Reverencing the body

The Executive Office of the President of the United States
 (Wikimedia Commons) 

I was at a funeral in my local parish church earlier in the week.  Funerals are very special moments in the life of any Irish community. This seems to transcend the rural/urban as well as social class divides.  People from all walks of life turn up – family, extended family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues and more besides.  ‘Paying our respects’ are deeply imbedded in Irish culture so much so that if is sometimes said ‘here in Ireland we do death well’. It is true.  The sense of solidarity, companionship and support at times of bereavement are strong. 

Eucharist: believing in order to understand

Living during the period immediately preceding the great scholastic works of Aquinas, Bonaventure and others, St Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109), helped defend and deepen the Church's understanding of the Eucharist at a crucial moment in history. Yet, he lived after the controversy surrounding a certain Berengar of Tours (c. 999-1088) whose teachings raised serious questions about how Christ is present in the Eucharist and prompted the Church to articulate its doctrine with greater precision. 

For Anselm, faith receives what reason can never fully understand.  His distinctive contribution was not a detailed Eucharistic treatise but the theological method encapsulated in his famous phrase fides quaerens intellectum ‘faith seeking understanding’.  Though he did not in a specific reference to the Eucharist, his famous phrase from the Proslogium is worth repeating:

A disciple's charter

Sunday 1 November 2026

Lectio Divina:*

Revelation 7:2-4 Psalm 24 (23) 1 John 3:1-3 Matthew 5:1-12

(See also Luke 6:20-23)

Meditatio:

‘Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’ (Matthew 5:12)

Commentary:

Religion often gets a bad name. It is accused of spreading gloom, fear or a spirit of killjoy, and many today contrast religion with spirituality as if they were opposites—religion = bad, spirituality = good. The phrase ‘I’m not religious but I am spiritual’ is now commonplace, sometimes spoken with a hint of self‑protection, as if being ‘religious’ were old‑fashioned, reactionary or faintly embarrassing.

What would a scientist find?

The mechanics of the transformation that occurs at every Mass have been the subject of controversy since at least the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Although Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic Christians use different terms and theological language to explain the change that takes place, it seems clear to me from what I have read, seen and heard that they share the same essential conviction: the bread and wine taken, blessed and offered in the Eucharist become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. What was once ordinary food is no longer ordinary food. The belief that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist and that a real transformation takes place is consistent with what Christians believed, taught and practised from apostolic times onwards.

At the time of the Reformation, this ancient consensus was fractured, even though the original disputes arose largely in other areas of doctrine, particularly the nature of salvation, the role of Scripture and the authority of the Pope.

A sacrament of divine love

Two great saints of the thirteenth century, St Thomas Aquinas the Dominican and St Bonaventure the Franciscan theologian and bishop, provided different but complementary insights into the Eucharist. St Thomas Aquinas is especially known for his explanation of how Christ is truly present in the sacrament, while St Bonaventure is particularly remembered for helping believers to understand why Christ remains present among us: because, in his great love, he desires to unite himself ever more closely to those whom he loves.

The Eucharist is, above all, the sacrament of Christ's presence with us, transforming us and drawing us toward the heavenly communion for which we were created. St Bonaventure teaches that at the Last Supper Christ gave his Body and Blood as food and drink (Lignum Vitae 30), leaving the Church a lasting memorial of his saving love.

Is Mass boring?

St Thomas Aquinas taught that, in heaven, we will never exhaust the mystery and beauty of God [Summa Theologiae q12 a6]. That is a delightful thought. We may think of heaven, therefore, is not a static existence but an eternal participation in the inexhaustible richness of divine truth and love.

In the Eucharist we receive a foretaste of heaven as we join the heavenly assembly.  Could anything be more true, beautiful and better than the Mass on this side of eternity?

Not only is life always (for me, at least) interesting and exciting, if sometimes challenging and painful, but we can also look forward in Christian hope to an eternity of ever-deeper wonder, joy, and communion with God. As St Paul writes:

What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Standing with angels

 

St Gregory of Nazianzus(329-390), a close friend of St Basil the Great [see Yet another early witness to the Eucharist], is known in the East as Gregory the Theologian.  After studying with Basil in Athens, they returned to their native Cappadocia (now Eastern Turkey) to serve the Lord. It was during the time of the Arian heresy which refused the full divinity of Christ, Gregory was reluctantly consecrated bishop of Sasima, a small Cappadocian town. Following the death of his father, the bishop of Nazianzus, he briefly overseed that church. 

