Not made for Death, but for Life

Happy Easter to all readers!  I have been meaning to blog sooner, but have been particularly busy over the last month or so.  And there has been no shortage of news – most significantly the loss of Pope Francis on Easter Monday.  We had of course been well aware of his serious illness the previous month, but he had seemed to be recovering – and had we not seen the pictures of him in St. Peter’s Square the previous day, and had he not wished us a happy Easter, and met the Vice-President of the United States, and in his Easter homily (albeit read aloud on his behalf), declared that “we were not made for death, but for life”?  So to lose him was rather a jolt.

I suppose, in a way, it is appropriate: he was ever the Pope of the dramatic gesture, with a sense of the theatrical about him, and was always encouraging us to put our feet where our faith is.  Perhaps, in his dying on Easter Monday, we might see a similar thing.

Yet I remember this aspect of him taking a little getting used to at first, especially after the careful manner of Pope Benedict.  Pope Francis had less time for words, even a certain impatience with them, and perhaps the same went for formalities.  He always gave the impression that there was no time to lose, and so it is characteristic that he should have had his foot on the accelerator to the very end.  This was a man who in embraced a disfigured man without hesitation; who actually knelt to kiss the feet of the warring leaders of South Sudan, who amid evening rainfall calmly blessed the whole world in those vertiginous first weeks of the pandemic.  A critic might call it a ‘PR papacy’, and indeed any photo-op carries the risk of playing to the camera; yet these images, which were challenging and conscience-pricking, were also a kind of riposte to the age of the age of airbrushing and virtue-signalling.

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The media, of course, also put their own spin on him, as is their wont; to them he was simply the Pope who wanted to make the Church more ‘progressive’ and ‘forward-looking’, and apparently a change from previous Popes (which is of course a jab at Pope Benedict, something they can never resist).  But as ever the media reveal their selective hearing, choosing to ignore the moments when he expressed himself with startling directness, capable of criticising liberal and conservative excesses with equal enthusiasm, while also pointing out that the Christian faith transcends either.  He was perfectly willing to fire from both barrels, and indeed I have found him more chastening and challenging than I did the supposedly stricter (but actually very gentle) Pope Benedict.

Yet of course he did strike a particular tone of mercy.  His description of the Church as a field-hospital has stayed with me, as with so many: the priority of getting people, in whatever condition or state of life, out of the rain and the cold of the world, and into the warm and dry of the Church.  He is right this is a world that urgently needs the Church (the world’s largest provider of healthcare, and its largest educational institution, and perhaps the largest humanitarian organisation overall, even before we get onto spiritual matters…).  He was right we cannot necessarily afford to wait until everything is neat and tidy before putting out into the deep.  Similarly, his promotion of a ‘culture of encounter’ has encouraged me to overcome my reserved nature and speak (and, I hope, listen!) to more people.  Finally, his extension of mercy above all – the unique priority of the Christian faith – was also absolutely urgent.  So, may the Lord soon welcome him to his reward, and grant him the eternal life in which he taught us to hope.

Now, as we await his successor, here again is his final homily:

Christ is risen, alleluia!

Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!

Today at last, the singing of the ‘alleluia’ is heard once more in the Church, passing from mouth to mouth, from heart to heart, and this makes the people of God throughout the world shed tears of joy.

From the empty tomb in Jerusalem, we hear unexpected good news: Jesus, who was crucified, ‘is not here, he has risen’.  Jesus is not in the tomb, he is alive!

Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and truth over falsehood.  Forgiveness has triumphed over revenge.  Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.

Sisters and brothers, especially those of you experiencing pain and sorrow, your silent cry has been heard and your tears have been counted; not one of them has been lost!

In the passion and death of Jesus, God has taken upon himself all the evil in this world and in his infinite mercy has defeated it.  He has uprooted the diabolical pride that poisons the human heart and wreaks violence and corruption on every side.  The Lamb of God is victorious! That is why, today, we can joyfully cry out: ‘Christ, my hope, has risen!’ .

The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope.  For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion.  Thanks to Christ — crucified and risen from the dead — hope does not disappoint!  Spes non confundit!  That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us.

All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey.  Together with the risen Jesus, they become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of Life.

Christ is risen!  These words capture the whole meaning of our existence, for we were not made for death but for life.  Easter is the celebration of life!  God created us for life and wants the human family to rise again!  In his eyes, every life is precious!  The life of a child in the mother’s womb, as well as the lives of the elderly and the sick, who in more and more countries are looked upon as people to be discarded.

What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of our world!  How much violence we see, often even within families, directed at women and children!  How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalised, and migrants!

On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life and ideas!  For all of us are children of God!

