Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
mob: 0417 279 437;
email: mdelaney@netspace.net.au
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310
Office Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday 10am-3pm
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: mlcathparish-dsl@keypoint.com.au
FaceBook: Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Weekly Homily Podcast: podomatic.com/mikedelaney
Parish Mass Times: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Parish Magazine: mlcathparishnewsletter.blogspot.com.au
Secretary: Annie Davies/Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Mary Davies
Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
Weekday Masses 23rd – 26th June
2015
Next 27th
& 28th June 2015
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 27th & 28th
June 2015
Devonport:
Vigil: M Heazlewood, B
& J Suckling, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly, T Muir
10:30am: G Taylor, M Sherriff, T & S Ryan,
M & B
Peters
Ulverstone:
Penguin:
Latrobe:
Port Sorell:
Your prayers
are asked for the sick:
Let us pray
for those who have died recently:
Moira Rhodes, Eva Zvatora, Pat Malone, Graham Appleby, Audrey Mitchell,
Geok Lan Low, Margaret Everett, Gertrude Haasmann, Mike O’Halloran, Beryl
Purton, Nanette O’Brien, Lorraine Keen, Joseph Sallese, Bridget Stone.
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this
time: 17th – 23rd
June – Valmai
McIntyre-Baker, Joseph Last, Joan Jeffrey, Kevin George, Pauline Croft, John
Ellings, Audrey Bound, Max Clifford, Therese Lizotte and Ray Dawkins. Also Thomas
Kelly (Snr) and Redimer Garcia.
May they rest in peace
Scripture Readings
This Week - 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B
First Reading: Job 38:1. 8-11
Responsorial Psalm:
(R.)
Gospel Acclamation:
Alleluia, alleluia!
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY'S GOSPEL:
As I prepare to pray I become aware of the Lord’s presence
in me and all around me. I ask him to deepen my faith as I spend this time with
him.
Readings Next Week: 13th Sunday in
Ordinary Time
WEEKLY
RAMBLINGS:
Please keep in mind the presentation by Marea Richardson on
“From Struggle to Hope”- Grief and Loss across the Life Span at MacKillop
Hill on next Saturday (27th June). Please see the Notice on the next page
for further details especially the request to contact MacKillop Hill if you
intend to be there.
Last weekend between the Vigil Mass and the morning Masses
my homily was completely rewritten. Not sure exactly why but I didn’t feel as
if it were saying what I felt needed to be said – not sure if the final version
did either - but that’s what I did. This week I was continuing my reading of
Divine Renovation – From a Maintenance to a Missional Church by Fr James
Mallon. In his book, like the authors of Rebuilt, he reminds us that the
Weekend (ie Mass) is the most important part of the work of the Priest and
should have a high priority. He means the way I celebrate the Liturgy, the way
I preach, the way I cause the people to gather to celebrate the story of the
Risen Christ so that we all go out to the community and proclaim the Good News.
Fr James, and others, would say that we meet 80% of parishioners on the weekend
– and asks the question – do we give 80% of our energy to making the weekend an
experience of the Church that enables us to be better Disciples?
I sometimes wonder whether reading is such a good idea as
it almost always causes me to look at what is happening in our Parish and
asking how we (I) might do it better. There are no simple answers and the work
that was done over the past few years with the Pastoral Plan and Recommendations
(cf http://mlcathparishplan.blogspot.com.au/)
is providing the Parish Pastoral Council with steps to make the Parish more
aware of what we need to do to make the story of the Church in our area present
to more people – and we are taking the steps to make it all happen.
Until next week, please take care on the roads and in your
homes.
SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM:
A great sense of community was evident with a shared lunch
enjoyed by 100 people - delicious soup, made from the ingredients that the
families brought.
A special thank you to the members of the
Sacramental Team who helped on the day:
Felicity Sly, Mandy Eden and Sally Riley. Also, Ester Petts for her kitchen
coordination and soup cooking. And to
Kamil Douglas and the SBSC Year 7 girls from the Vinnies group (Sian, Samantha,
Holly, Keeley and Shakira) who presented the ‘Soup Stone Story’ and helped
serve lunch.
menALIVE Weekend for men: On 27th /28th
June Meander Valley Parish is holding a men’s weekend. Thousands of Catholic
men have been inspired and encouraged by these weekends across Australia. Presented
and run by any experienced MenAlive team from Hobart. Interesting talks,
discussions, reflection and fellowship. Registration forms available in Church
foyers. For more information please phone John Barton 6393:2221(after hours).
MACKILLOP HILL SPIRITUALITY CENTRE:
PLANNED GIVING PROGRAMME:
OUR LADY OF LOURDES SCHOOL FOUNDER’S
DAY August 6 2015
ST PATRICK’S CATHOLIC SCHOOL HISTORY
PROJECT:
Individual students
will gather information from the interview and undertake research to complement
the knowledge that has been gained. It is envisaged that the interviews will
also be recorded. A brief report will be created, complemented by relevant
photographs or images, which will then be framed and placed on display in the
school. A small photo of the student interviewers and the person interviewed
will be positioned in the final product and, over time, it is hoped that up to
10 personalities can contribute to what should be an important ‘living archive’
of our St Patrick’s Catholic Church and School communities, with a special
emphasis on our links to the Parish.
St Patrick’s
Catholic School is, therefore, very interested to hear from members of the
community who may be interested in contributing to this project. If you have
some stories of interest and if you can spare 30 minutes of your time, we would
love to talk with you. Please contact St Patrick’s Catholic School Latrobe on
6426 1626 or via email on stpatslat@catholic.tas.edu.au
FOOTY POINTS MARGIN TICKETS:
Round
11 – Geelong won by 23 points. Winners; Colleen Stingel, unknown & unknown.
Thursday Nights OLOL Hall D’port.
Eyes down 7.30pm –
Evangelii
Gaudium
“The
dignity of the human person and the common good rank higher than the comfort f
those who refuse to renounce their privileges.”
-
Par.218 from
Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis, Nov. 24, 2013
Saint/s of the Week –
(June 22)
St John Fisher was born in 1469; he studied at Cambridge University, was
ordained, became Bishop of Rochester. He was a pastoral bishop, charitable to
the poor, a man of prayer, and a persistent opponent of the errors of the
Protestant Reformation.
St Thomas More was born in 1477, studied at Oxford University, married
and had one son and three daughters. He became Chancellor of England. His
writings include Utopia, and many
prayers and letters which reveal his spirituality. Both were executed on the
orders of King Henry VIII.
Laudato Si' arrives
An article written by Michael Sean Winters
The original article can be found at http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/laudato-si-arrives
Laudato Si' indeed! On one of the most important issues of the day, our Holy Father has blessed the Church with a document that is accessible to virtually anyone, rich in the collected wisdom of the Catholic faith, attuned to the signs of the times, forceful in its call to urgent action on behalf of our sister, Mother Earth. Here are five things that jump out at me based on a first reading of the text.
1. The theology is very traditional.
As predicted, the issue may be new, but the theology is very traditional. The quotes from Saint Pope John Paul II remind us that there was more to John Paul than what his neo-conservative “interpreters” in the U.S. chose to highlight. Pope Francis quotes from his encyclical Centesimus Annus, writing, “Every effort to protect and improve our world entails profound changes in ‘lifestyles, models of production and consumption, and the established structures of power which today govern societies.’” Likewise he quotes Pope Benedict XVI, who so far from the caricature of a reactionary, called for “eliminating the structural causes of the dysfunctions of the world economy and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable of ensuring respect for the environment.”
Interestingly, having cited his predecessors, Pope Francis gives even more attention to the writings of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who wrote, “For human beings… to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins.” And, he cites the Patriarch on the call “to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbours on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God's creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet.” I do not recall any previous papal document devoting such attention to a Christian leader who is not a Roman Catholic in an official document such as this. I think it is important to remember on all issues that Francis is always thinking in terms of ecumenical relations, that his commitment to restoring full communion within the Body of Christ is at the top of his list of commitments. Noteworthy, too, are the frequent quotes from episcopal conferences.
2. The spirituality of St. Francis has touched Pope Francis deeply.
Francis’ reflections on his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, almost bring one to tears:
He shows us just how inseparable is the bond between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.
Francis helps us to see that an integral ecology calls for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human. Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise. He communed with all creation, even preaching to the flowers, inviting them “to praise the Lord, just as if they were endowed with reason”. His response to the world around him was so much more than intellectual appreciation or economic calculus, for to him each and every creature was a sister united to him by bonds of affection. That is why he felt called to care for all that exists. His disciple Saint Bonaventure tells us that, “from a reflection on the primary source of all things, filled with even more abundant piety, he would call creatures, no matter how small, by the name of ‘brother’ or ‘sister.’”
What follows in this encyclical, all of it, the commentary on science, the analysis of socio-economic structures, the call for political action, all flow from these spiritual insights into the relationship between the human person as creature, Creation and the Creator. These insights lead the Holy Father to make his urgent call for protection of the environment: “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change….Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity.”
