Father Philip Writes...

August

During August we celebrate our Summer Festival – our Patronal Festival in honour of our Patron Saint, the Blessed Virgin Mary. The feast speaks of life beyond the grave and the feast of the Assumption of Mary into heaven begs the question as to what heaven is like.
The Bible tells us that it is better than our present life and gives us a series of pictures, mostly in the form of visions. I have to admit that sitting around playing harps for eternity sounds rather boring! Basically heaven is beyond our comprehension. We must not treat visions as though they were literal – e.g. pearly gates, streets paved with gold. If we could talk to a baby in his or her mother’s womb, we could not explain to him or her what the world is like. All I can say about the nature of heaven is that it is a state of peace, joy, healing and beauty, where we will experience God ever present.
What about the resurrection of the body? Before Jesus' death he had a completely normal human body. After his resurrection there was obviously a great change in his body. He appeared in locked rooms and at different locations many miles apart. He was not a ghost, as he could eat and drink, speak and be touched. Our earthly bodies will decay – some buried, others cremated. The spirit returns to God and ultimately God will give us a new resurrection body like Jesus had. Resurrection is the way in which God changes us, giving us new bodies as well as new minds and spirits to live in his presence.
 The Bible compares this resurrection with a growing seed being clothed with its appropriate plant-form. Our ‘resurrection’ bodies develop from the ‘seed’ of what we are now.
The Church believes the Blessed Virgin Mary has already reached this goal of resurrection. St John, in the Book of Revelation, writes:
 “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown.”
The preface for the feast says:
 “Today the Virgin Mother of God was taken up into heaven to be the beginning and pattern of the Church in its perfection, and a sign of hope and comfort for your people on their pilgrim way. You would not allow decay to touch her body, for she had given birth to your Son, the Lord of all life, in the glory of the incarnation…..”
Mary is a constant reminder of the saving work God wants to do in all our lives. He calls us to be faithful disciples like the perfect disciple, Mary. And if we persevere in our walk of faith as she did, we, too, will be raised in body and spirit in the glory of heaven.

What's on at St Mary's in August

  1. Our Easter Candles, which were organised before the lockdown, will be blessed and lit for our departed loved ones and burn in the Holy Cross Chapel during August and most of September.
  2. 6th August - Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. Spiritual writers sometimes speak of a moment of grace when the border between heaven and earth appears to fade for a brief moment and God’s presence touches our lives in a most profound way. Such a moment graced Peter, James and John on the mountain. (Luke 9 v 29-33)
  3. 10th August – St Lawrence. We know very little about his life,  but his martyrdom made a deep and lasting impression on the early church. He was a deacon in Rome under Pope Sixtus (whose feast day is 7th August) in the time of the Roman Emperor Valerian. As a deacon he had been responsible for the material goods of the Church and care of the poor. The Prefect of Rome gave Lawrence 3 days to gather the treasures of the church. He gathered the blind, lame, maimed, lepers, orphans and widows and put them in rows. Lawrence simply said, “These are the treasures of the Church.” The Prefect was so angry he ordered Lawrence to be put to death on a gridiron with hot coals beneath it. As we keep our Patronal Festival as best as we can in restricted circumstances, I hope we can make St Mary’s more a home for those with broken lives. This is the least we can do to follow Christs own example.
  4. 12th August – Monthly Requiem for those who died in August, whose names are in the Chantry Book or the American Chantry Book. Please give me additional names of any loved ones which are not already there.
  5. 15th/16th August - ASSUMPTION OF OUR LADY
We are unable to have a special brew of beer this August -or fireworks or a visitors’ evening Mass on the Friday, but we will celebrate as best we can on Sunday 16th August at the 9.30 Parish Mass. The Mass will be special as during it Paula will be baptised and she, Shane and Shane will receive their First Holy Communion. Please bring a picnic (providing the weather is set to be fine) – and your own chairs or rug – and we will socially distance in the South churchyard.
  1. 17th August – Requiem Mass for departed friends and benefactors of our church.
  2. 23rd August – PCC meeting at the end of Mass (socially distanced within the church)
  3. 30th August – 9.30 Parish Mass and Confirmation. We welcome Bishop Norman, Bishop of Richborough, who will Confirm Graham, Shane and Paula.

September

​In the parables told by Jesus of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price (St Matthew’s Gospel Ch. 13 v 44 and 45-46) both have the same message: the Kingdom of Heaven is worth investing everything we have to acquire it. St Augustine wrote: “Christ is not valued at all unless he is valued above all.”
Christ loved searchers and He had sympathy for those who were looking, even if they were searching in the wrong places and for the wrong things. He was able to point them in the right direction.

​Jesus could do nothing, however, for the smug and self-satisfied. He compares the Kingdom of God to a rare pearl or priceless treasure that is worth everything we have. To enter that Kingdom is to accept and do God’s will.

Where do we discover God’s will?

An elderly lady in Scotland was so poor that her neighbours had to support her. They were happy to do this, but what bothered them was her son had gone to America and become rich. The mother defended her son, saying,
 “He writes to me every week and always sends me a little picture. I keep them all in my Bible.” 
Between the pages of the Bible were hundreds of US bank notes. The woman had a treasure in her Bible and did not realise it. We all need to ask ourselves: “To what extent do I need to discover the treasure in my Bible – Jesus Christ?”
In the town of Swaffham in Norfolk, according to legend, there was a pedlar in the Middle Ages named John Chapman. He dreamed that if he went to London he would hear on London Bridge something to his advantage. 
He duly made the long, arduous journey to London and when he arrived at London Bridge a stranger asked him what he was doing there. He told the stranger his dream. 

The stranger said that if he were a dreamer he should go to Swaffham in Norfolk and seek the garden of John Chapman the Pedlar, for in it, under a tree, was buried a crock of gold.

John then returned home, dug under the tree and found not one pot of gold, but two.

The moral of the tale is that rather than going on a long journey to find treasure, it is IN OURSELVES – waiting to be discovered. 

​We shall never be happy unless we find the treasure that God has hidden in our own field – the treasure of our own worth as God’s children.
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Some people believe the Kingdom of God is only for saints. Jesus always welcomed sinners – and a church which admitted only saints would make as much sense as a hospital which admitted only people who were well. The church is not a museum for saints but a school for sinners.
A little girl was painting all good people orange and all bad people purple. Her teacher asked her what colour she was painting herself. After a pause, the little girl replied, “Streaky!”

We are all streaky, so we must look for the good in others rather than the bad. 

It was Billy Graham who said, “If you find a perfect church, by all means join it… then it will no longer be perfect!”
A precious diamond became deeply scratched, but a famous diamond-cutter took it and engraved a beautiful rose, using the deep scratch as the stem of the rose.
  It was not just a clever cover-up but it took the diamond’s fault and transformed it into something beautiful.  

​In the same way, God can transform our worst fault to bring us closer to Him. God can turn everything to the benefit of those who trust Him. He helps us pick up the pieces and gives us a sense of who we are and were we are going. 
When we say a situation or a person is hopeless, we are slamming a door in the face of God.


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