Sacred Heart and St Anne RC Parish Blackburn

The Holy Spirit is alive. It’s active. It’s powerfully strong – unstoppable, and resiliently leading us to the truth. It’s a reliable companion – dependable and consistently present, unswerving in its desire to accompany us. It’s REAL. It energises the human spirit and enlightens the mind. It enables us to stop, think, listen and know. It carries us when we are weak and restores a sense of meaning and purpose when we feel confused and lost. Most of all, it gives us hope and enables us to face the unknown with the certainty that the Lord is at our side.

Happy Pentecost.

Happy Easter.

The Cross is from the garden of St Anne’s Blackburn that we took on Good Friday. It overlooks the Piazza where many people addicted to drugs and alcohol gather. It’s also the cross that stood above the Church in the fire in the year 2000. It truly speaks the message of Easter to me, in that Christ is in our midst of suffering. I see that renewal of life within the work of THOMAS with people who are turning their lives around.

With every blessing and warmest wishes for Easter

Jim

We thank God for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s life and pray for her soul’s repose.

She radiated duty and service with her consistent presence in our nation, showing courage and resilience with compassion, warmth and humour. Although she had the privilege, she liked the simple things in life, such as the countryside, with her scarf and anorak walking her corgis in the tranquil rural places where she lived.

In her final Christmas message last December 2021, she said, “but life, of course, consists of final partings as well as first meetings.” She reminded us that the teaching of Jesus has been the bedrock of her faith, passed on from generation to generation.

She left our world a better place and brought out the best of our nation.

We entrust this faithful pilgrim, who defined an era of history, into God’s hands. May she Rest in Peace.

Father Jim

On this Third Sunday of Lent, our prayers and thoughts are with Pope Francis as he continues his visit to Iraq. The theme of his four-day visit is peace, reconciliation, and interfaith dialogue. When he arrived in Baghdad on Friday, he reminded us of our fundamental duty to each other. He said: “Only if we learn to look beyond our differences and see each other as one human family will we be able to begin an effective process of rebuilding and leave to future generations a better, more just, and more humane world.”

The Ten Commandments in today’s First Reading provide that ethical instruction for us as Christian pilgrims as we continue to journey on this road of life. Honour, respect, and love are the gifts we can leave for future generations. The wisdom of God is unfolding before our very eyes. Jesus cleanses the Temple in John’s Gospel and accuses the merchants and the money changers of turning the Temple into a marketplace. The person of Jesus is accessible to all, and He will replace the Temple as the new locus of God’s presence, glory, and revelation.

In today’s opening prayer, we read that “God is the author of every mercy and all goodness. Let us take to heart the words of Pope Francis this weekend so that we can look beyond our differences and see each other as one human family.

God Bless

Fr Jim

Dear Parishioners

On this Second Sunday of Lent, the Psalmist’s words are of significance –  “I will walk before the Lord in the Land of the Living” (Psalm 116:9).  Like Abraham, Peter, James and John, we too, walk before the Lord in the land of the living.  Abraham’s response to God is “Here I am” (Genesis 22:1-2). Abraham then sets out on journey into the unknown with faith and trust in the God who called him.

I present a question to you this week.  What does it mean to be walking in the land of the living?

Each of us have our own unique human experiences; a combination of fulfillment, challenge, uncertainty, joy and happiness, sorrow and regret, growing older, sickness and infirmity, togetherness and separation. Yes to walk in the land of the living is an on-going discovery of human experiences. Yet for the Christian, prayer  gives us a glimmer of the Divine in the land of the living. Like Peter, James and John, we follow Jesus and climb the inner mountain, knowing God is with us. Here we discover that sense of Transfiguration, but we know we have to ascend out of prayer and descend back to the land of the living. However, we can be transfigured people in the living land, converted and transformed as we know God is with us in the day-to-day life experiences.

Father Jim

Dear Parishioners

On this First Sunday of Lent, we resolve to be open to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  We will add the work of our hands to the inheritance of the Christian pilgrims; down the centuries, they touched the lives of others with their kindness, generosity, and understanding.  God has given us more than we ever could have deserved – the sacrifice of His Son. We will walk to the inner sanctuary, deep within ourselves, and find the tranquillity and peace to hear the voice of God communicating His message to us through the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

In each of us, there is a desert, a place for contemplation. A movement of God interacting with the human mind, sharing His Life with us. The movement of the individual human life meeting on the sacred ground of the inner soul and looking not at yesterday but moving with the NOW of today, is awesomely liberating as God comes to us in the NOW.

Jesus points us to our desert.

With every blessing for Lent.

Fr Jim

On this Gaudete Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, we stop and pause to reflect on the joy we have in knowing Jesus as our Saviour. In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist is celebrating the gift of Baptism, and he tells his followers, “I baptise you with water; but there stands among you, unknown to you, the one who is coming after me; and I am not fit to undo his sandal strap” (John 1: 19-28).

The inner Joy of our Baptism unites us with the Lord and with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, takes us into a profound encounter of anticipation in preparation for the transformational moment of the meaning and message of Christmas.

The Prophet Isaiah is overwhelmed by the generosity of God; he shares the integrity of his faith with the people who surround him. His message has the potential to resonate with each of us to this day. “The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up hearts that are broken; to proclaim liberty to captives, freedom to those in prison, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord ” (Isaiah 61:1-2).

These words ignite powerfully within us an invitation to reach beyond the narrow gate of our thinking and to rediscover the joy of the Lord living in us as we face our struggles and difficulties and the uncertainties of today.

