Yeshua International & The Old Roman Catholic Church in England

The Yeshua Worldwide Network of Churches

The Most Revd Dr. Peter F. Davis DD, pHs (\cvbnm,..ones)

Archbishop of Europe

Presiding Prelate & Patriarch of

The Old Roman Catholic Church in England

Epiphany

Introduction

Jesus, the long awaited Messiah of the Jewish people, is today revealed as the Saviour of the world.

May our faith and our daily lives reflect God's love for all people.

Today's Readings

First Reading Isaiah 60:1-6

A vision of Jerusalem's restoration. People of every land will journey there.

Second Reading Ephesians 3:2-3.5-6

Paul remembers his narrow-minded earlier days, and how God's generosity was revealed to him.

Gospel Matthew 2:1-12

Strangers from the east visit the child, Jesus, and disturb the peace.

HOMILY

"Where is the infant king of the Jews?"

Illustration

    The chief of police sat in his car. It was a hot summer's day in Alabama. The racial segregation laws were being broken. The Civil Rights movement was underway. The policeman was interviewed by a television reporter. What was he going to do? The movement for change was gathering momentum. Would he be able to stop it? "I don't know," he said. "But I'm going to try. Till my dying breath I'm going to try."

    This television interview, seen now at a distance of forty years or more, on a black and white film, strikes one as obscene and shocking. But back then there was nothing shocking about it. For many people that policeman spoke their feelings and attitudes about racial segregation. Keeping people separated was considered the normal and right thing to do. The policeman was protecting the laws and keeping the peace. He was not a bad man; just an ordinary human being with an ordinary understanding of what is right and wrong. He was limited in his attitudes and narrow-minded in his views, but that is ordinary. We are all like that!

    The world is full of "us and them" situations. We like it like that. Keep people in their places. Don't rock the boat. Don't disturb the peace. Sometimes the trigger for trouble is race. Sometimes it is religion. Always it is foreigners: people who come and change our world.

    Feeling like this, many people do not think that they are being unjust. They are standing up for themselves, looking out for their own. But it will not do, and it must be challenged.

Gospel Teaching

    In the story of the Epiphany, when the wise men come from the east to search for the new-born King of the Jews, the very idea of foreigners coming to celebrate a Jewish Messiah is itself a disturbing feature. What have these easterners to do with Jewish affairs! What do they know of the mystery of God and religion! How dare they encroach on such sacred territory! Yet they come, and they are received with grace by Mary and Joseph.

    Their coming has not only disturbed Jewish ideas of religion, but the local political scene is unhinged as well. Herod, the great King Herod, is deeply upset at the idea of a child who might succeed him, usurp his dynasty. So he makes plans to protect his interests and to see off the newcomer. He has not amassed his power and fortune to see it taken from him by some stranger.

    Meanwhile, the wise men offer their gifts. The gold is symbolic of the wealth of new understanding that Jesus will bring to human life. The incense speaks of a holy way of living that has come into the world in Jesus Christ. Myrrh tells of the suffering involved in any attempt to change the way life is. It foretells the cross.

Application

    In our lives today this feast of the Epiphany is not just another feast, not just the end of the Christmas story. It carries a message and a challenge to us now. The wise men from the east are the outsiders. They are the strangers. They are not familiar people. They are not what we expected. But they are here in our story. What are we going to do about them? Will we accept the gifts they bring and allow ourselves to be changed by them?

    The gold represents new wisdom. Can we learn new things, or do we insist on keeping faith only with what is old? Incense speaks of worship and calls us to worship God better than we do, both in liturgy and in life! Myrrh reminds us always of the price we must pay for anything worthwhile. It is hard to change. We resist, but we shouldn't.

    There are questions for the Church to consider on this day of the visit of the Magi. Who has no role to play in Church life? Who is not included? What are we prepared to change? Will we welcome new ideas and new ways? As we challenge ourselves as Church, so we must challenge ourselves as individuals.

