PhilanthropyIt’s about time the Netherlands Bach Society was awarded an international prize for services rendered to mankind. What they have produced – and made available for free – these past few years is astonishing, truly an enterprise of philanthropy. I Read More
Tordis ØrjasæterIn her last book, published in 2024, Tordis Ørjasæter noted a childhood remembrance her husband Jo had shared from his native Gudbrandsdalen. Once, when he went to visit ‘one of the aunts on the farm, who lay dying, she bade Read More
PhilanthropyIt’s about time the Netherlands Bach Society was awarded an international prize for services rendered to mankind. What they have produced – and made available for free – these past few years is astonishing, truly an enterprise of philanthropy. I have watched and listened to Jos van Veldhoven’s production of the St John Passion with keen attention. It touches perfection, not just for its musical excellence, but for its dramatic intelligence. Raphael Höhn is a compelling evangelist. He really knows how to tell a story. And I am not sure I’ve ever heard Ach, mein Sinn, the lament following Peter’s betrayal, sung with greater intensity than that displayed here by Gwilym Bowen. By deliberate casting, almost all performers are under 35, which serves not merely to energise the performance but to make it topical. Because we’re so used, now, to thinking Christianity old and the Church tired, we risk forgetting how young most of the drama’s protagonists were. This performance has helped me to rethink many things and to experience essentials afresh.
Chrism MassIsaiah 61.1-9: The Lord God has anointed me. Apocalypse 1.5-8: He has made of us a priestly people. Luke 4.16-21: Today this scripture has been fulfilled. The New Testament’s proclamation of the mystery of Jesus builds on the Old Testament. The Evangelists — not to mention Paul — consistently wish to show that the promises God gave through patriarchs and prophets are accomplished in the Son of Mary. This gives rise to the rich resonances we find, for example, in the motif of Emmanuel (recalling the promise to King Ahaz), in the Holy Family’s journey to Egypt (recalling the drama of the exodus), in the donkey of Palm Sunday (recalling the prophecy of Zechariah). Only by going deep into the Old Testament can we really appreciate the beauty, fascination, and depth of the New. In the second century, in Rome, a theologian called Marcion argued that Christians have no use for the Old Testament: ‘No’, he said, ‘the Gospel is enough!’ Rightly he was declared a heretic. The Gospel can’t be understood without the Hebrew Bible, which Christians must learn to know, revere, and love. The language and imagery of Jesus are soaked in Old Testament culture. Yet it is rare to hear him, as today, point towards a specific passage and say: ‘Today this word has been fulfilled’. The word in question, proclaimed by Isaiah, is clearly an important one: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, the Lord God has anointed me.’ What does it mean when Jesus says he is anointed? In Israel, anointing was associated with three exalted offices. When the people, following instructions given on Sinai, had made ready all the equipment they needed for the cult, Aaron and his sons were, out in the wilderness, anointed as priests. ‘You shall sanctify them’, God told Moses (Ex 30.30). To be sanctified is to be set apart for a divine purpose. A priest is no longer his own. His whole being is consecrated to serve the reconciliation of the people and the glory of God. He is to become one with the sacrifice he raises up. When Israel, settled in Canaan, sought a stable political structure, their first king was anointed. Samuel poured oil over Saul’s head and said: ‘Has not the Lord anointed you prince over his inheritance, Israel?’ (1 Sam 10.1). These words are carefully chosen. Israel is God’s inheritance. Saul is anointed as the Lord’s lieutenant, not as an omnipotent monarch. When Saul forgets this and starts getting bolshy, he is deposed. To be anointed king, biblically speaking, is not to be loaded with privilege; it is to receive immense responsibility for others. Still later, prophets are anointed. Elijah is told: ‘You shall anoint Elisha to be prophet in your place’ (1 Kings 19.16). People often think a prophet is one who predicts the future. This may be one spect of his ministry, true enough; but it is not primary. A biblical prophet is anointed to see and speak clearly, enabled to interpret the present moment in the light of God’s eternal truth. His task is to teach people what is truly going on here and now. If occasionally he is given a glimpse of the future, it is to show others where they are bound. So when Jesus says: ‘The Lord God has anointed me’, he implicitly declares himself Priest, King, Prophet. He has come as the bearer of healing, freedom, and justice. He inaugurates ‘a year of grace’. In its context ‘guilt’ is not a purely calculable thing. He bids us create a society based on fraternity, not on cynical transactions. Baptism incorporates us into Christ’s Body. It makes every single Christian priest, king, and prophet (Lumen Gentium 31). All of us are called to serve as an instrument of reconciliation, to watch over the Lord’s inheritance, to be clear-sighted witnesses to justice and truth. The oil of gladness has been poured out upon us. It makes our lives vibrate with exultancy. At the same time a Christian is acquainted with grief. At Lauds this morning the liturgy put into our mouths these words: ‘My soul is sorrowful unto death’. By this cry, uttered in Gethsemani (Mt 26.38), Christ grieved over the fact that the world did not want to receive the grace he had come to confer. God tells the world: ‘Choose life!’ The world retorts: ‘Death!’ Indeed, as we are reminded during these solemn days, the world even tries to put God himself to death. This tension between joy and pain pierces the priest’s heart in a special way. At ordination the priest’s existence is sealed with the sign of the cross. He is a man set apart to serve God’s purpose in the world. Once for all he has declared that God may make use of him, until death, exactly as he pleases. He has accepted the tremendous task of acting in the person of Christ (Lumen Gentium 10). This is especially evident when, at the altar, he offers up the sacrifice of reconciliation, Christ’s Body and Blood. But the altar is to configure his person, too. During this Chrism Mass, we who without merit of our own have, in the name of Jesus and by his power, been ordained to serve the sanctification of God’s people, restate our wish to be conformed to Christ through self-denial. We renew our promise of fidelity. We reconsecrate ourselves to grace and truth so that Jesus, the Head and Chief Shepherd of the Church, may act and make himself visible in our poverty. This we do gladly, amazed that God chooses to make use of us, filling our days with praise. From experience we can testify that God makes the weak strong. We testify that God can fill a human life entirely, making its darkness bright, imbuing its trials with peace. The Lord is faithful. If we, too, stay faithful, we have nothing to fear, even face to face with the threats of our time. For let us not forget: our time, too, our strange, menacing time, can become a year of grace. In Christ’s name! Amen. A priest’s hands are anointed during the rite of ordination.
