To listen and to be heard

Yesterday I led two funeral services at the Crematorium "back to back", one after the other at 2.15 and 3 o'clock. Both were men well known to me from the parishes here. In particular, both were men that I had spent long times listening to, and therefore getting to know. It was gratifying to hear from those closest to both that they felt I had caught their essence, the hearts of who they were, especially as in both cases what was going on underneath was not always obvious on the surface.

What a privilege for us priests - and others of course - to have this possibility. To listen and to be listened to. We all need it so much, and, I believe, as much now as ever. A lot of communication going on, especially electronic, but how much real listening?  I hope all of us have those who listen to us, and those who are gifted as good listeners really use that precious gift.

As many will know I love my music - music of all sorts. However, when I was away in seminary in the midseventies I got a bit out of touch with the pop scene. Amazing, then, that I have just discovered "Rumours" the landmark album by Fleetwood Mac from 1977. I was aware that it was a huge hit and has remained on many lists as one of the all-time greats, but I just never gave it a listen. 

Well now I have, and down loaded the whole album. I love it. Tough and beautiful, rough and smooth - it's real and enriching. But what a  surprise to find that "Songbird" was written for this album. I knew the famous and beautiful version of Eva Cassidy and others but had no clue it was a Fleetwood Mac song, written by Christine McVie one of the members. I'm thinking I even prefer it to the Cassidy version as it has a slightly more gritty sound, as does the whole album, recorded at a difficult time in the lives of the members.

Anyway, here it is... so just listen to Christine McVie and a piano recorded in a concert hall in 1977... 

Of Roods and Foods - in memory of David McLees

Tomorrow I conduct the funeral of parishioner and friend David McLees. A man I spent hours with, sharing his journeys, spiritual and geographical. In more recent years we made several trips or "church crawls", including this one to the lost rural parts of Monmouthshire around Usk. Wonderful day, lovely guy. I originally posted this three years ago...

As it's the relatively quiet time of August - schools out, parishioners on holiday - I thought I might give the old blog a whirl.  Talking of August, I was really glad of the lovely weather today as I had arranged to go on a  small "church crawl" with a friend who is equally, if more knowledgeably, interested in old churches and cathedrals.

We set off for the Usk area of Monmouthshire, and first call was the tiny church of Bettws Newydd. Plain on the outside, nevertheless I fell in love with the place even before going in, as the path to the church passes under an absolutely enormous yew tree. Noone knows how old it is - 500 or 1,000 or even 2,000 years. A new trunk has grown up inside the old one which has decayed into fantastical shapes.

Once inside the church, the main reason for visiting spreads itself across the width of the church. A rood-screen complete from about 1500 except for the actual figures of the Crucifixion. The books say this makes it unique in Wales and England. The oak was dark, the air was still except for someone mowing the grass in the churchyard. The holiness hung in the air...

But soon it was time for food as well as roods. I was treated to lunch at The Hardwick, led by top chef Stephen Terry (below), it is one of Wales' top restaurants, outside Abergavenny  on the old A40 to Monmouth. Yum! I fancied pork belly and black pudding as per menu: "Deep Fried Pork Belly & Black Pudding, Pickled White Cabbage, Apple  Mustard Sauce" The waiter helpfully warned me not to expect a slab of meat and pile of black pudding. Instead these would be thinly layered and fried in a very thin sort of batter.  I went for it... helped by a glass of Rioja. Having skipped a starter I felt entitled to a dessert : "Valrhona Chocolate Mousse, Honeycombe ; Salted Caramel". Oooooh boy. Fr M approves big-time.

Time to get back to roods after foods. Somehow we found our way to nearby Llangwm Uchaf, lost down another country lane - possibly the reason why this and Bettws Newydd escaped the ravages of the Reformation. Not quite as captivating as Bettws Newydd in my opinion, nevertheless we were treated to more wonderful carving from that period when some historians would tell us that the Catholic Church was full of corruption etc.  There is nothing corrupt about these rood screens that have come down to us - beauty hidden down Monmouthshire country lanes. Take a look if you want a different day out.

