Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr
Mob: 0417 279 437; mdelaney@netspace.net.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Alexander Obiorah
Mob: 0447 478 297; alexchuksobi@yahoo.co.uk
Mob: 0447 478 297; alexchuksobi@yahoo.co.uk
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office:
90 Stewart Street
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Mary Davies
Pastoral Council Chair: Mary Davies
Parish Mass Times: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: podomatic.com/mikedelaney
Parish Magazine: mlcathparishnewsletter.blogspot.com.au
Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
Weekday Masses 8th – 11th September,
2015
Tuesday: 9:30am - Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am - Latrobe
Thursday: 10:30am
– Eliza Purton Home
12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am – Ulverstone
Next Weekend
12th & 13th September, 2015
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin & Devonport
SundayMass: 8:30am Port Sorell 9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am
Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Eucharistic Adoration:
Devonport:
Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and
Angelus
Devonport: Benediction with Adoration - first Friday of
each month.
Prayer Groups:
Charismatic Renewal – Devonport Emmaus House Thursdays
commencing 7.30pm
Christian Meditation - Devonport, Emmaus House
Wednesdays 7pm.
Ministry Rosters 12th & 13th
September, 2015
Devonport:
Readers
Vigil: P Douglas, T
Douglas, M Knight 10:30am:
J Phillips, K Pearce, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil: B&B
Windebank, T Bird, J Kelly, T Muir, Beau Windebank
Cleaners 11th
September: P &
T Douglas 18th September: F Sly, M Hansen, R McBain
Piety Shop 12h
September: R Baker 6th September: O McGinley Flowers:
A O’Connor
Ulverstone:
Reader: S Willoughby Ministers of Communion: B Deacon, J
Allen, G Douglas, K Reilly
Cleaners: B&V McCall, G Doyle Flowers: M
Byrne Hospitality: M McLaren
Penguin:
Greeters: Fifita Family Commentator:
Readers: E Nickols, A Landers
Procession: Fifita Family Ministers of Communion: J Barker, E Standring
Liturgy: Penguin Setting Up: E Nickols Care of Church: J & T Kiely
Latrobe:
Reader: Ministers of
Communion: Procession: Music:
Port Sorell:
Readers: L Post, T Jeffries Ministers of
Communion: P
Anderson, B Lee Cleaners/Flowers/Prepare: B Lee, A Holloway
Reading this week 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: Isaiah 35:4-7 Second Reading: James 2: 1-5 Gospel: Mark 7:31-37
PREGO
REFLECTION:
Slowly, I quieten myself. I ask the Holy Spirit to pray in
me. I read the text prayerfully and then, in my imagination, try to enter into
the scene.
I notice how personal and physical the drama is. Perhaps I
am drawn to Jesus’ hand, his finger. Or the man’s ear, his tongue. Then Jesus
spits. I wonder at this God of mine, who has truly come in the flesh.
I look at the man’s face as he hears Jesus for the first
time. And I listen as he begins to speak. How do I feel as I witness this power
of God to save? I spend a few minutes pondering upon this experience.
Perhaps Jesus then turns to me. He has come to open ears
and loosen tongues. His command is, ‘Be opened!’ Do mine need freeing? In what
ways might I be closed and bound? How might I be opened to listen and receive
the Word of the gospel? How might I be released to speak the faith with my
whole life?
I turn back to the crowd. Perhaps I share in their
unbounded admiration for Jesus. I conclude my prayer by thanking the Lord that
I am able to hear him in his Word and to speak of him through my life. And I
praise him for doing ‘all things well’.
Readings Next Week: 24th Sunday in
Ordinary Time
First Reading: Isaiah 50-5-9 Second Reading: James 2:14-18 Gospel: Mark 8:27-35
Josephine Murray, Reg Hinkley,
Noreen Burton, Joanne Haigh, Lizzy Knox, Betty Broadbent,
Anne Shelverton, Veronica
Sylvester, Shirley Ryan, Kath Smith, Marie Knight, Joy Carter,
Shirley Stafford, Anna Leary, Geraldine
Roden, Fr Terry Southerwood & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Terry McKenna, Dulcie McCormack, Bill Calder, Ron Finch, Godfrey Matthews,
Kevin Court, Patrick Tunchon, Phil O’Kane, Dallas Cordwell, Allan Cruse, Tony Hyde, Mark Gatt
and Lyn Howard.
