Archbishop of Canterbury Speaks Out

Dr Williams has spoken about the Irish Catholic Church having lost it credibility.
Good!
Nothing is more likely to restore its credibility amongst Irish people than a statement criticising it from an Archbishop of the Church of England, by law established. Does Dr Williams honestly think Anglicanism has anymore more credibility?

What Cantalamessa said

This is what Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal Household actually said yesterday: these are the words of his anonymous Jewish friend.

"I am following with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the Church, the Pope and all the faithful by the whole world. The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism. Therefore I desire to express to you personally, to the Pope and to the whole Church my solidarity as Jew of dialogue and of all those that in the Jewish world (and there are many) share these sentiments of brotherhood. Our Passover and yours undoubtedly have different elements, but we both live with Messianic hope that surely will reunite us in the love of our common Father. I wish you and all Catholics a Good Easter."

It was wise neither wise nor prudent and if I was Jewish or a victim of abuse I would find it deeply offensive and it is hardly the tone that the Holy Father expressed in his letter to the Cathol;ics of Ireland.

Why did he not have the humility to ask someone to check it over? I have been trying to remember some other gaffs of Fr Cantalamessa, there have been one or two Trinitarian ones, and if I remember rightly, there have been a few instances where he has contradicted the Pope.
I would have hoped that Fr Cantalamessa might have had the humility to have spent the remainder of yesterday going around the newsagencies appologising. Perhaps it is time that JPII's preacher went the way of Mgr Piero Marini his Master of Ceremonies, there is obviously a need for a new Preacher to the Household.

God becomes Filth

Is there anything more dehumanising than nailing a living man to a piece of wood, than fixing him there and waiting for him to die. Listening, as he struggles for breath, to the creak of the timbers. Looking on, as the timbers become bloodied and sweat stained, smeared with faeces and urine as the victim is incapable of controlling his his body, as the knots and snags and splinters make their own wounds in his body, He becomes one with it. And all this happens amid the stench of the city rubbish dump, amidst the dead dogs and excrement cleared off the streets.

Here God become Man, becomes Filth, Rubbish, Garbage, Scum, all that is rejected. This the consequence of the Incarnation, the consequence of Divine Love.

Here is a deeper Mystery; the Crucifixion is Eternal, the Good Friday events are for all time. The Cross is the Bride of the Lamb, He is fixed to it, He and it are caught in an Infinite Eternal embrace. The Crucifixion is the Lamb's marriage feast. What God takes on He cannot reject. The Cross is at the very heart of the Trinity. Christ is wedded to it, the two have become one, nailed together by the iron nails of Divine Love.

The Cross is the Church, in which Christ is continually crucified, freely taken up in love, unrejectable, one with Christ, the source of His infinite pain and the source of His infinite joy.

Blood Poured Out

They shall take some of its blood

and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel

of every house in which they partake of the lamb.

And when the Angel of Death came to strike down the first born of the Egyptians, those dwellings marked with Blood of the Lamb were spared, death did not enter those houses, the Blood of the Lamb saved them!

The Cross is our doorway, it is not just the Blood of the Lamb which marks the doorpost and lintel, it is the Lamb himself. The saving Blood of the Lamb flows down on those who gather under the Cross.

It is the Cross alone that is the portal into the New and Eternal Covenant. Those who stand under the Cross are drenched in His blood. They are the Church, marked as His Blood brothers, the adopted Sons and daughters of God.

His Passion begins with His given of His Body, which is broken for us, and the pouring out for us of His Blood, the Blood of the New and Eternal Covenant poured out for us and for the many. And on this night of blood in the Garden of Gethesemine his blood continues to flow as He sweats blood whilst He prays to the Father for us.

From the Last Supper to the Cross there is the trail of Blood, it drips in the floor of the chamber of the Sanhedrin and in Pilate's Palace crying out for Justice, blood that is trampled on and ignored. Josephus tells the Temple was ankle deep in the blood the slaughtered Passover lambs but there is blood in the city, Jesus' blood, the Lamb's Blood, dripping on its streets asnd pavemrents, those who come in contact with Jesus are touched by His Blood, the executioners, Pilate, his wife, Caiaphas, the crowd, his Blood is on them and on their children, it is trample on and counted as nothing, some embrace it as the precious thing on earth. His Blood is on His Mother, on Simon of Cyrene, on Veronica, on John, on the women, the centurion, the good thief, on Joseph, Nocodemus and the Centurion. It brings life and death Eternal. It marks a doorway where we can either enter or leave. Judas chose to leave, Mary, John and the women chose to stay.

