Book Reviews and More: Words for Feasts and Saints Days - Hugh Gilbert

Words for Feasts and Saints Days
Bishop Hugh Gilbert
Catholic Truth Society
ISBN 9781784690618

eISBN 9781784693725

ASIN B073H2NRTX

CTS Booklet D797

Words for Feasts and Saints Days - Hugh Gilbert - CTS Books

Over the last several years I have read over 400 volumes from the CTS. I have read books from many series. And many authors. A few authors so captured my attention I tried to track down all the books by them. This however was the Second book I have read by Bishop Hugh Gilbert and also the first in the CTS Words 4. Unfortunately, in the eBook edition there is not a list of other volumes in the series, and I have only been able to find four other titles in the series and three are by this same author. The print edition was published in 2015 and the eBook in 2017.

The description of this volume is:

“This collection of reflections for great feasts and saints days of the Church’s year is an ideal companion to deepen readers’ understanding of the great feasts of the Church.

Bishop Hugh Gilbert’s homilies have gained him a reputation as a clear and profound teacher of faith. This collection of homilies for great feasts and saints days of the Church’s year is an ideal companion for any reader wishing to deepen their faith by coming to a deeper understanding of the saints and the major events the lives of Jesus and Mary.

‘The liturgical year is one of the great givens of the Christian life. We live our lives within it’.”

And the chapters are:

Introduction

The Presentation of the Lord

The Holy Trinity

Corpus Christi

The Sacred Heart of Jesus

The Birthday of John the Baptist

Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

St Benedict, Patron of Europe

The Transfiguration

The Assumption of Our Lady

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

St Michael and All the Angels

Guardian Angels

All Saints

All Souls

Christ the King

We are told in the introduction:

“The liturgical year - with its Sundays and weekdays, Easter and Christmas, Advent and Lent, Ordinary time, ferias and feasts - is one of the great givens of the Christian life. We live our lives within it. This is true even when we are not consciously referring to it. It’s a framework, a mould, a supporting rhythm, a background that at some peak times becomes the foreground. It has, too, been one of the great facts of European and Western cultural history. We’re familiar with the civil year (which comes to us from the Romans), the financial year, the academic year … But there is this other presence too, still hanging on even in semi-pagan Britain - and every revolutionary attempt to conjure it away (1789, 1917) has itself foundered.

In the Roman Rite now, we have a liturgical year both luminously intent on the essentials and rich in its details. “By means of the yearly cycle,” says the Calendarium Romanum of 1969, echoing Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium, “the Church celebrates the whole mystery of Christ, from his Incarnation until the day of Pentecost and the expectation of his coming again.”

The volume contains 15 pieces that span from The Presentation of the Lord to Christ the King. These 15 pieces for a collection of homilies. Some of them deeply profound, many of them good, a few excellent. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up the first volume, this time I was a little more prepared. The first one was excellent so I picked up this one. It is completely different from the volume, Lent with the Saints, by J.B. Midgley and from the Catholic Truth Society. I highlighted many passages in this volume, some of them are:

“The liturgical year-with its Sundays and weekdays, Easter and Christmas, Advent and Lent, Ordinary time, ferias and feasts-is one of the great givens of the Christian life. We live our lives within it. This is true even when we are not consciously referring to it. It’s a framework, a mould, a supporting rhythm, a background that at some peak times becomes the foreground. It has, too, been one of the great facts of European and Western cultural history. We’re familiar with the civil year (which comes to us from the Romans), the financial year, the academic year … But there is this other presence too, still hanging on even in semi-pagan Britain-and every revolutionary attempt to conjure it away (1789, 1917) has itself foundered.”

“That, too, is part of the mystery of the Upper Room and of holy Mass. Jesus offers himself and us to the Father and the Father responds with the Spirit. Jesus gives us his body and hidden in that body is the wind and fire of the Holy Spirit.”

“Lord Jesus Christ, as you fill us today with your Body and the wonder of its presence, fill us also with your Spirit and send us out in the wind and fire of Pentecost.”

“Here’s the Catechism: “Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: ‘The Son of God … loved me and gave himself for me.’ He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sin and for our salvation, ‘is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that … love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings’ without exception” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 478).”

