More of Aylesford

This week at Aylesford we have had many visitors. The Carmelite NGO team to the UN met here. Also a small group of young people met to make music and form a week long community. We also welcomed friars on route to the council of provinces being held in Italy next week.

This Wednesday Br Paul Jenkins will profess simple (first) vows and then move to our Walworth community to begin studies towards ordination at Heythrop. I also move to Walworth for a few months as parish priest. Photo's of the friary and church in Walworth next week. Meanwhile more of Aylesford.
The Pond


A view from the Gatehouse drive


The Shrine


The Old Guesthouse

A Morning View

A while has past since my last blog. The end of the July saw an end to my time as chaplain at Spec and a return to community life. I arrived at Aylesford in time to lead the All Night Vigil that takes place during the pilgrimage season. I was due to begin a sabbatical in September, but needs take over from wants and I have been asked to be acting parish priest in the Carmelite parish of Walworth in South London. So I will be on the move again. Meanwhile here are some pictures from last evening around the pond and views from my bedroom window.







I purchased this camera in anticipation of my travels. I'm still getting used to it. More photo's of the friary to come.

A Wedding Homily

Weeding season is upon us. This is a homily I preached recently.

As I gaze around the church I see many familiar faces, and I must say that you have all scrubbed up very well. The hat shops of Birstall and Kingston have obviously done a roaring trade. One of the benefits of being a friar is that I don’t have to worry about what to wear, as the attire is pretty much standard issue. But the very fact that we have dressed up in our finery tells us that what will take place today is of great importance, so for a few moments I will be serious, for what we witness, and the sacrament that Louis and Ann celebrate here today is of great importance and significance to us all.

If I were to ask each one of you ‘Why are you here?’ I am sure that I will hear some humorous answers. Maybe you wanted to see what Louis would look like without a frisby and in a suit, or just how beautiful Ann would be in her dress. It could be the promise of a free meal. Maybe you are all waiting for the best man’s long anticipated speech; I know that Louis is particularly looking forward to that nougat of entertainment. But if we were to allow ourselves an honest answer the simple response would be love. We are here because love has called each one of us here. Each one of us in this room has a connection with Louis and Ann that responds to the love that they proclaim today. In some way we have been touched by Louis or Ann and our presence here today is to affirm them in their love for one another. We are also to learn something more of God as we glimpse him in the love that is proclaimed today. We are not merely spectators here, but participants in this great day for the Church and for society as a whole. We have a role to play, and that is in our prayer and support of Louis and Ann. For those of you who are married use this liturgy as an opportunity to renew your own commitment to your spouse. For those of us who are unmarried let us pray in this celebration that we will always be open to the invitation to love and be loved.

Marriage is a vocation, a call within the Church. And like all calls it gives a new dimension to what seems ordinary and transforms the ordinary into something precious and unique. God has called Louis and Ann to life through the love shared by their respective parents and families. He has called them to life in the love they have found in one another. He has called us to life by our witnessing this sacrament and our involvement in the lives of Louis and Ann. The Love that they proclaim is a message of hope for the whole church.

John in his Gospel gives us an insight into love that is rooted in God. It echo’s the theme of the wonderful poetry of the Song of Songs. Love, authentic love has to be shared. It cannot be silent or constrained. Love yearns to speak, and as Love is spoken its word resounds and fills empty spaces. Love is about life, the fullness of life, human beings fully alive. Love gives glory to God. This is why our presence here in this church is necessary; we are to hear what love has to say. We are called here to be attentive to our longings and to place them in the embrace of God. We are commanded to love so that we may truly reflect the loving community that is God. Love rooted in God is always fruitful. It generates life and hope. The sacrament that Ann and Loius celebrate here today within the context of the Eucharist invites us into the embrace of God. Ann and Louis today become a tangible sign of the Love that God has for each and every one of us.