Another year

Phew!   It's been hot hasn't it.  Bit of a breeze today anyway...  I don't know if it it was the heat yesterday evening, but I did this posting then and pressed the wrong key, which deleted the whole posting into the ether, and I couldn't find any way of getting it back.... so I gave up. And now I can't remember what is was about!

Anyway, tomorrow, the 27th, is a significant date for me as it's my birthday. When I look back over the years as a whole it seems to have flown by, but when I think of different events and especially different parishes in which I've served, it seems ages.  Sandfields (Port Talbot), Ely, the Docks, Ledbury, Canada, back to Ely, Penarth, Llanrumney and now here in St Brigid's, St Paul's and Christ the King. With, of course a heavy dose of Canon Law and other things along the way.

However, its all about people, isn't it? Same everywhere in many ways, but different too; those close to me - family of course, friends etc, and the thousands who cross the paths of us priests and who often know us priests better than we know them. People never cease to fascinate me. I love the Mediterranean thing of sitting in cafes and people-watching.And, of course, sustaining everything is the Big Boss up there, his Son who came and comes alongside us to rescue us and their Spirit working, working within us.

Thankyou Lord, thankyou everyone.
   

 

Birth of St John the Baptist

Tomorrow is the Solemnity (ie top rank feast) of the Birth of St John the Baptist, his main feastday. Besides Our Lady, he is the only saint to have his day of birth as a feast. As we know, his mother Elizabeth was already six months pregnant so the feast comes six months ahead of Christmas. Although the day with longest sunlight was the 21st June, traditionally it was the 24th that was celebrated as Midsummers Day. It was one of the four quarter days in the year too.

 

Talking of the past, in the Middle Ages especially, relics of saints and even Our Lady and Our Lord multiplied to an extraordinary degree. It seems there were at least three heads of St John the Baptist around. One was in the church of San Silvestro in Rome. The parish priest there when I was in seminary was a bit of a joker. If questioned about these three heads, which was the genuine one, was it his head of the saint, etc. he would say that his was when John the Baptist was a little younger!

So here's a painting by Mengs of the saint at his slightly scary best. Menwhile, we will be streaming Mass for the feast tomorrow at 7.30 in the evening.

A Blessing at Paray part 2

Further to my last post, I have decided to share my experience at Paray last September as part of my homily tomorow. This year every Sunday except tomorrow in June is a Feast day. So I thought I'd better get in something about the Sacred Heart before the month disappears. I'm going to build on what Fr Andy said at Mass on the Feast on Friday, and make it personal. 

Obviously as a priest and therefore preacher I am interested in how homilies "work". I think a common problem is that the content can be really good but somehow doesn't "land" in the heart - and therefore life - of the listener.  One way to help improve this is for the preacher to share something from experience. This is what we call witness, and Pope St Paul said that what we want is teachers who are witneeses or rather, witnesses who are teachers.

I'm thinking also of hosting a "virtual coffee" after the Mass, now that I know how to host on Zoom.  If I manage to get it organised I will give the details at the end of Mass.

 

Meanwhile, another picture from Paray-le-Monial, site of St Margert Mary's visions of the Sacred Heart. There was already a large church there, an offshoot of the nearby huge Abbey of Cluny and built in that style.  When the devotion to the Sacred Heart spread, the great church was rededicated to the Sacred Heart.

A Blessing at Paray

Tomorrow is the feast of the Sacred Heart, and Day of Prayer for Priests. My mind always goes to Paray-le-Monial in Burgundy, where St Margaret Mary experienced her visions in 1673-1675.

