The Christian Heritage Centre

The Christian Heritage Centre

Theodore House

Menu
EVENTS

Author: stefan

Categories
Blog Media

Venerable Francis-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan

29 October 2024

The CHC blog

Ven. Francis-Xavier Van Thuan | The Year of Prayer

By Joey Belleza, PhD (Cantab.)

Francis-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan’s story is one of remarkable perseverance under severe anti-Christian repression. Ordained a bishop in 1967, he was arrested after the fall of Saigon in 1975, being imprisoned in a Communist re-education camp for thirteen years, nine of which were spent in solitary confinement. He never reached the post appointed to him by Pope Paul VI—the important Diocese of Saigon—and upon his release in 1988, he remained under house arrest in Hanoi. In 1991, he was allowed to visit Rome, but never to return to Vietnam. Bishop Van Thuan served Pope John Paul II in various capacities in the Roman Curia before being named a cardinal in February 2001. He died in Rome of cancer on 16 September 2002, and declared Venerable by Pope Francis in May 2017.

One who has undergone harsh imprisonment, torture, and solitary confinement for over a decade, as did Cardinal Van Thuan, would be well tempted to lose faith. And yet, he remained steadfast to God, adopting “ten rules of life” which fostered his perseverance even in the most difficult of times. We cannot hear review all ten rules, but in the context of the Year of Prayer, the Cardinal’s third rule is especially fitting: “I will hold firmly to one secret: prayer.” Yet what exactly did he pray? The Cardinal tells us:

I prayed with the word of God, the Psalms. I said the prayers I had recited in the family chapel every evening when I was a child. The liturgical songs came back to me. I often sang the Veni Creator, the hymns of the martyrs, the Sanctorum Meritis, the Credo… To truly appreciate those beautiful prayers, it is necessary to have experienced the darkness of incarceration, conscious of the fact that your suffering is offered for faithfulness to the Church.

Cardinal Van Thuan drew strength from his memories of the liturgy, singing the Psalms, the Creed, and even some of the great medieval Latin hymns whose use, unfortunately, has been eclipsed in most of the Church. His recourse to the great ninth century hymn Sanctorum Meritis places him in the company of another great saint who endured an unjust imprisonment—Thomas Aquinas—who used Sanctorum Meritis as an inspiration for one of his own Eucharistic hymns, Sacris Solemniis.

Cardinal Van Thuan is perhaps most famous for finding ways to celebrate Mass in prison (when not in solitary confinement). With the aid of other Catholic faithful outside the prison, as well as through the sympathy of his guards (some of whom later converted), he acquired small quantities of bread and wine. In his words:

I wrote home saying ‘Send me some wine as medication for stomach pains’. On the outside, the faithful understood what I meant. They sent me a little bottle of Mass wine, with a label reading ‘medication for stomach pains,’ as well as some hosts broken into small pieces. The police asked me: ‘Do you have pains in your stomach?’ ‘Yes’ ‘Here is some medicine for you!’ I will never be able to express the joy that was mine: each day, three drops of wine, a drop of water in the palm of my hand. I celebrated my Mass… At nine-thirty every evening at lights out everyone had to be lying down. I bent over my wooden board and celebrated Mass, by heart of course, and distributed Communion to my neighbours under their mosquito nets.

Not only did the cardinal draw strength from the prayers of the liturgy—he continued to draw strength from the source of the liturgy—Christ himself. If we are at times tempted to discard the rote prayers given to us by the Church, as if they would be less meaningful than something new or spontaneous, let us follow the example of Cardinal Van Thuan, who, in the most dire circumstances, found the in stable prayers of the Church a link to the unshakeable faith of the confessors and martyrs. With him, may the Church sing the words of that venerable hymn:

Sing, O Sons of the Church sounding the Martyrs’ praise!
God’s true soldiers applaud, who, in their weary days,
Won bright trophies of good, glad be the voice ye raise,
While these heroes of Christ ye sing!

Sanctorum meritis inclyta gaudia
pangamus socii, gestaque fortia:
gliscens fert animus promere cantibus
victorum genus optimum.

Categories
Blog Media

Maria Goretti

15 October 2024

The CHC blog

Saint Maria Goretti | The Year of Prayer

By Joey Belleza, PhD (Cantab.)

Prayer is ordered not only to our own personal good, but for the good of our neighbours. For this reason, the central part of Mass has the people ask that the sacrifice might be made acceptable to God “for our good and the good of all his holy Church.” The graces which flow from the Mass can extend to all people, and are meant to bring everyone, from the holiest saint to the most unrepentant sinner, into communion with God. The story of Saint Maria Goretti is a most remarkable example of how the effects of prayer can extend to even one who, in one moment in life, might have been seen as an enemy of Christ and his Gospel.

