Experiencing God Everywhere

IN JESUS God became human experience: ‘What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – this life was revealed so that you also may have fellowship with us, as we are in union with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.’1 John 1:1-3.
When asked about the essence of his message, Jesus replied: ‘Come and see.’ – come for the day and experience the presence of my company. He washed people’s feet. He used the metaphor of weddings to explain the nature of union with God. His humanity was seen in that experience of having his own feet washed by Mary’s tears, dried by her hair and anointed with her ointment.
Before he could believe in the Resurrection, Thomas needed to touch the wounds of the risen Christ. Deep healing and true faith are often found within the experience of woundedness.
Knowledge alone, ideas and concepts do not change us profoundly. Experience does. ‘Some things can only be seen by eyes filled with tears.’ After it we see things differently. Our experience is true when we hold no filtering lens, no preconceived notions: we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable in our openness to reality. ‘Do not be afraid.’ Luke 12.32
Authentic conversion is experienced bodily and emotionally. It was to make all our pain redemptive that divine love
became wounded flesh.
We experience the Holy Spirit in charity, joy, peace, patience , kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. And that list of St Paul’s is not meant to be exclusive: he includes elsewhere humility and forgiveness, ‘whatever is excellent, honourable and worthy of praise.’ Gal 5.22, Col 3.12, Phil 4. 8
God became flesh, the place of experience, richer or poorer, better or worse, in sickness or health. Faith is that attitude which empowers us to experience, in healing depth, all the hard and joyful and routine experiences that each day may bring.
God desired to become our bodies, our senses, our emotions in time and space, so that divine being could be experienced everywhere, by everyone.
People are looking for the meaning of life, for the experience of being fully alive. They are looking for eternity. And eternity is not just to do with the hereafter. Eternity is a quality. If we don’t get it where we are here and now we won’t get it anywhere. The experience of eternity right now in some degree is the function of life. Heaven is the completion of that experience.
We experience something of God’s presence in everything that happens to us. There is a divine whisper in every sound; even the sound of temptation.
Our future resurrection will reveal that we have been experiencing it all our lives. ‘Heaven will be recognised as a country we have already entered, and in whose light and warmth we have already lived:’

Letter of Jean Vanier Jan 2012

Jesus, taking a child in his arms, calls his disciples to become like that small child in order to enter into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of love. Let us learn to welcome this tenderness, these eyes that wonder, this openness, this trust and this love that are the gifts of children. Jesus adds, “Those who welcome a child in my name welcome me”. To welcome Estelle is to welcome God. This God of peace is hidden in the smallest and the most wounded. Let us not try to climb up in the heavens but let us descend, yes, let us descend to meet  ‘Estelle’ and people who have been rejected. It is about meeting them, heart to heart, person to person, with smiles in very gentle moments of communion; not to change them, but to meet them by making room in our hearts.

Read the whole letter.

The Week Ahead: Third Week

Sun 29th Jan: 4th Sunday of the Year
9.00 am Fr Michael Barnes SJ (Heythrop College)
11.00am Dom Felix Stephens OSB (Master of St Benet’s)
5.45pm Fr Peter Brearley SDB (Parish priest in Cowley)
5.00pm Hertford Evensong, Fr Dushan Croos sj preaching
6.15pm St Hugh’s Evensong, Ms Alex Harrod Preaching, Light in the University

Mon 30th : Monday of week 4 of the year
1.05pm Mass

Tue 31st: St John Bosco, Founder of the Salesians of Don Bosco
1.05pm Mass
5.45pm St Edmund Hall College Mass
6.00pm Jesus College Mass

Wed 1st: Feria
1.05pm Mass

Thu 2nd: FEAST OF THE PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD
1.05pm Mass
6.00pm Candlelit Mass
7.00pm CathSoc pasta, All welcome, plus Fr John O’Malley SJ, Trent and Vatican II:
Two Anniversaries of Two Misunderstood Councils, 8.15pm Newman Room.

Fri 3rd: St Blaise, bishop & martyr or St Ansgar, bishop
1.05pm Mass with St Blaise’s blessing of throats
6.00pm St Catherine’s College Mass
6.30pm Prayer for the Curious, with food, followed by
8.00pm onwards Bar Night

Sat 4th: Feria
12.00pm Mass
5.30pm Spanish Mass

Sun 5th: Fifth Sunday of the Year Job 7:1-4,6-7 (Ps 146) & 1 Cor 9:16-19,22-23, Mark 1:29-39
9.00 am Fr Simon Bishop SJ
11.00am Rev Nicodème Ferré (Archdiocese of Paris) preaching
5.45pm Fr Dushan Croos SJ

Registration cards

Registration cards: Please fill in a new card whether you are new or a regular at the Chaplaincy so that we can update our database.

Adult Christian Initiation

RCIA (Adult Christian Initiation): If you are interested in baptism, confirmation and reception into the Catholic Church, please see Alex Harrod.

