Ash Wednesday

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

(Matthew 16:24-25 ESV)

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Strip me of all
but the mark,

thumb crossing
on forehead,

that I might
let mingle

my spiraling soot
with His blessing

ashed. The burned
arm of palm

once so green
now tendered

free
of want

joins as one
the wind-tunneled trail

from which I came
and the long road

down which I travel
invoking darkness

seeking light:
I'm listening.

(A Prayer for Ash Wednesday, by Maureen Doallas)

The twin sisters

Some have been asking how the lambs are doing. In short, they are doing superbly.

Eva and Zsa Zsa taking a load off...

You can see more pictures from today, if that takes your fancy, at the Tumblr page.

An unhappy time remembered

Having somehow slipped under the radar at the time, the death last October of Anita Caspary has come to notice. It seems to have been little remarked on by much of the Catholic blogosphere. Yet she was a remarkable symbol of the chaos that beset religious life in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, especially in the United States. She led the largest single exodus from religious life in recent history.

Her biography can be found easily enough online. What is of interest is one chapter in her life: the disintegration of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the late 1960s. The secular media paints the story in terms of a “showdown” with the authorities of the Catholic Church, in particular her local Ordinary, Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles. In such presentations the sisters are said to have been attempting to answer the call of Vatican II for religious congregations to “modernize”. The “conservative” Cardinal laid down some constraints on their reforms which the sisters were unwilling to accept. Having been barred from teaching in the Los Angeles diocese, and with Rome having “squelched” their modernization process, up to 400 sisters left the congregation after a chapter meeting in December 1969, forming a non-canonical organisation (ie not recognised by the Church), the Immaculate Heart Community. Another 130 or so left any form of religious life altogether; 50 or so remained and agreed to the Cardinal’s instructions. The story made headlines in the major secular media, not least Newsweek and Time.

It was an episode that was grist for the propaganda mill. It was quickly painted in terms of feminism, patriarchy, the “spirit of Vatican II”, justice, obedience (and disobedience), to list but some. Thus Sr Dorothy Vidulich, in the wake of Caspary’s death, spoke of the sisters as having rejected “a life pattern that had to conform to canons issued by male clerics of another culture”. Caspary herself held that the departing sisters had grasped the “freedom to be self-determining and to make moral choices on the basis of conscience without leaning on the authority of others.” She said this is “the same struggle for feminist values that continues for women in all walks of life today, especially for women in the church(sic).” Sr Joan Chittester speaks of the breakaway sisters’ “fidelity”, not to the Church, but to the “spiritual ideals of the IHM tradition”.

The loud voices of propaganda have a tendency to hinder a better appreciation of the reality. This is not just in the matter of facts. We know that the Council did not so much call for the religious congregations to “modernize” as to reassess their life in light of the original charism of their institutes. And far from “squelching” the IHM sisters’ reforms, the Vatican in fact declined to act in their dispute with the Cardinal. At a deeper level, though, it was certainly a traumatic time for these women, and for the Church in the United States. Sandra Schneiders, a former religious sister herself, paints things in more muted hues: “It’s not like the Immaculate Heart women were doing anything outlandish. … All these changes were taking place without incident in the majority of dioceses around the country. Cardinal McIntyre simply was saying, ‘Not in my diocese.’ ” The “dictates” that the Cardinal was apparently imposing on the sisters to repress their renewal are apparently not so extreme either. Sr Joan herself lists them: (1) “adopt a uniform habit,” (2) “attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass together every day,” (3) “keep in mind their commitment to education”, (4) “collaborate with the Local Ordinary in the works of the apostolate”. Nothing outlandish in themselves, but they conflicted with the desire of many religious women, not least many of the IHM sisters, to abandon the habit, to explore new ways of living in community, and to undertake new, often experimental, works.