Kevin Court, Patrick Tunchon, Phil O’Kane, Dallas Cordwell, Allan Cruse, Tony Hyde, Mark Gatt
and Lyn Howard.
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time:
2nd - 8th September
Jean Mochrie, Brian Astell, Gwen
Jessup, Robert Adkins, Terence Doody, Fransicka Bondy, Ted McCarthy,
John Smith, Joan Scully and Aubrey
Sheridan. Also Evelyn Murray, Denny Sproule, Enid & Hedley Stubbs,
Arch Webb and all Dads in Heaven.
May they rest in peace
God our
Father,
In your wisdom and love you made all things.
Bless all fathers who have accepted the
responsibility of parenting.
Bless
those who have lost a spouse to death, separation or divorce, and who are
parenting their children alone.
Strengthen
all fathers by your love that they may be and become the loving, caring people
they are meant to be.
May God
bless all our Dads on earth and in Heaven!
WEEKLY
RAMBLINGS:
Happy
Father’s Day from all of who aren’t to all of you who are – and from me too.
As
mentioned last weekend I am away for these two weekends – by the time you read
this I will be on King Island – and having a wee break. There was some concern
raised about me reading more material about the New Evangelisation but the
bigger concern this week was that I put Windows 10 onto the main parish
computer and it froze everyone out – I thought I might need to leave for KI a
day earlier to escape the wrath of the two girls in the Office, and the
computer tech as well who suggested that I needed to do a great deal of
penance.
We
are indebted to the Cathedral Parish who have allowed Fr Emmanuel to be in the
Parish this weekend to assist Fr Alex; next weekend Archbishop Adrian will be
here.
Next
weekend the 11am Mass at Sheffield will be a celebration of the Feast Day of
Holy Cross Church – all welcome to join the local community to celebrate their
special day. Also, there will Mass at 11am on Monday, 14th (the
actual Feast Day) and this will be followed by luncheon at a local eating
establishment.
Faith Families September edition
is now available at all good Mass Centres.
HEALING
MASS:
Catholic Charismatic Renewal HEALING MASS St
Mary’s Church Penguin, Thursday 10th September at 7.30pm. Everyone
welcome. Please bring a friend and a plate of food for supper to share. If you
wish to know more or require transport contact Celestine Whiteley 6424:2043,
Michael Gaffney 0447 018 068, Zoe Smith 6426:3073 or Tom Knaap 6425.2442.
ST VINCENT DE PAUL
COLLECTION:
Next weekend in Devonport, Ulverstone, Port Sorell, Latrobe and Penguin to
assist the work of the St Vincent de Paul Society.
CWL ULVERSTONE: Meeting Friday 11th
September, Community Room Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone at 2pm
CWL
DEVONPORT: will meet on Wednesday
16th September at 2.00 pm. Please note change of date!
MacKillop Hill Spirituality
Centre:
MARGARET SILF, one of the most acclaimed and
loved spiritual writers of our time is returning to Devonport 1st October 10am – 12noon and 7pm – 9pm; Burnie 2nd
October 7pm – 9pm Don’t miss this opportunity…Save the dates!
Book early! Phone 6428:3095 Email: mackillophill.forth@sosj.org.au
Ordinary
$2.00 footy margin tickets will be sold (as normal) during the Finals.
GRAND
FINAL TICKETS:
$10.00
tickets are now selling – hurry and get yours today! The winner of the $10 tickets will
receive $500.00 and the holder of
the ticket with the number either side of the winning number $100.00.
The $10.00 tickets are only available from
Devonport and Ulverstone or by phoning the Parish Office 6424:2783 or Mary Webb
6425 2781.
Round 22 – Collingwood won by 48 points: Winners; D & R Munro, Adele
Derrico and Geoff Pearce.