Palm SundayIsaiah 50.4-7: The Lord has opened my ear. Philippians 2.6-11: Put on the mind of Christ. Matthew 26.14-66: ‘Crucify him!’ The liturgy for Holy Week is like a play in which we are at once spectators and actors. We follow Jesus day by day, then hour by hour, through the last lap of his earthly life, from he enters Jerusalem surrounded by Hosannas until he is raised up on the Cross, where cosmic silence precedes the cry: ‘It is accomplished!’ Nothing binds us together more as Church than celebrating these days together. Here, in the mystery of Christ’s Pasch, we find the basis for authentic synodality. To walk with Jesus is to say ‘Yes!’ to his Via Dolorosa in order, through the cross and death, to reach freedom and fullness of life. The Church draws us into the drama of the Passion by simple but effective means. Today’s Mass starts with rejoicing. Forty days have passed since Ash Wednesday. In a way, we’re at the journey’s end. Arrival after a good stretch of solid walking is a joyful business. Any mountaineer knows that. The chaos that results each year in our atrium when the acolytes pass palm branches round gives a taste of the heady, busy atmosphere in which Jesus made his entry on a donkey — a donkey! — into Jerusalem accompanied by the crowd’s eloquent gestures. One spread his coat on the road. Another waved greenery. All sang. All moved concertedly forward around the mounted, riding One. It is … fun to take part, like this, when something unusual happens. It is fun to be near the centre of things. With great sincerity, then, we now sing what people sang back then: ‘Honour, praise! You are the king of glory! Hosanna!’ In this way the liturgy touches a vital aspect of our faith: that of enthusiasm. It is right that we, followers of Christ, should let ourselves go a bit now and then, becoming once again like children, yielding to the need unselfconsciously to celebrate something great as part of an enveloping, confident troop. Palm Sunday testifies to unity and to a common goal. We believe in that goal’s triumph! The Church, like a wise Mother, lets us rejoice a while on these terms. Then she lets us consider our enthusiasm from a distance, in retrospect. That is how liturgical space works. Within it, we’re thrown backwards and forwards between past, present, and future, learning what it is like to see life in the light of eternity. At first sight, it may seem weird that we should be confronted today with the story of the Passion. Doesn’t it break the chronological sequence? The really awful things, after all, only happen on Good Friday. Could we not be allowed, just today, to be merry in the intoxication of hosannas? This is where we must remember the theatrical aspect of our celebration. When we go to the theatre to see The Wild Duck, we know how the piece ends. From the moment the curtain rises, we envisage poor Hedvig lying on the attic floor with Grandfather’s smoking pistol in her hand. To watch classical theatre is different from watching a new Netflix series. What interests us is not what will happen in the end — we know that; what interests us is to see how tension builds, how the tragedy takes shape. A brilliant author, helped by a good director, can portray Fate by putting before our eyes fatal choices made by the dramatis personae along the way, often unwittingly. The Passion of Palm Sunday puts the spotlight on us who make up the ‘crowd’ around Jesus. As long as he rides majestic and promising, we gather round him, shout Hoorah, and are glad to designate him king. But when he is accused, reviled, humiliated? Then there is no ‘crowd’ any more, only a gang of individuals showing their teeth. The voices that a while ago sang, ‘Blessed be he!’, now cry, ‘Crucify!’. People turn into a pack of wolves; and one wolf is quite happy to eat another once they have howled together for a while. This tendency is deep in us. The first fruit of original sin was fratricide. Only by striking Abel down, Cain thought, could he become somebody. Scripture, and history, show us repeatedly how occasions to step on another, some designated object of disdain, can turn into corporate madness, be the object guilty of misdemeanours or not. Here in our country, where we like to think of ourselves as paragons of peaceful order, we have seen some primitive expressions of these dynamics in the way our crown princess has recently been dragged through the mud. That people in high public office are answerable for choices they have made which redound on the nation is a matter of course. But if the nation, thereby, turns into a huddle of snarling dogs, it puts itself in a doubtful light. I mention this precise example to make a spiritual point: the weather-cock-like shiftiness that leads to Jesus’s crucifixion, turning truth-seeking into blood-thirst, is alive in my heart, perhaps in yours also. What do we do about it? In the Saint Matthew Passion, Bach intersperses a chorale when the Twelve, at the Last Supper, after hearing Jesus’s words, ‘One of you will betray me’, ask: ‘Is it me?’ The text of the chorale exclaims, on behalf of us all, quite as in the chorus of an ancient Greek tragedy: ‘It is I! I should do penance!’. Yes, I am the traitor. I have all it takes. But I don’t want to betray anymore. I want to pay what I owe, be renewed, learn what it is to be faithful. Holy Week makes an eternal drama almost insufferably concrete. We must decide afresh: which side am I really on? That of blessing or that of a curse, that of pardon or that of condemnation, that of life or that of death? ‘Abide with me’, says Jesus: ‘Watch with me’. Yes, that’s what we must do. Lord Jesus, surrender us not to our weakness! Let our part in your chalice reform our life, and the world’s. Amen. German fifteenth-century relief, now in the The Metropolitan Museum.