3. For Pope Francis, there is no controversy about the science.
The heart of the Holy Father’s handling of the issue that has caused such controversy, at least in the US, the issue of how he would deal with science, is found in Paragraph 23 and it is remarkably straightforward:
A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon. Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it….The problem is aggravated by a model of development based on the intensive use of fossil fuels, which is at the heart of the worldwide energy system. Another determining factor has been an increase in changed uses of the soil, principally deforestation for agricultural purposes.
We cannot overstate the degree to which these sentences are unremarkable outside the US. It is only here, where think tanks and pseudo-think tanks, and some political candidates, are so dependent on extraction industries, they are loathe to accept what is, in fact, virtually common knowledge. Yes, science is never really “settled” and we will know more about our environment in ten years than we know now. But now, right now, we know enough to recognize there is a problem and that we are contributing to that problem.
Last night, I set my alarm so that I could rise with the sun. Of course, science tells us t.hat the sun does not really rise. The earth turns on its axis and so we turn towards the sun. Maybe, someday, this process by which the earth turns will be understood more deeply than it is today. But, I know enough, and know it surely enough, I will continue to set my alarm based on when the newspaper tells me the sun will rise. Another example: If nothing is ever "settled" in science, should we still put warnings on cigarettes, that they cause cancer?
Unsurprisingly, the Holy Father calls special attention to the consequences of global climate change on the poor, writing that “the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited.” As Catholics, the poor always have a moral claim upon us. And, if we are to be Catholics first, we must be shareholders second, or fifth, and if we are shareholders in a US fossil fuel company, maybe we should ask them why they have not, like their energy counterparts in Europe, led the way in developing renewable energy sources? Or, are we to wait until every last profitable drop of oil and nugget of coal is to be taken from the earth before these large corporations become responsible? The Holy Father goes on to consider other environmental issues, such as water use and bio-diversity, similarly relying on the scientific consensus and urging us to moral vigilance.
4. Laudato Si' is from the same pen, red or gold I do not know, that wrote Evangelii Gaudium.
The section on Global Inequality develops some of the themes Pope Francis articulated in Evangelii gaudium, and applies those themes specifically to the issue of environmental degradation. Our laissez-faire friends will be gnashing their teeth, of course, over these words of his:
In the meantime, economic powers continue to justify the current global system, where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain, which fail to take the context into account, let alone the effects on human dignity and the natural environment. Here we see how environmental deterioration and human and ethical degradation are closely linked. Many people will deny doing anything wrong because distractions constantly dull our consciousness of just how limited and finite our world really is. As a result, “whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenceless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule”.
He goes on to an extensive analysis of the modern, technological mindset and its limits. On Monday, I suggested that I wished Benedict XVI had written an encyclical on this issue because we would have certainly gotten some of von Balthasar’s trenchant critique of the Cartesian cogito and its progeny. Pope Francis delivers his critique via the theology of Guardini, who, of course, had a profound effect on von Balthasar and Benedict, and was the intended subject of Pope Francis’s never completed doctoral dissertation. I will leave it to the theological pro’s to explain how Guardini differs from Balthasar on this point, but the essential critique is the same: The modern, technological mindset tends to see human persons as commodities, and replaceable commodities at that, it presents a truncated vision that pushes out the transcendent and, just so, makes authentic relationships impossible, and, in the context of the environment, it prevents us from seeing Creation as a gift. Creation is, like everything else, a tool. The next time a free marketer says that capitalism is merely a tool, to be used well or badly, as Arthur Brooks did at the Poverty Summit conversation with President Obama and Robert Putnam hosted by John Carr’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought in Public Life, ask them about this passage. You see, the choice of tool precludes certain options, in this case, the humanization of the economy and the protection of the environment. The Holy Father is calling us to a deep, deep examination of the premises so many of us accept as a given, especially our economic premises, and we fail to see how the exclude the poor and damage the environment and so not contain, within themselves, the capacity for change. We must change the “economic laws” by which we organize our societies.
Later in the text, Francis picks up this theme, writing:
Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy. Today, in view of the common good, there is urgent need for politics and economics to enter into a frank dialogue in the service of life, especially human life. Saving banks at any cost, making the public pay the price, foregoing a firm commitment to reviewing and reforming the entire system, only reaffirms the absolute power of a financial system, a power which has no future and will only give rise to new crises after a slow, costly and only apparent recovery. The financial crisis of 2007-08 provided an opportunity to develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles, and new ways of regulating speculative financial practices and virtual wealth. But the response to the crisis did not include rethinking the outdated criteria which continue to rule the world.
My late uncle used to say, “People vote their pocketbooks.” I do not think he was entirely right, but he was not entirely wrong. It has always seemed strange that we credit or punish a politician based on the state of an economy over which that politician may have some influence, but only amidst thousands of other influences. Francis’ ringing call for attention to the common good is an ethical call. It questions not just the current pro-market ideology of both parties in the US, but some of the basic assumptions of Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, where the competition among self-interested individuals and groups is seen as the guarantor of liberty. Society is about more than liberty, Francis is telling us, better to say, liberty is about more than a lack of government interference. The Holy Father calls us to the freedom of the children of God, not to the negative freedoms ordained by our Founding Fathers.
Francis follows his critique of the modern technological mindset with a beautiful meditation on human work. He is again building on the writings of his predecessors, but his style is so accessible and so obviously rooted in experience. Reading that section, you know that this pope really has spent time with people who work hard to earn their daily bread, that he has the smell of the sheep. He writes, “Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work. Yet the orientation of the economy has favoured a kind of technological progress in which the costs of production are reduced by laying off workers and replacing them with machines. This is yet another way in which we can end up working against ourselves.” He knows that even a humble worker finds dignity in his labor. I have watched wealthy or influential people treat waiters or housekeepers like dirt. We all watched the wonderful movie “The Help.” The pope’s respect for working people shines through as the exact opposite of this dismissive attitude some take to those who do jobs many would find demeaning.
5. Integral Ecology and the call to a new lifestyle.
Any fears that Pope Francis is nothing but a member of the Green Movement in a cassock are disproved by his treatment of integral ecology. He is not going to ignore the need to protect baby humans because he wants to protect baby seals. His ethics extend not just to markets and political ideologies, but to movements and other manifestations of ideological determination. He counters ideology with the human person, made in the image and likeness of God, in right relationship with other persons and with the whole of Creation. There is not a sentence of this document which is not rooted in the spiritual, magisterial and scriptural texts that are found throughout.
Our consumer lifestyles have made us slaves. Our wants become needs. When I was growing up, the magazine Architectural Digest was a great magazine, with articles about school design and important new airports. Now, it is interior design porn. People get new cars when the old ones work perfectly well. Happiness, it is claimed, is found when one purchases this new product, or that new gizmo. The transcendent is shunted aside, or never acknowledged in the first place. Our advertisers throw a steady stream of enticements our way, always highlighting what is “new” and then we are surprised when people are incapable of long-term commitments to one another. People advertise in the Harvard Crimson for sperm donors with the correct, desirable attributes.
Pope Francis calls us back to our Christian sense of what is important, not just in the next life, but in this life. He has done this throughout his pontificate, indeed, the most convincing explanation of his popularity is also the most unsurprising: This man is obviously a follower of Jesus. He lives the beatitudes in simple gestures, calling attention to the poor and the disabled, and not to himself, whenever he makes a public appearance, presiding at Mass with all the self-assertion and fuss of an altar cloth, aware that he is a mere instrument in the Lord’s hand when Christ’s own Body and Blood come down upon the altar, verbally throwing the money changers out of the temple. Pope Francis writes like he lives. His call for a conversion of lifestyles is not new; previous popes have done the same. But, it rings true with him because his language itself is so unpretentious, so accessible, and the language coheres with the image we have of him, reaching down from he popemobile to caress a man who is deformed, washing the feet of a prisoner, calling on those with power to remember that the first will be last in the Kingdom of God.
Let’s be honest. The calls of previous popes for a conversion of lifestyles went unheeded if not unheard. Will it be different this time? I do not know. I fear that things must get worse in our culture before we learn again to acknowledge our God with humility, just as the human body, towards the end of its time on earth, breaks down, reminding us of our dependence upon our Creator. I may be doubtful, but the pope is hopeful. “Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start, despite their mental and social conditioning,” he writes.
When the issue is the environment, it is not only our lives or our souls that are at stake. It is the planet. It is future generations. The evidence of the danger is all around and the cure will require more than a successful round of agreements at Paris this autumn, although we need them too. Pope Francis does not cite Abraham Kuyper in his text, but last night, reading James Bratt’s biography, I came across Kuyper’s most famous line: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” That sense of God’s presence permeates the text of Laudato Si', and the Holy Father extends the cry to the whole domain of Creation. He wants us to look at Creation and see the handiwork of the Creator, at all times and in all our decisions. He is brutally frank about the entrenched ways of thought and powerful interests that hope we will do nothing of the sort. But, I am betting Pope Francis can and will change the conversation. At a time when the leadership of the world seems so unequal to the challenges, there is a giant in our midst, who took the name Francis. Some will be upset by this encyclical. No one should be surprised.
