On Sunday, we hear Jesus telling the crowd that He is the “Bread of Heaven” and that if they believe in Him and live as God asks they will have eternal life in Heaven.
As we gather, we thank God for our families and for this time we spend together in prayer. We do this today, knowing that God is
with us, helping us always especially when times are difficult.
Priest assaulted at St Mary's Cathedral
Yesterday morning (Monday 26 July) a priest sitting alone praying in a pew at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh was subject to a violent and unprovoked assault by a man carrying a glass bottle.
Just prior to the attack the man had asked him if he was a priest. When the priest replied that he was, the man attempted to hit him on the head with the bottle, before chasing him to the back of the cathedral.
The bottle broke on the ground and the man continued using it in his assault. The priest managed to fend him off with a chair before the attacker ran out of the Cathedral. The priest escaped without injury.
Anyone with information is urged to call Police Scotland on 101, quoting incident number 0823 of Monday 26 July.
Watch: Sunday Mass with Archbishop Cushley
Holy Mass for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, celebrated by Archbishop Leo Cushley. Recorded at St Bennet's Edinburgh.
Full screen mode: Click the play button, then click the square symbol on the bottom right of the screen.
Subtitles: In full screen mode, click the 'cc' symbol on bottom right of screen (generated by YouTube).
My Jesus,
I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
I love You above all things,
and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart.
I embrace You as if You were already there
and unite myself wholly to You.
Never permit me to be separated from You.
Amen.
Children's Liturgy at Home - Get ready for Sunday
Here's the Children's Liturgy at Home guide for this Sunday.
On Sunday we hear of a great miracle – how Jesus fed over 5000 people with only five loaves and two fish! As we gather, we thank God for our families and for this time we spend together in prayer. We do this today, knowing that God is with us, helping us always especially when times are difficult.
Covid-19: What can we do in churches at Level 0
Scotland has now moved to the lowest level of covid restrictions
What this means for Churches
We can move to one metre of physical distancing instead of two metres. That means most churches will be able to increase their capacity.
Congregational singing is allowed, albeit behind face coverings (singing is already allowed in Level 1 areas).
The maximum attendance at weddings and funerals will rise to 200.
Covid update.
From Monday 19 July:
▪️ One metre physical distancing replaces two metres.
▪️ Congregational singing is allowed, albeit behind face coverings (singing is already allowed in Level 1 areas).
Pope Francis' message for World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly
Catholics are encouraged to visit loved ones on Sunday as part of the first World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly.
Parishes are also invited to celebrate the role and contribution of older people in our communities and help deliver the message of Pope Francis to them.
Archbishop Cushley said: "For this first-ever World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly on Sunday, please consider making a visit to an elderly relative or neighbour, if safe to do so, to share the Holy Father’s message with them.
We pray for the elderly but also ask for their prayers; as Pope Francis tells them, 'Your prayer is a very precious resource: a deep breath that the Church and the world urgently need'.”
Pope Francis reads the message in the below video.
A visit to an older person living alone is one of the ways of obtaining a Plenary Indulgence granted on the occasion of this World Day.
In order for the message of closeness and consolation to reach everyone on this World Day we ask people to visit their grandparents and the elderly living alone in their community and to give them the Holy Father’s message.
A visit is a tangible sign of a Church of outreach. At a time of social distancing because of the pandemic, a visit shows that there is a way of being close to older people while still observing safety measures.
A visit is a personal choice to arise and go in haste to others (cf. Lk 1:39), just as Mary did when she visited her elderly cousin Elizabeth.
A visit is an opportunity for a grandchild to say to his or her grandparent and for a young person to say to an elderly person they are visiting, “I am with you always”.
A visit can be an opportunity to bring a gift, such as a flower, and to read the World Day prayer together.
In places where health emergency measures still make it impossible to visit in person, love can use imagination to find ways of reaching lonely elderly people by phone or social media.
The World Day message can be shared by posting pictures of visits on social media with the hashtag #IamWithYouAlways.
“I am with you always” (Mt 28:20): this is the promise the Lord made to his disciples before he ascended into heaven. They are the words that he repeats to you today, dear grandfathers and grandmothers, dear elderly friends. “I am with you always” are also the words that I, as Bishop of Rome and an elderly person like yourselves, would like to address to you on this first World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly. The whole Church is close to you – to us – and cares about you, loves you and does not want to leave you alone!
I am well aware that this Message comes to you at a difficult time: the pandemic swept down on us like an unexpected and furious storm; it has been a time of trial for everyone, but especially for us elderly persons. Many of us fell ill, others died or experienced the death of spouses or loved ones, while others found themselves isolated and alone for long periods.
