Bishop Terry's encouragement for Rosary on the Coast

The Rosary is such a rich prayer, so full of meaning and variety. In the mysteries themselves we can recall to mind the great events of salvation. In the Hail Mary we are reminded of the moment the Word became flesh. We can also commend ourselves in our weakness and vulnerability to the intercession of our Blessed Lady. In the Glory be we praise the Blessed Trinity and in the Our Father we say the prayer that Our Saviour taught us himself. These are just some of the many reasons that I commend and encourage the Rosary on the Coast in the hope that many people from this diocese of Middlesbrough will join with their brothers and sisters throughout the British Isles in asking the intercession of our Blessed Lady for the grace to become once again her dowry, for the peace of our country and respect for life.

St Wilfrid's Open Garden

There will be a plant sale in the yard on Saturday, 14 April from 10 am. And the Rectory garden will be open from noon for the spring flowers. Plants will be for sale, and there will be light refreshments.

The Last Things: Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven

Press reports over the Easter period suggested that the teaching of the Catholic Church on the Last Things may have changed. This  is impossible of course. It was strongly denied by the Holy See. But it seems a good opportunity to remind ourselves of a recent restatement of the authentic teaching of the Church in Pope Benedict's Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi published in November 2007. The Pope Emeritus manages to be consoling while remaining faithful to scripture and the constant tradition of the Church....

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), Jesus admonishes us through the image of a soul destroyed by arrogance and opulence, who has created an impassable chasm between himself and the poor man; the chasm of being trapped within material pleasures; the chasm of forgetting the other, of incapacity to love, which then becomes a burning and unquenchable thirst. We must note that in this parable Jesus is not referring to the final destiny after the Last Judgement, but is taking up a notion found in early Judaism, namely that of an intermediate state between death and resurrection, a state in which the final sentence is yet to be pronounced. 

This early Jewish idea of an intermediate state includes the view that these souls are not simply in a sort of temporary custody but, as the parable of the rich man illustrates, are already being punished or are experiencing a provisional form of bliss. There is also the idea that this state can involve purification and healing which mature the soul for communion with God. The early Church took up these concepts, and in the Western Church they gradually developed into the doctrine of Purgatory. We do not need to examine here the complex historical paths of this development; it is enough to ask what it actually means. With death, our life-choice becomes definitive - our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours - people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are.

Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people - we may suppose - there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil - much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur? Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God's judgement according to each person's particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualise these images - simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw - each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through “fire” so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast.

Holy Week and Easter: Thanks and Congratulations

Congratulations to Sarah Marley, Leo Marley, Laura Muñoz, Ariel Gonzalez, and Deborah Poxton from our Evangelium/RCIA Group who were baptised, confirmed or received into full communion with the Catholic Church at this year's Easter Vigil.

Thank you to everyone who helped to make the church look spectacular once again, and to our musicians and servers.

And thank you to those who sent or posted photos. A selection follows, including the Paschal Candle, beautifully painted by our own parishioner Rad Bolcar; the Altar of Repose; Good Friday; the Vigil - including an interesting time-lapse of the congregation entering with the Paschal Candle; and the Choir and Young Adults' Easter Sunday Buffet.

Thank you and congratulations once more to everyone and Happy Easter.

Day of Divine Mercy in York

Divine Mercy Devotion in York take place at St Aelred's Church, Fifth Avenue, Tang Hall.

Sunday, 8 April

Exposition from 11.30am to 4pm

Confessions from 1p to 3pm

Hour of Great Mercy from 3pm to 4.15pm

Holy Week and Easter Services

For details of the service times at St Wilfrid's and St Joseph's for Holy Week and Easter, please click here.

Fr Richard is copying here (with permission!) Canon Alan Sheridan's explanation of the Easter Triduum from the St George's Parish Website:

Rosary on the Coast

Congratulations

Congratulations to Brother Henry who was admitted as a Triennial of the York Oratory in Formation last Saturday, St Patrick's Day. Oratorians do not take vows so there is no public ceremony, but there is a short private service in church and the community exchanges the sign of peace as a welcome to the new member. Please keep Br Henry in your prayers.

Catholicism and the Arts

This month's seminar is entitled "Old and New Visions of the Cross". Details on the Catholicism and the Arts Blog.

St Wilfrid's in the snow

On Tuesday the "Beast from the East" arrived. In the morning we had Our Lady of the Snows...By the evening we had a new parishioner...And on Wednesday, things still look beautiful but some clearing has to be done...
The Oratory Young Adults were not deterred by the weather. One of them even brought small hot water bottles for the Fathers and Brothers!