__________________________________________
THE BEST ONE CAN DO IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES
An article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original article can be found here
Recently I led a weeklong retreat for some sixty people at a renewal center. Overall, it went very well, though ideally it could have gone better. It could have gone better if, previous to the retreat, I would have had more time to prepare and more time to rest so that I would have arrived at the retreat well-rested, fully-energetic, and able to give this group my total undivided attention for seven days.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. The days leading up to the retreat were consumed by many pressures in my regular ministry; these were long days that kept me preoccupied and tired. Indeed, in the days leading up to the retreat, I had to do many extra hours of work simply to free myself up to lead this retreat. So I arrived for this retreat partly exhausted and carrying with me still a lot of pressures from my regular duties.
In spite of this, the retreat still went pretty well. I had enough energy and focus to make things essentially work. But it wasn’t the best I could do ideally, though it was the best I could do given the circumstances.
Given that confession, it’s fair to ask: Didn’t those retreatants have a right to have me arrive for this retreat more-rested, more-prepared, and more-ready to give them my full, undivided attention? Fair enough. They did have that right; except that this was mitigated by the fact that all the people who are daily affected by my regular duties also had that same right. They too had a right to my time, my un-fatigued self, my full energies, and my undivided attention. During that week of retreat, my office also got second best: I was not giving it my ideal best; but only what I could do, given the circumstances.
I suspect most time-management experts, and not a few counselors and spiritual directors, would tell me that the reason this tension exists in my life is because of my failure to set clear priorities and be faithful to them and that this sloppy indecisiveness is unfair to everyone on every side. If am over-extended, it’s a fault in my life, pure and simple, which I have a moral responsibility to correct.
But is it really that simple? Are we really meant to have this much control of over our lives? Don’t circumstance and need perennially trump that? Aren’t the generative years of our lives about much more than ensuring our own health and rest? Even if the purpose of our own self-care is not selfish but intended for the better service of others, isn’t that service itself the final culprit? There are needs all over and our resources are finite, isn’t that always a formula for tension?
Circumstance conscripts us and, in the words of Jesus, puts a rope around us and takes where we would rather not go, namely, beyond our comfort, beyond always being adequately rested, and beyond always being in control of our own timetable and energies. Admittedly it’s dangerous to over-extend yourself, except that it’s equally, perhaps more, dangerous to under-extend yourself so as to always have full control of your own energy and commitments and be always well rested and not over-taxed. We can burnout, but we can also rust-out.
This, of course, can easily become a rationalization for not setting proper priorities and for letting ourselves be non-reflectively buffeted by circumstance. But the opposite can also be a rationalization used to over-protect our own comfort and rest. That’s the tension, and it’s meant to be a tension. Sometimes we overextend ourselves and sometime we under-extend ourselves. Most of the people that I admire most in the world suffer from the former, overextension, and, paradoxically, it seems to give them more energy. Jesus, while cautioning proper self-care (Let us go away by ourselves for a while and rest. Mark, 6, 31) also tells us that we should pour ourselves out completely for others without worrying too much about whether this will kill us or not.
I had all of this in mind as I struggled while giving a recent retreat, knowing that neither the retreatants nor my office were getting my best energies … though both got the best that I could give, given the circumstance.
And isn’t this a good image for the whole of our lives? We have finite energies, finite time, finite attention, and we are constantly swamped by circumstance, need, and pressure. There’s always something! And so we are often caught in a major tension as regards our time, energy, and attention. In any given season within our lives, if we are honest, we might have to say: This wasn’t the best I might have done ideally, but it’s the best that I could do, given the circumstance!
Ultimately this is true for our whole lives. It’s never ideal, but it’s the best we can do, given the circumstance. And that should be more than enough when we stand before our Maker in judgment.
__________________________________________
Incarnation: A Franciscan View
A series of reflections by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can get the daily reflections by clicking here
Christ Is Plan A
The mystery of Incarnation is the trump card for any Franciscan spirituality (and the Christian tradition itself, though sometimes hidden). Incarnation literally means enfleshment, yet most of Christian history has, in fact, been excarnational--in flight from matter, embodiment, physicality, and this world. This avoidance of enfleshment is much more Platonic than Christian. Incarnation means that the spiritual nature of reality (the immaterial, the formless, the invisible) and the material (the physical, the forms, that which we can see and touch) are, in fact, one and the same! And they always have been, ever since the Big Bang, which scientists estimate happened around 13.6 billion years ago. "God's Spirit hovered over" creation from the very first moment of existence as we know it--and this statement is at the very beginning of the Bible (Genesis 1:2), setting the trajectory for the rest of the book. Yet we strangely have to remind Bible quoters of what should have been obvious to them. (Keeping matter and spirit separate is the occupational hazard of being a clergy person. It keeps us in business, because our job is then to put them back together. The only trouble is they do not need "putting"--only proclaiming and revealing!)
Most Christians were taught to associate the Incarnation only with Jesus' birth 2,000 years ago. Yes, that was the unique and specific human incarnation of God, which Christians believe is found in the flesh and blood person of Jesus. That was perhaps when humanity was ready for a face-to-face encounter, what Martin Buber would call the "I-Thou" relationship. But matter and spirit have always been one, since God decided to manifest God's self in the first act of creation. Modern science (especially quantum physics and biology) is demonstrating that this is, in fact, the case. Where does this endless drive toward life, multiplication, fecundity, creativity, self-perpetuation, and generativity come from, except from Something/Someone we call an indwelling "Spirit"?
Unfortunately, many Christians believe that the motive for divine incarnation was merely to fix what we humans had messed up--which seems rather self-preoccupied to me. The "substitutionary atonement theory" of salvation treats Christ as a mere Plan B. In this attempt at an explanation for the Incarnation, God did not really enter the scene until God saw that we had screwed up. Creation was not inherently sacred, lovable, or dignified. And, further, God was revealed to be petty and punitive. At least theologians had the honesty to call substitutionary atonement a "theory." But it has done much more damage than good, and we are still trying to undo this view of God and reality.
By the modern age, which seemed to read everything in mechanistic and transactional terms, most Christians acted as if the only real rationale for the Divine Incarnation was to produce a human body that could die and rise again. This is no exaggeration! It did not matter much what Jesus exemplified, taught, revealed, or loved. Things like simple living, non-violence, inclusivity--which are now proving necessary for the very survival of the species--were ignored. Christians focused instead on the last three days of Jesus' life and his freely offered quarts of blood. Our narrow focus on this explanation for Jesus' divine-human existence allowed us to ignore almost all of what he taught. Jesus became a highly contrived problem-solver for our own guilt and fear (a problem that was inevitable if God was not indwelling) instead of the Archetypal Blueprint for what God has been doing all the time and everywhere. Jesus became a mere tribal god instead of the Cosmic Lord and Savior of history itself (Colossians 1:15-20, Ephesians 1:3-14). Christianity ended up just another competing and exclusionary religion instead of "good news for all the people" (Luke 2:10b), which was the very first announcement at Jesus' birth. We all lost out.
Forgive me for stating this with such passion, and perhaps without subtlety, but the core message is at stake.
Adapted from Franciscan Mysticism: I Am That Which I Am Seeking, disc 1 (CD, MP3 download) For more on this theme, see my previous meditations "Jesus: Human and Divine" and "Jesus: The Christ"
Christ Is the Personal Template for All of Creation
The Franciscan philosopher and theologian St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217-1274) was an exemplary Franciscan mystic because he so effectively pulled his brilliant head down into his fiery heart. In Bonaventure's writings you will find little or none of the medieval language of fire and brimstone, worthy and unworthy, sin and guilt, merit and demerit, justification and atonement, which has taken over in the last five centuries.
Bonaventure begins very simply: "Unless we are able to view things in terms of how they originate, how they are to return to their end, and how God shines forth in them, we will not be able to understand." For Bonaventure, the perfection of God and God's creation is quite simply a full circle, and to be perfect the circle must and will complete itself. He knows that Alpha and Omega are finally the same, and the lynchpin holding it all in unity is the "Christ Mystery," or the essential unity of matter and spirit, humanity and divinity. The Christ Mystery is thus the template for all creation, and even more precisely the crucified Christ, who reveals the necessary cycle of loss and renewal that keeps all things moving toward ever further life. Now we know that the death and birth of every star and every atom is this same pattern of loss and renewal, yet this pattern is invariably hidden or denied, and therefore must be revealed by God--through "the cross."
