Light of thenorth advent 2015

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I am the Light of the World “Surprised

by Mercy” Bishop Hugh Gilbert OSB Page 3

Saints Louis and Zélie Martin Sr Anna Christi Page 4

North Is s u e 30, Au t u m n, 2015 Archbishop Emeritus, Mario Conti shares his favourite hymns Page 20

Each copy of the Light of the North costs over £1.00 to produce and we would ask you to consider this if you wish to make a donation.

R.C. Diocese of Aberdeen Charitable Trust, a registered Scottish Charity no. SC005122 Page 1

“Bigger on the Inside” Carol Zaleski Page 24

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Pluscarden Abbey’s South Range Appeal David Broadfoot MBE

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ince the announcement of the South Range Appeal at Pluscarden Abbey and the establishment of the appeal office at 216 High Street in Elgin, David Broadfoot MBE, the appeal Development Director, has produced a strategic plan taking the appeal process through till autumn 2017. The plan is based on 4 central pillars to raise what is now the revised figure of £5 million.

The first pillar is submitting a bid for £1.5 million to the Heritage Lottery Fund and this is currently being driven forward

by John Gleeson, a long-time supporter of the abbey and a senior partner with Gleeson Historic Buildings Consultants. John is an expert at navigating the minefield that is the Lottery Funding criteria!

The second pillar is the raising of £1.5 million from private donors and charitable trusts and this is being led by the Development Director. With the Development assistant, Alison Clark, researching a database of charitable trusts, the Director will be briefing groups of possible private donors UK wide and this process kicks off on Tuesday 3rd November in Edinburgh. Any interested groups within the diocese, or further afield, who would like the Director to come and deliver a presentation should get in touch with the appeal office (details below). Whilst the briefings are clearly aimed at donors it is equally important that word of the appeal is spread and to that end church groups, Rotary Clubs

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Architect’s computer generated image of the new South Range at Pluscarden Abbey etc. are, and must be, included.

The third pillar is crowd funding which aims to raise £0.5 million and will kick off when the quantities of saleable items are known (Slates etc.) and the website, which is currently under construction, is up and running. The Director is undertaking a crowd funding course to ensure that maximum advantage will taken of this method. All this will be enhanced with the use of social media (Facebook and Twitter) which are also being set up by a social media expert.

The final pillar is a major event aimed at raising the final £1.5 million and is currently in the planning stage. This historic and innovative project will provide a major PR hook for the entire fundraising effort and above all it will mean that the appeal supporters in UK and worldwide will be able to come together and actually participate in physical fundraising as opposed to the whole exercise being one of sitting up and begging. Details of this exciting event will be revealed in the coming weeks!

The final plans for the appeal, the work of architect Philip Mercer, a well known expert in the field of restoring heritage buildings, have now all been agreed by the abbey and they are being submitted to Moray Council for approval. This project, one of the biggest of its kind undertaken in Moray in recent times, has been given the backing of Moray Council, Moray Chamber of Commerce and Moray Speyside Tourism.

David Broadfoot MBE david@pluscardenabbey.org Alison Clark appeal@pluscardenabbey.org Appeal Office 01343 555038 Manned Tuesday and Wednesday but with an answer phone facility.

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f you have access to the internet do take a look at some of the many inspiring talks and homilies given by Bishop Hugh Gilbert and other members of the clergy and which are now available on “You Tube”. These include videos of the Diocesan Faith Formation Seminars led by Bishop Hugh which cover a wide range of topics such as “Why does God allow evil?” and “The Seven Deadly Sins” . To access these videos just go to the You tube site and search for the Diocese of Aberdeen channel.

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liturgy 17 educationandformation 19 faithandculture 21 humour 34 crossword 35

Light of the North Managing Editor Deacon Tony Schmitz

Editor Cowan Watson 07816344241 editor@lightofthenorth.org

Editorial Advisor Canon Bill Anderson

Advertising Manager Jim Skwarek 01233 658611  jim.skwarek@geeringsprint.co.uk Light of the North Ogilvie Centre 16 Huntly Street Aberdeen AB10 1SH

www.lightofthenorth.org

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f you turn to page 19 of this issue Clare Benedict raises the often discussed question, “Why did Christ choose Peter to lead the Church?” It’s an intriguing question and one might also be tempted to ask, “Why did Christ choose any of the disciples?”

It has been suggested that, if Jesus had sent his twelve disciples for recruitment profiling, this might well be the response he would have received: “Thank you for submitting the résumés of the twelve men you have picked for managerial positions in your new organization. All of the candidates have now undergone extensive psychological testing and have been interviewed in depth by our Vocational Aptitude Consultant. The data has now been processed and the results conclusively demonstrate that most of your nominees are lacking in the requisite background, education and natural ability for the enterprise you have in mind.

Unfortunately, we would consider none of the candidates to be team players.

Simon Peter is emotionally unstable and given to fits of temper and Andrew has no leadership qualities. The two brothers James and John place personal interest above company loyalty. Thomas shows a sceptical attitude that would tend to undermine morale. Matthew has been blacklisted by the Jerusalem Better Business Bureau. James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus, definitely have radical leanings and registered a high score on the manic-depressive scale. One of the nominees however, Judas Iscariot, shows real potential. He is obviously a man of ability and resourcefulness, has good people skills and has contacts in all the right places. He is highly motivated, ambitious, and responsible and we would recommend him to you.”

In this season of Advent, which above all else is about hope, that assessment of the twelve apostles surely offers us encouragement: the knowledge that, in spite of all our shortcomings, we too possess gifts and often unforeseen potential; that, despite our flaws, we are loved as the first disciples were and have our place in the divine plan.

To turn now to this Advent issue of the Light of the North, do read Bishop Hugh’s introduction to the Jubilee Year of Mercy on the following page. In addition, Sr Anna Christi tells the story of Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of Thérèse of Lisieux, who were canonized in October (page 3). Sr Janet Fearns’“Advent Magnificat” which is accompanied by a truly faith inspiring photograph is not to be missed (page23).

Also, reporting from Djibouti, Fr Peter Barry, our resident “birdman”, experiences two of his rarest encounters!

A Very Blessed Advent, Cowan

up front

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ur cover this issue which depicts the Adoration of the Shepherds was painted by the Dutch painter, Gerard Van Honthorst in 1622.

Early in his career the artist travelled to Italy where he came under the influence of the great Caravaggio. It was Caravaggio who inspired his interest in unusual lighting and the dramatic effects of light and shadow to create nocturnal scenes. For this Honthorst was given the nickname “Gherardo delle Notte” (Gerard of the Night).

In order to achieve a balanced composition the three shepherds to the left are grouped in one triangle while the heads of Mary, Joseph and the ox form another triangle to the right.

This traditional, yet strikingly realistic, representation of the visitation of the shepherds draws the viewer into the stable with the shepherds. We can sense the wonder and delight that these astonished rural folk feel in the presence of the newly born, the incarnate Messiah. The incorporation of the baby’s shining, bright light speaks to the theme of Christ as The Light.

Honthorst’s use of light in the midst of dark night may be better understood when we learn that he had been described by a contemporary as “very reserved and melancholic.” In this Christmas season, may we reflect, perhaps as Honthorst did, upon the great gift of the Christ-child, who brings forth light and hope even in the dark and melancholy corners of our lives.

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A Letter from Bishop Hugh Gilbert O.S.B.

Surprised by Mercy

‘Surprised by joy’ is a phrase we know. It opens a poem of William Wordsworth’s and was taken by C. S. Lewis as the title of his 1955 autobiography, the account of his conversion to Christianity. Pope Francis, it seems, wants us to be ‘surprised by mercy’. In this Jubilee Year, he writes, ‘let us allow God to surprise us.’ Mercy is God’s surprise. It’s not what the human being naturally expects God or life or others to deliver. But it is the heart of God. This is why Pope Francis has called for this Year.

It runs from 8 December 2015 to 20 November 2016. It begins therefore, on the feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, when the mercy of God set Mary outside the sway of sin. It ends on the solemnity of Christ the Universal King when we glimpse the final effect of God’s mercy, the liberation of all creation from slavery to death. God’s mercy is his surprising response to a world marked and marred by sin and death.

What is ‘mercy’? For St Thomas Aquinas, mercy (misericordia in Latin) is what answers to miseria. Miseria is not just ‘misery’, a sense of feeling emotionally wretched. It is more. It is the opposite of what the Ancients called beatitudo or the vita beata, blessedness or the blessed life. These, says the Bible, are what the human being is made for, called to, destined for. Miseria is everything in us and around us that contradicts, thwarts, holds us back from what we most essentially long for and from what God has in store for us. Miseria is the fallen human condition; our predicament; the mess we are in and spread around us. It’s our unlikeness to God, our absence from the primal garden where all was well; it’s our personal and collective slaveries in Egypt and exiles in Babylon.

And misericordia / mercy is the humble human word for God’s astonishing response. To speak humanly, it’s what wells up in the heart (cor) of God and shines in his ‘eyes’ when he looks at us. This is beautifully disclosed at the beginning of the story of the Exodus: ‘Then the Lord said, “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey”’ (Ex 3:7-8).

That quotation leads on to something else St Thomas underlines.

God’s mercy is no mere sad, head-shaking, hand-wringing feeling sorry for us. It is something active. It is something God ‘shows’ – in action. God’s mercy aims to ‘repel’ or ‘expel’, St Thomas says, everything lacking, every shred of miseria that can cling to us. It transforms situations. It is a power. Hence the famous prayer, used on the 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time, which begins: ‘O God, who

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reveal your power above all in your mercy and forgiveness…’ And this power does not stop, as it were, at cancelling out the bad. It both removes the negative and imparts the positive. It replaces lack with abundance. It brings us into a better place. It opens up for us the good and broad land for which our whole being longs and which will be given us, in ways beyond our conceiving, in the new heaven and earth of the Kingdom of God. If we are to be ‘merciful like the Father’, then we too must do mercy. Thus the Church speaks of the 14 spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

A third thing St Thomas says: ‘A merciful person is affected by the miseria of others as if it were his own.’ ‘I have come down’, the Lord says to Moses, come down to share the miseria of his people and lead them out of it. For us, that evokes the Incarnation, when the eternal Son of God ‘came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was made incarnate of the Virgin Mary.’ In Christ, God wears a human heart. He surprises the woman caught in adultery by forgiving her. He surprises Peter, full of his denial, by asking for his love. In the humanity of Christ, in his anger and tears and compassion, in his teaching and miracles and prayer, and most of all in his passion and death, God ‘is affected by [our] miseria as if it were his own’. In fact, there’s no “as if ” about it. It is his own. He takes it into himself, is immersed in it, goes down to the world of the dead with it. Then comes the greatest surprise of all…

This is the chance the Church is giving us in a special way this coming year. This is the ‘Holy Door’ she is opening for us. To discover God’s mercy. To learn it, imbibe it, feel it, realise we are nothing without it. To show it to each other, in matters small and large. To create a culture of it.

Mercy is not what we expect. Mercy requires an admission not everything is perfect, even in ourselves. Mercy seems weak. It annoys us, strangely. The grace of this year may be for these blind spots and hardnesses to disappear. As Cardinal Kasper has written, ‘Mercy courts every human being to the very end; it activates the entire communion of saints on behalf of every individual, while taking human freedom with radical seriousness. Mercy is the good, comforting, uplifting, hope-granting message on which we can rely in every situation and which we can trust and build upon, both in life and in death. Under the mantle of mercy, there is a place for everyone of good will. It is our refuge, our hope, and our consolation.’ May the merciful Lord surprise us!

Yours devotedly in Christ, Bishop Hugh OSB

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Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia at Greyfriars

The Story of a Family Sr Anna Christi

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any people are familiar with the beautiful story and person of St. Therese of Lisieux, whom Pope St. Pius X called the “greatest saint of modern times.” Less known is the inspiring story of her parents, Louis and Zelie Martin, who were canonized this past 18th October during the Ordinary General Synod on the Family.

In their truly heroic lives of holiness and surrender to God’s will, Louis and Zelie modelled for their daughter the “little way of confidence and love,” which she lived and articulated in The Story of a Soul. Who were these “inestimable parents,” as Therese called them, and how did they use the challenges of married life to rise to sanctity?

Louis Martin (1823-1894) was a quiet man, given to contemplation and focused work. He had tried to become a contemplative monk, but his difficulties in learning the requisite Latin deterred his entrance. He was a successful watchmaker by trade and enjoyed fishing and travelling, taking journeys as far as Turkey in his later years. He was 35 when he met and married Zelie Guerin.

Louis was a man of profound surrender to the will of God. Death and separation purified him repeatedly of any false sense of control.

Sadly, he and Zelie lost four children in infancy. He also lost Zelie to cancer, leaving him with five daughters, ages four to sixteen, to raise. Therese then developed a psychological illness in which her life was despaired of. Happily, a miraculous cure from Our Lady of Victories restored her health. One by one, his daughters entered cloistered religious life, in which they would be physically separated from him forever. In his later years he suffered from cerebral arteriosclerosis, a hardening of the walls of the arteries of the brain and while he often had perfect lucidity, at other times his behaviour was humiliating to himself and his family. It was his fatherly love and abandonment to God which allowed and encouraged his family members to follow the path chosen for them

by God. Where Louis was quiet and contemplative, Zelie was active and industrious. She had also considered a religious vocation, but the superiors discerned her vocation was marriage. To support herself, Zelie became a successful entrepreneur with AlenÇon lace-making, competently completing her own work, supervising her employees, and managing her shop. It was while passing Louis one day on a bridge that an interior inspiration overwhelmed her with a sense of

Saints Louis and Zelie Martin destiny. Mutual friends encouraged them to meet and the happy twenty-seven year old Zelie found her life’s vocation with the pious and dignified Louis Martin.

Zelie loved her life as wife and mother and also displayed heroic surrender to God’s will. Of her five remaining children the eldest, Pauline and Marie and youngest, Celine and Therese, were pretty, vivacious, and clever. But the middle child, Leonie, was a source of constant concern. Prone to irritability and instability, she suffered from eczema over her entire body. She was expelled four times from school and later, three times from religious life. Zelie worried about this child, knowing a mother’s love could guide Leonie successfully into adulthood. As she accepted her own death and looked forward to heaven, Zelie released her children into the providential care of God. Her surrender was to bear fruit. Leonie finally succeeded in entering a Visitation convent, where following the “little way of confidence and love” articulated by her sister Therese, a miracle of grace was wrought in her. She is now declared “venerable,” and her cause for beatification is open.

The daily life of the Martin family was suffused with the presence of Christ and his mother, Mary. Work was seen as a blessing and a Page 5

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way to provide for the family. Attending daily Mass and gathering for family prayer, reading the lives of the saints, and promoting the practice of virtue were hallmarks of the Martins’ formation of their children. The children were encouraged to give “little sacrifices” to Jesus to prepare them to surrender to God’s will as their parents did.

The family celebrated together, were affectionate, and appreciated each other’s gifts. The constant dark shadows of death and illness saddened them, but acceptance helped them to bear the grief.

The goal of the entire family was heaven, where they would all be

reunited in endless bliss. By putting God at the centre of their lives, the Martins were not deprived of anything that made life truly beautiful and great, it made their lives more meaningful and joyful.

