Excerpts from Fr. Longnecker's article reflecting upon the past five years since Pope Benedict allowed for the erection of Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans and other Protestants to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Extraordinary ordinariate

Anglicanorum Coetibus marks its fifth anniversary this month. To understand just what the personal ordinariate is, we have to remember that the Catholic Church includes many more groups and organizational systems than the typical Latin diocese. There are the ancient churches of the East like the Chaldeans, Maronites, Melkites, Copts and many others. These churches retain their ancient liturgies, cultural customs and their own hierarchy. Many of them permit married men to be ordained, and their traditions, vestments, art and architecture are unique to their particular cultures . . .

Once Anglicanorum Coetibus got the ball rolling, Anglicans and former Anglicans around the world began to make their plans for the formation of ordinariates in different parts of the world. Functioning in England, Wales and Scotland, the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was the first to be established in January 2011. A year later, the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter was established in the United States. Also open to former Methodists (because they are an offshoot of Anglicanism), the American ordinariate covers both the United States and Canada. In June 2012, the ordinariate for Australia was formed as the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross.

The Anglican ordinariate is an extraordinary and unexpected creation. Never before has a pope established a new ecclesial structure like it. It is a brave experiment — an innovative move toward church unity and a controversial action on the part of Rome. By some accounts, its creation was greeted with dismay by the Anglican leadership. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was surprised by the move, while other Anglican leaders said it was insensitive, predatory and unnecessary. They could not help but perceive it as an attempt by the pope to steal sheep from their flock.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster prays as former Anglican bishops John Broadhurst, Andrew Burnham and Keith Newton lie prostrate during their ordination as Catholic priests at Westminster Cathedral in London in 2011. CNS photo

Why this, why now?

The Anglicans’ reaction was understandable. For some time now in England, the numbers of Catholics at Mass on a Sunday far surpass the number of Anglicans at church. Despite the fact that the Church of England owns all the ancient cathedrals, colleges and churches that were once Catholic, the number of English people who worship in the Church of England is far smaller than the number of Catholics. Pope Benedict’s move seemed threatening.

What the Anglicans did not understand is that Pope Benedict was not actively reaching out to convert Anglicans, but was responding to repeated requests from Anglicans around the world for a way to become Catholic while retaining their beloved traditions. These requests had been arriving in Rome with regularity since the late 1970s. 

When the Episcopal Church of the United States ordained women for the first time in 1977, a group of priests from the Episcopal Church petitioned Rome, asking to receive dispensations from the vow of celibacy, allowing them to be ordained as Catholic priests. In 1980, Pope St. John Paul II established the process called the pastoral provision, opening the door for married former Anglicans to be ordained. At that time, Rome also allowed Anglican Use parishes to be erected. These were parishes that used an Anglican style liturgy authorized by Rome. While they had their own liturgy, they remained part of established Catholic dioceses.

Marc Fisher watches his daughter, Mary Margaret, 5, light a candle at Mount Calvary Church in Baltimore in 2012. CNS photo

When women were ordained in 1994 in England and Wales, the Holy See extended the pastoral provision to that country. It was also quietly extended to bishops in other parts of the world who had married, former Anglican priests knocking on their door seeking Catholic ordination. Now there are about 500 married former Anglicans serving as Catholic priests around the world.

Despite these provisions, groups of Anglicans still came to the pope asking for another way to come into full communion. The most prominent voice was that of the Traditional Anglican Communion. The TAC is a confederation of the “continuing Anglican” churches that had broken away from the Anglican Communion under the Archbishop of Canterbury. In October 2007, the leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion, along with his college of bishops, voted to seek full communion with Rome. It was in response to this appeal by a global Anglican communion of churches that the Vatican began to explore the possibility of a personal ordinariate for Anglicans. Once it was established, however, the TAC split and most of them decided to reject the Vatican’s offer.

The Anglican ordinariate should be seen, therefore, as an attempt by the Catholic Church to offer a way forward for a particular group of Christians separated from full communion with the Catholic Church. 