We are currently seeking donations of the following items
for our School Fair: craft items, pots, plants, books, DVDs and items for the garage
sale. All items can be dropped into the School Office. If you have something
that you would like to donate to the garage sale but have no way of getting it
to us let us know and we can organise for it to be picked up. We also require hay
or straw bales for use as seating on the day. If you know of anyone that may be
able to assist, please ask them contact us on 6425:2680 or corey.mcgrath@gmail.com
Thursday Nights OLOL Hall
D’port. Eyes down 7.30pm
Callers 10th
September Tony Ryan & Alan Luxton
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
TERESA OF
AVILA: TEACHER AND MYSTIC OF DIVINE FRIENDSHIP:
A weekend retreat on Carmelite
Spirituality at the Emmanuel Centre, Launceston, Friday 11th – 13th
September. Fr. Aloysius Rego OCD Retreat Director. Cost is $170 - includes all
meals and accommodation. Booking essential to Sandra Walkling 6331 4991
STATE CONFERENCE – SACRAMENTS: The
Office of Formation in Faith invites you to a State Conference - A day of
formation for all involved in Christian Initiation, including: Parish
Sacrament, RCIA, & Baptism teams Priests, Teachers, Catechists,
Parishioners, Families particularly focusing on the sacramental journey of
older children. With keynote speaker Fr Elio Capra sdb. Saturday
19th September 2015. Pastoral Centre (near Church of
the Apostles) 44 Margaret Street, Launceston 10:00am – 3:30pm to register, or
for any queries, please contact Ben Brooks: Email: ben.brooks@aohtas.org.au Phone: 6208
6235 Mob: 0418 126434 RSVP: Thursday 10 September 2015.
KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS:
All parishioners are invited to join the Knights of the
Southern Cross in our 9th National Prayer Crusade to pray for an
increase in the number of Catholics willing to serve the Church in the
priesthood, diaconate and religious life, (including service as Catholic
Chaplains in the Australian Defence Force). Parishioners are asked to say this
special Crusade prayer each day of the week between Sunday 13th and
Saturday 19th September.
Heavenly Father,
You know the
faith, courage and generosity of your people throughout Australia including
the men and women serving at home and overseas
with the Australian Defence Force.
Please provide
your people in Australia with sufficient Priests, Deacons and Religious to meet
their needs and be with them always as they endeavour to meet the challenges of
their daily lives.
We ask this
through Jesus Christ, Your Son.
Amen.
Pope Francis' Encyclical Laudato Si': On the Care for Our Common Home is a call for global action as well as an appeal for deep inner conversion. He points to numerous ways world organisations, nations and communities must move forward and the way individuals -- believers and people of good will -- should see, think, feel and act. Each week, we offer one of the Pope's suggestions, with the paragraph numbers to indicate its place in the Encyclical. “Leave room for wandering and migrating species by creating ‘biological corridors;’ don't let dams, highways, and construction lead to their extinction.” (Par 35)
Saint of the Week – St Peter Claver, priest (Sep 9)
A native of Spain, young Jesuit St Peter Claver left his homeland forever in 1610 to be a missionary in the colonies of the New World. He sailed into Cartagena (now in Colombia), a rich, port city washed by the Caribbean. He was ordained there in 1615. By this time the slave trade had been established in the Americas for nearly 100 years, and Cartagena was a chief centre for it. Ten thousand slaves poured into the port each year after crossing the Atlantic from West Africa under conditions so foul and inhuman that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Although the practice of slave-trading was condemned by Pope Paul III and later labeled "supreme villainy" by Pius IX, it continued to flourish. St Peter Claver's predecessor, Jesuit Father Alfonso de Sandoval, had devoted himself to the service of the slaves for 40 years before Claver arrived to continue his work, declaring himself "the slave of the Negroes forever." As soon as a slave ship entered the port, St Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and exhausted passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God's saving love. During the 40 years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptised an estimated 300,000 slaves. His apostolate extended beyond his care for slaves. He became a moral force, indeed, the apostle of Cartagena. He preached in the city square, gave missions to sailors and traders as well as country missions, during which he avoided, when possible, the hospitality of the planters and owners and lodged in the slave quarters instead. After four years of sickness which forced the saint to remain inactive and largely neglected, he died on September 8, 1654. The city magistrates, who had previously frowned at his solicitude for the black outcasts, ordered that he should be buried at public expense and with great pomp. He was canonised in 1888, and Pope Leo XIII declared him the worldwide patron of missionary work among black slaves.
