Portsmouth Diocese e-News Issue 471
Welcome to this week’s e-News, the Third Week of Advent 2024. We have now entered the last lap leading up to Christmas Day next week. This is always a busy time and if you dare to go out shopping, the pace and the bustle can be overwhelming. The ‘world’ is having its Christmas now, with season-themed TV shows, people wearing Father Christmas beanie hats, works’ parties, the exchange of gifts and a lot of last minute spending. It may all be good fun. But spare a thought for those without the resources, human and financial, to do this. And spare another thought. For, as Catholics, the Liturgy of these next days is inviting us to join the shepherds and the Three Kings making their way to Bethlehem. Let us join them in prayer. People when they look at the world these days and the bleakness of the news often ask: Where is God? Why doesn’t God do something? Why doesn’t God intervene and sort things out? In fact He has! He has intervened. That is why we go to Bethlehem. He has sent us His Son in the flesh, Who has come to save us, to change things, to lift things up, to make things better and to make things right.
Over these next days, let’s do our best to find some time and space for prayer and reflection. Say the Angelus each day. Go to Confession. Read the Gospel readings from your Missal. Get to Mass. Let us prepare our hearts to receive the Christ and all that He promises to give. If as His disciples we open our hearts to the Holy Spirit and renew within us the meaning of Christmas, then surely our light will shine out for others to see. In this way, let us pray that through the gift of the Spirit and our holiness of life, we will bring many more people to Jesus Christ through His Church. [Image: Christianity]
Join us for the Opening the Jubilee Year
From the Bishop
The Holy Father will solemnly open the Jubilee Year 2025 in St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, throughout the world, diocesan bishops will inaugurate the Holy Year in their Cathedrals on Sunday 29th December. I will do this at the 12 noon Mass that day in Portsmouth. Do come and join us for this. Meanwhile, here are a few notes about the ceremony.
The solemn opening of the Jubilee Year takes place at a Mass at which the diocesan bishop presides in the cathedral church, mother of all the churches of the diocese. The particular sign of the solemn opening of the Jubilee Year is the pilgrimage of the diocesan Church and the processional entrance behind the cross into the cathedral. The procession is expressed in three moments: (1) a collectio (“gathering”) in a nearby suitable place; (2) the pilgrimage; and (3) the entrance into the cathedral.
For the collectio an antiphon or opening chant, the greeting, the invitation to bless and praise God, an exhortation, the prayer, the proclamation of a gospel passage and the reading of some sections from the Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee Year will take place.
Then the pilgrimage moves towards the cathedral church. This is the sign of the journey of hope of the pilgrim people behind the cross of Christ. The cross which opens the pilgrimage should therefore be one of significance for the diocesan Church in an historical-artistic sense, or because of the devotion of the people. It should be duly decorated and is to be placed near the altar in the sanctuary where it remains for the entire Jubilee Year for the veneration of the faithful. To accompany the pilgrimage, the so-called psalms of pilgrimage and of entrance to the temple are particularly suitable. In addition, given its ancient processional usage, the litany of the saints could be sung.
(3) Finally, the entrance of the people of God into the cathedral is made through the principal door, sign of Christ (cf. Jn 10:9). On the threshold the bishop lifts up the cross, faces the people and, with an acclamation invites them to venerate it. Having crossed the threshold, the bishop makes his way with the ministers towards the baptismal font where he leads the rite of the memorial of Baptism while the faithful assemble in the nave facing the font. The bishop then goes in procession with the ministers towards the altar; the faithful take their places. The sprinkling with water is a living remembrance of Baptism which is the gate of entry in the journey of sacramental initiation and into the Church. The celebration of the Mass constitutes the high point of the Rite of Opening of the Jubilee Year.
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