The ordinariate now

The Anglican ordinariate is now five years old. Where is it now and what does the future hold? For many reasons, the ordinariate has not been as immediately popular or successful as first hoped. It must be admitted that a good number of the Anglicans who say they want formal communion with the Catholic Church too often want to retain not only their Anglican traditions, but their church buildings, their positions as bishops and clergy, and their independence. A good number who were on the shore of the Tiber decided not to cross over after all.

‘Quo Vadis’ Anglicans?

“Quo Vadis?”—“Where are you going?” — was the question Peter was supposed to have asked Jesus. After five years, it is important for the members of the Anglican ordinariate to ask themselves where they are going.

The weakness of the Anglicans is the weakness of all Protestants: Lacking a central authority, they are too often a law unto themselves. Tending toward division and individualism, there are too many different strands of Anglicanism, and this same division can be an unfortunate part of the ordinariate movement. Members of the ordinariate may have an identity problem. They love the Anglican traditions, but just what are they exactly? Are they supposed to be traditional high-church Anglicans with “bells and smells,” or are they Evangelical “low-church” Anglicans? Are they supposed to embrace charismatic worship and spirituality, or are they more staid and conventional?

All the different streams can be strengths, but the different tendencies can also cause division.

The great strength of the Anglican tradition is to meld the different streams of Anglicanism together into a church which is Evangelical-Charismatic-Catholic.

If the leaders of the ordinariate can succeed in bringing together and holding in balance the best of the different Anglican streams of tradition, they will have a strong appeal not only to existing Anglicans, but also to other non-Catholic Christians and to members of the convergence movement: former Evangelicals who have founded Anglican-style churches.

If the ordinariate movement is to survive and thrive, it will need to develop its own strong identity — an identity that will help with the work of evangelization, and an identity that will draw many from the differing streams of non-Catholic Christianity into the full unity and communion of Christ’s one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.

- See more at: https://www.osv.com/Article/TabId/493/ArtMID/13569/ArticleID/16313/A-bridge-across-the-Tiber.aspx#sthash.qKZJ42Ex.IhRlcz3i.dpuf

Monsignor Steenson Visits Toronto and Celebrates STM as a new Quasi (Mission) Parish of the Ordinariate

Msgr Steenson celebrated a Solemn Pontifical High Mass on Sunday as we celebrated the erection of St. Thomas More as a Quasi (mission) parish of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.  So STM joins 9 other mission parishes and 5 full parishes erected in October.

Wonderful music followed by a sumptuous reception made us glad, as the music of Parry was still ringing in our ears.

Fr. (Lieutenant Colonel) Paul Acton of CFB Borden was Deacon of the Mass and led the Act of Remembrance.  Joseph Decaria's (subdeacon) mother baked and decorated the beautiful cake.

After dinner we attended a special liturgy at St. James (Anglican) Cathedral with Cardinal Collins in attendance as we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Vatican II decree on Ecumenism.  If felt as though we were the living results of that wonderful initiative of the Holy Sprit.

Our Mother Wore Army Boots

The facts of the story are true, names have been changed to respect the privacy of a WW II veteran.

Lieutenant Mary Hogan (not her real name) served Canada during World War II. An officer in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC) she served both in Canada and in England. Now at 98 years of age, Mary is waiting in a hospital ward for a place in the Colonel Belcher Veteran’s Retirement Residence, a care facility in Calgary built expressly for the needs of Canada’s aging veterans.

As the Belcher was designed for veterans, why then, as perhaps the last surviving Canadian woman veteran of WW II, has Mary been waiting for months to be given a room of her own? 

 Until last year she was in good health for her age and lived with her daughter in Calgary. After a stroke earlier this year, Mary was hospitalized but, with characteristic resiliency, she rebounded. Now she is allowed home only on weekends because she is without resources to have care at home while her daughter, who has her own health issues, works from Monday to Friday. In her late 90s, Mary has to make the best of the hospital ward which she shares with three others. Is this what Canada wants for one of her most senior veterans? Is this just treatment for one who answered the call to risk her life for her country?

After WW II Mary married another veteran, a Captain in the Canadian Dental Corps whom she had met in England, and together, they raised five children all born after the war and after she turned 35! She was the inspiration for the protagonist in a novel written by a CWAC veteran friend who has since died. 

