Palm Sunday

In recent years we have not been at the Oratory for this feast, which is a sort of mini-Holy week all rolled into one. Indeed, it anticipates the coming days' commemoration of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday by recounting these events in the Gospel, which were chanted by two deacons (priests in this case!) and a cantor.

But a preceding part of the normal Mass makes for quite an exciting change in tone from Lent: the blessing and procession of palms recalls the triumphant entry into Jerusalem of Our Lord Jesus Christ, before he was given up to death.

Gloria, laus et honor tibi sit, Rex Christe, Redemptor: Cui puerile decus prompsit Hosanna pium

Glory and praise to Thee, Redeemer blest! To whom their glad hosannas children poured

There is thus a two-fold expression of the theology of the Cross for this season; that of triumphant joy, and that of sorrowful sadness. We are well aware this week that the Passion which we commemorate on Good Friday is a solemn, sad and almost barren occasion. But we are reminded today in advance that "Dicéndo natiónibus: Regnávit a ligno Deus!" (the world was told that from a tree the Lord should reign; from Vexilla Regis, the hymn for tonight's Vespers)

How can such suffering and violence, which was indeed inflicted upon many in Ancient Rome, be regarded as a joyous victory? That is a pivotal question in Christianity, and one that can reward us greatly if we seek the true answer. For many years before I began practising the Faith ardently, I asked myself, "What is the meaning of suffering? When is suffering just?" Most people in life have faced some sort of hardship, and I felt that I had too, in an almost unjust measure. In terms of grief and loss, I felt empty with an overwhelming burning of interior pain, the likes of which I wondered: would it destroy me, or make me stronger?

The fact is, we only tend to truly grow and develop through loss and difficulty. The Church encourages us, and prompts us every year during Lent and Passiontide, to embrace this. We lose the singing of the Gloria in our liturgy, the organ music and flowers in church, and the statues which inspire so much joy and comfort are veiled and hidden. Ultimately, on Good Friday, the altar will be stripped bare and even the Blessed Sacrament will be absent.

Our love of God can only be truly discovered if we consider how utterly dependent upon him we are. It was my realisation, whilst spending time in Africa with people who were desolate and impoverished, that a reliance on God is so much greater and stronger when we have nothing else at all. Thus, when we consider our unhealthy desires and attachments, we grow to realise that it will be necessary to experience loss and suffering if we are to grasp more firmly to the most important thing in life: the Rock of Christ and His Church. It is furthermore in death that we experience loss, "as by fire," (1 Corinthians 3:15) in the most ultimate way, because our whole life's work will be tried, and the character which we have formed will be purged like Gold in a furnace. Therefore the constant need to purify ourselves to make us capable and worthy of being wholly with God, is realised both before and after death.

It is difficult to comprehend how Christ's suffering could atone for the sin of all humanity, and thus free us from its eternal effects. I have just tried to explain and fathom it, but it is so difficult. Perhaps in some way, we can only gain a small grasp through God's revelation:

Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth.
He was taken away from distress, and from judgement: who shall declare his generation? because he is cut off out of the land of the living: for the wickedness of my people have I struck him.
And he shall give the ungodly for his burial, and the rich for his death: because he hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit in his mouth.
And the Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity: if he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be prosperous in his hand.

Isaiah 53:4-10

This, written hundreds of years before Christ was born, gives us an insight into the suffering servant, who "as the Son of man is not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a redemption for many." (St Matthew 20:28)

Our liturgy today, and over the next week, will reflect these essential truths. God appears in a human form many times throughout the Old Testament, and thus could easily have continued to preach and teach us throughout history. But instead, God becomes human - so that he could die and pay the ultimate price, as a supreme act of love for His Creation. As we approach Christ's glorious resurrection of Easter Day, we must pass through, as by fire, the painful process whereby we die to Sin, and are born afresh into newness of life. This is all the more true for the catechumens, who this Easter will die to Sin with Christ through their Baptism. (Colossians 2)

These feasts are not merely a commemoration with reference to the person of Jesus, but also by a union of faith and love, they will bind us closer to Christ, and thus become an actual reality for the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.

Second and Last Photos by Peter Jennings © 2008

Holy Week & Easter at the Oratory

For all Mass and service times over the next week and into the Paschal Triduum, see the new Oratory Website. It includes all music that will be sung at these occasions.

To see some photos of last year's Triduum, and something of what to expect from the Birmingham Oratory at this time of year, have a look at my collection here.

