Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
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)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: mlcathparish-dsl@keypoint.com.au
Email: mlcathparish-dsl@keypoint.com.au
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
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Parents are asked to contact the Parish Office to make arrangements for attending a Baptismal Preparation Session and booking a Baptism date.
Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.
Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program
Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests
Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am)
Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)
Penguin - Saturday (5:15pm - 5:45pm)
Care and Concern: If you are aware of anyone who is in need of assistance and has given permission to be contacted by Care and Concern, please phone the Parish Office.
Weekday Masses 17th – 20th November, 2015
Tuesday: 9:30am - Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am - Latrobe
Thursday: 10:30am – Karingal
7:30pm – Healing Mass Penguin
Friday: 11:00am – Mt St Vincent
Next Weekend 21st & 22nd November, 2015
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
Devonport
Sunday Mass: 11:00am Ulverstone
Only Parish Mass this Sunday
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.
DO YOU LONG FOR SOME SPACE AND STILLNESS IN YOUR LIFE AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR? 30 minutes of silent prayer could change the rest of your week! There is opportunity for this each Wednesday evening at 7pm at 88 Stewart Street, Devonport. Why not come along and meditate with a small group of people and see what happens? For further information see www.wccm.org or talk with Sr Carmel.
Ministry Rosters 21st & 22nd November, 2015
Devonport:
Readers Vigil: M Gaffney, M Gerrand, H Lim
Ministers of Communion - Vigil: T Muir, M Davies, M Gerrand, T Bird, S Innes
Cleaners 20th November: K.S.C. 27th November: K Hull, F Stevens, M Chan
Piety Shop 21st November: R McBain Flowers: M Breen, S Fletcher
Penguin:
Greeters: Fifita Family Commentator: J Barker Readers: M & D Hiscutt
Procession: T Clayton, E Nickols Ministers of Communion: A Landers, T Clayton
Liturgy: Sulphur Creek C Setting Up: M Murray Care of Church: J & T Kiely
Readings This Week: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: Daniel 12:1-3
Second Reading: Hebrews 10:11-14, 18
Gospel: Mark 13: 24-32
PREGO REFLECTION:
As always, I take my time as I approach this sacred Word of
God.
As I read, I note what is happening within.
Where am I moved and what
strikes me?
What feelings come to the surface?
Am I disturbed, comforted,
challenged…?
I don’t judge these feelings - I’m simply mindful of them.
I may
feel something of the solemnity and truth of what Jesus is teaching, that,
despite all things passing, his words remain.
Perhaps I have a renewed sense of
the finiteness of life; that all things come to an end.
Maybe I feel a little
frightened by this, or do I feel a sense of being invited to be watchful and
prepared for the concerns of life; called to remain supple, like the growth on
a new fig tree, that I might not be broken by such worries?
I might like to
conclude by resting in the presence of the Lord, with a deep sense of his words
that echo through the scriptures and which do not pass away: ‘do not be
afraid’, ‘courage’, ‘I am with you always’… I respond from my heart to whatever
moves me.
Readings Next Week: Our Lord JESUS CHRIST, KING of the UNIVERSE
First Reading: Daniel 7:13-14
Second Reading: Apocalypse 1:5-8
Gospel: John 18:33-37
FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING:
Next Sunday our Parish will gather as one community for Mass at 11am at Sacred Heart Church, Ulverstone - this will be the only Mass on Sunday in the Parish. There will be a BBQ lunch following the Mass and all parishioners are invited to join us for lunch. These Masses occur only twice a year so we ask you to make the choice to support our efforts to build our parish spirit by joining us for this celebration.
