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SCRIPTURE
READINGS
|
Genesis |
15:5-12,
17-18 |
| Psalm |
26 |
| Philippians |
3:17-4:1 |
| Luke |
9:28-36 |
Faith
in God has many analogies and one of the most impressive
is that of light, as we hear in today's Gospel.
It is something which we are familiar with and one
which is obvious in its power. We look at the sun
and astronomers through the centuries have tracked
its course and we realise that its power is immense;
were it not for the sun, we could not see and we
know that to be the case because we also know what
darkness is like. This power of the sun was the
object of worship in pre-Christian religions and
divine power was ascribed to it as a result of its
importance for life on earth. As the god of a natural
religion, it has no worthy competitors.
Pagan
and then Christian philosophy and theology took
up this theme of light and transferred it to the
Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The difficulty
for many of these thinkers, however, was the invisibility
of God. It was claimed by St John that Christ was
the light that had come into the world but it was
not an obvious light as the sun was. Certainly there
was the illumination of His teaching but many things
seemed to have been just the way they were before.
The world on the surface had not changed even if
the claim was that everything indeed had as a result
of His Life, Death and Resurrection. If anything,
it was darkness that appeared to hold sway. St Therese
of Lisieux captured this well when she said, “There
isn't just a veil; it is a great wall which reaches
up
to the sky and blots out the stars.” How then could
we speak of God as being radiant in light and in
glory?
St
Gregory of Nyssa was one who tackled this problem
by appealing to the humility of mankind. His approach,
taken up by others particularly of the Eastern Christian
tradition such as St Symeon the New Theologian,
was to remind us of the meagreness of our senses.
They tell us that whilst we are able to detect many
things, there is much that we cannot and, indeed,
recent scientific discoveries have revealed what
was always there but that with our five senses we
could not detect.
We
believe, as we say in the Creed, that God is everywhere
and is the creator of all things – “seen and unseen”
– so our faith tells us that God is a Real Presence
in the universe. George Steiner's book of that name
argues with great erudition for the existence of
literature and art having to be underwritten by
an unseen but necessarily present reference of meaning
and, therefore, of God. This, however, is not what
we see with our senses but lies beneath the surface
of things.
Christian
faith, too, believes in the radiance of God but
it is a light which appears to us as darkness simply
because we cannot immediately detect it. We look
at the universe and all we see is darkness. We look
inside ourselves and perhaps sometimes see the same.
It is as if God has left us alone and gone away.
Not true. There is a light shining throughout the
whole of creation, a light so intense that we cannot
see its glory, the radiance of God. It is there
and is present to us and one day we shall see God
who sustains all that He creates, including us.
As the great Jesuit Juan Alfonso de Polanco in 1556
said, “The sun is not so ready to shed its light
as God is ready to enlighten and fulfil our minds
with the rays of grace.”
Fr
James Campbell SJ
LENT
AND HOLY WEEK
Palm
Sunday , March 28
th
There
will be an exchange of palms with Grosvenor Chapel
at 10:45am
in Mount Street
Garden
.
Monday
in Holy Week , March
29 th
6:45pm:
Penance Service with opportunity for individual
confession.
Maundy
Thursday , April
1 st
Mass
of the Lord's Supper at 6pm.
Good
Friday , April 2
nd
This
is a day of fasting and abstinence. 3pm: Liturgy
of the Passion
6pm:
Seven Last Words
Holy
Saturday , April
3 rd
8pm:
Easter Vigil Mass
Easter
Sunday : regular
Mass times
There
will be Stations of the Cross on Fridays during
Lent at 12:30pm, followed by Mass at 1:05pm as usual.
A
BIG THANK YOU
Our
appeal for Jesuit Missions raised £6,000 and
Alms collected at the doors on Ash Wednesday raised
nearly £1,400. Thank you to all who contributed!
VOLUNTEERS
DAY
We
are organizing reflection days for our volunteer
groups: Readers, Welcomers (greeters, coffee and
bookshop teams), Ministers of Holy Communion, Altar
Servers and Catechists. These days will be spread
over the next six months and we will announce the
dates next week. A big Thank You to all!
FAIR
TRADE
Fair
Trade items will be on sale in the Hall. Please
support this good work.
REGISTRATION
If
you have not filled in a Registration Form recently,
please do so, so that we can keep our Parish records
up to date. Any regular visitor to Farm
Street is entitled to be
on our Parish roll.
MASS
INTENTIONS
When
filling in a Mass envelope, please give your phone
number in case of a difficulty regarding your requested
date or time. Deadline is Thursday lunchtime for
the week following.
LENTEN
TALKS
Fr
Anthony Meredith will be giving three Lenten Talks
on Sundays at 5pm
in the Hall, beginning on March 7 th . The topics
will be “The Meaning of Lent”, “Being a Christian
Soldier”, and “Journey's End”. All are welcome.
LENTEN
APPEAL
Today
we start collecting for our Lenten CAFOD (Catholic
Agency for Overseas Development) appeal.
The theme this year is “give it up!”. We are invited
to give up some of our luxuries so that our brothers
and sisters in developing countries can have the
basics: food, water, shelter and medical help. This
is a part of our Lenten Alms-giving, so let's be
generous.
FARM
STREET FILMS
On
Thursday 11 th March at 6:45pm
“ Films at Farm
Street ”
presents Molokai
by director
Paul Cox ( 1999
). The true story of Fr Damien, the leper priest.
March
25 th : Romero (dir. John Duigan, 1989). The story
of Archbishop Oscar Romero, a modern martyr.
April
15 th : El Norte (dir. Gregory Nava, 1983). A couple's
journey.
All
welcome, admission free.
There
will be no rehearsals of the Children's Choir until
after Easter
FAITH
MATTERS
Tuesdays
in Lent, 7-8:30pm Westminster Cathedral Hall, Ambrosden
Avenue , SWIP 1QJ.
This
series of public lectures at the Cathedral Hall
celebrates the Year of the Priest with a special
Lenten programme on the Priesthood starting in late
February. Speakers include Archbishop Vincent Nichols.
See the below for details.
March
2 nd : The Priest &
the Universal Baptismal Call, by Dr Clare Watkins
March
9 th : The Call to Priesthood
in a Global City, by Fr Andrzej
Forys , MS
March
16 th : The Priest as
Witness, by Archbishop Vincent Nichols
Please
use Gift-Aid envelopes for your donations if you
are a UK
Tax-payer .
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