The Lord is aware of all that we have been through in this time. He is close to those who felt isolated and alone, feelings that became more acute during the pandemic. Tradition has it that Saint Joachim, the grandfather of Jesus, felt estranged from those around him because he had no children; his life, like that of his wife Anne, was considered useless. So the Lord sent an angel to console him. While he mused sadly outside the city gates, a messenger from the Lord appeared to him and said, “Joachim, Joachim! The Lord has heard your insistent prayer”. Giotto, in one of his celebrated frescoes,[2] seems to set the scene at night, one of those many sleepless nights, filled with memories, worries and longings to which many of us have come to be accustomed.
Even at the darkest moments, as in these months of pandemic, the Lord continues to send angels to console our loneliness and to remind us: “I am with you always”. He says this to you, and he says it to me. That is the meaning of this Day, which I wanted to celebrate for the first time in this particular year, as a long period of isolation ends and social life slowly resumes. May every grandfather, every grandmother, every older person, especially those among us who are most alone, receive the visit of an angel!
At timeS those angels will have the face of our grandchildren, at others, the face of family members, lifelong friends or those we have come to know during these trying times, when we have learned how important hugs and visits are for each of us. How sad it makes me that in some places these are still not possible!
The Lord, however, also sends us messengers through his words, which are always at hand. Let us try to read a page of the Gospel every day, to pray with the psalms, to read the prophets! We will be comforted by the Lord's faithfulness. The Scriptures will also help us to understand what the Lord is asking of our lives today. For at every hour of the day (cf. Mt 20:1-16) and in every season of life, he continues to send labourers into his vineyard. I was called to become the Bishop of Rome when I had reached, so to speak, retirement age and thought I would not be doing anything new. The Lord is always – always – close to us. He is close to us with new possibilities, new ideas, new consolations, but always close to us. You know that the Lord is eternal; he never, ever goes into retirement
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Apostles, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (28:19-20). These words are also addressed to us today. They help us better understand that our vocation is to preserve our roots, to pass on the faith to the young, and to care for the little ones. Think about it: what is our vocation today, at our age? To preserve our roots, to pass on the faith to the young and to care for the little ones. Never forget this.
It makes no difference how old you are, whether you still work or not, whether you are alone or have a family, whether you became a grandmother or grandfather at a young age or later, whether you are still independent or need assistance. Because there is no retirement age from the work of proclaiming the Gospel and handing down traditions to your grandchildren. You just need to set out and undertake something new.
At this crucial moment in history, you have a renewed vocation. You may wonder: How this can be possible? My energy is running out and I don’t think I can do much. How can I begin to act differently when habit is so much a part of my life? How can I devote myself to those who are poor when I am already so concerned about my family? How can I broaden my vision when I can’t even leave the residence where I live? Isn’t my solitude already a sufficiently heavy burden? How many of you are asking just that question: isn’t my solitude already a sufficiently heavy burden?
Jesus himself heard a similar question from Nicodemus, who asked, “How can a man be born when he is old?” (Jn 3:4). It can happen, the Lord replies, if we open our hearts to the working of the Holy Spirit, who blows where he wills. The Holy Spirit whose freedom is such that goes wherever, and does whatever, he wills.
As I have often observed, we will not emerge from the present crisis as we were before, but either better or worse. And “God willing… this may prove not to be just another tragedy of history from which we learned nothing… If only we might keep in mind all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators... If only this immense sorrow may not prove useless, but enable us to take a step forward towards a new style of life. If only we might discover once for all that we need one another, and that in this way our human frailty can experience a rebirth”). No one is saved alone. We are all indebted to one another. We are all brothers and sisters.
Given this, I want to tell you that you are needed in order to help build, in fraternity and social friendship, the world of tomorrow: the world in which we, together with our children and grandchildren, will live once the storm has subsided. All of us must “take an active part in renewing and supporting our troubled societies”. Among the pillars that support this new edifice, there are three that you, better than anyone else, can help to set up. Those three pillars are dreams, memory and prayer. The Lord’s closeness will grant to all, even the frailest among us, the strength needed to embark on a new journey along the path of dreams, memory and prayer.
The prophet Joel once promised: “Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men will have visions” (3:1). The future of the world depends on this covenant between young and old. Who, if not the young, can take the dreams of the elderly and make them come true? Yet for this to happen, it is necessary that we continue to dream. Our dreams of justice, of peace, of solidarity can make it possible for our young people to have new visions; in this way, together, we can build the future. You need to show that it is possible to emerge renewed from an experience of hardship. I am sure that you have had more than one such experience: in your life you have faced any number of troubles and yet were able to pull through. Use those experiences to learn how to pull through now.