I would like us to renew our hope that peace is possible!  From the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Resurrection, where this year Easter is being celebrated by Catholics and Orthodox on the same day, may the light of peace radiate throughout the Holy Land and the entire world.

I express my closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel, and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. The growing climate of anti-Semitism throughout the world is worrisome.  Yet at the same time, I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.

I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!

Let us pray for the Christian communities in Lebanon and in Syria, presently experiencing a delicate transition in its history.  They aspire to stability and to participation in the life of their respective nations.  I urge the whole Church to keep the Christians of the beloved Middle East in its thoughts and prayers.

I also think in particular of the people of Yemen, who are experiencing one of the world’s most serious and prolonged humanitarian crises because of war, and I invite all to find solutions through a constructive dialogue.

May the risen Christ grant Ukraine, devastated by war, his Easter gift of peace, and encourage all parties involved to pursue efforts aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace.

On this festive day, let us remember the South Caucasus and pray that a final peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan will soon be signed and implemented, and lead to long-awaited reconciliation in the region.

May the light of Easter inspire efforts to promote harmony in the western Balkans and sustain political leaders in their efforts to allay tensions and crises, and, together with their partner countries in the region, to reject dangerous and destabilising actions.

May the risen Christ, our hope, grant peace and consolation to the African peoples who are victims of violence and conflict, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan and South Sudan.  May he sustain those suffering from the tensions in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region, as well as those Christians who in many places are not able freely to profess their faith.

There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and respect for the views of others.

Nor is peace possible without true disarmament!  The requirement that every people provide for its own defence must not turn into a race to rearmament.

The light of Easter impels us to break down the barriers that create division and are fraught with grave political and economic consequences.  It impels us to care for one another, to increase our mutual solidarity, and to work for the integral development of each human person.

During this time, let us not fail to assist the people of Myanmar, plagued by long years of armed conflict, who, with courage and patience, are dealing with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Sagaing, which caused the death of thousands and great suffering for the many survivors, including orphans and the elderly.  We pray for the victims and their loved ones, and we heartily thank all the generous volunteers carrying out the relief operations.

The announcement of a ceasefire by various actors in the country is a sign of hope for the whole of Myanmar.

I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage initiatives that promote development.  These are the ‘weapons’ of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death!

May the principle of humanity never fail to be the hallmark of our daily actions.  In the face of the cruelty of conflicts that involve defenceless civilians and attack schools, hospitals and humanitarian workers, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that it is not targets that are struck, but persons, each possessed of a soul and human dignity.

In this Jubilee year, may Easter also be a fitting occasion for the liberation of prisoners of war and political prisoners!

Dear brothers and sisters,

In the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, death and life contended in a stupendous struggle, but the Lord now lives forever.  He fills us with the certainty that we too are called to share in the life that knows no end, when the clash of arms and the rumble of death will be heard no more.  Let us entrust ourselves to him, for he alone can make all things new!

Happy Easter to everyone!

An ‘Easter banger’ (to coin a phrase!) from OLEM, Our Lady of the English Martyrs in Cambridge, Easter Vigil, 24th April, 2025: Peter Latona’s setting of the antiphon for the Rite of Sprinkling: ‘I saw water flowing from the right side of the Temple’ (‘Vidi aquam’).

Mgr. Mark Langham: in thanksgiving for his life

Many people will find the loss of Mgr. Mark Langham, who died on the 15th of January, very hard to bear.  Among their ranks are those of us whose lives he touched as chaplain of Fisher House, the Catholic student chaplaincy at Cambridge.  ‘We know what we owe him,’ I told one friend, but on reflection I am not so sure.  The problem with a man as generous as Monsignor Langham — or Father Mark, as he was to all of us — is that one never knows when or how one might have been the beneficiary of his influence and inspiration.  Would Westminster Cathedral be quite the place it is without his years of service as its Administrator?  And all his work with the Anglican Church, the bonds of ecumenical trust he strengthened: who knows what fruit these might yet bear?

When it comes to Fisher House, though, I can be more specific about my debts.  There are reasons why, when the pandemic cut us off from our home parish, it was to the chaplaincy’s online Masses that my family turned.  Even in virtual form, Fisher House has that elusive thing, an atmosphere: a presence that cannot be synthesised or conjured, but which has to grow naturally from many faithful words, actions, decisions and prayers.  All the chaplains — not least those I also knew, Sister Ann Swailes and Fr. Mark’s predecessor Fr. Alban McCoy — have had a hand in making Fisher House what it is, but I think it is fair to say that Fr. Mark has had a particular responsibility for the chaplaincy’s thriving in recent years.  Whoever sent him there had the wisdom and insight to match a man to his vocation.

