Message from the Parish
17th/18th May 2025 ~ 5th Sunday of Easter
Welcome Pope Leo XIV: Our “Breaking of the Bread”
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
I know that our new Pope, Pope Leo XIV, will not read our Grapevine this weekend, but our parish warmly welcomes him as the newly elected Bishop of Rome. His humble appearance on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica just after his election, his public commitment to continue in the spirit of Pope Francis and his intention to use all the availabilities of public media to communicate with Catholics and the world, are all encouraging signs for how his papal ministry will unfold.
There are a few aspects of the Pope’s role that is important to remember.
Every time we celebrate the Eucharist you will notice that at the “breaking of the bread” – that ancient and earliest name given to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in the first century CE—I break a particle of the consecrated bread and drop it into the cup of consecrated wine. This act goes back to the earliest years when the main celebration of the Pope’s Mass in Rome took place. As the church of Rome spread to other quarters and Mass was celebrated in different parts of Rome, deacons would bring a particle of the consecrated bread from the Pope’s liturgy and have it dropped into the cups in the various churches at the time of the breaking of bread. This simple act was a way of symbolising the communion which the various local churches and their congregations had with the Pope’s liturgical celebration.
In Lockleys this same act is our way of reminding us that we are symbolically in communion with the Bishop of Rome. He is our symbol of universal communion. Our ‘breaking of the bread’ moment also reminds us that we are in communion with every other parish throughout the world celebrating Sunday Eucharist also adding a particle of consecrated bread into their cup too.
This is what makes us “Catholic”—a word taken from two Greek words, “Kata” and “holos” meaning “according to the whole” or “universal”. Thus, Pope Leo XIV now becomes for us the centre of communion with all of us throughout the world, through our local bishop, Patrick, and the cause of our “Catholicism”.
We pray for Pope Leo in his ministry of communion and leadership.
Your Brother,
Michael