The third of seven children, Maria was devoutly dedicated to the Lord, living with her family in impoverished conditions. When she was nine, her father died, forcing the family to live in a shared house with the Serenelli family. On 5 July 1902, one of the Serenelli sons, the troubled nineteen year old Alessandro, took a lustful liking to the young Maria. In a moment when they were alone at the house, Alessandro threatened to stab Maria if she did not submit to his advances. She refused, warning Alessandro of his mortal sin. Still, the young man persisted, attempting to force himself on her, choking her as she resisted with all her might. Finally, in a fit of rage, Alessandro stabbed Maria fourteen times. Maria, gravely wounded, reached for the door, but Alessandro stabbed her three more times.

Maria was rushed to the hospital and Alessandro was arrested. She survived incredibly for a day, with the surgeons amazed that she had not succumbed to so many wounds to her heart and lungs. However, her resistance was only temporary. She breathed her last on 6 July, but not before pronouncing, “I forgive Alessandro Serenelli, and I want him with me in heaven forever.”

Instead of a life sentence, the court imposed a thirty year sentence, acknowledging Alessandro’s harsh upbringing and consequent mental illness. He was unrepentant for three years, until a bishop visited him. After this visit, he wrote to the bishop, saying how Maria appeared to him in a dream, in which she gave him white lilies which burned in his hand. From that day, Alessandro repented of the murder. He was released after twenty-seven years, whereupon he immediately sought out Maria’s mother and begged her forgiveness. She responded, “If my daughter can forgive him, who am I to withhold forgiveness?”

In 1947, Pius XII beatified Maria, and after a rapid canonization process, raised her to the altars in 1950. Her canonization Mass is remarkable in that not only the parents of the martyr were present, but also her murderer. Alessandro Serenelli, now a lay brother of the Capuchin Franciscans, joined the throng of Christian faithful praising God for the gift of Maria’s example.

Christ taught us to love our enemies, and Maria Goretti followed this commandment perfectly. May we also pray for those who wrong us, that they too might return to the loving embrace of God.

St Pio of Pietrelcina
Year of Prayer - Home
Categories
Articles Media

CLF: a week of prayer, study and friendship for teens

Sunday 22nd September 2024

CLF: a week of prayer, study and friendship for teens

Stefan Kaminski

It was with both excitement and a dash of trepidation that I awaited the arrival of our second cohort of students, counting off yet again a mental list of to-dos and anxiously searching for some overlooked item of potentially life-threatening bureaucracy. At the back of my mind was the temptation to compare the incoming assembly of teenage faces to the first and original cohort, who inevitably have thus far held a special place in my memory as the personification of our Christian Leadership Formation programme.

The memories of the first group appeared to take on an even rosier tinge as I anxiously scanned the awkward interactions during the first ice-breaker. Small groups had coalesced, and appeared to be politely resisting my gentle suggestions that any one person’s correct partner (as determined by the random stickers on their forehead denoting one of a pairing of foodstuffs) was yet to be discovered elsewhere. Furthermore, beyond the natural diversity to be found amongst a random sampling of Catholic, sixth-form students from around England, additional variety was provided by having opened up this year’s programme to year 13 students too, and by the admission of two young ladies hailing from France, bringing a dash of je ne sais quoi to the mix.

A need for peer support

A reassuring sense of the consistency of both Western society and human nature rapidly returned, however, when we asked the assembled students about their expectations for the course. Southerners and northerners, Englishmen and Frenchwomen alike, all had similar preoccupations: they wanted to meet like-minded, Catholic young people, and they wanted to understand more concretely how their faith was applicable to the secular world of work that they were preparing to enter.

CLF
The 2024 CLF cohort under the statue of Our Lady at the top of the Stonyhurst avenue

Whilst neither of these should have come as a great surprise, I nonetheless found it striking to hear the students admitting to their relative loneliness as practicing Catholics, given that they were all coming from Catholic educational settings. The positive surprise, in this respect, is that the students were actively conscious of the lack of peer-support in their faith and had a yearning for it.

The importance of this ‘community’ dimension for faith formation is perhaps hard to overestimate. It takes great courage and conviction to swim against the tide, and even the most resilient and intellectually-grounded of young people will feel the pressure of mass religious incredulity. Providing something of an antidote to this – an actively faith-filled and intelligent environment for the students to immerse themselves in (or, “a properly ‘Catholic’ environment”, as one student put it) – was precisely part of the vision for our Christian Leadership Formation programme.

“I feel much more secure in my faith now, even if only from knowing that there are other young people like me in the world”

Thus, and despite my initial apprehensions, it was deeply gratifying to see the initial barriers break down and a real cohesion built on mutual respect and friendship develop over the days that followed. And the feedback the students provided bore ample testimony to this. One young lady noted how she felt “much more secure in my faith now, even if only from knowing that there are other young people like me in the world.” Boniface, a year 12 student, praised “the experience of living, praying and studying as a community”, seeing as one of its fruits the fact that “everybody… started the week as total strangers and ended as friends”.

