+ When we are young we ask “What shall I do with my life?” As we grow older we ask “What have I done with my life?” They are natural and good questions: a life lived purposefully is personally fulfilling. The good it achieves is real and is a consolation when the limitations of sickness or old age arrive.
 
Of course, it is possible to live a purposeful and satisfying life that is entirely self-centred in which I and I alone matter. Other people are welcome to take their place in the course of my life in so far as they contribute to my goals, but their happiness is ultimately not my concern. I will probably make an exception for immediate family, naturally enough, but people beyond that circle must look after themselves.
 
The problem with this all-too-common scenario is, once again, the omnipresent “I”. Me; my will; what “I” want—all of these things are at the centre of my existence and activity. They alone give meaning and purpose: one that is finite and that ends abruptly in death.
 
If, however, we ask “What does Almighty God will that I do with my life?”, we are travelling by a different road—one that does not have a dead end, but rather one in which the knowledge that I have assiduously striven to do God’s will throughout my life gives a meaning and purpose that is consummated only in and beyond the end of my life here on earth. For in renouncing the almighty “I”, in denying ourselves and taking up the cross and following God’s will, in losing the self-centred life we could have had for the sake of doing God’s will, we will find life itself, indeed we find Life Himself! (cf. Mt 16:24-25).
 
“What does Almighty God will that I do with my life?” Years can be spent—half a lifetime wasted even —in anguished ‘discernment’ over this question, and yes, Almighty God does call us to serve Him in this life in different ways. However, regardless of the particular life to which we are called, Our Lord Jesus Christ makes abundantly clear in the Holy Gospel this morning that first and foremost each and every one of us is called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind. Our primary obligation is to God: to love and worship Him. Everything else follows on, indeed it flows, from this.
 
For the monk who does not put the love and adoration of Almighty God first amongst his duties is unworthy of the name. The marriage that is not itself a sacrificial act of the love of God is a mere human contract. Clerics whose career accomplishments may be renown throughout the world but who neglect their first duty—the zealous love and faithful worship of Almighty God—are in grave danger of eternal condemnation. Any number of seemingly good or even great human endeavours and achievements that are not rooted in the love of God are—to borrow St Paul’s words—little more than “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” (cf. 1 Cor 13:1)
 
This is why the Church’s solemn public worship of Almighty God (“the Sacred Liturgy”) is fundamental to Christian life. To be a Christian is to live a liturgical life—as a bare minimum by participating in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. If I exclude myself from the Church’s solemn worship, I cut myself off from Christ and break the first and greatest commandment. If I am parsimonious in my liturgical worship—or were the Church herself to become so—it could legitimately be asked whether we are loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind. This, of course, is why questions of liturgical worship and rite are by no means at all peripheral matters…
 
Our Lord gives us a second answer to the question of “What does Almighty God will that I do with my life?”: we must love our neighbour as ourselves. Again, this commandment holds true regardless of the shape of our particular vocation, even if some may be dedicated to more active service of others.
 
But this is the second commandment, not the first. If we respect this order and give the first commandment the  priority that is its due, we shall avoid the pernicious quicksand of activism that has swallowed up the faith of many Christians, reducing them to secular do-gooders ready to do good to all except, seemingly, to Almighty God. So too this priority helps in the discernment of our particular vocation: if I am concerned primarily about what I can “do” in a particular life, rather than first seeking to love God in and through it, then I should think again. Again, as St Paul teaches, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Cor 13:3).
 
The questions “What shall I do with my life?” and “What have I done with my life?” are of vital importance, for upon the answers to them we shall be judged. Let us beg the grace of Almighty God in this Holy Mass then, ever more to love Him with all of our heart, all of our soul and all of our mind, most particularly in the Church’s solemn worship, and to live out that love of Him in love of our neighbour in the daily circumstances of the particular life to which He calls me. +

​+ If our contemporary world teaches us anything, it teaches us that “I am number one;” that my needs, wishes and desires come first. My prosperity, my career, my preferences: a successful life is one in which these move forward with the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of pain or loss. Lifelong success in this somewhat risky enterprise is even seen as sufficient to compensate for the inevitability of death: “He had a good life; he did very well for himself,” we console ourselves when the erstwhile “I” lies silent in the grave, hoping that we too can escape its inevitability for at least a little longer.
 