Louis and Zelie’s hallmark acceptance of God’s will served as an inspiration to their daughters and now are an inspiration to the entire Church. Knowing the difficulties in raising children, managing a business, and running a home, they will certainly intercede for us who long to reach heaven as they did. Saints Louis and Zelie Martin, pray for us!

Hard work recognised with Caritas award

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n 23rd August, Bishop Hugh Gilbert presented the Caritas Award to four young people from St Margaret's Parish in Shetland.

Sarah Maguire, Louise Lavery, Harry Lavery and Aiden Grogan had devoted over four hundred hours of their spare time to helping in the Parish and community, meeting regularly for prayer and discussion about their faith and then putting what they had learnt into action.

And there was plenty of action! Their activities included organising and taking part in Advent and Lenten prayer services and preparing and serving lunch for senior citizens.

They also raised over £1500 for SCIAF by walking 19 miles, washing cars, packing shopping and selling raffle tickets etc. and raised over £500 for Asha Niketan School in India.

In addition, they assisted the Salvation Army to prepare food parcels, helped clear and prepare the Chapel ready for its refurbishment, arranged coffee mornings, served a Christmas festive season meal for parish seniors and produced an Advent themed puppet show, which was shown to both senior citizens and children.

Work within the Church included serving at the altar or reading, running a Fair-trade stall, cleaning the Church and cutting grass and helping count the Parish collections.

Pheew!

The group also received the Saltire Award for their efforts and two of the group have also received the Duke of Edinburgh Award and will be taking part in World Youth Day 2016.

Their hard work has been appreciated by everyone and they all wish to continue helping and supporting the Parish in the years to come.

Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti celebrates Highland Deanery Mass

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n August 1994, Archbishop Mario Conti, then Bishop of Aberdeen, celebrated the annual Highland Deanery Mass at the medieval Collegiate Church in Tain. Twenty-one years later, on Saturday 22nd August, he was welcomed back to preside at this year’s Pilgrimage Day. The Deanery Mass was held in Tain this year in order to provide the climax of a season of events commemorating the importance of the Collegiate Church of St. Duthac. The church was filled with pilgrims and clergy from the surrounding parishes of Tain, Dingwall, Alness, Invergordon, Brora, Wick and Thurso, Fortrose, Beauly, Inverness, Culloden, Nairn, Aviemore and Fort Augustus.

The Pilgrimage celebrated the granting of the Papal Bull, issued

by Pope Innocent VIII to Tain in 1492 which confirmed the collegiate status of the church1. The term, ‘Bull’ comes from Latin ‘Bulla’ referring to the lead seal attached to papal documents. Papal recognition of the Church and Shrine at Tain led to a most active

1 See last summer’s issue of the Light of the North and Philip Ward’s historical account of this unique document.

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period of Pilgrimage, encouraged by the numerous annual visits of James IV and it became a place of royal pilgrimage by Scottish Monarchs throughout the centuries with Tain becoming Scotland’s first Royal Burgh.

On his arrival, the Archbishop was pleased to be shown around the Museum and Pilgrimage Centre and was able to inspect the original Papal Bull, accompanied by the Dean and the Museum Manager. At the weekend, pilgrims were also able to view a replica of the Papal Bull in its original silver frame at the museum and buy copies of the rare Vatican document written in Latin and now translated into English, Gaelic and several European languages for the benefit of visitors.

The Archbishop was joined by Tain’s Parish Priest, Fr. Richard Reese, and other clergy from the deanery for the Mass at 12 noon.

The Mass celebrated The Queenship of Mary and the Archbishop preached on our devotion to Our Lady as well as emphasising the importance of pilgrimage to the site of St. Duthac’s life and work.

Directly after the Mass, the clergy and congregation formed

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a procession and followed a route down to the shore below the present town, where the early medieval settlement had been established. Here, on a small hill, the ruined chapel marking the place of St. Duthac’s birth was chosen for final prayers, a hymn to St. Duthac and the singing of the Salve Regina.

The assembled pilgrims then made their way back into the town and were entertained to refreshments by the local parishioners in the present Catholic Church, St. Vincent’s. There was an opportunity

Archbishop Mario inspects the original Papal Bull accompanied

by Fr James Bell and Museum Manager, Sheila Munro

Fr. James Bell, Dean of the Highland Deanery leads the procession from St. Duthac’s Collegiate Church to Old St. Duthac’s Church ruins.

for people to meet old friends and particularly for the Archbishop to greet many members of his former diocese.

This year’s Pilgrimage Day was particularly blessed with beautiful weather, and many of the visitors remarked on the attractive surroundings in the Royal Burgh of Tain.

Philip Ward

Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti with clergy from the Highland Deanery

Final prayers, a hymn to St. Duthac and the singing of the Salve Regina at the site of the ruined chapel

Children’s confirmations

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he confirmations took place at Saint James the Great Episcopal Church on Sunday 6th of September at a Mass concelebrated by Bishop Hugh Gilbert and Fr Gerard Murphy, Parish Priest of St Mary’s, Stonehaven.

It was a beautiful service in which the children played a full part, delivering the readings, the psalm and their own bidding prayers.

After the service the children celebrated with their friends and families in the church hall with tea and cake.

The children were prepared for confirmation by Fr Gerard and Catechist, Pia Cora.

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Hazel makes profession to Franciscan lay order

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n Monday the 12th October the Secular Franciscan fraternities from Ellon and Inverness joyfully participated in a Profession Mass in the beautiful surroundings of St Margaret's, Huntly, at which Hazel Naughton made her Rite of Profession to the lay Order ( a rite also known as the Permanent Commitment to the Gospel Life).

Ellon and Inverness fraternities are within the Scottish Region of the National Fraternity of Great Britain which is also part of the worldwide Ordo Franciscanus Saecularis (OFS), founded over 800 years ago by Saint Francis of Assisi. The OFS is represented by fraternities in all countries of the world where the Catholic Faith is practised.

The members of her family joined with the fraternities at the Mass concelebrated by Rev Max McKeown OFM Conv and Rev Chris Brannan. The readings for Mass were from the Memorial ofSaint Francis.

Hazel said: "A day of wild joy, a day of challenge, a day of trust.

The end of a 3-year journey. And then suddenly it became the beginning of a lifelong journey – to live the passionate love Francis had for Brother Jesus, to share with the whole world the amazing joy of the Incarnation."

Glen Reynolds OFS, from Christ the King fraternity in Ellon commented, "Hazel's commitment to the gospel life publicly

A joyful Hazel Naughton OFS (centre) with Rev Chris Brannan, Rev Max McKeown OFM Conv and her family and friends proclaimed during the celebration, reminds us of something which is also made present every day in the Eucharist: After the example of Christ and in union with His own act of thanksgiving, we are to present ourselves before the Father as living sacrifices of praise given for the life of the world."

Artist captures Bishop in a reflective mood

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portrait of the Rt Rev Bishop Hugh Gilbert OSB by the artist Stephanie Vandem was unveiled to a small gathering of friends, in early September at Bishop's House in Aberdeen.

Stephanie spoke about the project that started a couple of years ago: “I exhibited at Blairs as part of NEOS (North East Open Studio). Vikki Duncan was the curator and she took me around to view the collection. As a portrait painter, I made an observation that there were no portraits of more recent Bishops and as we chatted away, Vikki told me how Bishop Hugh was a more humble and not a 'flashy' kind of person, if you know what I mean? Something in me started to think that it could be really interesting to paint someone whose job was to 'think' and ponder about 'right and wrong', and perhaps portray a 'simpler' aspect of Christianity, that sort of thing.

“I left it there for a couple of years. Then one day the idea came back to my head and I approached the Aberdeen Diocesan Office, enquiring if Bishop Hugh would allow me to paint a wee study of him. I was interesting in capturing his 'inner world', that of quietness and contemplation.

“To my surprise he said yes. So, we met and chatted and the process began. I made lots of studies of his face and we started to explore different locations that would best convey something about himself and his work. We settled for an image of him in his private flat at his desk, facing away from the viewer, reading. Some elements of the image struck me

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Bishop Hugh Gilbert OSB with artist, Stephanie Vandem as interesting and symbolic such as the wooden blocks to lift his desk, the half hanging curtains, his sandals and the bright light coming from the window onto his books and face.”

Bishop Hugh began to consider the idea of an 'official' image, and it was decided that rather than face away from the viewer, a portrait might be more appropriate in the form it is now, for an official image. It turned into an official commission that was unveiled in early September.

Stephanie added “I tried to keep some of the elements from the more 'intimate' image and combine a traditional style with a more contemporary look to convey the relevance

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of it nowadays. Hence the treatment of the background being all about the colours present in his ‘study’ where the furniture translated into colour, the blue and white making reference to outside/sky/heavens. And the book he's holding incorporates his love of reading and thinking: upon the word. The text on it is also of importance as it refers to Bishop Hugh's motto. I wanted to convey a simple look so we kept the metal chair and used his less formal attire.

The whole process took about a year and was partly captured

by STV and in a You Tube link: https://youtu.be/v33Z7dL4KAA “I really appreciated the opportunity to paint Bishop Hugh and to explore the challenge of portraying a public figure while respectfully revealing a little of the private person. I hope the painting will remain relevant for future generations in the years to come.”

Glen Reynolds

Installation of the first parish priest to be appointed to St Columba’s, Culloden

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n Wednesday 12th August Fr. Domenico Zanrè was installed as Parish Priest of St. Columba’s Culloden.

The Principal Celebrant was the Right Reverend Hugh Gilbert OSB, Bishop of Aberdeen, with Vicar General Fr. Stuart Chalmers, Rev. James Bell, Rev. John Allen, Rev. Richard Reese, Fr. Andrzej Harden SJ concelebrating.

Fr. Domenico chose the Votive Mass of Jesus Christ the High Priest for the Celebration, with some favourite and familiar hymns including “Alleluia Sing to Jesus “ and “O God, We Give Ourselves Today”.

A large congregation gathered for this historic event and to witness Fr. Domenico’s “Profession of Faith” and “Oath of Fidelity” as Bishop Hugh addressed both Fr. Domenico and the St. Columba’s Parish congregation with the questions of ‘Allegiance’ and ‘Support’ for their new parish priest.

Bishop Hugh Gilbert, spoke warmly about the succession of priests who had encouraged and assisted in the growth of the Culloden community. He spoke of, “the meaning of ‘Parish’ as the centre of the community it represents,” and offered his blessing to the congregation for the continued development and fundraising towards a priest’s house on the church site at Culloden.

The sun shone brightly during the Mass, lighting the altar and lectern, and remained throughout the evening, enabling the congregation to enjoy refreshments served on the outdoor patio area.

A wonderful celebration, and for many, a once in a lifetime chance to take part in the installation, not only of a parish

Fr Domenico Zanrè addresses the congregation during his Installation Mass priest, but the first parish priest of a new church.

St. Columba’s, Culloden is Scotland’s newest Catholic Church, built in 2008 and consecrated on 1st November 2008, ‘All Saints Day’. The new church was granted full parish status in 2015 by Bishop Hugh Gilbert, with Fr. Domenico Zanrè becoming its first parish priest. The multi-national congregation at Culloden is made up of parishioners from the expanding community of Inverness East, including, Culloden, Smithton, Westhill, Balloch, Nairnside and the proposed new town of Tornagrain, close to Inverness Airport.

It brings to three, the number of churches in the Inverness area: St. Mary’s; St. Ninian’s and now, St Columba’s which serve the growing Catholic International Community in the Highland Capital.

Mass at St. Columba’s Culloden is at 9.30am each Sunday morning, where a warm welcome awaits visitors and locals.

Altar table free to good home

P Bishop Hugh Gilbert and Fr. Domenico Zanrè share a light -hearted moment

luscarden Abbey has a large wooden altar table it no longer needs. The table was used for the Mass in honour of St. John Ogilvie in the Keith Stadium on 4 July. The monks of Pluscarden would be very grateful to any priest who felt able to find an appropriate home for this altar table, and to come and take it away.

Please contact Br. Michael: bromichael@pluscardenabbey.org, or Fr. Benedict: dbhosb@gmail.com or ring 01343 890 257.

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Aberdeen Circle meet for the 900th time

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berdeen Circle, the 107th of the Catenian Association, was founded on 27 April 1931 and, until alphabetical changes in the Catenian Directory from Circle to Provincial order, it was affectionately known as the ‘First Circle in the Book’.

The evening began with the 900th Circle Meeting at Bishop’s House in the West End of Aberdeen, followed by Mass in the private chapel attended by 50 members, wives and guests. Mass was concelebrated by Very Reverend Stuart Chalmers, Vicar General of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Father Isaac Nsiah from Ghana, who has just arrived in the diocese for a two year period.

Afterwards dinner was provided in the Bishop’s drawing room and the company settled down in prospect of a splendid evening’s entertainment.

Circle President, Steve Stuart presided over the evening and, after a few words of introduction from Father Stuart, member George Brand launched into a “potted history” of the Circle. Statistically, he revealed, there have been 191 members in total over the last 84 years with 43 members serving as President, three serving as Director, and one proudly as Grand President, the late Peter Laing.

The Circle’s senior member was present, Mario Vicca with his wife Joan. Although it was noted that the Circle has a great history of entertaining Grand Presidents and their ladies, regrettably Grand President Peter Woodford and Ann could not be present, but they had very much enjoyed their tour of all the other Scottish Circles just three weeks previously.

One or two notable occasions were shared with the company by George who then referred those present to the back of the dinner menu which highlighted significant meetings and anniversaries celebrated over the years. The 500th meeting in April 1980 was indeed a milestone, when the Circle reached the dizzy heights of 51 members. The meeting was recorded in Peter Lane’s “History of the Catenian Association” which chronicled developments between

Smiling faces at the close of the evening 1908 and 1983. One of the photographs chosen to illustrate Catenian activities was Aberdeen Circle’s 500th meeting and Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen by Cardinal Gordon Gray. The following year the Circle celebrated its Golden Jubilee, with equal ceremonial and social activity.

George also proposed a toast to the guests, thanking members of the clergy for their attendance and expressing appreciation for the celebration of Mass at the beginning of the evening. Catenian guests present included: Province 22 Director Eddie O’Donnell and his wife Catherine, from Stirling Circle; Provincial President Peter Bleasdale, from Glasgow, Harrow and Glasgow Giffnock Circles and Circle President David March and his wife Patricia representing West Lothian St. Mary who are all well known in Scottish Circles. Two prospective new members were also present with their wives, Sean and Mary O’Brien, and Bill and Gill Barrie.

Director Eddie O’Donnell replied on behalf of the guests and President Steve Stuart rounded off the evening with some of his famous limericks.

Montserrat: One of God’s Holy Mountains Christopher Doig “May the mountains bring forth peace and the hills, justice!” (Ps 72) I’m sure the psalmist’s words would resonate well in the heart of every pilgrim who has visited Montserrat.

They certainly did in mine. This holy place sends each person away with a heart full of peace, joy and serenity.

Where does this peace come from but the grace that Our Lady bestows on those who pilgrimage to her shrine? At one o’clock every day the boys choir, Escolania de Montserrat sing the Virolai, the hymn to Our Lady of Montserrat which contains the words,’ star of Montserrat, light up the Catalan land, guide us to the sky’. She has lit up the Catalan land for she is at the heart of Catalonia’s identity and culture and she attracts about two million pilgrims every year, even people from the remotest parts of the planet, like the Scottish Highlands, to come and feel the awe and wonder of God’s majesty and beauty.