Fr. Mark must have known from the beginning that a Catholic student chaplaincy has to supply two particular things.  The first is formation, which means precisely the stimulation and challenge that students have come to university to find.  The second is rootedness, emotional and spiritual.  A chaplaincy has to be both a smithy and a sanctuary; on the one hand a lively forum, and on the other a hearth-side where everything is quite safe and relaxed: a kind of Rivendell.  Those things that make Cambridge such a wonderful and exhilarating place to study — the spirit of inquiry, the effervescence of ideas, the daily demolition of the mind’s walls of ignorance, not to mention the interesting, accomplished, witty, characterful people — can also make it rather a daunting one.  At Fisher House, Fr. Mark balanced these imperatives.  From him I learned that the Christian faith is as intelligent as it is beautiful and good and true — but, more, that integrity is above intelligence.  Because at Cambridge there is a great deal of consciousness, and therefore of self-consciousness, there is often also a great deal of performance going on; but Fr. Mark taught by word and example that a life lived according to true faith entails no artificiality, no pretention.  Indeed, he made it clear that there is no point to Cambridge at all, or to any university, if its students fizz with cleverness but ignore the heart of life: wisdom, holiness, truth, love.

Perhaps a better word than ‘atmosphere’ would be‘spirit’.  ‘Fisher House is a community that is created at Mass, and everything else is an outworking of that,’ Fr. Mark wrote last year, and indeed, the manner of the chaplaincy’s worship of God was something else which simultaneously formed and rooted us. [1]  The liturgies were uplifting and dignified, with the best and fullest-throated congregational singing I have ever heard in a Catholic church (almost up to Anglican standard!).  It helped that Fr. Mark was a fine singer, and also the finest orator I have known: in his voice the English language rang beautifully and clearly, but also entirely naturally.  Without amplification he spoke and was heard at the back of a crammed Sunday congregation (though compared to Westminster Cathedral the chapel must have seemed to him like a seminar-room).  By the cadences of his speech he enlivened the words of Scripture with the skill of a professional voice-actor — but he was not acting; he was simply co-operating with the beauty and holiness of the verses before him.  The word ‘God’ in particular seemed always to flare out of the phrase that contained it, to hang for a moment in the air with an inner stillness, like that of a detonated firework or a tiny prayer, yet, again, always quite naturally.  He would utter the words of liturgies with sincere, unshowy reverence, especially Christ’s words at the Consecration, the summit of the Mass.  “This — is — my — body,” he would say, very deliberately, “This — is — my — blood.”  It was probably hearing Fr. Mark saying Mass that made me realise that the liturgy — the Eucharistic Prayer in particular — really is a kind of free-verse poem.  The Mass is always the Mass, of course, however it is said; but to a lover of language it was balm for the soul to hear these holy words spoken so fittingly.

It was not only how Fr. Mark spoke; there was also what he said.  His weekly lunch-time lectures were tours de force, taking a theme or a question head-on and elucidating them with delicious clarity.  What does the Church really say about this or that moral issue or philosophical question?  How did these traditions, those customs begin?  Fr. Mark would know and explain.  His homilies, likewise, looked unflinchingly into the day’s Gospel, even the puzzling or troubling readings.  Typically he would begin with some anecdotal amuse-bouche about microwaves or custard creams, and then follow it up with as hefty a serving of solidly orthodox, warmly compassionate, blazingly intelligent exegesis as we could ever have hoped for.  I remember often standing up afterwards for the Creed in a kind of daze.  And yet, as he spoke, there was an eagerness, almost a boyish wonder at the faith, at how it all hangs together, how even its mysteries mysteriously make sense.

And Fr. Mark taught the faith not only with his intelligent words, but in his person.  There was a tremendous confidence about him: not self-confidence, not pride, but faith and trust in a source of goodness beyond himself.  He was the real thing.  Neither ignorant nor afraid of the world or the age, he at the same time somehow transcended it; he was in it but not of it.  He was convivial; he had a tremendous sense of humour; his warmth put even the most hesitant at ease.  A deep joy burned in him.  He was generous, as I have said: generous with his talents, with his time, with his attention, with his broad smile.  He made it clear that he offered, if needed, a listening ear.

He was as wise as he was kind — ‘the wisest man in Westminster diocese,’ as my friend reports his parish priest saying — and his wisdom was often so clear and so essential that I would wonder how I had ever managed without it.  His words and his presence put our insecurities, our blunders, our essay-crises in perspective.  In his homily at the Leavers’ Mass at the end of my last term, knowing that many good friends were about to part from each other, he observed that one sign of a true friendship is that, on meeting again for the first time after months or even years, both friends simply pick up where they left off, as if they had never been apart.  I have since found this to be quite true.

