大象传媒

Please note: This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission, as it was prepared before the service was broadcast. It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors that were corrected before the radio broadcast.

It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events

Radio 4 Opening Announcement: 大象传媒 Radio 4.听 It鈥檚 ten past eight and time to go live to the chapel of Maria Assumpta in Heythrop College for Sunday Worship in this Week of Harvest Festival.听 The preacher is the Revd Dr Damian Howard of the Society of Jesus听 and the Service is led by Dr Gemma Simmonds of the Congregation of Jesus. But first the Inner Voices choir leads the congregation as they sing 鈥楥ome ye thankful people, come.鈥�

HYMN:听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Come ye thankful people come

1.听听听听听听听听听 Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;

听听听听听听听听听听听 all be safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.

听听听听听听听听听听听 God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;

听听听听听听听听听听听 come to God's own temple, come, raise the song of harvest- home.

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2.听听听听听听听听 All the world is God's own field, fruit unto his praise to yield;

听听听听听听听听听听听 wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown;

听听听听听听听听听听听 first the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;

听听听听听听听听听听听 grant, O harvest Lord, that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

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3.听听听听听听听听 For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take his harvest home;

听听听听听听听听听听听 from his field shall purge away all that doth offend, that day;

听听听听听听听听听听听 give his angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;

听听听听听听听听听听听 but the fruitful ears to store in his garner evermore.

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4.听听听听听听听听 Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring thy final harvest home;

听听听听听听听听听听听 gather thou thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,

听听听听听听听听听听听 there, for听 ever purified, in thy garner to abide;

听听听听听听听听听听听 come, with all thine angels, come, raise the glorious harvest home.

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GEMMA:听Good morning and welcome.听 At this time of year we traditionally celebrate harvest festival, reflecting on God鈥檚 providence in making our earth fruitful.听 Heythrop College in the University of London stands near Hyde Park, so there鈥檚 plenty of green around us, though not a lot of opportunity for ploughing the fields and scattering, unless we want to get arrested for violating royal park regulations.听 But we are celebrating a harvest of a kind.听 The College 鈥� a Jesuit foundation - is marking its 400th anniversary, so we鈥檙e thinking back to our origins and reflecting on what have been the fruits of 400 years of teaching and learning philosophy and theology.
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GEMMA:听The Jesuit order, or Society of Jesus, was founded in the 16th century by St. Ignatius Loyola.听 Part of his spiritual teaching includes the daily Examen, a prayer in which people pause to review the day鈥檚 events in a spirit of prayerful reflection.

This form of prayer has five points: gratitude for God鈥檚 blessings; asking for the light of the Holy Spirit; reviewing the day to see when we鈥檝e been conscious of God鈥檚 presence and when we鈥檝e ignored it; expressing sorrow for our sins and asking for God鈥檚 forgiving love and finally praying for the grace to be more open to God鈥檚 guidance.听 Our harvest hymn says, 鈥楢ll the world is God's own field鈥�.听 That鈥檚 how St. Ignatius viewed the world, finding God in all things.听听 Our service follows the pattern of the Ignatian examen, thanking God for the blessing of the harvest and praying for light through the anthem O Nata lux de lumine, by Thomas Tallis. He served successive Tudor monarchs as organist and composer in troubled religious times, despite remaining a Catholic.听 The words of the first of two of his most beautiful anthems translate as: 鈥極 Jesus, light born of light, Redeemer of all ages, accept in your mercy our offering of prayer and praise.鈥�

So first, let us pray:

GEMMA:听听听听听听听 God our loving Creator, all our fruitfulness comes from you.听 Enlighten our minds with wisdom and enlarge our hearts with compassion so that we can embrace every opportunity you give us for your loving service.听 We make this prayer through Christ, our Lord.

ALL:听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 AMEN

CHOIR:听听听听听听听听听 O nata lux de lumine (Tallis)

GEMMA: The search for the light of wisdom and understanding is at the heart of the study of theology and philosophy.听 In the Ignatian examen we ask God to help us see our daily life with all its challenges, decisions, responses and avoidances as God sees it, in the light of truth.听 Heythrop is a place that hasn鈥檛 been afraid to wrestle with the search for truth, even when those who study here know that they鈥檒l never fully find or grasp the answer.听 The harvest we reap may have more questions in it than answers, but Chapter 8 of the Book of Proverbs reminds us that humble searching is the beginning of wisdom.听

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READER:听听听听听 [Sr. Clare Bernadette]

听鈥業, wisdom, live with prudence, and I attain knowledge and discretion.