Montserrat, literally called the ‘serrated mountain’ is a remarkable place because of its unique rock formations but mainly because of the statue of Our Lady and the Benedictine monastery which has been here since the eleventh century; it has existed in various shapes and forms, as it has been Page 10

Bishop Hugh Gilbert OSB with seminarians, Emmet O’Dowd and Christopher Doig through a Napoleonic war which saw its destruction, and the Spanish Civil War during which some monks were killed, but now it has been restored to glory. Nestling in the towers and crags of the mountain, today it is an imposing, breathtaking, spectacularly beautiful sight. Currently, there are about sixty monks at Montserrat and of all them are Catalan. Montserrat is the second most popular place of pilgrimage in Spain, after

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Santiago de Compostela and is the centre of Catalan culture and identity. It is almost impossible to separate the monastery from the Catalan peoples’ identity. The most visible sign of their love for Catalonia is the museum housing a significant and eclectic collection of paintings, all of which were donated by the Catalan people or acquired from other monasteries.

The Bishop and we, seminarians, spent some days there for a holiday-retreat this summer. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when going there but whatever was in my mind was blown into pieces as the days unfolded.

I thought that staying in a Catalan monastery for a few days would be a familiar Statue of Our Lady of Montserrat experience . . . and it was - we also known as La Moreneta ( the dark little one)

got up early and said our prayers, we had our lunch and went for walks – but in that ordinariness of life there was something extraordinary: beautiful simplicity. That is the way to holiness: carrying out your duties and doing the most ordinary of tasks with love. There was, however, another aspect to our wonderful retreat: the monastic hospitality, which meant that every kindness was shown to us. The monks really went out of their way to make sure we felt at home, and so, without knowing what was coming up next, our whole stay was planned with guided tours of the museum, the library (which has half a million books, but they don’t have a Polish Missal), the boys choir school (the oldest in Europe), a hike up the mountain with the novices, one of whom was nicknamed ‘Brother mountain goat’, and an introduction to ‘the spiritual exercises of Montserrat,’ that is, tasting the monastery’s own liquors while trying to teach the monks some Doric.

Having shared my reflections on this unforgettable opportunity to experience the Benedictine way of life in Catalonia, let me end with an adaptation of the Canticle of Daniel: O all you monks of the Lord, O bless the Lord, And all you choristers, O bless the Lord, And you, caves and rocks, O bless the Lord, And you, bats and mountain goats, O bless the Lord.

To Him be highest glory and praise forever.

Pilgrimage to Holy Island of Lindisfarne

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n September, after weeks of prayerful preparation, a group of pilgrims from around the Diocese of Aberdeen joined others from Newcastle, Jedburgh and Leicester to participate in what has become an annual ecumenical five day pilgrimage following in the footsteps of thousands of pilgrims to the peaceful Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

Reverend John Woodside, a permanent deacon of the Diocese of Aberdeen who resides in Banff, is an experienced spiritual formator, guide and pastor and coordinates and facilitates these ecumenical pilgrimages that are becoming increasingly popular. Deacon John explained, “These contemporary ecumenical pilgrimages have been taking place for some 15 years and places are always quickly filled by people from throughout the UK and beyond.”

“Traditional pilgrimage were journeys to holy places undertaken from motives of devotion in order to obtain supernatural help, or as acts of penance or thanksgiving and these elements are incorporated into this programme which blends some cultural expectations with a contemporary Celtic-style spirituality. This provides an opportunity for some ‘time out’, individual space and fulfilment, with the additional prospect of pilgrims discovering their personal place in the world. For some, what may begin as a solo or group journey grows into a memorable communal experience on ‘the way’ that becomes a life-changing occurrence, particularly for those who originate from places where church and community life has all but disappeared. Our pilgrimage is an opportunity for deepening relationships with God, and the people who journey with us, living for a few days within a peaceful and joyful atmosphere of Christian community and hospitality.”

Father Colin Davies, currently parish priest for Thurso and

Lindisfarne pilgrimage - More than just recharging the batteries Wick, celebrated daily Mass with both pilgrims and locals at Saint Aidan’s RC Church on the island. He was on his first pilgrimage to Lindisfarne and said: “I’ve been waiting a long time to go on this particular pilgrimage and it has met my expectations, and more! ” Further encouraging comments from the pilgrims reflect their experiences. Brian Osborne from Jedburgh said, “We are most blessed to have been participants in a spiritually uplifting few days which have more than recharged the batteries,” and Jackie Wilkinson, a veteran of the great pilgrimage to Compostela, commented, “Such good memories of the wonderful pilgrimage we made to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.”

This small Christian community has now dispersed, but planning is already underway for next year’s pilgrimage to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Would you like to participate? Maybe if you needed encouragement, it comes from another pilgrim, Jimmy Cameron, of Elgin. “Been a great week with so much fun, grace and joy. Lindisfarne is not called 'The Holy Island' for nothing!

Home tomorrow and back to daily life but with a spring in our step. Anyone wants to know about it, just ask.”

For more information, please see http://drostan.weebly.com Page 11

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Polish bishop visits Inverness on chaplaincy tour

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Pictured in front of an image of Our Lady of Kalwaria are Fr. James Bell, Fr. Domenico Zanrè, Bishop Wiesław Lechowicz, Fr. Marian Łękawa, and Fr. Piotr Rytel.

ishop Wiesław Lechowicz, Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Tarnow and the Polish bishops' representative for Polish Ministry abroad visited St Mary’s, Inverness as part of a tour of UK Polish Chaplaincies.

The Bishop was accompanied by the Rector of the Polish Catholic Mission in Scotland, Fr. Marian Łękawa from Glasgow.

Bishop Lechowicz was impressed with the strong Polish links in the Highland Deanery and was delighted to see so many Polish saints featured within the stained glass at St. Mary's, including St. Faustina, St. Edith Stein, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and St. John Paul II. By happy coincidence the bishop happened to visit Inverness on the feast day of Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko and expressed his admiration for St Mary’s Polish window which commemorates the martyred Polish priest.

A Scottish house for the Daughters of Divine Love

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n July 1969 I was preparing to travel to Nigeria to work in the emergency relief operations during the Nigerian Civil War. At the same time, on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 16 July, ‘in the midst of the agonising suffering of a most ravaging war,’ the Daughters of Divine Love were founded by Bishop Godfrey Okoye CSSp. The Daughters of Divine Love are rooted and grounded in the love of God and neighbour. They have as their motto,“Caritas Christi urget nos.”- the Love of Christ compels us – or urges/constrains us.

In 2015 there are over eight hundred sisters throughout the world in professed vows, easily recognisable in their blue habits and veils. The sisters work as teachers, radiographers, midwives, nurses, doctors, librarians, bursars, housekeepers, parish sisters, working in prisons and in all aspects of care and prayer. DDL can be found in England (ten houses from Aston to Wood Green by way of Gateshead and Streatham and other locations in between). From November 2015 three sisters will be based at St Mary’s, Inverness for apostolic work in the Highlands - a Scottish house. Thanks be to God, and Bishop Hugh!

James Bell with the founder of the Daughters of Divine Love, Bishop Godfrey Okoye CSSp Page 12

Daughters of Divine Love sisters with Fr James Bell In 1970, after the war had ended, I met Bishop Godfrey Okoye on several occasions- one was at a Mass which he celebrated for two of our relief workers who had been killed in the hostilities (Jonathan Ambache, a Jewish medical student, and Deacon Malachy Riddle, a Catholic seminarian). After the Mass we had a reception during which Bishop Godfrey and I had discussions about aspects of the on-going rehabilitation. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that over forty years later I would be visiting his foundation, the Daughters of Divine Love, at their Provincial Curia in Wood Green.

It was the second time of meeting the Superior, Sr Linda DDL- she had been in Inverness a few months earlier doing a ‘recce’. Now I was at a ‘homecoming’, being entertained by the sisters in the generous traditions of the Ibo people of eastern Nigeria. The years slipped away, at least in my memory, and there was much rejoicing as we feasted on fried plantain, peppered chicken, black-eyed beans, mushrooms and rice with prawns and fried fish- no palm wine, but a delightful Italian red encouraged conviviality.

When the sisters, Daughters of Divine Love, are installed at the Convent in Huntly Street in Inverness there will be a special Mass to which everyone is invited. Bishop Hugh will preside, and it is scheduled for Saturday 21 November at 11am at St Mary’s, Inverness. You are most welcome, ‘Caritas Christi urget nos’.

Fr James Bell

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Stepping out with St John Paul

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group of nine pilgrims from the Inverness parishes travelled to Krakow in June to follow aspects of the life of St John Paul.

From the outset, with Mass at the Sanctuary of St John Paul, the group were able to see at first hand aspects of his historic, world-changing pontificate. The blood-stained cassock was an awesome reminder of his courage and the compassionate mercy he showed towards his would-be murderer. Seeing this massive shrine, with its many chapels and striking art-work we realised just how much the Polish people admire and love the legacy of Pope John Paul II. He is a central focus for much popular devotion.

So also is St Faustina, whose illuminations about the Divine Mercy, are given prominence at the nearby Lagiewniki Sanctuary. Several of the group found that the familiar and companionable way that many Polish people regarded the Divine Mercy devotion was an inspiring perspective opening it out beyond narrow pietism. This Devotion was a great encouragement during the dark days of Nazism and later, of Communism.

No pilgrimage to Krakow should avoid the horrific ghastliness of Auschwitz. Our pilgrims were in sombre mood, and needed the reflective, and hopeful message that we found at the St Maximilian Kolbe Centre run by the Conventual Franciscan Friars at their Retreat House at Harmeze. After Mass the friars entertained us to a Pilgrim Supper of soup, cold cuts, salads and cheeses.

Dining together was an important part of the pilgrimageafter a tour of the childhood home of the young Karol Wojtyła at Wadowice a much needed al fresco lunch nourished our thirsty bodies and perhaps our souls. The famous cream cakes are among several memories of some outstanding treats.

So too was lunch at Czestochowa, after Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady- in an Italian restaurant! There we met up with some old friends which added to our sense of celebration.

In the footsteps of Pope John Paul we visited Zakopane, where a cable car took us almost to the summit of Mt Kasprowy Wierch (6,513 feet). There enshrouded in mist some of the group had their own ‘transfiguration experience’, saying the Divine Office, and praying for vocations. It is an awesome place.

Awesome in a different way are the Salt Mines at Wieliczka, complete with cavernous chapels, and shrines which testify to the deep faith and incredible industry of the Polish people.

Exploring Krakow itself is a feast for the eyes and the soul.

There are so many churches, so many cultural experiences of music and drama, such variety of museums and places of historic interest. A week, a year is hardly long enough! There is something for everyone, and although the city is well served by trams and buses, taxis and horse drawn carriages every pilgrim should have good strong shoes as many miles are covered, and in our time much of it was in really warm weather.

The Jewish Quarter, the old ghetto, has many illustrations of the former way of life when so many Jewish businesses flourished. The most obvious industry is now cultural tourism. Jewish families visit the area from all over the world rediscovering their roots. So Yiddish music, kosher restaurants, much dining and drinking are features of the

Dining together proved to be an important part of the pilgrimage ghetto that many tourists and pilgrims also enjoy. We did!

The refreshing breezes in the hill-side Franciscan Sanctuary of Our Lady of Kalwaria were welcome. There we were able to celebrate Mass, and explore the Way of the Cross, at the Stations situated in the forests and hills. So attached were we to the cool climate in that prayerful place that the 2016 “Young in Heart” Pilgrimage to Poland will stay in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska during the World Youth Day. About sixteen intrepid ‘oldies’ will again follow in the footsteps of the Polish saint, Pope John Paul, again praying for young people and deepening our own faith for service.

The Highland Deanery has strong links with Poland and this was the third pilgrimage to Poland in the last three years. They have been planned with the help and guidance of our Polish priests, seminarians and Polish parishioners in Inverness.

This particular pilgrimage proved to be a very useful fact finding mission ahead of the planned 2016 World Youth Day activities, when the Highland Deanery and Aberdeen Diocese will be well represented.

Fr James Bell and Duncan Macpherson

The Jericho Benedictines 1/8 page

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Irish pilgrims help keep the faith alive The St Andrews Community, a lay community based at St Mary’s Cathedral in Aberdeen, organise a very popular, annual youth pilgrimage to Ireland. This year’s pilgrimage proved to be a great success with a group was made up of 72 pilgrims, including leaders. After the trip some of the young folk wrote the following report on the nine day pilgrimage which the Community would like to share with you and to ask your prayers for the continued fruits of this and other work with God’s own children.

August 2015 Dear Saint Andrew Community, I was a part of the youth pilgrimage to Ireland and I just thought to write this letter of appreciation to thank you all for a wonderful week.

After Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral we took the plane to Dublin and then journeyed to Sligo, our first destination and where we were to stay in Holy Hill Hermitage with the hermits. The hermits gave us a warm welcome and we closed off the first evening with prayer and worship. The next day, the 9th of August, we embarked on a seven mile walk around and said our prayers as we walked. On the 10th of August we set out for a three hour drive to Antrim to see the Giant’s Causeway. The day was wet and rainy but with inspirational words from the sisters we had a really good day. The sisters taught us a new

Hardy young pilgrims enjoying the beautiful Irish countryside virtue every day throughout the week and helped us to try to express these virtues in our everyday lives.

On Tuesday the 11th of August we set out for Croagh Patrick. The group heard a background talk about it and we found out that the mountain has lots of significant meaning. Before attempting the mountain climb we each were given a stone with a cross on it and learned about the mountain. The rock gave us hope reminding us we were walking on a pilgrimage and not to complain. We didn’t climb the full mountain because that would take 10 hours to climb so we set off for the shoulder of Croagh Patrick, that’s where Saint Patrick the patron saint of Ireland banished all the snakes. Some of the ground was wet and mucky but that didn’t stop us from climbing.

We had the fire in us that we needed to spread out towards the world and climbing this mountain was the first way to start.

On Wednesday the 12th of August we went go-karting as a treat for climbing up the mountain! After go-karting we set off for Knock.

We had stayed at Holy Hill for three days and when we were leaving we said thanks to the hermits for letting us stay. Our prayers and our faith grew stronger in the Lord. As we were on the road for Page 14

Pilgrims attend Mass celebrated before the “Wall of the Apparitions” Knock we prayed and you could feel the Holy Spirit infilling each one of us. When we reached Knock, the first thing we did was to go and see the site of the apparition of Our Lady and when we finished praying we looked up and saw a star in the sky.

Our second day in Knock was a free day and we went shopping with the group. Not only did we have Mass every day with our priest, we also had a special Mass in the Basilica in Knock with many other pilgrims. We got to witness the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. Later on that day we received a sacrament ourselves, the sacrament of penance (reconciliation). We were faced with the Eucharist in the monstrance and face to face with Our Lord. It was beautiful and you could tell everyone was touched with the Holy Spirit. We also circled around Knock praying the rosary with the parish congregation and the parish priest, all holding candles and the statue of Our Lady of Knock. After circling the church grounds we knelt before the apparition wall and said the “Hail Mary.”

Our last day in Knock was on Friday the 14th of August and we attended a final Mass before leaving for a two hour drive to our final destination in Ireland.

When we arrived we all stood out because the sisters and our young leaders gave us red community jumpers at the beginning of the trip.

