Diocese of Northampton: Year of Prayer and Vocation
Introduction (with possible Homily Guidelines, by Fr Kenneth Payne)
Bishop Peter has suggested a number of different themes, for each month in this Year of Prayer and Vocation. These are clearly listed in what follows, together with a reference to a relevant passage in the corresponding liturgy, either in the Proper or the Common of one of the Sunday Masses for that month. It is suggested that you take the Sunday chosen to preach on the given topic.
I have also included other sources on the given theme that you may like to make use of. It might be appropriate for each parish in a pastoral area to take the topic on the same Sunday. This would be a good way of emphasising unity within our pastoral areas. It could even, in some cases, lead to ‘pulpit swapping’.
JANUARY - Month of Prayer for Christian Unity, our shared baptism.
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
21st January. 3rd Sunday of the Year.
Bishop Peter’s Pastoral Letter.
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FEBRUARY - Month of Prayer for Consecrated Life and their Vocation within the Church
4th February. 5th Sunday of the Year.
In the Gospel, we read that Jesus went off alone to pray. Frequently we read of him withdrawing from the crowds in order to spend time in prayer.
Many of his followers through the ages have been inspired to do just this, making their whole lives devoted to serving the Lord in prayer, coupled with work. The Benedictine motto sums it up: “Ora et Labora”
It is a reminder to us, especially in this day and age when there is a danger of becoming activists. All of us are called to the perfection of charity, but for some there is the call of chastity, poverty and obedience as a permanent way of life. In this way is signified and proclaimed in the Church the glory of the world to come. (see Catholic Catechism paras 914 – 945) regarding consecrated life, consecrated virgins, religious life, secular institutes and societies of apostolic life.
MARCH - Month of Prayer for Repentance and Forgiveness
11th March. 4th Sunday of Lent.
2nd reading of the Mass: “God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ.” See also today’s Gospel: “…. everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.”
As we journey through Lent we think of the importance of the Sacrament of Reconciliation – repentance and forgiveness. We all fail to live up to the ideal that Christ lays before us, and so we all need to repent and forgive one another as we hope God will forgive us.
The sacrament we are looking at now, is a sacrament of mercy, of forgiveness. However, this presumes that there is sin to deal with. What, then, is sin? It is essentially a deliberate turning away from God, from what is recognised as good, and being ‘secure’ in ourselves! It is the setting up of oneself as being ‘in charge’. ‘I’ is at the centre of ‘sin’. In some cases this can be serious (sometimes called ‘mortal sin’, by which man turns away from God); but more often than not is less serious (‘venial’, which retards a man in the pursuit of his end), and is often due to a partial blindness in our outlook (for example, the many good things we could do, but fail to do), or just a general failure to continue growing in God’s way and being open to the inner prompting of God’s love.
Think of one thing that went wrong through your own fault in the recent past. Tell God, in your heart, how sorry you are for this. Pray for anyone who may have been hurt through it.
APRIL - Month of Prayer celebrating our Baptismal Vocation, especially the contribution of single people to the Church.
29th April. 5th Sunday of Easter.
The Gospel: “I am the vine, you are the branches…..”
All of us are joined to Christ through our Baptism. Our vocation may be through marriage or as a single person and this latter includes those who are widowed or divorced.
We are all challenged to live out our baptismal commitment in different ways for the building up of Christ’s Kingdom here on earth.
There are degrees of membership of the Church, (Vatican, II document on ‘The Church’ chapter two). A catechumen is someone who has not been baptised in any Church, but who is journeying towards baptism. Such a one has what we call ‘baptism of desire’. The martyrs, who gave their lives for Christ, were conformed to their Saviour by the baptism of blood.
Being single is not like having a cavity that has to be filled; it is a call to be an active part of the parish community.
MAY - Month of Prayer for Confirmation, and all confirmed and their Vocation within the Church.
6th May. 6th Sunday of Easter.
The first reading: “While Peter was still speaking the Holy Spirit came down on all the listeners.
In the first few chapters of Acts the word ‘power’ is used over forty times to describe the workings of the Holy Spirit. In Greek, the word used is dunamis, from which comes our word ‘dynamite’. Pope John XXIII once told us: ‘Go away, and make love grow everywhere’. All are called to do just this through whatever calling or vocation it may be – through marriage, through the single state, through the religious life, or through the priesthood or diaconate.
