Twelfth Sunday of the Year

A favourite description of the Church is “the barque of Peter”, as she makes her way across the often turbulent seas of history to the peace and perfection of that harbour which we know as the Kingdom of God. For ancient peoples the sea conjured up images of unbridled power, fierce in its strength and life threatening to human beings. The passage from the book of Job expresses something of that terror the sea holds and almighty God alone can control its ferocious power. At the dawn of creation the Lord God set limits which the sea could not pass, and so ensured safety for those who dwell on the earth. A similar fear of the ruthless and terrible nature of the sea overtook the apostles on the Sea of Galilee. Seasoned fishermen that some of them were, they felt that they were on the point of perishing by the storm which beset them.

St. Mark tells us that Christ, fast asleep on a pillow in the stern, appeared indifferent to the disciples’ plight. In panic they awoke him only to be met with the rebuke that their faith had failed them in this moment of danger. In a memorable scene, Christ spoke to the turbulent elements and calm immediately followed. The disciples were confused, but went on to ask the pointed question, “Who can this be that even the wind and sea obey him?” As we listen to this gospel passage the same question is addressed to us. We are dealing with someone more than a human being here. The eye of faith sees in Jesus Christ stilling the storm the Son of God himself. The gospel passage is a summons to faith, to the Church as a whole and to each individual. In all the dangers and difficulties, trials and tribulations to which the Church has been subject from the beginning down to the present day, we must never doubt the abiding presence of the saviour, Jesus Christ. Christ will remain faithful to us, provided we remain faithful to him.

The words of Paul the apostle in our second reading can be of great help here. The coming of Christ has changed everything, the way we look at people and view the world. We no longer see things from a purely human perspective, but wonderfully since the death and resurrection of the Lord a new creation has begun and the old order has passed away. In his Son Jesus Christ almighty God has accomplished his greatest wonder. Have we sufficient faith to make God’s marvellous deed our own?

+Michael Campbell OSA

Bishop of Lancaster

(from the Diocesan website)

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

As we approach the season of Lent, there is something particularly timely about this Sunday’s Liturgy of the Word. The thrust of the first reading from the prophet Isaiah and the gospel passage from Mark is the forgiveness of sins and a new beginning before God. Speaking through the prophet, almighty God declares that the past is indeed past, and with their sins graciously forgiven, a new future opens up for his people. God overlooks their waywardness and wrongdoing and does not hold their sins against them. The words of Isaiah prepare us for the remarkable story of Jesus and the paralytic man in the gospel when, in response to faith, mercy and healing are immediately offered. We are presented here with a picture of the divine compassion in action.

At first sight, the declaration of Jesus to the paralytic that his sins were forgiven might surprise us. Yet the Lord by highlighting the man’s sins before addressing his physical disability is teaching us a most important lesson. The man’s moral illness was just as much in need of healing as his bodily ailment. A deep-rooted sickness lies in the human heart which can be more damaging and as far reaching in its consequences than any sickness of the body. Sacred Scripture, followed by the tradition of the Church, calls this condition ‘sin’. This is the disease that divides us within ourselves, separates us from God and from our fellow human beings. The tragedies and vast sufferings which afflict our world often have their roots in this selfishness and evil inclination arising in the human heart. Christ in this gospel story reveals his mission as Messiah and Saviour, and the true healer of humanity. With good reason the Fathers of the Church often speak of him as the Good Samaritan. He goes on to demonstrate his divine power to forgive sins by restoring the paralytic to health. Only he, as the Son of God and Son of Mary, can do this.

The Lenten call to repentance and conversion invites us to turn to the Saviour for forgiveness and a new beginning. Our sins must not stand in the way. All he asks of us is our faith.

+Michael Campbell OSA

Coadjutor Bishop of Lancaster

Pope Benedict XVI encouraged Catholics to make regular confessions

At his midday public audience on Sunday, February 15, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged Catholics to make more regular use of the sacrament of Penance.

Speaking on the day's Gospel reading from St. Mark, which recounted how Jesus healed a leper, the Holy Father remarked that in the Hebrew tradition leprosy was regarded not merely as a disease but as "the most serious form of impurity." The priests of Israel, from the time of Aaron, were given the job of identifying lepers, who were then set apart from the community unless the priests subsequently certified them as having been cleansed. "Leprosy, then, constituted a kind of religious and civil death, and its cure a sort of resurrection," the Pope said.