What has not been mentioned by the propagandists nor by the obituarists is the role played by psychology and psychologists in the demise of IHM sisters. They signed up en masse in 1967 as guinea pigs, in effect, for the new phenomenon in psychology of “encounter groups” pioneered by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. Essential to the meetings of these groups was the un-fettered airing of feelings, desires, opinions and judgments by members. The aim was to promote honesty about self and to break down individual and social inhibitions. The psychologists who ran these meetings did so by not running them (an approach known as non-directive), and allowing things to develop unhindered. Far from liberating the individual, more often than it subjected the individual to the pressure of the group’s judgment. In trying to break free from the perceived bonds of Church and traditional institutional religious life, individual sisters found themselves submitting themselves to the judgments and opinions of the encounter group. Moreover, feelings and emotive judgments were not challenged or discussed, but effectively affirmed and encouraged. There were no good or bad feelings. Your experience was valid however you might interpret it. Often the groups gave vent to repressed sexual urges, and the sexual feelings of one member for another. As the sisters expressed more and more freely their “true” selves, the majority decided they did not want to submit to any institutional authority except “the authority of their imperial inner selves”. More can be read about the destructive effect of this psychological intervention here. William Coulson, one of the pyschologists involved with the sisters’ encounter groups, has come to regret his involvement and now works to help the victims of the encounter sessions. You can read more from him here and here.

So, at the very least there is more than meets the eye to this tragic chapter in the history of the Church in America. There was more to it than the just a collective rebel yell of liberated feminist sisters. Psychology, in one of its more fertile and experimental periods, was accepted uncritically as a tool, when in fact its agenda in this particular case was totally at odds with a Catholic approach to personhood and spiritual growth. That all the members of a congregation could willingly submit themselves to be guinea pigs for a new and unproven school of psychology is quite breathtaking. It was not the only time that psychology, uncritically employed, has been a destructive factor in the Church over the last 50 years.

What remains? The breakaway sisters’ non-canonical, lay foundation still exists, the Immaculate Heart Community. Considering that it began with over 300 ex-sisters, and its open recruitment policy has permitted receiving men and non-Catholics, its current total of 160 members reveals a clear decline. Given the age profile of the community the decline appears to be terminal. But they had a solid foundation in material terms from the outset for, before she renounced her religious vows, Caspary transferred ownership of the congregation’s college, hospital, high school and retreat house to secular companies owned by the new breakaway community. The sisters who remained in the congregation and faithful to their vows were left without the congregation’s assets. So they made a new start, and relocated to Wichita, Kansas. Judging by their website, the sisters wear the habit, and have a spirituality and mission that is integrated into the life of the Church, centring mainly on education and retreat work. They are planning to expand their motherhouse. I cannot find any estimate of numbers for them but if their website is any guide, they seem to be doing quite well. Thankfully these sisters, who remained faithful to the Church through the most difficult times, seem now to be prospering in work that is clearly at the service of the Church.

Sweeping judgments on this sad affair are easily made, but we should remember that it is was a very difficult period in the history of religious life: destructive forces came from within the religious life as much as from without, and were too often unrecognised as such. Yet Anita Caspary herself gives a clue to the profound error underlying the actions of so many religious women (and men) in the 1960s and after. In her memoirs she wrote, ”In many ways, we foreshadowed the contemporary (and vibrant) feminist movement within the Catholic Church.” It seems in retrospect that the dominant imperative in the reformation, and disintegration, of so many congregations was not one of authentic renewal within the heart of the Church, but rather of secular ideology. Radical feminism and women’s liberation spoke a language that was at odds with a Catholic Christian understanding of the individual and of society. Its agenda was in no way Christian, but essentially secular, employing a variation of Marxist class-warfare: gender conflict. By the mid 1970s, we find religious sisters openly espousing Wicca, among other pagan ideologies, with its talk of priestesses and goddesses within. One need only read Ungodly Rage by Donna Steichen to find abundant documentation.

Sadly many ordinary, well-intentioned religious women were caught up in a maelstrom of self-destruction unleashed by a minority of articulate, radicalised and misguided sisters. The pieces are still being gathered up today. For all that, we can only pray for Anita Caspary, that she might find mercy with God, and rest in peace.

The gloaming

Snug in my room after a cold but beautiful day.

A couple more pictures here.

Lambs are doing fine and some birds yet to be identified (I am no ornithologist) supplanted the finches and the tits at the feeder for a while.