Her five children live and work in different provinces around the country. Mary waits for phone calls and holds on to hope for a dignified place in which to live her final years. How is it that our country appears to be so cavalier about the needs of our most senior service personnel in the twilight of their years?

Mary does not complain. “Thanks so much for calling,” she says to me, her son, serving as a Catholic priest in Toronto. I wait and pray for a better place for our mother at the end of her life. She answered her country’s call to service when they needed her over 70 years ago. Will our country answer her need now?

Solemn Pontifical High Mass - Music for Msgr. Steenson's visit Nov. 9

November Music at STM

  1:45 pm Sundays

November 9 

Consecration of  The Lateran Basilica

Pontifical Solemn High Mass

Mass Setting:   Willan, Missa Brevis 11, St. John the Baptist                    

Introit:               Parry, I Was Glad

Offertory:          Harris, Behold The Tabernacle
Communion:     Howells, O Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem

Msgr. Steenson visits STM Toronto - Sunday Nov. 9     

November 16 

22 Sunday after Trinity

Mass Setting:         Victoria, Missa O Quam Gloriosum      Motet:                     

Harwood, O How Glorious Is The Kingdom

November 23 

Christ The King
Mass:                      Hassler, Missa Secunda                        
Motet:                     Willan, O King All Glorious

5 New Ordinariate Parishes and 9 New Mission Parishes Established

Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson erected five new Ordinariate parishes and raised nine other Public Associations of the Faithful (sodalities), including STM Toronto, to Quasi (mission) Parish status with the approval of the  Ordinariate Governing Council during the POCSP Conference at Our Lady of the Snows Retreat Centre, near St Louis, Missouri, October 27 - 31.

Fr Lee Kenyon was appointed the first Parish Pastor for Canada. 

Fr. Doug Hayman, Fr. Carl Reid and Fr. John Hodgins were confirmed as priest administrators for three Canadian mission parishes. They will serve Our Lady of the Annunciation in Ottawa, St. Columba in Victoria B.C., and St. Thomas More, Toronto, respectively.

Clergy of the West  (left to right):  Deacon Adrian Martens,  Fr. Jonathan Gibson and Fr. Lee Kenyon of St. John the Evangelist, Calgary. At far right, Fr. Michael Birch an associate priest at St. Columba, Victoria B.C.

Fr. John Hodgins at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, Belleville, Illinois near St. Louis, OCTOBER 2014

Clergy wives from around North American joined in the sessions and discussion as well as having  their own meetings to develop approaches to Evangelism in conjunction with Catholics in various cities and communities.

Msgr. Steenson looks on as Msgr. Peter Wilkinson with Mrs Jane Hodgins ponder points raised during the presentation on Evangelism by Fr. Paul S. Manning from New Jersey.

I am transfixed by David B. Hart's book GOD: BEING, CONSCIOUSNESS, BLISS

This American scholar, intellectual and convert to Orthodox Christianity offers the thoughtful atheist, as well as Christians and others, a profound reflection upon the reality of God far removed from the Dawkins- style arguments which fluctuate between the petulant and the irrationally ferocious.

Hart has a turn of phrase and vocabulary that make Conrad Black look like a piker. Almost overly articulate, his razor-sharp logic is expressed along with a profound respect for revelation, properly understood. His deep erudition allows him to explore how, in his words, "Wisdom is the recovery of innocence at the far end of experience."

Hart readily admits that his audacious project in this book risks losing the sympathy of readers both rationalist and fideist because he is intent upon showing, as Pope Benedict would agree, that reason and revelation are, in the end, one and the same thing in the unity of God.

This is not a work of apologetics so much as a re-presentation of what the classical traditions of all major religions and philosophy have meant by "God" as opposed to the straw man that Dawkins and company have been raging against. In its place Hart presents the transcendent vision that is at the base of all cultures, art and achievement in history.

Or, in Hart's own words:
"What is certain is that, to this point, most of the unquestionably sublime achievements of the human intellect and imagination have arisen in worlds shaped by some vision of transcendent truth. Only a thoughtless person can possibly imagine that the vast majority of those responsible for such achievements have all clung pathetically to an understanding of the transcendent as barbarously absurd as the one casually presumed in the current texts of popular unbelief."

