Fr John McKenna, speaks of the ‘Eternal Spring’ promised to us and how this should be celebrated in advent and act as a reminder during the Year to come. 

I was inspired recently by an article written by Cardinal John Henry Newman, entitled ‘The Eternal Springtime Will Surely Come’. These words can be helpful for us as we journey through the Season of Advent, Christmastide and into the New Year. He wrote, “this earth, which now buds forth in leaves and blossoms, will one day burst forth into a new world of light and glory, in which we shall see saints and angels dwelling.  Who would think, except from his experience of former springs all through his life, who could conceive two or three months before, that it was possible that the face of nature, which then seemed so lifeless, should become so splendid and varied?”

During the season of Advent we are encouraged to wait for the coming of the Eternal Spring, the second coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This hope should take us far beyond the tinsel, the turkey sandwiches and the gloom of January mornings, going back to work.

Advent highlights how our human existence is a journey towards heaven, a journey “back home.” As we encounter the hardships of the road and are occasionally wearied by the length and demands of our daily lives, it is important to remember the hope of heaven within us and reflect on the joys that await us.

Admittedly, this is easier said than done. While our belief in heaven is nurtured by faith, scripture, and the teachings of the Church, we have only vague, sometimes unappealing, ideas of what heaven holds in store for us. Notions of chubby cherubs sitting on cotton clouds strumming golden harps or images of pale, ethereal spirits fall far short of heaven’s reality, which is exceedingly better than anything we can imagine.

While human words are inadequate for describing the life of heaven, our hearts should be stirred nonetheless by the metaphors and visions that scripture uses to communicate a sense of heaven to us. Taking time to read these descriptions, somewhat like reading a travel brochure in anticipation of a holiday, can and will feed our excitement.

In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (John 14:2-3)

Patrick Daly discusses what should be a young adult’s response to climate change…

Environmental Blog

In just under a month’s time [NB: at the time of publication] our world leaders will convene in Copenhagen to decide on which new ways we can begin to globally tackle climate change. Recently, the Archbishop of Canterbury has launched the Christian voice into the debate by putting forward the argument that we as a nation should be looking to become as self-sufficient as possible to limit carbon production. The question we now face is; what do we, as young Catholics, have to say about climate change? What does our faith inspire us to say?

Tackling climate change is not something that will be easy and nor is it something that we as Catholics can afford to ignore. However, a Catholic friend of mine recently confided to me that she feels like her environmental passions work against her Catholic sensibilities. This stuck me as being very revealing about our reluctance to speak out with the Catholic voice about climate issues. ‘Green Catholicism’ is not something that is very public.

I started to ask myself: is our current attitude towards the environment to do with our Christian faith? Has our Christian faith’s fixation on the person distracted us from the harm we do environmentally? To answer these questions I found myself drawn back to the creation story in Genesis, compelling me to re-read it and to allow it to slowly seep into me.

The passage that kept swirling through my mind and which grabbed my attention with two strong fists as I read was when God expresses His wish to create humankind. In verse twenty-six it states, “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image…’”. As I read this line over and over, I found myself asking, who is God talking to here? Who is this ‘us’ that he talks of?

Some might point to this and say that it’s an early reference in the Scriptures to the Holy Trinity. However, for me, in this passage God is addressing the earth and all of creation itself. He is saying to the earth, the land, the sea and the stars, “Let us, together, create man out of your materials and out of my Spirit”.

This powerful environmental message needs to be proclaimed to our Church and I believe that we young members of the Catholic faith have the energy with which to do it. We can announce that to let the earth die is in fact to let ourselves die, for we are created out of and by the environment. This truth about creation, about our shared being with the earth, is a good a message as any to take to Copenhagen and to begin to announce to the rest of the world that young Catholics are taking a stance against climate change.

• The Copenhagen Climate Change summit will take place between 7-18 December 2009

Fr Digby Samuels, our Diocesan Youth Chaplain tells how even now we can ‘squeeze the best out of the Summer’.

Squeezing the best out of summer – no not a cider ad- but an invitation to ask the Holy Spirit to help us not get snowed under as many of us return to our usual routine.