Later he became Archbishop of Constantinople, the most prestigious see in the East and second only to Rome in honour. He played a leading role at the First Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D. which completed the creed that we commonly call the Nicene Creed, often recited at the Sunday Eucharist by Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

What does the word Eucharist mean?

The Greek noun εὐχαριστία (eucharistia) comes from two words:

eu (εὖ), meaning 'well' or 'good';

charis (χάρις), meaning 'grace', 'favour', 'gratitude', or 'thanks'.

Together, they convey the meaning of grateful thanksgiving for God's gifts.

The psalmist declares (Ps 116):

A thanksgiving cup I will raise; I will call on the Lord's name.

To participate in Mass is to participate in a feast of joy. Behind the grey walls of distraction, doubt, and discouragement, there is the joy of the risen Christ, who comes to us under the appearances of bread and wine.

It is well to be here. We are truly blessed.

All

Sunday 25 October 2026 (Year A)

Lectio Divina:*

Exodus 22:20-26 Psalm 18 (17) 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10 Matthew 22:34-40

(See also Mark 12:13-17 and Luke 20:20-26)

Meditatio:

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:40)

Commentary:

This Sunday the clocks go back an hour. It also happens to be ‘Bible Sunday’ in many of the churches stemming from the Reformation. Most of what we hear and pray in church is directly taken from the sacred scriptures consisting of at least 66 books written by more than 66 authors at different times and in different contexts over a period of many centuries.  Holding them together is the agreed Canon or index of books which, it was agreed by Christians in the early centuries, is divinely inspired and, therefore forms part of the Word of God.

The next time you read the Bible cover to cover you might like to use a yellow marker and mark over the word ‘all’ (assuming you are reading the Bible in English). You will run out of yellow marker. You will be surprised at how often this word ‘All’ crops up from start to finish:

Given for you

Mahatma Gandhi is quoted as saying:

The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Molokai. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, counts by the thousands those who, after the example of Fr. Damien, have devoted themselves to the victims of leprosy. It is worthwhile to look for the sources of such heroism [T.N. Jagadisan's 1965 publication Mahatma Gandhi Answers the Challenge of Leprosy]

Who was Father Damien of Molokai?  He was a Belgian Catholic priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, who was canonised in 2009.  He voluntarily ministered among people afflicted with leprosy in Hawaii for 16 years until his death in 1889.  He shared their lives, treated their wounds and eventually contracted the disease himself.  He frequently spoke of the Mass and the Eucharist as the source of strength that sustained his mission.

His story reminds me of a TV documentary made at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when, in Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin, the chaplain was filmed in the wards behind curtains talking to God and a person who was dying. 

Resting in God’s presence

I was listening the other day to an interview with Bishop Michael Pham of the Diocese of San Diego on Fr. James Martin SJ's excellent podcast, The Spiritual Life.  Bishop Pham was born in Vietnam and fled the country as a child after the communist takeover in 1975. His family endured a horrendous journey involving overcrowded boats, hunger, separation from family members and time spent in a refugee camp in Malaysia before eventually reaching the United States. Today, Bishop Pham is active in advocating for migrants and refugees. He has accompanied migrants through the legal system and spoken publicly about their God-given dignity.

He has accompanied migrants through the legal system and spoke out publicly about the dignity of migrants.

As is his custom at each interview, Fr Martin asked him how he approaches prayer. The bishop said that he specially values time spent in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament where he rests in the presence of the Eucharistic Lord. It reminded me of the words of Psalm 131:

Remembering those who went before us

St Canice's parish church (RC)
in Kilkenny city

Next month will mark remembrance of the dead especially around the feasts of All Saints and All Souls.  Yesterday evening I attended the annual memorial Mass in Kilkenny on a wet and cold winter’s night.  This is an annual event specially for families of the deceased in Saint Luke’s General Hospital. Staff of the hospital participate in the Mass.

I was struck by the beautiful choir, the care shown in the celebration, the prayers of intercession, the carefully chosen readings and the active participation by the congregation.  It is a privilege to have known those whom we love and who have gone before us. We can be sure that, in every Mass, we are united with the whole Communion of Saints, joining our prayers with those of the Church Triumphant in heaven while also, according to Catholic tradition and doctrine, praying for the souls of the Church Suffering.

