SPIRITUAL RENEWAL

I. Introducing Medjugorje.

II. This Month's Message and Newsletter.

III. The Maw of History - A Meditation on 9/11

IV. Walsingham - England’s Nazareth

V. Visit Fr Ted’s Church website - a virtual church revealing a vibrant reality! (Or you may choose to visit the church he attends and where he assists.)

Not a bad record for a remote, rural, Balkan parish set high up in the hills between Mostar and the coast, some 18 miles south of that city. It is near enough for pilgrims to have heard the shellfire around the city regularly during the civil war, especially in the quiet of the night.

Up to the mid-1990s the total number of visitors to this parish had been estimated variously, between 20,000,000 and 60,000,000. They came often out of curiosity. Many came not quiet sure why they came. A friend had told them, perhaps, how marvellous it was. Perhaps a TV programme, or feature article stimulated their interest. It is said that many come as tourists, and return home as pilgrims. A sample, some 250 first-time visitors, was asked the question, "Why have you come?" Less than 5% gave answers which were more or less the same. The same question, asked of 250 second-time visitors, received an 80% response of very slight variations of the answer, "I came back to learn to pray."

It all began on a hot summer day in June 1981. In the previous month an attempt had been made on the life of Pope John Paul II. A few weeks later, at Pentecost that the Pontiff prayed that the Holy Spirit come to the Church with renewed vigour, asking the faithful to "repeat with still greater fervour: 'Let your Spirit descend and renew the face of the earth.'" It is our belief that the prayer was answered just over a fortnight later in this remote valley in the south of Bosnia-Herzegovina. God's response came in a most remarkable way. John Paul II attributed his deliverance from death to the direct intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He related his call for renewal to that belief. If God could intervene through Mary to save his life, the Holy Spirit could intervene to renew the world and its lifestyle.

God's choice was the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to half a dozen or so country children and young people with a direct and strange message. A tall story? Maybe - but then so was his choice of that young girl nearly two millennia before as be the bearer and human nurturer of his Son. God was merely repeating and reasserting his earlier choice.

Sixteen days after Pentecost, in June 1981, at the time of the feast of St.John the Baptist, Jesus's Forerunner, and some very ordinary young people began to experience the Blessed Virgin Mary in a startling and unexpected way. Her message was "Peace."

The Camberley Medjugorje Centre and the Society of Our Lady of Medjugorje have sought to promote this message, and the example of Our Lady’s obedience, and the graces which come from a study of her relationship with Jesus, alongside and subject to the profound dedication to Jesus Himself and God the father, which lies at the heart of Medjugorje. The author continues this online ministry.

http://fr-ted.tripod.com

http://susret.tripod.com/

http://uk.geocities.com/churchfundraisinguk/

http://www.marketingwithintegrity.org

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"Dear children!

May your life, anew, be a decision for peace.

Be joyful carriers of peace and do not forget that you live in a time of grace, in which God gives you great graces through my presence.

Do not close yourselves, little children, but make good use of this time and seek the gift of peace and love for your life so that you may become witnesses to others.

I bless you with my motherly blessing.

Thank you for having responded to my call."

Comment

There has been a lot of speculation lately about possible official decisions over the events at Medjugorje since that mid-summer in the early 1980s when the devotion to Mary inherent in the Croatian spiritual tradition exploded at Medjugorje.

So far as I can see the whole matter has been gradually centralised, from the local parish clergy to the their Franciscan superiors, then to the Bishop of Mostar, then to the Conference of Former Yugoslav Bishops, then to the Bosnia-Herzegovinan hierarchy, and now it seems to the Vatican.

Many people are frustrated by this kind of delay and point to earlier examples of long periods of people receiving visions of Mary which were recognised even while they were going on.

For myself, I am quite grateful for the delay. It has allowed a lay-led spirituality to emerge honed by the careful ministry of a very large number of priests and bishops accompanying pilgrim parties as spiritual directors.

A major criticism is that the visionaries report nothing new, no new dogma, in what they report Mary as saying to them. However, this makes sense, if rather uncomfortably so. The apparition is claimed to have commented that her mission is specifically to the Western Church under its leader, the Pope in Rome.

I am not a Roman Catholic, nor an Orthodox Christian but an Anglican, and a member of the "Society of Mary" which includes both Roman and Anglican Bishops in its leadership. My experience suggests that such the message reported is right. It is the Church in the West, all denomination, including Rome, that has declined in the simple matters of Christian life that is recommended in the messages reported. It has also declined in that healthy devotion to Mary which the present Bishop of Mostar recommends, and reportedly observes in the life of the visionaries.

Nothing new then at Medjugorje? For the Church at large, No! For the individual, the challenge to a reappraisal of their spiritual life by means of the traditional spiritual exercises espoused at Medjugorje by the visionaries, the local parish, and the pilgrims i.e. Prayer, Commitment to God, Faith, Fasting, and Peace.

This month's message in its simplicity asks us, once more to renew our observance of those matters.

Enjoy them! Enjoy their fruit of deeper devotion, and a more faithful witness!

Yours ay,

Fr. Ted’s Newsletter has been published in the past published as well in an expanded form several times a year on his dedicated church website: http://st-matildas.tripod.com

“It is the most ancient of Christian sites in the country.” they said. “The Phoenicians were here first, apart from a few ancient Brits with whom they traded.” “Look, here is our oldest parishioner.” A Jar was taken from a shelve in the chancel. “He gives the Vicar less trouble than anyone else!.” It was a grey pot, cracked and stuck together again, the inside stained by ashes. “He was Christian. We know that. First, because the pot has wavy lines around it to tell us he had been baptised. Second, the urn was found on top of the altar stone there,” a cursory nod towards the shelf and a small piece of stone with crosses on the corners. “The date has to be around 150 AD”

We marvelled at such antiquity.