Happy Gaudete Sunday

Fr Jim

I have always been fascinated by the creativity and ingenuity of William Holman Hunt, the 19th-century English painter and of the founders of the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood. His artistic brilliance captures with vivid colour and elaborate symbolism a message that radiates wonder within me, most notably, his painting of Christ the Light of the World. It has often been referred to as a sermon in a frame. It is one of the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance. It depicts Jesus, carrying a lantern knocking at a door with no handle on the outside. The door is overgrown with weeds, and the nails and hinges are rusted, implying that the door has never been opened. The message it portrays is that it’s up to the person on the other side of the door to let Jesus in.

In the introduction for the readings this week, we are reminded that God does not barge into our lives; he stands and waits at the gate and knocks. In the first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, we hear those words, “a voice cries, prepare in the wilderness a way for the Lord. Make a straight highway for our God across the desert.”

Advent is a time to prepare a way for the Lord. Yet to prepare the way, we have to do four significant tasks, we need to: be still, listen, learn, and know! Listening is probably the hardest. Yet, it’s the key to all effective communication. Without the ability to listen effectively, messages can get distorted, words can be spoken incorrectly, and as a result, we can become frustrated and irritated.

I return in wonder to my painting, and the book of Revelation comes alive to me. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.”

My prayer this Advent is that in our COVID-19 world, we will hear the Lord knocking at our door, and as a global family rediscover our soul.

Father Jim

The Feast of St Peter and St Paul reminds us of the energy and urgency of a rapidly growing Church that necessitated the human cooperation with the will of God.

Peter was the rock with the awesome responsibility of leading the Church. The fisherman was chosen from a humble background with the human weakness of denial, and the impulsive streak of spontaneity, yet chosen for the institutional foundation of leadership. “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church” (Matthew 16.18). The Lord builds his Church on the rock of a modest and unassuming man to elevate what is lowly and can be built and moulded into the newness of the Lord. Furthermore in the lucid and thorough description of the life of St Paul we are reminded of that gripping and monumental encounter of God’s riveting desire to stand with the” chaos of human behaviour and basically say in modern terms, WAKE UP! The urgent and humane conversation Jesus has with Saul (who becomes Paul) is the questioning conversation Jesus has with our world today. Saul! Saul!” the voice said “Why are you opposing me?” Words that hover around the world today, not “Saul Saul,“ but “World World why are you opposing me?”

Paul’s inner conversion is powerfully and explicitly revealed in today’s second reading to Timothy, “The Lord stood by me and gave me the power, so that through me the whole message might be proclaimed for all the pagans to hear; and so I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.” (2nd Letter to Timothy 4:6-18, 17-18).

Inner conversion is on-going because life is a continuously unfolding human experience.

In the words of Pope Francis, broadcast last Monday as part of the BBC Rethink Programme on the Today Programme, taken from a longer interview he gave to his biographer Austen Ivereigh, he challenges us to rethink poverty.

I quote from him.

“Every crisis contains both danger and opportunity. Today I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. We need to reconnect with our real surroundings. This is the opportunity for conversion.

I see early signs of an economy that is more human. But let us not lose our memory once all this is past, let us not file it away and go back to where we were. This is the time to take the decisive step, to move from using and misusing nature to contemplating it. We have lost the contemplative dimension; we have to get it back.

And speaking of contemplation, I’d like to dwell on one point.

This is the moment to see the poor. Jesus says we will have the poor with us always, and it’s true. They are a reality we cannot deny. But the poor are hidden, because poverty is bashful.

In Rome recently, in the midst of the quarantine, a policeman said to a man: “You can’t be on the street, go home.” The response was: “I have no home. I live in the street.”

There is such a large number of people who are on the margins. And we don’t see them, because poverty is bashful. They have become part of the landscape; they are things.”

End of quote.

The voice of the successor of St Peter challenges us all today. Let us be inspired by St Paul. Change is possible for everyone!

There are moments in life when things don’t turn out the way we thought. Sometimes we can face difficulty after difficulty. Often this happens in the unexpected places. Without a doubt they test us. Often related to relationships, our health, financial instability, growing old, or the death of a loved one. Maybe you have already experienced several of these? If not you will at least experience one!

In today’s first reading the prophet Jeremiah, one of the major prophets of the Old Testament, often referred to as the weeping prophet who lived probably between 650-570 BC, is faced with terror on every side. His ministry was active from 13th year of Josiah king of Judah 626 BC to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 587 BC.

He is tested by the difficulties of his life. All those who were on good terms with him watched his downfall. They wanted to get the better of him. They wanted to take revenge!

Yet in the midst of Jeremiah’s life there was a secret unfolding, a dual relationship between the secular and the spiritual; between emotion and the Higher Power; between his external experiences of people and the internal experience of God. The words of the Roman stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger, come to mind. “If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.”

Jeremiah refused to be defeated. In fact this was a moment of immense revelation for him. It was an inner discovery of the Divine in the midst of his life. It was a moment of a powerful awareness, of enormous significance; a flowing self-awareness of the presence of God where Jeremiah’s led into a deeper relationship with his God. He knew that Yahweh (the name of God by the ancient Hebrews) was with him. He knew that God was at his side like a mighty hero.

In the words of Richard Rohr “the mystery of presence is that the encounter wherein the self-disclosure of one evokes a deeper life in the other.”

Have you ever realised that your life is an unfolding spirituality? That your experience of your “being” is taking you into a deeper understanding of the Divine.

I know there will be many who can relate to Jeremiah’s story. Can you remember the staggering moment when you shuffled with emotional or physical pain? Or the time when you wept for whatever the reason? Or the time when you were blank because you did not know how to respond to the situation? Or the time you felt let down?

Like Jeremiah we have been there, at least with one of those times! Yet these are the times when we witness the spirituality of BEING. When we stand humbly before God! These are the moments when we are renewed with new insight but often it takes time for us to realise what God is revealing to us.

These are undoubtedly the moments when our faith is renewed!