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.听

Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.

I have good advice and sound wisdom; I have insight, I have strength.

I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

Riches and honour are with me, enduring wealth and prosperity.

My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver.

I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice...

Happy is the one who listens to me,

watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.

For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favour from the Lord;

but those who miss me injure themselves; all who hate me love death.鈥�

The word of the Lord.听

ALL:听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Thanks be to God

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CHOIR:听听听听听听听听听 If Ye Love Me (Tallis)

GEMMA:听听听听听听听 The anthem was sung by Inner Voices, a youth choir drawn from a group of inner London state schools and directed by Ralph Allwood.听听听 We hear now today鈥檚 Gospel from Matthew chapter 14, verses 13-21.
READING:听听听 [Alex?]

鈥榃hen Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, 鈥楾his is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.鈥� Jesus said to them, 鈥楾hey need not go away; you give them something to eat.鈥� They replied, 鈥榃e have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.鈥� And he said, 鈥楤ring them here to me.鈥�

Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children鈥�.
The word of the Lord.听

ALL:听Thanks be to God

GEMMA: Our homily this morning is given by Fr Damian Howard, a Jesuit priest who lectures in theology here at Heythrop.

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HOMILY [DAMIAN]: For four hundred years, Heythrop College has been preparing young Jesuits, seminarians and others for service as priests, fishers of women and men. During the time when Catholics were persecuted in England, the work of priestly formation was preparation for a dangerous mission. Our students鈥� ministry could lead to imprisonment in the Tower of London and even death.

Times have changed and happily we live in a more tolerant age. Yet that same mission goes on: the celebration of the Eucharist and the other sacraments and the preaching of the faith.

All the studies undertaken for ordination are there to help us to preach, to sow the Word of God powerfully and effectively so it yields the harvest of faith. It鈥檚 a demanding business, preaching. Not only must the preacher pay attention to God鈥檚 Word in scripture.

He must also look lovingly on the rich soil into which he is casting it, the People of God sitting in front of him. He must understand their lives, the way they think and talk, their hopes and their fears. And he must learn where they need to feel God鈥檚 healing touch. And how they need to be challenged.

One thing I have learned from working with students on the art of preaching is that there is no formula. Each person has a distinctive way of putting the faith across to others. No two voices, no two personalities are the same.听 Our personal stories have shaped our sense of God. We are unique in our preaching as we are in our living.

The preacher can be tempted not to believe this. Sometimes it鈥檚 because it鈥檚 hard to trust that our experience of God is good enough, real enough 鈥� that the seed has taken root in us. You can tell when doubts have set in: we preachers cover our nakedness with the fig-leaf of plagiarism. We preach in an abstract manner, as if God鈥檚 mission were some complex engineering project. Or we moralise with tired rhetoric, sending the people home feeling inadequate and guilty. Because that鈥檚 probably how we feel too. It鈥檚 not so easy trusting that God is really at work in my life!

Christ has no such doubts. He radiates confidence in God. When he sows the Word, his confidence comes across to his listeners as a new kind of authority. It doesn鈥檛 come quite so easily to his disciples, though. In the Gospel story of the feeding of the five thousand, you can their discomfort. It鈥檚 the neediness of the people that makes them wobble. The spectacle of a multitude in the middle of the wilderness with nothing to eat. I know how the disciples feel.

We often see images like that on our TV screens, refugee camps, people in dire straits. And we avert our eyes. It鈥檚 very human to feel overwhelmed when our neighbour is desperate. 鈥淪end them away to fend for themselves!鈥�

But this is where things get interesting. Because when Jesus smells something fishy he always wants to get to the bottom of it. So he digs around the roots, confronting them with a challenge: 鈥淕ive them something to eat yourselves!鈥�

What does Jesus mean by that? He knows they can鈥檛 work miracles! He knows their meagre resources can鈥檛 meet the need, crushing as it is. What he is actually doing is locating a desire in them, a beautiful desire that all of us can relate to. Behind their resistance, their feelings of inadequacy, it turns out that the disciples actually want to provide for the people. It鈥檚 a desire they are barely in touch with, but it goes deep. Jesus is saying to them: 鈥淵ou want to give them something, right, something of your very own, but you are scared? Well, come to me and I can make that happen鈥�.鈥�

Notice how he takes the loaves and the fish from the disciples, multiplies them and then hands them back to them for them to distribute.