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
Robin Pitt, Terry Reid, Betty Broadbent, Archer Singleton, Iolanthe Hannavy, Geraldine Roden, Joy Carter, Debbie Morris, Harry Cartwright, Guy D’Hondt & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
the victims of the Paris Terrorist attack, John Freeman, Peter McKay, Emily Triffett, Jack Armsby, Anne Shelverton, Pat Harris, Greg McNamara, Robert Grantham, Ena Robinson, Esma Mibus, Shirley Stafford, Audrey Taylor, Peter Hays, John Stanford
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 11th – 17th November
Finbarr Kennedy, Ronald Garnsey, Catherine Fraser, Olive Purton, Freda Morgan and Terry Matthews. Also deceased Legionaries of Mary
May they rest in Peace
WEEKLY
RAMBLINGS:
Before I speak about the Retreat that Fr Alex and I have
been on I came across some comments made by Pope Francis during the week -
speaking to bishops and laity in Florence he said that the world needs a deeply
merciful Catholicism that is unafraid of change. He went on to say that Catholics must realize
that we are not in a change of era but rather an era of change.
Having suggested last week that there are things we need to
do to ensure that as a Parish Community we grow and live more completely our Catholic
Christian life the words of Pope Francis become an even greater challenge to
us, and a more immediate opportunity to reflect on where we are and where we
want to go. We have our Parish Plan but we also know that there are always new
challenges that we need to address.
Annual Retreats for Clergy are an essential part of our
prayer life. This week our director, Fr Terry Lyons from Townsville, has been
inviting us to look at four aspects of our life - our relationship with God,
with others, with nature and with ourselves. He has done this by speaking about
his 50 years of priesthood and then inviting us to see the parallels within our
own stories in a gentle and encouraging way.
Going into a deep reflection about myself, my life and my
priesthood is never an easy thing to do but it is important otherwise I can
simply think I'm ok and that everyone else is wrong, or they've got it in for
me. Hopefully after some reflection time about my life and my gifts I will be
able to be more open to the needs of the Parish and all parishioners. I hope
that I will also hear the Holy Father clearly as he calls me, us, into a new
era of living the Gospel as powerful witnesses of God's Mercy.
 So please take care on the roads and in your homes
EDUCATION OF PRIESTS COLLECTION:
The Education of Priests collection enables the Archdiocese
of Hobart to fund training to seminarians. A person needs 7 years of study to
become a priest. The Archdiocese is responsible for the cost of tuition for
each seminarian throughout these years. This is paid to the Catholic
Theological College. Each students’ accommodation, food and on costs are also
paid for. This amount to approximately $45,000 per year for each student. The
Archdiocese of Hobart also pays a portion of the ongoing building maintenance
costs of the Corpus Christi Seminary in Victoria. This fixed cost is $26,000
per year.
Please take an envelope with you today to help with this
collection!
 We
congratulate Thomas Adrian Sage
(Father of Mandy Eden and resident of Karingal
Nursing Home)
who celebrated his 100th Birthday on Thursday
12th November.
May the
lord continue to bless you and keep you safe.
Mass at Karingal will be celebrated on
Thursday 19th November at 10:30am
All parishioners welcome to attend Mass and
celebrate this wonderful occasion with Thomas.
CHRISTMAS PARTY FOR SENIORS – ULVERSTONE:
Christmas Party for seniors will be held on Tuesday December
8th at 1.45pm. Most people who have attended before should have
their invitation by now. If you do not have yours, or you have not attended the
function before but would like to this year, please approach Joanne Rodgers or
Debbie Rimmelzwaan. We particularly welcome new parish members, and hope you
will come along for some entertainment, a cuppa and a chat. We hope that people
who have previously contributed with cooking, or other assistance, will
continue that in 2015.
HEALING MASS:
Catholic Charismatic Renewal, are sponsoring a HEALING MASS
at St Mary’s Church Penguin Thursday 19th November at 7.30pm. All
denominations are welcome to come and celebrate the liturgy in a vibrant and
dynamic way using charismatic praise and worship, with the gifts of tongues,
prophecy, and healing. After Mass, teams will be available for individual
prayer. Please bring a friend and a plate for supper and fellowship in the
adjacent hall. If you wish to know more or require local transport, please
contact Celestine Whiteley 6424:2043,
Michael Gaffney 0447 018 068, Zoe Smith
6426:3073, Tom Knaap 6425:2442.
CWL Christmas luncheon will be held at the Lighthouse Hotel
Ulverstone on Friday 11th December, 12noon for 12:30pm. Cost $25.
