The Bride washed clean

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

You and the ark of your strength

by Fr Leon Pereira O.P.

When you receive a gift, are you the sort of person who keeps the box? A child's instinct seems correct: to tear off the coverings and get at the gift, for it is the gift that matters. But if you had a truly special gift, from someone special, you might be tempted to keep the box as well for sentimental reasons.

But what if the gift and the giver were God himself? What would you do with the box?

In his Gospel, Luke presents Mary as a box. To be precise, he portrays Mary as the ark of the covenant, as that box-like container which held the Ten Commandments inscribed in stone.

The ark held three things which are all symbols of Jesus. First, the Ten Commandments, the foundation of God's covenant with his people. But Jesus is the mediator of the new and eternal covenant (Heb 9:15). Second, manna, the bread from heaven with which God fed his people in the desert. But Jesus is the true and living bread from heaven (John 6:48-50). Third, Aaron's staff which budded and flowered, a symbol of Aaron being chosen as priest. But Jesus is the great High Priest, the Shoot sprouting from the stump of Jesse (Isa 11:1).

Just as the contents of the ark prefigure Jesus, so the ark itself prefigures Mary. The ark contained the old covenant, but in her womb Mary carried the New Covenant.

As the ark was overshadowed by the divine glory (Ex 40:34), so Mary is overshadowed by the 'power of the Most High' (Lk 1:35). King David leapt and danced before the ark (2 Sam 6:12-6), and likewise John the Baptist leaps in his mother's womb at Mary's greeting. The ark stayed for three months at the house of Obed-Edom, causing an increased fecundity in that family (2 Sam 6:11). Mary stays with Elizabeth for three months, and Mary's pregnancy is the reason for Elizabeth herself having conceived.

Faced with the ark, David said,

Who am I that the ark of the Lord should come to me? (2 Sam 6:9)

Likewise Elizabeth tells Mary,

Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Lk 1:43)

In the first reading, the ark is seen in heaven, juxtaposed with the woman clothed with the sun, the woman who gives birth to the Word of God. Mary is truly seen as a new ark, the ark of the new and eternal covenant.

The loss of the original ark was a great blow to the people of Israel, for the ark was the guarantee of the special presence of God with his people. Where the ark was, God was present there in a special way.

In Jesus, God is present in a truly special way. For in Jesus, the fullness of the divinity dwells bodily. Jesus is God-made-man, and so in Mary, the ark of the new covenant, God is fully present in space and time. Mary is the guarantee of the reality that God has become a human being, that God is present to his people -- and this time forever.

Since the covenant of our salvation is eternal, it is fitting that the ark of this new covenant should not be lost as the old one was. Mary, as the new ark, is removed from the caprices and changeability of the earth, and placed as a celestial witness of the fulfilment of God's faithfulness to his covenant.

But Our Lady is more than a box. She is a human being, and a thoroughly redeemed one. In her God has achieved perfectly what he desires for us all.

Mary represents the people of God through the ages. She is the Virgin Daughter of Sion, longing for the coming of the Lord. She is the Church, the bride washed clean without spot or wrinkle.

In her, God has triumphed utterly over sin and death, as a foretaste of that same victory which he will achieve in us all who hope in his mercy. In her at least one part of the Church already shares completely in the triumph of Christ. In Christ, God's gift of himself to us is so special, that even the box it comes in is worth keeping and glorifying.

Published with the kind permission of www.torch.op.org   

Dominican News?

Does anyone have any pictures or words on todays prayerful vigil outside Blackfriars Hall, wherein the Catholic Labour MP, John Cruddas, whose track record in terms of voting on life issues and the rest is abysmal? How did it go?

I was greatly encouraged to hear that one Dominican priest, Fr Leon Pereira, has written a reply to Paul Smeaton over the inclusion of John Cruddas on a bill of speakers at Blackfriars Hall today.

Fr Pereria's letter to Paul Smeaton is one of which St Dominic would most likely approve wholeheartedly...here it is...

'Dr Cruddas’ voting record as an MP on abortion and same sex unions is not in keeping with the teaching or mind of the Catholic Church. This matters all the more because I am given to understand that Dr Cruddas describes himself as a ‘practising Catholic’ - a designation at odds with his actions as an MP. His actions appropriate the dimension of scandal precisely because he is a public figure. Therefore what he says and does in public which is contrary to Catholic faith and morals, all the while describing himself as a ‘practising Catholic’, are a scandal to the Faithful and prone to reinforce the assumption that perhaps these things (abortion, same sex unions, etc) do not matter, and that Catholics may reasonably conform their mind to that of the age, and still somehow (mysteriously!) remain fully Catholic without incurring any penalties whatsoever. That is a grave wrong wrought against God and His Church.

Is the Church then unable to dialogue with institutions or individuals who hold certain beliefs contrary to our Faith? Not at all. From the beginning we prayed for the very same emperors and authorities who persecuted and killed us. We appealled to them, to their reason, for tolerance and for the truth (the sole truth that comes from God which they can still perceive by the use of their reason, and not necessarily faith) which enables genuine justice and peace in society.