Fr. Mark’s determined ecumenism was also an inspiration to me.  Before he came to Fisher House he had been working in Rome at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, for Anglican-Catholic relations in particular, and it is worth noting how many of the kind messages since his death have come from Anglicans.  He was under no illusions about the formal obstacles that currently bar the way to Christian unity, but he saw just as clearly that we must, as Christ commanded, pray and work to overcome them.  ‘To be Catholic is to be ecumenical,’ he declared, quoting St. John Paul II, but this was no mere platitude: he went on to explain why. [2]  He saw, too, that ecumenism is often not simply a matter of kind words and gestures, but of tackling problems with patience, purpose and humility, studying each other’s positions closely, pressing for mutual understanding, making sacrifices.  Sometimes, though, it is simply about kind words and gestures.  Invited once to preach at Evensong at St. John’s College, he told a remarkable story which reveals much about Pope Benedict XVI, and indeed much about Fr. Mark that he thought it worth telling:

During the 2010 visit of Pope Benedict to England, I was privileged to be present at a meeting between Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops at Lambeth Palace in the presence of Archbishop Rowan [Williams] and Pope Benedict.  At the conclusion of the speeches we prayed together the Lord’s Prayer, and we came to that awkward bit, the bit where the Roman Catholics stop and Anglicans carry on.  The Anglican bishops, sensitive to the Roman Catholic tradition, graciously concluded, “But deliver us from evil,” and there was a pause.  And then one voice continued, “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.”  It was the voice of Pope Benedict. [3]

Fr. Mark may have mingled with bishops and holders of high office, but he did not overlook lowlier folk.  One Sunday several years after I had graduated, I was in Cambridge and went back to Fisher House for Mass.  I did not particularly expect to be recognised, but I was, firstly by Sister Ann, who asked me beforehand to carry the gifts up to the altar at the Offertory — and then, as I approached the altar during Mass itself, by Fr. Mark.  As he leaned forward to take the vessels from my hands, he looked straight at me, smiled and said, quietly but unmistakably, “Welcome back.”  My astonishment must have been obvious, but he was already getting on with the business of the Mass.  I was only one and not in any way remarkable among the hundreds of students Fr. Mark had known, let alone everyone else he had met in his lifetime.  I find it extraordinary that he remembered me.

Fuller and worthier tributes will be written by others who knew him better and for longer, but I hope these words of mine have made it clear why this is such a hard parting.  To lose Fr. Mark at the age of only sixty, to be hit so squarely where we cannot afford the loss, is such a heavy and direct blow that it looks to me very much like a test.  Will it make us more determined to follow his example, which means to follow the good Lord whom he served so faithfully?

There is one final memory of Fr. Mark that is much in my mind at the moment, and that is his singing of the Exsultet at the Easter Vigil Mass last year.  Hearing his voice then, thinned though it was by the Internet live-stream, as he sang this great hymn of the end of Lent, when the night of Holy Saturday, the night of the tomb, is defeated utterly by the fire and life of Jesus Christ risen from the dead, something seemed to lift and brighten for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.  He sang it beautifully, even heroically, and, though he must already have been quite ill, I remember thinking at the time how full of life his voice seemed, how full of the confidence of life that defies death.  I am thinking the same again now, and realising that for consolation we need look no further than the consolation that he himself preached: the Gospel to whose proclamation he dedicated his life.

Fr. Mark was a tremendous priest and chaplain, a man of kindness and wisdom and great faith, one of the inspirations of my student days and indeed of my life.  How much so many owe him, whether they know it or not.  God grant him the joy of life eternal, and to us even a flicker of his fire.

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[1] Mgr. Mark Langham, ‘Despite Cambridge’s Protestant history, Catholic students are at home here’.  Catholic Herald, 25th June 2020. Retrieved 26th January 2020 from <https://catholicherald.co.uk/despite-cambridges-protestant-history-catholic-students-are-at-home-here/>.

[2] Mgr. Mark Langham, ‘To be Catholic is to be ecumenical: a talk for Christian Unity Week’, 25th January 2020.  Retrieved 28th January 2021 from <https://chaplain86.wixsite.com/mysite/post/to-be-catholic-is-to-be-ecumenical>.

[3] Mgr. Mark Langham, ‘Journeying together: pilgrims on the ecumenical journey’, sermon delivered in the chapel of St. John’s College, Cambridge, February 2014.  Retrieved 20th January 2021 from <https://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1662198>.  The passage quoted begins at 5'58".