For “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,” Our Blessed Lord teaches us through the Gospel of this Holy Mass. And there is nothing more humbling that the fact that each one of us shall die: that I shall no longer be in control of what I can or want to do—that the “I” who has for decades sought, with greater or lesser success, to determine in what manner, when and how I would like to engage with others lies silent and powerless in death. For our secular, godless world death is indeed the ultimate humiliation.
 
Our Lord also teaches us this morning that “he who humbles himself will be exalted”.  St Paul puts this somewhat more clearly: “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.” (Rom. 8:13) If I live according to my own will, death will claim its victory over me in the end. If my life is lived in humility, where God is “number one” (and not “I”) then death has no power over me (cf. I Cor. 15:55-57). Eternal exaltation, not annihilation, awaits me when my life on earth is done.
 
But humility is not at all attractive in a world where the jousting of egos is all that matters. Humility is perceived as weakness, as opting out of the pursuit of power and success. And yet nothing could be further from the truth. “Humildad es andar en verdad,” the great sixteenth century Carmelite St Teresa of Avila teaches: “Humility is to walk in Truth.” Humility is to accept the reality that God is, that I am His creature and that the eternal exaltation He offers me is mine if I persevere faithfully my worship of Him in the particular circumstances of the life and vocation He has given to me.
 
Countless martyrs and other saints over the centuries bear witness to the strength, the power and the resolution that  humility gives: they have persevered in living the Truth that God is, and that He has revealed Himself definitively in this world in the Person of Jesus Christ, who founded one Church for the salvation of all mankind—regardless of the ridicule of the world. And when the powers of this world could bear their rebuke no longer, the saints have willing laid down their earthly lives in the sure hope of that exultation promised by Our Lord. This is humility—powerful, (eternal) life-giving humility. This is losing one’s life in order to save it for all eternity!
 
St Benedict devotes the seventh chapter of his Rule (which by happy coincidence we begin to read in Chapter today) to humility. He enumerates twelve degrees of humility, twelve steps of a ladder as it were, by which we come to God. It is impossible to consider each of these this morning: I warmly invite you open the Rule and to consider them privately in the coming days. But what we can ponder simply enough is the Gospel’s contrast of “self-exaltation” (or “pride” as St Benedict would put it) and “humility”.
 
For no matter what my state in life, the battle between pride and humble service of the Truth is my daily fare. The monk must live the truth that he serves God, not his own will. The married man or woman must put their own preferences behind them and faithfully love and serve their spouse and family. Young people in search of God’s Holy Will for their life must be quiet enough to hear His call, and not energetically dress up their own will under the guise of so-called “discernment” (a reality encountered all-too-often in so-called “traditional” circles). Those who exercise authority must exercise it for glory of Almighty God and the salvation of His people (something often reduced to the desultory expression “the common good”) not their own political ends—above all when this authority is held in persona Christi.
 
Each of us must convert and conform ourselves and our consciences to the moral law laid down by Almighty God, and not acquiesce in self-deception, or seek to bless a prideful corruption of the Truth in the name of (false) compassion or inclusivity. Those whose vocation it is to teach the Truth of Christ must do so clearly, without fearing the opprobrium of those for whom only this world and its pleasures matter. And yes, we must be ready to follow the example of the saints and martyrs in bearing resolute humble witness to the Truth until the end.
 
Whether I be pope, president, prime minister, prince, priest, politician, parent, pupil or private person, I am called to this heroic daily humble service of the truth. If I persevere thus, Our Lord promises me that I shall be exalted.
 
For the grace and humility so to persevere, and that others shall come to the humble recognition of this Truth, let us entreat Almighty God at His altar this morning. +

+ “Behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ And He came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And He gave him to his mother.”
 