Notice how in her history the Church has not hesitated to negotiate with authorities, no matter how evil their deeds. We hold out the hope for their conversion and salvation, beginning with the cessation of their evil deeds, but also we do not see anything or anyone as beyond hope whilst they are still in via, still alive.

Fr Leon Pereira OP leads prayers at 40 Days for Life vigil

So in our desire to spread the Gospel, we should never be reluctant to dialogue with anyone, whatever their beliefs, so long as they are genuinely open to dialogue. You cannot dialogue with soliloquists, but we can still pray for them. I see the invitation extended to Dr Cruddas as a great opportunity for the friars at Blackfriars, Oxford, to ascertain where exactly his faith has gone wrong, and how his conscience has come to be so deformed.

I am not too surprised that he has ended up like this, because the Church in our country has for too long been filled with compromise on essentials, and tolerated error - error which has poisoned the minds of too many Catholics who take secular assumptions as their yardstick in morals, and not Christ and His authoritative teaching, expressed by His Church.

But when Blackfriars opens its doors to the public to hear Dr Cruddas, this becomes a different matter. The invitation, although not an awards ceremony, nevertheless takes on the air of an accolade. Out of politeness it is unlikely that Dr Cruddas will be asked serious (however awkward) questions. Instead it is most likely he will leave Blackfriars with a sense of vindication, confirmed in his erroneous position by our silence and misplaced courtesy. Is it inconceivable that he or his supporters may say that he was honoured by an invitation to Blackfriars, where he set forth his positions in a well-received and unchallenged lecture, etc? The false impression given then is that Dr Cruddas truly is what he calls himself: a ‘practising Catholic’. And it is the Catholic in the pew who will suffer - either by being misled into error, or by the scandal this will cause.

At the heart of this, I wonder why Dr Cruddas in particular was invited by the Las Casas Institute? There are many MPs to invite, so the reason is unlikely to be his membership of the Commons. I hazard that it is his Catholicism and perhaps his affiliation to the Labour Party. But, as I have said above, his distorted understanding of the Catholic Faith is a scandal because he is a public figure. There seems to be an assumption in this country that to be Catholic is to be Labour. This naivete reached a nadir in the fawning displayed by our Church over that most reprehensible couple Tony and Cherie Blair. In Mr Blair’s case, I cannot understand how he could be received into the Church without a public abjuration of his erroneous beliefs and practices - for example, his own voting record on abortion. These were errors he committed before he became a Catholic, but they were in the public sphere, and his reception as a Catholic without any recantation is a continuing scandal.

The Church must remember that her one Lord and Spouse is Jesus Christ, and not hurry to jump into bed blithely and blindly with any political party or establishment. It is such ‘promiscuity’ which infects us, infects our faith, and makes the Church weak, sick and compromised.

The assumption that the Church’s social teaching is more naturally alligned to the political Left is a false one. The great irony is that Dr Cruddas (who has woefully failed to stand up for the Catholic teaching on abortion by his voting) has been invited by an institute committed to ‘justice and peace’ (our normal shorthand for Catholic Social Doctrine) when the single greatest justice and peace issue in our country is abortion! Is that like inviting the BNP to speak on ethnic minorities?

Justice and peace has, in the U.K., often been interpreted as ‘soft’ issues, that the middle classes can protest safely, for example, nuclear weapons and their disarmament, or ecological issues. I call them ‘soft’ because they do not impact our daily lives, even though we live in the shadow of nuclear destruction and environmental pollution (I am suspicious of ‘Climate Change’ being treated as a pseudo-religion, one which supplants the Gospel in the minds of too many Catholics and Christians; the only unforgiveable sin for them seems to be one’s ‘carbon footprint’). The things which do impact our daily lives are abortion, employment, just wages, euthanasia, the poison of contraception, and the erosion of both marriage and the family.

Perhaps the ‘Cruddas Affair’ is a wake up call to Catholics. Why is the Church so sycophantically snuggling up to the Left? Why do we tolerate errors on this scale? Why are Catholic public figures not brought to task for the scandal they cause? Justice and peace must be at the heart of the Church’s faith and morals, and I mean true justice and peace, and not simply those ‘easy’ or ‘soft’ issues which the wider society will not object too much to, and which does not require individual Catholics to convert to the Gospel.

We sign agreements to make our parishes ‘Fair Trade friendly’. That requires a conversion of sorts, although I understand that Fair Trade as it now stands could be improved and made fairer. But why do we not make a covenant with all our families (remember, they are the ‘domestic Church’ according to Vatican II!) to be ‘Humanae Vitae friendly’? Is it a good use of our energies to chain ourselves to the gates of Faslane, when hundreds of thousands of children are slaughtered in our cities every year? Probably not, but it is easier isn't it? It's easier to moan about carbon footprints than to form our consciences according to the mind of Holy Mother Church. But then the Gospel isn't about what's easier.

Yours,

Fr Leon Pereira, O.P.'

God bless this Dominican priest and those who care passionately about the Truth of the Holy Faith to organise and attend a vigil in reparation for Mr Cruddas's inclusion on the list of speakers today at Blackfriars Hall.