On Life Everlasting

The Diocesan Coat of Arms of Shrewsbury and the personal motto of Bishop Mark Davies
- Nothing Without Christ -

In Shrewsbury Diocese today there is an excellent Pastoral Letter from Bishop Mark Davies being read to the faithful - On life Everlasting.

It's good to hear a bishop teaching to clearly the Truths of the Faith and applying them in a practical way. For example:

Truths of the Faith - Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.

Practical application - emphasising that there's no place in a Christian funeral for secular songs.

Here it is. Well worth reading.

A Pastoral Letter On Life Everlasting

to be read in all churches and chapels of the Diocese

on the First Sunday of Lent, 26th February 2012.

My dear brothers and sisters,

As Lent begins we are reminded of something often unmentionable and sometimes unthinkable: your death and mine. “Remember you are dust,” we are told as we receive the mark of ashes, “and to dust you shall return.” This is not for the Christian a gloomy or morbid thought on Ash Wednesday but one which charges our lives with renewed urgency to respond to the message Our Lord first announced in Galilee: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” For “the blessed ashes placed on our foreheads,” Pope Benedict reminds us, “are a sign that reminds us of our condition as creatures, that invites us to repent, and to intensify our commitment to convert, to follow the Lord ever more closely” (General Audience 9th March 2011). As Pope St. Leo expressed this many centuries before: “All that each Christian is bound to do in every season we must now do with greater care and devotion” (Lent Sermon VI). It is the realisation of what the Psalmist calls “the shortness of our lives” which helps shape our priorities and gives each day a new urgency in the light of all eternity before us.

Today we can too easily lose sight of this perspective of eternity, failing to see what we have time for. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church expresses so clearly: “Death puts an end to human life as the time open either to accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ” (CCC 1021). Blessed John Paul II observed at the beginning of this Millennium that the “people of our time have become insensitive to the Last Things” (Crossing the Threshold of Hope). Awareness of those Last Things has in the past stirred consciences and brought many to repentance and to the confession of their sins. And this is the urgency to which Lent and Easter now recalls us with the poignant mark of ashes. As that wise book The Imitation of Christ notes: “If you aren’t fit to face death today it’s very unlikely you will be tomorrow…” (Book 1:23). For “remembering our mortality,” the Catechism tells us, “helps us realise that we have only

a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfilment” (CCC 1007). Being aware of this limited time on earth and all that is to follow – our judgement, our purgatory, heaven or hell forever – becomes an urgent invitation to conversion in our lives.

At funerals today “a celebration of life” can often mean only looking back to a life now past rather than looking forwards to the “resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come”. The faith which allowed St Therese of Lisieux to say on her death-bed, “I am not dying; I am entering into life” (Last Conversations). The Church always prays as she believes and so it is not because we disapprove of the lyrics of Frank Sinatra or the chants of the football terraces that we insist that secular songs find no place in the prayer of the Christian Funeral. It is that the Church prays only as she believes. We treasure the memories of our loved ones but we also know where their hope and our own is placed. “Christ Himself … died for our sins,” St Peter tells us on this Sunday, “died for the guilty, to lead us to God” (I Peter 3:18). It is our faith which makes us realise that the faithful departed do not need our praises but they very

much need our prayers. As the Catechism explains, each one of us at the moment of death, will, in our immortal souls, come to a “particular judgement” leading “to the blessedness of heaven” either “through a purification,” that is purgatory, “or immediately.” There is also a terrible reality of which the Gospel repeatedly speaks: “immediate and everlasting damnation” (CCC 1022). For “to die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love,” the Catechism explains, “means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice” (CCC 1033). Yes, this is the real and everlasting choice of our lives.

Purgatory is a consoling hope for us. As the Catechism explains: “all who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (CCC 1030). This is why we pray at every Christian Funeral, indeed, in every Mass, that all the faithful departed may rest in peace. It is the prayer that, we hope, one day will be made for you and for me. As that great mother, St Monica, would finally ask of her sons: “lay this body wherever it may be … this only I ask of you that you should remember me at the Altar of the Lord wherever you may be” (Confessions Bk.9:11). And as this season of Lent begins with a reminder of our mortality let us be mindful of that urgent call which comes to us today: “The time has come,” Our Lord announces, “The Kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent and believe

the Good News” (Mark 1:15). In the “Hail Mary” this becomes an intention so beautifully brought together when we ask Our Lady to pray for us at the only two moments which ever matter: “Holy Mary, Mother of God pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

May this time of grace lead us toward the eternal Easter.