“He had compassion on her.” This is surely one of the most beautiful incidents in the Gospel—akin to the tears Our Lord shed when faced with the death of his beloved friend Lazarus (Jn 11:35)—for a widowed mother burying her only son was not only suffering a mother’s grief but also the prospect of financial and social destitution. Her copious tears, and no explicit demand, moved Our Blessed Lord to have compassion, to partake in her sorrow and grief, and then to do what He only could do: raise the man to life and to give him back to his mother, thereby giving her back her own life and security.
 
We live in a hard, cold and efficient world where compassion is often dismissed as sentimental weakness. Impersonal policies and even ideologies dictate the treatment of persons, particularly of those in need or distress. Let us not forget recent history which saw many governments forbid even husbands and wives to be present at each other’s deathbeds and refused them access to the ministrations of priests, in a bid to preserve the bodily health of others whilst people died alone, in great distress if not despair, without even the consolation and fortification of the sacraments.
 
Even the Church is not immune. This very month of September many individuals, families and parish and religious communities are suffering anew from the glacial imposition of authoritarian policies based on an ideological position that ‘what earlier generations held as sacred, does not remain sacred and great for us too, and must be all of a sudden be entirely forbidden and considered harmful.’ There is no concern for the wellbeing (indeed for the eternal salvation) of those thus disenfranchised. There is no compassion before the tears that those in authority have caused to flow. Rather, there is a heartless and cruel exercise of power by those whose very vocation is to show compassion.
 
We must resist and do all that we can to counter such abuse, in society and in the Church, with the compassion of Christ—with the compassion of the Cross. For Our Lord was not only deeply moved by the suffering of the widow of Naim, or by the death of Lazarus: He is the very incarnation of the Compassion of Almighty God for all of mankind. His self-sacrifice on the Cross, to the very last drop of His Precious Blood, is the Eternal Sacrifice of Compassion in which He takes upon Himself the sins of the world that they might not destroy us and lead to eternal death, but that we might rise, freed from the burden of their just punishment, to new and everlasting life.
 
When governments deny access to this sacrifice, particularly to those in extremis, they act beyond their competence and may justly be disobeyed. When ecclesiastical authorities seek to extinguish the very liturgical form of the re-presentation of this sacrifice that has been the beating heart of the Church for more than a thousand years, and which has brought renewed life to her in our own day—particularly amongst the young—their commands are nothing but a loveless “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1) and should be treated as such. The Compassion of the Cross, the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary and the salvation if offers, is our business—indeed, it must be our first priority. The salvation of souls is the supreme law: prelates’ paltry political preferences and power plays are not.
 
In the epistle of this Mass St Paul, too, exhorts us to minister the Compassion of Christ: “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ”—an exhortation repeated each day in the monastic Office of Sext. It is instructive. Compassion is gentle, it bears the burdens of another, it is humbly conscious of one’s own frailty, sinfulness and needs. It seeks to restore the one who suffers (even if this is the result of their own wilful wrongdoing) to full spiritual health, forgiving all for the love of Christ.
 
My brothers and sisters, the Compassion of Our Blessed Lord shown to the widow of Naim and taught by St Paul to the Church in Galatia, and through them to us this morning, is to be our standard. Whilst we may rightly lament,  denounce and resist the lack of this compassion in authorities whose duty it is to exercise it (in some situations this may even become a duty), let us look first to ourselves as St Paul advises and, as we participate anew in the Eternal Sacrifice of the Compassion of Almighty God at this altar, let us beg of Him the grace always to be able humbly and lovingly to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” +

On this feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross we are happy to announce that a limited number of replicas of our apse crucifix carved by Ferdinand Stuflesser & co earlier in the year are available at the special offer price 345 euros (worldwide postage included). Normally priced at 375 euros + postage we are happy to offer them at this reduced price for the remainder of September.

The replicas, themselves made by Stuflesser in linden wood, with a hand cut INRI which, together with the halo, is decorated in gold leaf, measure 49cm x 32cm—suitable for display in the home, workplace or school, or even for small home chapel or shrine.

​Orders can be placed using the PayPal button below or using the other methods indicated on the monastery website support page.

Per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.
​
Crucifixes can be blessed with the traditional Latin blessing before they are shipped if this is desired.