The reviewer, Damon Linker, in the online magazine THIS WEEK says to critics who question that people have or now do actually hold Hart's profound view of God:

"[This view of God] is found, in varying forms, in the work of Christian (Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Thomas Aquinas), Jewish (Maimonides), and Muslim (Avicenna) theologians, as well as numerous Hindu and Sikh sages. All of these sundry thinkers, and many others, describe a God who is (in Hart's words) "the infinite fullness of being, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, from whom all things come and upon whom all things depend for every moment of their existence, without whom nothing at all would exist."

Essentially, Hart is saying to skeptics: Go ahead and burn the straw man but when you want to have an adult conversation - - come on in!

Pope's Final Address to the October 2014 Synod on the Family

Excerpts from Pope Francis' address to the Synod Fathers addressing issues relating to the indissolubility of Christian marriage, family life and relationships.

Pope Francis with Msgr Newton, Ordinary of the UK Ordinariate

With a heart full of appreciation and gratitude I want to thank, along with you, the Lord who has accompanied and guided us in the past days, with the light of the Holy Spirit 
. . . Fraternal Delegates, Auditors, and Assessors, for your active and fruitful participation. I will keep you in prayer asking the Lord to reward you with the abundance of His gifts of grace!

I can happily say that – with a spirit of collegiality and of synodality – we have truly lived the experience of “Synod,” a path of solidarity, a “journey together.”

And it has been “a journey” – and like every journey there were moments of running fast, as if wanting to conquer time and reach the goal as soon as possible; other moments of fatigue, as if wanting to say “enough”; other moments of enthusiasm and ardour. 

There were moments of profound consolation listening to the testimony of true pastors, who wisely carry in their hearts the joys and the tears of their faithful people; moments of consolation and grace and comfort hearing the testimonies of the families who have participated in the Synod and have shared with us the beauty and the joy of their married life. 

[This is a]  journey where the stronger feel compelled to help the less strong, where the more experienced are led to serve others, even through confrontations. And since it is a journey of human beings, with the consolations there were also moments of desolation, of tensions and temptations, of which a few possibilities could be mentioned:

 - One, a temptation to hostile inflexibility, that is, wanting to close oneself within the written word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises, (the spirit); within the law, within the certitude of what we know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. From the time of Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called – today – “traditionalists” and also of the intellectuals.

 - The temptation to a destructive tendency to goodness [it. buonismo], that in the name of a deceptive mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation of the “do-gooders,” of the fearful, and also of the so-called “progressives and liberals.”

 - The temptation to transform stones into bread to break the long, heavy, and painful fast (cf. Lk 4:1-4); and also to transform the bread into a stone and cast it against the sinners, the weak, and the sick (cf Jn 8:7), that is, to transform it into unbearable burdens (Lk 11:46).

 - The temptation to come down off the Cross, to please the people, and not stay there, in order to fulfil the will of the Father; to bow down to a worldly spirit instead of purifying it and bending it to the Spirit of God.

 - The temptation to neglect the “depositum fidei” [the deposit of faith], not thinking of themselves as guardians but as owners or masters [of it]; or, on the other hand, the temptation to neglect reality, making use of meticulous language and a language of smoothing to say so many things and to say nothing! They call them “byzantinisms,” I think, these things…

Dear brothers and sisters, the temptations must not frighten or disconcert us, or even discourage us, because no disciple is greater than his master; so if Jesus Himself was tempted – and even called Beelzebul (cf. Mt 12:24) – His disciples should not expect better treatment.

Personally, I would be very worried and saddened if it were not for these temptations and these animated discussions; this movement of the spirits, as St Ignatius called it (Spiritual Exercises, 6), if all were in a state of agreement, or silent in a false and quietist peace. Instead, I have seen and I have heard – with joy and appreciation – speeches and interventions full of faith, of pastoral and doctrinal zeal, of wisdom, of frankness and of courage: and of parresia. 