Words of Wisdom - A focus on leadership
This week, we begin a series of quotes on leadership. It is such an important aspect of church life – we hope this will inspire some of the people in your community to step up and fulfil their potential as servant leaders. 1 Samuel 16:7
DOROTHY DAY – A SAINT FOR OUR TIME
Sometime soon we will witness the canonization of Dorothy Day. For many of us today, especially those who are not Roman Catholic, a canonization draws little more than a yawn. How does a canonization impact our world? Moreover, isn’t canonization simply the recognition of a certain piety to which most people cannot relate? So why should there be much interest around the canonization of Dorothy Day – who in fact protested that she didn’t want people to consider her a saint and asserted that making someone a saint often helps neutralize his or her influence?
Well, Dorothy Day wasn’t the kind of saint who fits the normal conceptions of piety. Many of us, no doubt, are familiar with a basic sketch of her life. She was born in New York in 1897 and died there in 1980. She was a journalist, a peace-activist, a convert to Christianity, who, together with Peter Maurin, established the Catholic Worker Movement to combine direct aid to the poor and homeless with nonviolent action on behalf of peace and justice. The movement remains vibrant today. She served too on the newspaper she founded, Catholic Worker, from 1933 until her death.
Her person and the movement she started have powerfully inspired Christians of every denomination to try to more effectively take the Gospels to the streets, to try to bring together Jesus and justice in a more effectual way. She is invoked today as the primary role-model for virtually everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, working in the area of social justice.
The honor is well-deserved. She, perhaps better than anyone else in her generation, was able to wed together the Gospel and justice, Jesus and the poor, and take the fruits of that marriage to the streets in an effective way. That’s a rare and very difficult feat.
Ernst Kasemann once commented that the problem in both the world and the church is that the liberals aren’t pious and the pious aren’t liberal. He’s right. Politics and religion are both generally impoverished because the pious won’t be liberal and the liberals won’t be pious. You normally don’t see the same person leading the rosary and the peace march. You normally don’t see the same person championing both the pro-life movement and women’s choice. And you don’t normally see the same person scrupulously defending the most-intimate matters within private morality and having the same moral passion for the global-issues of social justice. But that was Dorothy Day. She was equally comfortable leading a peace march and leading the rosary. Someone once quipped: If you drew out what’s deepest and best within both the conservatives and liberals and put them through a blender, what would come out is Dorothy Day.
A second feature which characterized Dorothy Day and her spirituality was her ability to simply act, and to act effectively. She not only had faith, she acted upon that faith. She was a do-er, not just a listener; and she was able to institutionalize her faith and embed it into an institution, the Catholic Worker, which not only was able to minister directly to the poor but was able to form itself into something larger and more permanent than the faith, vision, and power of a single person. Dorothy was able to act in a way that was bigger and more effective than her own person. There’s an axiom that says: Whatever we dream alone remains a dream, but what we dream with others can become a reality. Dorothy dreamed with others and made that dream a reality. Today, most of us struggle both to act on our faith and, even more so, to embed our faith concretely into effective, sustained community action.
Finally, Dorothy Day can be an inspiration to us because she did the right thing for the right reason. Dorothy’s commitment to the poor arose not out of guilt, or neurosis, or anger, or bitterness towards society. It arose out of gratitude. Her route to faith, Jesus, and the poor was rather unorthodox. In the years prior to her conversion she was an atheist, a communist, a woman ideologically opposed to the institution of marriage, and a woman who had had an abortion. Her turning to God and to the poor happened when she gave birth to her daughter, Tamar Theresa, and experienced in the joy of giving birth a gratitude that seared her soul. In her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, she describes how, at seeing her baby daughter for the first time, she was so overcome with gratitude that a faith and love were born in her that never again left her. Her passion for God and the poor were fueled by that.
She was also an earthy saint. She will, no doubt, be the first canonized saint whose photographs show a woman with a cigarette in her mouth. She’s a saint for our time. She showed us how we can serve God and the poor in a very complex world, and how to do it with love and color.
Mystics and Non-Dual Thinkers: Week 6
A series of reflections taken from a daily email from Fr Richard Rohr. You can subscribe to the email here
Paradox and Mercy
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was born in France and lived most
of his adult life as a Cistercian or Trappist monk at the Abbey of Our Lady of
Gethsemani in Kentucky. He died tragically in Bangkok of accidental
electrocution due to faulty wiring. Merton has been a primary teacher and
inspiration to me since I first read his book The Sign of Jonas in a high
school seminary library soon after it was written in 1958. I saw Merton once
for just a moment, as he (and Mother Teresa, believe it or not) walked by me
while I was visiting the monastery in early June of 1961. Little did I know
Merton would soon die, nor did I imagine the lasting influence he would have on
me and so many people around the world. [1]
I believe Thomas Merton is one of the most significant
American Catholics of the twentieth century. His whole life is a parable and a
paradox, as are all of our lives. Merton wrote, "I have had to accept the fact
that my life is almost totally paradoxical. I have also had to learn gradually
to get along without apologizing for the fact, even to myself. . . . It is in
the paradox itself, the paradox which was and still is a source of insecurity,
that I have come to find the greatest security."
