SACRED HEART TALK 2020: The Heart of the Sacrament (2)

Welcome to this second talk exploring aspects of devotion to the Sacred Heart which are being given in June, the month traditionally concerned with this devotion. 

As I mentioned in the first talk, the Sacred Heart isn’t a devotion with which many Anglican’s are familiar, even though it was beginning to influence the church in Britain – and throughout Europe – long before the Reformation.  For example, St. Anselm, the 11^th cent Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote ‘The opening of the side of Christ reveals the riches of his love, the love of his heart for us’.  And Dame Julian of Norwich in the 15th century wrote in Ch. 24 of 'Revelations of Divine Love:' ‘Then our Lord looked into his side and rejoiced.  By this sweet look he had me gaze within his wound; he showed me a fair, delectable place, large enough for all humanity that should be saved to rest in peace and love.  And therewith he had me recall his dear, worthy blood and precious water, which he did pour out for love, and he showed me his blissful heart.’ 

But this wonderful river of affective devotion, devotion concerns the stirring of our emotions to help deepen our desire for God, was blocked at the Reformation and didn’t re-emerge until John Wesley began to speak from a heart warmed by Christ.  Later, at the end of the 19^th century, a few men came together to form the Society of Divine Compassion – another way of referring to the Sacred Heart.  It’s clear from the writings of one of them, Fr. Andrew, that he had a deep devotion to the Heart of Jesus  which we hear in his poem, Sacre Coeur:

Dear Heart, Who in Thy tender love didst come

Not from some cavernous and vast womb

Of cold and passionless eternity,

But didst in human wise take flesh for me

Of sweet St Mary's fair virginity,

and made ‘midst men Thy home.

Help me to see the greatest in the least,

The whole of life is one great Eucharist;

in common ways and simple loyalties

To find hid treasure of high sanctities,

as Love links symbols to realities

in Thy blest altar Feast.

THE FEAST

Perhaps Fr. Andrew felt that to call this emerging community the ‘Society of the Sacred Heart’ might be too much for most Anglicans!  But the Sacred Heart was one of their two dedications – the other being our Lady – and reflected their eventual choice of name ‘Divine Compassion’.  That was what these men, inspired by St. Francis of Assisi, wanted the people amongst whom they ministered to experience – the compassionate, Heart of Jesus. 

The Society was never large and it’s last member died in 1952, but it did remarkable work not only in ministering in the slums of Plaistow but also in helping establish the Hospital and Homes of St. Giles for Lepers in East Hanningfield, Essex in 1914.   In recognition of the importance of SDC the revised Daily Office Book of the Society of St. Francis, published in 1992, named the Friday of the week following Corpus Christi, ‘The Divine Compassion of Christ’ and allowed it to be kept as a Feast.  That day (today), of course, is recognised as the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Catholic Church.  ‘The Divine Compassion’ also appeared in Celebrating Common Prayer, but when the Liturgical Commission published ‘Comm. Worship’ they dropped it from the Calendar.  I assume that was because it sounded too ‘Romish’ and I’m unsure if it appears in any of the multitude of Anglican service books which have appeared since. I don’t think it’s recognised in the calendar of the Episcopal Church, but I’d be interested to know if it’s officially recognised anywhere in the Anglican Communion.

Pope Pius IX had made the Feast of the Sacred Heart part of the general Calendar of the Church in 1856 but the first Office and Mass were composed by St. John Eudes, but the institution of the Feast was a result of the appearances of our Lord to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1673.  During one of them, Jesus had said to her: "I promise you in the excessive mercy of my Heart that my all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays in nine consecutive months the grace of final perseverance; they shall not die in my disgrace, nor without receiving their sacraments. My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment."

SACRED HEART AND CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Such sentiments may have come from the lips of our Saviour, but it appears that they don’t resonate with many Anglicans …  Talk about the ‘grace’ which comes from receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion, the need to prepare yourself, when necessary, by making your confession and so on seems not only foreign but, these days, unnecessary. 

Yet it’s part of that affective piety which seeks to involve the emotions to deepen devotion to the physicality of Christ and the saints, something which seems to have died in England with the Reformation and has hardly re-appeared.  Devotions concerning Mary, the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross may have gained a toe-hold, but the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (and they are both as one) have hardly any place.   And that is in spite of the way we know one of the most important teachings of Christianity concerns the love of God.  We may talk about it and preach about it, but we are an Incarnational, sacramental people – matter matters – and the image of the Sacred Heart reveals profound aspects of Godly love and the cost God in Jesus was prepared to pay to reveal the depths of his love, something I want to look at in the third and final talk . 

This piety towards the Sacred Heart isn’t just so we can feel better about ourselves or one intended to give us a spiritual ‘boost’, which is what some people say they get from going to a service, but to effect a change in our life.  Devotion to the Sacred Heart is intimately connected with personal conversion – with our metanoia.  This is brought out in another of the apparitions to Margaret Mary:

“Behold this Heart which has so loved human beings that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to give them proof of its love, and in return I received from the greater number nothing but ingratitude, contempt, irreverence, sacrilege,  and coldness towards the Sacrament of my love.” 

