Message of Abbot Paul - Sunday 21st May 2023
Abbot Paul • May 21, 2023
The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus with which his farewell discourse ends is found in chapter 17 of John’s Gospel. Jesus prayed in the presence of his disciples at the end of the Last Supper and then continued praying long into the night at Gethsemane in the presence of Peter, James and John, until he was betrayed by Judas and taken prisoner by the soldiers at the service of the high priests. However, our Mass lectionary has the first eleven verses as the Gospel for the 7th Sunday of Easter, the Sunday after Ascension. Jesus uses the word ‘glory’, in Greek ‘δόξα’, and the verb ‘glorify’, in Greek ‘ἐνδοξάζω’, to describe the way God is made known to human beings. John’s Gospel assumes that people were created by God for relationship or friendship with him. That is why this prayer can say that eternal life means “knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ, whom God has sent”. According to John, eternal life comes from a relationship with the eternal God. It begins now in faith, as people come to know the love of the God who made them and this life has a future through the promise of resurrection. Yet the gospel also recognizes that “No one has ever seen God”. God’s presence is hidden until God chooses to reveal it. The theme of glory has to do with the way revelation takes place. First, Jesus glorified God on earth by finishing the work God gave him to do. He honoured God through his obedience to God’s commands. During his public ministry Jesus taught what God wanted him to teach, and performed the healings and other works that God wanted him to perform. Such faithfulness honours God. Yet, in another sense Jesus glorified God by revealing God’s power. According to John, Jesus made divine power visible by the miraculous signs he performed. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus manifested his glory by turning water into wine at Cana; and at the end of his ministry, he revealed the glory of God by calling the dead man Lazarus back to life.
A second element in Jesus’ prayer concerns the glory he will resume in heaven once his ministry on earth is over. This heavenly glory is something that the Son of God enjoyed before the world existed. To share in such glory is to share in divine honour, majesty and power. It was out of love that the Father gave the Son such glory before the foundation of the world, so that sharing in God’s glory means sharing in God’s love. By means of his passion Jesus will return to the Father and enter a heavenly glory that his followers on earth cannot fully perceive, but can hope to see in the future. Therefore, Jesus concludes his prayer by asking that those whom God has given him may one day be with him in God’s presence, to see the fullness of the glory that God gave to him in love. Now, if the signs reveal God’s glory by displaying divine power, the crucifixion reveals God’s glory by conveying divine love. The crucifixion completes Jesus’ work of glorifying God on earth, for by laying down his life he gives himself completely, so that the world may know of Jesus’ love for God and God’s love for the world. By his resurrection and ascension, Jesus returns to the heavenly glory that God prepared for him in love, and Jesus prays that his followers will one day join him in the Father’s presence to share in that glory and love. To the eye of faith, however, the glory of the exalted Lord is already present in the crucified body of Jesus. If glory defines what the crucifixion is, the crucifixion defines what glory is. The crucifixion manifests the scope of divine power by disclosing the depth of divine love.
Pope Francis RIP Pope 2013-2025 Born 1936, Died 2025 We are deeply saddened at the passing of Pope Francis. As the successor of St Peter he has been a spiritual father and shepherd to the church in our day, challenging us, and calling as to reach out to those on the peripheries. He was the first Jesuit Pope, but took the name Francis after the Poor Man of Assisi who modelled for him a closeness to the poor, a concern for those on the margins of society and a care for all of creation In his preaching Pope Francis always spoke of the joy of the Gospel and encouraged us to reflect the joy of our faith in our lives. He showed the compassion of Jesus to everyone. He worked tirelessly for the unity of the church and travelled even to non-Christian countries promoting a message of peace. He has left a great legacy. With the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio with the community over Easter we were able to express our closeness to the Holy Father in his final suffering. There will be a special Mass at Belmont this Thursday 24th April at 11am to pray for Pope Francis as he makes his final journey to the house of the Father. On the day of his funeral, the Office of the Dead will be sung, and Mass that day will be a Requiem. May the angels lead him into paradise; may the martyrs receive him at his arrival and lead him to the holy city Jerusalem. May choirs of angels receive him and with Lazarus, the poor man grant him eternal rest." (The In Paradisum, words from the Funeral Liturgy)
We were were honoured and delighted to be joined by the Apostolic Nuncio to celebrate Easter. His Excellency Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía is the representative of the Holy See in Great Britain, and therefore of the Holy Father. His presence on Easter Sunday morning brought us more consciously in communion with Pope Francis, the successor of St Peter, as we heard the Gospel story of Peter running to the tomb. His patron saint is St Michael, so afterwards, at a festive lunch we were able to present him with some Belmont cufflinks with the monastery coat of arms - very similar to his as Archbishop. We were able to pray for him and his work in this country.
