Sunday Reflections

On a liturgical note Canon Philip Gillespie The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart We heard it from the of Jesus falls this year on Friday 19 mouth of Pope Leo the June. Great at Christmas This liturgical feast celebrates the heart (Office of Readings): ‘O that loves us so much – but it is a heart Christian, be aware of crowned with thorns, a side pierced your nobility – it is with a lance, hands which have washed God's own nature that the feet of the apostles, and feet which you share: do not then, by an ignoble have walked the dusty tracks of Galilee life, fall back into your former baseness. and the polished marble of the Temple Think of the Head, think of the Body of of Jerusalem. In other words, the heart which you are a member. Recall that of Jesus celebrates that humanity of you have been rescued from the power Jesus who loves the rich young man, of darkness, and have been transferred weeps over Lazarus his friend and over to the light of God, the kingdom of Jerusalem which had failed to grasp God.’ the fullness of the gift that was being In the preface of the Eucharistic Prayer offered to it. for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart The heart is a sign and a symbol. It we give thanks that ‘Christ poured out stands for the humanity of the incarnate blood and water from his pierced side, Christ Jesus and it is also a pointer to the wellspring of the Church’s the fullness and perfection of love Sacraments.’ which we can only strive to imitate and In this time when the physical mirror. It is not a love which we have to celebration of the Sacraments is not merit, or attain, or grasp – it is a free possible in many of our communities, it gift and what we need to do is learn to is perhaps good to reflect on where all receive graciously (as we do with any of the Sacraments find their origin, their love, human or divine) but then also to purpose and their fulfillment – it is the recognise that this love never leaves us pierced side of Christ, the self-giving where we are, but always seeks to love of Christ, the invitation of Christ to perfect and to ‘bring us on’ to achieve ‘Come, follow me’. Having been the best we can, to be the best we can. thirsting for these Sacramental gifts for This is because love in its purest and the past weeks, may we soon return to fullest reality ennobles us, it makes us them with a deeper understanding and realise our true dignity and worth. a greater love and devotion.

Sunday thoughts

Mgr John Devine OBE

I write this during the anniversary of presence of God deep VE Day. Comparisons are being within them. In spite of made between the pandemic and isolation, Christians the Second World War. experienced a sense of The war lasted six years but there’s a solidarity with other touch of ‘war-time spirit’ in the air. A believers, even though sense of shared danger, restrictions they couldn’t meet and uncertainty can bring out the best together. in us. Many have felt a deeper sense Similarly, during the time of the of our common humanity and the Reformation, whenever news was vulnerability that goes with it. passed that a priest was staying in the The Church’s experience behind the vicinity, many risked their lives to Iron Curtain in the Soviet era, and in attend Mass. People and priests ran repressive regimes such as North the risk of imprisonment, torture and Korea today, have something in brutal execution. The early Christian common with our experience of writer Tertullian wrote that ‘the blood of practising the faith during the the martyrs is the seed of the Church’. lockdown. In the ‘Church of Silence’, Our weeks of lockdown hardly match Christians practised their religion the suffering of persecuted Christians underground, deprived of public but there is a sense that the faith we celebration of the Mass in open may have taken for granted grows in church buildings. Some were times of hardship. These weeks can imprisoned for their beliefs. Yet many inform recommendations we make on moved beyond the public rituals they the shape of the Church in the future. were denied into a fresh ownership of They give fresh impetus to our Synod their faith and an appreciation of the 2020 preparations. Weekly Reflections are on the Archdiocesan website at www.liverpoolcatholicresources.com

The power of unity

In 1977 I met a community in Liverpool that consisted of two nuns from different orders, a priest, and two families who were from a Free Church background but who all lived together in peace and harmony. That community was the basis of the Kirkby Christian Fellowship and those who led and still lead it became lifelong friends. What has united us over the years is a common experience of the spirit and a belief that the spirit is calling us towards what Pope Francis calls ‘unity in diversity.’ We have just celebrated Pentecost and surely the greatest gift of the spirit is unity.

With the dawn of the Second Vatican Council, documents were produced that seemed to stretch out the hand of friendship to people of other traditions. We were allowed to pray with others of different understandings. We gathered in each other’s churches to pray for Christian unity. That was the was the work of the spirit. There was hope and enthusiasm among the Church traditions that had never been felt before. It wasn’t a negating of Catholicism, as some thought, but an awareness of what the spirit was doing across the churches and a moving with that spirit.

For me, one of the greatest scandals in the Church is disunity; not difference but disunity. We can do things differently and still be united but too often suspicion and fingerpointing rear their ugly head. Too often a mix of power struggles, jockeying for position and wanting our own way acts to destroy the simple call to be united in love.

I’m sure that’s why Jesus in John’s Gospel prays for unity. We can’t go it alone. It’s together that we make a difference The early Church knew the power of unity and knew that unity would be its greatest sign to the world of a God who had brought people together and kept them together in the face of opposition and persecution, people who were willing to stand for love at all costs. It takes the power of the spirit to make that happen and so Jesus prays ‘that they may all be one’.

The greatest witness we have today is unity. What will convince the world of the presence of God is certainly not moralising or dogmatic statements but people who come together in love to share love with one another and the world, people who know how to stand with those in need, people who know how to celebrate love and life together. My prayer for Pentecost, therefore, would be for the spirit of God to sweep across this country and free us from all that would stop us being united. Fr Chris Thomas