Homily for Ascension - Abbot Mark

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From: Abbot Mark Sent: Thursday 9th May 2013
Subject: Homily for Ascension

Fr Mark

Homily for Ascension,  2013                                   

The Holy Spirit was with Jesus from the very beginning of his public ministry in the River Jordan.  The Spirit was never far from him as he went about preaching among the people.  It is not surprising then that Jesus told his disciples that they would be given the Holy Spirit as their guide and would bring to mind all that he had been telling them.  The Spirit would lead them into all truth and make clear to them what they should do and say.  Like all disciples, they heard what Jesus had told them but did not always understand or even remember everything he had said to them. 

As with all good teachers, Jesus had to pass on and leave these pupils of his to put into practice what they had been taught.  Only in this way would they show if they had really learnt what they had received from Jesus.  It’s all very well to show people the sea and to even encourage them to dip their feet in it by the shore.  But, until they themselves plucked up the courage and plunged into the deep, they would not learn how to swim.

That is the teacher’s role: to show his pupils how to swim.  His job was to hand on what he knew and then to move on, leaving them enough space to develop on their own.  A good teacher lives on in the deeds and appreciation of those he has taught.  The Spirit that guided him would be passed on to them.  And Jesus, our Good Teacher, leaves us to fend for ourselves but always with the guidance and inspiration of his own Holy Spirit.  Our Lord tells us as much himself.  He had to leave them or the Holy Spirit will not come and be their Spirit. 

Jesus returned to where he had come from.  His place now is with the Father.  And now that he has taken his own proper place in heaven, his disciples had to take up his mantle and themselves teach about the kingdom of God by their lives and words.

What Jesus was to the disciples he remains the same for us today.  The Holy Spirit is the bond between the Lord risen the dead and those who are now his disciples. Unless we realise that, something is lacking in our understanding of our Christian faith.  The figure Christ’s remains present in the world for us but only through the Holy Spirit.  If we don’t grasp that then we have yet to learn from the teaching of the Gospel.

Jesus ascended into heaven in order to prepare the disciples mentally for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  This same Spirit who was present in Jesus’ life and came down on the apostles at the first Pentecost now comes to be with us.  As Jesus told his disciples, the kingdom of God is very near.  What they experienced remains a reality for us.  We may not see the wonderful works that we read of in the Scriptures.  But we will meet with unusual things happening in peoples’ lives though prayer and trust in God.  To believe in the power of Christ we need to pray with confidence that the Holy Spirit will indeed be present in the Church and in us.  The Spirit will indeed make all things new in our lives.  For that to happen we have to keep listening to Christ who continues to teach us through his word in the scriptures. 

If we live by that word we will be doing something new.  Miracles will happen in us.  We will become a more transformed people through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Abbot Homily Sunday 5th May 2013

Homily: Abbot Mark   (1 Cor 13, Mt. 25)

                         Divine Service (Knights Templar)   

 Sunday, 5 May 2013

The Christian vocation is strikingly summed up for us in St Matthew’s gospel when Jesus told the parable of the Last Judgement.  (Mt 25.34-40)

How we are welcomed then will depend on how we live now.  There is no beating about the bush as regards how we should behave in our lives.  In true parable style, Jesus’ message is given in strikingly black and white terms.  We need to be told, so Jesus does not pull his punches.  We also know that God is love, that he is gentle and full of compassion, that he does not break the broken reed.  As we grow in love we come to know our selfish tendencies as well.

In the first reading from chapter 13 of the first letter to the Corinthians, we see St Paul spelling out some of the warmer but still difficult messages that come from our Lord’s own life and teaching.  It could be said that the passages for Matthew and Paul are two sides of the one coin.  This coin will gain us entry through the pearly gates of heaven.

We may use all the fine words of eloquence and create a wonderful impression on our hearers, as St Paul himself says in this letter to the Corinthians, but if we do not live what we say then our lives will be empty and meaningless.  If we do use them as a pattern for our lives then the world will be a wonderful place to be in.  Our relationships will be happy ones and our friendships will be rich and rewarding.