After a  26 year gap our September Pilgrimage stopped at Paray last year and we celebrated Mass at the Chapel of Apparitions (above). A strange thing happened as we were leaving... a little grace I would say.   By now my arthritis was making itself felt quite strongly, and I was feeling a bit down, trying to enjoy the pilgrimage and enable the folks to do likewise. By the end of Mass I was a bit achy and wanting to get some lunch with some of the group. As I left the sanctuary, shoulder bag in place, the sister sacristan called me back . She wanted to give me a prayer card (below) that she said they give to priests. Luckily I understand French, and there, where the Sacred Heart, sign of God's love, was shown forth, as I got to the last phrase I shed a tear as I was reminded what it's all about - "qui vous aime chacun" - who loves you each one. It was for me the blessing of the pilgrimage.

 For non-French speakers:

"To you, priests, the chosen of the Lord, 

who have come for a short while or for longer to rest on the heart of Jesus:

Be thanked for the exercise of your beautiful Ministry. 

Know that the Religious Communities, Sanctuaries and Parishioners of Paray 

will continue to take you in prayer to the Heart of Jesus, 

who loves you each one."

Good three-parter, not so good third series

We very much enjoyed watching over the last three evenings "The Salisbury Poisonings" on BBC1. I felt they got it just right, staying with the sad and painful moments but not in an oversentimental way. Very good acting, especially Anne-Marie Duff (left) as the Wiltshire Public Heath boss. Lovely resolution at the end as she and her family enjoy a meal together, intercut with Rafe Spall, playing the poisoned sergeant, and his family, also enjoying a meal. What could hve been overwhelming or overdone turned out moving and uplifting.

 
I also followed the third "Killing Eve" series that finished recently (not Fr Andy's cup of tea!).. But there I found my interest waning. It seemed they were sort of recycling not so kuch individual stories or themes but rather the whole approach if you like. The very things that struck you at the beginning were now getting a little bit passe.  Even Jodie Comer (right)  playing VIllanelle.

Blessings from Ireland, beauty from Cambridge

A while ago I posted a video of sung prayers over Britain, and there are many countries now doing something similar - gathering hundreds of people via Zoom or whatever to sing and pray for theircountry.  Really good, I think, is this one - Irish Blessing.

Also a lovely piece of music from my recent browsing is this from the choir of Trinity College Cambridge, singing a  Michel Legrand song.  Relax...

Corpus Christi

This weekend is the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ - the feast of the Eucharist itself.  I will be celebrating our live streamed Mass, as usual, at 10.30 on Sunday from St Brigid's.

The origins of the Feast go back to around 1200. A certain Juliana in Belgium was encouraging renewed devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and a Eucharistic Miracle is said to have taken place at Bolsena, north of Rome. Blood dripped onto the corporal, the altar cloth, which was then taken and enshrined in the local large town of Orvieto.  At around the same time the great St Thomas Aquinas, one of our outstanding theologians was also furthering devotion through his writings and hymns.

In Orvieto this all gave rise to a procession where the Sacred Corporal is paraded through the town amid great festivities and pageantry (picture of the beginning of the procession above, note the reliquary being carried through the cathedral doors). I myself took part in the procession in about 1976, bearing the reliquary with three other seminarians for a couple of hundred yards.  Afterwards we repaired to a convent in the town for lunch and as much of the local sweetish white wine as you wanted.  It was a happy day, and the coach back to Rome was strangely quiet, except for  a few snores.

And so the tradition of Corpus Christi processions came into being. Here in Cardiff, a private celebration of the Marquis of Bute in Cardiff Castle in the late nineteenth century was opened to the public and evolved into a huge event involving all the Catholic schools, which survived in some shape or form until 1995. Here is a picture of me with the late Fr Henneberry, parish priest ofSt Francis, Ely, Cardiff where I was assistant at the time, about 1980.