The “Youth 2000” event was amazing! We all were together as a group and everyone noticed us. The next day was truly wonderful.

The group all prayed harder and worshipped like we never did before.

We heard talks and we had Mass and an amazing healing service.

When the group got home later on that night we each had our own testimonies, every one had something to share about their wonderful experience in Ireland and for some of us a wonderful time with the Scottish pilgrims. Our testimonies all came from different perspectives as we all had different lives and how God chose everyone

Pilgrims in red hoodies stand out from the crowd at “Youth 2000”

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of us individually to lift each other’s faith. We made life-long friendships that will never be forgotten and our faith grew stronger than ever before because we are the future and we need to spread the faith. It all starts with us young people. We need to go spread the Word and bring more people to retreats like this so they can grow stronger in the Lord, because every one of us who came to Saint Andrew’s Community pilgrimage went home with a fire burning in our hearts and in our minds. God used different people throughout this week to inspire us and to speak to us and to show us that God is the Way, the Truth and the Life and we need to change the world by bringing people to Saint Andrew’s Community pilgrimage to show them that God is the way to heaven and that’s what is important in life.

At the start of the week all of us were strangers but now we are family, family in Christ and we need to spread the light. I just want

to thank all of the community for spending their time and money and helping us to grow closer to Jesus Christ. Most of us went into the pilgrimage having very little faith but this week showed us that there is a God and we all have faith in Christ, not little faith but extraordinary faith and we’re going to spread the Good News of the Lord. Our faith started off with a teenager and it will continue in the hands of teenagers. It was a truly amazing week and we can’t wait for Poland 2016 and the Saint Andrew Community Pilgrimage next year and even more years to come. We keep you all in our daily prayers.

Thank you, From Michelle, Leslie and the whole SAC2015

Persecuted but not forgotten

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he Scottish launch of the 2015 edition of “Persecuted and Forgotten?”, a report published by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) took place on 15th October at St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen.

The report assesses the deepening plight of Christians in 22 countries of concern and can be accessed: http://www.acnuk.org/ persecuted.

The evening began at 7pm with the celebration of Mass by Bishop Hugh Gilbert, after which victims of Christian persecution from Iraq, Syria and Nigeria gave testimony in the Cathedral Hall.

The speakers, all of whom had first-hand experience of Christian persecution were: Father Douglas Bazi from Iraq, who was tortured

by Al-Qaeda and now works in Iraqi displacement camps; Father Ziad Hilal SJ from Syria who oversaw ACN projects in Homs, Syria and Victoria Youhanna, a 15 year old Nigerian school girl and former prisoner of Boko-Haram.

The event was particularly well attended by 250 concerned individuals from across the Aberdeen Diocese.

First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, sent a message of support for the evening: “This report by Aid to the Church in Need provides welcome evidence-based analysis of the sustained persecution of Christian minorities. Only by publishing reports such as this and identifying the extent and scale of the problem can

Launch of the Persecuted and Forgotten? report at St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen (Picture courtesy of Michal Wachucik ) we hope to take steps to address the persecution of minorities that sadly still exists across the world.”

For further information about ACN and their work please contact Lorraine McMahon or Michael J Robinson on 01698337472 or email michael.robinson@acnuk.org

Mass for Papal Honours Bishop Hugh Gilbert celebrated Mass on 3 September 2015, the Feast of St. Gregory the Great, for those in the Diocese of Aberdeen who are members of the Association of Pontifical Orders in Great Britain. This includes Knights and Dames of St. Gregory the Great and Pope St. Sylvester.

It is the eighth year that Mass has been celebrated on the feast, but this was the first year that invitations were also sent to all who have been presented with Papal Awards, including the Benemerenti and Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Medals.

The occasion was an ideal opportunity for members from around this geographically widespread Diocese of Aberdeen, to attend Mass together in St. Sylvester’s Church, Elgin, and afterwards enjoy some refreshments at the nearby Laichmoray Hotel.

If there are any other members of the Association of Papal Orders in Great Britain within the Diocese of Aberdeen, or recipients of Papal Medals, who might like to attend the annual Mass and lunch, would they please contact George Brand, either by telephone on 01224 630159, or email at geobra@msn.com

George Brand, Bishop Hugh Gilbert and Father Isaac Nsiah with members of the Association of Pontifical Orders Page 15

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Here’s How to ...........

Pensions -What are my options now?

A se r look ies whi c s prac at som h and tical iss e ue co eve ncerns s ryda y life of .

Jim Guyan “Freedom and Choice” was the main headline for the change in legislation by the Government. This new legislation introduced ways by which your pension plans can be accessed. The legislation mainly applies to those in defined contribution schemes, group personal pensions and personal pensions. Before I state some of the major changes, please do not be confused by all the media hype which this topic has been the subject of since the changes came into force. The bulk of the coverage has concentrated on how policy holders are now able to access their pension funds in their entirety. Obviously the fear was that pension holders would simply withdraw all their funds out of their pension pot and buy the Lamborghini and have that world cruise. Obviously this is not the purpose of the new pensions’

freedom. After all, the main objective of the fund is to help maintain a standard of living in retirement. It is therefore even more important to seek independent financial advice in order to make sure that the decisions you make regarding your pension are the best in relation to your own personal circumstances.

Raeburn Christie Clark & Wallace

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Regarding the changes – nothing has changed in relation to the amount of tax free cash which you can take from your pension pot from the age of 55. This is still up to a maximum of 25% of the value of the fund. The other 75% of the fund remaining however is taxable (depending on each individual’s circumstances). The amount of tax you pay depends on how much your taxable income is above your tax free allowance.

You no longer have to purchase an annuity, you now have the freedom and choice to withdraw the remainder of this fund as and when required. You do however still have the facility to buy an annuity and the annuity providers now have some interesting offers available which should be reviewed with your financial advisor. Briefly these can be short term annuities with guaranteed funds at the end of the term. This would then enable you to sit down and review circumstances going forward at that time.

You also have the new facility of draw-down whereby you can simply set up regular withdrawals from the fund to be paid out to you with the balance of funds still being invested. There are obviously risks involved with this and again care should be taken as to the appropriate fund being utilised.

Another major change in the legislation is regarding the death benefits under pension plans. If a policy holder takes

his tax free cash and thereafter goes into a draw-down facility, in that situation should the client die before age 75 then the remaining fund will be paid out tax free to the stated beneficiaries. Should the policy holder die after he is 75 and there are still funds remaining within the pension pot then again these can be accessed by the beneficiaries but there may be marginal income tax to pay depending on the beneficiary tax situation. The aforementioned is only a brief introduction into the changes that have been made regarding pensions.

To summarise, if you are approaching retirement or indeed you are at an age where you have options available to you regarding your pension plans then seeking independent financial advice is imperative in order to make sure that the decisions you make are appropriate to you.

Jim Guyan has been in the Financial Services Industry for over 30 years and is Head of the Financial Services department within Raeburn Christie Clark & Wallace .

Jim Guyan is Head of Financial Services with Raeburn Christie Clark & Wallace.

Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

MY F A V O U R I T E HYM N S My Favourite Hymns – Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti chooses some of his best-loved hymns.

“My definition of a hymn is ‘the praising of God in song’, or perhaps ‘the raising of the mind and heart to God in song’, since, with the example of the psalms, not every (sung) prayer is praise; many are petitions; some are complaints!

That definition incorporates the chants of the Mass. The Church encourages the celebrant and the congregation in its majestic liturgy to sing the most important prayers, such as the Pater Noster and the Preface, the latter setting the tone for every celebration – including ferial days, and so sadly so infrequently sung by celebrants. Whereas the Preface changes according to the Liturgy’s mood, there are fixed texts traditionally set to music, some of them very simple in their musical expression, more elaborate for feast days, and always in

my opinion lovely, and in the Church’s liturgical directives, to be preferred above all other chants. I refer to the Kyrie, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei, and, for the celebrant, the Doxology, which concludes the Canon of the Mass.

While extra-liturgical songs are permitted, and even encouraged (but not to the exclusion of the chants mentioned above) they must always be in tune with the mood and texts of the Liturgy of the Seasons and the Feasts of the Church, and also of the parts of the Mass at which they are sung. At the Offertory, if a hymn is to be sung, it should reflect the liturgy of that part of the Mass and express in some way the offering of our service to the Lord. On the other hand after Holy Communion the singing of a version of Our Lady’s Magnificat would reflect her thanksgiving to God for his goodness “for He that is mighty hath done great things for me” and would be entirely appropriate in that setting.

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Allowing the definition of “Hymn” to include all song suitable for liturgical use, I would happily choose in the first place some of the chants provided in the Missal (new translation) and the songs closely associated with the great traditional feasts of the Church.

The setting for the Kyrie has a beauty born of simplicity and is thoroughly singable. The normal setting for the Preface has also, when sensitively and ably sung, a haunting loveliness. Of course there are many settings for the Common of the Mass dating back over a thousand years and it is a joy to hear them sung at Pluscarden and other monasteries which have retained the Plainchant.

There is a range of Latin hymns in the St.Andrew’s Hymnal (Burns, 1964) among which are such favourites as Attende Domine, which has a plaintive character so suitable for the Season of Lent, and how could one forget Vexilla Regis, Ubi Caritas et Amor and O Filii et Filiae, associated with Holy Week and Easter, and Pange Lingua, one of St. Thomas Aquinas’ great hymns for Corpus Christi, a veritable treatise on the Holy Eucharist sung to a majestic tune?

This choice of accompanying music brings one naturally to think of renderings into English of such noble traditional hymns and given later musical settings such as Adoro Te Devote, O Godhead Hid, with John Storer’s tune.

Ave verum Corpus is another great hymn, not only on account of the 14th century text, simple and profound, but also on account of the tunes associated with it, whether the Plainchant melody or Mozart’s setting. This hymn has a particular association now with St.Andrew’s (Glasgow) Cathedral where the text is painted on the dado which leads the eye and the heart along the Western aisle – where there is a Pietà – right up to the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament which is dedicated to St.John Ogilvie, Scotland’s martyred saint. It seems particularly appropriate since the closing part of the text expresses the hope of the Lord’s presence at the moment of death for those who have in life a foretaste of his presence (St.John Ogilvie was arrested for celebrating Mass).

This reminds me of my liking for the Hymn On the Battlefields of Scotland in the Hour of Victory – a truly rousing number for his Feast-day, words by a Religious of the Sacred Heart, Mother Long, and a melody ascribed to a Jesuit, Fr. Lakeland.

I love Praise to the Holiest in the Height’ to the tune by R.R.Terry, with the wonderful rousing opening phrase of the melody expressing the opening words and their sense of being lifted up.

One could perhaps see, in the first line, a foretaste of the whole hymn in which man looks to the Divine. Theologically the text is sound and the narrative gives a good impression of the Christian journey. The hymn shows a true marriage of words and tune.

Come down, O Love Divine, is a hymn that has special associations for me as it was sung at the opening procession of my Ordination as Bishop of Aberdeen. The text on the discrete workings of the Holy Spirit is reflected by the gentle contours of the melody. The natural accentuation of the words is reflected by the outlines of the tune.

Dear Lord,

Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti, was in discussion with Roger B.Williams.

Prayer for Priests with Fr John Allen

I am 12 and want to be a priest.

I’m quite good at school And I say my prayers.

Help me to grow up to love you, To offer my whole life As you did.

I know it will not be easy But you will help me.

I might be a bit young Page 18

There is a marvellous corpus of Hymns to Our Lady, from the lovely hymns associated with the conclusion of Compline, from Salve Regina to a personal favourite, Of One who is so Fair and Bright, Ave maris Stella, in English and Latin from the medieval period (to music by Fr. Duffy, a priest at Blairs when I was a seminarian), to one you would expect me to love, Our Lady of Good Succour, lovely words (as altered by Fr.Bill Anderson) to a worthy tune by another sister of the Sacred Heart, Mother Michalek, words by Mother Forbes RSCJ. The Chorales of the Lutheran tradition, and in particular O Sacred Head Sore Wounded are wonderful with their sense of majesty, pathos and beautifully set words. The impact of a congregation singing the Passion Chorale on Good Friday afternoon cannot be over-estimated.

O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder is a hymn with many associations. I recall a holiday in the Alps when faced with the majesty of creation, I broke into this song (out of earshot!). It is theologically sound – especially as it moves to the final verse - and has a good, sing-able tune (adapted from a Swedish folk melody).

This hymn means a great deal to me.

Amongst more recent word settings, Gelineau and Taizé chants have an important place; the first for setting Psalms (particularly memorable is the setting of The Lord is my Shepherd), and the second when contemplation is needed, as, for example, at the Adoration of the Cross. Some of the more recent hymns by members of the Jesuit community have become favourites, especially those of Father James Quinn. In the hymn Christ be beside me, to the tune Bunessan, there is a wonderful sense of wholeness both tune and words coming together in well conceived harmony.

The context of hymns is important as, for example in the Hymn written for the eve of Easter - Colours of day, (by Sue McClellan, John Paculabo and Keith Ryecroft) with the stirring chorus ‘light up the fire and let the flame burn, open the door, let Jesus return’. Whereas on other occasions, these words might lack the same impact, and could even be inappropriate, on this occasion the hymn is highly effective and can be sung with tremendous effect. However, some while ago I was somewhat surprised to hear, at a wedding, the words ‘dona eis requiem’ – part of the setting of the Pie Jesu – which, attractive though the melody is, seemed inappropriate in that particular context!

There are, however, hymns in which the words are good but for which tunes are less successful, and also the opposite is the case.

But I am optimistic about the many fine artists being attracted to the Church, and hope that, as clearer guidelines are adopted, new hymns will continue to strengthen what is an old and distinguished tradition.”

But I’ll grow up.

You were young once A bit like me.

And your mum had plans for you, Let her have plans for me.

When I kneel down, bless me; When receiving Communion, love me; When in Confession, forgive me And, whilst growing up, protect me. Amen.

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educationandformation

Why Peter?

Clare Benedict “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:18-19).

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question often discussed is “Why did Christ choose Peter to be the earthly head of his Church?” It is a question, surely, that even the other apostles perhaps discussed privately among themselves. By any criteria, either 2000 years ago or today, Peter was not the most likely candidate for the job. He was an uneducated, probably illiterate, fisherman who seemed to blunder along in the wake of Jesus, regularly getting it wrong or putting his foot in it, being rebuked not only by Jesus but, in the famous scene of the Transfiguration, even by God Himself. Peter had a difficult apprenticeship; he was definitely not the star of Jesus’ RCIA group.

It is Peter who expresses distress when Jesus talks to his disciples about his own forthcoming Passion and who makes a clumsy attempt to pull him aside from that bleak destiny: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you” (Mt 16:22), only to be rebuked by Jesus in no uncertain terms: “Get behind me, Satan!

You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (16:23). One might wonder if Peter recalled these words when he was facing his own cruel death many years later in Rome. At the Transfiguration, it is Peter who decides that he’d much rather stay safely on the mountaintop with all his needs provided in Jesus (his beloved Teacher), Moses (the Lawgiver) and Elijah (the Prophet), than go back down to the valley where nasty things happen and all is toil and pain. And God the Father speaks from the cloud and rebukes him: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” Peter is all too human; his is a temptation to which we can all fall prey, the desire to stay on the mountaintop, detached from worldly cares and suffering. But through Peter we are reminded that the road to Heaven must go by way of the Cross.

