Preached at the Church of S. Saviour, Pimlico
on the Feast of
S. AUGUSTINE of CANTERBURY
WEDNESDAY, MAY 27th, 2015
_____________________________________________________________________________
‘Holiness on the head,
Light and perfections on the breast,
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead
To lead them unto life and rest:
Thus are true Aarons drest.’
X
INTRODUCTION
It was the
summer of ‘65. The Rolling Stones were
top of the pops and the ‘Sound of Music’ had just been released to a rapturous
audience: I was 19, newly confirmed, discovering the glories of
Anglo-Catholicism and parties in Pimlico.
I had joined the Society of Mary, Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament
and Guild of All Souls. I would even go
on to join the League of Anglican Loyalists….
Ah, those were the waking
days When Faith was taught and fanned to a golden blaze.
Somehow I was
led to read Henry Morton Robinson’s, ‘The Cardinal’ and to say that I was
inspired would be an understatement, for the story of Stephen Fermoyle’s
vocation awoke the seed of my own. Many
years later I discovered that St. Ignatius Loyola had had a similar experience
when first reading the lives of Francis and Dominic: “If they can do such things”, he thought’ “so can I!” Thus began his
conversion and so began my sense of calling to the priesthood. You’ll have your own story and I ask your indulgence
as I share some of my reflections on this matter of priestly spirituality.
Like Fr.
Richard many of us have probably been inspired by the heroic lives of priests
we have known or read about and I wonder if there is one in particular who has
spoken to you? If so my guess is that it
is not just what they have done – few are inspired by overworking priests! –
but the way they did it; something
about the quality of his or her holiness that has touched you. Something about the way God was revealed in
their very humanity. George Herbert’s
great poem, Aaron, the opening of
which I quoted, is a reminder that it is from the totality of our humanity –
our perfections and imperfections – that we embark on the way which leads to
holiness. Herbert makes use of the
external vesting of a priest to point out that it’s our inner life which
needs to be clothed in Christ. His poem
reminds me of the importance of the Vesting Prayers; but is mostly a reminder
that whilst I may wear the biretta, it is Christ who is my true head.
But back, for
a moment, to this matter of who inspires us.
INSPIRED BY
THE LIFE OF HEROES OF OUR FAITH
In
his talk to the Southwark Chapter of SCP, which led to today’s meeting, Fr.
Richard said: “I am an Anglo-Catholic. That is
to say I am an Anglican who looks to the great heroes of our faith in the
Oxford movement and the ritualist pioneers of the late 19th and
early 20th century.” It
was those ‘great heroes of our faith’ who, themselves, were inspired by the
example of earlier priests not least S. Vincent de Paul, the great Apostle of
Charity. The founders of the Society of
the Holy Cross looked to the life of Vincent and it is about one of their first
members, Fr. Stanton, that I want to draw your attention.
ARTHUR STANTON
Arthur
Henry Stanton was born in 1839 and died in 1913. Priested at the age of 25 he
spent his entire ministry – almost fifty years – as a curate at S. Alban’s,
Holborn and thousands lined the route of his funeral procession from Holborn to
the Necropolis Station at Waterloo. I
first heard his name mentioned when Richard Holloway quoted some words of Fr.
Stanton during his Address to the Catholic Renewal Conference in 1978: “When you’re priests,” Stanton said to a
group of ordinands, “tell your people to
love the Lord Jesus. Don’t tell them how
to be Church of England: tell them to love the Lord Jesus”.
It
has been said that Jesus and Mary were the two loves of his life and he saw
Catholic faith and practice as the ‘home’ in which they dwelt. And in that home his focus was on the Mass
and Penance. In a letter to his mother
he wrote:
“I am a
Catholic in heart, longings and hopes.
Catholics believe, as they believe in their God, that Jesus Christ is
present on His Altar in the Holy Sacrament.
A Catholic
priest believes that he holds between his hands the Bread of Life; as St. John
says he handled the Word of Life with his hands. I hold the doctrine of the Real Presence
dearer than life. As I hope for
salvation I would rather be hacked to pieces than omit adoring my God in the
Sacrament."
Strong
words! Yet Stanton is overshadowed by
the likes of Mackonochie and Tooth, and SSC chose Fr. Lowder as one of its
Patron Saints. But, for me, Arthur
Stanton is a model for the faithful catholic priest whose eye is set on Jesus
and whose heart is given to His Divine Compassion.
PRIESTHOOD AND
CALLING
Of
course, not all of us are involved in parish ministry but every priest is called to seek to be formed in
the likeness of Christ. To be given to
His love for us and for all people. That
is our primary calling. Yet too often I
listen to priests who have become over-identified with their role and forgotten
to remember that, before all else, we are commanded to “love the Lord ()our God with all ()our heart, and with all ()our soul,
and with all ()our strength, and with all ()our mind” (Lk.10:27).
