St Peter's Deanery

27/08/2021

https://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/retro/lancaster-church-marks-milestone-year-3356048

St Joseph’s RC Church will celebrate its 125th anniversary with an Autumn Festival organised alongside St Joseph’s RC Primary School, founded the same year

07/08/2021

31/07/2021

17/07/2021

A Sermon from Fr Anthony Keefe on this 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time:

16th Sunday 2021

Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34

When I still had roots in the parish in which I grew up, I would sometimes, when I was home, celebrate Mass in the parish primary school, where I noticed that they used a book of selected readings and prayers for various occasions and “themes”. Once, I offered Mass for the end of the school year: for this the book in question provided a truncated version of today’s Gospel, ending with the words “You must come away to some lonely place and rest for a while”.

I couldn’t help feeling that this played fast and loose with the meaning of Scripture, changing the whole import of Our Lord’s words, or at least of the context in which they were set. The implication was that the children and staff should enjoy a relaxing holiday, an admirable aspiration, but the complete opposite of what occurred in the Gospel.

The whole point of today’s Gospel is that Jesus and the disciples were thwarted in their quest for relaxation, as the people followed them, and He responded to their needs. He was the Good Shepherd all the time, even when officially “off duty”, and the combination of this passage with Jeremiah’s denunciation of the neglectful shepherds, points the way for any of us who have pastoral responsibility of any sort.

Who falls into that category? I would suggest that it includes priests, religious, members of the caring professions, parents, grandparents, Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. How often do you read of an off duty police officer or paramedic intervening in an emergency? When is the mother or father of a child ever off duty? What parent has not arisen several times in the night to attend to the needs of their children? What son or daughter of an elderly parent has not done the same?

There is always a slight tinge of dismay when the priest is awakened in the night by the shrilling of the phone, because it will almost certainly lead to a journey to the hospital or to the bedside of a dying parishioner, but there will also be gratitude that people still consider it important to send for the priest. And no mother or father seriously begrudges having to leave their bed to attend to the needs of their child.

For those who no longer have those responsibilities, or for whom it does not form part of their vocation, there is still an unceasing concern for the Church, the world, and creation. You are not called to permanent anxiety, but if all that you do is given to God, then you too will be exercising that pastoral concern which is wide enough and generous enough to embrace the whole world.

Whether as a religious, or as a lay person in the world, you may not always be conscious of that smell of the sheep with which the Holy Father has called us to live, but if you are living authentically in your own sphere of life, then through God’s grace the sheep will be benefitting.

So, are we never to relax, never to make holiday, never to indulge in pleasant activities? Far from it, for without such things we shall become stale, and our concern for the world will be something which we resent, or which we offer grudgingly. If we are constantly giving, with no heed for our own needs, our well will run dry, and we shall have nothing to offer.

GK Chesterton’s friend and fellow writer Hilaire Belloc penned the following lines:

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,

There’s always laughter and good red wine.

At least, I’ve always found it so.

Benedicamus Domino.”

But, while we are enjoying them, we must be prepared to put them aside, as Our Lord did, should the need arise.

16/07/2021

Government Roadmap From 19 July 2021, we enter Step 4 of the Government’s COVID-19 Response Roadmap The government has updated its response roadmap for the easing of COVID-19 restrictions to combat the virus. It states that each step in the roadmap will be guided by data not dates and the four tes...

12/07/2021

A Sermon from Fr Anthony Keefe on the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time:

15th Sunday 2021

Amos 7:12-15; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:7-13

By and large, the Second Reading at Mass tends to receive short shrift. The reason for this is obvious: we tend to focus on the Gospel, as being the most important reading, and the Old Testament reading, being chosen to link in with the Gospel, often features in the homily too. The Second Reading, by contrast, is something of a sore thumb. During Ordinary Time, it simply follows a New Testament Epistle week by week, with no particular relationship with the other readings, and so it finds itself something of an orphan.

Perhaps we can redress the balance a little this week by focusing on the Second Reading, which today takes the form of the first of seven weekly extracts from the Letter of St. Paul to the Church at Ephesus, a large seaport on the coast of Asia Minor, in what is now Turkey. Paul was the founder of that Church, and some scholars suggest tht the absence of a more intimate, personal tone may indicate that the letter was written, not by Paul himself, but by one of his followers, but that need not concern us here.

I would like to draw attention to some of the words and phrases of this extract, all of which emphasise God’s choice of us, and His love for us, a choice which He has made from all eternity.

The writer begins by underlining our blessedness: “who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.” We are blessed as a people, as members of the Church. Do you think of yourself as blessed, as having received gifts from God, especially spiritual gifts, which draw you closer to Him, and which you can use for the benefit of others?

“Before the world was made, He chose us, chose us in Christ.” God has chosen you from all eternity, has loved you with an everlasting love, has made you unique, infinitely precious to Him. Are you aware of being infinitely loved by God, uniquely precious in His sight?

“To be holy and spotless.” This is the root of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. By preserving Mary from all sin from the moment of her conception in her mother’s womb, God ensured that His intention should be fulfilled, His intention of creating a people holy and spotless. Mary already is what we are called and destined to be.