The angelic doctor

 

Over the course of the last 10 months and as part of the Bread for the Journey blog series I have drawn on St Thomas Aquinas on many occasions [for example in The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist #1]. The feast of this great saint occurs on 28 January and deserves a short blog in its own right today. Much of our theological thinking has been shaped by his work especially in regards to the Eucharist.

The saint was a 13^th Century Italian Dominican friar, priest, theologian and philosopher.  He is associated with a school of thought often referred to as ‘Thomism’.  A proponent of natural theology, he argued that the existence of God could be known through rational reflection on the created world, drawing on both human reason and insights from Aristotelian philosophy. He also emphasised that faith and reason ultimately complement one another since both have their source in God.

Who will celebrate?: celibacy and the Eucharist

It is well known that the age profile of serving Catholic priests is such that a dwindling and often exhausted clergy are serving multiple churches in administrative areas that might have been served by half a dozen priests 50 years ago.  The arrival of missionary priests from other parts of the globe is helping but nowhere at the scale and pace required to replace priests. Those who have retired have not, in many cases, really retired as they are on call on a regular basis. Things we took for granted in the past such as school chaplains, hospital chaplains and availability of weekday masses are becoming increasingly scarce on the ground.

The question of clerical celibacy has been raised as a possible barrier to recovering priestly vocations. Along the question of women’s ordination which I have explored in earlier blogs this year (Women’s ordination – weighing up the arguments ), these ‘hot button’ issues have been the subject of debate in Ireland and elsewhere. The Synodal process has generated much discussion and many questions, but as yet it remains unclear what practical changes, if any, may emerge regarding these matters. 

Eucharist and the courage to speak the truth

In October 1984 Father (now Blessed) Jerzy Popiełuszko was murdered by State agents of the communist regime in Poland some time between his abduction on 19 October and the discovery of his body on 30 October. His only 'crime' was to preach the Gospel, defend human dignity and speak out against the injustices of the communist regime.  His celebration of Mass in Warsaw drew thousands of people seeking strength and solace in the dark years of oppression.  He constantly preached that Christians must ‘overcome evil with good’ (Romans 12:21) - a phrase that became the motto of his ministry. Fr Jerzy imitated the sacrificial love of Christ in his own life. His readiness to suffer harassment, threats and ultimately death rather than abandon the truth reflects a deep love for Jesus Christ summed up in the celebration of the Eucharist.

The gift of the Eucharist in Luke and Acts

The feast of the evangelist, St Luke, would normally be marked today.  He is believed to have authored the Acts of the Apostles as well as the Gospel that bears his name.  His Gospel is distinctive in its emphasis: care for the poor and outcasts, women, prayer and the Holy Spirit. The parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are unique to this Gospel. In common with two other Gospels (the ‘Synoptics’), we have an account of how the Eucharist was instituted in chapter 22 (14-20):

Religion and politics

Source: Crossings

Sunday 18 October 2026

Lectio Divina:*

Isaiah 45:1-6 Psalm 96 (95) 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5 Matthew 22:15-21

(See also Mark 12:13-17 and Luke 20:20-26)

 

Meditatio:

“When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away” (Matthew 22:22)

Commentary:

Passages of Scripture, especially from the Gospels, that deal with poverty, wealth, taxes or politics are often ‘spiritualised’ or ‘individualised’ in order to avoid controversy. By spiritualising, I mean turning a challenging Gospel encounter into a simple moral tale. By individualising, I mean reducing it to a question of my personal behaviour and private relationship with God.

Of course, personal conversion matters. We are each accountable for our lives before God. Yet the Gospel is never confined to the private sphere. It speaks to relationships, communities, institutions and societies. Nevertheless, we are frequently told that Jesus was not interested in politics and that religion and politics should never meet.

I protest. Let me explain.

What early Christians believed about the Eucharist

St Ignatius of Antioch belonged to the generation of Christians that  emerged towards the end of the first century immediately after the apostles. He was a friend of St Polycarp who, according to tradition, was a disciple of the evangelist, St John. We are very close to the historical person of Jesus and the very first apostles. We should read Ignatius with this context in mind.

As bishop of Antioch, he wrote a number of important letters to Christians in other parts of the very early Christian world.  Some of these were written on his way to martyrdom at the turn of the first century.  He gave clear witness to the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist: he referred to the Eucharist as ‘the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ’, and writes of his desire for ‘the bread of God … which is the flesh of Jesus Christ’ and for ‘the drink of God, namely His blood’.  He referred to the Eucharist as the’medicine of immortality’ (Ignatius to the Ephesians 20:2).