Tordis ØrjasæterIn her last book, published in 2024, Tordis Ørjasæter noted a childhood remembrance her husband Jo had shared from his native Gudbrandsdalen. Once, when he went to visit ‘one of the aunts on the farm, who lay dying, she bade him farewell with the words: ‘Welcome to my funeral!” What a beautiful and touching thing that even death can be an occasion to show hospitality. Yesterday, on her ninety-ninth birthday, Tordis died. It is natural, then, to evoke this motif. She was a wonderfully hospitable, generous woman. I met her first on a veranda in Assisi long ago. It was a gift to be offered her friendship, which was easy to cultivate. Quite as a matter of course we could, each time we met, pick up the thread from our last conversation. A real scholar, she had her wits about her till the end. If one needed to trace a reference in Undset, one got an immediate answer, always given with the joy of passing on knowledge that is precious and dear. The fact that her fine biography of Sigrid Undset has not been translated into English is one of life’s mysteries. Tordis was curious about eternity. Now she sees. May her memory be eternal!
AnnunciationThe collect for the feast of the Annunciation contains a phrase that each year makes me thoughtful. The official English translation obscures it a bit, alas. It lets the prayer begin in this way: ‘O God, who willed that your Word should take on the reality of human flesh’ – which is fine, of course, and exalted and true. Still, the Latin is more radical. It prays: Deus qui Verbum tuum in utero Virginis Mariæ veritatem carnis humanæ suscipere voluisti. Which is to say: ‘Gud, who willed that, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, your Word should take on the truth of human flesh.’ One understands why the translators opted as they did. One sympathises with them. The collect is clearly out to stress the realism of the incarnation. To stress ‘reality’ rather than ‘truth’ forestalls any attempt at interpretation that is too notional. That is all very well. The fact remains: in the Church’s mother tongue, human flesh – that is, our personal embodied nature with its characteristics, gifts and deficiencies – is referred to as a bearer of truth. Truth, then, is not just something that has to do with thinking high thoughts. Truth is more than sublime abstraction. Truth is something we are called to be with our entire selves. And after all, Jesus says, ‘I am the truth’ (Jn 14.6), not merely, ‘I tell you the truth’; but ‘I am the truth’. In an analogous way he calls us, too, to become truth entirely We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength (cf. Mk 12.30). We are also to honour him ‘in [our] body’ (cf. 1 Cor 6.20). The Annunciation marks the beginning of God’s incarnation. Mary’s Yes, her free consent to the Lord’s gracious plan, enables the Word to become flesh. At the same time the Annunciation points forward towards Easter. The truth is of eternity; what is true passes not. If the flesh possesses its truth, it carries within it a seed of eternity. That seed lets us confess with confidence our faith in the resurrection of the flesh. We are called to eternal life not just as vaguely spiritual beings but somehow (in a way we cannot yet imagine) as beings consisting of soul, mind and body. Today’s solemnity shows God’s high regard for the flesh, a necessary part of our nature formed in his image. Let us, too, regard it highly and live worthily, truly in it. Amen. Medieval enamel from Limoges in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Joint Holy Week and Easter 2026 message by Archbishops of #Armagh Archbishop Eamon Martin and Archbishop John McDowell: ‘Peace be with you’ To read more click ⬇️ catholicbishops.ie/2026/03/29/joi… 2 Likes
...’So they took palm branches off the palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!’. #palmsunday🌿 7 Likes
Photos from Cloyne Diocese's postToday, March 25th, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation. The Solemnity of the Annunciation celebrates the coming of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary to announce to her the special mission God had chosen for her in being Read More 12 Likes
Cloyne Diocese Paróiste Ghobnatan
Rathcormac Parish