Again, a few more pictures here.

Births in the Monastery

Well, not quite births in the monastery. Rather, births among its flock… of sheep, that is. Yesterday twin sister lambs, Eva and Zsa Zsa, were born (pics get bigger if you click them).

Mother busied herself for a long time indeed giving the little girls a makeover.

This ewe lost both her twins last year when they emerged together. This confused her and she only managed to get one free of its birth sac, and then only belatedly. The encased one died before I arrived, and the second never recovered from the trauma and died not much later. This year, things worked to plan. I arrived shortly after Eva was born, and she was already clear of the sac, on her feet, and feeding. Having dashed back in for lunch, I returned to find Zsa Zsa had been born, and was also on her feet though having some trouble finding the teat. About Compline time it began to snow and I had fears for the lambs on this chilly first night for them.

So I was relieved to find this sight when I went out this morning…

Zsa Zsa still has some trouble getting to the milk in timely fashion…

In all the lambs seem to be in good form. In fact, they are rather enjoying the attention from the paparazzo.

**********

Last night we had enough snow to blanket the earth in a soothing veil of white, fitting on this feast of St Scholastica, Virgin and Nun. There are two “photo essays” of scenes around the monastery this morning. You can see them on the Tumblr page (which is much better suited to pictures).

To be sure now

Don’t forget to come take a Tumblr with me. If you want, just click the pic.

C.S. Lewis & Liturgical Innovation

Apart from being a great literary figure, C.S. Lewis was, of course, a devout and committed Christian. Though an Anglican, he was never partisan and can be, and is, read with profit by Catholics. The recent controversy about Fr  William Rowe, in Illinois – who offered his resignation when taken to task by his bishop (and not for the first time) for habitually changing the words of the Mass and making up his own prayers – brought back to mind some reflections offered by Lewis in his excellent little book, Prayer: Letters to Malcolm.

So rather than offer my own commentary on Fr Rowe and the practice by some priests of constantly tampering with the liturgical rites, it seemed better to remind us of some of Lewis’ observations. They were first made in the early 1960s but are as relevant today as then. In light of what was soon to follow, they verge on prophetic. That these are the observations of a layman give them an added force.

It looks as if they [ie clergymen] believed people can be lured to go to church by incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications and complications of the service. And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of his innovations. The majority, I believe, never are. Those who remain – many give up churchgoing altogether – merely endure.

Is this simply because the majority are hidebound? I think not. They have a good reason for their conservatism. Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And they don’t go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best – if you like, it ‘works’ best – when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not dancing but only learning to dance. A good show is a shoe you do not notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping. …

A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the question, ‘What on earth is he up to now?’ will intrude. It lays one’s devotion waste. … Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity. …

It may well be that some variations which seem to me merely matters of taste really involve grave doctrinal differences. … I think it would have been best, if it were possible, that necessary change should have occured gradually and (to most people) imperceptibly; here a little and there a little. … Yet we all want to be tinkering. …

Lewis makes some profound and fundamental points about liturgical worship and the role of ritual. The liturgy should focus our attention on God, not ourselves, and certainly not on the celebrant. Even his homily should be revealing more about God than about himself (oh those stories about his travels, encounters, friends and childhood – occasionally illuminating, but all too often self-indulgent). None of us, celebrant included, comes to church to do something with the liturgy, but to let the liturgy do something with us.

Lewis moves on to personal prayer, but his observations about the use of “ready-made” prayers in our private devotions has a relevance to public, liturgical devotion, especially in light of Fr Rowe’s fondness for ad-libbing liturgical prayers and texts. On the use of these “set-texts” in prayer (and so in worship) Lewis maintains that,

[f]irst, it keeps me in touch with ‘sound doctrine’. Left to oneself, once could easily slide away from ‘the faith once given’ into a phantom called ‘my religion’.