I'm convinced that is the very meaning of faith. Faith is
agreeing to live without full resolution. Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the
Christian Scriptures make that very clear. We are often called to walk in
darkness, where God leads us to that next step which is usually not clear,
predictable, or controllable by the rational mind.
"I have become convinced," Merton goes on to
write, "that the very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of
God's mercy to me: if only because someone so complicated . . ." (Merton
was a Four on the Enneagram--they are complicated) ". . . and so prone to
confusion and self-defeat could hardly survive for long without special
mercy." [2]
Merton had an uncanny ability to describe his inner life
with God for the rest of us, and to apply that inner life in the healing of the
outer world. A prayer from his Asian Journal, written during a conference on
East-West monastic dialogue, is representative:
Oh God, we are one with You. You have made us one with You.
You have taught us that if we are open to one another, You dwell in us. Help us
to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to
realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. Oh
God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept You,
and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our whole being,
because our being is in Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your spirit. Fill
us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse
ways, united in this one spirit which makes You present in the world, and which
makes You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love
is victorious. Amen. [3]
References:
[1] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
(Jossey-Bass: 2011), 161.
[2] Thomas
P. McDonnell, ed., A Thomas Merton Reader (Doubleday: 1989), 16.
[3] Thomas
Merton; Patrick Hart, James Laughlin, Naomi Burton Stone, eds.; The Asian
Journal of Thomas Merton (New Directions: 1975); 318-319.
Contemplation and Action
The contemplative mind is the key to everything. Within all
spirituality, nothing lasts and nothing goes to any depth without non-dual
consciousness. It was Thomas Merton who almost singlehandedly pulled back the
veil and revealed the Western Church had lost this essential wisdom tradition
for the last five centuries. In 1985 I was invited to give an eight-day retreat
to the Trappist monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani, where Merton had lived. They
told me then that Merton was not very popular with many of the older monks
because "he told us we were not contemplatives. We were just introverts
saying prayers all day." [1]
As Archbishop Rowan Williams, former leader of the Anglican
church, told the Synod of Catholic Bishops in Rome ". . . contemplation is
very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to
prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity
that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with
freedom--freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted
understanding that comes from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only
ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and
our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to
inhabit. To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live
truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary
matter." [2] Such is the importance of what Thomas Merton re-introduced to
the Western world in the 1950's and 1960's.
Scott Peck explains that Merton "'left the world' for
the monastery . . . because he was afraid of being contaminated by the world's
institutionalized evil. . . . From within the confines of Gethsemani, he
continued to consistently and passionately protest the sins of greater society.
This burning desire to be in the world but not of the world is the mark of a
contemplative." [3] James Finley, who learned from Merton for five and a
half years at Gethsemani, says that when he would voice a complaint about
something, Merton would tell him, "We don't come to the monastery to get
away from suffering; we come to hold the suffering of all the world." This
can only be done by plugging into a larger consciousness through contemplation.
[4] No longer focused on our individual private perfection--or what Merton
called "Our personal salvation project"--we become fully human and
usable by opening our hearts to God.
Merton wrote, "Paradoxically, I have found peace
because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair
turn out to be renewals, new beginnings. . . . All life tends to grow like
this, in mystery inscaped with paradox and contradiction, yet centered, in its
very heart, on the divine mercy . . . and the realization of the 'new life'
that is in us who believe, by the gift of the Holy Spirit." [5]
It was in the power of that Spirit that Merton struggled against
"the evil [that] is in us all . . . [and] the blindness of a world that
wants to end itself." He fought against violence, war, racism, poverty,
and consumerism. He said, "Those who continue to struggle are at peace. If
God wills, they can pacify the world. For he[/she] who accepts the struggle in
the name of Christ is delivered from its power by the victory of Christ."