It’s not surprising that this chapter from I Corinthians is often used at Weddings.  Its words are warm and inspiring, direct and practical and speak in everyday language.  When the newly married are still in the first flush of their love for each other, the magic of love flows equally from one to the other.  It is in the later periods when their personalities are developing that life can become difficult.  If one or other of them does not recognise the changing landscape of their relationship, there will be many crises.  It may fall on one of them to keep up the loving because the other is finding it hard to cope.  This is when love is tested.  Christ himself encountered much misunderstanding and even hostility in his life.  But it was through suffering that he himself learnt obedience as Scripture itself tells us.  He grew in his own understanding of his life and vocation.  He remained faithful to God’s will for him.  He died but then rose to a new life.  In a committed married life that is also what happens.  The vocation of married life is a mirror for all our lives as we go to God.  Like Christ’s own life, ours is tried and tested so that it may become stronger and reveal the greater depths that lie within us.  When we are the weak partners in a marriage, or in any friendship, we are the ones who need the love and support of our partners or friends.

The love of the family is the source and bedrock of society.  Love within the family will grow when it goes out to help and support the extended family and beyond that again to society at large.  Even in needy parts of the world this is a recognised phenomenon.  Our world has become a village in which the concerns and needs of others become ours.  There is a native proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child.  In today’s world wide communications everyone becomes our near neighbour.

Many have commented that in today’s world there is a growing selfishness, where there is little or no place for sympathy for others.  We are in a recession and wealth is concentrated in the hands of the well off.  The Christian conscience makes love a force that turns from an initial inward-looking love to an outgoing force that helps the needy.

When we love others their lives grow.  When we cast our love into the waters of life, it spreads like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a lake.  When others do the same many small miracles happen which help to change our world.

The message Christ gives us is that we must learn to die to our self –to our selfishness – in order that we may rise up to a new and better life.  That life is Christ’s risen from the dead.  It remains risen when we maintain our spirit of compassion for one another in our sorrows and our joys.

When we do approach the pearly gates it won’t be to join a long queue to have our records checked. Those who have lived in the spirit of the gospel will walk through without realising that the gates are there.  They will be going simply where their hearts are leading them.

Easter Vigil Homily 2013 - Abbot Mark

Easter Vigil 
Service of Light

Liturgy of Baptism - Homily 

Holy Saturday has seemed like a vacuum crying out to be filled.  It was a day when liturgically there was no centre of focus.  The crosses and crucifixes were out of sight; our statues covered over.  Christ was not reserved in our tabernacles. 

 Liturgically, we were disorientated.  There was no reverent bowing or sense of direction in the church.  We prayed as if we were just in a room, just as the disciples were, gathered together after Jesus was crucified.

The disciples were devastated.  They thought that their dreams were destroyed with the death of their Master. Their astonishing years travelling round with him had seemed so full of promise but now were all for nothing. 

Our time together has not been exactly like that of the apostles.  The difference is that they were left in a kind of limbo; our situation has been helped by our knowledge of what actually happened in the days that followed the harrowing experience of Calvary.  We can see where the scriptures were leading them; they had to live through the deepest of disappointments and aimlessness.  But they did come through it all because, in spite of their misunderstanding and cowardice, they renewed their however badly they had coped with the treatment Jesus received from his enemies, and especially with his death.

With the rumours that Jesus had risen from the dead, and then his mysterious meetings with a number of the disciples before he met all of them again, their lives began to be pieced together once more.  This time there was an awareness that things were not as mistaken as they had imagined.   Jesus’ words to them were true but they themselves were now different.  They understood better and acted differently.  They were more convinced of what they had been told and they were now more responsible in living it and preaching it, especially after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

The scriptures tell us that God is love.  We find it hard to believe this is true.  Our laziness, our distrust of others, our own lack of real commitment all have an effect on the degree to which we are open to God.  We find it hard to understand God knows that about us and that he won’t give up on us.  Like the disciples hiding in that room in Jerusalem after Jesus was crucified, God is putting about rumours that something is happening.  Strangely, it is when we are let down and feel broken in our lives and very vulnerable that we become more open to God.  The cracks in our lives give God a chance to break through our hard defensive shell.