SACRED HEART AND THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

That final phrase, ‘the Sacrament of my love’, is something we ought to ponder – it reveals the intimate connection between the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Sacrament.   It’s a phrase which highlights the point–counterpoint of Jesus’ wooing us with his love: we reject him and then he loves us even more ardently.  This is a powerful affirmation of the unconditionality of God’s limitless love, a love that doesn’t depend our worthiness or actions.  A love which, the Collect for the Sodality of Mary, Mother of Priests compares with an ocean.

That was a term used by the Jesuit, St. Claude de la Colombiere, who was of immense help to St Margaret Mary: ocean of mercy found in the Heart of Jesus in also present in the Eucharist.  There were three occasions when St. Margaret Mary spoke of this love revealed through the Sacred Heart of the Eucharist, revelations which occurred whilst St. Margaret Mary was meditating before the Blessed Sacrament.  These point, in a very striking way, to the fact that God longs for us to let our love for him flow.  Both the Sacred Heart and the Eucharist reveal that ‘love was his meaning’ and that we were made out of love, for love.  One reflects the other and both are the consequence of the Incarnation – at the centre of the Sacrament in which the Word of God is present lies the Sacred Heart wanting to engage with ours.  As someone pointed out: the ‘so’ in ‘God so loved the world …’ is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

As many mystics realised, this holy courtship happens within us and that is why our response is described in their visions as an awakening to our true nature, a realisation of God within.   In that moment our solitary and self-sufficient ego turns out to be simply a much-too-limited identity.  We find our heart widens with this universal compassion found in the Heart of Christ: made by a God who is love, we are never more human than when we are expressing love – and both the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Sacrament make clear the nature of Godly love.  

That’s why those ordained to ministry need to have the Heart of Jesus – why they need to make sure they’re constantly returning to this source of the love they proclaim in word and deed.   Every priest needs, in a real way, to be a priest of the Sacred Heart, a priest of Divine Compassion, for it is Compassion which lies in the depths of the Sacred Heart – indeed, is the way in which that Heart is to be understood.  We can always be present to His compassion when we come before Him in the Blessed Sacrament. 

So people have longed to look upon that loving compassion and can do so when the Sacrament is exposed to our gaze on the altar: there we can be present to Him as He is present to us.  I know it’s unlikely to happen, but I have always thought how wonderful it would be if every church offered times when the Blessed Sacrament was shown, so anyone could sit or kneel in prayer in His Presence. Couldn’t churches consider helping people come and adore Him who longed – and longs – to be with us?  There we can talk with Him or just rest with Him – as did St. Margaret Mary – and know that He is fully present to all who come to Him.  Or, as someone I know does, could simply curl up before Him who opens His Heart to us in the Sacrament of Divine Love.

But even if we cannot find an open church where the brilliance of the Host shines out to our gaze, we can always take Him with us in the tabernacle of our heart for, as St Francis of Assisi wrote in his Rule of 1221: ‘We should make a dwelling-place within ourselves where He can stay, He who is the Lord God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’  The Sacred Heart of the Blessed Sacrament invites us to make our heart’s like His.

Recently someone wrote to me about the way she realised her heart was growing harder:  ‘About six years ago I became troubled that my heart was becoming like stone, and I made a conscious choice to change this situation.  I knew that only God could help me on this one, and He did.’  She went on to observe: ‘I’ve noticed that, as some people get older, they become increasingly bitter and resentful about what life hurls at them.  They may even choose to have hatred running in their lives.  It sort of energises them and keeps them going.’

I had noticed something similar in some people’s attitudes towards those of other nationalities or ethnicities – and especially towards refugees and immigrants – following Brexit, and we’re only too conscious of this in the recent Black Lives Matter protests.  And I reflected on something the Holy Father wrote last year: “Jesus’ only judgement” he said, “is one filled with mercy and compassion.”   Yet re-making one’s heart isn’t easy, which is why the need to do so lies at the heart of ours and every faith.   As one great Scottish evangelist wrote: ‘To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, “I won’t submit.”

CONCLUSION

In the end, devotion to the Sacred Heart is simply about making the heart, the centre of our being, like Christ’s.   Nurturing within ourselves His love and compassion which is why the fact that the Sacred Heart has never had a place in the life of the Church of England is a cause for great sadness, for it is our loss.   We may or may not have celebrated the Feast today (maybe, next year?!) but the reality of the Divine Compassion of Jesus is something we need to desire to flow in our hearts and be lived out in our lives.  This ought not to be an optional celebration for catholic’s ‘who like that sort of thing’ but one which is of obligation. 

We are obligated to the Sacred Heart – made in the image of God we are not completely human – we don’t reflect what being human is all about – until our heart is like the Heart of Jesus – and Mary.  We will find ourselves in the Sacred Heart, know ourselves there, and know that the suffering we might experience as we seek to love as He does takes us more deeply into His Heart.