This isn鈥檛 just a story about Jesus鈥� miraculous powers; it鈥檚 about his empowering the disciples to overcome their fears and so to follow through on what they deeply desire. And in my book that鈥檚 a far bigger miracle.

鈥淕ive them something to eat yourselves!鈥� Good preaching draws on what God is already doing in my life. It鈥檚 not something we can find in theology textbooks, though they will help us understand. The preacher vibrates with the living word of God when he knows that God has done great things for him.

Preachers like that are never boring, even if what they say is simple and has been said many times before! Because that kind of deep knowledge comes from the heart.听 And words from your heart go straight to mine. 鈥淐or ad cor loquitur鈥�, as Blessed John Henry Newman had it: heart speaks to heart.

What goes for the preacher goes for everyone. 鈥淕ive them something to eat yourselves!鈥� We are all called to witness to the power of God鈥檚 Word. When we share the faith that has touched our hearts, it touches other hearts. True evangelisation is a million miles away from trying to convert people with second hand arguments. It鈥檚 the harvest of a personal encounter.

And so the Gospel points not so much towards activism but to the cultivation of that abiding awareness of the Spirit stirring in my heart, the Spirit of the God who sows and reaps. That means recognising God鈥檚 way of tilling my soil, how He nourishes good desires in me, drawing me so that I grow towards the light.

I need, in short, to be able to find God鈥檚 Word in my own life so I can help my sisters and brothers to find Him in theirs. And when that happens, the preacher, the faithful witness, reaps a rich harvest indeed.
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GEMMA: Sometimes our harvest seems very meagre to us.听 We fear our own inadequacy as Christian disciples.听 The Ignatian examen 鈥� that examination of our conscience - helps us to become aware of our hidden motives, desires and anxieties and reminds us of how God is present in our daily context.听 It draws us close to Jesus Christ, God with us.听 The prayer Anima Christi (Soul of my Saviour) features in the preface to St. Ignatius鈥� Spiritual Exercises.

In it the disciple prays to be strengthened and protected by Jesus鈥� Passion and never parted from him.听

HYMN:听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Soul of my Saviour

Soul of my Saviour sanctify my breast,

Body of Christ, be thou my saving guest,

Blood of my Saviour, bathe me in thy tide,

wash me with water flowing from thy side.

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Strength and protection may thy Passion be,

O blessed Jesu, hear and answer me;

deep in thy wounds, Lord, hide and shelter me,

so shall I never, never part from thee.

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Guard and defend me from the foe malign,

in death's dread moments make me only thine;

call me and bid me come to thee on high

where I may praise thee with thy saints for ay.

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GEMMA: Here at Heythrop, we have programmes designed to promote deeper understanding between people of different faiths and none.听 We are proud to count Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs among our students, alongside Christians of many denominations and people of no explicit religious commitment.听

We鈥檙e committed to dialogue at local, national and international levels. If we look at the current conflicts of our world, we can see that often the seeds of war and bloodshed were sown with good intentions, in ignorance or perhaps in heedless self-interest.听 It鈥檚 not enough to mean well or to plead ignorance.听 We have to develop a strong sense of the possible consequences of our thoughts, words, actions and omissions.听 In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius warns of the angel of darkness masquerading as an angel of light.听 Our motives and desires are not always clear to us.听

But if this works negatively, it can also work for the good.听 Maria Assumpta chapel, where we鈥檙e worshipping this morning, is the home of the Religious Sisters of the Assumption, who came here to Kensington in 1860 to run a house of prayer.听

In time the house became a school and later a teacher training college.听 Their foundress, St. Marie Eugenie, learned through hard experience to trust in God鈥檚 providence.听 Poor and difficult beginnings can result in a rich harvest for God when we put ourselves entirely in God鈥檚 hands.听 Above all we pray that God will have mercy on our failings and supply for them from his strength.听

We listen now to the choir singing William Byrd鈥檚 Agnus Dei from his Mass in Four Parts: 鈥楲amb of God, who takes away the sins of the world; have mercy on us鈥�.
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CHOIR: Agnus Dei (Byrd)