    Our great inspiration in this is no less a person than Saint Paul. Like that chief of police, he was a good man, a fervent upholder of the law. It took a bolt from the blue, a light from heaven, to knock him out of his stride. It turned his seeing into blindness and then gave him new sight. And what a vision he had!

SUMMARY

1. A story of racial segregation and resistance to change.

2. Strangers from the east come to Jerusalem and disturb the peace.

3. Religious theory and political situations are challenged.

4. Can we entertain new ideas and become more open people?

Holy Family

Introduction

    Still in the afterglow of Christmas day, we celebrate today the feast of the Holy Family. By being born into a human family, the Son of God has blessed every family and made marriage into a pathway of holiness.

Today's Readings

First Reading 1 Samuel 1:20-22.24-28

    Listen to the account of how Hannah came to the Temple to give thanks for the child Samuel, born by divine intervention, and to dedicate him to the Lord

Second Reading 1 St John 3:1-2.21-24

    The Father has lavished such love on us that we are already His children and destined to become like Him when "we see Him as He is". But noblesse oblige: we are called to live lives of faith and love in accordance with our dignity.

Gospel Luke 2:41-52

    For a moment Luke lifts the veil over the thirty years of "hidden life" to reveal the episode of Jesus' three days lost in the Temple.

Homily

"See what love the Father has lavished upon us."

Illustration

    At the beginning of the third millennium, the Holy Father published a special letter. It looks back to the blessings God has poured out on his Church over the centuries, singling out for special mention the Second Vatican Council, described as "the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century" (Novo Millennio Ineunte). It also looks to the future, trying to discern where the Holy Spirit may be leading us in the 21st century. The Pope suggests that ever since the Council a vital truth has been maturing in the Church. By way of explanation, he directs our attention to the Council's great document on the Church, and in particular to its fifth chapter - "The Universal Call to Holiness". Within that chapter he points to the crucial statement: "All the faithful, of whatever state or rank, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity"

    Clearly, it isn't simply Priests and Nuns, or Monks and Hermits, who are called to holiness; nor is there some special kind of holiness reserved for them. There is one holiness and to that one holiness all the People of God are called. But most of the People of God are married lay people, and therefore married life, family life, is the way to holiness for the overwhelming majority of the faithful. The Pope says that one reason why he has canonised so many people during his pontificate is to show that holiness is to be found everywhere; and he speaks of the "many lay people who (have) attained holiness in the ordinary circumstances of life".

Gospel Teaching

    None of this should surprise us. We need only reflect on today's readings. John speaks of the bewildering truth that God our Father has loved us so much that, through Baptism, He has made us into His very sons and daughters. We are destined to "see (God) as he is" and then we shall "be like Him", revealed in all our glory. The fundamental calling of the Christian, then, is the one received at Baptism, the calling to live out our lives as the children of God, as followers of Christ. Within that overarching vocation, there are other more specific vocations, and the one to which most Christians are called is that of marriage.

    It is within that state, in its most ordinary events and its most intimate, that couples are able to achieve true holiness. It is in the living out of family life that they have the privilege of acting as their children's first, and far and away most important, teachers, leading their little ones to the knowledge and love of God. It is in their mutual self-giving that Christian couples catch a unique glimpse of the love God lavishes upon them. It is the ordinary events of daily life that afford them countless opportunities for the practice of virtue - patience, self-denial, concern for others - and especially those virtues spoken of by John: faith and mutual love.

Application

    Today's gospel is not so much a commentary on marriage and family life, as living proof of their importance. After all, there could scarcely be a more startling proof than the fact that God's own Son spent thirty years of his life as a member of a family, growing up through babyhood and adolescence to manhood. True, His family was unique, and yet it was a real family and, as today's gospel hints, a family not exempt from trials and difficulties.

    Misunderstandings, parents' bewilderment at the behaviour of their children, heartaches, a young man (in Jewish society a boy reached manhood at the age of 12) going his own way. Such episodes are hardly unknown to families of the twenty-first century! And even the event recounted in the gospel may not have been an isolated event. Two great saints, Mary and Joseph, and a child who is God's only Son are no guarantee of a placid, unruffled family life. But in all the ups and downs, the little family at Nazareth was indeed growing ever more truly into a Holy Family.