Bonaventure's theology is never about trying to placate a distant or angry God, earn forgiveness, or find some abstract theory of justification. He is all cosmic optimism and hope! Once it lost this kind of mysticism, Christianity became preoccupied with fear, unworthiness, and guilt much more than being included in--and delighting in--an all-pervasive plan that is already in place. As Paul's school taught, "Before the world was made, God chose us in Christ" (Ephesians 1:4). The problem is solved from the beginning. Bonaventure could have helped us move beyond the negative notion of history being a "fall from grace." He invited us into a positive notion of history as a slow but real emergence/evolution into ever-greater consciousness of a larger and always renewed life ("resurrection")--with the always necessary and resented push-back called loss, suffering, or "the cross." When we talk about incarnation, what we're really talking about is who we are: daughters and sons of God, inspirited flesh, and even "temples of the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 6:19). The final direction is thus inevitable.
Adapted from Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, pp. 162-164, and exclusive video teaching within the Living School program
The Dance of Breath and Clay
The whole process of humans living, dying, and then living again is illustrated by Yahweh "breathing into clay," which becomes "a living being" (Genesis 2:7) called Adam ("of the earth"). A drama is forever set in motion between breath and what appears to be mere clay (humus=human=adamah). Matter and spirit are forever bound together; divine and mortal forever interpenetrate and manifest one another. The Formless One forever takes on form as "Adam" (and, in Jesus, "the new Adam"), and then takes us back to the Formless One once again as each form painfully surrenders the small self that it has been for a while. "I am returning to take you with me, so that where I am you also may be," says Jesus (John 14:3). The changing of forms is called resurrection, and the return is called ascension, although to us it just looks like death.
Buddhists are looking at the same mystery from a different angle when they say, "Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form," and then all forms eventually return to formlessness (spirit or "emptiness") once again. This is observable and needs no specific religious label as such. Christians call it the movement from incarnation to death to resurrection to ascension, but it is about all of us, and surely all of creation, coming forth as individuals and then going back into God, into the Ground of All Being. That cyclical wholeness should make us unafraid of all death and uniquely able to appreciate life. "God is not God of the dead, but of the living; to God all are alive," as Jesus put it (Luke 20:38). We are just in different stages of that aliveness--one of which looks and feels like deadness.
As hidden as the True Self has been from the False Self, so also has the Risen Christ been hidden from most of history. Not surprisingly, we cannot see what we were not told to look for or told to expect. If we were told to look for the Christ, it was for some divine object outside ourselves instead of realizing that the divine object is also within us. This is the staggering change of perspective that the Gospel was meant to achieve. This realization is the heart of all religious transformation (transformare=to change form)
The Risen Christ represents the final perspective of every True Self: a human-divine self that is looking out at God from within--and yet knowing that it is God-in-you seeing God-who-is-also-beyond-you--and enjoying both yourself and God as good and as united.
Adapted from Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self, pp. 81-83
Jesus Is InterFace with God
Franciscan spirituality emphasizes the imitation and love of the humanity of Jesus, not just worshipping his divinity. We recognize how humble and human Jesus was, which makes him imitable for us. Doing what he taught--"Follow me"--might actually be possible! Francis' earnest desire was to be like Jesus; his simple rule for the Franciscans was "To follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps."
God as Trinity validates the Transpersonal level ("Father"), the Personal level ("Jesus"), and the Impersonal level ("Holy Spirit") of God-experience. They are all true--God as "I," God as "You," and God as "That," which is full mystical experience. But most people begin at the personal level. You can't fall in love with a concept, a moral force, high vibrational energy, or consciousness itself. God raised up Jesus and made him the Christ (Acts 2:32, 36). Jesus revealed in human form the incarnation of God, the union of the spiritual and the material, which has been true for about 14 billion years. In Jesus, God took human form, human face, human eyes, and human endearment; God is finally someone we could fall in love with. God was given a face and a heart in Jesus.
The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) said the only thing that really converts people at a deep level is seeing "the face of the other." Receiving and empathizing with the other leads to transformation of the whole person. This exchange is prepared to transform both persons--the seer and the seen. According to Levinas, the face of the other, especially the suffering face of another person, creates a moral demand on your heart and your mind that is far more compelling than the Ten Commandments. Just giving people commandments doesn't change the heart. It may steel the will, but it doesn't change the heart.
So many Christian mystics talk about falling in love with the face of Jesus. The mystical encounter is not just cerebral, analytic, or morally correct; it actually is an I-Thou encounter. There is no doubt that this was the experience of both Clare and Francis, and I think this is why Clare uses the word "mirroring" so much. You are mirrored not through concepts, but through faces. I know there have been moments in my life with a confessor or a therapist where I have come in hating myself, as we Enneagram Ones are very prone to do. When I dared to look up at the face of the therapist or the confessor, they were smiling at me--giving me the face that I couldn't give myself.
You can't mirror yourself. If you are a loving person today, you likely received a loving look from your mother and your father in the first years of your life. That is the initial mirroring, the template that some say we seek for the rest of our life: someone delighting in us with the pure freedom with which our mother and father first delighted in us. If you did not experience such loving gazes from your parents, I hope you have found other compassionate people or creatures to show you your own belovedness. Only then are you prepared to pass the mystery on. You can only give away what you have received, and in fact you must pass it on or you cannot and will not keep it.
Adapted from Franciscan Mysticism: I Am That Which I Am Seeking, disc 3 (CD, MP3 download)
The Hiding Place Is Also the Revelation Place of God
Most pictures or statues of people honoring God or the Holy Spirit or pleading for grace show humans looking upward with their hands raised--the assumption being that God is "up there." In the great basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, where Francis is buried, there is a small bronze statue of Francis honoring the Holy Spirit. Francis' posture here is very unusual. Instead of arms uplifted and looking toward the sky, Francis has his hands folded and is looking down into the earth.
As a Christian, I see this as one of the few honest recognitions of the direction of the incarnation: Jesus emptied himself and became flesh (see Philippians 2). It was not a movement into the heavens but into the earth. Francis recognized the full and final implications of the incarnation. If God became flesh and entered this world in Jesus, then the hiding place of God is this world, in the material, in the animals, in the elements, in the physical. These are the hiding places--and the revelation places--of God! Why didn't the Church make that clear and compelling?
The first two intellectuals who followed Francis (Bonaventure, the Italian, and Duns Scotus, the Scotsman) realized that Francis found the Transcendent not just "out there" in the heavens somewhere, but "in here." And they made it into an intellectually satisfying philosophy and theology, so it could move beyond pious sentiment. Together they saw the Transcendent within all of creation. This insight changes everything! Grace is now inherent. Grace is not something you invite into the world as if it's not already here. It's not so much about God doing everything from the outside (ad extra in Latin). Now we know that life is generated from the inside (ad intra), where God already is. Once that becomes a spiritual realization, life is very, very different. Things like evolution, change, growth, renewal, and even resurrection are not "second nature" or something to be denied, but in fact our very first and final nature. Think about that for the rest of your life.
Adapted from an unpublished talk
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
mob: 0417 279 437;
mob: 0417 279 437;
email: mdelaney@netspace.net.au
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310
Office Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday 10am-3pm
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160Email: mlcathparish-dsl@keypoint.com.au
FaceBook: Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Weekly Homily Podcast: podomatic.com/mikedelaney
Parish Mass Times: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Parish Magazine: mlcathparishnewsletter.blogspot.com.au
Secretary: Annie Davies/Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Mary Davies
Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
Weekday Masses 23rd – 26th June
2015
Tuesday: 9:30am - Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am - Latrobe
Thursday: 12noon
- Devonport
Friday: 9.30am
- Ulverstone
Next 27th
& 28th June 2015
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin & Devonport
SundayMass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am
Sheffield (LWC)
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 27th & 28th
June 2015
Devonport:
Readers
Vigil: P Douglas, T
Douglas, M Knight
10:30am:
A Hughes, T Barrientos, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil: M Heazlewood, B & J Suckling, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly, T Muir
Vigil: M Heazlewood, B & J Suckling, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly, T Muir
10:30am: G Taylor, M Sherriff, T & S Ryan,
M & B
Peters
Cleaners 26th June: P Shelverton, E Petts
3rd July: M.W.C.
Piety Shop 27th June:
R McBain 28th June: K Hull
Flowers: M Knight, B Naiker
Ulverstone:
Reader: B O’Rourke
Ministers of Communion: E Standring, M Fennell, L Hay, T
Leary
Cleaners: K.S.C. Flowers: M Swain Hospitality: M & K McKenzie
Penguin:
Greeters: G & N Pearce Commentator: Y Downes
Readers:
M Murray, J
Barker Procession: A Landers
Ministers of Communion: S Ewing, J Garnsey
Liturgy:
Sulphur Creek J Setting Up: M Murray
Care of Church: J & T Kiely
Latrobe:
Reader: Maria Chan Ministers of Communion: I Campbell, M Mackey Procession: M Clarke Music: Hermie
Port Sorell:
Readers: M Badcock, E Holloway Ministers of Communion: L Post, B Lee Cleaners/Flowers/Prepare: G Wylie
Your prayers
are asked for the sick:
Maryanne Doherty, Joy Carter. Reg Hinkley, Kath Smith, Nellie
Widger, Michelle Nickols, Lorraine Duncan, Karen Aiken, Alyssa Otten, Merlyn
Veracruz, Sr Carmel Hall, Meg Collings, Bettye Cox, Phillip Sheehan, Margaret
Hoult, Shirley Sexton & …
Let us pray
for those who have died recently:
Moira Rhodes, Eva Zvatora, Pat Malone, Graham Appleby, Audrey Mitchell,
Geok Lan Low, Margaret Everett, Gertrude Haasmann, Mike O’Halloran, Beryl
Purton, Nanette O’Brien, Lorraine Keen, Joseph Sallese, Bridget Stone.
