Lent 5 B (2024)
This is a homily of two halves…..first…
Bishop Ralph’s letter and ‘Facing the future’…..
What future? Well, I don’t know, but it seems clear that,
within a few years, priests will be ministering to larger areas.
That’s a bit abstract, so why not
imagine two priests sharing St William’s, Mother of God, St Francis,
Our Lady and St Thomas’ and St Vincent’s,
with one Sunday Mass in each venue
– which would accommodate current Mass attendances.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying this is the plan – I have no idea –
but imagining this scenario, which is not ridiculous, can focus reflection.
What should we do now to prepare?
Let’s use this time of prayer, reflection and consultation
to discern what to do locally, that is in St William’s,
to ready ourselves.
Fifty years ago, I was a postgraduate student.
A thought from one homily by the university Chaplin, Fr Crispin Hollis, – subsequently bishop of Portsmouth –
remains with me and seems relevant to our present situation.
He commented that his assistant chaplain, Fr Walter Drumm, was the youngest priest of the Westminster diocese.
Fr Drumm didn’t look young to me:
actually he was in his mid thirties (12 years older than I was).
My recollection is that Fr Hollis wondered,
in the light of Vatican 2’s understanding of the Church,
whether the perceived lack of priestly vocations in this country
was a work of the Holy Spirit –
inviting us all to understand better, and differently,
the apostolate of the baptised, confirmed Catholic.
Turning now to the wonderful readings, which I cannot do justice to.
First the gospel,
which is from the final chapter before John’s account of the last supper;
it is an ‘explainer’ for what is to come.
We hear human anguish; acceptance; giving all.
Leading to
when I am lifted up from the earth I shall draw all people to myself
‘lifted up’ is deliberately ambiguous:
pointing both to the crucifixion, being lifted up on the cross,
and to glorification, being lifted up to God’s right hand.
So, in this single sentence:
suffering, death, glory – for our salvation and transformation:
the paschal mystery.
Our reading from Hebrews has the same focus.
Jesus, Son of God and human, facing human reality:
his human dedication to his Father’s will is tested in his passion,
and not found wanting: and so
he learnt to obey through suffering,
and, thereby, was ‘made perfect’. What does ‘made perfect’ mean?
God’s identification with the human condition in Jesus is fully realised
only when Jesus’ suffering brings death;
only then is his human life ‘made perfect’,
in the sense of ‘properly complete’, ‘brought to fruition’, ‘perfected’,
and that is the sense of the Greek word translated as ‘made perfect’.
That said, it seems reasonable to me, given what comes later in Hebrews,
to hear ‘made perfect’ also as ‘in glory at the Father’s right hand’,
– much like the ambiguity in ‘lifted up’ in today’s gospel.
Jesus’ passion, death and glorification,
changes everything about our relationship with God:
initiating a new and eternal covenant,
as promised in today’s reading from Jeremiah.
That is the paschal mystery.
Suffering, death, glory, for us, drawing us in –
the paschal mystery: powerfully signified by the image above our altar.