Sometimes I feel that we have lost much of our understanding about love because we have become over familiar with the word. See you later love, love you, Ta love. We say I love chips and I love people with the same word and often the same enthusiasm. Our sense of language has become impoverished because of the way our language has developed. Society seems to be looking for the fleeting experience of love but without the responsibility of relationship. People see commitment as something that is negative rather than a choice for life. Today we gaze at love and see in it something of great beauty, a pearl of great price. Something for which we would give away all that we own.
The following words from Captain Correlli’s mandolin capture

something of this experience

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because that is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion … that is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two

I have known Louis and Ann for about 4 or 5 years. They are people of great faith in God and in one another. Their journey to this day has been considered and prayerful, and a great example to those who know them. At the heart of their relationship is a deep love of God and his Church. This can tell us something of the sacrament that we witness and celebrate today. First love is gift. It is the acceptance of another and the acceptance of ourselves. I guess that it is much easier to live who we are when someone loves us without preconditions. Yes, love will change us, but this can never be the basis on which love is shared. Love is about give and take, with more giving than taking. Secondly, love is an encounter with God. There is a beautiful line in the musical ‘Les Miserables’, when the principle character, Jean Valjean, is looking back over his life and not liking what he sees, then in a moment of grace he joyously proclaims that ‘to love another person is to see the face of God.’ And in singing this line he realises how blessed his life has been. I find that awesome. At the heart of our understanding of marriage is this sense of encountering God. In this sacrament God is communicated through the love that Louis and Ann have for one another. For each other they will be the face of God. And for the Church they will be a sign of the enduring love that God has for his people.

So Louis and Ann, thank you. Today you have reminded us of the awesome love that God calls us to participate in and receive. Be assured of our prayer on this first day of your new life together. Never forget the graces that God bestows on each of you today, and draw strength from these. Never forget the love that surrounds you today. You belong to a community of people that we call Church, and we rejoice and thank God for what the Lord has called you to.

Celebrating lives

One of the joys of the ordained ministry is being able to celebrate with family and friends the important moments of their lives. The last weekend saw me presiding at the wedding of friends in Ireland. It was a day of deep joy. I will preside at the wedding of another couple next weekend. Agsain, I know it will be a graced day (you only have to know them to realise that!)

When we are able to support those we love in the joy's of life, we also are called to be with them in those difficult moments, when a loved one dies and there seems no reason.

I find these word a comfort, when I can find none.

Always Ready ~ Sr Marie Paula.

There is no time to stop and prepare for the journey of death, even if we could. God demands the last day’s labour as well as the first.

He seems to Say: ‘Never mind death. I will take care of that. It is for you to take care of life.’

Just in the right time the hand will be laid on our shoulder, the word whispered in our ear. We must leave the sewing undone, the floor unswept, the plough in the furrow, the story untold, the picture unfinished, the song unsung. We may not, perchance, even kiss our loved ones goodbye.

But let us strive to live, that we may say ‘Yes, Lord, I am ready, always ready; for I need no money for luggage on this journey.

My hand is in thine like a trusting child. I am glad to be nearer to thee, Father, to feel more closely the warmth of thy breast. What I have missed and failed in, thou knowest; my poor feeble, futile efforts to serve thee, thou knowest also.’

There is neither prop nor stay, but in perfect trust it is all the cloak or covering I need. I have lived on the river’s brink all my life, now I am ready to cross with the great pilot.

I thought I knew life here. Oh no! It was an illusion. Now I am to live indeed

Year for Priests

This picture is of me on my ordination day. It was a wonderful and grace filled day. As I walked into the church I was aware of the love and prayer that surrounded me, and crucially, I knew that I would depend on that love and prayer. It has sustained me for six years, and helped me through some difficult times. Today begins the 'Year for Priests'. A time for priests to be renewed in their vocation to be servants of God's people. It is a time for the church to renew its call to our young people to consider a life of service in priesthood, diaconate, and religious life. It is a time for us to remember those priests who have served us well, whose words have inspired and whose presence in the lives of our families have enlivened God's presence among us and brought to us hope, faith and compassion. Please pray for your priests and pray for me.

