SOME OTHER SERMONS

******************************************************************************************

From the Bishop of London's, Bishop Richard Chartres', article on the back page of Link magazine, Easter 2003

".....The impact on the planet, our common home, of the project of growth without limit with no end in view beyond the process itself cannot be ignored any longer.

...the Christian faith promises new life to those who open themselves up to God, who pass through the way of the Cross, emptying themselves, so that they can be filled with life that flows from the Godhead.

....Lent is a time for opening ourselves up to God by reducing the over-stimulation and the daily bombardment of images from which so many of us suffer.

We reduce the stimuli by not reading so much, watching so much or consuming so much in order to attain a transparency through which God's light can shine.

We reduce our intake and throw some ballast over the side so that we can climb more easily into the atmosphere of God.

We live more frugally and simply in order to tighten the drum-skin so that God's beat can be heard more clearly in our lives.

We cultivate emptiness so that we can be filled. We come to God especially in the second half of life by subtraction rather than addition.

...Fasting with prayer is the fresh and ancient discipline of the Church, which is being rediscovered in our own day. Fasting with prayer can make us more profoundly aware of food as a gift from divine love rather than fuel for insatiable craving. Joy and a greater sense of freedom should be among the fruits that follow.

......Lent is the time for fasting and prayer especially on Wednesdays and Fridays, in solidarity with the whole Christian community, living and departed. This communal effort saves us from thinking of our own ascetic heroism.

We also fast not only for ourselves but so that the love and light of God can more profoundly penetrate the world of which we are an infinitesimally yet infinitely precious part." 

(ends)

***********************************************************************

From an undated notes of a homily by Bishop Richard Chartres, so my recollection of his words:-

"If we just remain amongst ourselves, a spiritual in-crowd, we shall shrink. We must build bridges outwards to others.

It is no good running around ever more frenetically, like bluebottles in a jar. We must pray. Everything that lasts comes out of prayer.

Prayer is the enemy of the illusion that we can change the world without changing ourselves. We can't.

God is not a construct we can hold in our intelligence. Prayer is attention to God. If we want to serve at a deep level we must let our service come out of prayer. In prayer we open ourselves to God, and the prayer is ever more simple and ever costlier.

Our opportunities to serve one another are immense. Our opportunities to pray for one another are immense.

We must find some way to show the love of God that we receive in prayer out to the world. We must also serve people with deeds."

(ends)

*****************************************************************

**************************************************************************

The Bishop of Stepney's address (Bishop Richard Chartres)  May 1992

The new bishop of Stepney, Richard Chartres, gave an address at a service early in his episcopal ministry, that included the exhortation, that if you had wounds, if someone had hurt you, then rejoice. He said this boldly. He explained that it is through your wounds that the Holy Spirit can enter into your life to change and heal you.

And in another sermon (?date) Bishop Richard Chartres said the following:- 

"Today, in the world, process is masquerading as an end, progress is masquerading as an end.

...the Church is concerned with depths, not with surfaces. It is concerned with the formation of Christ in us, so that Christ's plan for the world will be brought into being. This is the end we work for.

..We must, by prayer, worship and the Eucharist, and by study of Scriptures and following Christ's teaching, bring about the formation of Christ within us. This has to be a slow and gradual process. By forming Christ within us, we bring into being the future around us.

All the peoples throughout the globe grow in brotherhood and concord as each forms Christ within them.

Christ told us, "I am with you always, even to the end of time." "

************************* (end of Bishop Richard's sermon) ***********************

Some time after this I happened to read the novel, "What's Bred in the Bone" by Robertson Davies. On page 12 the following passage, which echoes the highlighted words in Bishop Chartres' sermon.

"....What we call luck is the inner man externalised. We make things happen to us. I know that sounds horrible and cruel, considering what happens to a lot of people, and it can't be the whole explanation. But it's a considerable part of it."

And the author Ben Okri, in his novel "Songs of Enchantment", is writing out similar ideas in this passage on page 290 :- 

"...He saw the hidden realities of our thoughts and actions, and their immediate consequences which lurked besides us, waiting for the confluences of time when they would become real and irrevocable. He saw how we created our lives with our thoughts, how our thoughts created our realities, and how we carry around with us the great invisible weight of all our thoughts and actions and secrets. He saw a world co-existent with ours where all our secret selves were real and visible."