Coordination and communication are required to build a tower, whilst tied together at the hands!

Community builds culture

This community dimension – the integration of prayer, of study and of recreation with wholesome, interpersonal relationships – is essential to any formative experience, whether the family home, the school community, a seminary or religious community, or a short programme like ours. And it is intrinsically related to the second concern the students brought with them: that of understanding the practical relevance of our Catholic faith in today’s world.

We have arguably reached a point where Christianity is now totally absent as the principal point of reference for our society’s collective imaginative vision. The intellectual framework of the modern mind is completely decoupled from its Christian foundations: from the conception of the very basic act of knowledge, through to that of the universal reality, both material and spiritual (assuming that one admits of the latter in the first place). It is thus difficult, if not impossible, for many young people (and indeed adults) to see a practical interaction between their ‘private’ faith and public life, as the two are constituted by imaginative paradigms that have very different points of reference.

The challenge for any formation project, then, is to create an environment that actively ‘speaks’ of the Christian vision and imaginative process in all its fullness. Such an environment should be able to promote a holistic engagement of heart and mind with the Catholic faith. An email from Rafael, one of this year’s cohort, straight after the first module, seemed to confirm that we had achieved something along precisely these lines: “I have relished the opportunity to consider big and challenging questions, and have done a lot of soul searching. But now, as the week ends, I find myself with greater clarity and stronger convictions.”

Rediscovering the intelligence of Christianity

Thus, the intention behind the academic content of the week’s course – led by the hugely experienced lecturer and highly-regarded philosopher, Dr Andrew Beards – was to offer the students a thorough and coherent, philosophical and theological grounding for those concepts that underpin our understanding of the common good; concepts that were fully refined in the light of Christian revelation and thought, but have since become meaningless in a de-Christianised (and dare I say de-rationalised) world. “Exploring topics like dignity, law, and human rights in a Christian light and comparing them to inconclusive secular views helped shed light on the logic of Christian thought”, said 18-year-old Maia.

At the heart of this exploration is the recognition that all people “have an innate desire to ‘seek the truth and act accordingly,’” as Qiyi, a year 12 student, put it. It is the rationality afforded by our spiritual nature, which leads us to search for knowledge and understanding, that is at the heart of what it means to be human, and is essential ground for the dignity that we claim for our species. 

One group of students works on a task, preparing speaking notes for a student union debate

Recognising this primary truth, and the objectivity that is inherent to this claim, is that which provides a foundation for building up a society where “true justice is rooted in love, truth and the common good”, in the words of another year 12 student, Santiago.

The theme of justice was central to the week, as the students explored its practical application in a number of scenarios, whether preparing for a student union debate on the abortion of unborn children with Down’s Syndrome or analysing a legal case relating to a terminally-ill patient. What the students readily saw from these exercises was that for justice to truly flourish, our understanding of human life and of that which is proper to its flourishing requires solid ground. Rafael summed this up as follows: “Human Rights are principles agreed upon by a body of people representing society, they can be said to be in the service of preserving human dignity, but this can only be guaranteed if they are rooted in Natural Law”.

Engaging with others and engaging with Christ

The heavy lifting of the week’s academic content was given welcome relief by a generously-spaced timetable, which allowed not only for the students’ own recreation, but also some organised fun in the shape of various, and slightly zany, team-building activities. Communication and the harnessing of collective skills were the general objectives, but plenty of hilarity ensued as teams competed for points over the course of the week. The timetable was rounded out by the sparkling input of Georgia Clarke, who delivered a thoroughly-engaging series workshops in media and public speaking, which culminated in a mock interview at the week’s end.

Georgia Clarke puts one of the students through his paces in a mock interview

Evenings were also an opportunity for relaxation and socials, with a dinner at one of our characterful local pubs a part of the schedule, alongside a pizza and film night. The discussion that followed the screening of “Eye in the Sky” took on an unexpected quality as the previous, U.S. Army career of the CHC’s second member of staff, Dr Joey Belleza, was revealed, and the group benefitted from some rather fascinating insights into the military realities portrayed in the film!

We were privileged to have one of the last evenings in the company of Lord Alton, who came to speak to the students, and engage with them over a dinner and discussion. His keynote speech providentially drew together many of the strands of the preceding days’ discussions as he showed the students how his Catholic faith had served as a lodestar throughout his political career and how the concepts that they were studying were so critical in enabling a truly flourishing society. For many of the students, this was a powerful, first testimony to the positive role that our faith has to play even in today’s society.