We see, then, how baptism gives us the gift of the Spirit and links us especially with the death and Resurrection of Jesus, the Easter event, whereas Confirmation gives us a further gift of the Spirit, linking us with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, and their being sent off to spread the Good News far and wide, on the occasion of Pentecost. In other words, it helped them – and it applies to us too – to live out the death and Resurrection of Jesus, to live out their baptism, and to bear witness to this by their lives and by their preaching.
JUNE - Month of Prayer for our Vocation to ministry in the Church – priesthood, diaconate, lay ministries.
3rd June. The Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ.
The Gospel tells us of the institution of The Eucharist during which Jesus told his specially chosen disciples to “do this in commemoration of him”.
It may be useful to include here a word about the role of the priest:
He is not just the person who celebrates Mass and administers some of the other sacraments. Nor is he a one-man band doing everything in the Church. He is more like the conductor of an orchestra, drawing out the talents in each player. He is the leader and animator of a designated group of God’s people, termed the parish. As participating in the bishop’s role as ‘minister of the Word’, he must preach that Word by his life and actions and words, at all times, and in this way, be a reminder to all of God’s love for them. His central task in this is the celebration of the Eucharist, at which he presides; in the name of all, and with all, he enables God’s love to be made manifest, and, at the same time, expresses our return of love to God, the Father. In a small Austrian village in 1945, Father Michael Richards recounts that a British soldier discovered that the local Catholic parish priest was called, not the rector, or the priest, nor vicar, father or clergyman, but der geistlicher, the man of the Spirit. How good it would be if this were the manner in which all priests, deacons and bishops could be described.
Deacons were, later, to take on the more practical tasks required for the building up of the Christian community, and in our own day laity take part in the readings and distribution of Holy Communion at Mass, as well as on certain other occasions.
Permanent Deacons also have an increasingly important role in the building up of the parish community. They are Ministers of the Word, the Altar and of Charity. The first two of these are mainly connected with the liturgy, whilst the Ministry of Charity involves church and ecumenical groups, hospital, prison and school chaplaincies, and the giving of time and energy to those on the margins of society.
JULY - Month of Prayer for our Sick and Housebound and those who care for them,
and their vocation within the church.
1st July. 13th Sunday of the Year.
The Gospel recounts two healings performed by Jesus.
This month we bring into our thoughts and prayers all the sick and those who care for them.
Viktor Frankl in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning.
Whenever one is confronted with an inescapable, unavoidable situation, whenever one had to face a fate which cannot be changed, for example, an incurable disease, such as inoperable cancer; just then one is given a last chance to actualise the highest value, to fulfil the deepest meaning, the meaning of suffering. For what matters above all is the attitude we take towards suffering, the attitude in which we take our suffering upon ourselves.
Let me cite a clear-cut example. Once an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now how could I help him? What would I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, ‘What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife had had to survive you?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!’ Whereupon I replied, ‘You see Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who spared her this suffering; but now, you have to pay for it by surviving and mourning her.’ He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. Suffering ceases to be suffering in some way at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
The Sacrament of the Sick may be given to anyone who is seriously ill, or whose illness is likely to lead to some concern, anyone about to have a major operation, or an elderly person who has begun to ‘feel the weight of years’. It may also be given at each successive stage of an illness.
“When the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more, when they touch my mind); when the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off strikes from without or is born within me; when the painful moment comes in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that I am ill or growing old; and above all, at the last moment when I feel I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive within the hands of the greatest unknown forces that have formed me; in all those dark moments, O God, grant that I may understand that it is You (provided my faith is strong enough) wo are painfully parting the fibres of my being, in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within Yourself….” (Teilhard de Chardin)
AUGUST - Month of Prayer for Marriage and Family Life –
World Meeting of Families, 22nd-27th August; Lourdes Pilgrimage, 24th-31st August.
26th August. 21st Sunday of the Year
Our prayer this monthcentres on marriage and family life, and this weekend marks the conclusion of the World Meeting of families in Dublin.
In the second reading of the Mass, St Paul tells us that in Christian marriage husband and wife must forget themselves in order to think of each other, and this brings them to the mystery of God himself.
Marriage then, is not just an administrative formality. It is the meeting of two loves; the love of a man and a woman with the love of Christ, caught up in the love that is of the nature of God himself. It is a ‘community of love’, an ‘intimate partnership of love’. As such it is a vocation, a calling by God, a permanent and indissoluble union between man and woman, both a contract and, when between two baptised people, a sacrament.
