A problem

The Catholic Whistle reflects on the problems arising from the natural disasters in Japan. If I get it right, and please correct me if I've missed the mark, the particular problem seen is the apparent silence of the Church on the question of the morality of technologies and industries that can so easily cause serious harm to general well being when they fail to be safe. Today's newspapers seem to make the imminent threat to the population of Japan a very real possibility. The bishops of Japan are meeting at the moment to consider an appropriate response to the situation.

At the outset I would suggest that the first response should not be one of contemplation but rather of direct action. The reflection can come later when the very real needs of those affected are addressed. And there the Church will be, no doubt, at the ground level doing what it can to alleviate the suffering of those through housing, food and medical care. Note that the first reponse from the Holy Father was to provide immediate financial assistance. (see here) The first response of the Japanese bishops has been practical. (see here) Then, and only then, can we move to appropriate reflection. That reflection will concentrate on preventative measures to ensure that such a thing does not happen again.

Unfortunately such reflection will get mixed up with political axe grinding. The whole nuclear question has generally been a cause of a particular political stance, at least they make the most noise. Unfortunately a lot which is not Catholic tends to travel with that noise. But back to the Catholic Whistle's original question. Is there a question of Catholic Moral and Social teaching to be answered here? Should there be a clear statement of the essential immorality of technologies that can so easily threaten the common good? I think so but it may take time to remove all the extraneous debate and get back to some sort of universal principle.

And Angels came and ministered to him...

Now is the healing time decreed.

For sins of heart, of word, of deed,

When we in humble fear record

The wrong that we have done the Lord.

So here we are. It’s Lent again. As that ancient English hymn proclaims it is the healing time. A time in which we get to make some choices about our spiritual lives. Again the question is put to us. Will we follow the Lord on the path to Calvary? Will we place our feet in his footsteps as he walks the Way of the Cross? Will we not watch with him one sweet hour in Gethsemane? But first, will we follow him into the desert for forty days?

In a Gospel as short as the one set for today it is hard to miss the detail. Indeed it seems that St Matthew was being rather brutally terse. His account of those forty days, when the Lord Jesus wandered in the desert, is brief and to the point. The Judaean desert was not a pleasant place. Certainly here St Mark has a bit more detail with a rather elusive reference to the wild beasts seems to evoke just one of the physical trials that the Lord must have undergone in those days. True, it was not the pain of the final days of his earthly life, but surely it was a foretaste, a preparation of the horrors that were to come.

Yet in the arid deprivation of the desert there was, at the end, comfort. And here is one of those curious details that are retained. He was with the wild beasts and angels looked after him. We do not find Jesus staggering out of the wilderness and into the arms of some benevolent band of brigands, he does not head for the nearest town where he might find rest, food and drink. Rather, at the end of his trials, he remains there, for some time, in mystical communion with the Divine as his very own creations, the angels, appear to heal his scratches, to feed him, and quench his thirst.

This is the most mysterious appearance of the angels in Jesus’ earthly life. It is also the one which seems to make the most earthly sense. At his birth the heavens were filled with choirs of angels singing. Proclaiming that hymn that we have now put to rest until Maundy Thursday. After his resurrection the two angelic men at the tomb bare witness- He is not here, he is risen. Both these angelic episodes are to do with exaltation and glory. The angels stand static, well at least with a minimum of wing fluttering. They speak but do not do. At the end of the forty days however they do, without words, without song, but with actions.

As we wander through this Lent, through these days of spiritual desert, our minds turn more and more towards Our Lord who will hang on the cross for our redemption. As his precious, broken, flesh, reigned from the tree, we can only guess what passed through his mind. Forgiveness certainly, anguish perhaps. Confusion, unlikely. But what about temptation? That great trial at the beginning of ministry concluded with the soothing salve of angels wings upon his weather beaten face. There alone on the cross was the temptation to call angels again to minister to him. The idea had occurred to him in the garden the night of his betrayal but he rejected it saying;

"Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" [Matthew 28]

On that sacred cross he could have called ten thousand angels. But he didn’t. He chose the hard path. He chose to ride out the course of our salvation.

We have a choice to make this Lent. Do we follow the way of that old Adam, our ancestor, who took the easy way, who gave into temptation, and let sin into the world. Or perhaps do we take the more difficult way- the way of the desert, a way where the angels sent to keep us out of Eden become our guides, our guardians as we follow the final Adam, our Lord Jesus. Will we follow our Lord to his restored Paradise where it is garden, not desert. To that place where man and wild beast dwell together in harmony, without fear of what the future might hold. To a place where we become like angels.

Cleanse, us, O Lord, from every stain,

Help us the gifts of praise to gain,

Till with the Angels linked in love

Joyful we tread thy courts above.

(Ecce tempus idoneum)

Bred in Captivity

If I speak with the tongues of men and of Angels 1 Corinthians 13

In the last few weeks I've become convinced that very few traddies, at least here in Britain, have been completely 'bred in captivity'. Rather, it would seem, that a considerable portion of our number have actually been brought in 'from the wild'. In other words a lot of people that I come across have started their pilgrimage to tradition either as converts or reverts. Don't get me wrong I don't think this is a negative thing but rather it does give the 'movement' as a whole a dynamism that is rare in main stream Catholicism. I find particularly encouraging the news of the Mass organised for Catholic school children in Birmingham (see here). I suspect the odds of their lapsing have just become reduced. I wish I'd had the gumption to organise such a Mass when I was involved in teaching. A couple of years after I'd left teaching a group of my old students presented me with a lovely missal hoping that I'd learn to use it. It turned out that there had been a secret nest of young traddies under my own nose for some years. I was saying a daily private Mass daily in the school chapel and they were, at the same time, bemoaning the lack of the traditional rite in the school chapel.