Zoom priests

Zoom. Don't you just love it? Zoom to the rescue in these difficult times. Having been involved in one or two Zoomed activities, yesterday I hosted a Zoom meeting for the first time - and it went well! For over 30 years I have belonged to a priests' group for prayer and support called the Fraternity of Priests.  There about six of us at the moment in the Cardoff diocese group, and we have been meeting every fortnight  - except for gaps at summer and Christmas - for all those years.  Members come and go, and I think I am the only remaining original member.  We meet alternate Wednesdays at 12 noon in each others' parishes. An hour prayer, an hour simple lunch and an hour sharing, ministry or dscussion.  Well I guess the thirty years show it has worked! 

So for the first time in those thirty years it has been interrupted. But Zoom to the rescue! Our

meeting yesterday was great. Some members live alone, some are over seventy etc. All are in need of company and human contact - because that's part of being human, isn't it? It was great to see the familiar faces, pray, smile and laugh together...   We broke of course for lunch. At the end we talked about whether we would leave it a week or a fortnight... but they wanted a week, so it's now next Wednesday. Priesty Zoom. Fantastic. 
PS this picture is not our group!
 

Children do Pentecost

We are blessed with a great parish primary school, Christ the King. This afternoon Helen Keegan, leader in RE, sent me this video of work done by the children, mostly on the theme of Pentecost. I think it's beautiful - so enjoy the Church of today, the hope of the future.

I'm told this video is hidden under the other columns on some computers. It can also be seen on my Facebook page "Matthew Jones"

Rome a century ago

I have a great love for Rome. I was there four years in seminary back in the 70s, and used the opportunity to give it a good going over!  Good enough to do some guiding when I was there, and some also on several September Pilgrimages since 1990. A few years back someone gave me, or I bought, I can't remember, a 1920s guide book. The date is important because Mussolini was already in power, but not so much yet with the, er, impact he had later. The English author, on the whole admires him, such that I wonder what he felt as the 20s moved into the thirties and towards the War...

It's also an interesting window on artistic and architectural fashions. He loves anything that is ancient Roman, is very fond of anything medieval, but absolutely despises the Baroque.  So not a very good city to do a guide-book then! Strange as this seems to me, a fan of Bernini and Borromini, the two great Roman Baroque architects, it makes you wonder what will be in fashion in a hundred years' time?  (Bernini's St Teresa Chapel in Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria left). It's similar to the Victorian taste in the UK - very out of fashion until recent times. Now Cardiff Castle, Castel Coch, works of Burgess, are looked on as masterpieces. Still it's always good to look through other people's eyes. 

Tucked in the back cover of the guidebook is a plan of Rome. It's a fraction of its present size, minus the wide roads like via dei Fori Imperiali and Via del Teatro di Marcello, that Mussolini drove through some of the narrow streets or the via Conciliazione leading up to St Peter's Square. In the 1920s it was still two narrow streets, Borgo Vecchio and Borgo Nuovo. (right, note St Peter's in background) Bernini's idea in planning the Piazza was for people to burst from these dark streets into the huge embrace of the light-filled square. Now we approach it in a  different spirit, seeing St Peter's at the end of the wide via Conciliazione, named after the agreeemnt that created Vatican City State in 1929.  But that was yet to come when my guide-book was written...

Must-See Films?

I came across a video calling itself "5 Must-See Catholic Movies" presented by an American Franciscan of some description.  At first I was a bit reluctant to investigate further, fearing the praise of sentimental devotional type pictures. But I was pleased to hear him also commenting that that was not what he was going to recommend. Instead, he goes on to present 5 very good films from the last few decades. I have seen four of them, and agree with most of his comments.

The films are:

1. DOUBT   Meryl Streep (above) as a nun leads an excellent cast as she clashes with the priest over individual issues which lead to deeper conflicts.

2. THE WAY   Martin Sheen leads this one as a dad following in his son's footsteps on the Camino, the pilgrimage way to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Watch him and the other pilgrims grow as they walk.

3. OF GODS AND MEN   The Trappist monks of Mt Atlas Monastery in Algeria get caught up in civil war. Will they stay or leave? Based on a true story and the monks are up for beatification, I think. The actors lived together for a good while before filming began, to get them really into community life.