Discovering the heart of Jesus in the Eucharist

A few months after King James II and King Wiliam of Orange faced off each other on the banks of the river Boyne in July of 1690, a saintly French nun, St Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), the great apostle of the Sacred Heart, was approaching the end of her earthly pilgrimage. 

For her journey, the Eucharist was the privileged place of encounter with the loving Heart of Christ. It was while she was in prayer before the exposed Blessed Sacrament that she experienced in a special way the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  St Margaret Mary believed that Christ had entrusted her with the mission of spreading devotion to his Sacred Heart throughout the Church. Our Lord also inspired her to promote the practice of the ‘Holy Hour’ -  a period of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in union with Jesus' agony in Gethsemane. This practice remains one of the most important forms of Eucharistic devotion in the Church after the Mass.

The Lord within: St Teresa of Ávila on Holy Communion

By Peter Paul Rubens - Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Bilddatenbank

Today is the memorial of the great Carmelite Saint, contemplative and Doctor of the Church, St Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582). In the turbulence of the Protestant Reformation that pulled Europe apart in 16^th Century, Teresa saw a life of prayer, fidelity to the Church and devotion to Christ in the Eucharist as essential to the renewal of the Church. The Eucharist occupies a privileged place within Teresa's broader Christ-centred spirituality and life of what we refer to as mental prayer. Her reform of Carmel stressed:  frequent participation at Mass together with a life ordered towards greater union with Christ. In her great work, The Interior Castle, she describes how the soul journeys toward complete union with God.  In language typical of her writing and speaking, she urged her sisters to receive the Lord in Holy Communion in the following terms:

When you receive the Lord, since you have His Person present, strive to close the eyes of the body and open those of the soul.

A practical guide to Eucharistic Adoration

In which sacrament are the mystery and saving fruits of Christ's Incarnation, earthly ministry, passion, death and resurrection most fully made present and given to us? The answer is the Eucharist..  Writing in the Introduction to the Devout Life, Saint, Doctor and bishop St Francis de Sales (1567-1622) describes  the Mass as the sun of the spiritual exercises – the centre and heart of Christian faith and life.  For him, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a prolongation of our participation in the Eucharist. He writes of participation in the Mass in these words:

Saint Chrysostom says that the Angels crowd around it in adoration, and if we are found together with them, united in one intention, we cannot but be most favourably influenced by such society. Moreover, all the heavenly choirs of the Church triumphant, as well as those of the Church militant, are joined to our Dear Lord in this divine act, so that with Him, in Him, and by Him, they may win the favour of God the Father, and obtain His Mercy for us.

Nature lessons

This morning, prompted by the excellent resource of Aleteia’s daily prayer, I meditated on a short passage from the Book of Job (12:7-10):

But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you;  ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.  Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?  In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.

The phrase that remained with me was verse 10:

In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.

Earlier in September I reflected on the work of Fr Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) and his remarkable piece of work entitled The Mass on the World.  I commented on his ConsistentEucharistic Thread in a number of posts in early September.  The Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, in Francis of Assisi: A Model for Human Liberation (Orbis, 2006), draws on Thomas of Celano’s Second Life to show how St Francis recognised creation as kin.

We are often inclined to grasp, use, dominate and discard the materials of Earth, yet Scripture and Francis invite us to see creatures as God’s work, held in his hand. We share genetic kinship with other creatures, though human beings stand above them in dignity as made in God’s image (Gen 1:26-28; LaudatoSi’ #90).

The theologian Sr Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, in Ask the Beasts (Bloomsbury, 2014), whose title comes from Job 12:7, uses the term ‘deep incarnation’, a phrase coined in 2001 by the Danish Lutheran Niels Henrik Gregersen. Fr Richard Rohr has drawn on her work in one of his recent daily mediations, Creation as kin, She writes:

The flesh that the Word of God became as a particular human being is part of the tree of evolving life on earth, which in turn is part of the vast body of the cosmos….

In John 1:14 (‘the Word became flesh’), God became one of us and, at the same time, in solidarity with the whole created order.  He assumed our nature (Catechismof the Catholic Church 464-469). In John 6:51-58, that same flesh given in the Eucharist unites us to Christ and to one another (CCC #1396). Pope Francis sees the Eucharist as ‘the living centre of the universe’ (Laudato Si’ #236).