Judica Sunday

Judica me, Deus, et discérne causam meam de gente non sancta:
ab hómine iníquo et dolóso éripe me:
quia tu es fortitúdo mea

Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause against an ungodly nation:
O deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man:
for Thou art my God and my strength

- Psalm 42

The Jews therefore said to Him: Thou art not yet fifty years old: and hast Thou seen Abraham?

Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am.
They took up stones therefore to cast at Him:
but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple.

- St John's Gospel; 8:56-59

Today at the Oratory all the statues are veiled, to assist us for the last part of Lent: Passiontide. This last fortnight before Easter commemorates the last year of Our Lord's life, as illustrated in this Gospel passage, when "Jesus hid Himself" because his hour had not yet come. In like manner then, the glory of the Church's Saints and the exaltation of her images give way to the sombre tone of the Liturgy, when we recall the ignominy with which Our Lord faced. Passiontide will culminate in Good Friday, when we meditate upon the Passion and death of Jesus, making that witness of pain and sorrow which the Blessed Virgin Mary endured, our own.

Our Lady is the perfect model of the way the faithful should respond to God's Grace, and accept the Lord Jesus into their hearts. For this reason we Catholics constantly seek the help of Our Lady to conform our hearts and orientate them towards God's saving power. Her prayers for us are those of a loving and tender mother, always ready to present our lives in the most perfect way to her Divine Son.

It is only by uniting ourselves with Christ's Passion, especially at this time of year, but also at every Mass, that we can partake in the saving sacrifice which is the atonement of humanity. By finally rejoicing on Easter Day at the Risen Lord, we will therefore awaken the new creation in ourselves, which is a living reality when we receive communion at every Mass.

Meanwhile Maddy continues to invest in her new-found love of chocolate, perhaps as a preparation of her own for Easter Day (and therefore the inevitable chocolate Easter Eggs)! Its a good job our Lenten penance was not to give up this succulent and wholesome foodstuff...

Cadbury World

For the passed few years, we have been renting a house in the pleasant south Birmingham suburb of Selly Oak. Just on our borders is the village of Bournville, once a rural farmland area, but developed by the Cadbury family around their famous chocolate factory. So today we took advantage of one of our last opportunities to walk around the corner and have a tour around the factory, gaining all important insights into the chocolate making process. Of course, the exact recipe is a closely guarded secret, but we are told enough on the tour to realise its a complicated business.

The tour begins in the Amazon rainforest, where the Mayan people (of Apocalypto fame) sacrifice each other to their many gods in order to ensure a good cocoa crop. Then they start trading with their Aztec neighbours, who will give a slave in exchange for a hundred cocoa beans. Then comes the Spaniard explorers, who sample the curious chocolate drink and take it back to Europe. Their own modified recipe left out the chilli spices of their South American friends, and replaced it with nutmeg and sugar. It was a closely guarded secret until Spanish royalty married into the French court. Very soon we were all guzzling chocolate drink over the latest high society gossip and gambling.

But the chocolate story only really gets underway when cocoa beans become cheap enough for the Cadbury brothers to take over their father’s little Birmingham shop, and establish a huge chocolate factory, mass-producing chocolate with their famous blend of full fat dairy milk with chocolate. Yum. The rest is history. But the thing I found particularly fascinating was the way the Cadbury brothers blended their Quaker-christian values with their sly business sense: Their goal was to establish a whole community away from smoggy Birmingham, in the countryside, nearby the main rail and canal networks. They named it after the Bourn-brook which flows passed the area: Bournville. They were responsible for schools, churches, a swimming pool, cricket green, and most importantly good quality housing for their workforce. The Bournville Village Trust still exists today to continue the work which they began. We could learn a lot from this sense of community working together, especially when considering the breakdown of social fabric prevalent today; with gang rule and drunken yobbishness dominating many of Birmingham's streets.

The day was really about chocolate, of course. As well as Wendy and I, Maddy was tucking into the complimentary dairy milk with great gusto. We got to see the packing factory where sumptuous liquid chocolate turns into freshly wrapped bars. And we even got to go on a ‘Cadabra’ ride whereby we saw miniature cocoa bean people in 'Beanville' enjoying life to the full (presumably before being liquidised). I wonder if the late great Cardinal John Henry Newman would have ever sampled the luscious chocolate of the nearby Bournville factory. Lets hope our new home is in an area of equally prestigious Brummie heritage!

An Empty Cave

Today I met Tomas, who was present for the glorious Laetere Sunday High Mass, with beautiful Rose Vestments worn by the Oratory Fathers. Go and read his blog now!

Oh, and Happy Mothering Sunday! (oh yes, its too late, but I've only just finished work.)