In a 1992 radio interview an octogenarian female traveller (didn't record her name) said, "You become what you think."

In Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day' (15/04/2021) Henri Nouwen's "Thinking doesn't make new living; living makes new thinking", was quoted.

Aristotle wrote that the way to make a 'just' man, is to do 'just' acts; and likewise, a 'temperate' man, to do 'temperate' acts. 

However, William Studdert Kennedy, an Anglican front line chaplain during the First World War, wrote that, "It is what you worship, rather than what you will, that makes you what you are."

**************************************************************

***********************************************************************

Fr Christopher Colven, St James Spanish Place, London

From Fr Colven's weekly vicar's letter, St James, Spanish Place, London, for 6th Sunday of Easter, 2012.

"......it seems to me the answer is a much more radical one, and lies where it has always been - in the individual quest for holiness of life.  ..... Cliche'd 'solutions' are no substitute for the daily struggle for conversion, for living the life of the virtues, for opening ourselves to the action of Grace.  ...."

*******************************************************************

From Fr Christopher Colven's "The Rector writes ..." column in the weekly newsletter, St James, Spanish Place. Date (?) 21/05/2019

" ..... There can hardly have been a time in the long history of the Church when its priesthood has been so denigrated or questioned. It would be wrong to look outside to try to explain away what has happened. The weakening of the struggle for personal holiness, combined with a diminishment of pastoral zeal, can be seen as an attempt to identify with the realities of a secular society, but allowing the world to write the Church's agenda is to play a risky game, and as Benedict XVI has recently reminded us, it comes at a high price.

........ I remember a conversation with Cardinal Hulme in which he said that the older he got the more conscious he became of the many individuals he had failed. I can identify with his sentiments. .......... the vocation to priestly ministry is a tremendous gift and privilege - something which although received in frail, earthen vessels still retains the touch of divine authenticity.

Saint Gregory Nazianzen (Patriarch of Constantinople in the 4th century) offers these thoughts: 'we must begin by purifying ourselves before purifying others: we must be instructed to be able to instruct; become light to illuminate, draw close to God to bring him close to others; be sanctified to sanctify, lead by the hand and counsel prudently. I know whose ministers we are, where we find ourselves and where we strive. I know God's greatness and man's weakness but also his potential .....'

Karl Rahner ..... wrote a reflection, 'The man with the pierced heart', relating the priesthood of Jesus to those whom the Church needs to ordain. 'Tomorrow's priest will be the man with the pierced heart, from which alone he draws strength for his mission. With the pierced heart, pierced through by the godlessness of life, pierced through by the folly of love, pierced through by lack of success, pierced through by experience of his own profound unreliability. I say he is the man with the pierced heart because he is to lead others to the very core of their existence, to their inmost heart,' .......Out of suffering and humiliation come the green shoots of new life. ...."

*******************************************************

Mass homily at St Anselm's, Lincolns Inn Fields, London, 

05/07/2019, Fr David

"The Gospel reading today tells us Christ came to save sinners, which is good news for us, because we are all sinners, fighting against the power of sin in our lives."

"Christ can heal us of our sins if we open ourselves to him, and let Christ become a greater part of us, and become more like him."

"Last Friday was the Feast of the Sacred Heart. Christ's heart can heal us. Let us spend more time with Christ in prayer and worship."

**********************************************************************

Mass at Mirfield, College of the Resurrection, 30/10/2024.

Readings Eph 6:1-9, Ps 145:10-14, Lk 13:22-30

Gospel reading includes, 'enter by the narrow door'.

As the service began, we were advised that the narrow door that leads to life is the way of penitence for our past sins. We were enjoined to pray for the grace to be able to take this way.

***************************************************************************

Mass at Salford Cathedral, 12.10pm, 06/12/2024                                                         The reading at mass was Mt 9:27-31, about the blind men crying aloud to Jesus to be healed, and following him into the house. The sermon was:-

"Jesus cured the blind men who cried out to him. When did you last cry out to God in prayer? Well guess what? These are the kind of prayers that get answered.