No matter how bad or indifferent we are, love is an attractive proposition.  It’s our nature to love.  There was once a popular song which said that it is love that makes the world go round.  It is love, in whatever form it God calls us to, that makes us happy ultimately.  God is the proof of that.

And that is what lies at the heart of our celebration tonight.  Our Lord gave himself to his Father and to us because of love.  He defied all that evil could do to him, because he knew that what he lived and said was true. He became newly alive in the resurrection to show us that.

That is his message for us.  He did in his own life what he had taught us through the apostles.  More than that, he now gives us the strength and help we need to do the same ourselves. Our vocation is to be Christ for others.  That means we ourselves must first live like Christ.

Tonight’s liturgy now comes to the point where we are called to put our own name on the dotted line.

We have been baptised into the life of Christ.  We have the opportunity to strengthen it as we now renew our commitment to make Christ more alive in us.

Abbot Mark

Holy Thursday Homily, 2013 - Abbot Mark

  Living of the Word  

  Homily  

Holy Thursday is a day for remembering.  When he was celebrating the Passover with his disciples, Jesus told them that they were to repeat that celebration in memory of him.  His words and deeds are a key that unlocks for us the power of God still active in our world.  It is consoling to relive the scenes of that Last Supper.  But warm feelings are not enough by themselves to nourish faith and strengthen our conviction in our Lord’s teaching about life now as we know it, and about its fulfilment after death.

To enter into the mystery of Holy Thursday and its fruition on that first Easter Sunday, we need, like him, to endure betrayal, personal and physical suffering before he died.  All mature life involves that. Christ, however, raised life to a new level and, in doing so, showed us its ultimate meaning.

Holy Thursday is the first of the three great events that lie at the very heart of our faith.  Together with Good Friday and Easter Sunday it gives us an insight into who Jesus is and what we are destined to become in him.  Our present life is passing but it gives us the opportunity to see into the Mystery of God and eternal life.  Our present life is not something unreal, something that we have to put up with until we get to heaven.  Jesus came to share this life with us with all its sorrows and joys.  But while he was doing that he showed his disciples that this life was a stepping stone to something greater. Life was more than present pleasure, or the pursuit of power, or the seeking of possessions.  It was more than one’s personal gratification.  God is about love and we are destined to share and give that love to others as Jesus illustrated by his own life.  This is what we celebrate during these final three days of Holy Week.

The evening meal of the Passover was celebrated by the Jews to remember the saving power of God when they were rescued from their enemies in Egypt and in later ages.  It was therefore a joyful feast. This is what Jesus and his disciples were doing.  But within this celebration evil was not far away. Judas, the disciple, was looking for a way to betray him.  Life is like that.  It was so for our Lord, it remains so for us down through the ages.  To be human is to live in a world of conflicting motives and desires.  To be saved – to become what we are destined to be – is to hold fast to our deepest desires and loyalties whatever the temptation to do what is only good for ourselves.  That is the spirit and attitude Jesus showed us on that Last Supper meal.  He served and showed respect to those who followed him.  They were disciples, but also friends.  He served them totally and showed that they had to be of service to others just as he was to them.

At the meal in the Upper Room it was only Judas who betrayed Jesus, but the rest of the disciples showed their disloyalty when they all scattered after Jesus was imprisoned and condemned.  We are all like that – weak and in great need of support.  We need God’s help and support to remain loyal to God and to one another, and to be true to ourselves.  That in fact did happen after Easter when the meaning of Jesus’ teaching finally hit them.

Good News is sweet to the ears when it is first heard.  However, it takes time, setbacks or even failure before its meaning becomes embedded in the mind and heart.  Truth and faith become stronger when they are questioned or attacked.  With the Spirit of the risen Jesus faith becomes for us the lifeblood of our faith and the love we have for others.

