On a liturgical note

On the first and second Sundays of Lent, we have had the two gospels taken from Matthew’s account of the Temptation of Jesus and the Transfiguration of Jesus.

These are the themes of Lent’s first two Sundays every year of the three-year cycle: Jesus is tempted to make his ministry serve Him for his own comfort (‘Tell the stones to turn into loaves of bread’) on the first Sunday, and then is glimpsed by the Apostles Peter, James and John as the fulfillment and perfection of the Law and Prophets of the old covenant – as represented by Moses and Elijah talking to him on the mountain about His ‘passing’, His death and resurrection which was to take place at Jerusalem. Sacramentally and ritually, we commemorate and celebrate this ‘passing’ in the annual Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the great Vigil and First Mass of Easter on Holy Saturday.

This year we have the Gospel of Saint John to accompany us through the latter Sundays of Lent. They will speak to us of living water (third Sunday); restoration of true sight (fourth); and then the restoration of life for Lazarus (fifth). These are beautiful texts which accompany those who are preparing for Baptism

Sunday thoughts

Last week I had to have my dog Lottie put to sleep. She was 14, an old lady in dog years. She was a rescue dog, a Staffie cross. Lottie had a great temperament. She never barked. She was placid around strangers – both strange people and strange dogs. And she never pulled on her lead. She was my personal trainer, getting me up early each morning to take her for a walk. Lottie had aged. She was deaf, diagnosed with pancreatitis and dementia, and she didn’t want to walk anymore. Over Christmas and the New Year she deteriorated rapidly. It was time for her to go.

I got a dog as soon as I could when I was ordained. My first was Bran, a rescue terrier cross. I shared him with Father Paddy O’Sullivan, my parish priest at St Richard’s, Skelmersdale. I returned from Mass in a neighbouring church one Sunday morning to find Mary Dagnall, the housekeeper, in tears. Bran had got out on the road chasing another dog. He was killed. Paddy had buried him in the garden before I arrived home.

I had a number of dogs in South America. I inherited Chico, a beautiful German Shepherd from Fr Charlie Stanley when he returned to his home diocese of Boston. When visiting our many mountain churches on horseback, Chico would

Canon Philip Gillespie

at Easter – they speak of Jesus who relieves and fulfills our deepest yearnings, who enables us to see and recognise the actions of God in His world each and every day, and who gives us the renewal and perfection of life. For those of us already baptised – be it recently or some years ago – we are invited to walk alongside those preparing for their Baptism. We all need to be constantly renewed in the areas of our life highlighted in these Gospel passages, coming to Jesus who will quench our thirst and our longing for those things which are true and eternal, being able to perceive and gain insight into the actions of God in our daily living, and cherishing a life which is not mere existence but a full and loving response to the gifts we have received from God’s loving providence.

Therefore, these Sunday Gospels are shared with us as we gather for Mass so that we can reflect on them and then put them into practice, nourished by the ‘food for the journey’ which is Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. What is it to keep a good and true Lent? To grow and deepen in our knowledge, love and service.

Mgr John Devine OBE

follow me as far as the first river and then stand on the bank and howl as I splashed my way across. (My horse was called Volvo – but that’s another story.)

One year I returned from a break in England to hear that someone had poisoned Chico. He had been harassing their pigs. Chico was followed by a puppy, also called Chico. On leaving the mountains of Peru I passed him on to Fr Ed Gornall from Lancaster Diocese. On my arrival in Lima, another German Shepherd came with the job. By pure coincidence, his name was Bran. He had also a lovely temperament. Unfortunately, he got on to the road one night and was killed.

Returning from South America I was assigned to St Joseph’s, Upholland. The college was set in acres of grounds –perfect for my two German Shepherds, Bessie and Chico. Bessie was a one-man dog. She never let me out of her sight. She eventually became ill and had to be put to sleep. When the college closed one of the staff asked if they could take Chico home with them. I let him go.

People ask if dogs go to heaven. Saint Francis of Assisi would agree. He saw all animals as God’s creatures. I’d like to think all my dogs are in a happy place.

Open your eyes to see

I have been very blessed to meet Jimmy McGovern, the playwright, on several occasions.

He is a very humble, self-effacing man who sees that he is called to highlight very difficult situations. It was my encounter with him that led me to help write a Lenten series around his TV drama ‘Broken’.

In Lent 2019 we ran this series in a middleclass area. There were some people who got it immediately but there were others who felt that the scenes that Jimmy and his scriptwriters had written did not really show modern Britain. They were shocked when I told them that the stories were all based on factual incidents. They could not believe that in Britain today, those scenarios were a reality.

The whole series was a real challenge to open our eyes and see and, in many senses, this captures what Lent is all about. We are invited to open our half-shut eyes and see the presence of the risen Lord everywhere, even in difficult places and messy situations. That has to mean that we work on ourselves, taking times of silence where we face the attitudes within that stop us from seeing.

These periods of silence are an invitation to the spirit of God to transform us. Our times of fasting and abstinence are not just times when we observe our Lenten duty. They are experiences where we heighten our awareness of ourselves and the things within that we need to let go.

One of the main calls of the GospeI is to serve and I guess that, in order to serve, we have to open our eyes and really see. Two things have to happen. First, we have to face ourselves and let go of all that we hide behind that stops us seeing. Second, we have to put down our rose-tinted spectacles and see the world and its people as it is, and not as we want it to be. Anything else is a betrayal of the calling we are given – to live in our glorious, messy world as servants of the Good News.

Lent is a time the Church gives us each year to face ourselves, to journey, to deny, in order to see. Let’s pray for the courage this Lent to do what we have to do in order to open our eyes and see the presence of Christ everywhere and to serve Him, maybe even in the poorest of the poor.

Father Chris Thomas