[6]
References:
[1] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Jesus and Buddha: Paths to Awakening (Center for Action and
Contemplation, 2008), disc 4 (CD, DVD, MP3 download).
[2]
Archbishop Rowan Williams, Address to the Synod of Bishops in Rome on October
10, 2012.
[3] Thomas
P. McDonnell, ed., A Thomas Merton Reader (Doubleday, 1989), 5-6.
[4] James
Finley, Intimacy: The Divine Ambush (Center for Action and Contemplation:
2013), disc 4 (CD, MP3 download).
[5] Thomas
P. McDonnell, ed., A Thomas Merton Reader (Doubleday, 1989), 16-17.
[6] Ibid.,
18.
False Self and True Self, Part I
I learned the terms "True Self" and "False
Self" from Thomas Merton--words he used to clarify what Jesus surely meant
when he said that we must die to ourselves or we must "lose ourselves to
find ourselves" (Mark 8:35). This passage has caused much havoc and
pushback in Christian history because it sounds negative and ascetical, and it
was usually interpreted as an appeal to punish the body. But Jesus' intent is
personal liberation, not self-punishment. There is a general Platonic denial of
the body in most religions. Centuries of Christians falsely assumed that if they
could "die" to their body, their spirit would for some reason
miraculously arise.
Paul made a most unfortunate choice of the word sarx,
translated "flesh," as the very enemy of pneuma, Spirit (for example,
Galatians 5:16-24). Now we would probably translate sarx as "ego" or
"small self," which would be much closer to Paul's actual meaning.
Remember that Christianity is the religion that believes "the Word became
flesh" (John 1:13), and Jesus even returned to the "flesh" after
the Resurrection (Luke 24:40)--so flesh cannot be bad. If our spirituality is
in any way anti-body, it is never authentic Christianity.
Merton rightly recognized that it was not the body that had
to "die" but the "false self" that we do not need anyway.
The False Self is simply a substitute for our deeper and deepest truth. It is a
useful and even needed part of ourselves, but it is not all; the danger is when
we think we are only our false, separate, small self. Our attachment to False
Self must die to allow True Self--our basic and unchangeable identity in
God--to live fully and freely. [1]
Merton beautifully describes the True Self in Conjectures of
a Guilty Bystander. I quote this lengthy passage because of its importance for
Merton.
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the
center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the
realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs,
that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.
It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in
a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole
illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. . . . This sense of
liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me
that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being [hu]man,
a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and
stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now [that] I realize
what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be
explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around
shining like the sun. . . . Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty
of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor
self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one
is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only
we could see each other that way all the time.
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which
is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark
which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God
disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind
or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of
absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. . . . It is like a pure
diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if
we could see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and
blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish
completely. [2]
References:
[1] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self (Jossey-Bass:
2013), 38-39.
[2] Thomas
Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Doubleday: 1966), 140-142.
False Self and True Self, Part II
Here is how Thomas Merton describes the False Self in New
Seeds of Contemplation:
Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false
self.
This is the man that I want myself to be but who cannot
exist, because God does not know anything about him. And to be unknown of God
is altogether too much privacy.
My false self and private self is the one who wants to exist
outside of the reach of God's will and God's love--outside of reality and
outside of life. And such a self cannot help but be an illusion.
We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all
the ones we cherish about ourselves--the ones we are born with and which feed
the roots of sin. For most of the people in the world, there is no greater
subjective reality than this false self of theirs, which cannot exist. A life
devoted to the cult of this shadow is what is called a life of sin.
All sin starts with the assumption that my false self, the
self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality
of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered. Thus I use up my
life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, for power,
honor, knowledge, and love, to clothe this false self and construct its
nothingness into something objectively real. [1]
And this is how Merton discovers his True Self:
The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of
God.
But whatever is in God is really identical with Him, for His
infinite simplicity admits no division and no distinction. Therefore I cannot
hope to find myself anywhere except in Him.
Ultimately the only way I can be myself is to become
identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my
existence.
Therefore there is only one problem on which all my
existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering
God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find
Him.
But . . . there is no human and rational way in which I can
arrive at that contact, that possession of Him, which will be the discovery of
Who He really is and of Who I am in Him.
That is something that no man can ever do alone. . . .
