March 2009
Vol. XXX, No. 3
Dear Oblates and Friends of
Portsmouth,
During the season of Lent, which has just begun, the Church sets before us in the scriptural readings some of the great figures of the Old Testament to suggest qualities associated with Jesus as Redeemer. They are messianic types who prefigure Jesus in some way that will help unfold and clarify the mystery of the Redemption. During the latter part of Lent, Passiontide, passages from the prophecy of Isaiah are selected which focus on the Suffering Servant. Elijah, is chosen to represent the oral prophetic tradition, foreshadowing Jesus' role as preacher and miracle worker and particularly in his mysterious passage from the world at the close of his life, when he is taken up to heaven. Moses is presented as the Saviour of the Chosen People as he led them through the desert to the Promised Land, having delivered them up from the power of Pharaoh, having been called by God for this purpose. He is also the Legislator, binding the people in a covenant relationship with God based on the Ten Commandments. At the Transfiguration, recounted in each of the three cycles of the readings during Lent to foretell Jesus' death and resurrection, Moses stands beside Jesus on one side with Elijah on the other, typifying the Law and the Prophets, as precursors of the New Covenant which Jesus is about to establish.
Symbols from the Old Testament too are taken to prepare for their taking on a deeper significance given them by Jesus during his ministry. Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness at the outset of his ministry when he was tempted by Satan recalls the forty-year exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land when the people often succumbed to temptations but were as often forgiven through the intercession of Moses and encouraged to continue their journey, forged by years of hardship into the people of God. The most striking difference between the Old and the New Testaments is in the changed significance of the symbols employed, from literal to metaphorical, from direct, readily comprehensible interventions of the divine to deeper, more complex illustrations of the sacred and the spiritual order. Sheep, shepherd, water, wheat, grapes, vine, fire, manna, light, darkness, wine, bread, brazen serpent: all are transformed into sacramental vehicles of grace by Jesus, who is able to clarify his message of salvation by appealing to their use in scripture and using them to convey the new relationship to the Father which his incarnation has made possible.
Lent is the appointed time during the year when we are called upon to renew this relationship with God on a personal, individual basis, at the same time doing so in the collective context of membership in Jesus' mystical body. For this renewal it is necessary that we step back from the world that is too much with us and consider it from the God's eye view, not allowing ourselves to lose sight of the standards preached and lived by Jesus and those values which are opposed to or are at variance with these standards. It took the whole ministry of Jesus to convince his apostles of the preference of such virtues as humility and poverty to power and thirst for wealth, the brotherhood of man opposed to the narrow concept of a chosen people or master race, peace to aggression against weaker neighbors, sharing rather than selfish hoarding, preferring to serve others instead of seeking to control and dominate, sitting on the lowest stool instead of seeking the most honorable chair. These are the desiderata which were hard for the apostles to accept before Pentecost, and two thousand years later we too find it difficult to reverse the standards of the world which promote the opposite set of ways to succeed. The writer Ayn Rand unashamedly promoted the virtue of greed in her books, and we have only to look around the world to see where this concept has taken us. The faith we profess is a solution to much of what is wrong with the world and its values; never has Chesterton been more convincing when he observed that the reason that "Christianity has not succeeded as it should is that it has never been tried."
The Church in Russia in 2009
With the death last December of Alexei, Patriarch of Moscow and All the Russias, the Orthodox Church has suffered a significant loss in being deprived of the leadership of the churchman most important in the rebirth of Russian Christianity after almost 70 years of severe persecution by the Communist State. In 1988 a major break-through occurred in Church-State relations in Russia shortly before the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Empire. This was the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the conversion of Russia to Christianity under the Czar Vladimir, who was baptized in 988 and brought with him a large number of his countrymen into the Church. This method of Christianizing a country was in accord with the ancient custom of princes determining the religion of their people, a practice which was to have such disastrous effects during the Protestant Reformation with the implementation of the concept of cuius regio, eius religio to achieve unity of religious observance.
Since the fall of Communism, the church in Russia has undergone an almost miraculous revival, with the emergence of a revitalized faith among the people reflected in the reopening of churches and monasteries and the dramatic increase in the number of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life, of both men and women. In 1990 when Alexei was elected Primate, churches numbered in the hundreds while there were no more than a dozen monasteries in a population of 300 million. Less than twenty years later 700 monasteries have reopened and there are now more than 20,000 parishes to care for a people who had for seventy years been forced to hide or downplay their Christian religion. Significantly, the current President of Russia is an active member of the Orthodox Church, and it has become an accepted practice for government leaders to be present at important religious functions. Last year at the burial of the remains of the Czar and his family in Moscow, State officials made it a point to be present at the church service.
Under the present Pope, a definite thaw in relations between Moscow and the Vatican has taken place. Despite gestures of friendship and attempts to reduce areas of difference, Pope John Paul II was regarded with suspicion and even hostility by the official church, even though the State took pains to keep on amicable terms with the Pope, professing to welcome a visit from John Paul. Pope Benedict is determined to improve relations with the Orthodox church, making the healing of the rift a "fundamental commitment of his papacy;" and it is in the East that the ecumenical future would seem to lie, now that ARCIC, the group of Anglican and Roman Catholic scholars exploring reunion, has come to an impasse as a result of the divisive issues that have split the Anglican communion. Cardinal Walter Kasper has done much to allay the fears of the churchmen in Russia, irritated as they are by what they consider the proselytizing activity of Roman Catholic priests in the Ukraine. Although he will soon retire from his position as head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kasper has made an invaluable contribution in promoting ecumenical rapprochement in the work that lies ahead. Now that a new and more open-minded patriarch has taken office, there will doubtless be renewed efforts to bring about the long-sought visit to Russia by the Pontiff. The way has been prepared by a recognition of the common values and goals of the two sister communions and the need for greater rapport, an aim now shared by both sides with a growing possibility of realization.
Liturgical Calendar for March
Cycle of Prayer: Candidates for Sacraments; Women; the Needy
And Hungry of the World; Penitents & Wanderers
1 SUNDAY I OF LENT
3 St. Aelred, Abbot
7 SS Perpetua & Felicity, Martyrs
8 SUNDAY II OF LENT
15 SUNDAY III OF LENT
17 St. Patrick, Patron of
Ireland
18 St. Cyril of
Jerusalem, Bishop & Doctor
19 St. Joseph, Husband of Mary
21 PASSING OF ST. BENEDICT
22 SUNDAY IV OF LENT
25 ANNUNCIATION OF THE LORD
29 SUNDAY V OF LENT
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