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this
time: 17th – 23rd
June – Valmai
McIntyre-Baker, Joseph Last, Joan Jeffrey, Kevin George, Pauline Croft, John
Ellings, Audrey Bound, Max Clifford, Therese Lizotte and Ray Dawkins. Also Thomas
Kelly (Snr) and Redimer Garcia.
May they rest in peace
Scripture Readings
This Week - 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B
First Reading: Job 38:1. 8-11
Responsorial Psalm:
Responsorial Psalm:
(R.)
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:14-17
Gospel Acclamation:
Gospel Acclamation:
Alleluia, alleluia!
A great prophet has appeared among us;
God has visited his people.Alleluia!
GOSPEL: Mark 4:35-41
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY'S GOSPEL:
As I prepare to pray I become aware of the Lord’s presence
in me and all around me. I ask him to deepen my faith as I spend this time with
him.
I slowly read and reread the Gospel passage. Perhaps I can
imagine the scene - Jesus and his disciples, the boats on the lake, the gale blowing
up and the stormy sea, the disciples’ fear and Jesus asleep with his head on a
cushion.
Where am I in this scene? How do I feel? In the storm, what
fears arise in me? What do I say to Jesus?
I watch as Jesus calms the wind and the sea. How do I feel
now - still fearful...awed...trusting...?
Do I speak to the Lord about all the waves that are
swamping the Church ... the world... humanity...? Can I entrust all this to
him? I speak to Jesus about my concerns and sit quietly in his presence.
As my prayer time draws to an end, can I invite Jesus to be
with me throughout today - in my boat - just as I am?
I finish my prayer, perhaps with an act of trust in God’s
love and power. Glory be to the Father...
Readings Next Week: 13th Sunday in
Ordinary Time
First Reading: Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24 Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15 Gospel: Mark 5:21-43
WEEKLY
RAMBLINGS:
As I write this the visit of the Relics of St Anthony have
arrived and the Parish is preparing to participate in the time and prayer and
devotion that is part of the visit. Thanks to all who have volunteered to be
assist with the success of the visit.
Please keep in mind the presentation by Marea Richardson on
“From Struggle to Hope”- Grief and Loss across the Life Span at MacKillop
Hill on next Saturday (27th June). Please see the Notice on the next page
for further details especially the request to contact MacKillop Hill if you
intend to be there.
Last weekend between the Vigil Mass and the morning Masses
my homily was completely rewritten. Not sure exactly why but I didn’t feel as
if it were saying what I felt needed to be said – not sure if the final version
did either - but that’s what I did. This week I was continuing my reading of
Divine Renovation – From a Maintenance to a Missional Church by Fr James
Mallon. In his book, like the authors of Rebuilt, he reminds us that the
Weekend (ie Mass) is the most important part of the work of the Priest and
should have a high priority. He means the way I celebrate the Liturgy, the way
I preach, the way I cause the people to gather to celebrate the story of the
Risen Christ so that we all go out to the community and proclaim the Good News.
Fr James, and others, would say that we meet 80% of parishioners on the weekend
– and asks the question – do we give 80% of our energy to making the weekend an
experience of the Church that enables us to be better Disciples?
I sometimes wonder whether reading is such a good idea as
it almost always causes me to look at what is happening in our Parish and
asking how we (I) might do it better. There are no simple answers and the work
that was done over the past few years with the Pastoral Plan and Recommendations
(cf http://mlcathparishplan.blogspot.com.au/)
is providing the Parish Pastoral Council with steps to make the Parish more
aware of what we need to do to make the story of the Church in our area present
to more people – and we are taking the steps to make it all happen.
Until next week, please take care on the roads and in your
homes.
SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM:
Last Saturday was a busy day for the children preparing for
the Sacraments of Initiation and their families. They participated in a day of learning more
about Eucharist. Activities included
learning about the Last Supper, the history of the Mass, some of the items in
the Church, the parts of the Mass, prayer, the real presence of Christ, the
Church as the people- the Body of Christ and being sent forth.
A great sense of community was evident with a shared lunch
enjoyed by 100 people - delicious soup, made from the ingredients that the
families brought.
A special thank you to the members of the
Sacramental Team who helped on the day:
Felicity Sly, Mandy Eden and Sally Riley. Also, Ester Petts for her kitchen
coordination and soup cooking. And to
Kamil Douglas and the SBSC Year 7 girls from the Vinnies group (Sian, Samantha,
Holly, Keeley and Shakira) who presented the ‘Soup Stone Story’ and helped
serve lunch.
menALIVE Weekend for men: On 27th /28th
June Meander Valley Parish is holding a men’s weekend. Thousands of Catholic
men have been inspired and encouraged by these weekends across Australia. Presented
and run by any experienced MenAlive team from Hobart. Interesting talks,
discussions, reflection and fellowship. Registration forms available in Church
foyers. For more information please phone John Barton 6393:2221(after hours).
MACKILLOP HILL SPIRITUALITY CENTRE:
“From
Struggle to Hope” - Grief
and Loss Across the Lifespan
Presenter:
Marea Richardson
Change and transition, loss and suffering, in what
way, are as much a part of our lives as the seasons of the year…..what is their purpose?? Don’t miss this opportunity - whatever your experience!!
Saturday 27th June 10 am – 3 pm. Bookings
Now! $35 / donation
Phone 6428:3095 Email:
mackillophill.forth@sosj.org.au
PLANNED GIVING PROGRAMME:
New envelopes are being distributed
this weekend. If you are not already part of this programme and would like to
join, or do not wish to continue giving, please contact the Parish office. Please
note the new envelopes should not be used until July.
OUR LADY OF LOURDES SCHOOL FOUNDER’S
DAY August 6 2015
OLOL School is
holding its inaugural Founder’s Day in Term 3. This will be a day of
celebrating and commemorating our history as a Josephite School in the Mersey
Leven Parish. We are looking for any old photos or memorabilia to set up a
display on the day.
We are also
interested in hearing from any former pupils or teachers, who would be willing
to speak to students, or write/record an account of what OLOL was like in
‘their day’. If you can help in any way, please contact the OLOL Office, 6424:1744.
ST PATRICK’S CATHOLIC SCHOOL HISTORY
PROJECT:
As part of a school
Local History Project, St Patrick’s Catholic School students would like to
interview some local identities and individuals who have an interest in, and
knowledge of, the community, especially the St Patrick’s Catholic School and
Parish communities. Students will then create a brief report on the interview
from their particular perspective. Students are especially interested in
hearing from Parish members who would be willing to discuss their own faith
experience – their memories of church, school and faith development.
Individual students
will gather information from the interview and undertake research to complement
the knowledge that has been gained. It is envisaged that the interviews will
also be recorded. A brief report will be created, complemented by relevant
photographs or images, which will then be framed and placed on display in the
school. A small photo of the student interviewers and the person interviewed
will be positioned in the final product and, over time, it is hoped that up to
10 personalities can contribute to what should be an important ‘living archive’
of our St Patrick’s Catholic Church and School communities, with a special
emphasis on our links to the Parish.
St Patrick’s
Catholic School is, therefore, very interested to hear from members of the
community who may be interested in contributing to this project. If you have
some stories of interest and if you can spare 30 minutes of your time, we would
love to talk with you. Please contact St Patrick’s Catholic School Latrobe on
6426 1626 or via email on stpatslat@catholic.tas.edu.au
FOOTY POINTS MARGIN TICKETS:
Round
11 – Geelong won by 23 points. Winners; Colleen Stingel, unknown & unknown.
Thursday Nights OLOL Hall D’port.
Eyes down 7.30pm –
Callers 25th June Tony Ryan &
Bruce Peters
Evangelii
Gaudium
“The
dignity of the human person and the common good rank higher than the comfort f
those who refuse to renounce their privileges.”
-
Par.218 from
Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis, Nov. 24, 2013
Saint/s of the Week –
(June 22)
St John Fisher was born in 1469; he studied at Cambridge University, was
ordained, became Bishop of Rochester. He was a pastoral bishop, charitable to
the poor, a man of prayer, and a persistent opponent of the errors of the
Protestant Reformation.
St Thomas More was born in 1477, studied at Oxford University, married
and had one son and three daughters. He became Chancellor of England. His
writings include Utopia, and many
prayers and letters which reveal his spirituality. Both were executed on the
orders of King Henry VIII.
“All of us must be saints in this world.
Holiness is a duty for you and me. So let’s be saints and so give glory to the
Father.”