The only One Who can teach me to find God is God, Himself,
Alone. [2]
References:
[1] Thomas
Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (Shambhala: 2003), 36-37.
[2] Ibid.,
37-38.
First and Second Halves of Life, Part I
Merton's best-selling early autobiography, The Seven Storey
Mountain, published in 1948, is a first half of life statement and a classic,
which has never gone out of print.
The following poem, "When in the Soul of the Serene
Disciple," [1] written by Merton ten years later in 1958, shows all the
signs of a man in an early second half of life, although he was only in his
mid-forties. The freedom illustrated here might be exactly where your spiritual
journey is going to lead you. I hope so.
This poem has spoken to me from the first time I read it in
Merton's hermitage in 1985. I offer it to you as a simple meditation that you
can return to again and again to summarize where this journey leads us. Today
we will focus on the first half of the poem, with my commentary in italics.
When in the
soul of the serene disciple
At the soul
level, and with the peacefulness of time
With no more
Fathers to imitate
When you
have moved beyond the "authoritative," the collective, and the
imitative, and you have to be your True Self
Poverty is a
success,
It is a
small thing to say the roof is gone:
He has not
even a house.
When you have made it all the way to the bottom of who you
think you are, or need to be, when your humiliating shadow work never stops,
and when your securities and protective boundaries mean less and less, and your
"salvation project" has failed you
Stars, as
well as friends,
Are angry
with the noble ruin,
Saints
depart in several directions.
When you have faced the hurt and the immense self-doubt
brought on by good people, family, and even friends who do not understand you,
who criticize you, or even delight in your wrongness
Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
The inner life of quiet, solitude, and contemplation is the
only way to find your ground and purpose now. Go nowhere else for sustenance.
References:
[1] Thomas
Merton, Collected Poems (New Directions: 1977), 279f.
[2] Richard
Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass, 2011), 162-164.
First and Second Halves of Life, Part II
Today we will look at the latter part of Merton' s poem,
"When in the Soul of the Serene Disciple," [1] a map for the second
half of life. My commentary is in italics.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares,
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.
This is the necessary
stumbling stone that makes you loosen your grip on the first half of life and
takes away any remaining superior self-image. (Merton is calling this crossover
point "lucky" and surely sees it as part of necessary and good
suffering that the soul needs in order to mature.)
Here you will find
Neither a proverb nor a memorandum.
There are no ways,
No methods to admire
Don't look forward or
backward in your mind for explanations or consolations; don't try to hide
behind any secret special way that you have practiced and now can recommend to
all! (As we preachy types always feel we must do.) Few certitudes now, just
naked faith.
Where poverty is no achievement.
His God lives in his emptiness like an affliction.
This is nothing you
have come to or crawled down to by effort or insight. You were taken there, and
your "there" is precisely nothing. (That is, it is
"everything," but not what you expected everything to be!) This kind
of God is almost a disappointment, at least to those who were in any way
"using" God up to now. There is nothing to claim anymore. God is not
a possession of any type, not for your own ego or morality or superiority or
for control of the data. This is the nada of John of the Cross and the mystics,
and this is Jesus on the cross. Yet it is a peaceful nothingness and a luminous
darkness, while still an "affliction."
What choice remains?
Well, to be ordinary is not a choice:
It is the usual freedom
Of men [and women] without [their] visions.
In the second half of the spiritual life, you are not making
choices as much as you are being guided, taught, and led--which leads to
"choiceless choices." These are the things you cannot not do because
they are your destiny and your deepest desire. Your driving motives are no
longer money, success, or the approval of others. You have found your sacred
dance.
Now your only specialness is in being absolutely ordinary
and even "choiceless," beyond the strong opinions, needs,
preferences, and demands of the first half of life. You do not need your
"visions" anymore; you are happily participating in God's vision for
you. With that, the wonderful dreaming and the dreamer that we were in our
early years have morphed into Someone Else's dream for us. We move from the
driver's seat to being a happy passenger, one who is still allowed to make
helpful suggestions to the Driver. We are henceforth "a serene
disciple," living in our own unique soul as never before, yet
paradoxically living within the mind and heart of God, and taking our place in
the great and general dance. [2]
References:
[1] Thomas
Merton, Collected Poems (New Directions: 1977), 279f.
[2] Richard
Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass, 2011), 164-167.
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