We have two Masses:
11.00 a.m. Sacred Heart, Broughton Hall, Skipton
12.30 a.m. St. Joseph's, Pakington Street, Bradford
The Pope has expressed a more than passing concern about the life of this child who lives less than ninety miles from here.
The child's estimated time of life after the turning off of the machine would be a matter of minutes we were told. It is a few days ago since this machine was switched off.
The politics of the situation are important but what is really essential is that we pray for the boy and his suffering parents.
Tony Bland died near here and this still sticks in my mind - as does the pressure my wife in particular was put under to abort our fifth child over fifteen years ago. Our son, Patrick, died within three minutes after his delivery.
His Mass of Angels funeral still stays in our mind which the Vicar General, Mgr Peter McGuire, offered and who blessed a new family grave in utterly atrocious weather conditions.
Prayer sustained us.
Please do remember young Alfie and his parents in your prayers.
Below I am reproducing the first of Fr. Michael Hall's excellent sermons delivered for the Triduum on the Feast of the Lord's Supper . I will produce the Good Friday one next week and the final one - the Vigil one- for the Feast of the Ascension. These beautifully crafted sermons are potent food for thought and I have benefited from cogitating about their content and illuminating clarity.
Paschal Triduum 2018
O salutaris Hostia
At the last great supper lying
Circled by his brethren band
Meekly with the law complying,
First he finished its command
Then, immortal food supplying
Gave himself with his own hand.
Circled by his brethren band
Meekly with the law complying,
First he finished its command
Then, immortal food supplying
Gave himself with his own hand.
Those words are from
the hymn “Pange Lingua” that we shall sing at the end of this Mass as our Lord
in his sacramental form is taken to the altar of repose.
“Our Lord, the host of the last supper,
gives himself in the Eucharistic Host to his disciples.”
gives himself in the Eucharistic Host to his disciples.”
Thinking about
that sentence made me realize what hard work the word “host” does in the
English language.
For us Catholics,
the Sacred Host is the sacramental presence of Our Lord in the form of
bread. We call it “Host” because our
Lord is the “salutaris hostia” – the
Saving Victim opening wide the gates of heaven – hostia being the Latin word for sacrifice or victim.
If we used the
word “host” in our everyday speech it would be in the context of organizing a
party, or welcoming guests into our homes.
That meaning of “host” coming from the Latin word “hospes” – from which we also get “hospitality” and “hospital”.
But there is
another Latin word that feeds into our English word “host” – and that is the
word hostis – enemy, from which we
get “hostile” and “hostility”.
By the middle ages
this Latin word had come to mean not just enemy, but also “army” or “war party”. It would be quite archaic to use “host” in
this sense now, but it has given modern English two more meanings for the word
“host”
The first is not so
much an army, more a great number. Think
of Wordsworth’s “host of golden daffodils”
The second is a
word for Almighty God himself – one that we use at least every Sunday, though
in the Latin of both the old and new rites we actually use the Hebrew equivalent
– “Dominus Deus Sabbaoth” – Lord God of Hosts.
We’ll go into this later in the Triduum.
The sense of these
three Latin words which give us our host – hospes,
hostia and hostis – weave and
interweave through our Liturgy. Tonight,
and for the next two days, I want to consider each in turn, and see what
illumination they can bring to our celebration of the Paschal Mysteries.
Tonight I invite
you to consider briefly Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as the hospes – the host at our table.
Each Mass takes us
to the foot of the cross – you know that.
But it also takes us into the Upper Room – to the Cena Domini – the
Lord’s Supper. We join the brethren band
circling our Lord, and as then, so now, “immortal food supplying, he gives
himself with his own hand.”
And it also takes
us to the gates of heaven to see the wedding feast of the Lamb, that feast that
is our hope and our goal.
Christ our host
offers us hospitality – whoever we are, whatever we have done, we are
welcome. Of course we must not presume
on that hospitality – Holy Church tells us that to receive the Host that the
Host offers us we must be in a state of grace, free from mortal sin. But even if we may not receive, Christ our
Host offers himself at this Mass as hostia
– victim – for each one of us. As I
raise the Sacred Host after its consecration, our divine host at table is
saying YOUR name, and saying to YOU – “be welcome”
The host provides
rooms for guests to stay, and that’s why when biologists were looking for a
word to describe an animal or plant that has a parasite living in it, they used
the word host.
Not all parasites
are harmful – some play an important role in their host’s life cycle. Think of those TV adverts that tell us about
the good bacteria that live in our stomachs, the ones that can be encouraged by
our drinking their yoghurt drinks.
In Baptism we are
incorporated into the Body of Christ. At
each Mass Our Lord opens his Sacred Heart and invites us to live in him, to
draw closer to the Heart and centre of all hearts. We are not parasites – far
from it – but Christ is our host and we are members of his Body.
As members we are
sometimes strong, and sometimes weak.
It’s perhaps worth reminding ourselves of another word derived from that
Latin word hospes – the word
hospital. Where else can we find such
balm for our wounds, where else can we find that healing grace, such as we find
at the Mass? Never feel that you have to
hide your weakness from the Lord. As he
opens his Heart to you, so do you open your heart to the Wounded Surgeon. He can be our Healing Host – hospes – because he has also been our
Saving Victim – hostia.
If time permitted,
we could dig even further. We could look
at “hotel” and “hostel” – also derived from that Latin hospes.
For example, we could consider how, in the Mass, our Host at table
sometimes provides us with a simple place to rest our heads as we make our
pilgrimage through this barren land. And
how at other times he gives us in the Mass a place of refreshment, relaxation
and renewal.
Our Mass tonight
moves us from the hospitality of the Upper Room to the loneliness of the
garden. Our Host at Table gives us
himself in the Sacred Host, and invites us to watch with him, and pray.
Word-made-flesh, by word he maketh
Bread his very flesh to be;
Man in wine Christ’s Blood partaketh:
And if senses fail to see,
Faith alone the true heart waketh
To behold the mystery.
Fr. Michael Hall,Bread his very flesh to be;
Man in wine Christ’s Blood partaketh:
And if senses fail to see,
Faith alone the true heart waketh
To behold the mystery.
Delivered at Notre Dame, Leeds, Maundy Thursday, April 2018.