I have perhaps deliberately left till last what is the most important element of the programme, that which gives meaning to and draws all the above together into a cohesive whole: the life of prayer. Although the practical focus of the programme often, inevitably, ends up on the academic content – advertising the topics, flagging the academic benefits, noting the societal import of such weighty matters – I am always most struck by the lesser-seen impact of the liturgical rhythm of the course. This only really reveals itself after the event, once the students have sent in their written evaluations at a week or two’s distance. The experience of daily Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, and regular opportunities for Eucharistic Adoration and meditation, is one that is generally new to most students. The impact that this has, however, is clearly marked. From bringing them “a sense of order and discipline… [and] closer to God”, to seeing “productivity, enjoyment and work output improved”, the practically- and spiritually-essential nature of prayer and of the Church’s sacramental rites hit home in tangible ways, and sent the students away with a renewed sense of commitment to coming to know and love their saviour, Jesus Christ. If this was the only outcome of the programme, I would say it was all worthwhile!

To donate towards the cost of this programme, please use the link below:
Categories
Blog Media

Padre Pio

01 October 2024

The CHC blog

Saint Pio of Pietrelcina | The Year of Prayer

By Joey Belleza, PhD (Cantab.)

Saint Pio of Pietrelcina is one of the great prophetic voices of the twentieth century, with great insight into the spiritual problems of the individuals who came to him for advice, as well those of the world at large. He once lamented that “today’s society does not pray. That is why it is falling apart.” Living in an age marked by the most destructive wars in human history and the great crises of secularization that followed, Pio was astutely aware that a world alienated from God was caused by a deep spiritual malaise among peoples, which allowed the forces of evil to take root in modern societies. But he also identified a solution to the problem, a solution that must be taken to heart by individuals who might heroically lead society back to the embrace of the merciful Saviour: “Prayer is the best weapon we possess, the key that opens the heart of God.” In classic Capuchin Franciscan fashion, he encourages us to unite our spiritual turmoil to the sufferings of Christ crucified.

 

Pray that God will console you when you feel the burden of the Cross, for in doing so you are in no way acting against the will of God, but you are placing yourself beside the Son of God who asked His Father during the Agony in the Garden to send Him some relief. But if He is not willing to give it be ready to pronounce the same ‘Fiat,’ ‘So be it,’ that Jesus did.

 

Of course, conformity to Christ’s sufferings on Calvary is granted most perfectly through the celebration of the Eucharist, and unsurprisingly, the Mass holds a central place in Padre Pio’s prayer life. “It would be easier for the world to exist,” he says, “without the sun than without the Holy Mass.” He was also an ardent advocate of Eucharistic adoration, saying that “one thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.” Therefore, he exhorts us:

 

Kneel down and render the tribute of your presence and devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Confide all your needs to him, along with those of others. Speak to him with filial abandonment, give free rein to your heart, and give him complete freedom to work in you as he thinks best.

May we visit Christ in the Blessed Sacrament often as Padre Pio did, uniting ourselves with the Passion of Christ, that we too might share the glory of the Resurrection.

St Therese of Lisieux
Year of Prayer - Home
St Maria Goretti
Categories
Blog Media

Therese of Lisieux

18 September 2024

The CHC blog

Saint Therese of Lisieux | The Year of Prayer

By Joey Belleza, PhD (Cantab.)

Maintaining a consistent prayer life is often difficult, requiring the discipline that Saint Teresa of Avila mentions throughout her autobiography. The ascent to true union with God, as Teresa and Bonaventure have shown us, is often plagued by the distractions of daily life, to the point that we might even fall out of the habit of prayer. Starting again from zero, as it were further hinders our growth in virtue, and the task of entering into that discipline again can be discouraging. One saint who understood this struggle well was a latter day French disciple of Saint Teresa—Saint Therese of Lisieux, also known as Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, or simply “the Little Flower.”

Saint Therese of Lisieux is rare among the Doctors of the Church, in that she died very young (at the age of 24) and that she therefore did not enjoy the elite formal education of the others. And yet, by numbering her among the Doctors, the Church extols her example of simple faith and simple wisdom as having a spiritual and intellectual value comparable to that of other great teachers like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Teresa.

“Sometimes when I am in such a state of spiritual dryness that not a single good thought occurs to me,” Therese write, “I say very slowly the ‘Our Father,’ or the ‘Hail Mary,’ and these prayers suffice to take me out of myself.”

“I take refuge, then, in prayer, and turn to Mary, and our Lord always triumphs.”

This is the essence of her “Little Way,” that is, her simple way of uniting herself daily to Christ though humble acts of prayer and devotion. And while the breadth and complexity of the liturgy is proposed to us by the Church as a maximal and most secure means of receiving the graces of Christ, the extra-liturgical modes of conformity to Christ are also necessary for the life of faith.

“For me, prayer is a burst from my heart, it is a simple glance thrown toward heaven, a cry of thanksgiving and love in times of trial as well as in times of joy… Frequently, only silence can express my prayer.” Even the silence of our hearts can express our longing for God, our utter dependence on him. Thus, with many modes of prayer at our disposal, she exhorts us: “Let us not grow tired of prayer: confidence works miracles.”