4. CALVARY   The one I haven't yet seen, about a priest who is told by a penitent that he will kill him in one week.  A refreshing look at a good priest, mayb similar to TV's "Broken" - but I'll know when I see it.

5. THE MISSION  The presenter's favourite, winner of Cannes' highest award with Jeremy Irons (below) and Robert de Niro. Jesuits caught between Spaniards and Portuguese in South America. Filled with powerful stories, wonderful scenery and cinematography, and now well-known music. It's a stunner.

 

Knock 'em down... build 'em up

When I came to our 3 Churches in 2004 one of the first things I spotted was the Iorwerth Jones Home across Crystal Glen, in Trenchard Way. This was a care home and so we quickly made contact with them so that we could supply pastoral care, Holy Communion etc. It also was available for respite care, and so we kept in touch for that. 

After some years this care home (left) shut, and the building transferred to the NHS, where it would house some older former patients from Whitchurch Hospital. So again we had to establish relations there. Then it was judged no longer suitable, and Llandough was becoming the general centre for all such care. So now various other NHS bodies made their home there, including some admin from the Heath , and even a local podiatry clinic - which was great for me, just across the road!   However, this was not to last, as the site was eventually sold to the Council for development for housing. So that's what's happening now. We are experiencing the bangs and crashes of demolition. At 8 o'clock this morning it sounded like they were smashing hundreds of pains of glass - perhaps they were! 

Call me old (don't you dare) but it seems that more and more in Cardiff we are demolishing fairly new building to construct even newer ones. "No longer fit for purpose" seems to usually be the clarion call, and who am I to judge? While sometimes this is clearly the case, like schools and hospitals, but other times... maybe not...

As regards our city centre or "town" as we call it, I think on the whole a lot of the development has been good. But, and yes there a lot of "buts", where is the green - remember the bit that was where Admiral is now? And I gather the Motorpoint Arena, that ancient building is about to go, and its surroundings. Mind you, I was in charge of an event there in 1995 (the last Corpus Christi since you asked, but don't let's go there) and I have to say it felt a bit cheapo cheapo behind the scenes. 

So what am I saying? I dunno, it's all a bit confusing - but it's good to have a rant. However, think of older housing that could have been renovated instead of demolished.  I think it's just not always right to pull down a building just because it's just what someone wants.  

If in doubt, chuck it out

Like lots of people in this epidemic thing, I've been getting down to a bit of sorting out, tidying up and chucking out.  Anyone who has seen my office will say "About time too!" 

So in one drawer I found some tokens - Amazon, M &S etc but including National Book Tokens.  If you want to spend them online it has to be at one of three shops/sites - Foyles, Blackwells and Stanfords.  Luckily these particular tokens don't run out, unlike one or two others I found (woops!).  So I had some fun choosing what to get. A while ago I saw a lovely programme about the Young Rembrandt exhibition that was suppoed to be running at the Ashmolean in Oxford now, and which they hope will still happen later...  So I splashed out on the book that goes with it. Rembrandt is definitely in my top 5 artists, so I'm looking forward to it arriving (painting of his mother left).

Another of my weaknesses is maps and I went looking for an updated version of my Street Atlas of Glamorgan from 1995. There hasn't been one!   The maps were very detailed and have been of great help tracing exactly where various of my ancestors lived in the Vale and the Valleys. So instead I updated a religious book instead (you can see my priorities), my copy of "Morning and Evening Prayer" a shortened version of our breviary or Divine Office. It's what I use upstairs in the morning and at night - and it's showing its age. Luckily one shop had it in stock in a nice 2005 edition.  

So now I have to set up my office so it doesn't sink again under stuff. I need to swap my 2 computes around to get the newer one central and slowly wind down the old one. Though I have to admit having two is a nice luxury..  However, that will have to wait until tomorrow - or until I have anothe rush of blood to the head!