Although we are told that all the disciples (except John) distance themselves from Jesus when he is arrested, put on trial and crucified, it is Peter whose betrayal of the Lord is set out in some detail. He had earlier protested to Jesus that he would follow him anywhere and willingly face death at his side, but Jesus knew that the courage of this endearingly eager but blundering follower would fail when put to the test. Sure enough, Peter thrice denies even knowing Jesus

and, in Luke’s heart-wrenching description “the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly” (Lk 22: 61-2).

Why, then, did Jesus choose Peter to lead his Church? Why not John, the Beloved Disciple? Or Andrew who, according to St John, was the first of the brothers to recognise Jesus and who immediately rushed off to tell Peter that he had found the Messiah? Or perhaps Matthew, with his education and acquaintance with the authorities, might have been a more obvious choice. But “the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1Sam. 16:7). It is the Father who has chosen Peter for this most special of vocations and Jesus recognises this immediately. In their very first encounter, according to John, Jesus “looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which means Peter)” (Jn 1:42); and, according to Luke, after being prompted by Jesus to net an unprecedented haul of fish, it is Peter who, in awe, hails Jesus as something more than mere man, for “when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

(Lk 5:8).

To be recognised and called by name by God must always be a frightening and confusing experience and Peter must frequently have felt bewildered when he heard such words or found himself come out with such utterances. And the divinely inspired words of this touchingly human fisherman are preserved to give us all hope and courage at times when our faith may be faltering or when we seem to be surrounded by enemies and mockers. Though he does not understand Jesus’ “hard saying” about eating and drinking the flesh and blood of the Son of man, St John’s teaching on the Eucharist, when many of the disciples shake their heads in disbelief and leave Jesus, it is Peter who declares “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn 6:68-9). And Matthew tells us how, when Jesus asks his disciples who they believe him to be, it is Peter who replies – out of the blue, it seems – “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” One can only imagine the expressions on the faces of his comrades! Jesus’ response indicates that his Father has made his choice, and so the Son appoints Peter as the leader of the Church which is to be born on Calvary and confirmed at Pentecost.

Though it is Peter who openly denies Jesus, it is Peter who later makes his threefold confession of love to the Risen Lord and is mandated to “Feed my lambs … tend my sheep … Feed my sheep.” Thereafter we see the amazing difference that comes upon Peter when the Holy Spirit descends upon him at Pentecost and touches him with divine fire: with his very first homily he inspires “three thousand souls” to accept baptism, and then goes about the Lord’s work, preaching, teaching and healing in the name of the Lord. In his Letters we find that inspired encouragement of newly baptized Christians, reminding them of the priceless gift they have been given and their glorious inheritance. Thereafter, at the end of his life, we are told in the apocryphal Acts of Peter the popular tale of how Peter, leaving Rome in fear of his life in the midst of Nero’s persecutions, encounters Christ carrying his cross, asks him “Quo vadis, Domine? Where are you going, Lord?” and is told “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” Peter returns to Rome and, deeming himself unworthy to die the same death as his Lord, is crucified upside down. ““Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

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educationandformation

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Calling on the Holy Name Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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Eileen Grant

he Jesus Prayer is part of a tradition which stretches back nearly 2000 years to the Early Church, with its roots in the Gospels, taking account also of words and concepts contained in the Old Testament. It is a tradition which has taken heed of Our Lord’s own advice given to his disciples when they asked him how to pray – Lord, teach us to pray; a tradition which became established throughout eastern Christianity, spreading to the west, and which sought to find stillness in the presence of God, in which, by subduing all earthly passions and preoccupations, the pray-er would eventually arrive at union with God. Any short prayer could be used to focus the mind in the heart, but the Jesus Prayer is the form we find in frequent use by the Middle Ages and which enjoyed a huge renaissance in the Orthodox Church in the 19th century, and in the West in the 20th century. The prayer is repeated over and over again until it becomes as natural as breathing and is said to the beating of one’s heart.

An important element in this type of prayer involves calling on the Holy Name. A name has always held special significance for humankind since the beginning of our history, when Adam is given the privilege of naming the animals God has created; and he and Eve themselves receive the first names in history, names that indicate who they are. In Scripture we often read of individuals, favoured by God and called to do His work, being given new names, names that indicate the new role that God is calling them to perform: e.g., Abraham (from Abram) in the Old Testament and Peter (from Simon) in the New Testament. Likewise today, candidates for confirmation adopt the name of their chosen patron saint, an indication of their deepening involvement with the Lord and His Church.

The idea of the Power of the Name has been with us certainly since Old Testament times and was a concept held by pagans also. A name has always been believed to give us our identity, our individuality; it is what makes me, me, and you, you. Thus we find in ancient Egypt that the penalty for sacrilege was the most severe possible – to have one’s name removed from all records; after execution, no marker bearing one’s name was left and it was forbidden, on pain of suffering the same fate, to utter that name ever

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again. The soul of the unfortunate was then believed to be doomed to wander for all eternity, his only hope that one day someone would say his name and he could then return to his body. In a similar way, we reduce convicted criminals to surnames, denying them their individual human dignity. Those who administered the Nazi concentration camps and the Russian labour camps and their ilk went even further, their victims becoming mere numbers, thus totally eroding their humanity.

A perception of the Old Testament God has been that He seemed, on the whole, remote, despite repeated attempts on His part to come close to His people. A few chosen individuals enjoyed special relationships with Him – Abraham, with whom He made His Covenant, Isaac, the Prophets – but it was to Moses that God came closest to revealing His identity, His name: Then Moses said to God, “Am I to go, then, to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ But if they ask me what His name is, what am I to tell them?” And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM … You are to say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM, the God of your fathers … has sent me to you.’

This is my name for all time; by this name I shall be invoked for all generations to come” (Ex 3:13-15).

To the Hebrew people, the name of God held power; in the Psalms, for example, the Divine Name appears as a refuge, a help, an object of veneration: How great is your name, O Lord our God, Through all the earth (Ps 78).

The nations all encompassed me; In the Lord’s name I crushed them (Ps 117).

Our help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth (Ps 123).

There was, then, a relationship but, because of their immense awe of God, the name was rarely invoked, uttered only by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies once a year; it was, on the whole, kept secret or on occasion replaced by Adonai, and in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, by Kyrios, Lord – a title transferred in the New Testament to Jesus also. Remoteness was never of God’s choosing; as Moses tells the Children of Israel: “For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call

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to him?” (Deut. 4: 7), echoed by the Psalmist: The Lord hears me whenever I call to him (Ps 4: 4).

In Hebrew tradition, to invoke a name is to make that person effectively present; how much more so with the Divine Name?

“At his resurrection – when the Spirit bursts into the tomb – the name of Jesus becomes charged with power and splendour, as our sun, in the initial explosion from which the cosmos came into existence, became charged with an energy allowing it to warm the earth until the end of time” (R. Cantalamessa). In St John’s Gospel the Lord extends an historic invitation: “Hitherto, you have not asked anything in my name … if you ask the Father anything in my name, He will give it to you” (Jn 16:23-24). There follow

numerous references throughout the New Testament to the Divine Name being invoked (x230) to cast out demons, cure cripples and to bring new followers to Christ: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19).

For of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which you may be saved (Acts 4:12).

To be continued…

St. Maurice – 15 centuries of praise The Abbey of St Maurice d’Agaune in Switzerland, the oldest Christian monastery still in operation in the western world, is celebrating the 1500th anniversary of its founding in the year 515. Ron Smith takes time out to visit this centre of spirituality and artistry.

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Ron Smith

n the mainly French speaking part of south west Switzerland is the town of St. Maurice. It was called Agaune by the Romans, because of its location in a narrow pass which was the main way from Rome to Helvetica, Gaul and Germany.

Around the year 290 to 300, a Roman legion from Thebes (modern day Luxor in Egypt) were based here. The Roman Emperor issued orders to kill Christians. Maurice and his men were Christians, and refused to carry out this order. Maurice is believed to have sent the following message to the Emperor: O Emperor, we are your soldiers, but we are before all else servants of God. We owe you military obedience, we owe Him innocence. We receive from you the pay for our labour; from Him we received life.

We cannot with you disavow God our Creator, our Lord, and your Creator as well, whether you wish it or not. If we are not constrained to offend Him by such crimes, we will still obey you, as we always have done; if not, we will obey him rather than you. We have always

The Abbey of St Maurice d’Agaune

fought for justice, for the respect and the life of innocent people; this for us has been the reward for our dangers. We have fought in faithfulness. But this faithfulness, how to preserve it for you, if we refuse it to our God? We have firstly pledged our oath to God, then we have pledged our oath to the Emperor. Be aware that our second oath is illusory, if we violate the first. You order us to persecute Christians. You do not need to seek any further; we are here! Here we are with weapons in our hands, and we will not resist. Because we prefer to die rather than to kill; perish innocent rather than live guilty. If you still pronounce new decrees against us, if you give new orders, if you bring new threats, fires, tortures, swords, we are ready to undergo all of them. Christians we declare ourselves: we cannot persecute Christians.

Of course refusing to carry out orders meant that other soldiers were sent and Maurice and his men were killed. Their bodies were left as they fell, as a sign of disgrace. When the soldiers had gone, the local people came and buried them.

Around 380 the first Bishop of the area, St. Théodule, brought their bones to an Ossuary close to the cliff and built a sanctuary, which is still there today. Towards the end of the 4th century, the first church was built here.

Sigismund, King of Burgundy, founded the Abbey here in 515, and it has been in continuous use ever since – 1500 years of continuous praise, the oldest monastery in the Occident still in use. Groups of monks came from other monasteries to form five relays to give perpetual praise. After the Gregorian reform, the order became Augustinian, and still is today.

Over 1500 years there have been many changes of course. In 575 the monastery was damaged by the Lombards. It was enlarged at the end of the 6th century, and also in the 7th century, at the end of which a new basilica was added facing west – east (all previous buildings faced east – west) raised above the level of the nave and covered the crypt which held the martyr’s reliquary tomb. In the 11th century a bell tower was added. However, damage was not unusual from falling rocks from the cliff, especially in 1611 when huge rocks just about destroyed the Abbey. In 1614 through to 1624 the seventh church was erected on the site, facing north – south, away from the cliff, and this is today the south part of the current basilica. In March 1942 a boulder hit the tower spire which Page 21

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promptly collapsed during morning Mass! So, between 1948 and 1950 the eighth church was built, and fitted with marvellous stained glass windows. .

All these centuries and changes have made the present Abbey a fascinating and unique place to visit. It has traces and remains from particularly the 11th, 17th and 20th centuries.

Visits are possible, although as it is a working monastery it is best to check first. See tresor@stmaurice.ch The town of St. Maurice is wedge shaped, with the river Rhone and the cliffs coming together in the narrow pass. It is easy to find the Abbey where the town squeezes into the pass. The front doors were added in 2000; made of copper they have the names of 270 martyrs on them, in 27 different languages. On entering you are in a large hall way which has ancient stones with inscriptions on them from Roman times dotted around, and also a tall stone pillar – a Roman mile post (every 1,000 paces was a mile and then a pillar would be set up). Every part of the Abbey has so much to catch the eye. In the church there is a succession of side altars, over a side door are the signs of the zodiac, the stained glass, statues, just so much to see. In the chapel to Our Lady there is a marble shrine containing the bones of the Theban martyrs, and also, since 2002, martyrs from Uganda. There are two white stones from the second century BC! The Abbey bell tower, originally from the first half of the eleventh century has had many bells over the centuries – today 8 swinging bells are in the oak belfry. ( 6 from 1818 weighing from 180 kgs to 920 kgs, one from 1947, 1732 kgs, and one from 1998, 3990 kgs!)

There is also a chime of 49 bells installed in 2004, in the spire of the tower; made in the Netherlands they weigh from 11 kgs to 1285 kgs – in total 14 tonnes of bronze. The baptistery is remarkable, dating from 1987 and 1994 with mosaics and a 3 part fountain. Records of the organ go back to 1642, another was installed in 1727, which was rebuilt in 1805. A new one was installed in 1893 but this was crushed by the rock fall of 1942. The latest one dates from 1950 and was made in Zurich, it has 72 stops.

The cloister, constructed in 1946, is perfectly quadrilateral with a central fountain. While the construction work was going on, a 4th century baptistery was uncovered. There are the catacombs, where foundations from the 4th to the 8th century are visible, and the old cemetery. The Simplon railway came through here, in a tunnel in the mountain, and this diverted a spring that since then has run through the cemetery, under the basilica, through the town and into the river Rhone. Archaeological work is on-going. Between the Abbey and

the cliff, a translucent roof has been erected and work continues on the old remains there.

The Abbey treasures are breathtaking. In the Theban Chapel there is the reliquary shrine of St. Maurice from the 12th century, the reliquary of St. Sigismund, also 12th century, and the reliquary of the shrine of Abbot Nanthelme, from 1225. In the Treasure Room there is the Sardonyx Vase from the 1st century BC, and so many other things – too many to list here. They cover such a long period of history, and some are still used today in the Abbey liturgy.

This very special place is still home to 42 men, with Mass being said at least once per day. Every year, on the feast day of St. Maurice, the 22nd of September, after a solemn mass by a prelate, the brothers take the relics of the martyrs on procession all round the town. Also at this time every year there is the “Marché Monastique” or Monastic Market, when religious orders from Switzerland and elsewhere come and sell their products. (see www.marchemonastique.ch ) The town and area is also well worth visiting. Tradition says that the exact spot where St. Maurice and his men were killed is at Vérolliez (2 kms from the Abbey) and there is a chapel here dating from the 18th century, which is on top of a 13th century one, which is on top of a 10th century one! In the cliff dominating St. Maurice, 90 metres above the valley floor, there is a hermitage from the 7th century and the Chapel of Our Lady of Scex from the 18th century.

There are 500 steps to get up there, and on the same level there is a hermitage that is still used by some people seeking God. If you continue beyond the Abbey, the road skirts the cliff and squeezes past the castle on a ledge over the river, by an ancient stone bridge. The road used to go through the castle, so that you couldn’t avoid paying taxes. This narrow road was no use for Napoleon’s cannons, so he had the deviation road built. There are fortifications all around here. There is also the “Grotte aux Fées”. This is a natural cave that goes 1,000 metres into the mountain ending in a small lake and a 77 metres high waterfall. This was the first cave to be opened to the public in Switzerland, in 1864.

The town itself has many interesting buildings, though none older than 1693. That was when a fire that started in the Abbey kitchen, spread through the town and burnt it down!

St. Maurice is a very attractive town, with a population of just over 4,500 people. It is easy to reach with trains direct from Geneva airport in just over one and a half hours. And by the way, I can recommend the Restaurant de la Gare, across from the railway station!

Parishioner Tim says, “You Must be Joking!!!”

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any of our churches are in need of funds for church maintenance, extensions or other projects. There are the "traditional" ways of raising funds: collections, sales, raffles, to mention just a few. Tim, a parishioner in Aberdeen, has come up with a rather funny, novel idea.

Tim and his brother Rick have collated a book of jokes with the sole purpose of helping charities raise money. The way it works is simple: Tim donates copies of the book to any church (or charity) who receives The Light of the North. The church then sells the book for £4.99 and keeps the money. It's as simple as that!

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The 160 page book, You Must Be Joking!!!, is full of humorous stories, hilarious one liners, exam howlers, comical quotes, priceless news paper snippets, weird facts and brain teasers all topped off with heart-warming stories to lift your spirits.