O Jesu, O Sacred Heart,

burning with Divine love

    send into my heart

a spark of that fire

which burneth in thee;

    excite in me a burning and a flaming spirit;

    impress upon me

the seal of thy Love

that I may worthily before thy work

Prayer from A Pilgrim’s Book of Prayers, Fr. Gilbert Shaw, p. 26

MAUNDY THURSDAY 2020 - Sermon for All Saints, Blackheath

‘So, after receiving the piece of bread,

(Judas) went out.  And it was night’. (Jn.13:30)

X

INTRODUCTION

St. John records those words immediately before Jesus exclaimed, in our gospel reading, “Now the Son of man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him!”  On this night we’re accustomed to reflect on Jesus’ example of loving service as he washed the feet of his disciples and instituted the Eucharist; how, taking bread and wine, he says, ‘This is my body, given for you … my blood, shed for you.’  But those moving yet foreboding words are omitted by John.   Instead, he, and he alone, records that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, after which Judas departs to meet with the Chief Priests: ‘And it was night’. 

There’s a finality to those words that’s in marked contrast to what’s gone before.  It’s almost as if Jesus’ glory, the glory of God, is enabled through that simple act: “Now the Son of man has been glorified.”  It’s as if a curtain has come down and we wait for a new act to begin; we’re about to experience a primal, paradigm shift.  Yet John lets us in on a secret: whatever the night portends, there is, in the end, a glory to be revealed.  But darkness must come first.

This year the Triduum occurs when there’s darkness over the land caused by a pandemic, a time when many are anxious, many sick and many living in fear.  Lent has been a strange time when we entered an unexpected wilderness, wondering how long it will last – when ‘forty days’ stands for an awfully long time. Tonight, Jesus enters a deeper wilderness, a brief but intense period when all that he’d lived for these past thirty-odd years, all he’d preached about and declared over three, are put to the final test.  In his humanity, Jesus could not have known the outcome; we, with the benefit of hindsight, know that this Son of Man will be glorified, and God glorified in him.  And it all hangs on Judas.

JUDAS AND THE HANDING OVER OF JESUS

Judas, of course, gets a bad press.  His exit into the night after sharing communion was in order to betray Jesus.  That’s what all the gospels tell us, yet why would Judas do such a thing?  There are many arguments about his role and actions which stretch back to dawn of our Faith.  We shall never know exactly why he acted as he did: was he a thief?  Driven by envy?  Hungry for power – or simply given over to evil?  All this, and more, has been said of his motives.  What emerges is that, on this night, Jesus is to be handed over to those who sought his life. 

Or, might we need to view that in a different way?  Might it be more correct to say that Jesus handed himself over?  “This is my body, my blood, given over for you.”  Some have seen in this a profound shift.  Up to this point, Jesus has been in control, has eluded his enemies, been free to exercise his ministry and proclaim his gospel.  Now all that changes as he allows himself to be abandoned to those who seek his death.  

In his book, The Stature of Waiting, the Anglican priest, William Vanstone, argues that behind this act lies a constant theme in Jesus’ life: his self-abandonment to God.  An abandonment now fully realised in this final act of giving himself into the hands of others.  ‘The ‘day’, wrote Vanstone, ‘which gives freedom and opportunity to work is succeeded be the ‘night’ when there can be no more work and by the ‘binding’ (of Jesus) which takes away freedom and places (him) in the hitherto ineffective hands of others. Now he who previously exercised (power) passes into the (power) and judgement of others ... ‘

ABANDONMENT TO JUDGEMENT

And it is the power of judgement to which he becomes subject.  Jesus will be arrested, tried and found guilty.   He will be condemned, abused and tortured – physically and psychologically – and he will be killed.  All of that is a consequence of this moment when Jesus allows Judas to betray him, to hand him over to the religious and political authorities. 

Who can know the mind of Christ, the mind of God?  Yet this we know, as St. Paul wrote to the Philippians, that Jesus:

though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
⁷but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death –
   even death on a cross. (2: 6-8)

Jesus – God – becomes the subject of confusion, hatred and violence.  Our hatred and violence. 

My hatred. 

Christians have long thought of Jesus as the ‘scapegoat’, the one who carries the sin of others, who must be sacrificed to remove that burden.  But what if this scapegoat has given himself over to allow us to express our worst excesses on him?  Allowed himself to become the willing victim of our hatred … of God? 

So often anger is present in times of suffering.  God is blamed for the world’s ills.  Yet, without God to take the blame, whom would we accuse?  Without suffering, how would we know the depths of our humanity?  We only understand what it means to be fully human in the context of suffering, and it’s as if there are times, maybe times like this, when our blind fury at suffering and loss needs a god at whom to rail.  What, then, if tonight, is God beginning to show that he takes ultimate responsibility for the suffering which is part of his Creation?  Handing himself over to the consequences of evil?  Letting himself become our victim and then, through the Resurrection, revealing meaning through it all? 

EUCHRISTIC SACRIFICE

Alone of the four gospels, John does not tell of the institution of the Eucharist.  Instead, he recounts the act of servanthood and humility which has come to symbolise this night, when one of his disciples will be the instrument of his final abandonment.  His self-sacrifice:  This is me given for you to use as you will.  To be broken that life might emerge from death.  Only God could make that shocking gift.

