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A Collective Conversion
I made the photograph above in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, the oldest part of the Abbey, completed around 1255. Here, the monks would gather and read the Rule of St Benedict. It is also the place where the King’s Great Council first met in 1257, this later becoming what we now know as the British Parliament. It’s strange being in a place where the same faith I profess was being practised more than seven hundred and fifty years ago. It is the same faith, yet it is a different expression of that faith today. The essentials are unchanged, of course, but our understanding of the faith, what it…
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Quiet Sanctity
Every morning before Mass, a small group of people in the parish gather and pray the Rosary together. In the stillness of the Church, their united voices call out with confidence to the Queen of Heaven as they think about the Mysteries which are being prayed, each Mystery a reflection from some episode from Scripture, usually from the Gospels. This morning Rosary is separate from the Mass which will shortly follow it, but it provides a beautiful lead-in to that Mass. It means that for those praying, they enter the Mass in a spirit of prayer, their souls and their minds quietened in order to listen a little better to…
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The Way Of Perfection
The first Psalm in the psalmody today in Morning Prayer (from the Divine Office) was Psalm 100, and that same Psalm was repeated later on at Mass. In the Office, it opened with these lines – My song is of mercy and justice; I will sing to You, O Lord. I will walk in the way of perfection. This beautiful Psalm says something about that journey we try to make through life, that of trying to follow the will of God. The Psalmist tells us of the sort of people with whom we will not consort, as they are obstacles along that way – and by inference, then, it…
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A Change Of Mindset
Some two thousand years ago, a little Child was born in the poverty of a stable and gently placed in a manger by His Mother. That Child would grown up to found and lead a movement which would change the whole world, beginning with just twelve simple men who listened and believed, even if they struggled greatly along the way. As a man, He was crucified – but rose again three days later, before handing over His work into the hands of His closest followers, especially Peter, for them to continue what He had begun. That movement had many names but today we call it Christianity and the core part…
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With Empty Hands
Comparison is not always a good thing, and this is especially so in the spiritual life. In comparing ourselves to others, we tend to forget that each individual human person has their own path to walk – my path is as different and as unique to me as yours is to you or to anyone else. Your path is no better to mine, nor mine to yours; they are simply different paths, even if the eventual goal – spiritually speaking – is the same. What matters is not to copy the path of another – which was designed and intended exclusively for them – but rather, that each of us…