And I have felt that what was set before our eyes was the good of the Church, of families, and the “supreme law,” the “good of souls” (cf. Can. 1752). And this always – we have said it here, in the Hall – without ever putting into question the fundamental truths of the Sacrament of marriage: the indissolubility, the unity, the faithfulness, the fruitfulness, that openness to life (cf. Cann. 1055, 1056; and Gaudium et spes, 48).

And this is the Church, the vineyard of the Lord, the fertile Mother and the caring Teacher, who is not afraid to roll up her sleeves to pour oil and wine on people’s wound; who doesn’t see humanity as a house of glass to judge or categorize people. This is the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and composed of sinners, needful of God’s mercy. 

The Wedding Feast at Cana

This is the Church, the true bride of Christ, who seeks to be faithful to her spouse and to her doctrine. It is the Church that is not afraid to eat and drink with prostitutes and publicans. The Church that has the doors wide open to receive the needy, the penitent, and not only the just or those who believe they are perfect! The Church that is not ashamed of the fallen brother and pretends not to see him, but on the contrary feels involved and almost obliged to lift him up and to encourage him to take up the journey again and accompany him toward a definitive encounter with her Spouse, in the heavenly Jerusalem.

The is the Church, our Mother! And when the Church, in the variety of her charisms, expresses herself in communion, she cannot err: it is the beauty and the strength of the sensus fidei, of that supernatural sense of the faith which is bestowed by the Holy Spirit so that, together, we can all enter into the heart of the Gospel and learn to follow Jesus in our life. And this should never be seen as a source of confusion and discord.

Many commentators, or people who talk, have imagined that they see a disputatious Church where one part is against the other, doubting even the Holy Spirit, the true promoter and guarantor of the unity and harmony of the Church – the Holy Spirit who throughout history has always guided the barque, through her Ministers, even when the sea was rough and choppy, and the ministers unfaithful and sinners.

And, as I have dared to tell you , [as] I told you from the beginning of the Synod, it was necessary to live through all this with tranquillity, and with interior peace, so that the Synod would take place cum Petro and sub Petro (with Peter and under Peter), and the presence of the Pope is the guarantee of it all.

We will speak a little bit about the Pope, now, in relation to the Bishops [laughing]. So, the duty of the Pope is that of guaranteeing the unity of the Church; it is that of reminding the faithful of  their duty to faithfully follow the Gospel of Christ; it is that of reminding the pastors that their first duty is to nourish the flock – to nourish the flock – that the Lord has entrusted to them, and to seek to welcome – with fatherly care and mercy, and without false fears – the lost sheep. I made a mistake here. I said welcome: [rather] to go out and find them.

His duty is to remind everyone that authority in the Church is a service, as Pope Benedict XVI clearly explained, with words I cite verbatim: “The Church is called and commits herself to exercise this kind of authority which is service and exercises it not in her own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ… through the Pastors of the Church, in fact: it is he who guides, protects and corrects them, because he loves them deeply. But the Lord Jesus, the supreme Shepherd of our souls, has willed that the Apostolic College, today the Bishops, in communion with the Successor of Peter… to participate in his mission of taking care of God's People, of educating them in the faith and of guiding, inspiring and sustaining the Christian community, or, as the Council puts it, ‘to see to it... that each member of the faithful shall be led in the Holy Spirit to the full development of his own vocation in accordance with Gospel preaching, and to sincere and active charity’ and to exercise that liberty with which Christ has set us free (cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis, 6)… and it is through us,” 

Pope Benedict continues, “that the Lord reaches souls, instructs, guards and guides them. St Augustine, in his Commentary on the Gospel of St John, says: ‘let it therefore be a commitment of love to feed the flock of the Lord’ (cf. 123, 5); this is the supreme rule of conduct for the ministers of God, an unconditional love, like that of the Good Shepherd, full of joy, given to all, attentive to those close to us and solicitous for those who are distant (cf. St Augustine, Discourse 340, 1; Discourse 46, 15), gentle towards the weakest, the little ones, the simple, the sinners, to manifest the infinite mercy of God with the reassuring words of hope (cf. ibid., Epistle, 95, 1).”