​+ With war continuing in Eastern Europe and winter approaching, the disruption of energy supply lines and the severe price increases this is causing across the economic spectrum has whole populations worrying about how they can keep warm this winter, let alone what they shall be able to eat or drink or even to wear. The birds of the air may not have these anxieties, but modern urban populations who are dependent upon commerce and economic stability for the basic needs of life most certainly do. What, then, does Our Lord teach us in the Holy Gospel of this Mass?
 
His teaching is clear: “O men of little faith…Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” This doctrine may seem a little overly pious, naïve even; faith does not pay bills!
 
Or it may not seem to. There was once a Prior of a new monastic foundation who, amidst all the material demands of its establishment expressed concern to his Cellarer about how they were going to pay all the bills. “Don’t you believe in God?” came the swift rebuke. “He will provide.” He did. He has. He continues so to do. For whilst monks and monasteries must needs deal with material realities, their duty—which is nothing other than the duty of every Christian—is first to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It is to place first things first and to know that the act of faith in so doing shall be richly rewarded by Almighty God.
 
How do we seek the Kingdom of God? What must we place first? For the monk this is clear: the bell, the “voice of God” calls him from his work or slumber to his choir stall to sing the praises of Almighty God. His superior calls him to undertake this or that work, whether it be of great importance or of little, and thereby to offer to Almighty God the pleasing sacrifice of holy obedience. And indeed, the cloister of the monastery and the Rule call him to that ongoing conversion of life, to that detachment from the things of this world, to that crucifixion of the flesh with its passions and desires, and to live and to walk by the life and light of God the Holy Spirit as St Paul so eloquently urges us in this morning’s Epistle.
 
Whilst not all Christians have the benefit of a cloister, a bell and a Rule, we all have the clear traditional precepts of the Church which require that we faithfully and fruitfully participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass each Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, that we make a good confession at least once a year, that we receive Holy Communion worthily at least during the season of Easter, that we observe the fasting and abstinence required of us and that we provide for the material needs of the Church according to our means. These precepts—which are too often unknown —provide a bare minimum if we are to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Fervent daily prayer and conscientious attention to the duties of our particular vocation in life are similarly indispensable. The voice of God calls every baptised person to at least these.
 
So too, speaking through His apostle St Paul, Almighty God calls us to that conversion of life which lives according to the truth that if we engage in “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like” we “shall not inherit the Kingdom of God,” and that rather, nourished by the God’s healing and sustaining grace received in the sacraments we are called to practice “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
 
This is all well and good and indeed true, we may say, but how does it pay the ever-increasing bills? Prayer, the worship of Almighty God, the conversion of my life from one of vice to one of virtue may certainly be good things to pursue, but they do not put money into the bank!
 
If there is one lesson that Our Lord wishes to teach us through the Holy Gospel today it is to have faith in the Providence of Almighty God. With all the technology at our disposal we plan and budget and forecast with great industry and intelligence, often only to increase our anxiety. In spite of our enormous (faceless) governmental systems of social care we panic when they are unable to meet the demands of the moment. The birds of the air mock us. The lilies of the field rebuke us. And Almighty God weeps: “Have faith,” He cries.
 
If we do have faith, if we do seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, if we do convert our lives so that they bring forth the fruits of the Holy Spirit living in us, we shall live as Christians and joyfully assist those in true material need (cf. Acts 2:44-45). In and for the love of Christ, we shall seek out those who suffer and do what we can to alleviate their distress. The concrete workings of God’s Providence in our day are our responsibility. The goods over which we have been given stewardship are at our disposal for use unto the Glory of Almighty God and for the salvation of souls.
 
And if we accept that responsibility, if we become the instruments of His Providence in our times, we ourselves shall not want for anything. All that we truly need, and more, shall be ours—as we are taught in the Holy Gospel this morning.
 
For an increase of faith, for the courage and resolve further to covert our lives, and for the increase of the fruits of the Holy Spirit in our daily actions, let us beg Almighty God in this Holy Mass—for in the Providence of Almighty God, there are many who depend on us for all that He wishes them to receive. +

​+ “One of [the lepers], when he saw that he was cured, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus said, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?”
 