Anyhow back to today's Epistle. If I speak with tongues. St Paul addresses a situation in the Church at Corinth which can't be too far from what we experience now. As an understatement we could say that there was a variety of opinion amongst the faithful. I wonder if the young traddies at the time were trotting off to the Aramaic Mass Society, on the quiet, to the despair of their syncretistic parents. A particular problem seems to be a division between those who were demonstrating particular spiritual gifts many of which we would associate with the modern Charismatic movement. St Paul's advice, is of course, integrationist, that the various gifts given to all Christians have to be consumed into the whole body of the Church.

Twice during the past week I've been engaged in conversation with people who have come back to practicing their faith through the Charismatic movement. It's not the first time that this has happened indeed I seem to be discerning a trend that if Charismatics are likely to return to the Church from the various sects they have run off to join they are highly likely to gravitate towards the traditional rites. The reasons for this are complex but I suspect the spiritual pendulum that the 'swings and round abouts' in the lives  of many Charismatics ultimately needs to be tempered by the strong guidance of tradition and dogma. Without such a balance faith can be reduced to what we feel rather than what we know.

So some of us have been 'bred in captivity' others have been 'caught from the wild'. In the true tradition of a Universal Church we are tempered and brought together. It's that balance that those children in Birmingham have now been exposed to. With any luck that single celebration of Mass will sow the seeds of a balanced faith which will lead them to seek out the fullness of the faith rather than the transitory attractions of a cafeteria approach which craves the greatest spiritual 'sugar fix' available at any one time.

 Apologies for the dearth of postings over the last few weeks. I'm afraid I've been given some extra duties and it's taken a while to establish a new routine.

Orate Fratres

As part of the Christian vocation we are called to pray for each other according to our abilities and means. Please pray for a reader of this blog who is suffering considerable physical illness and mental anguish at the moment. Perhaps you could offer a Rosary or the intention of a Mass. Perhaps part of the Divine Office for their intentions. Thank you.

The good people at 40 Days for Life have asked me to mention their website and blog and I'm happy to do so. At the moment there's a lot of talking going on about various issues where the faith seems to be being attacked even from within our ranks. This can be very depressing and a meeting of like minds and the opportunity for some really Catholic action is a timely remedy lest we become just a little bit too self concerned.

Keep calm!

As Michael Winner might have said; 'Keep calm- it's only a commercial!' For readers outside the UK take my word for it. You're blessed not to have to have put up with that advertising campaign. Nevertheless there's a bit of a scuffle going on in that gold fish bowl called Traddieland. Apparently it's been brewing for a while but, having a bit of an ostrich approach to most things, I seem to have missed it until it began to blow, perhaps out of all proportion, in the last week. Even the usual suspects in the blogosphere seem to be polarised by it. A petition is doing the rounds. Actually it's a pretty interesting indicator on the blogs represented on the British Blogs List as to which ones are quite firmly pro Summorum Pontificum and which are not.

Anyhow back to the point. Three things; (1) The Roman Curia operates within itself in a manner that is rather 'secular' to minds outside its own circle.  There are factions who play each other off  using strategies drawn more from Machievelli's The Prince than the Fathers of the Church. I suspect at the moment we are the onlookers to a stage in a process that in former times we would have had no knowledge. Somebody must have given a minor official a laptop with a broadband connection for Christmas. (2) There is an 'industry' which maintains itself with this type of reporting and prognosticating. It is in its interests to maintain the interest in such events and its 'tat for tat' approach can be wearisome. Unfortunately for most of us this has the same effect as a lot of the secular media. It causes undue angst. (3) Whilst we need now to be vigilant we really need to wait for the document, should it ever appear, and then make a judgment as to the next course of action. I can't actually see it making any difference immediately to me.

Of course the whole business, I suspect, is just symptomatic of something else as is so often the case with the fripperies of  'curias' whether they be diocesan, national or international. I can't imagine any official effectively hanging himself out to dry over Summorum Pontificum. I can imagine, however, many who would risk doing  so to ensure that any further reconciliation with SSPX would not happen during this papacy.

Now where was my bucket of sand?

Three Secrets

Reading through some of the letters of S. Bernadette Soubirous this morning I was reminded of just how little I know of the faith. It wasn't some great theological truth that I'd missed but rather one of those small details of our common story as Catholics that I'd either never known about or perhaps forgotten over the years. S. Bernadette mentions to one correspondent about three secrets that Our Lady gave here during the initial fortnight of visions at the grotto. Now I knew about the three secrets of Fatima (let's not go there) but I seem to have missed this part of the Lourdes story despite multiple viewings over the years of Song of Bernadette. Anyhow a quick Google search and, yes, it was confirmed. This was part of the story that I should have known about. Apparently the three secrets were personal, pertaining to the Saint herself. According to one source she was even bound not to reveal them to her confessor.

But I still wonder what they were?