Laudato Si' arrives
An article written by Michael Sean Winters
The original article can be found at http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/laudato-si-arrives
Laudato Si' indeed! On one of the most important issues of the day, our Holy Father has blessed the Church with a document that is accessible to virtually anyone, rich in the collected wisdom of the Catholic faith, attuned to the signs of the times, forceful in its call to urgent action on behalf of our sister, Mother Earth. Here are five things that jump out at me based on a first reading of the text.
1. The theology is very traditional.
As predicted, the issue may be new, but the theology is very traditional. The quotes from Saint Pope John Paul II remind us that there was more to John Paul than what his neo-conservative “interpreters” in the U.S. chose to highlight. Pope Francis quotes from his encyclical Centesimus Annus, writing, “Every effort to protect and improve our world entails profound changes in ‘lifestyles, models of production and consumption, and the established structures of power which today govern societies.’” Likewise he quotes Pope Benedict XVI, who so far from the caricature of a reactionary, called for “eliminating the structural causes of the dysfunctions of the world economy and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable of ensuring respect for the environment.”
Interestingly, having cited his predecessors, Pope Francis gives even more attention to the writings of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who wrote, “For human beings… to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins.” And, he cites the Patriarch on the call “to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbours on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God's creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet.” I do not recall any previous papal document devoting such attention to a Christian leader who is not a Roman Catholic in an official document such as this. I think it is important to remember on all issues that Francis is always thinking in terms of ecumenical relations, that his commitment to restoring full communion within the Body of Christ is at the top of his list of commitments. Noteworthy, too, are the frequent quotes from episcopal conferences.
2. The spirituality of St. Francis has touched Pope Francis deeply.
Francis’ reflections on his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, almost bring one to tears:
He shows us just how inseparable is the bond between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.
Francis helps us to see that an integral ecology calls for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human. Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise. He communed with all creation, even preaching to the flowers, inviting them “to praise the Lord, just as if they were endowed with reason”. His response to the world around him was so much more than intellectual appreciation or economic calculus, for to him each and every creature was a sister united to him by bonds of affection. That is why he felt called to care for all that exists. His disciple Saint Bonaventure tells us that, “from a reflection on the primary source of all things, filled with even more abundant piety, he would call creatures, no matter how small, by the name of ‘brother’ or ‘sister.’”
What follows in this encyclical, all of it, the commentary on science, the analysis of socio-economic structures, the call for political action, all flow from these spiritual insights into the relationship between the human person as creature, Creation and the Creator. These insights lead the Holy Father to make his urgent call for protection of the environment: “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change….Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity.”
3. For Pope Francis, there is no controversy about the science.
The heart of the Holy Father’s handling of the issue that has caused such controversy, at least in the US, the issue of how he would deal with science, is found in Paragraph 23 and it is remarkably straightforward:
A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon. Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it….The problem is aggravated by a model of development based on the intensive use of fossil fuels, which is at the heart of the worldwide energy system. Another determining factor has been an increase in changed uses of the soil, principally deforestation for agricultural purposes.
We cannot overstate the degree to which these sentences are unremarkable outside the US. It is only here, where think tanks and pseudo-think tanks, and some political candidates, are so dependent on extraction industries, they are loathe to accept what is, in fact, virtually common knowledge. Yes, science is never really “settled” and we will know more about our environment in ten years than we know now. But now, right now, we know enough to recognize there is a problem and that we are contributing to that problem.
Last night, I set my alarm so that I could rise with the sun. Of course, science tells us t.hat the sun does not really rise. The earth turns on its axis and so we turn towards the sun. Maybe, someday, this process by which the earth turns will be understood more deeply than it is today. But, I know enough, and know it surely enough, I will continue to set my alarm based on when the newspaper tells me the sun will rise. Another example: If nothing is ever "settled" in science, should we still put warnings on cigarettes, that they cause cancer?
Unsurprisingly, the Holy Father calls special attention to the consequences of global climate change on the poor, writing that “the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited.” As Catholics, the poor always have a moral claim upon us. And, if we are to be Catholics first, we must be shareholders second, or fifth, and if we are shareholders in a US fossil fuel company, maybe we should ask them why they have not, like their energy counterparts in Europe, led the way in developing renewable energy sources? Or, are we to wait until every last profitable drop of oil and nugget of coal is to be taken from the earth before these large corporations become responsible? The Holy Father goes on to consider other environmental issues, such as water use and bio-diversity, similarly relying on the scientific consensus and urging us to moral vigilance.
4. Laudato Si' is from the same pen, red or gold I do not know, that wrote Evangelii Gaudium.
The section on Global Inequality develops some of the themes Pope Francis articulated in Evangelii gaudium, and applies those themes specifically to the issue of environmental degradation. Our laissez-faire friends will be gnashing their teeth, of course, over these words of his:
In the meantime, economic powers continue to justify the current global system, where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain, which fail to take the context into account, let alone the effects on human dignity and the natural environment. Here we see how environmental deterioration and human and ethical degradation are closely linked. Many people will deny doing anything wrong because distractions constantly dull our consciousness of just how limited and finite our world really is. As a result, “whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenceless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule”.
He goes on to an extensive analysis of the modern, technological mindset and its limits. On Monday, I suggested that I wished Benedict XVI had written an encyclical on this issue because we would have certainly gotten some of von Balthasar’s trenchant critique of the Cartesian cogito and its progeny. Pope Francis delivers his critique via the theology of Guardini, who, of course, had a profound effect on von Balthasar and Benedict, and was the intended subject of Pope Francis’s never completed doctoral dissertation. I will leave it to the theological pro’s to explain how Guardini differs from Balthasar on this point, but the essential critique is the same: The modern, technological mindset tends to see human persons as commodities, and replaceable commodities at that, it presents a truncated vision that pushes out the transcendent and, just so, makes authentic relationships impossible, and, in the context of the environment, it prevents us from seeing Creation as a gift. Creation is, like everything else, a tool. The next time a free marketer says that capitalism is merely a tool, to be used well or badly, as Arthur Brooks did at the Poverty Summit conversation with President Obama and Robert Putnam hosted by John Carr’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought in Public Life, ask them about this passage. You see, the choice of tool precludes certain options, in this case, the humanization of the economy and the protection of the environment. The Holy Father is calling us to a deep, deep examination of the premises so many of us accept as a given, especially our economic premises, and we fail to see how the exclude the poor and damage the environment and so not contain, within themselves, the capacity for change. We must change the “economic laws” by which we organize our societies.
Later in the text, Francis picks up this theme, writing:
Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy. Today, in view of the common good, there is urgent need for politics and economics to enter into a frank dialogue in the service of life, especially human life. Saving banks at any cost, making the public pay the price, foregoing a firm commitment to reviewing and reforming the entire system, only reaffirms the absolute power of a financial system, a power which has no future and will only give rise to new crises after a slow, costly and only apparent recovery. The financial crisis of 2007-08 provided an opportunity to develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles, and new ways of regulating speculative financial practices and virtual wealth. But the response to the crisis did not include rethinking the outdated criteria which continue to rule the world.
My late uncle used to say, “People vote their pocketbooks.” I do not think he was entirely right, but he was not entirely wrong. It has always seemed strange that we credit or punish a politician based on the state of an economy over which that politician may have some influence, but only amidst thousands of other influences. Francis’ ringing call for attention to the common good is an ethical call. It questions not just the current pro-market ideology of both parties in the US, but some of the basic assumptions of Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, where the competition among self-interested individuals and groups is seen as the guarantor of liberty. Society is about more than liberty, Francis is telling us, better to say, liberty is about more than a lack of government interference. The Holy Father calls us to the freedom of the children of God, not to the negative freedoms ordained by our Founding Fathers.
Francis follows his critique of the modern technological mindset with a beautiful meditation on human work. He is again building on the writings of his predecessors, but his style is so accessible and so obviously rooted in experience. Reading that section, you know that this pope really has spent time with people who work hard to earn their daily bread, that he has the smell of the sheep. He writes, “Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work. Yet the orientation of the economy has favoured a kind of technological progress in which the costs of production are reduced by laying off workers and replacing them with machines. This is yet another way in which we can end up working against ourselves.” He knows that even a humble worker finds dignity in his labor. I have watched wealthy or influential people treat waiters or housekeepers like dirt. We all watched the wonderful movie “The Help.” The pope’s respect for working people shines through as the exact opposite of this dismissive attitude some take to those who do jobs many would find demeaning.
5. Integral Ecology and the call to a new lifestyle.
Any fears that Pope Francis is nothing but a member of the Green Movement in a cassock are disproved by his treatment of integral ecology. He is not going to ignore the need to protect baby humans because he wants to protect baby seals. His ethics extend not just to markets and political ideologies, but to movements and other manifestations of ideological determination. He counters ideology with the human person, made in the image and likeness of God, in right relationship with other persons and with the whole of Creation. There is not a sentence of this document which is not rooted in the spiritual, magisterial and scriptural texts that are found throughout.