Where indeed! To be cured from leprosy was then, and is still now, no small matter. When one has cried out and begged for the mercy of healing, one would rightly expect—as a matter of justice and not merely of polite social convention—at least some act thanksgiving upon receiving it.
 
If we look carefully at the language used by St Luke, we begin to see that this passage from the Holy Gospel is not simply a record of complacent ingratitude in the face of ultimate generosity, and of the extraordinary fact that it takes an outsider to do what is just in response, we can also begin to recognise that what is being described is highly cultic or liturgical.  
 
The lepers are told to go and show themselves to the priests, presumably so that their healing can be verified and so that they can be reintegrated into the community. What do have here other than an analogy for the cleansing waters of Baptism and indeed of the grace of what the Church came to call the “second baptism” which is nothing other than the Sacrament of Penance or Confession, so much needed in our day? For whilst the actual disease of leprosy may thankfully be rare in our times, the leprosy of sin and the spiritual deformation it brings abound. Our Lord’s command to “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” speaks clearly: let us not hesitate so to do, so that in this most beautiful sacrament we might encounter His mercy and receive the healing we so desperately need.
 
So too, St Luke chooses his words carefully in describing the reaction of the healed Samaritan. He returns to Our Lord loudly “glorifying God”—the use of the Greek word “doxa” makes clear that this is a cultic activity—and, falling on his face, gave Him thanks”. This is no peremptory “Thanks very much.” It is an act of worship of Almighty God. Again the Greek “eucharistein” employed by St Luke has clear liturgical connotations, as indeed does his reference to falling on one’s face before the Lord.
 
Let us consider this a little. The gift of being healed by the power of Almighty God from leprosy requires a response from the person healed, of which response the Samaritan is exemplary. So too the gift of baptism, and the gift of a “second baptism” in the Sacrament of Penance (no matter however many times we may need to receive this gift) requires from us, in justice, an appropriate response, lest we be counted amongst the nine.
 
What is this response? It is nothing other than to fall on our faces before the Lord and to give Him thanks. This has been the Church’s solemn but joyful duty for two millennia: to offer the Sacrament of Thanksgiving, the Most Blessed Eucharist, to Almighty God in humble gratitude for the gift of our salvation made possible by the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross.
 
Indeed, so profoundly grateful were our forebears for the cleansing they received in Holy Baptism that over the centuries this thanksgiving was enriched and developed into the noble edifice that we call the Sacred Liturgy. Nothing was or is too good to offer in thanksgiving to Our Blessed Lord in celebration for all that He has given and continues to give to us! Indeed, the very stones of this monastery church were erected in their sober Romanesque perfection a thousand years ago by a Provencal family who wished to offer thanks to Almighty God, and it is the singular privilege of we monks to restore it to its true purpose and to do so here once again, seven times a day and once at night.
 
Using the words of St Thomas Aquinas the Church exhorts us to ‘dare to do as much as we can’ (“Quantum potes, tantum aude;” Sequence of Corpus Christi) in praise of the gift of our salvation in Christ made present in the Blessed Eucharist. It is somewhat unfitting, therefore, if not downright unworthy, that so much of our precious liturgical heritage so faithfully handed on in Tradition was hastily jettisoned by the parsimonious reform following the most recent Ecumenical Council. Indeed, it is dangerous, for when what is handed on in Tradition becomes subject to the positivistic policies of those who grasp authority with the intent to impose their own agenda, Christ Himself and the demands He makes of us in justice (liturgically, doctrinally, morally, etc.) can all too easily be cast aside. His grace and our thanksgiving to Him for it almost become unnecessary as we congratulate and thank ourselves for what we have done for Him!
 
We must avoid this grave error—which is dangerously present in our day—at all costs. And we must fight and resist its incursions into the life of the Church of Christ.
 