So, the Church is Christ’s – she is His bride – and all the bishops, in communion with the Successor of Peter, have the task and the duty of guarding her and serving her, not as masters but as servants. The Pope, in this context, is not the supreme lord but rather the supreme servant – the “servant of the servants of God”; the guarantor of the obedience and the conformity of the Church to the will of God, to the Gospel of Christ, and to the Tradition of the Church, putting aside every personal whim, despite being – by the will of Christ Himself – the “supreme Pastor and Teacher of all the faithful” (Can. 749) and despite enjoying “supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church” (cf. Cann. 331-334).

Dear brothers and sisters, now we still have one year to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and to find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families must confront; to give answers to the many discouragements that surround and suffocate families.

One year to work on the “Synodal Relatio” which is the faithful and clear summary of everything that has been said and discussed in this hall and in the small groups. It is presented to the Episcopal Conferences as “lineamenta” [guidelines].

May the Lord accompany us, and guide us in this journey for the glory of His Name, with the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Saint Joseph. And please, do not forget to pray for me! Thank you!

Beatification of Blessed Pope Paul VI

Excerpts from the homily by Pope Francis:

We have just heard one of the most famous phrases in the entire Gospel: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s" (Mt 22:21).

Goaded by the Pharisees who wanted, as it were, to give him an exam in religion and catch him in error, Jesus gives this ironic and brilliant reply. It is a striking phrase which the Lord has bequeathed to all those who experience qualms of conscience, particularly when their comfort, their wealth, their prestige, their power and their reputation are in question. This happens all the time; it always has.

Certainly Jesus puts the stress on the second part of the phrase: "and [render] to God the things that are God’s". This calls for acknowledging and professing – in the face of any sort of power – that God alone is the Lord of mankind, that there is no other. This is the perennial newness to be discovered each day, and it requires mastering the fear which we often feel at God’s surprises.

God is not afraid of new things! That is why he is continually surprising us, opening our hearts and guiding us in unexpected ways. He renews us: he constantly makes us "new". A Christian who lives the Gospel is "God’s newness" in the Church and in the world. How much God loves this "newness"!

"Rendering to God the things that are God’s" means being docile to his will, devoting our lives to him and working for his kingdom of mercy, love and peace.

Here is where our true strength is found; here is the leaven which makes it grow and the salt which gives flavour to all our efforts to combat the prevalent pessimism which the world proposes to us. Here too is where our hope is found, for when we put our hope in God we are neither fleeing from reality nor seeking an alibi: instead, we are striving to render to God what is God’s. That is why we Christians look to the future, God’s future. It is so that we can live this life to the fullest – with our feet firmly planted on the ground – and respond courageously to whatever new challenges come our way.

In these days, during the extraordinary Synod of Bishops, we have seen how true this is. "Synod" means "journeying together". And indeed pastors and lay people from every part of the world have come to Rome, bringing the voice of their particular Churches in order to help today’s families walk the path the Gospel with their gaze fixed on Jesus. It has been a great experience, in which we have lived synodality and collegiality, and felt the power of the Holy Spirit who constantly guides and renews the Church. For the Church is called to waste no time in seeking to bind up open wounds and to rekindle hope in so many people who have lost hope.

For the gift of this Synod and for the constructive spirit which everyone has shown, in union with the Apostle Paul "we give thanks to God always for you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers" (1 Th 1:2). May the Holy Spirit, who during these busy days has enabled us to work generously, in true freedom and humble creativity, continue to guide the journey which, in the Churches throughout the world, is bringing us to the Ordinary Synod of Bishops in October 2015. We have sown and we continued to sow, patiently and perseveringly, in the certainty that it is the Lord who gives growth to what we have sown (cf. 1 Cor 3:6).

On this day of the Beatification of Pope Paul VI, I think of the words with which he established the Synod of Bishops: "by carefully surveying the signs of the times, we are making every effort to adapt ways and methods… to the growing needs of our time and the changing conditions of society" (Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Apostolica Sollicitudo).     

When we look to this great Pope, this courageous Christian, this tireless apostle, we cannot but say in the sight of God a word as simple as it is heartfelt and important: thanks! Thank you, our dear and beloved Pope Paul VI! Thank you for your humble and prophetic witness of love for Christ and his Church!

