A Homily for the Sunday after the Ascension

+ Absque synagogis facient vos: sed venit hora, ut omnis, qui interficit vos, arbitretur obsequium se praestare Deo. (They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.)

This stern warning of Our Lord that the Church proclaims to us this morning in her Sacred Liturgy touches a very raw nerve for those (of us) who worship according to the ancient rites of the Western Church. We were once assured by the Supreme Authority that: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.” (Benedict XVI, Letter, 7 July 2007) And yet today, it seems, that the Supreme Authority does consider the older rites of the Church to be harmful, and his officials—one in particular—are working assiduously to ensure that they are entirely forbidden.
 
For whilst, thanks be to God in His Providence, we are able to worship here in the rites for which these very stones were erected and blessed as a place of worship a thousand years ago in great peace and tranquility, many—far too many—of our brothers and sisters in the faith cannot do so because of an ideological prohibition ordered from above and implemented by episcopal technocrats whose actions display a grave lack of paternity, pastoral care or mercy. Around the world young, growing congregations have been put out of their own parish churches—some with the doors permanently closed in their faces. others transferred to an ill-suited basement or a sports hall, seemingly so that the parish church will not somehow be ‘defiled’, or so that other parishioners will be led astray, by that which, we were taught, “remains sacred and great for us too.”
 
“They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” These are haunting words, for at this time it is a fact that there are those in authority in the Church who, as a supposed service to God, actively seek to kill the worship that is the daily bread of our hearts, minds and souls.
 
Thanks be to God there are also those in authority who realise that this is a profoundly erroneous and unjust campaign. They know only too well that its pastoral implications alone are disastrous and that its potential further to divide a doctrinally fragmented Church is real. Of course, at present, such sentiments are very much out of favour and bishops and others must be careful: their sanction or removal is a constant threat that all to often renders their good will impotent in practice. At this time they very much need the courage of the original apostles!
 
What are we to do? What can we do in the face of the real persecution that is waged by the poisonous pens of such potentates?
 
The Church addresses us thus in the words of St Peter in this morning’s Epistle:
 
“The end of all things is at hand; therefore, keep sane and sober for your prayers. Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another. As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace…” 
 
To practice sanity, sobriety, charity, hospitality, the service of others and good stewardship of what has been entrusted to us: this is what we are to do in the face of this (or any) crisis. This is certainly the ambition of our monastery—and we are profoundly aware of our duties in this respect—but mutatis mutandis it should be that of each one of us, come what may. We may not be able to influence the ecclesiastical politics that produce the positivistic diktats that are so inimical to all that is true, beautiful and good, but we can be sane and sober in our life of prayer (liturgical and personal); we can practice true charity and give hospitality to those in need of it; we can place our God-given gifts at the service of others and practice good stewardship of those goods that have been entrusted to us. If we do our part thus, Almighty God in His Providence will not fail to bless and reward our efforts in ways which we cannot necessarily foresee.
 
So too, in this time after the Ascension of the Lord, we must beseech a great outpouring of God the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: for in these times we (and those in authority in particular) urgently need an increase in the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. As we approach the altar this morning let us open our hearts and souls anew so the Spirit of Truth may enter ever more deeply into our beings, to purify and strengthen us, that we may be His ever more faithful and fruitful witnesses at this critical moment. +