Twice Jesus predicts his own betrayal and, according to John, takes a morsel of bread (the word is one that will later be used to define a Eucharistic 'host'), dips it into the dish and gives it specially, and first, to Judas.  And then Jesus quietly instructs him: 'Do what you have to do, quickly'.  What the gospel of John is telling us is that it is Jesus who gives Judas permission, even orders him, to do the job that he has to do; the Passion cannot happen without him.  On him everything hinges; here life and death, love and betrayal intermingle and contend.  This is indeed Judas's night, for his action becomes the cause of our salvation. 

THE SERVANTHOOD OF CHRIST

Tomorrow we shall recall the life-giving death of Christ on the Cross.  Yet it is on this most holy night Jesus ‘showed (the) full extent of his love’ or, as one reading expresses it: ‘Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.’  (John 13:1)

This is the night of foot-washing and self-giving, of offering a body to be used as a slave.  This is our God.  The uniqueness of our God who, in human form, humbles himself even to undergoing death.   Gives himself over to be the victim of our passions and, in so doing, shows that beyond all the hatred and violence there is new life.  Jesus will take our anger and rage to the Cross and set us free from its burden. 

We are taught that he came among us as a servant – tonight we see him washing our feet, kneeling before us to cleanse and refresh us and saying those words: This is me, my body and blood, given in love for you.’  Can we – can I – let Jesus love me in this way?  Can I allow myself to be loved by him, open the depth of my being to being loved ‘to the end’?  Letting even the ‘Judas’ in me be loved?  For Judas, too had his feet washed. 

‘So, after receiving the piece of bread,

(Judas) went out.  And it was night’.

Could we love like that?  That is the Love behind our faith.

Whatever occurred between Jesus and Judas, whatever lay in the heart and mind of that man, whatever his intentions and actions, Jesus ‘loved him to the end’.  And we are loved to the end, not just of our lives, but through all our moods and actions, our confusion, hopes, anxieties and fears.  Even those who would betray us are held in that Love, for this Love desires to draw the sting of pain from us that we might know something of the glory of resurrection life. 

And, if all that is too much to take in, then we also remember that he took his friends aside and asked them to spend time with him as he prepared for the final act of abandonment into the hands of men.   Normally we process the Blessed Sacrament to the Altar of Repose, walk with Jesus to that Garden where he spent the night before his Crucifixion. This year, we cannot do that – but might you be able to spend time between now and midday tomorrow in meditating with the Lord?  If you have access to the internet, why not tune in to a church where the Watch is taking place.  If you can, ask him into your heart and, when you have done that, don’t be afraid to open yourself to him.  Never be afraid of that, for God in Christ would transform your body and blood into his own glorious body.  For in all this the Son of Man is glorified and in him God is glorified.  And we are glorified in Him. 

(This homily is available via YouTube:

VIRAL THOUGHTS 1 - IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC: Living the Eucharist

AT A TIME when public celebrations of Mass have been prohibited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are expressing real hunger for the Eucharist.   As I read some of their posts, I recalled words I wrote in my book, Enfolded in Christ: the inner life of a priest.  Although they were written with clergy in mind, I hope they might speak to a wider audience:

‘THE EUCHARIST cannot be contained within the church for it is greater than the liturgy we celebrate.  Teilhard de Chardin SJ, the early 20th c. palaeontologist, geologist, philosopher and priest, expressed this most profoundly in his Hymn of the Universe probably written on the Feast of the Transfiguration in 1923 when he was living in the Ordos desert of Inner Mongolia. Lacking the necessities for Mass he was led to compose his majestic Mass on the World which opens with one of the most remarkable statements ever made about the Eucharist as he realises the need to raise himself beyond any symbols to offer all that lay before him ‘up to the pure majesty of the real itself.’

He acknowledges that the words of Christ, spoken by the priest over bread and wine, flow beyond those forms to the whole Body of Christ. In fact they reach into the cosmos itself so that all matter is affected by them. His Eucharist may lack bread and wine but before him lie the elements of creation that will provide the substance for celebration. His ‘prayer of consecration’ contains a wonderful invocation that the ‘radiant word’ would embrace and breathe life into the depths of creation so that Christ’s hands might ‘direct and transfigure’ all that is brought into this Eucharistic act to remould, rectify: ‘recast it down to the depths from which it springs.’  Over what greater celebration could a priest preside? 

Teilhard reminds us that all are invited to ‘live eucharistically’, to live out of that great ‘sacrifice of prayer and praise’ and look at the world with wonder and awe, recognising all things as a sacrament of the Divine. He realised that Eucharistic spirituality overflows the Liturgy to embrace life itself and is made real as we seek to discern everyday holiness. The way we walk down the street with thankfulness in our hearts offering to God all that we might encounter – the joys and sorrows, brokenness and wonder; the conversations we engage in, the sights that greet our eye whether that be in a green and pleasant place or amongst the houses, shops and factories of a neglected inner-city streetscape – all are the matter for our ongoing celebration. Our calling is to incline the heart to the real presence of Christ in all things.