This evening we enjoy and thank God for the gift of the Eucharist and the example of service he given us.  The washing of feet which we now re-enact is both a reminder of what Jesus did to his disciples then, and what we need to do in many ways in our own lives for others.

Abbot Mark Golden Jubilee

Golden Jubilee Bouquet from Sisters

Introduction to Mass        -     Golden Jubilee of Monastic Profession.

The Church has called us to celebrate a Year of Faith, inviting and encouraging us to renew our belief in God.  Pope Benedict wants us to see the Holy Spirit at work in our world and in each of our hearts

Today is the Golden Jubilee of the opening of the Second Vatican Council on 11^th October, 1962.  On that same day fifty years ago I made my profession as a monk.  So it’s not just because we are celebrating the opening of Vatican II that you have been invited here today.

Homily: 

Fr Mark’s Golden Jubilee of Monastic profession.

I’m sure you will all have vivid memories of the glorious years of Vatican II.  (Well, maybe not all of you!|)  Fifty years ago today Pope John XXIII opened the Council with a great flourish.  He announced in vibrant terms that Christianity was not about gloom and doom but the joy of the Holy Spirit.   Much water has passed under that bridge and has at times been diverted into some waterways.  Those were stirring times, but not everyone found them pleasant.  It must be admitted that some of the enthusiasm did go over bounds.  But the spirit of the Council is still a thing to treasure and to look back to.  It gave us much to be thankful for and to learn from.  But, fifty years on, our world has moved on to some extent and our needs have to be reassessed.  Even so, there are treasures in the Council’s documents that have yet to be mined, and perhaps some of those we have already taken up have still to be properly understood.

Today’s scriptural readings are from the ones that would normally be used for today.  As always, when we look close enough, the Spirit gives us surprises even within our ordinary routine.

‘Are you mad?’ is the encouraging way Paul speaks to the Galatians.  Some time ago I was listening to a radio programme on religion.  There were a number of atheist and believers on it.  One of the atheists was quite fanatical.  

Intercessions

He said, without any attempt to moderate his view, that anyone who believes in God was mad.  So, Paul must have got it right!
Seriously however, Paul was referring to the way the Galatians had forgotten the real meaning of religion; they had put their faith in externals, forgetting that the new life promised by Christ came from within.

In the Gospel Jesus uses several images telling his disciple that they had to ask, seek, knock, if they wanted to receive the Spirit who is life.  Faith is not an object that we are given and can keep in some safe place. 

Refectory - buffet 

 It is a living thing that will grow or become less within them depending on how it is lived.  Asking God should be a permanent attitude that we have whenever we need help.  Friendship with God is a relationship that should find us looking for and seeing God as we go about our daily round.  Like any human lovers, Christian disciples have God in their minds and hearts as they go perform their daily tasks.  Jesus tells the disciples that God is behind the door.  If they knock on it, it will be opened to them.

This is another interesting coincidence in today’s readings.  Pope Benedict has written a special letter for this anniversary entitled, as these papal letters are, by the words Porta Fidei, (the Door of Faith.)  It is Pope Benedict’s wish that this year, beginning today, will be a Year of Faith in which we revisit the sources of our faith in the scriptures.  The Vatican II documents were an attempt to do just that.  They looked to the Word of God and the traditions that sprang from it through the years and tried to teach us how we should live them in our own time.  Now, fifty years later, we are being asked to do the same.  Other Christian Churches were represented at Vatican II and will no doubt be encouraged to contribute to the happenings of this new Year of Faith.

We have an ongoing need to revitalise our belief in God.  We need a vision that will carry us forward, one that will support us as we try to live with full hearts and generosity in our following of Christ.  And we need to let that overflow in some way or other for the benefit of our neighbour.  They should be happier that we are around.  Not everyone can be a sparkling companion but being what God wants us to be in ourselves should somehow communicate itself to others.

Those who were caught up in the spirit of the times all those years ago won’t have lost that spark of life that held so much promise for the future.  As often happens, history has its own ways of diluting positive experiences.  Like all good living, so too with the gospel much effort is required to embrace and assimilate its values.  The cross that Christ dies on was not a symbol but a reality for him.  It is a symbol for us of what he achieved.   To be true to it we must ourselves accept the crosses that we have to meet as we try to follow the path to life that Christ opened up for us.

