Llandudno Catholic Church - Sunday Newsletters

NEWSLETTER - CORPUS CHRISTI - 14 JUNE 2009

Dear Parishioner,

Today we rejoice with the children who make their First Holy Communion this weekend. Again, I thank those parents who responded to my plea to bring their child regularly to Mass in preparation, not just for today, but for the rest of his/her life, a life meant to be spent in close communion with God. God’s Gift of Holy Communion expresses how seriously God takes us; it is sad that so many parents do not return the compliment. It is treading a dangerous path not to take God seriously.

The Bishop will be with us on Wednesday to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation. We look forward to it. So, maybe, it would be a good time today for us to think about what Bishop means to us Catholics, and the respect we owe him.

A fo ben bid bont. Have you seen these words before? They are on Bishop Edwin’s coat of arms. They mean, “He who would be leader, let him be a bridge”. The Parish Priest of Bridgend becoming Bishop of Wrexham thought this ancient Welsh proverb would be a fitting motto for himself. And so it was; and, as it happens, so it is for us as well.

There’s something about bridges. I remember my fascination when I found a small Roman bridge, crossing nothing more than a stream in a field in the midst of the mountainous territory between Trawsfynydd and Bala. Why did someone go to so much trouble to build such a gem of a bridge there? What was it all about? I was left standing in admiration and wonder. It is a funny thing about bridges; they always have their story to tell.

Bridges are practical things, they do a job. They connect places, and by connecting places, they connect people. Is not this precisely why the Bishop chose this ancient saying as his Episcopal motto? The Latin word for Bishop is Pontifex which means, yes, Bridge Builder.

It is the Bishop’s job to link us with Rome, to be the bridge between ourselves and the Holy Father, and thus linked with him (who appoints the Bishop) we are in communion with all the Catholic Faithful throughout the world. Pope and Bishops form the College that succeeds the Apostles. The Bishop’s job is, therefore, to bind us into unity with the Holy Father and the Universal Church, and with one another here within the diocese. To keep us in Communion. His task is to ensure that we are united to the whole Church in what we believe and do; that the Ancient Faith is taught and practised in this Diocese as it has been taught and lived down the ages. Being the Bridge with the Holy Father and the Universal Church he is the guardian of the orthodoxy of our belief, both as we profess it and as we practise it. But he is more than this. In a very real sense he is a bridge between ourselves and God.

The Second Vatican Council taught that Bishops are ordained; they are not just priests who are appointed to a new role. Before the Council, people tended to think of the Bishop as a priest who has been given special authority and responsibility over a diocese; a juridical thing. But the Council taught that the liturgy which makes a priest a bishop is as real an ordination as the service which made him a priest in the first place. It is a further outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It makes the priest, who already shares in the very priesthood of Christ, share in that priesthood totally. The Bishop, the successor of the Apostles, is the High Priest of the Diocese, because he alone shares fully in the priesthood of Christ. And the Bishop, being the Successor of the Apostles, is bridge in this sense too; he links us historically and sacramentally to the source of all grace, Jesus Christ himself, who gave the Apostles their sacramental power and ecclesial authority and bade them pass it on to the ensuing generations.

That is why it is the Bishop who appoints the priests to the parishes. The Parish Priest is the representative of the Bishop who himself represents Jesus Christ, whose priesthood he alone shares fully in.

When we see the famous bridges of the world portrayed on our television screens, which we often do, we see them heaving with activity, as cars, vans, trucks and lorries laden with goods overtake one another in a frenzied effort to trade. A far cry from the ancient Roman, crossing that picturesque bridge beside the road to Bala with his load slung over his back. But, primitive or modern, the purpose of a bridge is also to enable goods to pass from one place to another, to obviate the inconvenience of the river or the valley. The goods that pass over our bridges are as nothing in comparison with the goods that pass over the abyss between heaven and earth, through the ministry of the Church. And this commerce between God and the Church has been so devised by Christ that it depends substantially on the Bishop and his priest-assistants.

But I think the Bishop’s motto applies also to each one of us. We should all strive to be bridge-builders, and life affords us plenty of opportunity. Divisions within families and between one time friends are lamentably common; let us strive to build bridges between them and acquire that blessedness Jesus speaks of as belonging to the peacemakers. And we can acquire that godly virtue of compassion if only we connect in our minds people’s behaviour with the pressures we know they are under. And, of course, we can connect them with God and with ourselves through the unique exercise of prayer. A fo ben bid bont: let him who would be leader be a bridge.

God bless, Fr Antony Jones

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