Monthly Archives: October 2017

The Greatest Commandment

 “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” These very familiar words of Our Lord feature in today’s Gospel when the Pharisees ask Him which is the greatest of the commandments. In fact, He is quoting from the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6:4). “The second” He says, “resembles it: you must love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).

 I think we would all agree this is easier said than done! But just as a musician spends many hours practicing, so must we give all our efforts in trying to come closer to God and loving our neighbour. This will certainly involve some struggle and a determination to see it through.  If an athlete or a musician gave up, they would never achieve their goal.  In the same way, we cannot be lazy about achieving our ultimate goal, which is eternal life.

To show our love of God, He has given us The Ten Commandments as a guide. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).  These are not meant to restrict us ­- rather they are the instruction book as to how to be happy in life.  Our love of God and our neighbour is made manifest, not in some sort of sentimental way, but by works of mercy. This might include something like

• visiting a sick or elderly relative,
• doing some shopping for them,
• meeting up with someone who perhaps hasn’t been at Mass for a while to see if everything is OK,
• being with a friend when they have suffered a bereavement.

In this way we become channels of grace.

Loving our neighbour might also mean on occasions having to say no.  Love sometimes means having to correct or to take someone to task, which can be hard.  But people know when you really love them.   Above all we should pray for our neighbour, whether they be family members, our friends, our priests, the homeless or Christians suffering persecution. In this way we show our love of God by talking to Him AND our love of neighbour by petitioning our Heavenly Father on their behalf.

Fr. Paul Gillham IC 

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After the Consecration of our Parish
to Mary’s Immaculate Heart

It was wonderful to see our church so full for the Fatima Centenary last week when we had a beautiful Marian procession outside and then the Consecration of our Parish to the Immaculate Heart of Mary followed by a Solemn Mass. I have received a number of messages and emails from parishioners saying how much they were inspired by the occasion. This is very good to hear and thank you for going to the trouble of letting me know that. I read in the ‘Catholic Herald’ last week that thousands of these consecrations have taken place throughout the world this past year.  So we are clearly part of a new trend! Our Lady is very powerful and I believe this Consecration will bring us many blessings.

So now the Centenary has passed, we must not allow ourselves to put the message of Fatima on the shelf and relegate it to something of yesteryear. The magnitude of the Miracle of the Sun demonstrated its urgency and importance for our future and the salvation of souls.  So let us take up with zeal the heavenly weapons of the Holy Rosary and the Devotion of the Five First Saturdays.  Confess your sins often.  The Mother of God herself has asked us to do these things.  The need for prayer, repentance and conversion is always urgent but particularly so in our day.  There can never be any lasting peace in the world without the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and that will be hastened by our own personal holiness.  Our Lady said, “Say the Rosary every day… People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins.”  This is nothing other than the message of the Gospel.

“To Jesus through Mary” is a phrase often used by spiritual writers.  Mary is not the goal, but the guide who leads us to her Son.  She is our Mother too, and when we pray to her, she in turn points out Him who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life.”  As she said at the wedding at Cana, “Do exactly as He tells you.”

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Fr Paul Gillham IC

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PRAYER OF CONSECRATION OF ST MARY’S PARISH TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

QUEEN of heaven and earth, and tender Mother of all people, in accordance with your ardent wish, made known to the three children at Fatima, we consecrate to your Immaculate Heart this Parish of St Mary of the Annunciation in Loughborough. We kneel confidently before you today, O Holy Mother of God. Inflame us with the same divine fire which enflamed your own Immaculate Heart. Reign over us and teach us how to make the Heart of Jesus reign and triumph in us and around us, as it has reigned and triumphed in you. Make us your shrine, O Holy Mother of God, so that we may be yours in prosperity and adversity, in joy and sorrow, in health and sickness, in life and death.

We consecrate to you: all that we have, all that we love, all that we are. To you we give our minds and hearts, our bodies and souls. We willingly place at your service our Parish, our homes and our families, and our schools.  We desire that everything that is within us, and around us, may belong to you, O Mary.

That this consecration may be truly efficacious and lasting, we renew this day the promises of our Baptism and our Confirmation – to be faithful witnesses to the Good News of your Divine Son, Jesus Christ.

We pledge ourselves to foster a true love of the Mass, and devotion to the Real Presence of your Son in the Blessed Sacrament. We pledge ourselves to keep the commandments of God and His Holy Church. We undertake to promote in our homes and parish a virtuous life. We pledge ourselves to recite the Rosary more frequently, and to make reparation for the coldness and indifference of so many human hearts.

Finally, we promise, O glorious Mother of God, to devote ourselves whole-heartedly to the service of your blessed name, in order to assure, through the sovereignty of your Immaculate Heart, the coming of the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ, in our own hearts and in this Parish.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

13^th October 2017. Centenary of the Final Apparition at Fatima and the Miracle of the Sun.

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“I Desire that All be Saved”

Some of the parables of Our Lord can be quite hard for us to stomach, and today’s Gospel could be an example of this. “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants” is an allegory of Our Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, but it also had meaning for the Jews of the Old Testament. God had established them in the Promised Land, but they continuously rebelled against Him. So He sent the prophets to call them to repentance – Israel rejected those prophets and even put them to death. Finally God sent His own Son, and then He was murdered too.

Like the Israelites, we are also offered the Kingdom of Heaven which we can either accept or reject. God never forces Himself on anyone. He totally respects our freedom. Like the Israelites of old, there are many today who reject God’s prophets – that is the Church, the Scriptures and those who preach God’s word, and the truth that we will all be judged one day and that we need to prepare ourselves for that judgement, otherwise we risk losing our souls. “I tell you the Kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” But Our Lord doesn’t tell us about judgement and Hell to frighten us. He tells us out of love because He desires that all be saved. Our Lord loves us more than we can ever imagine, and yet no one spoke of these realities more than He did. But at the same time He gives us all the grace and mercy necessary to attain Heaven, but we have to choose it and embrace it in this life.

I suppose most people think they want Heaven, but we have to remember Heaven is where God’s will and where God’s principles reign. But there are some who just don’t want this and so God doesn’t impose Heaven on those who do not want what it actually is. If I’m not trying to live a Christ-like life on earth, I’m just not going to fit in to Heaven. So by cultivating virtue now, and by cooperating with His grace, God is transforming us into the type of person we need to be if we’re going to be happy in His Heavenly Kingdom.

Fr. Paul Gillham IC

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