Universalis
Thursday 11 May 2023    (other days)
Thursday of the 5th week of Eastertide 

Using calendar: Australia - Wagga Wagga. You can change this.

The Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

Year: A(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: White.

Other saints: The Carthusian Martyrs

Brentwood
Saints John Houghton, Robert Lawrence, Augustine Webster and fifteen Blessed companions
  John Houghton, Prior of the London Charterhouse, was recognised as a man of sanctity even before his martyrdom. Under his rule the community was a model of observance and austerity. Henry VIII was well aware that if the Carthusians could be persuaded to accept first the Act of Succession (1533) and then the Act of Supremacy (1534) others would find it easy to follow their example.
  Presented with the earlier Act, the Prior and his Procurator Humphrey Middlemore at first refused to swear, and were imprisoned for a month in the Tower. On advice from learned bishops, they agreed to take the oath “as far as the law of God allows”, and so were released.
  The following year (1535) the King assumed his title of Supreme Head of the Church in England. The Treasons Act made it treason “maliciously” to deny this title. Prior Houghton began to prepare his community for the inevitable onslaught. He consulted other priors who were visiting London, Robert Lawrence of Beauvale, Nottinghamshire, and Augustine Webster of Axholme, Lincolnshire. They decided to approach the King’s Minister Thomas Cromwell directly, to ask for a form of the oath which they could accept in conscience. Cromwell’s response was immediately to commit them to the Tower. There they were joined by a Brigittine priest, Richard Reynolds, who was to suffer with them.
  Their trial began on 27th April 1535. Cromwell became alarmed that they might be acquitted, threatened the jury with death if they did acquit, and finally went in person to persuade them to bring in the Guilty verdict. On 4th May they were dragged to Tyburn; the Prior was the first to suffer the barbarous execution by hanging, disembowelling and quartering of the body. Lawrence and Webster, undeterred by the dreadful scene, refused to recant and were similarly butchered. They were the first of a long line of martyrs for the Catholic faith in England.
  But this was only the beginning of the trials of the London Charterhouse. Within weeks, three more of the Fathers were committed to prison and interrogated. These were Humphrey Middlemore, now the Vicar, William Exmew, the Procurator, and Sebastian Newdigate. These were singled out as being leading members of the Community, and of good birth (Newdigate had been brought up in the King’s household), in the hope of terrorising the others into submission. The three steadfastly refused the Oath, and went to their execution on 19th June 1535.
  There followed a year during which the remaining Carthusians were constantly harassed and ill-treated. Then some of them were dispersed to other houses; in particular John Rochester and James Walworth to Hull, from where they were brought to trial and executed at York (11th May 1537). Now some brothers gave way to the continual pressure, and took the oath. Ten continued to refuse, and on 1st June 1537 were imprisoned in Newgate. There they were left, and all but one died of starvation and ill-usage. They were: Richard Bere, Thomas Johnson and Thomas Green, priests; John Davy, deacon; and Brothers William Greenwood, Thomas Scryven, Robert Salt, Walter Pierson, Thomas Redyng and William Horn. The last-named lingered in Newgate for nearly three years, and was finally executed on 4th August 1540.
  Some of those who had taken the oath had been promised that if they did so their House would be spared; but within a year, on 15th November 1538, all who remained were expelled and the monastery was desecrated. Other priories suffered a similar fate. The return of the London Charterhouse community to Sheen under Queen Mary (1557) was short-lived; they were finally exiled by Elizabeth, and it was not until 1873 that the Carthusians returned to England, to Parkminster in the parish of West Grinstead.