All parishioners are very welcome to join us! RSVP 30th November to
Marie Byrne on 6425:5774
Thursday Nights OLOL Hall D’port. Eyes down 7.30pm.
Callers 19th November Rod Clarke & Alan Luxton
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
On November 18th the Church celebrates the 50th
Anniversary of the publication of the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation, entitled Dei Verbum. This was a significant
milestone in the Church’s understanding of how God reveals himself to humankind
throughout salvation history. It opened the way for Catholics to better
understand Scripture and Tradition, and encourages them to be immersed in the
Bible. To mark this anniversary, the Archdiocese’s Verbum Domini Biblical &
Catechetical Institute will offer a seminar on Dei Verbum and the Word of God.
Speakers will be Archbishop Julian Porteous and Dr Christine Wood at St Mary’s
Cathedral, Hobart, on 18th November, 7-9 pm. All welcome!
To mark the 50th Anniversary of Vatican II’s Dei Verbum,
the St John Centre for Biblical Studies will offer an 8-hour intensive course
on “The Gospel through the Eyes of St Mark” on Saturday and Sunday 21-22
November, 10am-2.30pm, in the Murphy Room, Diocesan Centre, 35 Tower Road, New
Town. Cost: $60/person. Bring your lunch and Bible. Registration: Dr. Christine
Wood, 6208-6236 or christine.wood@aohtas.org.au, or information www.hobart.catholic.org.au A great opportunity to immerse
yourself in Scripture from the Catholic perspective outlined in Dei Verbum! All
welcome.
OUR LADY OF MERCY DELORAINE REUNION:
Thursday 19th November all former scholars are invited to join together
for lunch, 12 noon at Sullivan’s Restaurant, 17 West Parade, Deloraine. Please phone Sullivan’s to book 6362:3264
FILIPINO MASS: - On Saturday 21st November
2015 the Bridgewater/Brighton Parish will holding another Filipino Mass at St
Paul’s Church commencing at 3.00 pm. All the community (not just the Filipino
Community) is warming invited, and Fr Leo would also like to thank the almost
the 200 people who attended the previous Mass in October of this year.
WORLD YOUTH
DAY 2016 – FIRST PREP SESSION:
Applications are now open to join the Tasmanian Pilgrimage
to WYD16 Krakow. Please visit: www.wydtas.org.au for all your information and to
download an application pack. The first preparation session for Tasmanian
pilgrims will be held on Wednesday 9th December, 6pm-9pm in Launceston.
All pilgrims currently registered to go to WYD16 as well as ANYONE who is even
considering coming on the pilgrimage needs to come along to this session. This
is an important step in the discernment process and to the beginning of your
pilgrimage. PLEASE REGISTER to attend prep session at www.wydtas.org.au or contact Rachelle: rachelle.smith@aohtas.org.au
HAVE YOU
GOT YOUR STAR WARS EPISODE VII TICKET??
Come along to Village Cinemas for Opening Night of the
highly anticipated Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and support young
Catholic Tasmanians in the process! Don’t miss this state-wide WYD fundraiser
and be amongst the first to see the film! Thursday 17th December,
6pm at Launceston Village Cinemas. Tickets are $30 and include small popcorn
and 600ml drink. Dress-up competitions, other give-aways and pre-film
entertainment included! We appreciate early bookings! Get your ticket
online at: www.cymtas.org.au/starwars7 or call Rachelle: 0400 045 368
Modern Peacemakers
A collation of emails from Fr Richard Rohr. You can subscribe to this email series here
Joining Hands in Peace
As I mentioned last week, nonviolence has been taught and
modeled by various individuals and religions throughout history. Yet only in
the last century has nonviolence become more widely accepted and practiced.
This week I'll briefly introduce several of the "modern peacemakers"
whose work has particularly inspired me.
While we are inclined to celebrate individuals as heroes and
heroines, we must recognize that alongside each public figure are many nameless
people who contributed to the cause. Change happens not because one person was
particularly brilliant or unselfish or strong, but because communities joined
their energy and wisdom toward a common goal. The full story of change is often
longer and wider than a single life.