“Hey now summer in the city…”  was a number one hit in the late 60’s and perhaps describes something of your summer experience this year – dramatic, upbeat, full of action – or perhaps “Summertime and the living is easy” is more evocative of these past few months for you. There was a chance for a change, a time of peace and refreshment, a time to be with family or friends. Or perhaps neither of these hit the mark because for you the summer time has been painful, desolate or anything but a positive experience. The return of everyday life may be something of a relief. Wherever we’re ‘at’ my hope is that ‘holiday’ included for all of us ‘what it says on the tin’: ‘holy’ days, a time in which the Lord could get through to us and speak to our hearts.

The Gospels record that the Lord took time out alone and with his disciples to rest, to ‘be’, even if that precious time got curtailed by the demands of others. Interestingly the great Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche communities, records that he would often choose to spend his free day at another of his communities finding rest in the love that was there – quite an encouragement for those who simply just can’t get away; for as St. Therese teaches us we can always give and receive love even when there’s ‘no getting away from it’.

However, it’s possible for a whole society to collude in becoming so frenetic that the “one thing necessary”- creating the conditions for listening to the Lord, to sit at His feet, -becomes increasingly difficult. Pressing economic, political and personal demands can become something of a tyranny, especially as unemployment figures rise and the recession hits the lowest paid. And so a summer break for those who are in a position to have one at least provides a chance to savour life at a different pace not dictated by the ‘tyranny of the urgent’. Ironically though, such space and time can prove difficult to enter, at least for some for whom the hyped up pace of living has become so habitual that the ‘system’ just can’t handle a change of gear into a deeper level of relating to God and others.  “Humankind cannot bear too much reality” as T.S Elliot wrote and the holiday can threaten us with this!

The answer? No easy ones but ‘back to the drawing board’ of prayer, meditation, the sacraments; all vital channels for the Lord himself to give Himself to us both individually and as a community.  Mary and Martha in the Gospels show us the perfect balance of ‘desert’ and ‘market place’, of receiving and giving.

As a chaplain for young adults I’ve noticed in my involvement with Retreats and Pilgrimages over the summer that when we create the conditions for stillness, this deep thirst for God comes to the surface. “Make your home in me as I make mine in you” begins to be experienced as real. The sustained silence in the chapel when 4000 young people worship together at Taize would be one example of this truth. The obvious listening to one another from the heart within a small group would be another. Yet another example of the fruit of such prayer would be the peacefulness and kindness of those doing the duties of service such as distributing food to their fellow pilgrims at Taize.

May the Lord bless us with an increasing desire to put Him first in our often busy lives. May we notice the sirens that beckon us away from Him towards the false god of surface living and so missing the intimate sharing in His divine life –to the full in heaven, but ever deepening here on earth.

Bishop John Arnold writes…

Isn’t it strange that the summer always looks so enticing but, all of a sudden, it has come and gone? The chances are that we got a holiday and, hopefully, got away from our usual surroundings. But I wonder just how relaxed and restored we all feel as we return to our work, schools and colleges? Speaking with friends and colleagues, I am struck by the amount of activity people seem to crowd into their holidays; exchanging the busy rush of their normal routine for a new “rush” of activity on holiday. We do seem to insist on setting ourselves high standards for the amount of things that we feel we have to do – wherever we are. When I suggested recently, in a talk, that we can seem to start each day with too much to do and spend the whole day falling further and further behind, I seemed to get a lot of nodding of heads – particularly from young parents.

For one week this summer, I had the privilege of being with a group of young adults on a journey to Taize. I have long known about, and joined in the singing of, the Taize chants and I have been aware of the ecumenical monastery and its work in Reconciliation but this was my first visit. I am sure that it would not be everyone’s choice of pilgrimage or spirituality and prayer but I think that very few people could fail to be impressed by the energy of thousands of young people from all over the world gathering for a week in prayer and discussion. And new groups come for each week of the year. During each of the summer weeks the visitors number in their thousands.