“And to live through love in His presence.” That is our ultimate aim, but we are already practising it. We are always in the presence of God. Are we always living through love?

“His adopted sons and daughters.” Jesus the Christ is the Son of God by nature: God’s intention is that we should share that same status by adoption. How often do you consider the immense love of God, who loves us with the same intensity, the Holy Spirit, with which He loves the only begotten Son?

“To make us praise the glory of His grace.” Our prayers, such as the Glory be to the Father... and the Gloria at Mass are expressions of praise. Do we always use those prayers in a genuine spirit of praise and thanksgiving?

“His free gift to us in the Beloved.” Grace is, by definition, free. We do not need to earn God’s love or God’s grace. He gives it to us freely and liberally.

“Through His blood, we gain our freedom.” That word “freedom” will recur towards the end of the reading. Do you find faith and life in Christ liberating or constricting? If the latter, there may be a need to re-examine some elements of your faith, and your life among God’s people.

“Claimed as God’s own.” The Royal Lancaster Regiment, now incorporated into the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, was known as the King’s Own, giving it a special relationship with the Crown. We, as God’s own, have a special relationship with God, in our belonging to Him.

“Stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit.” This was done at our baptism, and at our confirmation, where the formula is now “Be sealed with the Holy Spirit”. (And woe betide you, in the days of Bishop Brewer, if you did not respond “Amen”.) A seal is a mark of ownership: we are owned by God.

Choice, seal, freedom, adoption as sons and daughters: the whole tenor of this passage is one of encouragement. We are loved and chosen from all eternity: that should give us the confidence to live in loving service.

05/07/2021

A Sermon from Fr Anthony Keefe on the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time:

14th Sunday 2021

Ezekiel 2:2-5; 2Cor 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6

Many many moons ago, from the beginning of Advent 1982, until Holy Week 1983, I had a brief and inglorious career with the Catholic Missionary Society, conducting parish missions in various parts of England. A mission included eight hours a day of door knocking, ringing the doorbells of people whose addresses appeared on the parish census lists. It never took long in any parish to realise that these lists were hopelessly out of date, many people having moved or died, whilst many of those who were found were at best indifferent, at worst hostile.

Some priests revelled in the work. One of our number, a cheerful Irishman, on approaching a block of flats, would press all the buttons at once to see who might be unearthed. I, on the other hand, tended to press the bell very gently, count ten, and then high tail it away as fast as my legs would carry me.

To me, knocking on the doors of fifty total strangers a day was the nearest thing to hell that I could imagine. Indeed, one night, dreaming that I was to spend eternity doing parish missions, I woke myself up with a cry of dismay.

I mention this because, in the course of one mission, one of my colleagues found himself pondering Our Lord’s words from today’s Gospel: “He was amazed at their lack of faith”. I, meanwhile, had that question of Jesus’ constantly running through my head: “When the Son of Man comes, will He find any faith on earth?”

If that was the situation almost forty years ago, how much more difficult must it be today? Is Jesus still amazed at people’s lack of faith, and what can be done about it?

In all honesty, we need to admit that the Church hasn’t always done the cause of the Kingdom, and of Jesus, a lot of favours. The clergy sexual abuse scandal has caused, and continues to cause, an immense amount of harm. Then, in addition to these ghastly crimes which men knew that they were committing, there are the equally destructive horrors perpetrated by people who genuinely believed that they were doing God’s will, in the residential schools in Ireland and Canada and, we shall probably also learn, in the USA. Small wonder if people are saying “Well, if that’s the face of Christ, then He’s an ugly so-and-so, and I really don’t want to know Him”.

These dreadful events have, in recent years, overshadowed the good which the Church has done over the centuries, and continues to do, in the fields of health care, education, development, the feeding of the hungry, and the defence of the oppressed and the marginalised. It is very easy, but wrong, to conclude that the Church always does more harm than good, especially when a writer such as Hilary Mantel can make a great deal of money—and be given a damehood—by deliberately distorting history by making St. Thomas More into a torturer, and the torturer Thomas Cromwell into a hero chiefly, as she admits herself, to express her hatred of, and to damage the reputation of, the Church of her birth.

So, will Jesus still be amazed at people’s lack of faith, and, when He comes again, will He find any faith on earth? Perhaps more to the immediate point, what can be done to reawaken faith? There is constant talk of evangelisation, but nobody seems willing, or able, to explain what it means. There

was even a Decade of Evangelisation, which went down like the proverbial lead balloon. So what is to be done?

Perhaps we need to pay more heed to St. Paul’s words, in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, as he ponders his own shortcomings, weaknesses, struggles and failures, and concludes “It is when I am weak that I am strong”. We must remember also, again with St. Paul, that we are preaching a crucified Christ who will always be, to many, a folly and a stumbling block.

In other words, we must be a humble Church, deeply rooted in Christ, and showing to the world the true face of Christ. There must be no trace of arrogance or superiority, and we need to recall the words of Pope St. Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Nuntiandi”: “The modern world listens to witnesses rather than to teachers, and if it listens to teachers, it is because they are also witnesses”. Let us remember too that it is when we are weak that we are strong, and that success and failure are not always what they seem.

24/06/2021

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