When we emphasize the individual, there's a danger that
people will think they can't make a difference because they're just one person.
My intention is not to discourage you from the challenging work of building a
peaceful world, but to illustrate how each human being, even with our
limitations and weaknesses, can be a vessel of transformative love.
Change really must start with me, with you. Nonviolence
begins on the individual level. Gandhi writes, "My optimism rests on my
belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop non-violence.
The more you develop it in your own being, the more infectious it becomes till
it overwhelms your surrounding and by and by might oversweep the world."
[1] As more and more people discover their True Selves, grounded in love,
nonviolence will continue to multiply. In the words of two other modern peacemakers:
You can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the
powerless start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can
quench the fire. --Leymah Gbowee (b. 1972), a Liberian peace activist who led
women to help bring about the end of the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 [2]
Every thought, every word, and every action that adds to the
positive and the wholesome is a contribution to peace. Each and every one of us
is capable of making such a contribution. Let us join hands to try to create a
peaceful world where we can sleep in security and wake in happiness. --Aung San
Suu Kyi (b. 1945), the opposition leader in her home country of Myanmar
(formerly Burma) and the winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize for Peace [3]
So I highlight these individuals with hope that you too will
be inspired to join the unstoppable movement of peaceful change.
References:
[1] Mahatma
Gandhi, edited by Thomas Merton, On Non-Violence (New Directions: 2007), 38.
[2] Leymah
Gbowee, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation
at War (Beast Books: 2013).
[3] Aung San
Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 2012.
Gandhi: The Spring of Nonviolence
Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it
is the humblest imaginable. --Mahatma Gandhi [1]
As I said last week, to create peaceful change, we must
begin by remembering who we are in God. I believe this is why Mahatma Gandhi
(1869-1948) was such a powerful instrument of transformation. Thomas Merton
writes of Gandhi that "the spirit of non-violence sprang from an inner
realization of spiritual unity in himself. The whole Gandhian concept of
non-violent action and satyagraha [literally, truth force] is incomprehensible
if it is thought to be a means of achieving unity rather than as the fruit of
inner unity already achieved." [2]
Gandhi believed the core of his--and our--being is union
with God. From this awareness, nonviolence must flow naturally and
consistently. In his words:
Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will.
Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being.
. . . If love or non-violence be not the law of our being, the whole of my
argument falls to pieces. . . . Belief in non-violence is based on the
assumption that human nature in its essence is one and therefore unfailingly
responds to the advances of love. . . . If one does not practice non-violence
in one's personal relations with others and hopes to use it in bigger affairs,
one is vastly mistaken. [3]
Father John
Dear, a wonderful New Mexico friend and a lifelong nonviolent activist, writes:
Gandhi's
legacy includes not just the brilliantly waged struggle against
institutionalized racism in South Africa, the independence movement of India,
and a ground-breaking path of interreligious dialogue, but also boasts the
first widespread application of nonviolence as the most powerful tool for
positive social change. Gandhi's nonviolence was not just political: It was
rooted and grounded in the spiritual, which is why he exploded not just onto
India's political stage, but onto the world stage, and not just temporally, but
for all times. [4]
Gandhi said that he learned of nonviolence from Jesus
(particularly in the Sermon on the Mount), the Bhagavad Gita, and the Koran.
Gandhi didn't think he was doing anything new: "Truth and nonviolence are
as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a
scale as I could. In doing so, I have sometimes erred and learned by my errors.
Life and its problems have thus become to me so many experiments in the
practice of truth and nonviolence." [5] This humble man learned from the
greatest teachers yet wasn't afraid to try living their truths in new and
untested ways.
Gandhi wasn't concerned with defining God, but with experiencing
God's loving presence within. This was his motivation as he fasted for peace,
as he embraced the untouchables (whom he called "Children of God"),
as he advocated against nuclear weapons. Gandhi writes: "We have one
thousand names to denote God, and if I did not feel the presence of God within
me, I see so much of misery and disappointment every day that I would be a
raving maniac." [6] How do we "live humanly in our inhuman
world?" John Dear asks. "Gandhi's answer is always the same:
steadfast, persistent, dedicated, committed, patient, relentless, truthful,
prayerful, loving, active nonviolence." [7] In other words, universal
compassion must become your whole way of moving through life and not just an
occasional additive to your gas tank.