Prayer for Depth

WE SENSE the importance of prayer; yet, we often find it difficult to pray. We might be familiar with various forms of prayer, from devotional prayers to different kinds of meditation, but we may lack the confidence that our own particular way of praying, with all its distractions is prayer in the deep sense.
The gospels show us Jesus praying in virtually every kind of situation. He prays when he is joyful, he prays when he is in agony, he prays with others around him, and he prays when he is alone at night, withdrawn from all human contact. He prays high on a mountain, in a sacred place, and he prays on the level plane, where ordinary life happens. Jesus prays a lot.
And the lesson isn’t lost on his disciples. They sense that Jesus’ real depth and power are drawn from his prayer. They know that what makes him so special is that he is linked to a power outside of this world. And they want this for themselves. That’s why they ask: “Lord, teach us to pray!”
But we must understand what they were looking for when they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. They sensed that what Jesus drew from the depth of his prayer was not, first of all, his power to do miracles or to silence his enemies with some kind of superior intelligence. What impressed them and what they wanted too for their own lives was his depth and graciousness.
The power they admired and wanted was Jesus’ attractiveness, his power to love and forgive his enemies. What they wanted was Jesus’ wisdom and inner freedom, his
power to renounce life in self-sacrifice, even while retaining the capacity to enjoy the everyday pleasures of life. They wanted Jesus’ power to be big-hearted, to love beyond his own circle and to love poor and rich alike; to live with charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, trustfulness and chastity (self-control) Gal 5.22, . What they wanted was Jesus’ depth and graciousness. cf 1 Cor 1.30
And they recognized that this power did not come from within himself, but from a source outside him. They saw that he connected to a deep source through prayer, through constantly lifting to God whatever was on his mind and in his heart. They saw it and they wanted that depth for themselves. So they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray like him.
We too want Jesus’ depth and graciousness in our own lives. Like Jesus’ disciples, we also know that we can only attain this through prayer, through accessing a power that lies in the depth of our souls and beyond our souls. We know too that the route to that depth lies in journeying inward, in silence, through both the muddle and the peace that come to us when we quieten ourselves to pray.
In both our reflective moments and in our more desperate moments, we feel our need for prayer and try to go to that deep place. But we struggle to get there. We may feel we don’t know how to sustain ourselves in prayer. Yet in this we are in good company with Jesus’ disciples. A good beginning is to recognize what we need and where it is to be found. We need to begin with that same plea: ‘Lord, teach us to pray!’
13/1/12
Peter Knott SJ

God Loves the World

WHATEVER our beliefs, we can all agree that the world is not as it should be. But too often we and our Churches tend to see the world only as a mess, caught up in mindless trivialization, self-indulgent, short-sighted. We see it as having no values that demand self-sacrifice, of worshipping fame, of being addicted to material goods, and of being anti-Church. Indeed, it is not uncommon in our Churches to see the world as our enemy.
But Jesus loved the world! The Gospels describe Jesus’ reaction towards the world that rejected him. As Jesus Wept over Jerusalem, saying: “If you had only recognized the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” Jesus sees what happens when people try to live without God, the mess, the pain, the heartbreak, and his heartache. If only you could see what you’re doing! Luke 19.41f
Looking at a world that can often break down because of its self-centredness, Jesus responds with understanding, not judgment; with heartache, not rubbing salt in the wounds; and with tears of compassion. Loving parents and friends understand exactly what Jesus was feeling at the moment when he wept over Jerusalem.
What frustrated parent hasn’t looked at a son or daughter caught up in wrong choices and self-destructive behaviour and wept inside as the words spontaneously formed: If only you could
see what you’re doing! If only I could do
something to spare you the damage you’re doing to your life by this blindness! If only you could recognize the things that make for peace! But you can’t, and it breaks my heart!
Our Christian faith asks us to have a genuine love for the world. ‘For God so loved the world he gave his only Son.’ John 3.16 ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ John 15.12 The world isn’t our enemy. It’s our wayward child and our loved friend who is breaking our heart. That can be hard to see and accept when in fact the world is often belligerent and arrogant in its attitude towards us, when it’s angry with us, when it wrongly judges us, and when it scapegoats us.
But that’s exactly what suffering children often do to their parents and friends when they make bad choices and suffer the consequences. They impute and scapegoat. This can feel most unfair to us, but Jesus’ attitude towards those who rejected and crucified him invites us to empathise.
Moreover a genuine empathy for the world isn’t just predicated on mature sympathy. Mature sympathy is itself predicated on better seeing the world for what it is. The 17 year-old adolescent standing belligerent and angry before her parents isn’t a bad person, she’s just not yet fully grown up.
That’s true too for our world: It’s not a bad place; it’s just far from being a finished and mature one. Jesus came ‘that we might have life to the full.’ John 10.10 We find something of this fullness when we allow ourselves to be guided by the light of Christ rather than our passing moods 6/1/12
Peter Knott SJ