Secondly, it reminds me ‘what things I ought to ask’ (perhaps especially when I am praying for other people). The crisi of the present moment, like the nearest telegraph post, will always loom largest. Isn’t there a danger that out great, permanent, objective necessities – often more important – may get crowded out? By the way, that’s another thing to be avoided in a revised Prayer Book. ‘Contemporary problems’ may claim an undue share. And the more ‘up to date’ the Book is, the sooner it will be dated.

This insight could be usefully applied to the common practice of in-house composition by individuals of intercessions for the Prayers of the Faithful at Mass. Often many ramble on, offering virtual party-political statements at times, addressed more to the congregation than to God, and very often seeking to be ‘relevant’. When done well, bidding prayers can be very enriching; when done poorly they were best not done at all!

Lastly, going back earlier, Lewis’ point about innovation as a means to “luring” people to church deserves some reflection. In seeking to make liturgy ‘relevant’ to those who do not come, we can end up marginalising those who do come. The sad truth is that, for this reason but indeed for other reasons as well, these (illicit) innovations have not crowded our churches. A pathetic percentage of Catholics actually attends Mass. The reason is less to do with an inaccessible liturgy than with a more general crisis in faith. Our worship is the fruit of our faith; if our faith is lacking, then so too will our desire to worship. If the quality of our faith is lacking, so too will the quality of our worship. By attempting to lure the unready into church with the baubles of novelty, all we do is draw an audience united in the desire for diversion or entertainment, not a congregation united in faith and drawn for worship. If the Church’s liturgy means so little to some Catholics, then the remedy is not to make changes to the liturgy, but to seek change within those Catholics so that they can appreciate their need to worship God, and do so at one with the Church. No doubt this is one of the tasks set for the Pope’s New Evangelization.

To Gesima, or not to Gesima

In the last week or so there has been quite a bit of talk and agitation on the blogosphere about Septuagesima. Yesterday was, if we had been using the pre-conciliar liturgical calendar, Septuagesima Sunday. In the new liturgical calendar it was merely the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time. One might wonder what is the difference, and what, if anything, has been lost with the suppression of Septuagesima (and of Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, though not Quadragesima, which is Lent).

Literally the word septuagesima means seventieth, though that is not necessarily much help in understanding its liturgical use. Septuagesima Sunday is neither 70 days after anything in particular, nor is it 70 days before anything, though it is dated according to Easter. It is the ninth Sunday before Easter and the third before Lent. Why it is called the seventieth is not exactly clear. While Quinquagesima is, in fact, 50 days before Easter by one way of counting, and Quadragesima is in fact 40 days before Easter by another way of counting, neither Septuagesima nor Sexagesima have a corresponding accuracy. Perhaps it is a form of rounding off to the nearest -gesima?

What is somewhat clearer is that in the earliest days of the Church many pious Christians, not least the clergy (yes, pious clergy), began to fast 70 days before Easter. At various times and places other Christians began to fast 60 days before Easter, some 50, and some 40. The term Septuagesima is first found in liturgical books (that survive, at least) with the Gelasian Sacramentary, which seems to date from the 8th century in the manuscripts we still have, but is linked by ancient tradition to Pope St Gelasius I (d. 496). It was Pope Gregory who fixed the pre-Easter period of preparatory penance, Lent, at 40 days so as to bring about some consistency in Christendom.

However, Septuagesima continued to have signficance liturgically. For from this Sunday the Alleluia would cease to be sung or said until Easter (and not from Ash Wednesday, as in the modern calendar). Likewise the Gloria was not sung until Easter. While there was no fasting yet, the colour purple was used from this Sunday. It was almost-Lent, a fore-Lent. Or, as the people’s hand missals used to explain so well, it was a season of its own to prepare for Lent.

Indeed, it would not hurt to see what a few of these missals taught about the seemingly obscure season of the -Gesimas. The St Joseph Daily Missal (NY, 1959) explains that the three -Gesima Sundays marked the beginning of the second part of the ecclesiastical year, a mini-season of three weeks which “form a transition from the joy of Christmastide to the austerity of the Penitential Season of Lent”.