Saint Therese, in her simplicity, has rightly taken her place among the great Doctors of the Church. And yet, as Thomas and Bonaventure stood on the shoulders of Aristotle, Saint Therese stood on the example of Archimedes when she said: “Our fulcrum is God; our lever, prayer; prayer which burns with love. With that we can lift the world!” Let us take heart from the humble example of Saint Therese, who faced moments of spiritual dryness not with despair, but with humble recourse to the prayers which Christ and his Church have given us.

St Bonaventure, Part 4
Year of Prayer - Home
St Pio of Pietrelcina
Categories
Courses Events

Marriage Preparation 2025

Marriage preparation

Marriage Preparation

2025 Courses

“It is necessary to make preparatory programmes for the Sacrament of Marriage ever more effective, not only for human growth, but above all for the faith of the engaged couples. The fundamental objective of this encounter is to help engaged couples realise a progressive integration into the mystery of Christ, in the Church and with the Church.” (Pope Francis, Address to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, 21 January 2017)

About CHC Marriage Preparation courses

Our courses meet the requirements for preparation for the Sacrament of Matrimony in the Catholic Church.

They have been specifically designed to offer couples a presentation of fundamental, underlying themes as well as of the Sacrament of Marriage itself, according to the theological vision of the Catholic Church. Intrinsic to this presentation is an emphasis on personal integrity and honest communication as a couple, founded on the primary relationship with God.

Our events take place at Theodore House, set on the stunning Stonyhurst estate in the Ribble Valley.

Our Director, Stefan Kaminski, and his wife, Eleonora, both have Licentiates from the John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and Family Life, having dedicated their studies to the themes of human love and sexual complementarity. Stefan serves as Director of The Christian Heritage Centre, where he has been creating and delivering Catholic formation content for the last five years. Ella previously worked at the John Paul II Institute in Rome, before joining Stefan in Lancashire following their marriage. She currently teaches a dogmatic theology course on the Sacrament of Marriage at Oscott Seminary, and is engaged in the Veritas Amoris project. Together, they offer marriage preparation courses and ongoing formation for catechetists.

Weekend course (residential)

Friday 3rd - Sunday 5th January 2025

Our weekend course is a fantastic opportunity to engage more deeply, individually and as a couple, with the Catholic vision of marriage. Allowing a greater space and time to reflect, it will offer each couple much to consider in the lead up to and into their marriage.

The weekend is fully-catered, with a framework of prayer, input, discussion and exercises for couples to work on, creating a rich experience and meditation on the Sacrament of Matrimony.

The weekend is divided into four sessions. Each session is themed around an element of the marriage rite and builds on a foundational Scripture text:

Session 1 – “Freely and wholeheartedly”: Genesis 1 and the Nature of God

Session 2 – “To love as long as you both shall live”: Genesis 2 and the Male-Female Communion

Session 3 – “To accept children lovingly”: Genesis 3 and Human Sexuality

Session 4 – “I do take thee”: Ephesians 5 and the Sacramental Nature of Marriage

Please note:

  • Participants are assigned a single, en-suite room each. Integral to the course is an independent and honest examination of oneself and one’s commitment before God, and the personal space that is required to enable this. By booking onto this course, participants agree to respect the condition of one person per room.
Marriage preparation
Cost

£220 per person / £440 per couple

If you are unable to pay the full cost, please contact [email protected] to discuss subsidies

Arrivals for 5pm on Friday

Departures from 4pm on Sunday

Venue & Getting to us:

If you are reliant on public transport, please consider traveling by train to Preston train station. From there, we aim to co-ordinate minicab shares or lifts amongst participants of any given event. If you require further advice or assistance, email us: [email protected]

Categories
Conferences Events

St Thomas More and Religious Freedom

St Thomas More & Religious Freedom

Evening Talk & Reception - 6:30pm, Friday 18th October 2024

An evening exploring St Thomas More's legacy and witness with Dr Marcus Cole

FREE TO BOOK

Dean Marcus Cole is one of America’s most distinguished academics. His Law School’s pioneering work on religious liberty is outstanding and inspired by St.Thomas More, the Patron Saint of lawyers and Statesmen and women.

With an introduction by The Lord Alton of Liverpool.

St Thomas More is to England what John the Baptist was to Galilee: unafraid to speak the truth and to act accordingly.

The freedom of conscience – to believe, and then to live our lives as our belief requires us to – is, according to Dr Cole, one of the most important foundations of society.

Join us for a fascinating evening at Theodore House with Prof. Marcus Cole and Lord David Alton to discuss the legacy of St Thomas More for today.

Marcus Cole is the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law at The University of Notre Dame Law School. He is a leading scholar of the empirical law and economics of commerce and finance as well as law relating to freedom of religion and conscience. He was a faculty member at Stanford Law School from 1997 until he went to Notre Dame in 2019.

He is the founder of the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Initiative and Clinic, a project of scholarship and advocacy into all the elements relating to freedom of conscience and religion.