Imagine Jesus is present with you. Besides you as a man all day. So you get up and sit at the table for breakfast, and Jesus is also sitting there. So you certainly don't forget to say grace before eating. And you get into your car, and there is Jesus in the passenger seat. So when you see a car in a side road waiting to get out into the line of traffic, you will let him in. You will be considerate. And so on, throughout the day.

Well guess what? You don't have to imagine. Because Jesus really is with you. In reality he is a part of you. ('The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.' Jn1:9).

And if you remember he is there, and pray and act accordingly, your life will be one of signs and wonders."

********************************************************************************

Westminster Cathedral 17.30hr mass homily, 17/02/2019

"A lady tortured in a Nazi concentration camp survived with ruined health. She could not marry, or play music, or walk properly. Before the camp she had played and studied the piano, and had ambitions in that direction. She chose not to be bitter. She prayed for the person who tortured her. He contacted her after 40 years and asked for her forgiveness. She gave it, and she said it freed her also."

"Even now, whatever condition or state we are in, God's Spirit and victory over death is available to us. We can begin to live his life, a life of joy."

*************************************************************************************

St Anselm and St Cecilia, Lincolns Inn, London

(05/02/2017)

The mass readings were, Gospel, about being salt and light. Is 58 about feeding the hungry and helping the poor.  Sermon as follows:-

"As salt brings out the flavours in food and makes them more enjoyable, we, as salt, should relate to others so as to bring the best out in them."

"If we feed the hungry and help the poor, our light shall shine like the dawn, and we shall be healed."

*******************************************************************************************

St Luke's feast day, 18/10/2016 at Westminster Cathedral

(Below is not a sermon heard at the Cathedral, just some writing I did in my diary after a visit there.)

'At the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, after the mass at the Cathedral, the women were kneeling in prayer.'

'We need God as an Absolute to orient ourselves towards, like a compass needle to the North Pole. Then our riot of inner desires, drives, and compulsions can fall into place. We need God to love and to acknowledge and to worship and to obey. He brings to us a limitation, though he himself is limitless; and a peace, an ordering of ourselves, in penitence, healing and love. We need God.'

**************************************************************************************

St Mary Moorfields, Eldon Street, London 01/09/2016 

Thursday 13.10hr mass homily

(The gospel was Jesus telling the disciples to go out in their boats and cast their nets, and Peter saying he would, though they have caught nothing all night. They cast their nets and have a big haul of fish.)

Homily:-

"Some say the Petrine view is the way to God. Some say the Pauline way. Some say it doesn't matter, there are many ways. But Paul himself says no man is the way to God, the only way to God is Jesus Christ. Jesus himself says, 'I am the way, the truth and the life.'"

"In secular matters we aim for a good brain to achieve a goal. But with God we must understand our poverty as we approach him. We can bring nothing except our admission of sin and failure, and our need of God. God will fill us then, and help us. So, though in secular things we aim to bring a good brain to bear, in our attempts to know God, only a fail will do."

******************************************************************************************

The Solemnity of John the Baptist, on Sunday 26th June 2016, replaced the Sunday liturgy. (I didn't record, and have now forgotten, where the mass took place.)

Homily:-

"Our Lady or John the Baptist or Mother Teresa or John Paul II might be sitting next to you.  Coming here means coming into the presence of God, attended both by our Earthly congregation, and the congregation of Saints now in heaven, here also to celebrate the mass at which Christ is made present in the bread and the wine." 

(end of homily)

(At the time I added:-)

The priest insisted on the supernatural nature of the occasion. He insisted on the reality that the Communion of Saints are present here and now at the mass on the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary time, 2016.

*****************************************************************************************

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis

(i.25)

"Two things in particular help to great amendment, to wit, to pull ourselves violently away from that to which nature is viciously inclined, and to labour zealously for that good which we most want."

*********************************************************************************************

The poet William Wordsworth wrote,

"Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore 

Of nicely-calculated less or more; ..."   

***************************************************************************************