Today's Mass reading: Theological science

Outsiders are often under the impression that the Church decides things. For instance, they think that saying that this or that kind of action is morally right or wrong is a decision, a decision rather than a determination of fact. (Indeed, the word ‘determine’, at least in American usage, sits nicely on the hinge of the question, since when the government determines the rate of income tax and when the Surgeon General determines that smoking is harmful, they are two different kinds of ‘determination’, reached in different ways, one reformable, one irreformable).
  It is convenient, in a world where journalists see everything as politics, to treat doctrine as what we decide to believe. But it is dangerous, because in the end the whole point of our encounter with God is that it is an encounter with Truth Itself, whereas if everything is politics, then nothing is definitely true: if we argue for long enough, we can decide that apples fall upwards.
  Theology is a science. It determines things in the Surgeon General sense, not in the tax sense. When we decide that we all need to celebrate Easter on the same date, and then argue about which date, that is like tax or deciding which side of the road to drive on. It is not science, and it is not truth. But then again, it is not theology either, but religion. Theology asks ‘What is true?’ while religion asks ‘What shall we do about it?’, rather as engineering asks ‘What shall we do about it all?’ about the laws of physics.
  Theology is a science, and it uses the methods of science. That is not some unrealistic aspiration. It is not an invention of mediaeval academics. We see it in action at the Council of Jerusalem in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
  A science has data, and a scientific discussion starts from the data and makes sense of them. So the Council hears one important item of data – the descent of the Holy Spirit onto the family of the Gentile Cornelius – which conflicts with certain ideas of what it means to be chosen, and righteous, and justified – ideas which have themselves come from other data, from the accumulation of scripture and salvation history.
  The scientific task is to make sense of the whole.
  Even in Luke’s compressed account, it is clear that the Council is not having a ‘What shall we choose to say?’ discussion but a ‘What is true?’ discussion: that is to say, a scientific one. Such discussions are of a fundamentally different nature from political or decision-making ones. It is not about getting a majority on the committee. It is about taking the data, however discordant they may seem, and making sense of them all. That is what science is. Is this an impossible goal, or a possible one? In the case of the physical world we believe that it can be done because we believe that the physical world really exists. When it comes to theological matters we know that it can be done because we know that we are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our mind: that is to say, we are told that God makes sense.
  Arguments will never cease, of course. That is the glory of having one race made up of many minds. But we do need to remember that when we believe, the root of our belief is not decision (let’s all drive on the right, or let’s all drive on the left) but truth. Then our arguments, and even our disagreements, can be truly scientific in the original, root sense, of the word: ‘productive of knowledge’.

About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:

Second Reading: Saint Gaudentius of Brescia (- c.410)

Gaudentius was Bishop of Brescia from about 387 until about 410. He was a friend of St John Chrysostom. His Easter sermons were written down after delivery at the request of Benivolus, the chief of the Brescian nobility, who had been prevented by ill health from hearing them delivered. They are simple, clear and straightforward.

Liturgical colour: white

White is the colour of heaven. Liturgically, it is used to celebrate feasts of the Lord; Christmas and Easter, the great seasons of the Lord; and the saints. Not that you will always see white in church, because if something more splendid, such as gold, is available, that can and should be used instead. We are, after all, celebrating.
  In the earliest centuries all vestments were white – the white of baptismal purity and of the robes worn by the armies of the redeemed in the Apocalypse, washed white in the blood of the Lamb. As the Church grew secure enough to be able to plan her liturgy, she began to use colour so that our sense of sight could deepen our experience of the mysteries of salvation, just as incense recruits our sense of smell and music that of hearing. Over the centuries various schemes of colour for feasts and seasons were worked out, and it is only as late as the 19th century that they were harmonized into their present form.

Mid-morning reading (Terce)1 Corinthians 12:13 ©
In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink.

Noon reading (Sext)Titus 3:5,7 ©
God saved us by means of the cleansing water of rebirth and by renewing us with the Holy Spirit which he has so generously poured over us through Jesus Christ our saviour. He did this so that we should be justified by his grace, to become heirs looking forward to inheriting eternal life.

Afternoon reading (None)(Colossians 1:12-14) ©
We thank the Father who has made it possible for us to share in the saints’ inheritance of light. He has taken us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son that he loves. In him, we gain our freedom and the forgiveness of our sins.

Local calendars

General Calendar

Australia

Wagga Wagga


Scripture readings taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. For on-line information about other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet web site at http://www.randomhouse.com.
 
This web site © Copyright 1996-2024 Universalis Publishing Ltd · Contact us · Cookies/privacy
(top