Furthermore, it is an ongoing sacrament. It is not limited to what happens in the church on the wedding day! The sacrament of marriage happens each day of married life. The romantic idea of falling in love and living happily ever after omits an important and vital element in the process of loving. In some sense or other, love in marriage is a decision which has to be renewed daily, and this means a dying to self and one’s own self-interest in order to give love and happiness to one’s partner.
Being familiar with the five languages of love highlights this very well:
Words of affirmation
Receiving gifts
Acts of service
Quality time
Physical touch
These are the five ways that people speak and understand emotional love; and it is important to know ones own and one’s spouses primary love language if one is to be an effective communicator of love. Gary Chapman explains this very well in his books on the five languages of love.
SEPTEMBER - Month of Prayer before the Eucharist.
National Eucharistic Pilgrimage and Congress, 7-9th September.
2nd September. 22nd Sunday of the Year.
Prayer after Communion: “renewed by this bread from the heavenly table, we beseech you, Lord, that, being the food of charity, it may confirm our hearts and stir us to serve you in our neighbour.”
In the early Church, reservation of the Eucharist was for Communion, and not for adoration. You could take the Eucharist home with you or take it with you on a long journey as a sort of protection, and also to be able to give yourself Communion en route. It could be taken to the sick and to prisoners. However, by the tenth century, there was in the Church a greater emphasis on Christ’s divinity (anti-Arian reaction), and this led to a loss of familiarity with the Eucharist and much less frequent Communion. As a result, there was also a switch from Communion to adoration; the altar became distant from the people; Communion was received under one kind and in the mouth, rather than the hand, and only happened once or twice a year; the priest had his back to the people and much of the Mass was sotto voce in Latin. The Mass became a means to produce a Presence for people to adore.
At the beginning of this century, Pope Saint Pius X advocated frequent Communion. This was to give an enormous impetus to further change, which has gone on increasingly in recent years.
OCTOBER - Month of Prayer for our schools, for our young peopleaNd their vocation within the Church.
Catholic School’s Week.
Rome Synod: “Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment.
7th October. 27th Sunday of the Year.
Gospel: “People were bringing little children to him, for him to touch them. ……and gave them his blessing.” This second readingunderlines that those who follow Christ can be openly called brothers and sisters.
This month the importance of religious education in both home and our schools could be emphasised. Pope Francis has chosen the theme for the Rome Synod because he wants the whole Church to pay attention to all that God is doing in the lives of young people today. There are many excellent ideas for homilies in the “Alive” booklet, “Youth Faith and Vocational Discernment” (Price £1.50). this sets out a very readable reflection in three parts:
Firstly, it outlines some of the social and cultural dynamics of the world in which young people grow up and make decisions; it suggests that we should see it in the light of faith.
Secondly, it describes the basic stages in a process of discernment, which the Church would like to offer you as a way of discovering your calling in the light of faith.
Thirdly, it sets out the basic elements of a pastoral vocational programme for young people. What it offers is not a finished product, but the beginning of a process of research, whose fruits we shall see only at the end of the Synod.
NOVEMBERMonth of Prayer for all who have died,
for those who have helped us live our baptismal vocation.
1st November. 33rd Sunday of the Year.
The Gospel Acclamation: “Stay awake and stand ready, because you do not know the hour when the Son of Man is coming”, followed by the Gospel, Mark 13. 24-32
There are two moments in our lives of which we can be absolutely certain: the present moment, and the moment of our death. In the prayer to Our Lady that we say the most often, the Hail Mary, we ask for her intercession for us at precisely these times.
Some years ago at a headmasters’ conference, those taking part fell to discussing the purpose of education. After a while, some of the non-Catholic heads turned to Father Paul Neville, who was headmaster of Ampleforth, and asked him what he thought: ‘Well,’ he commented, ‘we educate our boys for death!’
Death is the climax of our lives, and in many ways, the most important moment. In a certain sense it is the completion of our baptism. We are baptised into the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. A reminder of this is the Easter candle that stands by the font at baptism. It also stands by the coffin at a funeral. We begin our lives by receiving everything. We end our lives on this earth, hopefully, by giving everything, by the total gift of ourselves. The journey through life towards our death is a journey, a growth in loving ourselves, which means possessing ourselves, in order to give ourselves to others and to God. We can only love others if we love ourselves, and it has been said that only if we accept the fact of our death can we begin to live and to love.