Our consumer lifestyles have made us slaves. Our wants become needs. When I was growing up, the magazine Architectural Digest was a great magazine, with articles about school design and important new airports. Now, it is interior design porn. People get new cars when the old ones work perfectly well. Happiness, it is claimed, is found when one purchases this new product, or that new gizmo. The transcendent is shunted aside, or never acknowledged in the first place. Our advertisers throw a steady stream of enticements our way, always highlighting what is “new” and then we are surprised when people are incapable of long-term commitments to one another. People advertise in the Harvard Crimson for sperm donors with the correct, desirable attributes.
Pope Francis calls us back to our Christian sense of what is important, not just in the next life, but in this life. He has done this throughout his pontificate, indeed, the most convincing explanation of his popularity is also the most unsurprising: This man is obviously a follower of Jesus. He lives the beatitudes in simple gestures, calling attention to the poor and the disabled, and not to himself, whenever he makes a public appearance, presiding at Mass with all the self-assertion and fuss of an altar cloth, aware that he is a mere instrument in the Lord’s hand when Christ’s own Body and Blood come down upon the altar, verbally throwing the money changers out of the temple. Pope Francis writes like he lives. His call for a conversion of lifestyles is not new; previous popes have done the same. But, it rings true with him because his language itself is so unpretentious, so accessible, and the language coheres with the image we have of him, reaching down from he popemobile to caress a man who is deformed, washing the feet of a prisoner, calling on those with power to remember that the first will be last in the Kingdom of God.
Let’s be honest. The calls of previous popes for a conversion of lifestyles went unheeded if not unheard. Will it be different this time? I do not know. I fear that things must get worse in our culture before we learn again to acknowledge our God with humility, just as the human body, towards the end of its time on earth, breaks down, reminding us of our dependence upon our Creator. I may be doubtful, but the pope is hopeful. “Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start, despite their mental and social conditioning,” he writes.
When the issue is the environment, it is not only our lives or our souls that are at stake. It is the planet. It is future generations. The evidence of the danger is all around and the cure will require more than a successful round of agreements at Paris this autumn, although we need them too. Pope Francis does not cite Abraham Kuyper in his text, but last night, reading James Bratt’s biography, I came across Kuyper’s most famous line: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” That sense of God’s presence permeates the text of Laudato Si', and the Holy Father extends the cry to the whole domain of Creation. He wants us to look at Creation and see the handiwork of the Creator, at all times and in all our decisions. He is brutally frank about the entrenched ways of thought and powerful interests that hope we will do nothing of the sort. But, I am betting Pope Francis can and will change the conversation. At a time when the leadership of the world seems so unequal to the challenges, there is a giant in our midst, who took the name Francis. Some will be upset by this encyclical. No one should be surprised.
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THE BEST ONE CAN DO IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES
An article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original article can be found here
Recently I led a weeklong retreat for some sixty people at a renewal center. Overall, it went very well, though ideally it could have gone better. It could have gone better if, previous to the retreat, I would have had more time to prepare and more time to rest so that I would have arrived at the retreat well-rested, fully-energetic, and able to give this group my total undivided attention for seven days.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. The days leading up to the retreat were consumed by many pressures in my regular ministry; these were long days that kept me preoccupied and tired. Indeed, in the days leading up to the retreat, I had to do many extra hours of work simply to free myself up to lead this retreat. So I arrived for this retreat partly exhausted and carrying with me still a lot of pressures from my regular duties.
In spite of this, the retreat still went pretty well. I had enough energy and focus to make things essentially work. But it wasn’t the best I could do ideally, though it was the best I could do given the circumstances.
Given that confession, it’s fair to ask: Didn’t those retreatants have a right to have me arrive for this retreat more-rested, more-prepared, and more-ready to give them my full, undivided attention? Fair enough. They did have that right; except that this was mitigated by the fact that all the people who are daily affected by my regular duties also had that same right. They too had a right to my time, my un-fatigued self, my full energies, and my undivided attention. During that week of retreat, my office also got second best: I was not giving it my ideal best; but only what I could do, given the circumstances.
I suspect most time-management experts, and not a few counselors and spiritual directors, would tell me that the reason this tension exists in my life is because of my failure to set clear priorities and be faithful to them and that this sloppy indecisiveness is unfair to everyone on every side. If am over-extended, it’s a fault in my life, pure and simple, which I have a moral responsibility to correct.
But is it really that simple? Are we really meant to have this much control of over our lives? Don’t circumstance and need perennially trump that? Aren’t the generative years of our lives about much more than ensuring our own health and rest? Even if the purpose of our own self-care is not selfish but intended for the better service of others, isn’t that service itself the final culprit? There are needs all over and our resources are finite, isn’t that always a formula for tension?
Circumstance conscripts us and, in the words of Jesus, puts a rope around us and takes where we would rather not go, namely, beyond our comfort, beyond always being adequately rested, and beyond always being in control of our own timetable and energies. Admittedly it’s dangerous to over-extend yourself, except that it’s equally, perhaps more, dangerous to under-extend yourself so as to always have full control of your own energy and commitments and be always well rested and not over-taxed. We can burnout, but we can also rust-out.
This, of course, can easily become a rationalization for not setting proper priorities and for letting ourselves be non-reflectively buffeted by circumstance. But the opposite can also be a rationalization used to over-protect our own comfort and rest. That’s the tension, and it’s meant to be a tension. Sometimes we overextend ourselves and sometime we under-extend ourselves. Most of the people that I admire most in the world suffer from the former, overextension, and, paradoxically, it seems to give them more energy. Jesus, while cautioning proper self-care (Let us go away by ourselves for a while and rest. Mark, 6, 31) also tells us that we should pour ourselves out completely for others without worrying too much about whether this will kill us or not.
I had all of this in mind as I struggled while giving a recent retreat, knowing that neither the retreatants nor my office were getting my best energies … though both got the best that I could give, given the circumstance.
And isn’t this a good image for the whole of our lives? We have finite energies, finite time, finite attention, and we are constantly swamped by circumstance, need, and pressure. There’s always something! And so we are often caught in a major tension as regards our time, energy, and attention. In any given season within our lives, if we are honest, we might have to say: This wasn’t the best I might have done ideally, but it’s the best that I could do, given the circumstance!
Ultimately this is true for our whole lives. It’s never ideal, but it’s the best we can do, given the circumstance. And that should be more than enough when we stand before our Maker in judgment.
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Incarnation: A Franciscan View
A series of reflections by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can get the daily reflections by clicking here
Christ Is Plan A
The mystery of Incarnation is the trump card for any Franciscan spirituality (and the Christian tradition itself, though sometimes hidden). Incarnation literally means enfleshment, yet most of Christian history has, in fact, been excarnational--in flight from matter, embodiment, physicality, and this world. This avoidance of enfleshment is much more Platonic than Christian. Incarnation means that the spiritual nature of reality (the immaterial, the formless, the invisible) and the material (the physical, the forms, that which we can see and touch) are, in fact, one and the same! And they always have been, ever since the Big Bang, which scientists estimate happened around 13.6 billion years ago. "God's Spirit hovered over" creation from the very first moment of existence as we know it--and this statement is at the very beginning of the Bible (Genesis 1:2), setting the trajectory for the rest of the book. Yet we strangely have to remind Bible quoters of what should have been obvious to them. (Keeping matter and spirit separate is the occupational hazard of being a clergy person. It keeps us in business, because our job is then to put them back together. The only trouble is they do not need "putting"--only proclaiming and revealing!)
Most Christians were taught to associate the Incarnation only with Jesus' birth 2,000 years ago. Yes, that was the unique and specific human incarnation of God, which Christians believe is found in the flesh and blood person of Jesus. That was perhaps when humanity was ready for a face-to-face encounter, what Martin Buber would call the "I-Thou" relationship. But matter and spirit have always been one, since God decided to manifest God's self in the first act of creation. Modern science (especially quantum physics and biology) is demonstrating that this is, in fact, the case. Where does this endless drive toward life, multiplication, fecundity, creativity, self-perpetuation, and generativity come from, except from Something/Someone we call an indwelling "Spirit"?
Unfortunately, many Christians believe that the motive for divine incarnation was merely to fix what we humans had messed up--which seems rather self-preoccupied to me. The "substitutionary atonement theory" of salvation treats Christ as a mere Plan B. In this attempt at an explanation for the Incarnation, God did not really enter the scene until God saw that we had screwed up. Creation was not inherently sacred, lovable, or dignified. And, further, God was revealed to be petty and punitive. At least theologians had the honesty to call substitutionary atonement a "theory." But it has done much more damage than good, and we are still trying to undo this view of God and reality.