 My monastic life in the past fifty years has had its ups and downs.  (I’ll spare you the telling of those.)  But the things that happened at the various sessions over the four year period of the Council has always stayed with me.  The optimism generated by the Council was a wholesome and life-giving thing..  The yearning within many at the Council and outside it  for new and fresh initiatives is what the Gospel is all about.  Not everything that was hoped for saw the light of day, and not everything that was advocated deserved to survive the scrutiny of the Council Fathers.  But it is also true to say that some things did not come to fruition because people were not ready for them or they were not properly implemented.

Marie and Vincent(brother) Caira
 and  Br. Philip

  

What happened at Vatican II is what happens to all of us in our lives.  Some things we win, others we lose.  A vocation is just like that.  There are negative forces at work in our lives as well as, thank God, positive ones.  They are the making of who we are and how, strangely enough, God draws us to what we are called to be.  Some of the negative forces may well be of our own making.  If so, we will stumble and fall down.    But falling down is not the problem.  Scripture says the just fall down seven times a day.  What determines our character, our destiny, our holiness, is the getting up.  However, if we get up and allow our minds to remain in the mud, we might as well stay there.  If, on the other hand we don’t give up on our initial ideal and vision, we will not stay down for very long.  That attitude remains true for the Church as well as for people in general.  It is also true for each one of us as we strive to follow God in the ways he beckons.  To misquote Tony Benn who, in his eighties, said ‘Life gets better the longer you live it.’

I thank God for showing that to be true, and you also for coming to share this day with me.

      

Sancta Maria Abbey: http://www.nunraw.com.uk (Website)   

Blogspot :http://www.nunraw.blogspot.co.uk |

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Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - Solemnity Homily Abbot Mark

Wednesday, 15 August 2012  The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - Solemnity 
 Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 1:39-56.  

Assumption of Mary, 2012                                                                 Community Mass Homily

The feast of the Assumption of Mary into heaven may seem to some like putting her on a pedestal which we look at from afar. - We admire her position and then forget about it for another year.  If we did think along those lines we would be missing out from an awareness of what our Christian life is all about.

The life stories of the saints, and of our Lord himself, show us what we can become.  They are a mirror in which – if we look at them long enough – will transform us into what we see there.

In recent days and weeks we have seen the happy enthusiasm that has emanated from the London Olympic Games.  Everyone who has kept in touch with what has been going on there has been caught up in this infectious spirit.  Athletes have excelled in their achievements.  Some have won an Olympic medal for the first time or have set personal bests.  Most of those who did not win but came in second or third acted as if they had actually won.  Their silver or bronze medal was ‘gold’ for them.   The achievements of their teammates had encouraged them to perform better themselves.  The huge crowd of onlookers also spurred them on to higher levels of performance.  Together, individual sports men and women, their fellow competitors and the watching crowds, all made for a wonderful winning experience.  The ones cheering and those being cheered on, were all different parts of the same experience.

Entering into the lives of the saints is not all that much different from the dynamics seen at work at these Games.  The Olympic scene showed us the immense physical efforts, the speed and concentration required for excellence.  St Paul in one of his letters to the early Churches writes about striving to win the race.  He urges us on by telling us that it is only the person who comes first wins the crown.  So, he said, we must strive to win. 

However, the spiritual life is not logical in these matters.  There is always the need for sustained and real effort to win.  But all of us have different gifts and different levels of excellence.  It may be that the nearest we get to a medal is a personal best.  In the Olympic Games one person who gets the gold medal, but we all strike gold if we prepare and perform as well as we possibly can.  There is only one colour of medal in the spiritual life if we run in it as best we can.  The saints show us this.  They competed in the race where their better selves ran against their less-than-desirable selves, using all their abilities and working with the handicaps they had. 

