians. Upon learning of his death, which came as a profound shock and loss to his diocese, the people of the city of Györ hailed him immediately as a great saint.

On 9th April 1947, the great Cardinal Mindszenty wrote to Father Csavossy, the postulator for the cause: “I can assure you that now is the appropriate time to introduce the canonization procedures. I wish it and officially approve of it, and want the necessary steps to be taken to do the same for all priests who lost their lives when protecting women.” 

The theologian and Cardinal-elect Hans Urs von Balthasar was his nephew.

Blessed Vilmos’s tomb in Györ Cathedral, designed by the Hungarian artist Boldogfai Farkas Sándor, is an impressive piece of modern sculpture in red granite.

Blessed Vilmos Apor was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 9th November 1997, who confirmed that he was killed ‘in odium fidei’ (hatred of the Faith.)

THE OPENING OF OUR CHURCHES?

Again we are grateful to RORATE CAELI (here) for this very moving letter from a medical doctor to his bishop, which will resonate with many of us, which expresses clearly what so many of us are thinking at this time of denial of our birthright on spurious grounds. It is part of our duty as members of the Order of Malta to encourage access to the Sacraments in our own home dioceses. Please write to your Bishop. And then, of course, there is the President of the United States, who has mandated the opening of churches HERE. (We are embedding the video at the end of this post, it is of great importance, and no doubt he will be mocked and criticised for it.) Let us pray that our own prevaricating leaders, civil and religious, follow his intrepid example.

The Ascension of Our Lord
May 21st, 2020

Your Excellency,

Last Monday, I received a copy of the diocese’s letter regarding the opening of our churches as we enter the “yellow phase.” After being denied access to the Sacraments for two months, I cannot begin to tell you how absolutely heartbreaking the letter was to read.

What has happened these last two months, to our Church and Sacramental life, is a tragedy, and it is unacceptable. It is a grave mistake, however well-intentioned, to consider the closure of the Church and denial of access to the Sacraments to be a form of “charity.” No one is being forced to attend Mass, forced into a confessional, or forced to adore Our Lord—the very same Lord, in the Blessed Sacrament, as He before whom we will one day stand in judgment. If a person is frightened or vulnerable to illness, they have always had the option to stay home. The implication of your letter, that those of us who wish to attend The Holy Sacrifice during these times are somehow uncharitable, selfish, and inconsiderate of the safety of others, is an unjust characterization.

I am a physician and work almost exclusively with acute illness and injury. I understand better than most people the risks—whether real, imagined, or feared—of the coronavirus, as well as every other infectious disease that I encounter. More importantly, I am the father of five very young children. Knowing full well that I come in contact with COVID, influenza, RSV, C. diff, Syphilis, Zoster, and an untold number of other pestilent entities, should I quarantine myself out of “charity” to my family, for their own safety, to protect them from the dangers of this life? Should I wring my hands, bemoan my circumstances, and give them my love from six feet away through a plexiglass shield? What of my patients? I can’t order them to stay home out of concern that they could be exposed to illness. I can’t repair a child’s head wound through a Zoom meeting or replace a dislocated shoulder via Facebook Livestream.

As a father and husband, I cannot in times of crisis simply lock my doors and sequester myself. I can’t wave from the window and wish my children well while they stand in the elements outside, deprived of food, clothing, and shelter. I cannot deny them my presence while I allow the crisis to pass. I’m obligated to care for them. A bishop is the spiritual father of his diocese, tasked with the welfare of the souls of his flock. Regardless of intentions, every single bishop in our country has deprived his spiritual children from their primary source of nourishment!

It is frankly scandalous that I may go to Home Depot and the grocery store but may not enter a Catholic church. I may receive a bag of fast food at a drive-through window from the hands of a stranger but not Our Lord from the consecrated hands of a priest. I may wash my clothing at a public laundromat but not wash my soul in the confessional.

How long will this go on, and how far will things be allowed to go? What will you do this fall when the virus surges again? What will you do during future flu seasons? Will laymen stand alone when immorality is legislated; when the forces of the world rage against the faithful, against Christ and His Church; when a greater crisis than this one strikes (which is very easy to imagine)? What would the great English Martyrs say? What of the Cristero soldiers? St. Damien of Molokai? What of Pope John Paul II, who famously said “Open wide the doors for Christ!”?

From the beginning, religious institutions and places of worship have been exempt from the government-implemented mitigation measures. Believe me, I checked, many times. Our interdict comes entirely from ecclesiastical authorities, and unless I am mistaken, only you, dear bishop, may lift our restrictions. Please, let us return to Mass. Don’t set limits on church capacity or mandate masks.

Please, I beg you, open wide the doors of our churches, and may they never be closed again.

Sincerely,

(A Catholic Medical Doctor)

UPDATE: The French Republic, notoriously anti-clerical, has opened all churches from this weekend, with sensible precautions similar to other public places. The Conseil d'Etat had ruled that the prohibition of public religious practice was illegal, and a violation of 'fundamental rights'.

Britain, it seems, is to be left alone. Perhaps, after three centuries of the worst religious persecution of any Western country, that should not surprise us. What, as the good doctor says above, would the Martyrs say?

Here is the video of the President of the United States of America:

"WE NEED MORE PRAYER, NOT LESS."