    And today's feast sets a similar ideal before us: with God's help, and despite its difficulties, every family can advance in the ways of goodness and holiness. That is why the pope stated so firmly that: "The time has come to re-propose., to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living': and insisted that the whole life of. Christian families must lead in this direction" - in the direction of genuine holiness.

SUMMARY

1. In Novo Millennio Inenunte the Pope singles out the Universal Call to Holiness as one of the most significant ideas of Vatican II.

2. Since the majority of the People of God are married people, marriage and family life are for them the way to holiness.

3. Their married life is a more specific living out of the general vocation of all Baptised people - to live their lives as sons and daughters of God - and offers countless opportunities for the practice of virtue.

4. The Gospel shows that the Holy Family, despite its unique make-up, had its share of the anxieties, misunderstandings etc that affect any family.

5. The ideal set by this feast is that every family (in its own way) be a Holy Family.

The Baptism of the Lord

Introduction

    Through His Baptism, Jesus expresses His solidarity with the people of God in their longing for the coming of God's Kingdom. We gather this day to affirm our own faith in the coming of that Kingdom in its fullness.

Today's Readings

First Reading Isaiah 40:1-5. 9-11

    God speaks words of comfort and hope to His people: He is coming in power.

Second Reading Titus 211-14. 3:4-7

    Through the gift of the Spirit, God makes us His own and sets us free from evil.

Gospel Luke 3:15-16. 21-22

    Filled with the power and the Spirit of God, Jesus is ready to begin His public Ministry.

HOMILY

"Here is the Lord, coming with power."

Illustration

    In 1977 and again in 2002, the people of Great Britain celebrated important milestones in the life of the ruling monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. For both her Silver and Golden Jubilees, the queen travelled extensively throughout her realm, to cities, towns and villages in every part of the kingdom. As she did so, the various places she was to visit smartened up their appearance. Buildings were painted inside and out, flags and bunting festooned the streets, red, white and blue were everywhere to be seen, new paths and roads were laid, the tarmac used was at times even coloured a royal red for the occasion. And everywhere she went the queen was greeted by large numbers of cheering crowds, jostling to get close, perhaps even to speak to her.

Gospel Teaching

    There is something of that atmosphere in this feast of the Baptism of Jesus. Today's readings portray it as a royal visitation, a revelation of God to His people, a world-changing event. Isaiah gives a description of what used to happen when a king visited his people: everything was done to prepare for the king's arrival. The road along which the king was to travel was made smooth and level - valleys filled in and hills flattened to speed the king's journey and make his way easier. The arrival of the king is regarded as a joyous event, eagerly awaited by his people, joyfully heralded from the mountaintops. The king would come in power - as a victorious warrior. But to his people, he was also a gentle shepherd, caring for the weak and needy - the lambs and mother ewes.

    These are the terms in which Jesus' first public appearance is portrayed. Indeed, Luke explicitly quotes this passage from Isaiah when he describes John the Baptist's Ministry: John is the joyful herald preparing the way for the coming of the king. Luke emphasises that there is a feeling of expectancy among the people: the Baptist's Ministry has heightened their awareness that something momentous is on the horizon. Then Jesus appears, but He is so superior that John is not even worthy to perform for him the task usually left to slaves: undoing the master's sandals.

    The contrast is between John's use of water, as a symbolic cleansing, and the deeper reality of Baptism by the Holy Spirit and fire, which Jesus brings. The depiction of the Spirit descending on Jesus and the divine voice acclaiming Jesus as His beloved Son shows that everything Jesus does and says is in the power of God. As Son, Jesus is the most intimate and most perfect agent of God that there can possibly be. To say that Jesus Baptises with the Holy Spirit and fire is the supreme statement of who Jesus is and what He does: he alone is able to confer the Spirit - the very life of God. He alone is able to purify, to burn away the sin and evil which separate us from God.

