Wednesday Reflection
Mid-week Reflection
26th January 2022
I don’t suppose many of you will have been to the Ordination of a Priest. One of the most touching and emotional moments is when the Ordinand lies prostrate before the altar during the singing of the Litany of the Saints. For a brief moment you are on your own. Family and friends disappear. Your fellow priests and even the Ordaining Bishop disappear. But as you hear the familiar liturgy, you cannot fail to feel the presence of the Saints: Dominic, Benedict, Thomas Aquinas, Peter and Paul. Mary Magdalen, Perpetua and Felicity. St Catherine of Siena, St Teresa of Avila. The list goes on and will include a few names of your most cherished personal Saints. I don’t know if it is still the case, but we were told that at their religious profession, Benedictines, as they lay prostrate, were covered by a funeral pall like the one draped over a coffin! Gruesome? Not at all. It was a symbol that you died to yourself and lived only for Christ. The Conversion of St. Paul, whose feast we celebrated yesterday, was a conversion from temple sacrifice to sacrifice for another. That is, a sacrifice not of animals, but of one’s whole self: body, soul and spirit. There is a link between conversion and mission. In the closing words of his Gospel, St Mark (in Monsignor Knox’s translation) writes, “Go out all over the world and preach the Gospel to the whole of creation.” That mandate is not given to priests by virtue of their Ordination but to all of us by virtue of our Baptism. How can you evangelise? Not necessarily by getting into the pulpit. There are many other ways. Being willing to share your Faith. Seizing an opportunity to reach out to those without Faith. Praying for a struggling or searching soul. Let me end with one example. Instead of saying to someone that they should get back to going to Mass now that the pandemic seems to be easing, say rather, “Why don’t you come to Mass with me?”
Monsignor Monaghan
