Gaol bird

I'm currently half way through a two week placement in a Young Offenders Institution in Co Durham. It's been a real eye opener and an experience that has been pleasantly surprising. Having seen films such as Sleepers and The Shawshank Redemption and TV programmes such as Bad Girls, I was expecting things to be quite grim and harsh. Whilst gaol is no holiday camp, the modern prison service does seem to be one that recognises the inherent human dignity of each prisoner and clearly intends to turn them into law abiding prisoners. I have been very impressed with the officers and staff that I have met - all of whom are decent people trying their best to do a decent job. Unfortunately, their work is often handicapped by the system, which doesn't always work in quite the way it's meant to. Not surprisingly, limited time and money is often an issue.

In this particular prison, the chaplain is highly regarded and the work of the chaplaincy is respected. Before this placement I'd never considered working in prison chaplaincy, and whilst I still feel that it is to parish ministry that I am primarily called, this area of work now feels like something I could think about.

New Bishop of Horsham

It was announced last week that the new bishop of Horsham will be Fr Mark Sowerby. I think most will agree that this is very good news!

Information on the Chichester website...

Walsingham

Last week I was fortunate to have been in Walsingham for four days on a college pilgrimage. We had some wonderful weather (and some not quite so wonderful). Below are a few pics from the week:

Nuns walking from the Slipper Chapel to the Anglican Shrine

The parish church

Inside the parish church

The high altar of the parish church

I shall be back in Walsingham in the summer for the Youth Pilgrimage - my first time (and I'm also on the Ministry Team) so I'm looking forward to it immensely.

Ascension Day Sermon

Readers may remember that it was on Ascension Day last year that I received the 'phone call from my bishop informing me that I had been recommended for training. It therefore felt quite fitting that it fell to me to preach at mattins this year (all students preach twice at college mattins during the year). See below for the text of my sermon:

+ in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Kylie Minogue once said: 'you'll never get to heaven, if you're scared of getting high'.

Believe it or not, these words were the first to come to mind when I knew that I would be preaching today.

Now, It's not that I consider the pop-princess to be a fount of theological wisdom or a guru with new insights– I shan't be crying 'kylie eleison' in future.

But it does seem to me that Kylie's words (however unintentionally) manage to express something of a popular mis-understanding of what the Ascension (and salvation more generally) is all about.

'you'll never get to heaven if you're scared of getting high'

We can quickly dismiss any notion that salvation is simply to do with emotional, mental or spiritual 'highs'. The catholic faith rejects any gnostic notion that salvation involves the soul's liberation from the body, or that enlightenment necessitates a detachment from Creation.

The Ascension shows us that the human flesh in which God was pleased to dwell now dwells in God. Our salvation is bodily. Our flesh can be holy because it has been sanctified by the Incarnation and is now perpetually offered by Christ at the altar of Heaven

In a culture where experience is everything, where the 'highs' brought about by sex, drugs and rock and roll rule , the temptation for the church is to replace these emotional highs with just another set – where worship and church-life offer nothing more than that which simply makes us feel good.

True liturgy is a participation in the worship of Heaven – in the sacrifice of the crucified Christ. True church entails an incorporation into his body – a body that though raised and glorified still bears the marks of his suffering.

Perhaps a better expression would be 'you'll never get to heaven if you're looking at the sky'.

Because, like the apostles, we sometimes need to be asked 'Why are you standing there, looking into the clouds?'. We, like them, continue to look for Jesus in the wrong places. We may no longer be mistaken into thinking that heaven is 'up there', but that doesn't stop us from keeping our heads in the clouds at times. Throughout history the church has been tempted to gaze heaven-wards, averting her eyes from the Christ who needs to be clothed, fed, and sheltered.

At 12 noon today Vincent Nichols will be installed as the 11th Archbishop of Westminster, and this should serve as a painful reminder of our failure, of the church's failure, to attend to the broken body of Christ in this nation. And here again we see the temptation to keep our heads in the clouds, because it's easier to concern ourselves with popes, archbishops and councils than it is to tend to the wounds that fester in the body of Christ in the places that God has set us.

In the Gospel, Luke tells us that when Christ had ascended, the apostles were filled with joy and worshipped . In just a few minutes we too will ascend upstairs, and will worship the risen and ascended Christ. Let us pray that the Christ whom we meet in the breaking of bread will open our eyes to the Christ who dwells in the places where we dare not look

Summer Placements

Over the summer vacation I'll be involved in two placements organised by college. Both of which are quite exciting and will provide two unique insights into ministry.

Firstly, I'll be spending two weeks in June/July at a Young Offenders Prison in Co. Durham. I'll be working with the chaplain who is himself a former Mirfield student. As I've never been inside a prison of any description I'm currently experiencing a mixture of excitement and apprehension...!

Then, in August, I'm off to South Africa to spend a month with a parish in the Diocese of Saldanha Bay. The diocese is to the north-west of Cape Town. Again, this is an exciting opportunity - all the more valuable as it will allow me to experience 'normal parish life' in a very different context to my own. The placement has been organised through Fr Nicolas CR (who has also attempted to teach me Greek..) and has been partly funded by USPG. Do have a look at the USPG website for more details about their work: here.

In the meantime, I continue to finish (or start...!) essays. Blah!

Is God Calling?

The answer is of course 'yes', but what is He calling you to? The Catholic Societies of the CofE are running another vocations conference for men considering a vocation to the priesthood. This time it's up here in Mirfield, hosted by the Community of the Resurrection.

Catholics need to remember that vocation is never a purely personal thing - God calls people through His Church. So if you know someone whom you think may have a vocaton - do something! Pray for them, talk to them and why not suggest that they attend a vocations conference?

Final Slog...

So, it's the final term and there's now less than a month to go until the end of academic(we break up on the 29th May). The sense of satisfaction that flows from having survived a year is tempered by the knowledge that there is still much to do (in an ever diminishing period of time!).

Last week students completed their 'self-assessments' and now wait with bated breath for their end of year reports. Penultimate year students (such as myself) also had to fill in forms about their preferences for their curacies (in terms of tradition, context etc). I personally found this to be both exciting and quite unnerving - as a two yer student you change from a 'first year' to a 'penultimate year' student very quickly. But anyway, I look forward to seeing what the diocese suggests in terms of title posts. I expect to be able to return to Manchester, but wouldn't be heart-broken if I had to be released (cue Humperdinck...)

S. George

Happy S. George's Day!

We marked the day at Mirfield with Solemn Mass at 7:30am followed by a cooked breakfast. Yum.