Our duty is that of the Samaritan: humbly to cast ourselves at the foot of the altar in profound thanksgiving for the graces we have received. It is to offer Our Saviour the most worthy adoration of heart, mind, soul and body of which we are capable, full of reverential gratitude to our forebears for the riches of Tradition that they developed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and have handed on to us, ever conscious of the duty faithfully to hand these riches on in an ever-new, living and fruitful integrity so that generations to come may themselves offer worthy thanksgiving to Almighty God for all that He wishes to do for them. +

+ The teaching of the parable of the Good Samaritan is crystal clear: show mercy to your neighbour in need as did the Samaritan and do not pass by on the other side of the road as did the priest and the levite—busy as they no doubt were with the important matters of God.
 
The history of the Church rightly boasts of centuries of such practical mercy. Before secular states seized and socialised welfare programmes the Church, particularly the monasteries and other later religious houses had been caring for the unfortunate for centuries. Even in the post-enlightenment secular world new religious congregations sprang up to care for those whom these supposedly enlightened societies regarded as of no value. France has given birth to many such congregations, pre-eminently the Daughters of Charity founded by St Vincent de Paul (†1660) whose good works have shed the light of Christ in many countries.
 
In more recent times we have the powerful witness of St Teresa of Calcutta (†1997) whose care for the “poorest of the poor” ensured that the loving and merciful face of Christ was and is a living reality in a turbulent Church and increasingly post-Christian world. So too her voice raised time and time again in defence of the right to life of the unborn child was that of a prophet on fire with the love and justice of Almighty God—true charity indeed.
 
Yes, the witness of the great saints of practical charity is something of which the Church is rightly proud and celebrates. It is a witness which calls each of us not only to support such activities in our own days, but to engage in them when our neighbour is in need—and not to cross the road and to hurry on by in our preoccupations, whatever or how seemingly important they may be.
 
Yet we must also avoid the danger of rushing to become Christian activists, of ‘doing good’ as it were, all day every day every week. For whilst we may well be engaging in good works, activism, in spite of its good intentions and effects, is a profound misinterpretation of the Gospel. Not only does it lead to burn-out at the human level, it does so spiritually, denying the very nature and purpose of human persons created in the image and likeness of God.
 
What we must never forget is that the commandment to love our neighbour, of which the Parable of the Good Samaritan is the exemplar par excellence, is the second commandment. As Our Lord teaches in the Holy Gospel of this Mass, there is another commandment that comes first, and which takes precedence: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with the love of thy whole heart, and thy whole soul, and thy whole strength and thy whole mind.”
 
Of course, this is something that St Vincent de Paul, St Teresa of Calcutta and all the other founders of religious congregations engaged in the apostolate of Christian charity knew and believed: their religious had (have) a regime of prayer that in our own day many monasteries would find too demanding—and all of this before, during and after more than a full day’s active service of Christ in others. That is to say that they knew and practised the reality that Christian charity comes from and must be sustained by that profound relationship with the person of Jesus Christ which is nourished through faithful and fruitful participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments, the other liturgical rites and personal prayer and devotion. A Christian who prays—cleric, religious or lay man or woman—is able to practice the Charity of Christ. One who does not may well be able to do many good things (as may a person who does not believe in Christ), but such good works are not Christian charity because they do not arise from that worship of Almighty God which is essential if we are to be whom we are called to be and to do that which He wishes us to accomplish,
 
Recent decades have shown us the sad reality that when the demands of the life of prayer are diminished in a religious congregation their apostolate is quickly abandoned. There are other factors, certainly, but it is nevertheless true (as Mother Teresa’s missionaries witness to this day) that, no matter what our particular vocation, if we are to practice charity, we must first know Christ in whose name we hope to practice it. The first commandment comes first. The second follows and necessarily flows from it.
 
Our task, then, is to renew our connection to Christ, the source of all charity, through our fervent and faithful assistance at Holy Mass, in our worthy reception of the other sacraments, in the devout praying of the Hours of the Divine Office, and in personal and devotional prayer. Formed and fortified thus, we shall not pass by on the other side of the road when the occasion arises: rather, we shall be able to recognise the face of Christ in those who suffer, and thus accept the opportunity to worship Him all the more. +

+ Tradidi enim vobis in primis, quod et accepi… the Apostle Paul insists in the Epistle of this Holy Mass: I delivered unto you first of all [that] which I also received. The use of this phrase by a famous twentieth-century archbishop, abbreviated to read tradidi quod et accepi (I handed on what I received) has given it an increased importance in recent decades—it gives rise to the tag “traddies” or to the label “traditionalists”—and we would do well to ponder its content a little.
 