This seemed to me to be yet another example – like World Youth Day in Sydney last year – where huge numbers of young people tackle the challenges of Faith, prayer and spirituality, and the Media says nothing about it. We seem to hear only about teenage stabbings, binge-drinking and drugs.

As we come to the end of the summer and the holiday season, people will settle back to work. For so many young people it will mean new classrooms, new schools, the first experience of college and university. There will be a great deal to take in and learn. I hope that somewhere – in each of these busy lives – there will be a quiet place. It only takes a few minutes in the day to stop and ask about what we are so busy doing, why we do what we do and what is the purpose of all this busy-ness. It gives God a chance to guide us in all that we do.

Dave Burke, Director of Youth Ministry reflects from Sydney to Speakers corner…

I write this article after returning from our Westminster World Youth Day reunion which was held in Hyde Park. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet again with our pilgrims – has it really been a year since World Youth Day?.- and to spend some time sharing and reflecting on our time together in Sydney. What struck me instantly was that despite how impressive and enjoyable the main World Youth Day events were, what had stuck in the minds of our young people and left an indelible mark wasn’t the grand events but in fact the smaller incidents along the way; the generosity of the host families who greeted us from the airport, meeting with other young catholics from around the world on the walks to the World Youth Day events, and yes even, the long long (did I say long?) hours waiting in Auckland airport. These small seemingly insignificant points, made World Youth Day such a blessed occasion for us all. In evidence too was the readiness of our young people to pick up where they had left off, continuing the sharing and reflection begun half way round the world. It’s all so remarkable given the diversity of their backgrounds.

Basking in the Saturday sun, conversations naturally focused on what our pilgrims have done since. A significant number have just completed either sixth form or university exams and the intense revision that goes with them. For many of them it’s a time of uncertainty for having had so much to do and organise, to a time of anxiety with results awaited. What to do next?

At the heart of our Christian life is the concept of journeying and pilgrimage. We will never arrive, and there will always be questions, until we come face to face with God. Making that journey alone is one thing but travelling with others, with the chance to share and grow is friendship is another.

You may not have had the chance to go to Sydney and World Youth Day 2011 (Madrid) may seem a long way off. However there are many opportunities to go on pilgrimage both here at home and overseas. In August, Bishop John Arnold will lead a young adult pilgrimage to Taize. Pilgrimages don’t have to be far off, or expensive, but do offer a good opportunity for young people to have some time to share, reflect and relax with God. The chance to discover more about ourselves and maybe the next part of our life pilgrimage.  

So if you are aged 18-30 why not consider coming on a ‘holiday with a difference’ and join other young Adults (18-30s) from around the Diocese on pilgrimage to Taize, France. Taize is a unique Christian Community where you could meet with other young people from Westminster diocese and from around the world. For further details, contact me on 020 7798 9357 or  Email:davidburke@rcdow.org.uk 

Fr Anthony O’Gorman, School and Youth Chaplain writes

As we celebrate the installation of a new Archbishop our minds are drawn to the future of our diocese and the Church in general.  

At present I have the good fortune of performing my Priestly ministry as a secondary school teacher in St. James Catholic High School, Colindale.
It is a ministry that gives me great hope for the future of our Church.  I am always amazed to find that the students I teach actually think about their faith and about God. 

We have many talented theologians amongst our youth, the big challenge we all have is how to keep young people interested and involved within their parish communities.  How do we develop the interest evident in the classroom and channel this into the life and work of our parishes?   One of the main things we can do is to make room for our young people to contribute: encouraging them to take an active role in the liturgy as readers, servers and Eucharistic ministers or in other areas of parish life such as catechetics. We might usefully ask ourselves how we as parish communities listen to the voice of young people; have we asked what they want or invited their participation in key bodies like our parish council. One of the most powerful influences on young people are their peers – young people teaching young people.   Where we open one door, for one young person, others are more likely to follow.

As a teacher, I am constantly reminded of young people’s ability to do great things. The challenge for us, as parishes, is to help make this possible and where initiatives fail to try and keep on trying. It is a risk but surely it is a risk worth taking? The Holy Spirit is at work within our youth, the challenge we have is to acknowledge it and allow them minister to one another and to our communities.  The future of our Church is in safe hands, our job is to encourage and guide those who hold the key to the future.

Fr Alexander Master, Assistant Priest at St John’s Wood and member of the Diocesan Chaplaincy team reflects on ‘silence’ being golden….

Within a fifteen minute walk from the parish church on Lisson Grove, you can find someone selling food from any part of the world you might care to imagine. Living in London, we are spoilt for choice! But though you can get your hands on almost any commodity in the shops and markets, there is one thing which is often in short supply: silence.

A recent retreat with other members of the diocesan youth chaplaincy team brought home to me what a rare quality silence can be for us. Though only an hour from the airport, the retreat house was in a valley almost totally devoid of noise. Such extended calm was a mildly unnerving experience to begin with, but it soon became obvious how conducive the situation was to reflection and prayer, and, with it being Lent at the time, proved an invaluable preparation for Holy Week.

Returning home to London, the contrast was striking. Most of us are not asked to live a life of contemplation in isolated French valleys; we strive to live out our faith in contexts of work, or of study, where it would be impossible, and often unreasonable, to take hours out of the day to sit and be still.

In a world of multi-channel television and 24/7 internet, silence and stillness have never required such discipline to attain. But they are just as necessary as ever. What would have happened to Samuel if he had been surfing the net instead of being still when the voice of God whispered his name? Would a twenty-first century Elijah been so keen to catch up on the latest podcast that he wouldn’t have been spiritually equipped to have recognised the presence of God, not in the loudness of earthquake or fire, but in the calm of a gentle breeze?

How do we find the silence in which God will have a chance to speak to us, and we to God? In a busy parish, the answer may very well not be during the Sunday Mass. Full, conscious and active participation, not least by the youngest members of our communities, will rule that out! So we need to cast our nets more widely. Maybe our parish church is open during the day? We could take advantage of the quiet: there aren’t many more peaceful places than an empty church. Is there a regular time of Exposition? Can we find a few hours to get out of the city? A quiet walk through the fields or the woods can help us to a greater awareness of the presence of God.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter so much where we find our silence. What matters is that, now and again, we do. God never gets bored with wanting to relate to us. But we need to make the space to listen. And in the silence, we might just find that space.

Fr Digby Samuels, our Diocesan Youth Chaplain explores The Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ Our Saviour

Whether your Easter egg is Cadbury’s, Fair-trade (hopefully!), chocolate or one of the beautifully painted type often associated with Eastern Europe and beyond, it contains food for the soul as well as the body.  Let the egg be a ‘visual aid’.

The hard shell: the tomb (an obvious one)
The breaking open: the brokenness of Christ then his bursting forth from darkness and death into New Life, the Resurrection on the third day.
The elliptical roundness: the womb, Mary, the Church, rebirth.
The egg itself: the life cycle, regeneration; strong and protective but can be crushed.

Take time to ponder your own experience of this symbol of Easter; allow the senses space to be part of your Easter meditation.  One of the Lenten graces can often be a sharpening of our senses as we let go of what numbs them – the felt hunger of fasting, the felt poverty of deeper prayer, the cry of the poor heard more loudly via almsgiving, the humiliation of admitting that maybe all these hardly got a look in throughout lent!

Maybe some of our ways of relating had become a bit like that hardened egg shell and the protective defences had needed dismantling – a Lenten penance indeed – the vulnerable fledgling emerging from the shell has no choice but to be vulnerable.  Look to Jesus, though, wasn’t the amazing impact he made as he faced his persecutors precisely through vulnerability, powerlessness?  No real love without that.

Keep him company in what he went through for you…’ all for you’.
Keep him company in his anguish in the garden, his being betrayed, his experience of abandonment even by his Father.  Look to him as he stands silent before Pilate having been stripped, scourged, crowned with thorns, mocked and treated with utter contempt.
Stay with him on that journey to Calvary staggering under the weight of the cross.
Kneel at the foot of the cross with the Mary’s and John and allow Love to melt hardness, to burn away indifference.
Weep with Mary his mother, with the Magdalene with those who loved him and heard with deep compunction of heart his seven last words.
Allow the deposition from the cross, the lying in the tomb, the decent into hell to be moments that touch your reality and that of all humanity, as well as being truths of the Creed.