The Layman’s Missal (London, 1961) offers a very full set of notes. It also observes that this season moves us from Christmastide towards Easter, in part by recalling the 70 years Israel spent in captivity in Babylon. Then the notes go on to explain the more direful and dolorous tone of the prayers and chants of the season of the -Gesimas in this context of transition:

Since Christmas and Epiphany we have learned to know our Saviour and our King. It was our great joy to “see the heavens opened”, to “receive the Lord our God come in person” in order to establish at last his kingdom of justice and of peace.

God united himself with us by means of the Incarnation; and yet our state of misery is still with us:”The surging tide of death has engulfed me: the meshes of hell have entangled me”. That is because only the first page of the history of our redemption has been written. It is now our task to accept our Saviour and unite ourselves to him, in order that he may bring us out of our wretchedness and lead us all on the way to God.

… we have to aqccepot the conditions of our redemption: “Lord teach me your law”. The promise has not yet developed into victory. It is necessry fort to “bear the day’s burden” like the labourers in the vineyard…

*****

The gospel for Septuagesima Sunday: the parable of the labourers in the vineyard

The Bible Missal (Bruges, 1962) offers a somewhat different history of the development of the -Gesimas, itself a reminder that much of the early origins of our liturgy are clouded by the passing of the centuries, leaving much for liturgists to argue about. It brings in that school of thought that emphasises the formal erection in the seventh century of Septuagesima, with its tone of being surrounded and engulfed by the tides of evil and death, as being a response to the violent onward press of the barbarians into the Roman world at that time. This missal even adds a “Theme”, namely the Sacraments. It highlights that the Sacraments are more than rituals but are intended to “change our lives”. Since sacraments are encounters with the living Christ, they should then, in this season especially, be seen as the means of our entering “completely into the Covenant between God and ourselves” established eternally in Christ, learning from the failure of Israel to embrace their now-superseded covenant.

Lastly, moving beyond the hand missals, the great popular liturgical expositor Pius Parsch (d. 1954), in his The Breviary Explained (London, 1952) described the season of the -Gesimas as a transition, but more, as a preparation for Lent, “the antechamber of the Lenten Season”, and noted that

[t]he Liturgy for these three Sundays is particularly beautiful and artistic in structure. This is true of the Mass liturgy especially.

In light of that assessment particularly, it is no surprise that many are lamenting the loss of this season of the -Gesimas. Kate at Australia Incognita feels that the season’s emphasis on perseverance amidst a sea of troubles speaks as much to us now as it did to the Church in the seventh century. Moreover, she holds that this pre-Lent season helps us better to prepare for Lent itself, to take it more seriously, than we find when Lent springs upon so suddenly on Ash Wednesday.

Fr Hunwicke’s Liturgical Notes, referenced by Kate, point to the Second Vatican Council’s explicit mandate in Sacrosanctum Concilium that “[t]he liturgical year is to be revised so that the traditional customs and discipline of the sacred seasons can be preserved or restored to meet the conditions of modern times; their specific character is to be retained”. He ruefully wonders why the season of the -Gesimas was not protected by the Council’s express desire.

There is much to recommend the restoration of the season of the -Gesimas, when one thinks about it. Certainly there are many of us who find that Lent is upon us before we have given serious thought as to how we might fruitfully participate in that sacred season, what to read and what more-than-cursory penance we might offer – in short, how to make Lent a time for true re-conversion.

At a deeper level it reminds us of one the least satisfactory aspects of the new liturgical calendar: Ordinary Time. Before the post-conciliar reform of the Calendar the Church had no concept at all of any time being ordinary. Of course, the reformers did not intend the more banal meaning of the word to apply, but for the common Catholic it does, more often than not. All time, including that we call ordinary or “throughout the year”, is salvation time. “Now is the acceptable time” says St Paul (2 Cor 6:2), “this is the day of salvation”. In the old calendar all time was labelled in reference to one of the great moments in salvation history: Advent, the season preparing for Christmas and also for the Second Coming; Christmas; Epiphany and the days counted after Epiphany; the season of the -Gesimas, easing us out of Christmastide and preparing for…; Lent, the season of re-conversion in preparation for…; Easter and the days counted after Easter; Pentecost, the feast of the establishment of the Church as the enduring and saving presence of the Body of Christ in the world, and the days counted after Pentecost.

