Homily: Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory, London -- August 19, 2018

“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.”    Proverbs 9

It is a privilege to join you today in this historic church now in the care of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. 

The Wisdom of God has prepared a feast for us.  

Many of you will have heard innumerable times the fact that the wise and scholarly Blessed John Henry Newman assisted at Mass here soon after he was received into full communion with the Catholic Church. 

Blessed John Henry Newman

Today as we reflect upon what communion with Christ and his Church means to us today, I would like to recall another lesser known churchman who, though not a scholar, celebrated the wisdom of God in his life and work. 

Later in life, he too was received into full communion – I speak of Father Bernard Walke of St. Hilary, Cornwall near where Jane, my wife, and I were just visiting in St. Ives.

Some of you may know, better than I, the remarkable story of Fr. Walke, and of his wife Annie and of their years serving in St. Hilary Parish. 

The parish became renowned for its sacred Christmas plays broadcast to national acclaim on the BBC over 80 years ago.  These broadcasts made the parish not only widely known at the time but, sadly, they were followed by a brutal vandalization of the Anglo-Catholic parish. 

Fr. Walke had worked in the parish for years restoring Catholic faith and life with the help of inspired artists, including his wife Annie Walke and writers who worked together with dedicated local folk amidst bitter prejudice.  

In this struggle they achieved a remarkable communion in the Lord which transcended many of the prejudices of the day.

Bernard Walke, by all accounts, was one without guile; a man who loved people and animals - even donkeys - along with all God’s creation. 

He gently dealt with those who often behaved like the donkeys, stubbornly resisting the beauty and truth of Catholic life and faith.  Yet Bernard, Annie and the faithful persisted in their service of and communion with the Incarnate Lord who is present every day in the Mass, in the Blessed Sacrament reserved and in those who are in need.  As the first reading today puts it “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here.”

Fr. Bernard ministered faithfully with the people of St. Hilary for over 20 years. He often travelled the parish on his beloved donkeys and at Corpus Christi, at the Feast of the Assumption and on other occasions he and the people would process with the Blessed Sacrament – children and others including the occasional donkey, following.  

Sundial at St Hilary

Accounts by Frank Baker and other authors record a childlike quality in Bernard. He walked with our Blessed Lord – as he invariably referred to Jesus – seeking to bring others into communion in the Body of Christ. It was as though he saw them through the luna of the monstrance as he walked in the Corpus Christi prosession. Fr. Bernard saw all being drawn to the Lord of life; the bread of life beckoning to all who are hungry for the truth.

Today we hear in the readings the paradoxes of our journey in faith: wisdom and foolishness, hunger and being satisfied, fear and courage. 

 

Sacred Heart Chapel, St. Hilary

The story of the vandalization of St. Hilary’s is capped by the account of Fr. Bernard pleading with the vandals to allow him to remove the Blessed Sacrament before they destroyed the stone altar.  As he left the church, holding the the consecrated bread of the Blessed Sacrament aloft, it was reported that parishioners who had gathered, lined the path from the church dropping to their knees as Fr. Bernard passed holding, with total reverence, the sacred body of our Blessed Lord  under the form of bread, the Lord's body once again scorned and rejected by humans but beloved of the faithful.

 

St Hilary of Poitiers blesses the site of St. Hilary Parish Church 
One of the chancel paintings depicting Cornish saints.

The Gospel exhorts us to become like children (Matthew 18:3–4) to hear and accept the invitation to the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.  In every Mass the folly of the Cross is represented and renewed as we are offered deeper communion with our blessed Lord in his Body.

To the world, it is foolishness to believe that the crucified Jesus rose from the dead and is truly present with us and for us in the sacrament of his body and blood.  For many today, as for the crowds in today’s Gospel, it is foolishness—maybe even madness—to believe that Jesus can give us His Flesh to eat and so allow us to enter into communion with God, the Holy Trinity. 

Jesus repeats himself with gathering intensity in the Gospel. Notice the repetition of the words “eat” and “drink,” and “my Flesh” and “my Blood.” To heighten the realism of what Jesus invites us to believe, St. John in these verses uses not the ordinary Greek word for eating but a cruder term, once reserved to describe the “munching” of donkeys.  This is the same realism that Fr. Bernard sought to bring to life in his Christmas plays and liturgical practice.

The foolishness of God, then, is wiser than human wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:18–25). In His foolish love, Jesus chooses to save those who believe that His Flesh is true food, His Blood, true drink.

Again, today in the liturgy, we are called to renew our faith, to forsake the foolishness of believing only what we can see with our eyes and to enter into deeper wisdom and communion with God and with one another as we share in consuming the very Body of Christ our Lord.

We approach, then, not only an altar prepared with bread and wine, but the feast of Wisdom, the banquet of heaven—in which God our Saviour renews the everlasting covenant and promises to destroy death forever (Isaiah 25:6–9).

Let us make the most of our days, as St. Paul says, always, in the Eucharist, giving thanks to God for every intimation of love and grace in the name of Jesus, the bread come down from heaven.

The Wisdom of God has prepared a feast for us. 

Proverbs 9:1–6     Psalm 34:2–3, 10–15     Ephesians 5:15–20     John 6:51–58