Fr Peter's newsletter notes - March 2005

5th Week of Lent - Sunday 13th March 2005

The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles Vth on his arrival to visit the new cathedral of Cordoba, which had been inserted into the former mosque of that city remarked to the builders that, 'You have built what you or others might have built anywhere, but you have destroyed something that was unique to the world.' The cathedral is a beautiful late Renaissance classical building that utilises the central part of the 11th century mosque. This religious building had in turn used for its foundations the Visigothic cathedral of that city, that itself had been built on a Roman temple. The guide books in a spirit of anti-Catholicism that must permeate branches of the Spanish government failed to take into account these earlier buildings, nor the fact that each generation had made use of previous building materials. The continuity of use over fifteen hundred years is a testimony to the power of transcendent architecture, but also to the appalling fracture that has taken place in architecture and art with the advent of the modern movement of design that begun in the 1920s. The sentiments of Charles Vth could be applied to so much that has been destroyed in the name of progress over the last fifty years. Many must remember the bombsites of London with their butterfly trees filling some vacant building site that looked like a lost tooth in an otherwise full mouth. That era of destruction pales in comparison with what has been destroyed by developers and their minions since the Second World War. Unique Victorian buildings have been replaced by monotonous glass faced office blocks and any sense of place or continuity with the past lost.

I can now begin to see the meaning of what a former architectural teacher meant when he said that architecture is the 'transcendental plane of culture' The built environment unconsciously reflects the culture of the period. The modern world has developed an ethic of discontinuity in the relation to the past that matches the discontinuity in aesthetics.

The discontinuity with the past has meant that contemporary morality sits uneasily with our relatively timeless human nature. The morality of the past recognised the human condition, it was focused on the person. Modern morality imposes an alien structure on the person, and relies for legitimacy on an abstraction of humanity, and on statistically critical amounts of people believing the same thing. The Church has now become the last place to teach about the continuity in moral life that looks back both to Scripture and to the patrimony of human thought as expressed by the ancient philosophers.

The raising of Lazarus from the dead, the last of Jesus' signs, demonstrates that life, including our moral life, ultimately receives its meaning through the gift of eternal life. This gift is the exclusive donation of Christ as the Son of God. This donation includes within itself all those other gifts previously mentioned in St John's Gospel; the bread of life, the water of life, the true light. The moral teaching of the Church is therefore not something imposed on the reluctant believer, but instead draws out the very meaning of being human, the living of life that is validated by the gift of eternal life.

'I am the light of the world' John c8. (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday).

The Feast of Tabernacles was an annual Jewish feast that was celebrated over a week in late September to commemorate the experience of Israel in the desert, and included the building of booths in conscious imitation of the Exodus years. The Feast ended on the eighth day with different water and light rites, which were seen as particular gifts from God, the water of life and the light of the Law. Jesus appropriates these to Himself when He declares Himself the source of the water of life, and the light of the world.

The Prologue of the Gospel mentions that the coming of the light will divide those who seek the light and those who prefer the cover of darkness. The coming of Jesus initiates a decision for or against. 'The Jews' are not asked to believe in Jesus as if he had no warrant. His testimony is valid, but this can only be grasped by recognising that the Father is the true source of Jesus power and words.

Jesus Christ has come from above, and therefore lays down His life in accordance with the father's will. The Cross brings together both the dark side, the intent of 'the Jews' to kill Him, and the light side, the lifting up of Jesus on the Cross so that all may be saved. This is not part of a deterministic history as the possibility of conversion is ever present. Those who remain listening to Jesus have only a partial faith, and they, like us, are not free from sin. The 'Jews' rely on the misguided belief that their descent from Abraham has secured their salvation. The fatherhood of Abraham was established though his openness to God's revelation. His descendants should do likewise, and those that recognise Jesus will become the true children of Abraham.

The faith of Abraham was open to a future fulfilment, which has been completed by Jesus who as the Son has come from the Father, and will immanently return to the Father. In so doing He will prove that He is indeed the Son of the Father, and the source of life and light to the world.