Prof. Marcus Cole received the 2023 Becket Canterbury Medal for Religious Liberty for his public advocacy for his Courage and Defense of Religious Liberty.

Timings
Doors open: 6pm
Talk: 6:30pm
Drinks reception: 7:15pm
Free to book

Seats are limited: please register your attendance below

Accommodation

Discounted B&B accommodation is available at Theodore House for Friday night. Please indicate requirements when booking below. Invoicing and payment for accommodation will follow separately.

Single en-suite room: £56 per night

Twin en-suite room: £75 per night

Please register below:
Venue & Getting to us:

If you require advice or assistance, email us: [email protected]

BOOK NOW
BOOK NOW
Categories
Clergy Conferences Events

TOB clergy days

CEPHAS

Clergy conference series

Approaching a
Theology of the Body

27 November 2024 - 29 January - 26 March 2025

BOOK NOW

Anthropology, the Sacrament of Marriage and human formation, in pastoral ministry today

“The human body includes… the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift and – by means of this gift – fulfills the meaning of his being and existence.”

Pope Saint John Paul II, General audience, 16th January 1980

Our series of three, day-conferences will examine the Church’s teaching around human love, inspired by Pope St John Paul II’s ‘theology of the body’. The conferences will reflect on John Paul II’s vision of the person as created for communion, on the character of conjugal communion, and on a formation for authentic love.

The conferences are open to seminarians, deacons, religious and priests. 

Each conference stands alone and there is no requirement to attend previous conferences, although they aim to offer a progressive itinerary through related themes.

Discounted Bed and Breakfast acccomodation at Theodore House is available for those wishing to stay overnight.

The first conference will explore the prophetic response of the saintly popes, Paul VI and John Paul II, to the related issues of contraception and our understanding of human sexuality, in Humanae vitae and in the “Theology of the Body” respectively. Conference topics:

  1. The Humanae vitae controversy
  2. Humanae vitae in dialogue with the Church’s Tradition
  3. The Gift of Creation: The Human Person before God
  4. The Dynamics of Gift and the Sexual Complementarity

The second conference will examine the nature of conjugal love and the three goods of marriage in order to offer a clear response to contemporary ambiguities around love and marriage, with the preparation for marriage of today’s couples in mind. Conference topics:

  1. What is Love? Conjugality vs Cohabitation
  2. Faithfulness: The Foundation of Matrimony
  3. The Gift of Children: Building a Family
  4. The Sacrament of Marriage: The Christian Newness

The third conference will focus on the formation of the person in chastity, and will consider the two vocations at the service of the Church’s mission as a point of reference. Conference topics:

  1. Sacramental Self-Giving: The Complementarity of Priesthood and Matrimony
  2. The Role of Virtue in Building a Chaste Character
  3. Facing today’s Challenges to living Chastity
  4. Responding to Gender: Discerning between Myth and Reality
BOOK NOW

Each conference is structured around four sessions, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, with opportunities for discussion and questions.

A tea/coffee break is offered between the morning and afternoon sessions.

Midday prayer will be said in common before lunch.

Stefan and Ella Kaminski both have Licentiates from the John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and Family Life, having dedicated their studies to the themes of human love and sexual complementarity. Stefan serves as Director of The Christian Heritage Centre, where he has been creating and delivering Catholic formation content for the last five years. Ella previously worked at the John Paul II Institute in Rome, before joining Stefan in Lancashire following their marriage. She currently teaches a dogmatic theology course on the Sacrament of Marriage at Oscott Seminary, and is engaged in the Veritas Amoris project. Together, they offer marriage preparation courses and ongoing formation for catechetists.

Theodore House offers a wonderful space for conferences. The tranquil and beautiful surroundings of the Stonyhurst estate offer a peaceful setting away from the rush of daily life in which to engage intellectually and spiritually. A clean, airy and modern facility in a Grade II listed building.

For more information about Theodore House, please click here.

  • Arrivals for a 10:00am start (welcome and introductions)
  • Departures from approx. 4:45pm
  • Clergy are welcome to celebrate Mass in the Theodore House Oratory before or after each conference
Cost

Single conference cost: £45 (includes two-course lunch)

Discounted cost for conference series: £115 (includes all three conferences with two-course lunch)

B&B accommodation, single en-suite room: £56 per night (booked separately)

If you require assistance with meeting costs, please contact us on [email protected]

“I feel like I have learnt so much and opened my heart and mind to the Church.”

Please register below (deposit payment required):
Venue & Getting to us:

If you are reliant on public transport, please consider traveling by train to Preston train station. From there, we aim to co-ordinate minicab shares or lifts amongst participants of any given event. If you require further advice or assistance, email us: [email protected]

Categories
Blog Media

Saint Bonaventure, part 4

03 September 2024

The CHC blog

Saint Bonaventure, Part 4 | The Year of Prayer

By Joey Belleza, PhD (Cantab.)