The parade around the church continued, stories of ancient tombs, courtiers - for this was a royal church, Saxon princes, Tudor ladies still resplendent and perfectly preserved until the fresh air got to them. Then out into the churchyard. More tombs, a Roman Basilica now hidden below the nave and out across the churchyard to make a mound for the daffodils, “Stinking Willy” the butcher of Culloden, with his butler and alleged catamite laid in the ground across the bottom of his feet, bits of Captain Hardy, Nelson’s own “Kiss-Me-Quick,” (was it really ’Kiss-me’ or Kismet’ - who’s to know or care, or spoil a good story?) Christina Rossetti in best stone modelling an angel on a gravestone. We pictured “See, amid the winter’s snow”, and the photographers among us made a note to return the when the snow came, and brightened and whitened and enlivened her stone-grey hair.

So we re-entered and returned to the church’s latest extension - a modern Chapter House, built with proceeds of the land, now a Theme Park next door, and a Millennium grant. Here met Church Councils, Diocesan Committees, the Sunday School, and the Vicar’s various groups. An adjacent room was to house the parish office and our counselling centre. In the modern magnificence of the main room registers were signed after Weddings, as newly-weds and their witnesses tidied each other, went to the loo, and moistened dry mouths at the parochial kitchen. Hither after Mass on Sunday, we came ourselves for coffee, a biscuit, a gossip and chat. From time to time parties are held here and refreshments for those attending concerts and lectures in the main church.

Thus we finished our refreshments, and returned to our cars or to walk home, regaled by two thousand years of history in these “Ancient and Modern” monuments around our spiritual home.

A week later, the “Stars and Stripes” flew at half-mast above the mellowing brick of the Tudor tower. The Queen had graciously given her consent to it being flown, here alone, for our American colleagues. Never before had anything so un-British been flown above a public building. More history. Around this we could not wander in deference. History had moved us. It challenged and consumed us. From its jaws oozed blood and the grey dust of New York and Washington. It swallowed our hearts, and from its maw we could not escape. Many friends and family were directly involved. History had taken us into itself.

(The Reverend Doctor Edward Baty, 18th September 2001)

The quiet village of Walsingham in the English County of Norfolk is centre to a remarkable story of renewal and revival which continues to this day. Today’s pilgrims to the shrines in and around Walsingham follow the footsteps of Kings, Queens, other monarchs, and pilgrims of every class who flocked to Walsingham in the Middle Ages.

The shrines at Walsingham form one of the greatest of God’s gifts to Christian formation in the United Kingdom, and England in particular. There are Anglican and Roman Catholic shrines, an Orthodox Monastery, and a Methodist Chapel at which John Wesley himself preached. There is an Orthodox Chapel in the Anglican shrine. Here we concern ourselves primarily with the Anglican shrine

.

The Roman Catholic Shrine is designated as the National Shrine of the Roman Catholic Church in England. Youth Pilgrimages are held each summer at both shrines.

The history of the shrines at Walsingham go back to the eleventh century - before the Norman conquest, and the time of the earliest Crusades.

Richeldis de Faverches, the founder of the shrine, was a Saxon noblewoman, the widow of the local Lord of the Manor. She had a deep faith in God, a strong devotion to Mary, and was very active in good works. In 1061 she had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in which she was shown the house in Nazareth where the Annunciation of Our Lord Jesus Christ took place. Mary asked Richeldis to build an exact replica of that house in Walsingham. The vision was repeated three times after which the Holy House was rebuilt in Walsingham, according to legend by miraculous means, a simple wooden structure which gave Little Walsingham the name of “England‘s Nazareth.”

In time a magnificent Priory Church was built adjacent to the Holy House which came under royal patronage throughout the medieval and early Renaissance periods.

Pilgrims returned to Walsingham in 1897 with the restoration of the “Slipper Chapel” as a Roman Catholic shrine. Anglican pilgrimages began in the Parish Church until a new shrine was constructed. This was dedicated in 1931 and incorporated the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham which is based on the image of the original medieval statue of Our Lady believed to be shown on the seal of the medieval priory, placed in the Anglican parish church in 1922.

Facilities to house the pilgrims have grown through the years and provide excellent facilities for the many who flock there year by year, as well as facilities for conferences, retreats and similar events.

There is a strong educational side to the work of the shrine, which has 2,000 “Priests Associate of the Holy House” and 4,000 Lay Members of “The Society of Our Lady of Walsingham,” all of whom undertake regular prayer and monthly masses in support of the work of the shrine.

Fr. Ted’s specialities in ministries were various. His particular skill was that of combining a parish ministry with a ministry to the wider community, and the Church at large. The areas involved were mainly those relevant to the parochial ministry: pastoral care, counselling, and psychotherapy - explored, experienced, practised and taught at every level from the most basic to post-graduate; architectural history - his life before ordination was in the building and civil engineering industries as a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and his academic background is in the history of art, architecture and design, including the design of musical instruments and their music; and in evangelism - his parish anticipated the much-vaunted “Decade of Evangelism” (the 1990s) by a good seven or eight years working mainly with Billy Graham and English evangelist Daniel Cozens. The Decade failed, the parish succeeded. The essential insights gained have been put onto a dedicated church website, reflecting the outgoing character so much missing from far too many parishes, churches, and chapels today:

http://st-matildas.tripod.com

It’s full of detail as to Fr. Ted’s present ministry, the organisations he works with, the church attends (lightly disguised) and aspirations as to the ways parish life in England, and throughout the world, can be revitalised for the benefit of everyone.

Or

You may visit the real church he attends and assists:

http://st-marys-church.tripod.com

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