If every living thing is held in God’s hand along with the breath of every human being, as Job says, how much more should we value unborn human life? Jesus says we are ‘of more value than many sparrows’ (Mt 10:29-31).  Concern for creation cannot be reconciled with justifying abortion (see also CCC#2270-2274).  In Laudato Si’ #120, the late Pope Francis reminds us that:

Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? “If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away”.

 

The millennial saint

Twenty years ago, this day, a 15-year old Italian boy died of leukaemia.  Born in 1991, St Carlo Acutis had a great love for Jesus in the Eucharist. He enjoyed football, computers, friends, films and ordinary teenage life. Yet he built his life around daily Mass, Eucharistic adoration and prayer.

He used his technical skills to document all known Eucharistic miracles. His devotion to the Eucharist inspired all those around him and enabled him to leave behind a beautiful testimony of his love for the Eucharist: his Eucharistic miracle website.

For Carlo, holiness was not primarily about extraordinary penances or mystical experiences. It was about frequent and loving union with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. He saw the Eucharist as the direct route to friendship with Jesus and ultimately to eternal life.

It is only beginning

Sunday 11 October 2026

Lectio Divina:*

Isaiah 25:6-10 Psalm 23 (22) Philippians 4:12-14 Matthew 22:1-14

(See also Luke 14:15-25)

Meditatio:

“For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14)

Commentary:

At first hearing, the parable of the wedding banquet can be unsettling. The king's reaction to those who reject his invitation seems harsh to modern ears. Yet we would be mistaken if we were to read this simply as a story about an angry earthly ruler. Jesus often uses vivid and challenging images to awaken us to the seriousness of God's invitation and the tragedy of refusing it. The focus of the parable is not so much divine vengeance but divine generosity.

The invitation is extraordinary. In the first reading, Isaiah gives us a vision of the Lord preparing ‘a feast of rich food and well-aged wines’ for all peoples. On that holy mountain God promises to destroy death itself and wipe away every tear. The banquet is a sign of salvation, communion and joy. In Psalm 23, the Lord, the Good Shepherd, prepares a table before us and leads us through even the darkest valley. We need not be afraid, for he is with us. The Gospel wedding feast, Isaiah's banquet and the psalmist's table all point towards the same reality: God's desire to share his own life with his people.

Praying with the body at Mass

 

We are, thank God, material as well as spiritual beings.  In praying alone or with others our bodily posture matters. 

The postures and gestures we adopt at Mass are not merely matters of etiquette. They are part of the Church's wisdom, teaching us to pray with our whole body, mind and soul. We stand in reverence, sit in attentive listening and kneel in adoration. Far from being rivals, body and soul are companions in worship. Our outward actions can help to shape our inner disposition and open us more fully to the grace of the Eucharist.

As we gather around the altar, we do not come as isolated individuals but as members of the Body of Christ. By praying, singing, listening, standing, sitting and kneeling together, we express visibly the communion that Christ creates among us. The gestures of the Mass are therefore not simply habits inherited from the past; they are signs of faith in the living Lord who speaks to us in his Word and gives himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament.

Heart speaks unto heart

Some things draw me to Saint John Henry Newman (1801-1890) including the following:

• He journeyed from Anglicanism into full communion with the Catholic Church.
• He served as the founding Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland in 1854, from which University College Dublin eventually emerged. I completed three degrees, there, between 1977 and 2005.
• He established the beautiful University Church on St Stephen's Green, where I was baptised on 22 December 1956.
• He anticipated many themes later developed at Vatican II, especially concerning the role of the laity, the development of doctrine and the importance of returning to the sources of the early Church.
• He was a loyal son of the Church but not blind to historical context and development of doctrine (although he accepted the doctrine of papal infallibility defined by the First Vatican Council in 1870, he questioned the timing, prudence and formulation of the doctrine).
• His deep personal friendship with Fr Ambrose St John (1814-1875) showed his extraordinary capacity for human friendship.

After the death of his friend in 1875, Newman wrote:

Respect in the House of God

In the Eucharist we share in the divine mysteries in the company of families, communities, the universal church and the choirs of heaven.  It is no small thing.  In between services we are in a very special place which our ancestors called ‘the house of God’ or in the Irish language ‘teach an phobail’ (the house ofthe people). Now, there is a huge difference, in Irish, between ‘teach tábhairne’ ( the local pub) and ‘teach an phobail’. Both venues were, traditionally, the main gathering places for people not least when someone died.  However, the sacred space that is the parish church (or cathedral or abbey church) is a place set apart for community worship and private prayer. 