And then to love our neighbour as our-self.
As
priests we are primarily called to be God’s lovers. That must be the focus of our lives. Not parishes, schools or cathedrals or
whatever. They are the context. But to love God. In a meditation on the Trinity, the
Franciscan Richard Rohr has said:
‘The Mystery
of (the) Trinity invites us into full participation with God, a flow, a
relationship, a waterwheel of always outpouring love. Trinity basically says that God is a verb much
more than a noun.
Some Christian
mystics taught that all of creation is being taken back into this flow of
eternal life, almost as if we are a "Fourth Person" of the
Eternal Flow of God or, as Jesus put it, "so that where I am you also may
be" (John 14:3).
So
our primary calling is into this dynamic relationship with God, and it is from
that encounter we discover our true vocation.
I think Fr. Stanton found his in being, in a real sense, ‘in Jesus’ and
just as many religious take a dedication name that describes their personal vocation,
‘of Jesus and Mary’ might describe Arthur Stanton just as ‘of the Cross’
describes a certain St. John. My next
thought, then, is what might your ‘personal vocation’ be and how might you
nurture that and live it out?
MARY AND THE
PRIESTHOOD
Now
whilst I haven’t been able to find anything that Fr. Stanton wrote about
devotion to Mary it is clear that awareness of her place in the life of the
Church was developing in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1848 the Community of St. Mary the Virgin
had been founded by Fr. Butler and when SSC was instituted seven years later
they made devotion to her part of their Rule.
In
a reflection on our Lady and the priesthood in 2009 Pope Benedict spoke of
Jesus’ commendation of His Mother to S. John and pointed out that the English
translation of the text ‘And from that
hour the disciple took her into his own home’ has a far deeper and richer
meaning in Greek. It can be translated
as he ‘took Mary into his inner life, his inner being’. The Holy Father went on to say: “To take Mary with one means to introduce
her into the dynamism of one's own entire existence – it is not something
external – and into all that constitutes the horizon of one's own apostolate.”
So
if Mary is to inspire us then it cannot be simply to offer her more devotion,
as right as that may be, but to discover a way of allowing her charism to
infuse ours. To trust, to listen and to
wait as we, like her, seek to do God’s will for, as Pope Francis has said:
‘Mary is God’s welcomer’.
PRIESTHOOD AND
SPIRITUALITY
One
thing that’s clear about the early pioneers of the Catholic revival is their
commitment to the development of the spiritual life. In preparing this address I found myself
referring time and time again to the founding of SSC in 1855 not least because
their first stated object is the sanctification of their members. And to that end, amongst other things, SSC
was responsible for the development of the Retreat movement in the Church of
England.
But
I have a sense that many of us find ourselves, whether by circumstance,
inclination or a toxic mix of the two, more Martha’s than Mary’s.
Whilst
we might long for an end to interminable meetings and for a bit more ‘peace and
quiet’ I wonder if our personal Rule of Life includes times of meditation or
retreat and the devotional study of the scriptures. Here the dynamic of Mary’s silence and
centring on the Word needs to inform us for the nature of our spiritual life
will direct everything we do. As Br.
Bernard SSF used to say, “Get it right
with God, first, brother. The rest will
fall in place.”
Now
by ‘spiritual life’ I don’t mean increasing the number of devotions we
offer. S. John Cassian points out that: ‘Fasting, vigils, the study of scripture,
renouncing possessions and the world – these are means not the end. Perfection is not found in them, but through
them. It is pointless to boast about such practices when we have not achieved
the love of God and our fellow humans.’ I’m also minded of the Principles of the Society of S. Francis which still resonate for me
when they say that ‘corporate worship is
not a substitute for the quiet communion of the individual soul with God’ (Day 17)
Having
said that I wonder what spiritual exercises help you love God more fully and
freely? I recall at the SCP Conference
in Exeter being reminded that, as Catholics, we had a treasury of devotion
which we could use, and we needed to make use of it for ourselves and not just
for the benefit of our ministries. And that reflection led me to introduce a lot
of ‘Fresh Expressions’ – contemplative expressions – into my parish: a Rosary
group, Saturday Evening Vigil Mass and Holy Hour. Few, if any, came but they were important
times for me. They helped me
in my relationship with God.
So
if we really believe in the value of Catholic practices, then we will be doing
just that – practising them!
And
there is one other practice I would commend: praying for the
departed. Maybe the fact that I’ve
almost reached threescore years and ten gives me a particular interest in
remembering those who have gone before us!
But I was always taught that membership of any Catholic society does not
end at death. Yet not all publish an
Obit list so I am moved by the way the Rule of SSC states that members ‘shall understand
prayer for the dead as an act of charity to assist those who have died on their
pilgrim way into the peace of God’s Kingdom, so that the whole world might
become a new creation.’ (8)
Don’t let’s forget departed members but pray for them on their
anniversaries. After all, we shall all
benefit in the end…
MISSION
Today,
of course, we meet on this Feast of S. Augustine of Canterbury and our gospel
reading concerns the mission of the seventy.