The glorious anthem and the golden light of the resurrection shone for Christ at the end of his race when he rose from the dead.  When we put on the new man that is Christ, we take part in his race of life in our own particular way.  And our Lady followed him closely, so closely that she has joined him, standing by his side with her own winner’s medal.  In Christ we are all runners and, so long as we keep running, all winners.

All the talk after the London Olympics has been about leaving a legacy to encourage the young, and perhaps the not-so-young, to take up sport and to excel in it.  That is what the Church has long been recommending that we do as regards our faith and life in Christ.  We learn to put on Christ, to achieve as he did, by watching how other holy men and women themselves learnt from his example throughout the ages.

When we look at the lives of the saints generally we see the energy and attention they exercised in their following of Christ.  But in the Assumption of Mary, which we are celebrating today, we rejoice that she has, after her own efforts and discipline, arrived.  She has been taken up to heaven where her Son has himself already ascended to.  They have both received their gold medals. The Feast of the Assumption is Mary’s finishing line.

No one achieves anything of lasting value by themselves.  We can do it only by living in and through the energy and strength of our Lord’s own resurrection. It is the power and adrenaline of his Holy Spirit who fuels our muscles and pumps his blood through our veins that make our success possible.  We all go to heaven together on this track of life.  And together we will find Mary standing by her Son waiting to present us with our own winners’ medals.

The Nativity of St John the Baptist - Homily

'His name is John' Cistercian Breviary

http://www.abbotmark.blogspot.co.uk/   

Birth of John the Baptist,. (24 August,2012)

            Homily  11.00 am

John the Baptist is the only person outside the Holy Family to have two days set aside for him in the Church’s universal calendar.  He is obviously an important person in the life of the Church.  John links the two Testaments.  He is born in the Old to prepare the way for the New.  In later life John comes over in the gospels as rather a fierce character.  Films, plays, and even opera have portrayed him as a wild man, even a fanatic.  It makes for good theatre.

There are people who preach religion but for all their fine words reveal only themselves.  There are others who never get in the way of their message  but point beyond themselves.  John was caught up by his love for God and the desire he had to bring the hearts of people back to God.  However blunt his words, he did not claim anything for himself.  John was humble.  When he recognised Jesus, John knew his work was nearly over.  “He must grow greater”, he said and, “I must grow less.”  John knew when to let go.

As an only child born to elderly parents who had long ago given up hope of having a family, John the Baptist must have been a much-loved child.  At the same time it is very likely that he was a spoiled one as well.  .  Elizabeth and Zechariah knew that their son was even more special than other children.  The meaning of his name is “God’s gracious gift”.  The name, John, broke with the tradition of his family and yet both father and mother had independently picked it.  They were of course inspired by the Holy Spirit

The people throughout the area were speaking about the unusual circumstances of his birth.  He was quite a little celebrity.  And it was the same when he began his ministry.  Crowds flocked to him and, for a while, he was again a celebrity.  This time the whole of Jerusalem were talking about him.  Some were saying openly that he was the Messiah.  Talk like this could go easily to a man’s head.

And yet, somehow John was aware, deep within himself, that he was not the one the people thought he was.  He knew that there was one coming after him who was more important than he was and that his job was to step aside and make way for him...This labour without reward or recognition must have been hard at times.   As he lay in prison hearing about the crowds now following Jesus, he must have wondered if he had toiled in vain and had exhausted himself for nothing.  Surely there must have been times in that prison when he hankered again for his younger days when people were over-awed by him and he was both popular and successful.

John’s experience is a kind of model for all those whose best days are behind them.  Men and women who were once well-known and had succeeded in their lives, inevitably have to give way to others younger than themselves.

We should remember such people as they try to cope with the changed circumstances in their lives.  They are not now useless, simply that their circumstances have changed.  They do need to adapt to a changed reality where their usefulness is not ended but different.  They can always do something else.  And, if that becomes too difficult, they can certainly be themselves. 

John himself remains a model for us in that he shows that we can and should step aside so that Christ is the one who stands first in our lives.  We find Christ when the time comes for us to step back and let the other people in our lives and our work move into a more central role.

John let go when the time came, and - with his help - so can we!