Making time for thanksgiving

Receiving Holy Communion is a precious moment in our lives.  There was a time when many Catholics received Holy Communion only a few times each year, often most notably during the Easter season. Today, amongst regular Mass-goers, frequent reception is very much the norm.

The whole of the Mass is an act of thanksgiving, which is reflected in the very meaning of the word eucharistia in Greek or 'Eucharist'.  We thank the Lord for coming to us, dying for us and rising again. We thank him for coming to us in Holy Communion.  It is right and fitting to make time to give thanks in personal prayer in the moments following reception. This, also, may take the form of a mindful awareness of the Lord’s presence in us and in those around us.  In practice and notwithstanding the time of silence that may be practiced for a few moments towards the end of the Communion rite before the Communion prayer, the time to the final dismissal is typically short.  The General Instruction of the Roman Missal specifically provides for sacred silence after Communion:

When the distribution of Communion is over, if appropriate, the Priest and faithful pray quietly for some time.

Preparing for Holy Communion

 A simple prayer that I recited over many years prior to receiving Holy Communion runs as follows:

I wish my Lord to receive you, with the purity, humility and devotion with which your Most Holy Mother received you, with the spirit and fervour of the saints.

I did not know where it came from.  Recently, I discovered that the prayer dates from the 18th Century but was popularised by St Jose María Escrivá (1902-1975), priest and founder of Opus Dei, whose memorial is celebrated on 26 June.

The Eucharist: inculturation and incarnation

In the month of October we remember in prayer the work of missionaries who bring the good news to peoples far and wide.  Usually we think of priests and religious travelling to far away countries to share the Gospel with those who have not yet heard it. We need not look far to see that we are called to mission here in this place, at this time and in the ordinary works of life.  A saint little known in this part of Europe is St Innocent of Alaska (1797-1879) who travelled vast distances across Alaska and Siberia, learned indigenous languages, translated texts, and established local churches. St Innocent brought the Divine Liturgy to the remote corners of a vast expanse of territory.   He carried the Gospel to people who had never heard it and worked so they could worship God in their own language.

He learned Aleut and other local languages and sought to communicate the Gospel through local cultures rather than simply transplanting Russian customs. This missionary approach reflects the mystery of the Incarnation: God speaks our language in Christ and gives himself in tangible, material signs.

The humble lamb

St Francis of Assisi (c.1181-1226), whose Transitus, his passing to eternal life, was commemorated yesterday evening on the 800th anniversary of his death, remains one of the Church's most beloved saints.  St Francis is among the most widely admired saints in Christian history.

In common with other saints of the second millennium, St Francis embraced a strong Eucharistic message.  A much-loved story from the Franciscan tradition tells of a little lamb that would kneel during the elevation at Mass:

During the celebration of the Mass, at the moment of elevation, he would bow down, knees bent, as if it were that this devout little animal wished to reproach men of little faith for their irreverence and encourage devout men for their reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament.

In his Admonitions, Francis writes:

The cornerstone

 

Sunday 4 October 2026

Lectio Divina:*

Isaiah 5:1-7 Psalm 80 (79) Philippians 4:6-9 Matthew 21:33-43

See, also, Mark 12:1-12 and Luke 20:9-19

Meditatio:

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes” (Matthew 21:42)

Commentary:

Yet another parable from Saint Matthew's Gospel is placed before us: a landowner plants a vineyard, entrusts it to tenants and later comes seeking its fruits. At first glance, we may imagine ourselves in various parts of the story. Perhaps we recognise moments when we have resisted God's voice, or perhaps we are drawn to the image of Christ, the rejected cornerstone upon whom our lives are built.

To understand the parable properly, however, we must remember its biblical and historical setting. 

Joy is the echo of the Eucharist within us

Blessed Columba Marmion (1858–1923) was an Irish Benedictine monk and Abbot of Maredsous in Belgium.  He was an important spiritual writer of the modern Church (some might say the ‘pre-modern’!).  He emphasised that Christ's life is communicated to believers above all through the liturgy and sacraments.

He was born on the northside of Dublin in Queen Street which is now known as North Brunswick Street. Before becoming the renowned Benedictine abbot of Maredsous, Blessed Columba Marmion served as a young curate in Dundrum Parish from 1881 to 1882. There, in the ordinary work of parish ministry and the celebration of the sacraments, the future spiritual master first exercised the priesthood that would later inspire Catholics throughout the world.

An entry in Wikipedia says about Blessed Marmion: