The Assumption of our Lady

Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady's Assumption. Privately we scratch our heads about this feast, and wonder whether it is really "in the Bible", but it may be I, helpful to remember two things. First, all feasts of Our Lady are always celebrations of her Son; and secondly, no city, anywhere, has ever claimed to have her bones. So the celebration is an ancient one, and no matter how difficult we may find it it is all about Jesus, whose mother had to be different, not because of what she had done, but because God had prepared her for the unique task that she had to fulfil, as Mother of God. In addition to that, the fact that she is, in our belief, now utterly present to God, is a sign for us of where we shall be when our story is finished.

It is not an easy business, being the Mother of God; and nor is it easy being a ;disciple of Jesus, as the first reading for next Sunday reminds us. We are halfway through the Book of Revelation, with its account of what is going on in God's world, with a vision of the Ark of the Covenant, which often stands for Mary in Scripture, and then "a great sign". This "sign" is "a woman clothed in the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars". This sounds very grand, but we then learn that this woman is not only in her labour-pains, which is bad enough, but menaced with a thoroughly unpleasant-sounding dragon, which stands before the woman who is about to give birth, "in order to gobble up her child when she gives birth". The child is, quite clearly, Jesus, "who is going to shepherd all the Gentiles with an iron staff', and (to our relief) is snatched up to God's safety. Nothing so congenial for his mother, however, who has to "run away nto the desert, where she has a place prepared from God".

Birmingham Pilgrimage

The final national event of the Ordinariate year is a national pilgrimage to the Shrine of Blessed John Newman in Birmingham. We have been offered use of the Birmingham Oratory on the day nearest to Cardinal Newman's feast day. The pilgrimage begins at St Chad's Cathedral on Friday 7th October, with Sung Evensong and Benediction at 6:30 pm —the Cathedral Choir providing the music. This will be followed by a reception and a talk on Blessed John Henry Newman by Father Ian Ker, who has written several books on Blessed John Henry Newman.

On the Saturday we meet at the Birmingham Oratory. Coffee will be available in the Cloister Hall from 9:45. Confessions from 10:15 in preparation for Mass at 11am followed by veneration of the relics. Packed lunches may be eaten in the Upper Cloister Hall where at 2:30 there will be an address by the Rev'd Dr. Stephen Morgan and a talk on Newman and the Oratory by the Provost.

18th Sunday of the year

The parable of the rich fool, Rembrandt

What are the things that really matter in life? That is the uncomfortable question that the readings for this Sunday pose to us. The first reading comes to us from Qoheleth, or Ecclesiastes (“the Preacher”) as his Greek nickname goes, with the well-known refrain that goes “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”. Then (leaping into his second chapter, for some reason), this deep and radical thinker offers an example of this “vanity”: “a person who has expended effort and wisdom and expertise and skill – and he leaves his portion to someone who has not put in the effort. This is also vanity and great wickedness”. Some scholars point out that Qoheleth hardly ever mentions God; but you can do God’s work without speaking of the Almighty, and the task of the Preacher is to expose the foolishness of the pursuits to which we normally give our energies, in order that we may find our way to God.

That is a point made more explicitly in the Psalm for this Sunday, setting the folly of human pursuits against God’s greater purposes (“You turn human beings back into dust, and say, ‘Go back, sons of men’.”) and different perspective (“In your eyes a thousand years are like a single day, yesterday...a dream in the night”). So for God, all our passionate human endeavours are “like grass that flourishes in the morning – in the evening it withers and fades”. So we need God’s perspective, to find out what really matters: “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a wise heart”, and then, in a prayer that comes from the heart, “fill us in the morning with your love”. It is God, and God alone, who can “prosper the work of our hands”.