St Paul is insisting that the foundation of the teaching he gave to the Corinthians was something that he himself had received from others, in tradition. That is to say, the gospel he preached was not something of his own construction, but something which he—someone unfit to be an apostle, as he later insists—received by the grace of God’s mercy and which it was his solemn duty in turn to hand on to others intact and undefiled. This is of the essence of the Catholic Faith. We receive the Faith of the Church that is faithfully handed on from the Apostles to our own day—a fact beautifully expressed in the ancient rite of handing over the Creed to catechumens before baptism. Neither we nor the successors of the apostles nor their co-workers (ordained or lay) have the right to edit, rewrite or otherwise change or dilute it.
 
Thus, to be Catholic is of its very essence to belong to the tradition of the Truth of Jesus Christ: to receive it, to strive to live according to it and faithfully to hand it on to others, be that in the privileged vocation of Christian parenthood, ordained ministry, the witness of monastic or religious consecration, the vocation of the Christian teacher or that of lay witness in the world. Tradition is not an idea— it is not reducible to a set of words nor even less to an ideological programme—it is living fidelity to the person of Jesus Christ and His definitive revelation of God in history.
 
Certainly, in her living out of that fidelity the Church has given birth to uniquely privileged and divinely inspired expressions of her Tradition, foremost amongst which we must count the collection of Sacred Scriptures that we call the Holy Bible. The Creeds, too, rank uppermost, as do the Sacred Liturgies of the East and the West. Rooted in the soil of the Faith handed down by the apostles, the Creeds and the liturgical rites have grown up over the centuries giving the realities of our Faith both form and expression in a singularly privileged sacramental manner. The liturgical rites are not simply ornaments that may (or may not) please our tastes or massage our temperaments: they are the God-given means in and through which we encounter Christ living and working in His Church today (cf. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium n. 7)
 
Thus, what may appear to a rational mind simply to be expressions of the Faith are in fact privileged vessels of Tradition, of the Catholic Faith. This may be said in respect of the Western and Eastern liturgical rites as a whole, and at least of their principal elements in particular. The best example is perhaps the Roman Canon, described by Blessed Ildephonse Schuster as “a given element of Tradition” and “a prayer unaltered and unalterable” (The Sacramentary I, p. 317). It is not of divine origin or revelation—there was when it was not [!]—but it is, in the West, such a towering pillar of the living Tradition of the Church that it unthinkable to cancel it (in fact, as was proposed some decades ago, or in reality, as has been done by the construction and insertion of parallel canons).
 
Of course, in the Tradition of the Church some liturgical forms fall away and are lost, often for good reason, and others are added as the life of the Church brings forth new and beautiful fruits which give greater glory to Almighty God. This growth, appositely described as organic, is incremental in its continuity. Pruning is possible, even necessary sometimes (as the history of the calendar of saints attests). What is unthinkable is root and branch rupture: the wholesale deracinating of all that has grown up in Tradition for the purpose of ideological editing in order to create a freshly designed cut-and-paste product in the possibly vain hope that it will take root.
 
For whilst St Paul did not have to address the liturgical turmoil of recent decades, he certainly had to assert the fundamentals of the Faith to his Churches, and to instruct them in the required orthodoxy and liturgical behaviour. His letters make it utterly clear that an à la carte approach to the Catholic Faith is utterly unacceptable. We receive the Faith in Tradition and in doing so we also receive the duty of ourselves handing it on intact. Mutatis mutandis this applies equally to us in respect of the Sacred Liturgy, respecting the fact that some elements may change and develop, but that it must always be in substantial continuity with that handed on in Tradition.
 