Leprosy can easily be seen, then, as a symbol of sin, the Pope continued. "The sins we commit distance us from God and, if not humbly confessed with trust in divine mercy, they go so far as to produce the death of the soul." But Jesus restores sinners just as he restored the leper. By his Sacrifice on the Cross, the Pope explained, Jesus took on the burden of human sin, becoming in effect a leper himself-- someone despised by the community, an outcast-- and brought the healing power of redemption to all of us who are stained by impurity.

Through sacramental Confession, Pope Benedict said, the sinner is cleansed of impurity and restored to the community, in a sort of resurrection that is foreshadowed by Christ's healing of the leper. Therefore, the Pope concluded, the faithful should "make frequent use of the sacrament of Confession, the sacrament of forgiveness." He urged Catholics to "rediscover" the importance of the sacrament.

Confessions are held at 18:00 - 18:20 on saturdays in St Wulstans Church, or on request from Canon Hayes (contact details on website).

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We know instinctively that leprosy is an affliction to be feared and dreaded. It has the reputation of being contagious, hence dangerous, and contact with those afflicted with leprosy should be kept to a minimum lest the disease spread. The social stigma associated with leprosy and related skin ailments forms the background to our first reading today, while the gospel recounts the earnest request of a leper to Jesus to be healed. The book of Leviticus imposes isolation and exclusion on those suffering from leprosy, in fact such unfortunates found themselves outcasts from the social and religious life of the community. They suffered the added burden, when in proximity to towns and villages, of having to declare aloud that they were unclean.

The Lord Jesus, who “bore our illnesses and carried our diseases”, responded instantly and with immense compassion to this afflicted individual who had the faith to approach him. Breaking with convention, he touched the leper and healing followed immediately. JesusHealLeper.gifThe Evangelist Mark here provides us with a marvellous illustration of the power of the Son of God when confronted with sickness and suffering. Thanks to this saving encounter, the man could now resume a normal life, rejoin the worshipping community, and rediscover the joy and satisfaction of belonging. Little wonder he could not contain his joy and proceeded to tell everyone about it.

The lessons of today’s liturgical readings seem obvious. Christ through his Church is the One who integrates and unites, who breaks down barriers and restores us to that togetherness intended by God for all his children. What does divide and isolates are the sin and self-seeking which can lie deep within us. The Church founded by Christ is the place of healing and restoration, and through the sacraments the life of the Son of God flows through our veins. Christ admits us into the company of those he has healed and washed clean by his cross and resurrection. Let us imitate the faith of that leper and rediscover the joy of coming home.

+Michael Campbell OSA

Coadjutor Bishop of Lancaster

Change to Mass times this week

Please note the following time changes to the Masses this week:

Monday - NO MASS
Tuesday - 7:00pm - St Wulstan's
Wednesday - 9:30pm - St Edmund's
Thursday - 8:30am - St Edmund's
Friday - 8:30am - St Wulstan's

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

No book in the Bible captures the drama of the human condition as powerfully and eloquently as the book of Job, from which our first reading is taken today. The sacred writer, with searing honesty, addresses the boredom and routine which can form such a large part of our lives. He speaks of the dissatisfaction and restlessness which so often assail us, especially in the face of unmerited and innocent suffering which Job himself is enduring. Job laments his unlooked-for lot, and in so doing becomes a spokesman for every human person. Thanks to the mass media, we are privy to so much of the pain and suffering in our world and are at a loss to provide satisfactory explanations. Further, the problems which have gripped the economies of the hitherto prosperous nations and the threat to our personal wellbeing and that of those closest to us, prompt deeper musings and questions within us. Where are security and deliverance to be found? It is reassuring to know that long before the time of Christ believers were asking much the same questions, as the story of Job attests.

The mosaic of little incidents from the public ministry of Christ set before us in the gospel might appear, at first sight, far removed from the dilemma and heart-searching of Job. Yet what we have here is God’s answer to the pain and suffering of the human spirit. The healing of the sick and curing of the distressed depict the profound sympathy of the Son of God for afflicted humanity. The reaction and awareness of the evil spirits show that a greater and more powerful force in the person of Jesus Christ has come into the world. The stranglehold which alien forces exercised over humanity was in the process of being broken. Saint Augustine notes that “Christ became infirm to heal our infirmity, and became weak to restore our strength.” This is the good news which the Evangelist Mark proclaims to us today. It is news which remains fresh and continues to surprise us because the risen Lord, through his own passion and death, has destroyed the powers which oppress us.