By the modern age, which seemed to read everything in mechanistic and transactional terms, most Christians acted as if the only real rationale for the Divine Incarnation was to produce a human body that could die and rise again. This is no exaggeration! It did not matter much what Jesus exemplified, taught, revealed, or loved. Things like simple living, non-violence, inclusivity--which are now proving necessary for the very survival of the species--were ignored. Christians focused instead on the last three days of Jesus' life and his freely offered quarts of blood. Our narrow focus on this explanation for Jesus' divine-human existence allowed us to ignore almost all of what he taught. Jesus became a highly contrived problem-solver for our own guilt and fear (a problem that was inevitable if God was not indwelling) instead of the Archetypal Blueprint for what God has been doing all the time and everywhere. Jesus became a mere tribal god instead of the Cosmic Lord and Savior of history itself (Colossians 1:15-20, Ephesians 1:3-14). Christianity ended up just another competing and exclusionary religion instead of "good news for all the people" (Luke 2:10b), which was the very first announcement at Jesus' birth. We all lost out.
Forgive me for stating this with such passion, and perhaps without subtlety, but the core message is at stake.
Adapted from Franciscan Mysticism: I Am That Which I Am Seeking, disc 1 (CD, MP3 download) For more on this theme, see my previous meditations "Jesus: Human and Divine" and "Jesus: The Christ"
Christ Is the Personal Template for All of Creation
The Franciscan philosopher and theologian St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217-1274) was an exemplary Franciscan mystic because he so effectively pulled his brilliant head down into his fiery heart. In Bonaventure's writings you will find little or none of the medieval language of fire and brimstone, worthy and unworthy, sin and guilt, merit and demerit, justification and atonement, which has taken over in the last five centuries.
Bonaventure begins very simply: "Unless we are able to view things in terms of how they originate, how they are to return to their end, and how God shines forth in them, we will not be able to understand." For Bonaventure, the perfection of God and God's creation is quite simply a full circle, and to be perfect the circle must and will complete itself. He knows that Alpha and Omega are finally the same, and the lynchpin holding it all in unity is the "Christ Mystery," or the essential unity of matter and spirit, humanity and divinity. The Christ Mystery is thus the template for all creation, and even more precisely the crucified Christ, who reveals the necessary cycle of loss and renewal that keeps all things moving toward ever further life. Now we know that the death and birth of every star and every atom is this same pattern of loss and renewal, yet this pattern is invariably hidden or denied, and therefore must be revealed by God--through "the cross."
Bonaventure's theology is never about trying to placate a distant or angry God, earn forgiveness, or find some abstract theory of justification. He is all cosmic optimism and hope! Once it lost this kind of mysticism, Christianity became preoccupied with fear, unworthiness, and guilt much more than being included in--and delighting in--an all-pervasive plan that is already in place. As Paul's school taught, "Before the world was made, God chose us in Christ" (Ephesians 1:4). The problem is solved from the beginning. Bonaventure could have helped us move beyond the negative notion of history being a "fall from grace." He invited us into a positive notion of history as a slow but real emergence/evolution into ever-greater consciousness of a larger and always renewed life ("resurrection")--with the always necessary and resented push-back called loss, suffering, or "the cross." When we talk about incarnation, what we're really talking about is who we are: daughters and sons of God, inspirited flesh, and even "temples of the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 6:19). The final direction is thus inevitable.
Adapted from Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, pp. 162-164, and exclusive video teaching within the Living School program
The Dance of Breath and Clay
The whole process of humans living, dying, and then living again is illustrated by Yahweh "breathing into clay," which becomes "a living being" (Genesis 2:7) called Adam ("of the earth"). A drama is forever set in motion between breath and what appears to be mere clay (humus=human=adamah). Matter and spirit are forever bound together; divine and mortal forever interpenetrate and manifest one another. The Formless One forever takes on form as "Adam" (and, in Jesus, "the new Adam"), and then takes us back to the Formless One once again as each form painfully surrenders the small self that it has been for a while. "I am returning to take you with me, so that where I am you also may be," says Jesus (John 14:3). The changing of forms is called resurrection, and the return is called ascension, although to us it just looks like death.
Buddhists are looking at the same mystery from a different angle when they say, "Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form," and then all forms eventually return to formlessness (spirit or "emptiness") once again. This is observable and needs no specific religious label as such. Christians call it the movement from incarnation to death to resurrection to ascension, but it is about all of us, and surely all of creation, coming forth as individuals and then going back into God, into the Ground of All Being. That cyclical wholeness should make us unafraid of all death and uniquely able to appreciate life. "God is not God of the dead, but of the living; to God all are alive," as Jesus put it (Luke 20:38). We are just in different stages of that aliveness--one of which looks and feels like deadness.
As hidden as the True Self has been from the False Self, so also has the Risen Christ been hidden from most of history. Not surprisingly, we cannot see what we were not told to look for or told to expect. If we were told to look for the Christ, it was for some divine object outside ourselves instead of realizing that the divine object is also within us. This is the staggering change of perspective that the Gospel was meant to achieve. This realization is the heart of all religious transformation (transformare=to change form)
The Risen Christ represents the final perspective of every True Self: a human-divine self that is looking out at God from within--and yet knowing that it is God-in-you seeing God-who-is-also-beyond-you--and enjoying both yourself and God as good and as united.
Adapted from Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self, pp. 81-83
Jesus Is InterFace with God
Franciscan spirituality emphasizes the imitation and love of the humanity of Jesus, not just worshipping his divinity. We recognize how humble and human Jesus was, which makes him imitable for us. Doing what he taught--"Follow me"--might actually be possible! Francis' earnest desire was to be like Jesus; his simple rule for the Franciscans was "To follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps."
God as Trinity validates the Transpersonal level ("Father"), the Personal level ("Jesus"), and the Impersonal level ("Holy Spirit") of God-experience. They are all true--God as "I," God as "You," and God as "That," which is full mystical experience. But most people begin at the personal level. You can't fall in love with a concept, a moral force, high vibrational energy, or consciousness itself. God raised up Jesus and made him the Christ (Acts 2:32, 36). Jesus revealed in human form the incarnation of God, the union of the spiritual and the material, which has been true for about 14 billion years. In Jesus, God took human form, human face, human eyes, and human endearment; God is finally someone we could fall in love with. God was given a face and a heart in Jesus.
The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) said the only thing that really converts people at a deep level is seeing "the face of the other." Receiving and empathizing with the other leads to transformation of the whole person. This exchange is prepared to transform both persons--the seer and the seen. According to Levinas, the face of the other, especially the suffering face of another person, creates a moral demand on your heart and your mind that is far more compelling than the Ten Commandments. Just giving people commandments doesn't change the heart. It may steel the will, but it doesn't change the heart.
So many Christian mystics talk about falling in love with the face of Jesus. The mystical encounter is not just cerebral, analytic, or morally correct; it actually is an I-Thou encounter. There is no doubt that this was the experience of both Clare and Francis, and I think this is why Clare uses the word "mirroring" so much. You are mirrored not through concepts, but through faces. I know there have been moments in my life with a confessor or a therapist where I have come in hating myself, as we Enneagram Ones are very prone to do. When I dared to look up at the face of the therapist or the confessor, they were smiling at me--giving me the face that I couldn't give myself.
You can't mirror yourself. If you are a loving person today, you likely received a loving look from your mother and your father in the first years of your life. That is the initial mirroring, the template that some say we seek for the rest of our life: someone delighting in us with the pure freedom with which our mother and father first delighted in us. If you did not experience such loving gazes from your parents, I hope you have found other compassionate people or creatures to show you your own belovedness. Only then are you prepared to pass the mystery on. You can only give away what you have received, and in fact you must pass it on or you cannot and will not keep it.
Adapted from Franciscan Mysticism: I Am That Which I Am Seeking, disc 3 (CD, MP3 download)
The Hiding Place Is Also the Revelation Place of God
Most pictures or statues of people honoring God or the Holy Spirit or pleading for grace show humans looking upward with their hands raised--the assumption being that God is "up there." In the great basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, where Francis is buried, there is a small bronze statue of Francis honoring the Holy Spirit. Francis' posture here is very unusual. Instead of arms uplifted and looking toward the sky, Francis has his hands folded and is looking down into the earth.
As a Christian, I see this as one of the few honest recognitions of the direction of the incarnation: Jesus emptied himself and became flesh (see Philippians 2). It was not a movement into the heavens but into the earth. Francis recognized the full and final implications of the incarnation. If God became flesh and entered this world in Jesus, then the hiding place of God is this world, in the material, in the animals, in the elements, in the physical. These are the hiding places--and the revelation places--of God! Why didn't the Church make that clear and compelling?
The first two intellectuals who followed Francis (Bonaventure, the Italian, and Duns Scotus, the Scotsman) realized that Francis found the Transcendent not just "out there" in the heavens somewhere, but "in here." And they made it into an intellectually satisfying philosophy and theology, so it could move beyond pious sentiment. Together they saw the Transcendent within all of creation. This insight changes everything! Grace is now inherent. Grace is not something you invite into the world as if it's not already here. It's not so much about God doing everything from the outside (ad extra in Latin). Now we know that life is generated from the inside (ad intra), where God already is. Once that becomes a spiritual realization, life is very, very different. Things like evolution, change, growth, renewal, and even resurrection are not "second nature" or something to be denied, but in fact our very first and final nature. Think about that for the rest of your life.
Adapted from an unpublished talk
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