A Prayer for Priest's ~ St Therese

O Jesus, eternal Priest,
keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,
where none may touch them.

Keep unstained their anointed hands,
which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips,
daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,
sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and
shield them from the world's contagion.

Bless their labours with abundant fruit and
may the souls to whom they minister
be their joy and consolation
here and in heaven their beautiful and
everlasting crown.

Amen.

Trinity Sunday

Again, I am conscious of the paucity of my blogging. Life is continuing and the work is being done. I had a couple of weeks off and managed to get away and rest awhile.

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday and a difficult one to preach as our words will never be enough to mine the depths of this beautiful mystery. For Christians, that concisely defines this mystery. The last word about God has not been spoken. As christians we are called to live with mystery and to befriend it. As a wise preacher once said and I oft repeat 'Loving is the best way to understand.'

An epistle to New Southgate

This weekend I returned to my old parish of Our Lady of Lourdes in New Southgate to celebrate Mass and to say goodbye to the people there properly. The people welcomed me with their usual generosity and love. It was a moving celebration. Being the year of St Paul, I decided to write the parish a letter rather than a sermon.

A letter in the style of St Paul from me, Damian, a stumbling, shy, joyful, endlessly surprised, constantly humbled, fan and follower of Jesus Christ.

I cut my own yesterday morning like I do every Friday morning because Friday’s generally means getting ready for the weekend and preparing a sermon and I swear I preach much better with a freshly trimmed dome. To all the brothers and sisters in the New Southgate community, whether here in the Church, sitting on one of our new pews, just come in from the sunshine, about to celebrate Mass together.
- To those listening at home.
- to those whose prayer is 'Jesus I believe in you—it's your followers who scare me',
- to those who feel so isolated but you stumbled upon this parish and it's making you feel like you aren't alone, like there are others out there longing for the same kind of fresh moving of the Holy Spirit,
-to those who find themselves on top of the world, you're asked how you're doing and you say 'I’m good', and it's true and you mean it
- and to those who can barely drag themselves out of bed each morning
- to those who've recently lost their job
- to those whose children are making choices that are breaking your heart
- to those whose relationships are in trouble
- to the lonely, the depressed, the confused, the doubting
- to those who find it very, very hard to swallow the idea of a good, loving God, much less an open tomb, or a new creation, to all of you grace and peace.

Grace and peace,
That's how Paul begins most of his letters — with grace and peace.
Paul echoes the Easter greeting of Jesus – ‘Peace be with you’, because he knows that we live in disturbance and that peace is the place where we will flourish. That is what Jesus wishes for each of us. His grace. His peace.
Paul knows that if we get a handle on them —or perhaps we should more accurately say— if grace and peace get a handle on us, then we will never be the same.

Grace is gift. It begins with our wide-eyed wonder and awe that all of this is a gift.
The 'this' is of course many things,
it's the love of the Father,
the gift of the Son,
it's the unexpected soothing reassurance of the Spirit who whispers sometimes in the most
hopeless of moments: - "you're going to be fine"

It's my friend who wrote to me recently to announce that he and his wife are expecting a baby and they're beside themselves with joy. If you knew their story, the long years of waiting and living with dashed hopes that they have been through to arrive at this moment where she's actually growing a belly. Oh grace.

It's a woman I saw all alone in front of the altar, tears in her eyes, obviously struggling with some deeply personal pain and then up behind her come two friends who put their arms around her and begin to speak calm and peaceful words of truth to her and she receives them she soaks them in,
she hears them and they give her life because she's learning about grace and peace

Grace has been abundant in this place when we have gathered to baptise, to anoint, to join together in marriage, to reconcile, to celebrate Eucharist, to be a family of believers. Grace has been given to me in the words of love filled encouragement that have been shared with me in the short time I have spent among you. You will never know what this meant to me, because I cannot begin to put my gratitude into words.

Grace was with us in Lourdes when we shared our stories in depth and realised that somehow, in some way, God had called us together so that we could not just celebrate the Eucharist, but become Eucharist for one another.