At the Crucifixion it pours out in profusion, it flows out on the faithful, it brings back the disaciples. It flows down into the underworld, into Adam's grave, onto the dead. It flows out into the world, into time and space, touching the very foundations of the Cosmos. It pours like a torrent through the Church, wherever a priest takes bread and wine, it both saves and drowns, it washes and stains, saves and judges.
To those who drink of it, who wash their robes white in it,  to those who embrace it, it brings life and health, to those who trample it there is judgement.
It marks the doorposts and the lintels of the hearts of the faithful, it marks their lips and their minds, it brings Life Eternal. It marks Holy Church, the bride brought at the cost of His Blood.

Holy Father on the Sacred Triduum

The Holy Father speaking today at the General Audience on the Sacred Tridduum:

Tomorrow, during the Chrism Mass the priests will gather with their bishops for the rite in which the oil for the sick, the catechumens and the chrism is blessed. On the same occasion, the priests renew the promises made on the day of ordination. "This gesture this year, takes on a very special significance, because it takes place within the Year for Priests, held to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of the Holy Curé of Ars”. To all the priests, the Pope reiterated the wish expressed for this year: "Follow the example of the Curé of Ars, and you let yourself be conquered by Christ. You too must be messengers of hope, reconciliation, peace in today's world.

Tomorrow afternoon, with the Mass of the Lord's Last Supper, we celebrate the institution of the Eucharist. In Jesus' words over the bread and wine "This is my body" and "This cup is the new covenant in my blood," said Benedict XVI “Christ’s intent is clearly manifest: in the species of bread and wine, He is present in a real way with his body and his blood shed as a sacrifice for the New Covenant. At the same time, He entrusts the apostles and their successors to be ministers of this sacrament, which he gives to His Church as the supreme proof of His love. "

During the same the act of Jesus washing the apostles' feet ritual is evoked, an act which "represents the entire life of Jesus and reveals his love to the end, an infinite love, that enables man to communion with God set him free. "

After the Holy Thursday liturgy, the Church places the Blessed Sacrament in a specially prepared place, "which is to represent the loneliness of Gethsemane, the mortal anguish of Jesus. In front of the Eucharist, the faithful contemplate Jesus in his solitude and pray for an end to all loneliness in the world. This liturgical path also invites us to seek intimate encounter with the Lord in prayer, to recognize Jesus among those who are lonely, to hold vigil with him and to know how he proclaims the light of his life".

Friday is dedicated to the memory of the passion and death of Jesus "There is - said the Pope - an inseparable connection between the Last Supper and the death of Jesus. In the first Christ gives his body and his blood, that is his earthly life, himself, anticipating his death and transforming it into an act of love. So he transforms death, which by its nature, is the end, the destruction of all relations, into an act of communication itself, an instrument of salvation and the proclamation of the victory of love. Thus, Jesus becomes the key to understanding the Last Supper, which is an anticipation of that transformation of violent death into voluntary sacrifice, into an act of love that redeems and saves the world. "

Holy Saturday is the day of "great silence. The churches are bare and there are no special liturgies. In this time of expectation and hope, believers are called to prayer, reflection, conversion, through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in order to participate, inwardly renewed, in the celebration of Easter. " On the night of Holy Saturday the "mother of all vigils" takes place, when the silence is "broken by the song of the announcing the resurrection of Christ and the proclamation of the victory of light over darkness, life over death."

Levada speaks on abuse

Cardinal Levada, head of CDF speaks on sexual abuse.
See Rocco Palmo here

In Memoria di Me

BBC 4 showed In Memoria di Me, with English subtitles, on Sunday, warch it here. It is about a young man who joins a novitiate, in search for "meaning", it is rather austere. It is set in San Giorgio Maggiore, in Venice, but only the vague images of Venice are glimpsed through a window.
It is a film the seach for the interior life, it is very sparse, you won't enjoy it but you might find useful.
I suspect most novitiates and seminaries are a little more fun than this. It is a challenging film for Holy Week, worth a couple of hours.