Happy Easter

A very Happy Easter to all readers.



(Pictured above is my brother-in-law Lee, sister Kate with Oliver and Fr Michael Marsden, my uncle)

Fittingly, on Easter Sunday, my nephew Oliver was baptised at Our Lady of Lourdes in Hessle by my Uncle Michael. After celebrating the Lord's Resurrection the night and morning before, the Baptism on Sunday afternoon was a great occasion.



Oliver was a little restless but seemed to be calmed when the two oils were placed on his forehead with the sign of the Cross and during the Baptism itself. There were four Godparents, including myself, and we all had hold of Ollie when he was being Baptised. This made me realise the important responsibility of a Godfather in praying for him and helping to bring him up in the Faith.



After the ceremony we went into the Hall for a delicious buffet lunch with sandwiches, pork pies, pizzas, crisps and dips, buns and booze (although I was driving so didn't have any of that).

Over Holy Week and Easter I was impressed (as ever) with the Pope's addresses and homilies. The Chrism Mass homily was particularly outstanding. In it he talked about sacrifices and particularly those men make when being ordained to the priesthood.

Consecration is thus a taking away from the world and a giving over to the living God. The thing or person no longer belongs to us, or even to itself, but is immersed in God. Such a giving up of something in order to give it over to God, we also call a sacrifice: this thing will no longer be my property, but his property.

In the Old Testament, the giving over of a person to God, his "sanctification", is identified with priestly ordination, and this also defines the essence of the priesthood: it is a transfer of ownership, a being taken out of the world and given to God. We can now see the two directions which belong to the process of sanctification-consecration. It is a departure from the milieux of worldly life -- a "being set apart" for God. But for this very reason it is not a segregation. Rather, being given over to God means being charged to represent others. The priest is removed from worldly bonds and given over to God, and precisely in this way, starting with God, he is available for others, for everyone. When Jesus says: "I consecrate myself", he makes himself both priest and victim.

Speaking about the importance of the Mass, he said:

...it is important that we constantly learn to pray by praying with the Church. Celebrating the Eucharist means praying. We celebrate the Eucharist rightly if with our thoughts and our being we enter into the words which the Church sets before us. There we find the prayer of all generations, which accompany us along the way towards the Lord.

Pope Benedict also shared a personal experience he had before entering the priesthood:

On the eve of my priestly ordination, fifty-eight years ago, I opened the Sacred Scripture, because I wanted to receive once more a word from the Lord for that day and for my future journey as a priest. My gaze fell on this passage: "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth". Then I realized: the Lord is speaking about me, and he is speaking to me. This very same thing will be accomplished tomorrow in me. When all is said and done, we are not consecrated by rites, even though rites are necessary. The bath in which the Lord immerses us is himself -- the Truth in person. Priestly ordination means: being immersed in him, immersed in the Truth. I belong in a new way to him and thus to others, "that his Kingdom may come".