(Eucharistic) spirituality, then, involves living with the intention of making of each moment an offering to God. The Eucharist is central to how our spirituality evolves because it is the nexus linking that which lies at the heart of our relationship with God and God’s creation, the place where Divine Love is most fully revealed. To be lovers of God-in-all-things must be the focus of our lives, not parishes, schools, cathedrals or whatever. They are the context. But we are called to love God and to live out of his compassionate Heart realising that the life which we celebrate is one that emerges from his sacrifice to which we are conjoined.  Sacrifice is at the heart of priestly life, an ‘Act of Communion’ with God in love. It is the means whereby we attain and rejoice in our true, Godly, life.  At the altar we join all our small sacrifices to his one saving sacrifice and beyond the altar we seek to live sacrificially that we may share in the life of our great High Priest. For in Jesus we see how one person can belong utterly to God.

Gerard Manley Hopkins also recognised this and shared his exuberance in the poem God’s Grandeur:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil….

But it’s not easy in the hum-drum of daily life.  What often happens as we walk down the street or sit on the train is that we notice life, shrug our metaphorical shoulders or cross our metaphorical arms and get into a conversation with that ‘evil spirit’ who happily waits just out of sight, ready to cast a critical glare.  He plays some old tapes about how awful things are and gently leads us down the spiral into the place of darkness. It’s then we need to wake up and realise that the sursum corda is not only necessary in the Liturgy: we are not to look on the world with a critical glare but a contemplative gaze. And when we catch ourselves going down that spiral we need to return to the simple spiritual practices which can re-awaken us to the wonder of creation – even though the glory may be smeared with dirt:

May you be well; May you be happy; May you know the compassion of Christ.'

_______________________________________________________________

When it’s possible to re-open churches, or where it’s possible to look into churches, I hope that the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed for people to see, for such Exposition is a continuation of the Eucharist and a powerful means of encounter with Christ.

Fr. John-Francis Friendship, March 2020,
extract from Enfolded in Christ: the inner life of a priest, p.110

EVELYN UNDERHILL and the BLESSED SACRAMENT

EXTRACT From a letter of Evelyn Underhill to Margaret Cropper (June 1932) concerning the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament during a Retreat:

‘For the first time in a retreat of mine we had the Blessed Sacrament on the altar all the time. I thought, poor fool that I am, how lovely it would be! But as it went on, the awful power of that white eternity seemed more and more overwhelming: it seemed to make noisy nonsense of everything I was trying to say; and I ended feeling like a cross between a monkey and a parrot. .. ‘

(A.M.Allchin, Friendship in God, SLG Press, 2003)

SERMON FOR 33rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (2 before Advent) - Veneration of Creation

Mal 4:1-2a, 2 Thess.3:6-13 and Luke 21:5-19    

‘These stones that have echoed thy praises are holy and dear is the ground where their feet have once trod; yet here they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims, and still they were seeking the city of God.’X

INTRODUCTION

Those are lines from a hymn often sung at the Feast of the Dedication of  a church – ‘In our Day of Thanksgiving’ – and I thought of them last week at this time as I, and a group of 22 pilgrims from East Greenwich, stood in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  We had arrived at our final destination after time in the Galilee and were beginning our devotions in that city which is the focus of longings for Jews, Christians and Muslims. 

Yet the stones which generations have erected to protect the holy places, and the places themselves, are but outward symbols of that heavenly Jerusalem where God dwells with angels and saints, the great company of heaven of which each baptised person is a part.   

JERUSALEM AND ITS STONES

Jerusalem is a city which stirs deep feelings – both of passionate longing and love – and passionate disgust and hatred.  Its stones have been venerated and destroyed by many civilisations and, as Jesus prophesied, it’s Temple and the whole city was destroyed by the Romans just forty years later, in AD 70.   We had stood on Shabbat eve – Friday evening – looking at the remains of a small part of the Temple mount known as the ’Wailing Wall’, watching hundreds of Jews expressing their passion for Jerusalem as they sang and danced, wept and lamented and offered their prayers.  And, all the time, they were overlooked by the great Dome of the Rock built by Muslims over the site of the Jewish Holy of Holies in the late 7^th century.

HOLY SEPULCHRE

But for us – Christians – it was not the Dome or Temple which, in the end, drew us; rather, it was that Church built over the Holy Sepulchre, the place where Christ was buried and rose from the dead, a few meters from the place where He was crucified and where Christians had ever since gathered to worship.  Yet their first church had also been destroyed and a Temple to Venus built by the Romans over the ruins which, later, enabled the Emperor Constantine, when he converted to Christianity in the early 4^th c., to identify the spot and build a great basilica.  But, 300 years later, that was also destroyed by the Persians and its replacement destroyed again by Muslim forces in the year 1009. 

So the building we prayed in has echoed to the praises of pilgrims for a thousand years, but the site on which it stands for twice as long.  And I thought of those lines: ‘these stones that have echoed their praises are holy’.  And, in particular, I recalled them as I saw the way so many pilgrims venerated the slab of pink-veined marble marking the place where the body of Jesus lay after being taken from the Cross and placed in the Tomb.