“His whole life. The mystery and power of this great figure. A monk, centuries ago, said John’s voice is “an everlasting voice”. And Origen said that the spirit of John is always at work in the world. John, after Mary, is the closest to the risen Christ and therefore closest to us.”

““His name is John.” I think we Europeans need to hear this especially. Without the faith, it has been said, Europe will die. Europe will die if Europeans lack the faith, hope, and love to have children. The future of Europe passes by way of the family. God passes by way of the love of man and woman and the life that comes from it. There are so many reasons for refusing that life, so many means for doing so. But if we turn our back on it, as a society, a civilisation, we die.”

“The contemporary relevance is clear. Not every love is entitled to sexual expression. We all know that. Not every love is entitled to the dignity of marriage. We all know that, too. Politically, Herod’s ‘marriage’ to Herodias caused chaos. And so will the changes proposed to the understanding of marriage. Love has many mansions, but marriage is the only true home of sexual love. And marriage is between a man and a woman free to marry, not between anyone else.”

“Peter and Paul, the book-ends, as it were, of the College of Apostles, and in between them all the rest. Peter and Paul, both guided by God to Rome, both martyred there, Peter crucified, Paul beheaded, and both since the third century AD at least, venerated together on this day.”

“There is a traditional association between St Benedict and the Cross. Today’s feast, we say, begins the monastic Lent, a little turn towards next year’s Easter. Strictly speaking, this is coincidental. The ides of September (the 13th) are a cardinal point in St Benedict’s year, but he would not have known this feast on this date. The wider association comes, I suppose, from the Dialogues, where the sign of the Cross is seen to be one of St Benedict’s weapons against the Evil One. And then there’s St Benedict’s medal. The monk, we know, is a cross-bearer (a staurophore). “If any man would come after me …” Life through death is the whole idea of the monastic way. We share by patience in the sufferings of Christ … The monk is meant to be marked with the sign of the Cross and to be sensitive to the glory hidden in the Cross.”

“The Roman Calendar devotes this day to the three archangels known from Scripture: Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. The Benedictine Calendar is more global. It entitles the feast St Michael and All Angels. It invites us, therefore-and its Collect too-to consider the angelic world as a whole, and its interaction with the world we think of as our own.”

“The Bible says it again and again. An angel rescued Lot. An angel stopped Abraham sacrificing Isaac. An angel led Israel through the desert. An angel helped Elijah on the way to Horeb. An angel protected Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego. An angel took Habbakuk by the hair and brought Daniel dinner. An angel strengthened Judas Maccabeus. An angel counselled Joseph when the Child’s life was under threat. Angels ministered to the Lord in the desert. An angel took Peter out of prison. In every case, help was needed, consciously or not.”

“In this solemnity we are celebrating those holy men and women of every time and place who have lived the beatitudes and been given the kingdom. We are celebrating all those, known and unknown, who now see God, who see him as he is, who stand before the Throne and the Lamb (the Father and the Son) and cry out in the Spirit with a loud cry: “Victory to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb.” We are celebrating their care for us, their cry to us to lift up our hearts, that heavenly pull on the believing heart that the thought of God’s glory should be.”

“The saints in heaven are not disconnected one from another, not just a crowd of isolated individuals. As the liturgy is at pains to point out, we are celebrating a city. They are fellow citizens one of another. They form a city, they form a whole. They are a world. They are a church, the Church triumphant. They are humanity come to its goal. They are the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, lit by the glory of God, not only in their relations with him but in their relations one to another and for ever.”

“Next Sunday it is Advent, and a new liturgical year. At the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel stand the Beatitudes, at the end these works of mercy. At the beginning, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” At the end, “And the King will answer, ‘I tell you solemnly, insofar as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.’” And in the middle comes the acclamation of St Peter, “You are the Christ, the messianic King, the Son of God.” Let us live what we hear, proud to have Christ as our King.”

The sermons are an interesting read. Because they focus on the readings and purposes of specific church feasts and saint days, they are spread through the year. As a book they can be read they can provide great encouragement and a challenge through the season of ordinary time, as we encounter these feasts.

I am looking forward to other volume in this series and other volumes written by Bishop Gilbert. This is an excellent volume from the Catholic Truth Society I can easily recommend it!