In his personal journal, the great helmsman of the Council wrote, at the conclusion of its final session: "Perhaps the Lord has called me and preserved me for this service not because I am particularly fit for it, or so that I can govern and rescue the Church from her present difficulties, but so that I can suffer something for the Church, and in that way it will be clear that he, and no other, is her guide and saviour" (P. Macchi, Paolo VI nella sua parola, Brescia, 2001, pp. 120-121). In this humility the grandeur of Blessed Paul VI shines forth: before the advent of a secularized and hostile society, he could hold fast, with farsightedness and wisdom – and at times alone – to the helm of the barque of Peter, while never losing his joy and his trust in the Lord.

Paul VI truly "rendered to God what is God’s" by devoting his whole life to the "sacred, solemn and grave task of continuing in history and extending on earth the mission of Christ" (Homily for the Rite of Coronation: Insegnamenti I, 1963, p. 26), loving the Church and leading her so that she might be "a loving mother of the whole human family and at the same time the minister of its salvation" (Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam Suam, Prologue).

THANKSGIVING - “On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will make for the people a feast.”

 The annual celebration of Thanksgiving in North America arises from our desire to give thanks to God for providing "the fruits of the earth" as they are termed in the Offertory Prayers at Mass. Our Lord’s parable in the Gospel today (Matthew 22:1-14) is an outline of God’s provision for eternity – our salvation history. 

In the Parable, God is the king (Matthew 5:35), Jesus is the bridegroom (Matthew 9:15), the feast is the salvation that Isaiah prophesies in today’s First Reading. The Israelites are those first invited to the feast by God’s servants, the prophets (see Isaiah 7:25).

For refusing repeated invitations and even killing God's prophets, Israel has suffered; its cities have been conquered by foreign enemies and the nation has, at times, been enslaved.

Through all this, as the Gospel affirms here and elsewhere, God has been sending new servants and now apostles, to call not only Israel, but all people – the good and bad alike – to the feast of the Kingdom of God. 

This is an image of the Church.  In other parables, Jesus speaks of a field sown with both wheat and weeds, or the Church as a fishing net that catches good and bad fish. (Matthew 13:24-43, 47-50)

In the parable today, all are invited, but many reject, ignore or scoff at the grace of the King who invites them.  What do we make of this?

Two things at least:  Salvation is intended for all.  Secondly, we must choose to accept the invitation to grace.  What we need to show acceptance is a wedding garment – a thankful and responsive heart.

We have all been called to this great feast of love and thanksgiving for it is in the Church, where, as Isaiah foretold, the veil that once separated the nations from the covenant of Israel has been rent, torn open, the dividing wall of enmity has been torn down by grace through the saving blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:11-14).

This means that all people are equal in the sight of God and so all are invited to the feast, but we must accept and prepare for the feast – put on a wedding garment i.e. present ourselves as guests – those who have received and responded to the gracious invitation of God by both the conformity of our lives to the grace of God and our acceptance of other guests who are there by the same grace which comes from God and not by any merit that we may think we have.

St. Francois de Laval (bishop) and St. Marie de L’Incarnation (educator) were remembered in Rome by Pope Francis at a Thanksgiving Mass. They are amongst the messengers and guests of God’s grace.

As Psalm 23 affirms the Lord has led us to the feast, refreshing our souls, spreading the table before us in the Eucharist – the true feast of Thanksgiving. And St. Paul tells us in today’s Epistle with the glorious riches of Christ, we will find supplied whatever we need – both a wedding garment and the grace to love all others who are also invited to the Feast.

In the rich food of Christ’s banquet, he offers us the bread of his own body and the choice wine – his blood. Here we have a foretaste of the eternal banquet in the heavenly Jerusalem, when God will destroy death forever (Hebrews 12:22-24). Are we ready, dressed for the feast, clothed in the garment of righteousness? (Revelation 19:8)

“On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will make for the people a feast.”

Isaiah 25:6-10 Psalm 23:1-6  Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20  Matthew 22:1-14