As Fr. Clive wrote: ‘In every
generation the Spirit of God renews and revives the church, so that
the ‘missio dei’ … might most
effectively engage afresh for a new generation, in different circumstances and
with new challenges.’ So, in contemplating a new movement for priests we
cannot ignore evangelisation. To be lovers of God and
of our neighbour, no matter how hard that may be.
Fr.
Stanton was a keen supporter of the early Christian Socialist Movement,
regarding it as the political expression of the Incarnation, and whilst we may
have moved on from the social conditions of those19th and early 20th
century slum parishes, which gave rise to those stirring words of Bp. Frank
Weston to the Anglo-Catholic Congress of 1923, as Gaudiem et Spes states: "the
Church . . . travels the same journey as all humanity and shares the
same earthly lot with the world: she is to be a leaven and, as it were, the
soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the
family of God."
YOU SHALL LOVE
YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF
But
thoughts about Catholic practices and talk about Mission can blind us to the
fact that we also need also to love and care for those around us – those to
whom we are committed by natural ties of love and friendship – and our-selves.
I realise that Fr. Stanton and many of those early Anglo-Catholic
priests were single or celibate and recognise there’s been a tendency for
priestly spirituality to be predicated towards such states but where might that
leave the married or partnered priest?
Where does this call to seek God leave our human loves?
If
we are married or partnered then those who love us can sometimes feel they play
second – or third – fiddle to God and the Church. There’s a danger that some aspects of
spirituality seem to bypass human love and move directly to God, and whilst
there are some who have such a personal, solitary calling to make that into a
general principal would seem to trivialise the Incarnation. In that context I find it interesting that
in the early days of SSC it was found necessary to form three distinct Rules:
the White Rule for celibates; the Red for those who were single or married, and
a Green Rule, although I haven’t been able to find out anything about
that. Now, of course, there is a
separate community for celibate priests, the Company of Mission Priests. But it, and the Oratory of the Good Shepherd
founded in the year of Fr. Stanton’s death, is for men only.
I
also recall that S. Francis developed three Orders for those who were attracted
by his spirituality and if there is to be a new Sodality for Priests, then will
it be a case that ‘one size fits all’, or might there need to be a variety of
ways of belonging?
Finally
yet, perhaps, most importantly any true Catholic spirituality will help us love
ourselves. Too often in the past Rules of Life were overly active – they
could sound like a list of New Year’s Resolutions rather than a means whereby
we sought to nurture God’s love for us.
There is a difference between pious religious practices and a healthy
spirituality. To quote again from the
Franciscan Principles: ‘The witness of life is more eloquent than
that of words’ and any Rule needs
to address the whole person.
Our
Rule, then, needs to acknowledge our
need for rest and refreshment and should positively encourage us to take time
out and create space for our-selves to flourish. As the Rule
for a New Brother states: ‘A
spiritual rule wants to offer an open and free space within and among us where
God can touch us with Gods loving presence.
It wants to make it possible for us not so much to find God, as to be
directed by God; not so much to love God but to be loved by God.’ (Foreword p.8)
CONCLUSION
Like Herbert and Ignatius Loyola we are called to let Jesus flow
into who we are and to allow who we are to be clothed in Him.
Christ is my only head,
My alone onely heart and brest,
My only musick, striking me ev’n dead;
That to the old man I may rest
And in him new drest.
We need the heroes of our Faith to inspire us in our own calling
but we also need to listen, deeply, to our personal vocation just as Mary
listened to God and found hers. And this
needs to be set in the context of God’s mission – a mission which is known as
we encounter God and allow ourselves to be changed by God’s desire for
at-one-ness with all things: ‘from glory to glory’.
However our priesthood is expressed, whether in parish or school,
with the military or in a hospital, we are called to ‘live intensely’. To ‘believe that we are consecrated to give our
wills to Jesus, and in giving our wills to lay ourselves body and soul in his
hands that he may do what he will with us.
… For’ as Bp. Weston said, ‘the
Christ of Calvary calls us’.
X
V. I will
feast the souls of my priests with abundance. [Alleluia.]
R. And my
people shall be satisfied with my goodness. [Alleluia.]
Father,
in your love
for us you chose Mary to be the Mother of your Son,
the first to
welcome Him into her heart and bring Him forth for a waiting world.
Grant us such
a measure of her grace as to be truly devoted to your Word.
By the loving
intercession of Our Lady, reconsecrate us each day
and by the
guidance of the Holy Spirit bring us, your pilgrim priests,
to be set forth
upon the ocean of light which is the Trinity,
Father, Son
and Holy Spirit.
Amen