DEVOTION AND VENERATION

One of the sad things about the Reformation is that it ended public displays of veneration – shrines and statues kissed by Christians for generations were destroyed and, gradually, public displays of affection came to an end.  It may be permissible for women to give each other an affectionate kiss but men – never!  That’s something those strange continentals do!

Yet, gradually, the Church has begun to reclaim veneration – the priest will kiss the altar and book of the gospels, and all will give each other a holy kiss at the peace – or at least, a handshake!  And we offer incense to those three things – the altar stone; the Book of the Gospels and the People of God.  But we don’t do all this simply because we want to show affection – or even because we believe there’s something special about the stone, or the paper or even the flesh we kiss.  Its what’s hidden in those things – what they convey; how our Creator God is present in matter.  Because God created them they are intrinsically good, if imperfect; and because God entered into our world in the Incarnation – entered into flesh, into created matter – each thing that exists is touched by the Divine. 

But we find that hard to comprehend.  There’s long been the temptation to think of matter as corrupt – certainly not  to be worshipped!  After all, God commanded the Israelites not to make idols and worship them (Ex.20.3)!  So having a picture, painting or sculpture of the human form in a place of worship is anathema to Jews and Muslims.  And, because of that, Christians began destroying their stone and wooden statues and icons after the rise of Islam.

As the years went by and they began to realise the consequences of God entering our human flesh and being born of a Virgin Mother they realised that, if God had entered matter, matter – created things – must matter!  More than that – if God venerated Creation to the extent of joining Himself to it, we must also venerate it.  Sadly that was an understanding lost on the Reformers seven hundred years later who proceeded to disfigure and destroy representations of God in humankind. 

What they’d forgotten is that it’s not the thing itself we venerate, but the wonder of the Creator which is encountered in the statue, icon, altar, book – or person.  As St John of Damascus had said during the great controversy about icons:

"I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honouring that matter which works for my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God."

VENERATING GOD IN CREATION

So we’re to worship God through creation, as saints like Francis of Assisi have always known.  Francis, who realised that all things were inter-related and called all things his brother or sister – Brother Sun and Sister Moon, Mother Earth – even Sister Fire which was used to burn disease from his eye.  It’s a realisation, of course, which we’re re-discovering now as we accept we can no longer dominate, abuse and rape creation. 

We have to treat it with deep respect, which some religions have recognised as they venerate the divine in the natural world.  Aspects of Celtic religion – that religion which pre-dated Christianity in many Western lands – affirmed the sacredness of nature, an understanding which informed many of the early monks of our islands.  As one anonymous prayer says:

Bless to me, O God,

Each thing my eyes see,

Bless to me, O God,

Each sound my ear hears,

Bless to me, O God,

Each odour that goes to my nostrils,

Bless to me, O God,

Each taste that goes to my lips.

Thankfully, many are waking up to the need to take greater care of our planet and treat it with more respect lest the elements – earth, water, air and fire – turn against us.  We can see the way they do that when they are abused, and we need to recall that our faith tells us we need to venerate creation.  The way we kiss the altar, the gospels and each other reminds that a holy kiss deepens our intimacy with that which we venerate; that it is not simply the stone, paper or flesh that we touch with our lips but the Divine presence within them – present in the Blessed Sacrament consecrated on this table of sacrifice; present in the words written in the Holy Book, and present beneath the skin of our sisters and brothers – even if they cannot recognise that presence.  But, perhaps, we might deepen our recognition as we open ourselves to an intimate encounter with the Word made flesh: you have seen your brother; you have seen your God.

THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM

Sadly, Jerusalem has been damaged and destroyed many, many times; its walls pulled down, Temple looted and houses raised to the ground.  Every age is tempted to destroy what it cannot understand or what has gone before, believing it has something better to offer, be that the destruction of reforming fundamentalists – smashing statues and disfiguring frescoes – or town councils up and down the land who bulldozed much of our Victorian heritage.  We so often fail to appreciate something until it’s too late; instead of honouring creation we misuse and abuse it.  Jerusalem reminded me that we, people of faith in a God who entered matter, need to learn to venerate that matter once again if we are to be true to our calling.  For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son – Himself – to inhabit creation. 

‘I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to inhabit matter.’

May we deepen our intimacy with God through our veneration of creation.   And as we offer one another a handshake at the Peace, let’s not forget what we are really doing – offering a holy kiss to one another who are the image of our God made visible.

THE SACRED HEART OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

Eight days after the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Octave days, the Church celebrates the great Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Except, of course, most Anglicans have never heard of this celebration and even those churches which realise the Catholic heritage of the Church of England may not recognise this Feast.  This is to our loss for, as Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA, preached about at the wedding of their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, love is the way; and the one symbol that speaks to all about love is – the heart.  And the Church has the wonder of the Sacred Heart to offer people – a Heart which is not just concerned with the joys of love, but also knows about passion and pain.  It was while she was kneeling in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament that Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque displaying Hs Heart, "represented as a throne of fire with flames radiating on every side. It appeared more brilliant than the sun and transparent like crystal. The wound received on the Cross appeared clearly: There was a crown of thorns around the Heart and it was surmounted by a cross."  This is the Sacred Heart of Christ’s Passion which, unlike other images of love, constantly reminds us of its true cost.  This is a gift the Church of England sadly neglects.