Dreams are thus intertwined with memory. I think of the painful memory of war, and its importance for helping the young to learn the value of peace. Those among you who experienced the suffering of war must pass on this message. Keeping memory alive is a true mission for every elderly person: keeping memory alive and sharing it with others.
Edith Bruck, who survived the horror of the Shoah, has said that “even illuminating a single conscience is worth the effort and pain of keeping alive the memory of what has been.” She went on to say: “For me, memory is life.” I also think of my own grandparents, and those among you who had to emigrate and know how hard it is to leave everything behind, as so many people continue to do today, in hope of a future. Some of those people may even now be at our side, caring for us.
These kinds of memory can help to build a more humane and welcoming world. Without memory, however, we will never be able to build; without a foundation, we can never build a house. Never. And the foundation of life is memory.
Finally, prayer. As my predecessor, Pope Benedict, himself a saintly elderly person who continues to pray and work for the Church, once said: “the prayer of the elderly can protect the world, helping it perhaps more effectively than the frenetic activity of many others.”[4] He spoke those words in 2012, towards the end of his pontificate.
There is something beautiful here. Your prayer is a very precious resource: a deep breath that the Church and the world urgently need. Especially in these difficult times for our human family, as we continue to sail in the same boat across the stormy sea of the pandemic, your intercession for the world and for the Church has great value: it inspires in everyone the serene trust that we will soon come to shore.
Dear grandmother, dear grandfather, dear elderly friends, in concluding this Message to you, I would also like to mention the example of Blessed (and soon Saint) Charles de Foucauld. He lived as a hermit in Algeria and there testified to “his desire to feel himself a brother to all” The story of his life shows how it is possible, even in the solitude of one’ s own desert, to intercede for the poor of the whole world and to become, in truth, a universal brother or sister.
I ask the Lord that, also through his example, all of us may open our hearts in sensitivity to the sufferings of the poor and intercede for their needs. May each of us learn to repeat to all, and especially to the young, the words of consolation we have heard spoken to us today: “I am with you always”! Keep moving forward! May the Lord grant you his blessing.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 31 May 2021, Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
FRANCIS
Click here to read the Holy Father's message on the Vatican website.
Apply now to study at the Gillis Centre in Edinburgh
St Mary's University will start teaching its master’s courses in Theology and Catholic Education this Autumn at the Gillis Centre in Edinburgh, and applications are now open
Students will study a taught postgraduate programme in Catholic Education, School Leadership or Theology.
St Mary’s, established in 1850, has a long history of academic excellence, and students will be able to access the same expertise throughout their studies.
We're delighted to announce that in partnership with @archedinburgh we will be teaching master’s courses in Theology and Catholic Education from this September in the Gillis Centre, Edinburgh??????? Find out more ?https://t.co/sNzLsrZjMCpic.twitter.com/ZWHjXtTVN2
Vice-Chancellor of St Mary’s University, Anthony McClaran, said, “After the unavoidable delay caused by Covid-19, we are pleased that we will be teaching our Theology and Education postgraduate courses in Edinburgh from September and we encourage people to apply now
"Our courses are open to students of all faiths and none, and our flexible programmes at the Gillis Centre will create new opportunities for mature students, teachers and others across central Scotland.”
Find out more
Apply NOW. The postgraduate part-time MA courses begin at the Strathearn Road campus from September.
Holy Father introduces limits on celebration of Tridentine Mass
After consulting the bishops throughout the world, Pope Francis has decided to modify the norms regulating the use of the 1962 missal granted 14 years ago by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, as the “extraordinary form of the Roman Rite”, writes the Vatican News.
The Pope has published the Motu proprioTraditionis custodes, dated 16 July 2021, regarding the use of the Roman liturgy prior to 1970.
It is accompanied by a letter in which he explains the reasons behind his decision. Here are the main points.
The responsibility to regulate the celebration of the pre-conciliar liturgy returns to the Bishop, as the moderator of the liturgical life of the diocese.
Masses celebrated according to the 1962 Missal are not to take place any longer in parishes. Bishops are to establish both the location(s) where and the days on which it will be celebrated.
Priests ordained after the publication of the Motu proprio who want to celebrate the pre-conciliar liturgy, “should submit a formal request to the diocesan Bishop who shall consult the Apostolic See before granting this authorization”.
In the letter accompanying the document, Pope Francis explains that the established concessions granted by his predecessors for the use of the 1692 Roman Missal were above all “motivated by the desire to foster the healing of the schism with the movement of Mons. Lefebvre”.
The request directed to the Bishops to generously welcome the “just aspirations” of the members of the faithful who request the use of this Missal was also motivated by “the ecclesial intention of restoring the unity of the Church”.