The book includes sections for when you are having "one of those days" at work, and another for travellers and so is aimed more at adults than children.

Tim says that many people are buying the book as a Christmas present (or stocking filler) and some are selling copies to friends and work colleagues - with all the proceeds going back to their Charity.

If your church or charity want to take advantage of Tim's side-splitting offer, you can email him at: Tim@stapenhurst.co.uk

faithandculture

Light of the North

Advent Magnificat

Was deemèd, dreamèd; who This one work has to do— Let all God’s glory through…

You see, Fr Hopkins, in 2009, it seems to me that Mary’s reality was perfectly expressed by a photograph that appeared in the world’s media during the month of October. It shows an earthquake-devastated church in Indonesia. It has been reduced to rubble … except for the still-intact corner where people venerated the statue of Mary, holding out her Infant.

It remains undamaged! Within the tragic disaster of the earthquake, there remained a small corner where people could still come and pray.

They say that a single picture is worth a thousand words. On this occasion, surely you, even though you are such a wonderful poet, would have responded as I did. You would also have been brought to a standstill and would have prayed.

Earthquake-devastated church in Padang, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara) You see, to me, that single photograph says, with an eloquence that is hard to match, that in the midst of even the greatest of tragedies, Mary is present, holding Sr Janet Fearns FMDM out her Son, promising that his childlike vulnerability matches our own weakness, emptiness and sense of utter devastation. To me, MAY is Mary’s month, and I that photograph declares that even when it might seem that our Muse at that and wonder why: ... whole world is in ruins, collapsing all around and threatening the Ask of her, the mighty mother: aftershocks of a cataclysmic earthquake, Mary is still there, standing Her reply puts this other erect, offering hope, offering her Son. Question: What is Spring?— That is why, my dear Fr Hopkins, I offer Advent, rather than Growth in every thing...

May, or, perhaps, in addition to May, as Mary’s month.

This ecstasy all through mothering earth You see, it was all very well for the angel to appear, promise Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth... that she would become a mother by the power of the Holy Spirit and then disappear, leaving Mary, a young girl, to face the ardon me, Fr Gerard Manley Hopkins, but even with consequences. Could an angel have any inkling of the courage your worldwide acclaim as one of the greatest of English Mary needed to tell her parents that she was pregnant and that poets, I beg to differ. I hasten to acknowledge that you there was no man involved? Even with the long Judaic history of are also my favourite poet with an amazing ability to the Messianic Promise, could Joachim and Ann really have taken encapsulate even my deepest thoughts into one or two words. their daughter’s story at face value when they first heard it? Is it not However, on this point, you and I differ. easier to imagine one almighty family row rather than an immediate You look at the beauties of May, with its budding flowers, young huddle in prayer and thanksgiving? If even Joseph needed an angel animals and blue skies as embodying the reality of Mary. In many in a dream to ease his concerns, might not Joachim and Ann have ways, I agree with you. found themselves in a similar situation? How many tears did Mary Yet I also wonder if Advent might more appropriately be described shed, how many hours did she spend in prayer, before Joseph came as ‘Mary’s month’, even with the increasing cold, frequent rain and to conclude the negotiations for their marriage? gloomy days that we so often experience in this country?

If ‘there are no secrets in a village’, how long did it take before Don’t get me wrong. I love your comparing Mary with all that is neighbours forgot their juicy bit of gossip about Joseph and Mary beautiful, fresh, tender and the way in which being too eager to wait until they were married? When they All things rising, all things sizing eventually returned to Nazareth after the birth of Jesus, wouldn’t Mary sees, sympathising the couple have faced a second round of tittle-tattle behind their With that world of good, backs? Joseph, as a man, would have fared better than Mary at the Nature’s motherhood… hands of the local gossips!

Mary was one very brave young woman!

At the dawn of Advent, I think you come closer to the truth with Heading off to visit Elizabeth gave Mary much-needed space another of your lovely poems: and support, but Elizabeth was a ‘seven-day wonder’ in the eyes of Mary Immaculate, her village. The presence of a young, unmarried, pregnant visitor Merely a woman, yet in Elizabeth’s home excited more comment and judgement than Whose presence, power is her older cousin’s own advanced pregnancy. After all, Elizabeth Great as no goddess’s

P

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and Zachary were long-married and merely generated some embarrassingly salacious comments. People would soon have lost interest had it not been for Zachary’s sudden inability to speak, relieved only when he named his son differently to the neighbours’ expectations. Perhaps a new round of speculation made life easier for Mary?

And that is where, Fr Hopkins, I think Advent, occurring as it does here in the cold and dampness of late November and into December, expresses a different image of Mary. You see, it could seem as though the whole year is collapsing around us as leaves fall and days shorten. There is so little natural light to brighten our days. It takes a certain amount of courage to believe that winter is temporary and gives way to spring. This is not to deny winter’s own unique beauty, but a cold and soggy November has little to

Bigger on the inside

Carol Zaleski

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’ve never seen Doctor Who and don’t plan on beginning now, but I often hear from my students about the Tardis, a space-and-time ship capable of camouflaging itself as an ordinary London police box. The Tardis, I’m told, is “bigger on the inside.”

Whatever the technical marvels of the Tardis may be, places that are bigger on the inside are as common as carrots in folklore and fairy tales. I think of the small cave on an island in Lough Derg, Ireland, where medieval pilgrims could explore the precincts of purgatory, or John Crowley’s magic realist novel Little, Big, in which the geography of fairyland is “infundibular”—an ever-widening series of concentric rings, such that “the further in you go, the bigger it gets.”

If you find this idea as enchanting as I do, perhaps that’s because it tells us something about our ordinary as well as our otherworldly concerns. I’ve never knowingly visited purgatory or fairy land, but I have set foot in a few small places that, once entered, prove to be bigger on the inside. Small libraries, for example: I spent much of my childhood in the 23rd Street branch of the New York Public Library, reading the entire Landmark biography series from Jane Addams to the Wright brothers. Good books open onto great worlds.

There’s something especially enchanting about small libraries that owe their existence to the devotion of a collector to a particular subject. One such library can be found in the Marion E. Wade Center on the Wheaton College campus. The Wade Center, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, began as the personal collection of Wheaton English professor Clyde S. Kilby and developed into a major archive, research library, and museum for the study of Owen Barfield, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams—seven authors linked by friendship, fellowship in the Inklings, or profound affinity, who have done more than any other group of modern writers to make the belief that reality is bigger on the inside imaginatively plausible.

The Wade Center is wonderfully inviting. Some archives can be snooty; this one is as hospitable to the autodidact as to the credentialed researcher. For anyone who loves the Wade’s seven authors (and very few people are lukewarm toward them), to sit in the book-lined reading room, with impeccably conserved manuscripts, Page 24

recommend its attractions.

Were there times when Mary’s own days appeared a little darker, even as she approached the birth of her Son? Were there days when she also found it difficult to leave her bed in the mornings and make a fresh start?

Somehow, the photo shows that, even in the midst of disaster, it is worth holding on for that little while longer, because there is hope, even if sometimes it is difficult to see.

My dear Fr Hopkins, whereas you penned your May Magnificat in solitude, perhaps, together, we could also compose an Advent Magnificat, wordless, in a single newspaper photograph?

Sr Janet Fearns is a book editor with Redemptorist Publicationns and a regular contributor to the Catholic Press letters, and photographs to view on request, is an exhilarating experience. To borrow Crowley’s term, the effect is infundibular. It seems fitting that a small house in the Midwest should contain the entrance to Narnia by wardrobe and lamppost, the world’s end in a stable, Eden in a biscuit tin. What a perfect place for Charles Williams to end up, who could not be at peace until he had turned his workplace into a hierophantic mystery drama; for MacDonald, whose hero discovered a door to fairyland in his desk; for Barfield, for whom words contained the traces of ancestral consciousness; for Tolkien, who found all love enclosed in the eucharistic tabernacle; for Sayers, who saw the mind of the Maker mirrored in human creativity; and for Chesterton, who reveled in the paradox that “the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.”

David danced before the ark of God because it was bigger on the inside; the womb of the Virgin, the stable in Bethlehem, the world itself, are too small to contain the Redeemer incarnate within. The human mind, Augustine tells us, is bigger on the inside, and God is more interior than its innermost chamber. By contrast, hell is big on the outside—its ramparts span the power centers of our globe—yet if Lewis is right, it is almost annihilatingly small on the inside.

These are not mere curiosities. The moral world, the spiritual world, the real “other world,” is not far away, but further in. There are scientists who claim to explain our deepest values by taking the measure of our small brains; but to be human is precisely to be bigger on the inside, to live in a way, and in a world, that will forever elude such measurements.

In “Transposition,” originally a sermon for Pentecost, and his finest piece of apologetic writing, C. S. Lewis makes this point clearly. Falling in love may be accompanied by a sensation like seasickness; but where the emotion is present, the accompanying sensation is taken up into it and becomes a carrier of that richer life. The richer, higher things of our experience have this power to transfigure the lower, sensory structures of our existence. Yet viewed from below, Lewis says, “there will always be evidence, and every month fresh evidence, to show that religion is only psychological, justice only self-protection, politics only economics, love only lust, and thought itself only cerebral biochemistry.”

If there is a purpose to fantasies and fairy tales like Phantastes, The Man Who Was Thursday, the Space Trilogy, and The Lord of the Rings—other than the perfectly good one of providing innocent entertainment—perhaps it is to wean us away from this view from below and help us see that our mortal life is bigger on the inside.

Published with kind permission of The Christian Century magazine Carol Zaleski is Professor of World Religions at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. In 2014 she was invited to Pluscarden Abbey to give the annual Pentecost Lectures.

She has recently co-authored a book with her husband, Philip Zaleski on the literary lives of the “Inklings” which is reviewed

by Bishop Hugh Gilbert on page 31.

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ointment.” Simon assumes that this proves that Jesus is no real prophet for surely, if he had known what sort of woman this was, he would have been disgusted. Jesus, in typical fashion, does not immediately comment on the woman’s actions, but tells Simon a little story: “‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more.’ And he said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves Continuing our series on Nicolas Poussin’s 2nd set of paintings little.’ And he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’” on the Sacraments, we take a look at the artist’s magnificent The Jesuit Jean Maldonat, whose work might well have been read interpretation of the scene from St Luke’s Gospel when Jesus is by Poussin, wrote a commentary on this Gospel, stating that “Jesus invited to dine with Simon the Pharisee, but how does it come to went to the Pharisee’s house, not that he might accept a meal for represent the Sacrament of Penance? the body, but that he might give a meal for the soul.” He further noted that Jesus’ response to the Pharisee was “not to the words, but to the thoughts, as if he could see into the Pharisee’s soul. For A. Philokalos by this the Pharisee could understand that Christ was not merely a prophet but indeed God.” The penitent’s love is a sign, rather than he main space of the picture features the table and a cause, of forgiveness. the figures reclining around it. The two main points This is a most vivid representation of the Sacrament, whether of interest are at the sides. The centre is a still life we call it Penance or Penitence or Reconciliation. Here we see a study of the banquet set out on the table, the straight penitent sinner who knew two vital facts: i) Where the Lord was to lines of which lead us into the painting. The background is again be found and ii) that he had the power to forgive sins, to heal her modelled on severe classical architecture. of the sickness her sin had caused. Instead of merely saying a quick There are no allusions here to early Christian ritual; the scene is “sorry” in her heart to God, she sought out Christ and showed taken directly from Scripture, from St Luke’s Gospel: 7:36-50 and him directly, in public, how sorry she was and he absolved her of it is this Gospel that Poussin suggested that his patron Chantelou her sins and she went away healed. Thus, we can call this penitent should read. Jesus was dining with Simon the Pharisee when “a woman of the city a “patron saint of penitents”. woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he Many of the incidental figures are gesturing or moving in some was sitting at table at the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster way, in great contrast to the main characters’ rather statuesque flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, stillness. The diners are reclining instead of seated: Poussin took she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the great pride in being archaeologically or historically precise in scenes hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the like this. He adds other antiquarian details, such as the small tripod table in the foreground and several serving vessels. The Pharisee wears a head-dress (carefully researched) with cloths with Hebrew inscriptions on them, probably intended to be the phylacteries or tefillin prescribed in the Book of Exodus as “a memorial between your eyes” (Ex. 13:9) which Jesus condemned the hypocrite scribes and Pharisees for ostentatiously widening, just as they enlarged the borders of their clothing – compare Simon’s voluminous and elaborate robes to Christ’s more humble tunic and pallium. He went on to chastise them further for taking the place of honour at banquets and rejoicing in the title of Rabbi (Mt. 23:5-6). The Hebrew on the tefillin here is apparently written in bad grammar, because the texts Nicolas Poussin, ‘The Sacrament of Penance’ , 1647 are carefully contrived alterations

The Seven Sacraments of Poussin

The Sacrament of Penance

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of Psalm 25:15. Instead of “Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord”, the text has been changed to read “Mine eyes are ever toward the letter of the law of the Lord”. This could explain Simon’s puzzled, even apprehensive gaze towards Christ. His blind reliance on the written law makes him incapable of recognising the Lord, even as he stares directly at him. This in turn renders even more affecting the picture of the loving humility of the ordinary sinful woman who does acknowledge the Christ by washing his feet with her tears even as Simon’s feet are washed by a slave. Her service is freely given; the slave’s is not. There are, in fact, nine servants for the eight diners.

More or less all eyes are turned towards what is happening on the left side of the picture. The two men next to Simon, probably disapproving Pharisees, are pointing to the woman. Even Simon the Pharisee, on the far side of the table for dramatic effect, whose feet are being washed by a slave, is looking across at Jesus: Jesus who is turned outward to give his blessing to the woman. We are reminded of how Simon has fallen down on his hospitality by not offering to wash his guest’s dusty feet, as was the custom. The woman’s hair is

bound up in the picture but this will change as the story unfolds.

Two responses are being compared here: the extravagant love of the woman and the cold formal propriety of the Pharisee. He offers Jesus only one sign of hospitality; she offers three – the kiss, the washing of his feet, and the anointing. Jesus uses the parable he tells to confront his host about his attitude towards the uninvited woman and to demonstrate God’s forgiveness and compassion.

Although this is a scene straight from an early part of the Gospel, we can still find implied references to other Christian sacraments: apart from the washing of the feet and the laver (also associated with baptism), we can see bread and fish on the table, recalling Christ’s feeding of the five thousand, which St John used to prefigure the Eucharist, bread being a symbol of the Lord himself.

The slave kneeling in front of Christ is pouring liquid – possibly water – from a small jug into a much larger vessel, possibly adding water to the wine.

Wherever we look in the painting, our eyes are drawn again and again to the bright figure of Jesus, hand raised in benediction: “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

education for priests during much of the eighteenth century. In retirement from Rome, Abbé Paul Macpherson saved his people from wading through the Livet river by providing a place of worship at Chapeltown. The Church of the Incarnation, Tombae, came first when it opened on the second day of February. Candlemas.