Every day was thus anchored to salvation history. No day was ordinary, none humdrum. Every day was a call to experience more fully an aspect of our redemption, and the mystery of God’s love for us revealed in that chapter of salvation history. While the reform of the Lectionary is a far richer gift to the Church, expounding in greater detail the biblical aspects of salvation history throughout the liturgical year, nevertheless we consciously mark the time by its liturgical title, not firstly by the readings of a particular day. So, hearing a Sunday called the fifth in “Ordinary Time”, with no explicit anchorage in salvation history, will usually lead the unwary into considering that day to be, indeed, ordinary, humdrum, of no great consequence.

Could that, perhaps, be part of the reason why ours has become a Church of Christmas-Easter-wedding-and-funeral churchgoers? At least those times sound special. It is a question worth pondering.

A monk tumbles.

Even monks have to keep up to date, in some things at least. Some topics need words, and so a blog is just right. Other topics are less verbal, and better apprehended sensorily. A picture tells a thousand words, so it is said. So to cater for the more visual side of things, it seemed good to become a tumbling monk. So now you will find a companion site to this on Tumblr, where any photos poorly taken by me will be posted, as well as other things that…. well…. take my fancy.

It begins with a few photos taken outside today. Have a look if you want, right here. Yes, that’s right, here.

Pax!

Candlemas

A proper post is coming soon, and on a topical issue. In the meantime here is a brief homily – homilette – preached today in the abbey church at the Mass for Candlemas, the feast of the Presentation of our Lord and the Purification of his blessed Mother (one of the Church’s most ancient feasts. It will make more sense if you cast your eyes over the readings set for Mass: Malachi 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40.

It is the fortieth day since the feast of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we have entered his temple to commemorate the day, the fortieth after he was born, when Christ entered the Temple in the arms of his mother, in obedience to the Law of Moses.

What exactly was this Law they obeyed? As found in Leviticus 12 it laid down that a mother present herself to the priest, bringing with her a lamb, or if she were poor some turtledoves or pigeons, with which the priest would offer sacrifice to purify the mother after the loss of blood in childbirth. We would be wrong to see in this some sort of primitive misogynistic disgust. Blood to the ancients was the life-force of the human body. So to lose blood was to flirt with death, which is of course the penalty for sin. Thus childbirth was something of a paradox – new life emerging in an atmosphere of sin and death. Childbirth could almost stand as an icon of fallen human nature in need of redemption.

There is a second strand to the Law as it concerns the aftermath of childbirth, found in Exodus 13. Here the focus shifts from the mother to the first-born. It prescribed that the child be brought to be offered to God. This was in consequence of God having slain all the first-born of Egypt when he delivered Israel from bondage there – in strict justice, the price Israel had to pay for its liberation was its own first-born, who likewise should be sacrificed to pay the price. But the Law commuted this terrible debt to the vicarious sacrifice of a lamb, or again turtledoves or pigeons for the poor. By this sacrifice the first-born was redeemed from the debt, the lamb accepted in place of the babe.

The Jewish bystander in the Temple 2000-odd years ago witnessing the presentation of Jesus by Mary would have seen the outward performance of the same ritual as ever, but not the new and radically different reality beneath, which only Simeon and Anna seemed to perceive. Mary, the sinless one, had no need of purification under the Law. Christ, the eternal Word made flesh, had no need to be redeemed, for he did not  belong to God – he was God. Of course our Lord and our Lady subjected themselves to a law that did not bind them in order to fulfil it for those who were bound by it. The light of Candlemas lights the path to the day of Calvary when Christ would indeed become the lamb of sacrifice, not to purify the mother and redeem the first-born, but to purify and redeem all his people, the final and perfect fulfilment of the Law. As Simeon prophesied, the light of this day reveals the Cross – yes; but a Cross bathed in the radiance of the resurrection, a revelation to all the world and the glory of God’s people.

May the thoughts of our hearts be found able to stand before the light of our Lord’s second coming to his Temple. And may the Church shine ever brighter as a light of revelation to all nations.