Grace and peace have placed themselves in our homes as we gather around those we love in their final moments of life and we realise that love is the hallmark of who we are and what we are about. My heart is filled with memories of prayers and grace filled moments as I’ve accompanied you through the passing and the farewells to your loved ones. And the recent time when you were with me and my family in our grief. You were the presence of grace and peace.

Grace and peace.

Grace sneaks into that old barn that's filled to the roof with guilt and shame and self-loathing and hate and despair and it smiles and then lights a match and sets the whole place on fire.
Paul keeps using words like joy and peace and grace and rejoice, Some of his writings come from dark places, from injustice and prison. He writes to those who support him when awaiting his own execution. Death row is not where you use those words, but Paul insists that suffering and joy are good friends, they hold hands, they embrace. This isn't conventional wisdom, you're either happy because everything is going according to your plan or you are suffering because God did something horrible to you and messed with your plan and now you have car accidents and cancer and the economy and divorce and Spurs!... It's either one or the other, but not both, and certainly not both sharing the same bed

But what we see again and again is that God's new creation works differently.
All sorts of flowers grow up in between the cracks in the ugly pavement and it's their location, right in the middle of all that ugly concrete that makes them so strikingly beautiful, because ordinarily you wouldn't notice them.

That's why some of the best insights come from pain.
that's why some of the best poems come from suffering.
that's why some of the best songs come from longing.
that's why some of the best stories come from the times when we had given up on having a story to tell...

I recently met a woman who shared with me her experience of raising her ten year old daughter with autism. She eloquently spoke of all the good and true and beautiful that she and her husband and family have experienced because of their suffering and struggle and challenges. I was moved because that's what joy is about.

Joy is learning to discern that God is up to something even in this.
Joy is learning to perceive things that run counter to prevailing wisdom about how the world works. Joy is evidence of a particular kind of living.

The truth is this - you really can become a certain kind of person
the kind of person who lives in the Christ pattern of thinking feeling and acting
the kind of person who is working out their way into grace and peace.
You can set yourself on becoming this kind of person.
The kind of person who, like Paul, can write letters exploding with joy and wisdom.
The kind of person who resolves to find the grace and peace in any situation.
The kind of person who will not be crushed by circumstances.
The kind of person that always assumes that even in this situation,
in this tragedy,
in this desert experience,
in this failure and mistake and regret and nightmare,
there will be some sort of resurrection even in this...
Everything you've been through is being retold through Christ.
And so the hard part
the tough parts
the shameful parts
they are now living breathing examples of grace.

You don't say "I could never talk about that", you say "let me tell you what I've made it through".
You have survived,
you're here
and you're listening
and all those things that should have wiped you out have actually made you stronger.
All the things that would be painful regrets and unspeakable wounds
are now evidence that grace and peace are real.

You took those blocks and boards of your experiences and you let Christ make a table out of them so that others could share in your story, you can say rejoice and again you can say rejoice
because you know grace and grace is gift.

You are going to be fine
Paul at one point in his letter to the Philippians quotes an early Christ hymn about Jesus who is executed on the cross but then exalted by God.
The resurrection turns everything upside down; it opens up all sorts of possibilities
it puts all sorts of balls in play, it invites all kinds of people to the celebration as it announces that the last word has not been spoken.
So until then, in our fear and trembling, our doubting and our rejoicing, our forgiving and our being forgiven, our giving and our receiving, we have an open tomb - a new creation, and the heightened anticipation that there is more to be said...

And so we come to the end of my time with you. What a time I have had being with you in your joy’s and sorrows and you being with me in mine. This goodbye, this ending which is of course
like all good endings, is really just a beginning...

How I long for all of you to know, to understand, to live, to experience, and to enjoy grace and peace.

Glory be God who shows his power in us and can do much more than we could ask or imagine; glory to him in the Church and in Christ Jesus through all the generations for ever and ever. Amen.

With all the love I can muster, your priest and brother,

Damian.