Pope Francis issues a motu proprio granting greater responsibilities to local Bishops regarding the use of the 1962 Roman Missal.https://t.co/CupyP0lUIc
Pope Francis observes that, “many in the Church came to regard this faculty as an opportunity to adopt freely the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and use it in a manner parallel to the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Paul VI”.
The Pope recalls that Pope Benedict XVI’s decision promulgated with the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007) was sustained by the “confidence that such a provision would not place in doubt one of the key measures of Vatican Council II or minimize in this way its authority”.
Fourteen years ago, Pope Benedict declared “unfounded the fear of division in parish communities, because ‘the two forms of the use of the Roman Rite would enrich one another’”.
However, the responses to the recent questionnaire circulated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith among the Bishops, Pope Francis writes, “reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene”.
Benedict’s desire to ensure unity, Pope Francis says, has “often been seriously disregarded”, and the concessions offered with largesse have instead been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division”.
The Pope said he is “saddened by abuses in the celebration of the liturgy on all sides”.
In addition, he deplores the fact that the “instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church’ ”.
To doubt the Council, Pope Francis explains, “is to doubt the intentions of those very Fathers who exercised their collegial power in a solemn manner cum Petro et sub Petro in an ecumenical council, and, in the final analysis, to doubt the Holy Spirit himself who guides the Church”.
This is the final reason Pope Francis gives for his decision to modify the past concessions:
“Ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican Council II and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the “true Church.” One is dealing here with comportment that contradicts communion and nurtures the divisive tendency — ‘I belong to Paul; I belong instead to Apollo; I belong to Cephas; I belong to Christ’ — against which the Apostle Paul so vigorously reacted (1 Cor 1:12-13). In defense of the unity of the Body of Christ, I am constrained to revoke the faculty granted by my Predecessors”.
NB This decree of the Holy Father does not affect the celebration of the post-Vatican II Mass of St Paul VI in Latin or the use of the Latin language in liturgical music in a Mass celebrated in English.
To read the unabridged Vatican News article, please click here.
Watch: Sunday Mass with Archbishop Cushley
Holy Mass for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, celebrated by Archbishop Leo Cushley. Recorded at St Bennet's Edinburgh.
Full screen mode: Click the play button, then click the square symbol on the bottom right of the screen.
Subtitles: In full screen mode, click the 'cc' symbol on bottom right of screen (generated by YouTube).
My Jesus,
I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
I love You above all things,
and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart.
I embrace You as if You were already there
and unite myself wholly to You.
Never permit me to be separated from You.
Amen.
Pilgrim priest supported by pals in Archdiocese!
Fr Jim Walls, Spiritual Director at the Scots College in Rome, is expected to complete a 290 mile fundraising pilgrimage from Iona to Lindisfarne tomorrow (Friday 16 July).
And he's been getting a little help from his brother priests as his route takes him through our Archdiocese.
Fr Jock Dalrymple of St John's & St Mary Magdalene's, has joined Fr Jim Walls @ScotsCollegeIT on part of his 290 mile Iona-Lindisfarne pilgrimage. Fr Jim smashed his £10,000 target for St Maria Skobstova House of Hospitality for Refugees in Calais. ?https://t.co/HlaUmqZXIopic.twitter.com/n2vJeGx2ot
— Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh (@archedinburgh) July 15, 2021
He was joined on day 18 and 19 of his adventure by Fr Jock Dalrymple (main pic, top left), parish priest at St John's and St Mary Magdelene's in Edinburgh.
On Day 17, during his trek from Innerleithen to Melrose (17 miles) he enjoyed "excellent hospitality" courtesy of Fr Tony Lappin of St Joseph's Parish in Melrose (main pic, bottom right).
And on day 13 he visited St Theresa’s Church on the East Calder to West Linton route (11 miles), thanking Frs Kenneth Owens and Peter Krakowiak for their "exceptional hospitality" (main pic, top right).
Purpose
Fr Jim, a priest of Dunkeld Diocese, is undertaking the feat on foot in solidarity with vulnerable people who flee their homes and suffer in Europe and the UK whilst seeking sanctuary.
He has been offering Mass in parishes along the way for the spiritual support of refugees and raising sponsorship for the Catholic Workers House in Calais. Fr Jim became passionate about this project seeing the plight of refugees in ‘the Jungle’ at Calais during a visit to the site.
He has smashed his fundraising target of £10,000 having reached over £13,000.
Speaking of the support and hospitality he has received during the pilgrimage, he said: "May all migrants receive such a hearty welcome and warm encouragement. I ask people to pray for migrants on the UK border who are looking for safe refuge."
Make a donation on Fr Jim’s sponsorship page, here.