Already we are risen with him (at our baptism) so keep company with Mary Magdalene in the joy of her coming to recognise the Risen Christ.  Allow yourself to receive his Love as you contemplate…. The Lord is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

Through the gift of the Holy Spirit let him live a New Life in you and through you to others.  Rejoice that your betrayals are forgiven and like Peter you are restored because you can say from the heart yes, ‘Lord you know I love you.’

Jon Rogers, Director of the Loft tells us…

Sometimes I think the world is a crazy place, or rather the way we live in the world is a bit crazy.  Here are some of my mad-world examples.

1. Eating an apple from New Zealand instead of from the tree outside.
2. Burning the sun’s energy trapped in oil from millions of years ago rather than using the rays that arrive today.
3. Spending energy and money purifying water only to drop our body waste in it and flush it away.

Am I sounding ‘green’? Maybe.  Was Jesus ‘green’? Probably not.  In the more sustainable societies 2000 years ago there was no need for a ‘green agenda’, no ‘Green Party’ vying with the Romans, Herodians and zealots.  People then might have messed up their environment locally, but the global impacts were minimal.  Perhaps the common ground between Jesus and the modern day ‘green’ movement would be justice for the disempowered: ‘Blessed are the meek’.  Maybe today’s ‘meek’ are those who’s lives are damaged by the over consumption of others, by the pollution of our atmosphere by others, by the over-exploitation of resources by others.  Who are the ‘others’: are they you and me?  I find this a personal challenge: I may not want to be, but I am one of the ‘others’. Yes, I find it easiest to see God in creation, in the natural world around me, so I’m probably destined to be ‘green’, but maybe the most convincing case for me being ‘green’ is that to not be risks being unjust to my neighbour.

A colleague said today that being Christian isn’t just about being but also about doing.  So what can I do?  Lots of people making good choices in their everyday lives can make a massive difference.  Maybe I can challenge myself to do some seemingly crazy, counter-cultural things in the name not only of the environment but, more importantly, of social justice.  Want some ideas?  Try these for starters:
www.wearewhatwedo.org   www.livesimply.org.uk

Fr John McKenna, from our Youth Chaplaincy team looks at ‘desperate search for meaning and love’

“The outpouring of Christ’s Spirit upon humanity is a pledge of hope and deliverance from everything that impoverishes us. It gives the blind new sight, it sets the downtrodden free, and it creates unity in and through diversity. This power can create a new world; it can ‘renew the face of the earth’. The world needs this renewal!…How many of our contemporaries have built broken and empty cisterns, in a desperate search for meaning - the ultimate meaning that only love can give? This is the great and liberating gift which the Gospel brings…It reveals humanity’s sublime calling, which is to find fulfillment in love.”

These are the words of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, at the 23rd World Youth Day in Sydney. We need this renewal of the Holy Spirit, to renew our world, to renew the Church, to renew our parish communities and to renewal our own hearts as well. This is a wonderful meditation as we approach St Valentines Day, and perhaps contemplate the true meaning of love in all its fullness.

I welcomed in the New Year at a Youth 2000 prayer festival with 200 young people in a church in South London. These few days were blessed with lots of music and worship, continuous Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the celebration of Mass at midnight. As a priest, this was a great chance to see the desire for personal renewal among the young people present. I noticed that there is a ‘desperate search for meaning’, as the Pope described, in the hearts of many people, and it was humbling to be alongside these young pilgrims.

As a Youth Chaplain for this diocese it is marvellous to see firsthand the gifts of many young people. The Church especially needs the gifts of young people to play a role in shaping and renewing the church. I hope in my small way to help young people realise their gifts and open their hearts to the fulfilling love which is Jesus Christ. 

Fr John is assistant priest at St Paul’s, Wood Green and can be contacted on johnmckenna@rcdow.org.uk