At Christmas we celebrate the Incarnation of Love is as Love reveals His Presence among us, a Presence we celebrate in and through each Eucharist.  It’s a Presence which is Real, a Presence which we need to penetrate and which needs to penetrate us if we are to encounter the Heart of God.  At Christmas we behold Love clothed in Flesh, Flesh which suffered, died, rose from the grave and ascended into heaven.  Love left us the sacrament of that Presence, and whilst the eye of the body beheld Jesus within Crib the eye of the heart can now begin to see the wonder of Emmanuel – the Love of God with us abiding in the Blessed Sacrament.  The great Franciscan saint, Bonaventure, wrote these beautiful words: ‘I have found this Heart in the Eucharist when I have found there the Heart of my Sovereign, of my Friend, of my Brother, that is to say, the Heart of my friend and Redeemer. …  Come, my brethren, let us enter into this amiable Heart never again to go out from It.’

In his book The Drawing of This Love the author, Robert Fruewirth, explores aspects of the way the 14^th century English mystic, Dame Julian of Norwich, realised how that Divine Love is permeated by compassion.  In one chapter he quotes Julian saying: ‘Here I saw a great affinity between Christ and us … for when he was in pain, we were in pain.  And all creatures capable of suffering pain suffered with him … So was our Lord Jesus Christ set at nought for us, and we all remain in this way as if set at naught with him, and shall do until we come to his bliss…’ (Ch.18)  Divine Compassion lies in the depths of the Sacred Heart – indeed, is the way in which that Heart is to be understood and we can always be present to His compassion when we come before Him in the Blessed Sacrament.  So people have longed to look upon that loving compassion and can do so when the Sacrament is exposed to our gaze on the altar.   There we can be present to Him as He is present to us when the Sacrament is exposed on the altar; if only every church offered times when this practice so that all can sit or kneel in prayer in His Presence.  If churches helped people to come and adore Him who longed – and longs – to be with us!  There we can talk with Him or just rest with Him and know that He is fully present to all who come to Him.  We could just curl up before Him who opens His Heart to us in the Sacrament of Divine Love. 

But even if we cannot find an open church where the brilliance of the Host shines out we can always take Him with us in the tabernacle of our heart for, as St Francis of Assisi wrote in his Rule of 1221: ‘We should make a dwelling-place within ourselves where He can stay, He who is the Lord God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ Dame Julian echoes this theme when later she wrote: ‘Then with a glad expression our Lord looked into his side and gazed, rejoicing and with his dear gaze he led his creature’s understanding through the same wound into his side within. And then he revealed a beautiful and delightful place, large enough for all mankind that shall be saved to rest there in peace and in love.’ (Ch.24)  That ‘place’ is His Sacred Heart, a Heart large enough to contain all of us, a Heart enlarged by compassion.  This is the Sacrament of Love upon which we are invited to gaze, as Julian gazed on what was revealed to her.  It is a wonderful thing that we who have been made part of His Body can gaze on that Body which is lit up with Love – as one might look on a building flooded with light both inside and out, throbbing with all the colours there are against the darkness that surround it – a darkness of both sin and a lack of recognition. This is what we are to realise as we gaze on His Incarnate Body shown to us in the monstrance.

God enables us to fashion an inner-monstrance of the heart which is to be the dwelling-place for Jesus where we can adore Him whenever we visit that place.  Few churches can offer perpetual Adoration but He can always be with us and we can always adore Him whenever we choose to make this visit to our heart.  But wouldn’t it be wonderful if more Anglican churches – cathedrals, certainly – offered this facility?  There is a wonderful Tabernacle House, for example, in Southwark Cathedral (which may come from the Convent of the sisters of the Community of Reparation to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament founded in 1869 and ended with the death of the last sister in the early years of this century).

It’s exquisitely beautiful to come to Jesus in this way and be able to just rest with Him – ‘be there’ with Him who is in all places and fills all things yet who left us this way to realise His presence.  It’s a presence that doesn’t require any words and the only effort is to focus attention on Him and Him alone.  To be able to do this in places like Westminster Cathedral and Tyburn Convent in Hyde Park Place is a joy which all would benefit from realising.  And when that is not possible we can make a virtual visit to adore Jesus through a number of websites which offer that facility.

Thankfully even though we may not be able to visit those places, He dwells in the hearts of all who turn aside to Him and unlock the door to this inner sanctuary.  The Sacred Heart is like a door leading into the very soul of Christ, towards complete conformity to Him.