We come to our final pair of stages in Bonaventure’s Itinerarium. The first pair of stages considered God as present in created things outside of us (extra nos), and the second pair considered God as imaged within us (intra nos). The last pair of stages considers God as supra nos—above us. The reflections here become even more speculative and theological, while also recognizing the limits of human language in describing God.

Instead of summarizing these stages sequentially, it may be helpful to describe them together. This pair considers God according to his two most proper names: Being (esse) and Goodness (bonum). Bonaventure represents these two names as the two cherubim facing each other atop the Ark of the Covenant. In the Old Testament, the space of the two cherubim was also known as the “mercy seat,” over which the presence of God hovered within the tabernacle. Just as the cherubim were close to yet beneath God, so do the names Being and Goodness represent the closest and most general human descriptions possible for God’s essence. Scripture and tradition use all sorts of metaphors for God; for example, God is described as a rock, a fortress, a warrior, and a king in various parts of the Bible. However, all metaphors limp and eventually fail. When we contemplate God as Being itself (what Thomas Aquinas described as ipsum esse) or as Goodness itself, we are using the most perfect names we have for God which are not subject to limitation and change. That the two cherubim face each other is taken by Bonaventure to mean that these most perfect names of Being and Goodness are meant to be contemplated together in preparation for the final ascent to God.

At the end of the sixth stage, one has ascended as far as possible by a maximum of human effort. However, all these stages remain preparatory in light of true union with God, which cannot be achieved by human effort alone but only received. After six chapters describing six stages of ascent, Bonaventure concludes the Itinerarium with a paradoxical seventh chapter describing the perfect and final ascent which was granted to Saint Francis when he received the stigmata. This involves a recognition that God is beyond anything that human words can adequately describe. It requires humility and self-denial to the point of becoming like Christ—and in the case of Francis, this was manifested in his own wounded body. Bonaventure makes the radical claim that, in this final passing over into God, “we must cease all intellectual operations, leaving behind all created images and earthly cares and desires.” Even contemplating God as Being and Goodness must also be left behind, if we are to truly rise beyond the cherubim and behold the seraphim, as did Francis. Let us close our series on Bonaventure by quoting the end of the Itinerarium’s seventh chapter, where Bonaventure explains what full conformity to Christ entails.

But if you ask how these things should come to pass, seek grace, not doctrine; desire, not understanding; the groaning of prayer, not the study of lectures; the bridegroom, not the university master; God, not man; the dark cloud [caliginem], not clarity; not light, but a fire totally enflamed and transferred into God with excessive anointings and most ardent affections. This fire is God, and this path is in Jerusalem, and Christ ignites it in the fervour of his most ardent passion, and he who truly perceives it, says: “My soul chooses hanging and my bones choose death” (Job 7:15). Whosoever loves this death can see God, for it is doubtlessly true: “No man shall see me and live” (Ex 33:20). Let us die [moriamur], therefore, and enter into the dark cloud; let us impose silence on our cares, desires, and phantasms; let us pass over [transeamus] with Christ crucified from this world to the Father, so that, with the Father shown to us, we might say with Phillip: “It is enough for us” (Jn 14:8); let us hear with Paul: “My grace is enough for you” (2 Cor 12:19); let us rejoice with David, saying: “My flesh and my heart fail, O God of my heart, and you O God are my portion always (Psalm 73:26). Blessed be the Lord forever, and let all the people say: let it be, let it be. (Ps 106:48)” Amen.

Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, pray for us.

St Bonaventure, Part 3
Year of Prayer - Home
St Therese of Lisieux
Categories
Articles

Hopkins’ Stonyhurst poem to Our Lady

13th August 2024

This article was originally published at LifeSite News and is reproduced with kind permission of the Editor

Hopkins' Stonyhurst poem to Our Lady:
Mary's importance for our spiritual lives

Walker Larson

Gerard Manley Hopkins — convert, Jesuit priest, and one of the greatest Victorian poets — nurtured a deep love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that love found beautiful expression in his poem “The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe.” It was written in Stonyhurst in 1883 as part of a collection of poems in different languages that were to be hung near a statue of Our Lady in celebration of May Day.

The central conceit (a literary term meaning “extended metaphor”) of the poem is that Our Lady is to us in our spiritual lives what air is in our physical lives: critical, life-giving, all-encompassing, and gently filtering the light of God’s grace as it falls upon the soul like golden dew.

In this poem, Hopkins writes in iambic trimeter, which is a poetic meter that alternates unaccented and accented syllables, with three accents per line. Thus, the line “With mercy round and round” includes three accented syllables (“mer,” “round,” “round,”) that alternate with unaccented syllables. Hopkins frequently breaks the pattern in order to give it more life, better reflect everyday speech, and to avoid a monotonous tone.