Some prior history is worth recording. Mr Gordon’s predecessor in Glenlivet was Alexander Paterson, ordained at the Scots College Alasdair Roberts & Ann Dean Douai before fleeing with the rest of the household from Jacobin here are three Catholic churches within seven miles terrorists. Glenlivet was his first charge, the chapel at Kynakyle a of each other in Highland Banffshire. The last to mile upriver from Tombae. He left after eighteen years to become be built is in the village of Tomintoul but the other coadjutor to Bishop Cameron of the Lowland District. In 1818 he two, astonishingly, were both opened in 1829 to serve returned to Glenlivet, led a High Mass which was new to all present, the numerous population of Glenlivet. The Rev. James Gordon and confirmed seventy-four young people. Based in Edinburgh, he succeeded as Bishop Paterson of the new Eastern District. claimed 1,145 souls at the start of his leather-bound Status Ten years later the scene of this great ceremony was swept away Animarum, R.C. Glenlivate. At least half of them lived in the by a flash flood, the ‘muckle spate o’ twenty-eight’. Dom Odo Braes of Glenlivet where the Scalan seminary had provided basic Blundell, the itinerant Benedictine monk of Fort Augustus, found traces of it in the early years of last century. That might have been regarded as a discouraging act of God, particularly when linked with the washing away of graves downstream at Nevie Christ, but Mr Gordon had already decided that his chapel needed replacing after half a century. The foundation stone was laid a year before the flood, and Glenlivet’s priest begged for money in pulpits as far south as Manchester.

The result, as he told readers of the annual Catholic Directory, was an ‘elegant Gothic’ church.

The old one had been heatherthatched, and Gordon shared his difficulties with a fellowclergyman: ‘Upwards of seventy horses have been at Foudlan, and these might have conveyed home all the slates had all been equally animated with the true spirit of Ann Dean’s landscape in watercolour showing the Church of the Incarnation at the undertaking. The season of Tombae, nestling in Glenlivet the year, the length of the journey,

Tombae in Glenlivet

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the smallness and inability of the horses, and above all the men’s unwillingness to proceed considering these obstacles, operated powerfully against the undertaking.’ A sunny day in January made possible a trip of twenty miles down Glen Rinnes to the quarry at Hill of Foudland near Huntly. They returned fully laden, and 14,000 slates were piled around the walls with another two thousand required.

The Rev. James Gordon What were all these horses doing in Glenlivet? The short answer is whisky boom. It was going into decline (like North Sea oil) thanks to an Act of Parliament introduced by the Duke of Gordon making small stills illegal.

Excise officers or gaugers were beginning to make their presence felt in an area where every family used ‘the yowie wi’ the crookit horn’ to make whisky. Small shelties each carried four eight-gallon ankers down to Lowland points of distribution. There is an account of Glenlivet men riding up Brechin high street beating the empty barrels in triumphant tattoo before heading home with cash from the crop. James Gordon grew up there (in a Protestant family) and

was well placed to condemn ‘that abominable traffic of driving the mountain dew’.

Glenlivet women helped to make the product – an extension of their role in the kitchen – and sometimes stayed in the bothies when darkness fell. Children were born out of wedlock, without the mothers being too strongly condemned as sinners. Mr Gordon found that his church had spare capacity thanks to Chapeltown.

He organised male and female schools under Catholic teachers for 70 and 76 pupils between the ages of five and twenty. His pastoral endeavours were helped by ‘voluntary offerings of Seat Rent’. All this is discussed at much greater length in Scalan News No. 10 for June 1995. A marvellous website has been created by Mike Morrison at www.scalan.co.org which contains much more on Catholic heritage than the title suggests.

That fuller account pays particular attention to the priest’s ‘State of Souls’. It included three mission censuses, with columns for Communicants, Confirmed, Confessed and Converts. Spiritual improvement aside, the book anticipates the government censuses which began in 1841, providing the information on names, ages, occupations and marital status beloved of family historians.

It also conveys something of the high times in a district which later became depopulated. The Rev. James Gordon gave it all of his priesthood. He died at Tombae in 1842 and is buried in the precincts of the church.

News from Blairs Museum Stunning medieval embroideries help to shed light on late middle ages in Scotland Prue King

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t all began when a book, “Lost Interiors” by David McRoberts and Stephen Mark Holmes (SCHA - ISBN 978-0-9575756-0-8), landed on the office desk. Its subtitle is “The Furnishings of Scottish Churches in the Later Middle Ages” and in it the authors bemoaned the fact that were no examples of vestments from that period in Scotland; all that remained were the Fetternear Banner and the Arbroath Chalice veil. I reached for a pen and wrote to inform Rev. Dr. Holmes that there was good reason to believe that medieval embroideries from vestments could be seen in Blairs Museum.

We had reasoned for a long time that it was probable that two vestments, one red and one white, which appeared in a late 17th C. inventory of the Leslies of Balquhain and which had also been attributed to Bishop George Hay at Aquhorties around 1795, might have been passed by the last Bishop of Aberdeen before the Reformation to the staunchly Catholic local family, as items were given into the safe keeping of other families – notably the Gordons, who lost theirs to Mary, Queen of Scots. Like a true scholar, Dr. Holmes arrived, looked at the items, murmured likely agreement and vanished back to the archives. Some little time later he wrote to say that there had been an altar dedicated to St. Anne belonging

The panel from the Anne and Joachim chalice veil.

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The panel from the Ursuline chalice veil

The Moses panel from the Ursuline chasuble to the Tailors’ Guild in the medieval Church of St. Nicholas in Aberdeen. There was no record of any vestment featuring Sts. Anne and Joachim (the parents of Our Lady) in the inventory of the displenishment of the Church during the Reformation and furthermore, the Chaplain to the Guild had been the priest from Kemnay – an area belonging to the Leslie family. It is amusing to think of the Chaplain saying “I will just take that home” before it met its doom. In the records referring to the items in the possession of Bishop Hay, they are remarked as being very old and much worn. The property of Aquhorties belonged to the Leslie family and was leased to the Bishop as the seminary. There was a close connection between the seminary and the family.

The “story” vestment was a favourite in the late Middle Ages with eminent artists providing the designs for great vestments.

Of Flemish or English origin, the Anne and Joachim vestments are worked in silks and or nué (a form of goldwork embroidery) and laid on a background of gold thread work couched in a chevron pattern. The chalice veil is the best preserved piece.

In comparatively recent times, probably last century or perhaps slightly earlier, the embroideries have been re-laid on to a moiré background, some restoration done on the silk work, and edged with classical church braid.

There is a similar set of vestments which have been treated the same way and which has a similar provenance – the red set mentioned above. For no other reason than that the best preserved embroidery, again on the chalice veil, depicts St. Ursula, its common name in the Museum is “The Ursuline Chasuble”. It is impossible to claim that all the pieces came from the same source because there are variations in the background arches and it would Page 28

be unlikely to find St. Ursula, King David, Moses and Ezekiel, along with St. Andrew and Our Lady on the original but they seem to have been co-existing quite happily on this vestment for around a hundred years. The cross orphrey on the back is surmounted by the Dove over INRI and the figure of Christ dead upon the Cross – a feature which has strong connections with the Netherlands.

Both these embroideries have been heavily restored but it is safe to assume that they would have been worked as meticulously in long and short stitch as are features of the others. The arms of the cross depict Our Lady and St. Andrew and it has been suggested that the use of blue and white in the arches may indicate that they were worked for a Scottish church. King David with the psalms and Moses with the tablets complete the central structure of the cross.

It is impossible to say whether they came from an antependium, a cope orphrey or a vestment but they have been beautifully drawn and worked with love and drew a lot of attention when the chasuble was exhibited at the Mary, Queen of Scots exhibition in Edinburgh in 2013. Unfortunately, Dr. Holmes was unable to find any reference to it in the archives but, if a new edition of the book appears, these vestments will be added to the body of knowledge of the late Middle ages in Scotland.

As a footnote, it had been thought that the pieces might have been remade for the British Association Meeting in Aberdeen in 1859 when the great and good were encouraged to show their treasures but there is no evidence for this. Perhaps they were restored for the new College when it was built in the early years of the last century, or for the centenary of Blairs in 1929, by which time there were a number of Sisters of St. Joseph of Annecy involved in various roles in the seminary. Alas, no records to prove anything exist but the use of fairly thick floss with modern dyes might provide an indication.

Prue King is a member of the management committee and a volunteer at Blairs Museum. The museum can be visited between April and October but visitors are welcome outwith these times throughout the year, by arrangement (Tel: 01224863767).

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musician, writing in 1837: ‘As director of the choir I succeeded in raising a splendid orchestra and in giving four Oratorios’. One of these oratorios was his own composition. He also mentioned that for Christmas 1837 his choir numbered 70 members. But once again he became dissatisfied. It seemed that wealthy Protestants in Glasgow would not employ a Catholic doctor, and the many Irish Catholics who required his services were too poor to be able to pay much if anything. So in 1838 he decided to emigrate to Australia, taking his two sisters, Mary and Catherine, with him. He became organist of the cathedral in Sydney, where he described himself as ‘Member of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Music’. He appears to have enjoyed considerable success, as a local Sydney newspaper reported: ‘The Mass was Reid’s No. 1 in C, which is, upon the whole, a charming composition. The Kyrie, which, like Mozart’s No. 12, is written upon the dominant of the key, is a beautiful piece of genuine church music, in which every part is a melody, and the combined effect of which is truly fine…The Benedictus, eople sometimes think that research into the history of as sung by the Misses Reid, accompanied by the Seraphine and church music is a dry, dusty subject, involving faded Violoncello produced a very fine effect. The subject of the Agnus manuscripts and not much else. Sometimes this is the Dei is the same as that of the Kyrie, and forms the conclusion of case, but sometimes one turns up a fascinating character a musical composition, of which any composer might be proud.’ who springs into life through his or her letters, and indeed, faded For a while things went well for Dr Reid. It was at this point manuscripts. he started referring to himself as ‘James Aquinas Reid’ perhaps One such is Dr James Reid, born in Aberdeen in 1809, who using his confirmation name as his baptismal certificate records is currently the subject of a research only ‘James’. Eventually, however, some illproject involving myself and Dr Graeme advised business dealings caught up with Skinner, a music historian in Australia. him, and he was once more on the move, James Reid was a member of a notable this time to a post as medical director in family of Scottish church musicians, a penal colony on remote Norfolk Island. which included Charles Fraser SJ, at one Here again he combined his love of time assistant priest at St Peter’s, Aberdeen, music with his ‘day job’ in medicine, and John Reid, also of St Peter’s, and James organised musical productions performed (Gallus) Robertson OSB, the monk who by the convicts, which caused him to be was prepared to defy Bishop Hay on the criticised by the authorities as being too subject of singing in church. James Reid’s lenient. musical/medical career took him from Eventually the harsh conditions on Aberdeen to Glasgow, to Australia and Norfolk Island became too much for Dr finally to Chile, where he is venerated as Reid, and he decided to move again, this ‘Aquinas Ried’ a much respected Chilean time across the Pacific to South America, composer, previously thought to be of and the newly independent country of German origin, and credited amongst Chile, ‘whose credit’ according to Dr Reid, other things, with founding the national ‘stands as high as that of any European Chilean fire service. state. A very good feature in a young The German connection derives from country.’ Here he was to spend the rest Dr Reid’s education at the Scots monastery of his life, apparently achieving at last the in Regensburg, Bavaria, and he seems also stability he had long sought. He became to have enrolled at the academy of music famous as an opera composer, producing Il there. After studying medicine in London, Grenatiere in 1860, Valhalla in 1863 and he worked as a surgeon in Aberdeen, and Diana in 1868, plus an unfinished opera, became involved with the music at St Atacama, written in Spanish.

Peter’s church. Always keen to increase his Dr Reid’s music was popular in Scotland. income, in 1835 he considered publishing Dr James Aquinas Reid His motet Great and Good was performed some of his late uncle Charles Fraser’s at the opening of St Mary’s in Huntly Street, Aberdeen in 1860, compositions, which it seems were being performed regularly at and several of his works, including a setting of Veni Sancte Spiritus St Peter’s. He wrote to Bishop Kyle, ‘Since I have had the labour I and a version of Adeste Fideles, can still be found in manuscript wish to have some of the profit,’ and estimated that he could make sources. His life and work show how torn he was between music £500 from the project. Sadly he did not get Bishop Kyle’s backing, and medicine. Eventually, it seems, the musician in him triumphed, which has meant that Charles Fraser’s church music has nearly all and that is how he is remembered in his adopted country of Chile, been lost. Only one short motet is known to survive, even though so far away from his roots in north-east Scotland. it was recorded that all the music sung at his funeral was of his own composition.

Dr Shelagh Noden is an acknowledged expert in Catholic music Young Dr Reid appears to have fallen out with Priest Gordon in Scotland and is Director of Music at St Mary’s Cathedral, over church music, and he abruptly left Aberdeen later in 1835, Aberdeen. You can contact her with your ‘Musical Memories’ at moving to Glasgow. Here he had more success as a church s.noden@abdn.ac.uk

Shelagh Noden’s Musical Memories

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On a Wing and a Prayer with Father Peter Barry

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ever heard of Djibouti? It’s a shame because this tiny speck of a country on the Horn of Africa packs a big punch.

My guide for a week is Houssein Rayala, who has met me at the airport, and packed his jeep with all the necessities for a trek in the desert: petrol, food, maps and compass, with a good supply of beer!

We visit Lac Abbe, where the film, The Planet of the Apes, was shot. Here, limestone chimneys belch out puffs of steam, a perfect setting for a prehistoric film. We “ monkey “ around for a bit, and watch Lichtenstein’s Sandgrouse drink from a tiny stream.

And next day we’ve climbed 3,500 feet in baking heat, stumbling over basalt rocks. Houssein insists we proceed in total silence. This is the home of the Djibouti Francolin, a species endemic to Djibouti, a bird on the verge of extinction.

The Foret du Day, where the bird lived in good number, is now a dead forest. Whitened branches and tree stumps protrude from the earth. Years of drought and soil erosion have forced the birds elsewhere.

After some time we hear a rustle, as a bird scratches the ground for food. A male bird appears, as if in instalments!

Through the scrub, a head appears, then the rusty flanks, then the short tail, and finally the green feet with their spurs.

These are sharp spikes to defend his territory and his females from rival birds.

Houssein tells me his last four visits here produced no sightings! For me these are rare and precious moments that I’ve hungered for since I was a small boy.

We climb back down the mountain, and sleep under simple thatched structures.

Houssein Rayala is the only ornithologist in Djibouti. He was present when two British birders found a variation of Melba Finch. These are present here in very small numbers.

We find two of these tiny birds and photograph them. The pictures are now being circulated in the African Bird Forum, to invite discussion as to their status: a mutant, some say; others consider it a mere subspecies, flavi caudata. My name has been appended as a witness. Watch this space!

And next day we head for a mangrove swamp, the closest point to Yemen, only 28 kilometres distant. On a clear day the Yemen is visible, and perhaps the sounds of war can be heard as the fighting there intensifies.

On the beach we meet a group of 10 Yemeni fishermen.

They are afraid to return home because of the war, and now find themselves stranded in a foreign country, Djibouti, fishing without authorisation.

We arrive at the mangroves in our jeep just as they return

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The Melba Finch but controversy surrounds the status of the Djibouti variation from a night’s fishing. The catch is salted and will be sold in local villages. And as they prepare breakfast, we are both invited to join them. Fish is cooked over a fire of twigs, and dough is kneaded to make delicious bread.

We sit on the sand and share the food, 10 fishermen with two strangers, breaking bread for each other, taking care each has the same portion.

