Homilies for 130th Parish Anniversary Celebrations, by the Parish Priest

7th October 2023: Homily for the Solemnity of Our Lady of the Rosary and the 130th Anniversary Mass:

Our 130^th anniversary brings us together in praise and thanksgiving for the past, but also enables us to discern the future. May the Lord continue to bless us now and forever: ‘our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth’.

A parish’s identity is lacking without the Eucharist. Centred around the ‘Word of made flesh’, we come to invoke, thank, and praise God. Invocation is a joyful ‘remembrance’ of the wonders worked by God, making ‘Do this in remembrance of me,’ an ongoing participation in Christ’s death and resurrection.

Thanksgiving prevents us taking for granted the blessings received from God. ‘Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ for all the benefits thou hast given me, for all the pains and insults they have borne for me!’ Praise begins the process of sharing in God’s glory, now, and for eternity. May ‘our participation at the Altar’ enable us to ‘be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing’.

The Liturgy is the work of priest and people together, ‘we, your servants and your holy people, offer to God’s glorious majesty from the gifts that he has given us, the pure victim, the holy victim, the spotless victim, the holy Bread of eternal life and the Chalice of everlasting salvation’. And as Vatican II stressed in its constitutions, the Mass should be sung, especially the psalms and antiphons, themselves grounded on Sacred Scripture. As St Augustine said, ‘he or she who sings well, prays twice’.

What does the parish pray for? Many, various things, but Our Lady shows it is for the courage to consent to the ‘Word’, and to be of service to God; but service without love of him, is merely a hobby, and at worst ‘lording it over’ others.

Genuine service includes saying ‘yes’ to proclaiming the gospel ‘in and out of season’, knowing they are the ‘words of eternal life’ and an expression of God’s own love for all humanity He wishes to save. It is also a saying ‘no’ to sin which only separates us from God’s love, preventing us flourishing as a child of God.

In the Mass, the Church repeats the Angel’s greeting to ‘announce’ the gospel and begin the Eucharistic Prayer: ‘The Lord be with you’ is an affirmation that Christ is present with us, filling our soul. If we have dealt with our sin and opened our hearts to grace, the Lord will take shape in us, making us ‘full of grace’.

Surely, this elicits the same response as Mary: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour’, so when we are dismissed and told to ‘go’, we pass on our joy of encountering the Lord and magnify his presence to others.

What does the next 130 years look like? It is impossible to tell, but history shows us it will be a mixture of faithfulness and infidelity. When we are faithful, we enjoy blessing (not the same as happiness) and prosperity (not the same as money). Instead, it is a clarity in perceiving who God is, that He is present to us, and that our identity is understood only in reference to Him, and his plan for us.

The ‘Acts of the Apostles’ reminds us to remain in communion with the Apostolic Faith. Gathered in the ‘upper room’ with Mother Church, we persevere in prayer together, with Our Lady whom the disciples made room for her in his home. Five Hundred years ago when the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was instituted, we ‘remember’ how Christianity was at risk from invasion from the Ottomans.

The Christian Fleet was greatly outnumbered, but the night before the battle the people of Rome held them in prayer, going in procession, praying the Rosary, attributing their victory to Our Lady’s Intercession.  Today’s battle is not a Naval one, but a real battle for souls. To exclude Christianity from our society does not bring a secular humanism; instead, it opens the door for Islam to take hold.

In the next 130 years, we must recapture our Tradition; we must cherish and hand on the lives of the saints, the Church’s devotion, and liturgy, all of which are examples of holiness, which will leave the next 130 years in good stead.

8th October: Homily for 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (part of the 130th Anniversary Weekend):

130 years ago, in 1893, the Rosminians believed ‘Bexhill’ would be a fertile hill to plant a vineyard: a presbytery, to which were later added Churches and Halls.

And although the parish has undergone significant change over the years, there is still evidence of a fruitful harvest, for instance, the Chancellor always commends the number of RCIA applications he received from us each year.

We should never take such fruitfulness for granted. Our ‘History of Salvation’ teaches that when the people put their trust in God, they flourish; but when they are unfaithful, they experience hardship, even exile from the Promised Land.

So, never take your parish for granted: invest in it, with your prayer, time, and money, so that in another 130 years the parish will still be playing its part in the salvation of souls for the eternal life. The Church is compared to the vineyard; a piece of land to be cultivated, ‘rooted and grounded’ in Scripture and Tradition.

Always and everywhere, we proclaim Christ crucified and risen from the dead; principally by celebrating the Eucharist together as a perpetual memorial of Jesus’ death and resurrection which brings about humanity’s reconciliation with God and is the means by which we pass-over with Christ from death into life.

It has been said that Bexhill means ‘windy hill’, although there is no universal agreement on this. For Christians, this wind is the Holy Spirit who ‘ignites’ a fire in our hearts, making us ‘zealous’ in blowing the seed of the gospel around the vineyard, pollinating, and refreshing this section of the vineyard in A&B.

Thus, we are only part of the whole, so what happens in Bexhill and Little Common is not in isolation to the situation in the Diocese, itself a microcosm of Western Europe. We will experience more change moving forward; some a consequence of a loss of the faith which once converted the known world.

May we allow the Holy Spirit to direct our actions, corrects our faults, guide our conduct, make us holy and order our life to God’s will. Today at 4pm, there is an event in St Mary Magdalene where our parish groups will introduce themselves to us, speak of their particular charism and tell us how we can get involved.

Brethren, never doubt that ‘the Lord is near.’ St Paul encourages us to rejoice that the Lord promises to come again; indeed, he comes to us in prayer, in word and in sacrament, especially in the Holy Mass. Many of the people of the early Church lived in environments hostile to the gospel and despite the real danger to their lives, they put their trust in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. In the Roman Empire, this was enough to get you martyred for it was seen as a denial of the Emperor’s own ‘divinity’.

Prayer help prevent anything robbing us of peace and joy and helps us deal with life’s challenges with fortitude and grace. People say their prayers, but do we stop and listen to God’s response? Maybe he is calling us to a particular service, vocation, or sacrifice ‘for our good and the good of all his holy Church’.

Through the Church, Jesus continues to instruct us in what is good, holy, and true. The people of the past 130 years had a decent grasp of their Catholic faith. Today, in what some might call a ‘post-Christian era’, many are deficient in their grasp of Christianity; and so, moving forward, we must commit to on-going formation, which does not stop after receiving Confirmation!

Even your parish priest needs ongoing formation, that is why I was at Douai Abbey for the clergy on-going formation retreat, listing to eight conferences on sacred scripture to help improve my preaching. Here is my challenge to you all, when was the last time you went on retreat? Never? A long time? It would be very beneficial if you did, perhaps at Worth Abbey which is not far away and regularly runs retreats for people. Or if that is too much, how about attending our short Advent talk later in December!?

As we move into a time when the number of priests returns to levels we had prior to the Second World War, the Apostolate of the Laity will more important than ever. To keep the faith alive, we will need to know what we believe as Catholics, otherwise the ‘spirit of the age’ risks undermining truth and virtue.  

The Parish of Bexhill is a choice vineyard, which belongs to God. We have the immense privilege of tending to it, and so, today, we recommit to bringing in the Harvest, so when the Lord comes, he may collect His fruit, ‘fruit that will last’.

Homily for Vespers (Evening Prayer II) of 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (c.f. 1 Peter 1:3-5):

Without the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, not only would we not be celebrating our 130^th parish anniversary, but we would also not even be Christian. The Resurrection is an event that regenerates our faith and provides hope that death will not be the last word in our life, that instead, the word of God himself shall command that we rise up and live with him in the new heaven and earth that is to come, one that will not be spoilt by sin or fade away.

The remarkable revelation of Jesus Christ is that God is Father. In the ancient pagan world, ‘gods’ are to be feared and appeased with sacrifice. Instead, Jesus invites us to come close and enter into a personal relationship with God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Through Holy Baptism, we have become sons of God in the Son, Jesus Christ. Our goal is to become so Christ like, so that when we stand before the Father at our personal judgement, all God sees starring back at him is an image of his beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hope in our eternal inheritance allows us to carry our cross, which through the Resurrection, we no longer see as an instrument of torture and execution but the sublime image of God’s love for the world. And so, Jesus says, ‘come to me all you who are overburdened, and I will give rest for your souls’. My dear brothers and sisters do not be afraid to take up your cross daily and follow the Lord; he promises us all the graces and strengths necessary for us to pass-over with him into the garden of the Resurrection.

Our parish mission must include the preaching of Christ crucified and risen from the dead. His Death and Resurrection is the qualifying criteria for being a Christian, the fulfilment of all the salvific promises made to God’s people since the fall of humanity in Genesis chapter 3. From the risen Christ, we are born again by water and the Holy Spirit.

Hence, why we called this weekend ‘ignition’, to let the Holy Spirit ‘enlighten the eyes of our minds so that we can see what hope God’s call has for us’.

Then, we too, must be prepared to take this good news of salvation to others so that they may share in our faith, hope, and love in the gospel. May our 130^th Anniversary be another Pentecost moment in the life of our parish; may we find a new language of truth and virtue that can penetrate the dullness of this modern society so obsessed with a return to the darkness.

As has been said, ‘we are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song’; like the Apostles before us, we are aware of our human limitations, but God’s grace, especially the gifts of the Holy Spirit given at Confirmation allow us live out a bold martyrdom, a living witness to Christ: ‘we proclaim your death, O Lord, and profession your resurrection, until you come again’. In a changing world, the gospel stays the same; and he promises to be with us, yes, to the end of the age.

This is the witness of countless saints, holy men and women who have given their lives for the sake of the gospel, by living out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy in their communities. Because Christians are of Christ, they can bring the same hope of Christ to the world; in fact, it is not a suggestion but a duty.

Only by finding Christ in his Holy Church can people’s hearts be truly satisfied; but surely, we can find Christ at home alone!? Yes, indeed that is true, but when an individual member cuts themselves off from the ‘Body of Christ’, they will struggle to find the necessary nourishment of the Eucharist: ‘his body, blood, soul, and divinity’; in other words, the fulness and totality of God in Christ. This is why the apostolate of the SVP and our Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion is so vital because it allows the housebound to remained connected to the Body of Christ.

Whatever our parish may look like over the next 130 years, it must include the celebration of the Holy Mass, itself a powerful and joyful proclamation of Christ’s Death and Resurrection. All the other liturgies and the devotions that the Church has in her ‘arsenal’, are an important part of our life and mission but can never be seen as a satisfactory substitute for the ‘re-presentation’ of the sacrifice of Calvary that takes away the sins of the world, and therefore, leads to life.