It is this conviction of the startling truth of the Christian gospel which places an all-embracing obligation on the apostle Paul. He will go to any lengths to tell the world the story of Jesus Christ and his significance for every human being. The story of Job poses the profoundest of questions to which the incarnation of the Son of God provides the answer.

+Michael Campbell OSA

Coadjutor Bishop of Lancaster

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

At the heart of the faith of Israel lay a sense of expectation. Moses and the great prophets through their teaching and preaching assured the people that their God would ultimately be true to his promises. However vaguely they may have expressed it, these outstanding religious figures taught that almighty God would one day send a teacher and a saviour to his people. The One whom they foresaw would be different from anyone or anything else they had known and would have supreme authority from God himself. In our first reading today from the book of Deuteronomy Moses describes that One as a prophet who would teach and instruct the people, and it would be their duty to listen carefully to everything he said, for his words would in fact be God's words. The crowds in the gospels often wondered if, with Jesus, that truly special prophet had at last come among them.

Moses, when speaking of the prophet to come, actually outlines the figure of Christ who has come from the Father and speaks only what the Father has told him to speak. The words and teaching of Jesus, Mark tells us in the gospel, made a deep impression on his hearers. Here was a teaching that was new and fresh, unlike what they had been accustomed to hear. The things that Jesus taught and the deeds he accomplished continue to inspire us as we listen with faith. We gain encouragement and new hope for our own pilgrim journey to the Kingdom from careful listening to the Scriptures, particularly the gospels.

The power that Jesus exercised over unclean spirits, those hostile powers which in some shape or form assail and threaten fragile humanity in every age, reassures us that the struggle is not an unequal one. That same Jesus, now the risen Lord, stands by our side and will not allow us to be tested beyond our strength. He has come from God to be with us, to speak to us the word that the Father loves each one of us with a tender love, and for that we have his word as the Son of God. Let us pray today for the gift of wonder as we hear Jesus Christ speak to us and that we also can in truth also say, "Here is a teaching that is new!

+Michael Campbell OSA

Coadjutor Bishop of Lancaster

Third Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Evangelist Mark gives a rapid, almost hurried, sketch of the beginning of Christ’s preaching and the call of the first disciples, and in doing so uses a minimum of words. However, the words of Jesus are profound and help reveal his divine identity. He declares “the time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel.” The time referred to here is God’s time, the moment of his good pleasure. The long centuries of waiting and hoping on the part of his people Israel was now at an end. The period of preparation and promise so eloquently spoken of by Moses, the prophets had now run its course. With the presence of Jesus Christ, Almighty God is intervening once more in history, only now in final and determined fashion. The apostle Paul would remark to the Galatians that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his only Son, born of a woman.” There is both urgency and challenge in Christ’s preaching which demand a response. Two thousand years later we too find ourselves put on the spot by the proclamation of the Son of God
Did Mark intend the call and response of Peter, Andrew, James and John, to be an example of the impact that Jesus had on those who heard him speak? The gospels show how the apostles had to grow and mature in faith over the three years of Christ’s public ministry. That faith was sorely tried during the days of his passion and death, but would reach maturity through the experience of his resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. But on that first day beside the Sea of Galilee they clearly had enough faith to turn aside from their daily pursuits and throw in their lot with the One who spoke so forcefully and convincingly. They were destined to be fishermen of quite another kind. The generosity of their response has enabled the story of Jesus to reach us down to our day.
In his opening proclamation Christ called for repentance, a change of heart, if his gospel of good news was to have its impact. A new way of thinking and hearing was required to become part of this time of God’s grace and goodness, freely accessible to all who would take up the challenge. The story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet, powerfully reminds us of God’s loving concern for all peoples. What he asks of us is our cooperation, our willingness to walk in his ways, not paths of our own choosing. Christ continues to speak to us through his Church. Like those first apostles, let us be generous in our response and we too will become bearers of the good news.

+Michael Campbell OSA

Coadjutor Bishop of Lancaster

Ordinary Time

Today we return to what is known as 'ordinary time', which will continue until Lent begins on 25th February. Green vestments are worn during this season. Perhaps this colour, so often seen in the plant life of God's creation, reminds us that every day of the year - not just the great seasons and feasts - is an opportunity to grow in faithfulness to the Lord.