Hopkins likes to jam-pack his lines with explosive and vibrant sounds, intense energy, and lyrical buoyancy, such as with the lines “goes home betwixt / The fleeciest, frailest-flixed / Snowflake; that’s fairly mixed.” These alliterative sounds spin out from the tongue like sparks above a campfire. They crackle with energy. Hopkins is a poet who loves the glowing richness and astonishing variety of reality, and his sometimes-surprising choice of words and sounds reflects that. He even developed his own poetic rhythm, used in much of his poetry, called “sprung rhythm,” as a more flexible pattern that allowed him to incorporate more sounds and beats into his lines.

Our Lady of the Girdle, in the church of Our Lady of the Angels, La Verna, Italy. By Andrea della Robbia, 1486.

In addition to these formal aspects, Hopkins makes use of imagery throughout the poem that reinforces its theme. He has interwoven symbolism of Our Lady, such as the frequent mention of the color blue, which is Mary’s color. “The glass-blue days”; “Blue be it: this blue heaven”; “This bath of blue and slake”; “How air is azured”; “Yet such sapphire-shot;” etc. The word “mother” also shows up frequently. Mary is ever-present in the language of these beautiful poetic lines, just as she is ever-present in our lives, playing “in grace her part / About man’s beating heart.”

One place that motherhood appears is in the opening of the poem. Hopkins begins by addressing something inanimate, the air itself (called an “apostrophe.”)

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life

The poet focuses our attention on this ever-present yet invisible force that keeps us alive and enwraps us, “nestles” us at all times. He awakens us to the enigma of this remarkable reality that surrounds us — literally and figuratively — evoking the mystery of it with a word like “riddles,” and its universality by reminding us that even the “least thing’s life” depends upon this air. The smallest furry animal, with quickly vibrating, quivering chest, lives in and through the air, as do you and I.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889)

Having opened our eyes to the wonder of this substance that is our “more than meat and drink,” he then initiates the comparison with Our Lady, saying that the air reminds him

Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate.

How, precisely, is Our Lady like the air? Hopkins points out that her magnificent vocation is to “Let all God’s glory through, / God’s glory which would go / Through her and from her flow.” The implied comparison is clear: God is like the sun, which lights up all the world, and just as the sun’s rays comes to the earth and are diffused through the air, so is God’s love, mercy, and grace diffused to us through Mary. “I say that we are wound / With mercy round and round / As if with air.” And what is the channel of God’s mercy? The prayers of the Blessed Mother: “She, wild web, wondrous robe, / Mantles the guilty globe, / Since God has let dispense / Her prayer his providence.”

And just as we live by and through the invisible air, we live by and through the invisible grace mediated by Our Lady. Hopkins writes that we are “meant to share / her life as life does air.” And then he invokes the theological concept of Mary as Mediatrix of all graces:

If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.

In other words, Our Lady, as some theologians have taught, constantly dispenses God’s graces to us, playing an intimate role in our spiritual life from moment to moment, her attentive love as close and constant to us as our own breathing.

As Bernadette Waterman War writes in “Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Blessed Virgin Mary,” “The poet reminds us of how we need grace as we need air, in order that we should not die. It is through Mary that God’s grace gives us life. He uses the figure of light for God’s grace, pointing out that without the air to filter it, sunlight would be too powerful for the human frame to bear.”

This last point — about the air’s tempering of the sun’s power to suit our strength — bears further reflection. Hopkins allows his imagination to run wild with what would happen without the air, how the sun’s full-bore intensity would blind the earth. The excess of light would turn our vision black, and we’d be steeped in dark:

Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.

Students under the statue of Our Lady at the top of the Stonyhurst avenue

The rich metaphorical imagery used in this passage also exemplifies Hopkins’ close and attentive study of “things,” how they look, feel, smell. All great poets are firstly great observers of the world, using their fine-tuned senses to penetrate into the nature of objects. Hopkins recreates the glowing of coals or the scattering of salt in our minds. It is Hopkins’s ability to render realistically the simple things of everyday life (coals, salt) and then tie them to the most sublime reaches of reality (God’s glory and grace) that forms a core part of his poetic genius. Through familiar images, Hopkins paints a picture of what unfiltered sunlight would be like (and by extension, what God’s glory would be to unredeemed man).

But Our Lady came “to mould / Those limbs like ours,” that is, to give God human form, a mild face to look upon that, in His hidden mortal life, would not blind us like the unfiltered blaze of the sun. God accommodated Himself to our condition, tempering the heat of His majesty through the Maid of Nazareth. “Her hand leaves his light / Sifted to suit our sight.”

We can follow Hopkins’ train of thought even further. It is through the Incarnation and Redemption, which were achieved through Mary’s cooperation, that we can hope to one day see God face to face, to stare into that brilliant, searing point of light like Dante at the end of the Divine Comedy, the lack of which makes one truly blind.

In light, dancing poetry, Hopkins has crafted a profound meditation on Mary and her role in our lives. He has carefully elaborated the various commonalities between Mary and the air, how both are ever with us, sustaining our life, and diffusing light all around us.