"Devotion to the Sacred Heart has a twofold object: it honours first with adoration and public worship the Heart of flesh of Jesus Christ, and secondly the infinite love with which this Heart has burned for us since its creation, and with which it is still consumed in the Sacrament of our altars." (St. Peter Julian Eymard)

ADORATION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT AND SILENT PRAYER

Many people do not know of the riches that are to be found in periods of silent adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  The small, white consecrated Host placed in the monstrance contains the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph.1:23) and saints down the ages have adored Him who is present to us.  "What wonderful majesty!” declared St Francis of Assisi, “What stupendous condescension! O sublime humility! That the Lord of the whole universe, God and the Son of God, should humble Himself like this under the form of a little bread, for our salvation … In this world I cannot see the Most High Son of God with my own eyes, except for His Most Holy Body and Blood." (Letter to a General Chapter)

ADORATION OF JESUS

When we place ourselves in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament we place ourselves before the gaze of Christ who loves us and wants us to know that love.  As St John says, ‘This is what love really is: not that we have loved God but that he loved us.  We love because he loved us first.’ (1 John 4:10f)  When we celebrate the Eucharist we are taking the first step to being caught up in the divine life.  As with the Prodigal Son, as soon as God sees us coming home and, a long way before we even get home, God comes rushing up to welcome and embrace us and we need to let our heart welcome His extravagant, self-risking love that flows from heaven. 

In the silence of the Eucharist we taste and enter the silence of the Father from whom the Word eternally springs.  In Andre Rublev’s icon of the Trinity the three Persons are gathered around the Eucharist and we, who gaze upon it, are the fourth.  We are enfolded into the silent, loving gaze of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit upon each other uniting each to the other and to the one who is before them.

St Jean-Marie Vianney, the Cure of Ars in France, tells of asking an old farmer why he came into the church every day to sit before the tabernacle: “I look at Him” he replied “and He looks at me and we tell each other that we love each other.”  This is the prayer of loving regard which seeks to fulfill Jesus’ command to love God with all our heart and mind and strength. And, in order to realise this command, we need to be still, silent and attentive on God.

SILENCE BEFORE GOD

Silence is a rare gift in today’s world. Those who live alone can experience enforced silence and crave for communication with another human being. T. S. Eliot recognized the emptiness that we can know when silence suddenly descends:

            As, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too

                long between stations

            And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence

            And you see behind every face the mental emptiness

                deepen.

But there’s another type of silence, a silence we can long for, when all those competing voices cease, the silence that comes at the end of a war or when two lovers let go of each other’s bodies and rest.  Silence can provide the space in which we realise what is present, the silence that is sought by those who desire to prevent themselves being distracted from attending to the great silence in which God is present.  As St Teresa of Calcutta wrote:

‘We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is the friend of silence.  See how nature -- trees, flowers, grass -- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.’ (‘Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta) 

This is a reminder of the way Elijah encountered God in silence after he had fled to the cave on Mt. Horeb to escape his persecutors:

'God said to Elijah, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.’' (1 Kings 19:11-12) 

PAYING ATTENTION TO THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST

St Benedict, who also sought out desert places, used two words for silence: quies and silentium.  Quies is quiet, physical silence, an absence of noise – not banging doors, not coughing or unwrapping sweet papers.  It is a physical self-restraint that respects the presence of other people.  Silentium, however, is not an absence of noise but an attitude of consciousness turned towards others or to God.  It is attention, and what greater attention can we pay to God than that which we give in the presence of the Eucharistic Presence. As Mary Oliver wrote:

            I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

            I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

            into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

            how to be idle and blessed. (The Summer Day)

To listen deeply, to give oneself in the act of attention is in fact not to judge, or fix or condemn but to love.  There is indeed nothing so much like God as silence because God is love. Meister Eckhart, the 13thc. German mystic, knew how God is clothed in silence: 

‘It is the nature of a word to reveal what is hidden.  The word that is hidden still sparkles in the darkness and whispers in the silence.  It entices us to pursue and to yearn and sigh after it.  For it wishes to reveal to us something about God.’

This silence is not the absence of noise but the abode of God:

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.

He alone is my rock and my salvation my fortress;
I shall never be shaken Psalm 62.1 – 2

Religious, especially contemplatives, have always recognised the importance giving themselves to long periods of silence, a silence that is lovingly welcomed and which interweaves the rhythm of their days, weeks and months. These act as reminders of the importance of giving loving attention to God and remind us of Jesus’ words to Martha when she complained about the way her sister was simply sitting at his feet: “you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41f)

Eckhart doesn’t say God likes silence or likes silent worshippers but that God is like silence.  St Teresa of Avila said that ‘silence is God speaking to us.  It is like God as nothing else is. When we pay attention to God we come to know that God is paying attention to us. Indeed it is God’s attention to us that allows us to pay attention to God.

            Prayer is like watching for the
            Kingfisher. All you can do is
            Be there where he is like to appear, and
            Wait.
            Often nothing much happens;
            There is space, silence and
            Expectancy.
            No visible signs, only the
            Knowledge that he’s been there
            And may come again.
            Seeing or not seeing cease to matter,
            You have been prepared
            But when you’ve almost stopped
            Expecting it, a flash of brightness
            Gives encouragement.  (Ann Lewin)

__________________________

‘The tree of silence bears the fruit of peace.’

Arabian proverb

‘The heavenly Father has spoken one Word: It was His Son. And He speaks it eternally in an eternal silence. And it is in silence that it can be heard by the soul.’
St John of the Cross, Watchword 217

‘Preserve spiritual peace by lovingly gazing upon God. If you must speak, do so with the same calm and peace.’
St John of the Cross, Watchword 198

‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)