Let us not cease to correct, and if necessary to combat, the à la carte approach to faith, morals and the Sacred Liturgy: it is a true cancer in the Body of Christ and it is widespread. Let us renew our own participation in the Sacred Rites, ancient and ever new, that have grown up in Tradition, that we may be witnesses to their value and efficacy today and thus hand them on to the generations to come as the utterly vital treasures that they are. +

+ Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori. “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
 
These words, uttered in the Temple by a miserable publican who would not dare to come close or even to raise his eyes upwards towards God, but who could only beat his breast with eyes downcast, resound through the centuries. So too do those of the Pharisee, who worships himself and who demands that Almighty God does the same.
 
To be sure, there are the Pharisees of our own times whose altars are their mirrors and whose ideological power-plays in the life of the Church—most clearly in respect of the Church’s ancient liturgical rites, but in many other vital areas as well—seek their own self-aggrandisement rather than the glory of Almighty God. In their self-exaltation such would-be princes and their acolytes “have had their reward” as Our Lord says elsewhere. (cf. Mt 6:2)
 
Whilst not ceasing to pray for the repentance and conversion of these men, and conscious of the duty to work assiduously for the reparation of the damage their actions cause to the salvation of souls, let us return to the miserable publican. He, in his sin, has the grace of humility. Pride has not devoured his sense of shame. The publican has not put Almighty God into a cage and sought to teach Him to worship His creatures’ every thought and deed. Rather, the publican has come to the Temple—the unique place where Almighty God may be most directly encountered on this earth—with few but utterly poignant words: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
 
As St Augustine taught at matins this morning, whilst the publican’s conscience oppressed him, hope in God’s mercy raised him up. Having a conscience and hope in God’s mercy: this is what saved the publican. We would to well to ponder this.
 
Conscience is my ability to know what is right or what is wrong in a particular situation. It enables me to make a practical moral judgement in the face the circumstances that confront me daily. For conscience to function properly it must be formed and informed, it must know God’s Truth faithfully taught by the Magisterium of His One True Church in the circumstances of our particular times. In extraordinary circumstances, such as when medical emergencies occur, I am duty bound to inform my conscience in view of the important decisions that must be made. If my conscience is not formed thus, it is erroneous. It will not guide me along the right path in ordinary or extraordinary circumstances. As an eminent compatriot of mine once blithely put it: “A badly formed conscience is about as much use as a clock that is not set to the right time.”
 
Our miserable publican had no difficulty with his conscience. He did not dismiss his sins by saying “everybody does that”, nor did he justify his immoral actions because they were part of some great ideological programme. No. He knew what is right and what is wrong. He called sin, sin. And he knew that he had truly sinned. Hence, he could utter those humble words of hope: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
 
If the Revelation of Almighty God in history, first to the Chosen People and then in the Incarnation of His Only Begotten Son, is about anything at all, it is about the reality and availability of God’s mercy—a fact we reaffirm every time we make the sign of the cross: the sign of our salvation in Jesus Christ Who is Hope Itself. Through His Sacrifice on the Cross God’s mercy is made available to we sinners: through the Sacraments of the One True Church that He founded we have direct and guaranteed access to it. Baptism into Christ’s Church washes away all sin and when necessary our humble use of the Sacrament of Confession restores our Baptismal purity. Our sins may well be worse than those of a miserable publican, but we may—indeed for the sake of the salvation of our souls, we must—find hope in God’s mercy. St John Chrysostom has some pertinent advice: “Let no one put forward the poor excuse: I dare not [confess my sins], I am ashamed…That kind of fear is from the devil [who] wishes to close approaches to God.” Fear and despair have no place in the Church of Christ: the supernatural virtue of hope and the reality of God’s mercy must reign.
 
As we stand before this Altar this morning, even if we be a long way from it with eyes cast down because of our sins, let us take courage from the Collect of this Holy Mass—indeed, let us pray it repeatedly in the week to come with renewed hope in the mercy of Almighty God: “O God, Who manifests Your almighty power most chiefly in sparing [us] and showing mercy: multiply upon us Your mercy: that as we hasten towards Your promises, You may make us partakers of the heavenly treasures.” Amen. +