+ Mark

Bishop of Shrewsbury

A supposedly "Catholic" education

Cardinal Bertone

The Zenit Newsagency reports that after long negotiations the Pontifical University of Peru has still refused to fall into line with some basic requests - like following its own constitutions (which, of course, give the Church its rightful place in its governance). Cardinal Bertone has given the University - after long and patient requests and talks - a deadline of Easter Sunday to mend its ways. Presumably, its Pontifical status can be withdrawn. You can read the Zenit article below and some further background here. It has a history of supporting such things as liberation theology.

It struck me that Catholic institutions of education all over the world - from Primary schoools to Universities - seem to want to hold on to their "Catholic" title but rebell and reject the teaching and authority (Magisterium) of the Church itself. Very often the high handed and bullying tactics such institutions accuse the Church of are exactly what these institutions themselves are guilty of.

Sadly, this rejection of the Church's authority and of truly Catholic teaching faithful to the Magisterium is facilitated by clergy of various levels co-operating fully with this attitude. As in the case of the Pontifical University of Peru, there is often a wilful ignoring of the Church's and the academic institution's own mandates of governance and guidelines which were designed to prevent just such a moving away from the the Church's teaching and oversight. In other words, if those who are meant to be in charge of an academic instution at a local level refuse to follow thier own guidelines and constitutions, to whom can one appeal? Only to Rome itself, as in this case. Perhaps this should happen more often to recall supposedly "Catholic" teaching institutions away from their own version of the Church's teaching back to a one more faithful to what the Church actually does teach.

If an institution changes or ignores the texts that are suppoed to govern its practice and day to day existence, should it not be honest and openly say it no longer wants to be guided by them?
Should such institutions not go their own way and stop sheltering under the wing of the Church, receiving its benifits whilst underming its teachings? Changing the obvious meaning of the words used to govern our lives has long been recognised as the mark of the bully, the fascist and those who will brooke no opposition - we recognise it in Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four". It's been my own experience that such attitudes are often found in the self-stlyed, so-called, liberal institutions connected with the Church in our day.

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 21, 2012 The Pontifical University of Peru has been asked by the Vatican to amend its statutes as soon as possible so as to conform to the requirements of the Church for Catholic universities.

The formal request was made at a meeting between the Pope's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and Marcial Rubio Correa, rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP).

The meeting follows the Dec. 5-11 visit to the Lima university by Cardinal Peter Erdo of Budapest.

According to the statement issued by the Vatican press office, Cardinal Bertone told the university's rector "that the statutes of the PUCP be regularised as soon as possible, adapting them to the Apostolic Constitution 'Ex Corde Ecclesiae' for the good of the PUCP itself and of the Church in Peru."

The university was told to submit the revised statutes by Easter Sunday, April 8, incorporating the amendments previously communicated to them last July 16.

"Finally, Cardinal Bertone expressed the hope that the academic community would accept these indications, so that the PUCP may increasingly dedicate itself to its mission of offering young people a solid formation, rooted in faithfulness to the Magisterium, as a guarantee of the great contribution the university is called to make to the country," the press office statement concluded.

Pontifical status

The PUCP was founded as a church-based institution in 1917 and was granted pontifical status in 1942.

Last year the archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, pointed out that the university statutes of 1956 obliged it to act in accordance with the laws of the Church and to obey the Holy See.

In 1990 John Paul II issued the Apostolic Constitution, Ex Corde Ecclesiae and all Catholic universities were asked to revise their statutes in accordance with it.

Not only has the PCUP not done this but, following a 2010 decision by the Constitutional Court of Peru that acknowledged the right of the Archdiocese of Lima to have a seat on the university's board of directors, the university has refused to abide by this decision.

The university was also ordered to acknowledge the Archdiocese of Lima's right to elect the university rector from among three candidates proposed by the university assembly.

Then, on Sept. 23, 2011, the university assembly, led by Rubio, formally voted to refuse to comply with the request by the Vatican to adapt its statutes in accordance with the requirements of Ex Corde Ecclesiae.

If the university were to refuse the latest request by the Holy See it could lose its status as a pontifical university and also its title of being a Catholic institution. This could affect its ability to continue operating, as under the terms of the will through which its current property was donated, if it ceases to be a Catholic university the land reverts to the Archdiocese of Lima.

The Holy Face of Jesus

I have been asked to celebrate Mass for the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus, which falls this Shrove Tuesday, so we are having Low Mass at 7pm. Not such a well-known devotion in this day and age but obviously an ancient one, as Veronica's veil was kept intact from the time of Our Lord's Passion. St Terese of Lisieux was a great devotee.

Of course this week also sees the start of Lent and as well as Mass in the Ordinary Form at 9.30 in the morning there will be Mass in the Extraordinary Form at 7pm - Missa Cantata thanks to the untiring efforts of our music maestro!

Sweet heart of Jesus, make us know and love thee,

unfold to us the treasures of thy grace;

that so our hearts, from things of earth uplifted,

may long alone to gaze upon thy face.