I think of Jesus, who meets his disciples on the beach over a charcoal fire, and offers them fish to eat. I think of Jesus who is recognised in the breaking of bread.

The night before I return to Scotland, there is Mass in a local oratory, preceded by the Rosary. Father Tom, from New Zealand, has gone into poor health, and seems embarrassed by his deafness. Soon he will return to New Zealand for medical care not available here. In the tiny oratory a number of religious sisters appear. I count 22 in toto, unsure as to their identity. They say the rosary in French, with great deliberation, each word given its value. I feel ashamed at the way I gabble the rosary as I walk with the dog along the railway line. Seven minutes would be an average time!

I’ve been in rosary groups where the final decade is reached before I get the knot out of my rosary beads! I promise to pray with greater devotion in the future.

And as silently as they have appeared, so do the nuns drift off into the night. Houssein has a great respect for them.

They are never far away from the hospital, the prison or the soup-kitchen.

I spend my last night in the Kempinski hotel. Outside my window the police presence is strong. A van with a cage attached sits nearby, and the police seem to stop people at random, and lock them inside. There they sit and shout and rattle the bars. Occasionally a passer-by will hand a cigarette through the bars, or a small bottle of water. I have no idea what is the purpose of this local form of justice. The scenario frightens me.

Next day Houssein takes me to the airport. I make another promise: I will never complain again! In the cab I say the Rosary, silently and with great deliberation.

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faithandculture

The Fellowship: C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Owen Barfield and Charles Williams

The Fellowship - The Literary Lives of the Inklings Authors: Philip & Carol Zaleski Hardcover: 656 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (13 July, 2015) ISBN-10: 0374154090 ISBN-13: 978-0374154097 List Price: Hardcover £20.00 Paperback £11.24

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Bishop Hugh Gilbert OSB

ention of ‘the Inklings’ most usually arouses puzzlement, sometimes sneering dismissal, and other times enthusiasm. It depends who you’re talking with.

Who were they? Dabblers in ink, purveyors of vague intimations – ‘inklings’ – of higher truths? That is what they liked to suggest by their self-given sobriquet, seeing themselves – as the Zaleskis nicely put it – ‘as no more than a loose association of rumpled intellectuals.’ Oxford men of the mid-20th century, some dons, fond of drinking and disputing, walking and writing, prodigiously gifted and creative, even if in idiosyncratic ways, across a variety of disciplines. Men – women weren’t directly part of the show, though they influenced every one of them – united by a common philosophy in the broad English sense and one not always easy to define, but it treasured words and meaning, imagination, the life of the mind and of virtue, literature and Christianity. The core consisted of the four names of the sub-title above, the first two of them destined to become world-famous. Narnia and Middle Earth have entered the mental geography of us all, not without help from the film industry. Charles Williams, literary theologian and aspiring mystic, has always had a smaller, but still devoted following. Owen Barfield, perhaps limited by his beloved Anthroposophy, is the least widely-known, but remains deserving of respect for his studies of language and consciousness and his re-presentation of Coleridge. Others circled around, took part for a while, came and went, attained eminence as translators, men of letters, historians. But why does such a group deserve some 600 pages? The Zaleskis deliver an answer in their Epilogue: “The Inklings’ work, then, taken as a whole, has a significance that far outweighs any measure of popularity, amounting to a revitalisation of Christian intellectual and imaginative life.

They were twentieth-century Romantics who championed

imagination as the royal road to insight and the “medieval model” as an answer to modern confusion and anomie; yet they were for the most part Romantics without rebellion, fantasists who prized reason, for whom Faërie was a habitat for the virtues and literature a sanctuary for faith. Even when they were not on speaking terms, they were at work on a shared project, to reclaim for contemporary life what Lewis called the “discarded image” of a universe created, ordered, and shot through with meaning” (p. 510).

This is the key, the ‘revitalisation of Christian intellectual and imaginative life’. The Inklings were the antithesis of Bloomsbury (raised to canonical status by the time of my 60s schooling). They hated the literary modernists. They set their face against the grubby and incomprehensible and, for all their experience of war, voted unremittingly for the dignity of man and language and culture, for whatever was noble, beautiful and true. This was a form of courage. The 20th c. in the West has so often been presented, by the more pessimistic kind of Christian, as an age of apostasy, of severance from the roots. That is indeed part of the story. But only a part. The Inklings represent, in their English, Oxford mode, in children’s literature, study of the past and plain-speaking apologetic, a Christian resurgence parallel to those in philosophy, literature, music and the plastic arts – and sometimes even theology! – that appeared on the Continent, in America and Australia.

They were part of a largely unacknowledged but widespread renaissance of faith. They were successful subversives. And like so many others here, they were lay. And being lay have touched many and enabled an often unwitting contact with things that prepare for or flow from the Gospel.

The Fellowship is a masterly work. One may initially quail at the bulk of it, but the lissom, intelligent prose flows and charms like Tennyson’s brook and carries one along. The blend of content and criticism on the one hand and personal story on the other is well-judged. The authors’ obvious appreciation of their subjects never degenerates into crass adulation.

Weaknesses are exposed, but intellectual charity always prevails. How do two people – Philip and Carol are husband and wife – write a book about four? This is their secret. The two have become one pen and the four, not forgetting their friends (and wives), are each given their due as individuals and yet belong coherently to the one book. The authors never stumble. This is a very considerable achievement.

In this book, a door opens on a constellation of fascinating and very real human beings, on the history of mid-20th century Britain, on the fluctuations of friendship and the processes of literary creation, on a human and Christian enterprise which sustains hope amid the darkness. It is a door worth walking through.

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Light of the North

faithandculture

Poetic Licence Canon Bill Anderson delves into some of his favourite inspirational verse

F

irst come a few verses from the gospel of Mark, then a poetic summary of them by Richard Crashaw (1613-l649), and finally a much loved prayer on its theme by St Ignatius.

"Jesus sat down opposite the treasury,and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, "Truly I say to you,this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.

For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living."

The widow’s Mites Two mites, two drops (yet all her house and land), Falls from a steady heart, though trembling hand: The other’s wanton wealth foams high and brave, The other cast away, she only gave.

Richard Crashaw

Notes from a notebook Senescens Sacerdos

B

eing a modest kind of "chiel", l sometimes use a nom-de-plume for my scribbles in the parish magazine, usually “Senex Canonicus".

For those whose Latin may be a little rusty, senex meaning old or aged. From it we get senile - perhaps a better description on my lesser days. Another word is "senescens" meaning ageing or decaying.

One of the signs of my decaying is how often I think of death. Of course, one thanks God for every day of Life, but death is still to be considered. The Church, in her wisdom, makes November the month when death is brought to mind, and follows up with Advent, which begins by giving us Gospels about the final Judgement. The month of the Holy Souls is a month of decaying “senescence“ when leaves drop off the trees and the countryside begins its winter sleep, so like death. I like Cardinal Newman's idea that death “is like going home for the holidays from boarding school." Better still “in the morn (of death) those angel faces smile which l have loved long since and lost awhile." To see those we have loved and lost through death must be a moment of joy. And after death, sustained bliss? Subito santo? No way! (Here I can only speak personally) for me Purgatory is the first stop.

Pope St. John Paul has said that Purgatory is not a place but a state of being. I imagine it as a state of undoing the hurts and offences l may have caused in life which are still unresolved. We are all guilty of a careless word, a heedless Page 32

A Prayer Lord,teach me to be generous; teach me to serve thee as thou deservest; to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labour and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that I do thy holy will.

St Ignatius

gesture, a broken promise, which may have caused hurt. Of course, it is possible and desirable to make peace in this life.

The film "Love Story" had the phrase "Love is never having to say sorry." On the contrary, Love means saying sorry to those we hurt. Pope Francis has said “the three most important words in a family are Please, Thank You and Sorry.” Purgatory may involve asking forgiveness from those we have offended when we meet them in the aftertife. Love is essential to God's presence - we have to undo the knot of unlove in our souls.

Scripture and the Fathers talk of the fires of Purgatory. For example, 1 Cor.: 3-15 and St. Cyprian, St. Augustine (who else?); Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Scotists regard the fire of Purgatory as not physical fire but mental anguish, the burning shame we feel at our selfish ways. Like Gerontius in the "Dream of Gerontius", we cannot bear the searing Love of God and cry out “Take me away." But there is always hope that we shall be gathered up in God's mercy and bathed in that love eventually. Advent, coming at the end of November and a time of preparation for the feast of Christmas is a good time to build bridges, to heal and forgive real or imagined grievances. Get out the metaphorical gardening gloves to throw away the prickly thistle (so beloved of Scotland) and grasp the olive branch.

humour

Light of the North

Humour from the Vestry "It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously." - Oscar Wilde

For those handful of people who do not use and cannot comprehend why Facebook exists: I am trying to make friends outside of Facebook while applying the same principles. Therefore, every day I walk down the street and tell passersby what I have eaten, how I feel at the moment, what I have done the night before, what I will do later, and with whom.

I give them pictures of my family, my dog, and of me gardening, taking things apart in the garage, watering the lawn, standing in front of landmarks, driving around town, having lunch, and doing what anybody and everybody does every day.

I also listen to their conversations, give them the “thumbs up” and tell them I like them.

And it works just like Facebook. I already have five people following me: two police officers, a private investigator, a priest and a psychiatrist.

“I’ve put on some weight recently. My wife says it’s just puppy fat, but I’ve been eating other things as well.” ~ Gareth Richards “I was raised as an only child, which really annoyed my sister.” ~ Will Marsh “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.” ~ Herm Albright “I bought an anti-bullying wristband when they came out. I say ‘bought’, I actually stole it off a short, fat ginger boy” ~ Jack Whitehall “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” ~ George Carlin “Dave drowned. At the funeral we got him a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt. Well, it’s what he would have wanted” ~ Gary Delaney “I do not have OCD. I checked, three or four hundred times, and I definitely don’t have it” ~ David Mitchell “Somebody actually complimented me on my driving today.

They left a little note on the windscreen, it said “Parking Fine” ~ Tommy Cooper “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read” ~ Groucho Marx “It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man” ~ Jack Handey Checking In I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee asked: “Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?” To which I replied, “If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?”

Scottish New Round-Up In Alford, Aberdeenshire, a small boy was one of the contestants at a children’s cookery contest. The judge made a great show of tasting his iced cakes and saying how delicious they were. He glowed with pride.

Then the judge asked how he had managed to get such a lovely gloss on the icing. How had he managed that? “I lick them” he replied.

Wee Harry, a tiny wee man, used to push an enormous barrow around the streets of Airdrie and was credited with many humorous quips. As Harry struggled to climb South Bridge Street with his barrow, a well intentioned onlooker said “where there’s a will, there’s a way”, to which Harry replied “Aye, and where there’s a hill, there’s a brae”.

A visitor to the Isle of Lewis was getting exasperated by day after day of grey cloud and drizzling rain. After two weeks of this he asked a youngster who was passing “Does the weather here ever change?” to which the youngster replied “I don’t know. I’m only six years old.”

When the ferry company in the Western Isles charged reduced rates for vehicles transporting sheep, some customers took advantage of this and took a sheep in the back seat of their car when going to the mainland (and had the same sheep on the way back). Eventually, the company had to change the rules.

However, you should always be careful about stereotyping the Scots as mean. There was a recent letter to a newspaper from an Aberdonian which said “If you print any more jokes about mean Scotsmen I shall stop borrowing your paper.”

The Sunday School teacher asked the class “How many of you want to go to Heaven?” Everyone but wee Hughie put their hands up. “Don’t you want to go to Heaven, Hughie” asked the teacher. “I can’t, Miss. My Mum said I had to come straight home after Sunday School.”

The editor of the Camlachie Advertiser was angry at the actions (and inaction) of the Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) in Edinburgh. One week he ran a scathing editorial about their shortcomings and, in large letter, the headline said “Half the MSPs are Crooks.” Needless to say, the local politicians were not well pleased and put a lot of pressure on the editor to retract. Eventually, he gave in and apologised, but with headline “Half the MSPs Claim They Are Not Crooks.”

Nearly a Police Arrest Two policemen (Constable Ken and Bob) call the station on the radio. “Hello. Is that the Sarge?”

“Yes?” comes the reply “We have a case here. A woman has shot her husband for stepping on the floor she had just mopped clean.”

“Have you arrested the woman?”

“No sir. The floor is still wet.”

For more humour like this see page 22 and find out about Tim & Rick Stapenhurst’s collection of jokes, quotes & stories which can be used to raise funds for your church or favoured charity.

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Light of the North

crossword

WORD No.30

This issue’s competition winner will receive a copy of Sally Rena’s Catholic anthology, “All Things Give God Glory”.

Just send your completed entry by the 1st February to the Light of the North, Ogilvie Centre, 16 Huntly Street, Aberdeen AB10 1SH. First correct entry drawn out of the hat is the winner.

5. “Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the ------pestilence” Psalms (7) 6. A giver. (5) 7. Almonds and pistachios are the only types mentioned in the Bible. (3) 12. One of the three vows of a Benedictine. (9) 14. High German language, spoken throughout the world and written with the

Hebrew alphabet. (7) 15. “..and Zabud the son of Nathan was principal -------, and the king’s friend” Kings (7) 17. Olea Europaea (5) 18. Patron saint of France.

(5) 21. “The woman saith unto him, ---, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep” John (3)

Answers to crossword No. 29 Across 1. Homo 4. Coddling 8. Stream 9.Redeem 10. Soul 11.Laically 13. Corpus Christi 16. Symphony 19. Seek 20. Bearer 22. Adagio 23. Holiness 24. Lamp Down 2. Orthodoxy 3. Overlap 4. Camel 5. Dervish 6. Lydia 7. Nee 12. Lutherism 14. Scourge 15. Install 17. Parsi 18.Yeats 21.

Ego

Little Horror Sudoku No. 17 If you prefer sudoku to crosswords then you still have a chance to be a prize winner with our super tough sudoku puzzle.

Name .............................................................................

Address ......................................................................... ..........................................................................................

Telephone ......................................................................

Across 1. A semi precious stone, birthstone for October. (4) 4. “---- ---- merrily on high” (4,4) 8. “...from the hewer of thy wood unto the ------ of thy water” Deuteronomy 29. (6) 9. To set on fire. (6) 10. Crusader city of Northern Israel. (4) 11. A treble rather than a soprano. (8) 13. Wedding guests “... gathered here together in the sight of God” (6,7) 16. “Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of -------- time” Macbeth. (8) 19. “Rise up, my love, my ---one, and come away.” Song of Solomon (4) Page 34

20. Birthplace of the patron saint of Italy. (6) 22.

Creed universally adopted in the 4th century.

(6) 23. Term coined for the Geneva Bible of 1560 because of a specific translation of the word for Adam and Eve’s clothing.(8) 24. “A bruised --- shall he not break” Isaiah (4) Down 2. Term used for the Holy Spirit derived from the Greek word for comforter.

(9) 3. Appropriate dress for the first Sunday after Easter, on a steep hill perhaps ? (3,4) 4. One of the Greek orders of architecture. (5)

Name .............................................................................

Address ......................................................................... ..........................................................................................

Telephone ......................................................................

Congratulations to our last competition winner, Mrs Jane Coll from Thurso

Light of the North

Rainbow Glass FP

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Light of the North

SCIAF BC

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