GEMMA: In the end, the true disciple of Jesus follows him not out of fear of failing or in the hope of reward, but out of love.听 The harvest of our poor efforts that God reaps from the world at the end of time will be transformed by the power of Jesus, shining through our human weakness.听 It鈥檚 this hope and love, above all, that have motivated many who have taught and learned in Heythrop College and here in Maria Assumpta for hundreds of years. One such was the nineteenth-century Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins 鈥� a notable Heythrop College alumnus - who expresses this in verse in his translation of a prayer attributed to another Jesuit, Saint Francis Xavier.
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READING:听听听

O God, I love thee, I love thee

Not out of hope of heaven for me

Nor fearing not to love and be

In the everlasting burning.
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Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me

Didst reach thine arms out dying,

For my sake sufferedst nails and lance,

Mocked and marr茅d countenance,

Sorrows passing number,

Sweat, and care and cumber,

Yea, and death, and this for me.

And thou couldst see me sinning:
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Then I, why should I not love thee,

Jesu, so much in love with me?

Not for heaven's sake; not to be

Out of hell by loving thee;

Not for any gains I see;

But just the way that thou didst me

I do love and will love thee:

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What must I love thee, Lord, for then ?

For being my King and God.听 Amen.听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听

Gerard Manley Hopkins

PRAYERS:

Prayer 1 [Jenny]:听 Holy Spirit of God, in your light we see light and are moved to seek the truth.听 Help us to be bold in asking questions, humble in seeking insight and always firm in our perseverance in pursuit of wisdom.听 May our service of your word yield a rich harvest in due time.听 We make our prayer through Christ our Lord.听

ALL:听AMEN

Prayer 2: Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Prince of Peace.听 May all who lead and govern in our world be moved to seek peace and reconciliation, sowing seeds of non-violence and reaping the rewards of prudence and compassion.听 We ask this in your name,

ALL:听AMEN

Prayer 3 [Jenny]:听 Father of all Creation, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth.听 We ask you to bless with abundance those who struggle for life鈥檚 daily necessities.听 Give each of us a compassionate heart and a thirst for justice so that we may never ignore the cry of the poor.听 We ask this through the Passion of your Son, Jesus Christ.听

ALL:听AMEN

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DAMIAN:听Let us unite all our prayers in the words of Jesus, who taught us to pray for our daily bread:

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come;

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation;

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

GEMMA: We sing together our final hymn, Forth In The Peace Of Christ We Go, written by the late James Quinn, a Scottish Jesuit and alumnus of this College.

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HYMN: Forth In The Peace Of Christ We Go

1. Forth in the peace of Christ we go:

Christ to the world with joy we bring;

Christ in our minds, Christ on our lips,

Christ in our hearts, the world鈥檚 true King.

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2.听King of our hearts, Christ makes us kings;

kingship with him his servants gain;

with Christ, the Servant-Lord of all,

Christ鈥檚 world we serve to share Christ鈥檚 reign.

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3.听Priests of the world, Christ sends us forth

this world of time to consecrate,

this world of sin by grace to heal,

Christ鈥檚 world in Christ to re-create.

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4.Prophets of Christ, we hear his Word:

he claims our minds to search his ways,

he claims our lips to speak his truth;

he claims our hearts to sing his praise.

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5. We are his Church, he makes us one:

here is one hearth for all to find,

here is one flock, one Shepherd-King,

here is one faith, one heart, one mind.

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DAMIAN: May Christ, the Lord of the harvest, bring all our efforts to fruition by his grace.听 And may almighty God bless us in all that we think and say and do in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.听

ALL:听听AMEN.

GEMMA:听May all who follow Jesus be filled with his love and may we live every day under the banner of his Cross and in the hope of his Resurrection.听

ALL:听AMEN.

GEMMA:听Let us go and bear witness to God with our lives.
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ALL:听Thanks be to God.

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ORGAN VOLUNTARY

RADIO 4 - Closing Announcement:听 Offertorio by the Jesuit composer Domenico Zipoli. Sunday Worship came live from the chapel of Maria Assumpta in Heythrop College, University of London.听 It was led by the Revd Dr Gemma Simmonds of the Congregation of Jesus with the Revd Dr Damian Howard of the Society of Jesus.听 The Inner Voices choir was directed by Ed Watkins and conducted by Ralph Allwood.听 The organist was Rupert Gough. and the producer, Rowan Morton Gledhill.

Next week鈥檚 Sunday Worship comes live from Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin and the preacher is the Archbishop, Dr Michael Jackson.

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