Christ Our Light

AS WE enter a New Year we can be encouraged by those words of Isaiah we heard at Mass last Sunday: ‘The people that lived in darkness has seen a great light’. Our fading memory of Christmas must not allow that light to fade.
The light that dawned on the world was the power and glory of God, now seen in Christ Jesus. It is through his life, death and resurrection that we find ourselves able to look at things in a new light, a kinder, more sympathetic light.
Through Christ we can begin to look at everything in the light of truth and love, sensitive to any situation that doesn’t quite ring true; conscious of the need to handle events in a truly loving way, seeing people as more important than possessions, individuals more important than ideas.
We need help with this. If we’re honest with ourselves we have to admit that we often find difficulty in seeing the truth – particularly about ourselves. We can be blind to the truth in so many ways. Sometimes because we don’t have all the facts, and are disinclined to search for them; sometimes the facts are clear but we are blinkered by jealousy and prejudice; sometimes we refuse to face the facts because we’re afraid we won’t show up in a very good light.
This is a far cry from the Christian vision of ‘living the truth in love’, living in reality with love in its fullest sense – that is, wanting what is good for the other person as well, doing what is for
the other person’s good. We need the help of prayer for this, help to become more sensitive towards others. Our self-centredness can become so dominant we are simply unaware of how inconsiderate we are – and most indignant if accused of it!
This is the darkness of a world without Christ. The light of Christ shows up our weakness – yet only to heal. This kind of light rarely comes in a flash, illuminating the whole scene with absolute clarity. It’s more like the car headlights on a misty night, helping us to keep going, avoiding dangers on the way.
It’s a gradual illumination of the way ahead. It is a light that glows more brightly as we become more familiar with Scripture and Tradition, when we listen more openly to the Church’s teaching.
‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand’ is another way of saying ‘Change your mind and heart from seeing everything in a self-centred way, to seeing things more in the way God sees them, learning to think and judge and act according to God’s way, a Christlike way.’
We all find it difficult to change. It’s easier to sit back and criticize others. It’s less trouble to leave the difficult questions to someone else, not venturing beyond the security of what is familiar. But of course, that leaves us in precisely the kind of darkness Christ came to dispel. In his light we see light, a light to guide us towards the fullness of life, in company with all those of good will. 30/12/11 Peter Knott SJ

On Financial Reform: Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace

“The primacy of the spiritual and of ethics needs to be restored and, with them, the primacy of politics – which is responsible for the common good – over the economy and finance. These latter need to be brought back within the boundaries of their real vocation and function, including their social function, in consideration of their obvious responsibilities to society, in order to nourish markets and financial institutions which are really at the service of the person, which are capable of responding to the needs of the common good and universal brotherhood, and which transcend all forms of economist stagnation and performative mercantilism..”

See the full text: HERE

How We Become Holy

‘BE HAPPY at all times … and may the God of peace make you perfect and holy … God has called you and will not fail you.’, says St Paul. 1 Thess 5.16-24 Ordinarily, when we think of perfection we have in mind no deficiencies, faults or flaws, measuring up to some ideal standard, completely whole, true, good and beautiful. To be perfect in this sense is never to sin.
In the scriptures, the ideal of perfection is quite different. It means simply to walk humbly with God despite our flaws. Perfection here means being in the Divine presence in spite of the fact that we are not perfectly whole, good, true and beautiful.
cf Micah 6.8
For many of us, our idea of holiness has been shaped by the former ideal of perfection. So holiness has been understood as a question of measuring up to a certain standard, achieving and maintaining moral goodness and integrity. Such a view has merits. It is a challenge against mediocrity, laziness, settling for what is second-best. This can be healthy.
But such a concept of perfection also has a nasty underside. In the end, we all fall short and this leads to spiritual pitfalls. We have false expectations that we can somehow fix all that is wrong with us through sheer will-power alone. We can’t; and because we don’t face this, we often grow discouraged and simply give up trying to break some bad habit.
When perfection means measuring up, we find it hard to forgive ourselves and others for not being God. When the dominant idea of holiness is something that only God can measure up to, it is not easy to give others or ourselves permission to be human. We carry around a lot of discouragement and a lack of forgiveness because of this
So without losing sight of the ordinary
concept of perfection we could profit from listening to the scriptures and accepting into our lives more of the Gospel ideal. Perfection here means walking humbly with God despite imperfection, as the following example shows.
The account of the rich young man asking Jesus what he should do to be perfect ends with an interesting exchange between Jesus and his disciples. The young man had just rejected Jesus’ offer ‘and went away sad.’ Jesus then turns to his followers and says; ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Luke 18.18f
The disciples were stunned! They knew they couldn’t do what was just asked. Peter spoke up for the rest; ‘If that is the case, none of us will get to heaven!’ – one of the few times the apostles actually got it right!
Peter voiced their helplessness, their inability to ever measure up. He is saying, ‘We simply aren’t capable of doing this.’ And Jesus is pleased. Why? Because he can make the point that ‘For you, these things are impossible, but nothing is impossible for God.’ Luke 18.27
On our own, none of us can ever be perfect. But that is not what God is asking of us. What God is asking is that we bring our helplessness, weaknesses, and sin constantly to him, that we walk with him and that we never hide from him.
God is like a good parent. God understands that we will all make mistakes and disappoint him and ourselves. What God asks simply is that we come home, that we share our lives with him, that we let him help us in those ways within which we are powerless to help ourselves.
St Paul wanted us to be happy at all times. That happiness is ours when we allow God to make us holy.
16/12/11 Peter Knott SJ

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