Application

    Paul spells out what that means for us: Baptism by water and the Spirit purifies us of sin and so makes us heirs to eternal life. This is the revelation of God's grace, God's love. Jesus' Baptism helps us understand the meaning of our own Baptism. However, perhaps we need to capture something of the sense of expectation and joy of our Baptism, by which the divine King - God himself - comes to us, not to visit, but to remain with us. The presence of his Spirit ignites a fire in our souls, which burns away all impurity, and inflames us with zeal and a passion for the things of God. Through baptism, we too have become the sons and daughters of God, His very own people, His beloved, on whom His favour rests.

Baptism is a true "Christ-ening", making us like Christ - other Christs'. The Spirit given to us empowers us to reveal God's love and grace to the world. The Spirit enables us to be kingly, as Isaiah describes kingship: being victorious in the struggle with the forces of evil in ourselves and in our world; but also being pastoral - true shepherds to the weak, the poor, the needy. We can prepare for our kingly role through prayer - as Jesus prayed. Through prayer, we can reclaim our own Baptism, that the Spirit's vitality and power may be stirred up and renewed within us, so that like Christ, we can work for God's Kingdom, know Him as our loving Father, and offer our lives in service of others.

SUMMARY

1. Jesus' Baptism is described as God's royal visitation to His people.

2. As Spirit-filled Son, Jesus is uniquely able to confer God's life and to purify His people.

3. Our own baptism is a "Christening". We can reclaim our Baptism to live out our kingly role in the world, in the power of the Spirit.

How to pray the Franciscan Crown Rosary   

•     1.  Announce the first mystery and say OUR FATHER on the fifth bead from the cross.

•     2.  Say one HAIL MARY for each of the ten beads.

•     3.  Announce the second mystery and then say OUR FATHER repeat steps 1 and 2 for the 3^rd through the 7^th mysteries.

•     4.  Say two HAIL MARY’S to complete 72 years of Mary’s Joy on the 3^rd & 4^th beads from the cross.

•     5.  Say OUR FATHER and GLORY BE for the intentions of the Holy FATHER on the 2^nd bead from the Cross.

•     6.  Say HAIL MARY on the bead closest to the cross.

        OUR FATHER

•     Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen.

    HAIL MARY

•     Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

•     Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

•     Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.

    THE DOXOLOGY

•     Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen.

     I  DREAM

•     I dream of a Church where love and people are more important than stone and steeple.

•     I dream of a Church with an open door where no one is privileged except the poor.

•     I dream of a Church where milk and honey will flow more freely than power and money.

•     I dream of a Church where young and old will be inspired to change their world.

•     I dream of a Church that will make my dream come true.

HOW TO ADDRESS CLERGY

Pope Your / His Holiness
Cardinal Your/His Eminence
for a Patriarch Your/his Beatitude
for an Archbishop (metropolian, coadjutor, titular, emeritus) or Primate.
Your/His Grace - UK-Australia Your/His Excellency USa Canada
For a Bishop (ordinary, coadjutor, auxiliary, titular, emeritus) [My] Lord Bishop Uk Australia Your/His Excellency USA Canada.

Titles

For an Archbishop, Primate or Patriarch, The Most Reverend. (Most Rev) Uk USA Australia Canada.
For a Bishop (also Auxiliary Bishop) The Right Reverend (Rt Rev) UK. The Most Reverend (Most Rev) Canada Australia USA
For an Abbot the Right Reverend (Rt. Rev)
For a Protonotart Apostolic de Numero (Monsignor)
The Most Reverend Monsignor (Most Rev. Msgr)
For a Protonotary Apostolic Supranumerary, Prelate of Honour of his Holiness, or Chaplain of his Holiness (Monsignor) The Reverend Monsignor (Rev Msgr)
For a Vicar or Rector The Reverend (Rev)
for a Priest Reverend (Rev)
Deacon the Reverend Mister (Rev Mr)

LITURGICAL CALENDAR

March 2010

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