References:
[1] Mahatma
Gandhi, edited by Louis Fischer, The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His
Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas (Vintage Books: 2002), 179.
[2] Mahatma
Gandhi, edited by Thomas Merton, On Non-Violence (New Directions: 2007), 10.
[3] Ibid.,
36-38.
[4] Mohandas
Gandhi, edited by John Dear, Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings (Orbis Books:
2002), 17.
[5] Mahatma
Gandhi, Mahatma, Vol. IV, Meeting of the Gandhi Seva Sangh, February 29 to
March 6, 1936, section 139, as quoted by Krishna Kripalani, All Men Are
Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections of Mahatma Gandhi (Continuum: 1980), 43.
[6] Gandhi,
The Essential Gandhi, 199.
[7] Gandhi,
Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings, 18.
Martin Luther King: Redemptive Suffering
I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a
loving purpose and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic
companionship. --Martin Luther King, Jr. [1]
Martin Luther King, Jr., (1929-1968) learned from Gandhi how
Jesus' teachings could be applied beyond the level of individual relationships
to the whole world of social change.
Like Gandhi, King knew that to be
effective, nonviolence must begin with the individual; but it can't stop there.
Ta-Nehisi Coates observes that as King preached nonviolence to young
African-American men, they challenged him to confront the United States' use of
violence in the Vietnam War. Coates shares, "If we really, really do
believe in nonviolence, it's not just for people out in the street hurling
rocks. It's also for legislators, it's also for senators and it's also for
presidents." [2] Nonviolence isn't only for people who lack power, but
equally for the powerful--who are even more afraid of it, for fear of not
getting re-elected.
As the
school of Paul says in several places, our fight is really against "the
principalities and powers" (Ephesians 6:12)--a pre-modern phrase for
institutions, nation states, and corporations, which are always organized in
their own favor. The problem is not first of all "the flesh" or
personal sin, but systemic evil and structural, disguised violence. King's
nonviolent actions allowed him, like Jesus, to ask question of the demons:
"What is your name?" And they were forced to reveal themselves as a
"Legion because they were many" (Luke 8:30). As King writes:
It is evil
we are seeking to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil. Those of us who
struggle against racial injustice must come to see that the basic tension is
not between races. . . . The tension is at bottom between justice and injustice,
between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. . . . At the center of
nonviolence stands the principle of love. . . . To retaliate with hate and
bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. [3]
Like Gandhi,
King was hopeful because he saw God's love as the foundation of existence. In
King's words:
The method
of nonviolence is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of
justice. It is this deep faith in the future that causes the nonviolent
resister to accept suffering without retaliation. . . . This belief that God is
on the side of truth and justice comes down to us from the long tradition of
our Christian faith. There is something at the very center of our faith which
reminds us that Good Friday may reign for a day, but ultimately it must give
way to the triumphant beat of the Easter drums. [4]
We must
never forget that there is something within human nature that can respond to
goodness, that man is not totally depraved; to put it in theological terms, the
image of God is never totally gone. [5]
Jesus undercut the basis for all violent, exclusionary, and
punitive behavior. He became the forgiving victim, so we would stop creating
victims ourselves. He became the falsely accused one, so we would be careful
whom we accuse.
Worldly systems actually prefer violent partners to
nonviolent ones; it gives them a clear target and a credible enemy. Empires are
relieved to have terrorists to shoot at and Barabbas figures loose on the
streets. Types like Jesus, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi make difficult
enemies for empires. They cannot be used or co-opted.
The powers that be know that nonviolent prophets are a much
deeper problem because they refuse to buy into the very illusions that the
whole empire is built on, especially "the myth of redemptive
violence." Like Jesus, they live instead a life of redemptive suffering.
[6] This is the cosmic shift initiated by the Gospel, but historically followed
by a rather small minority of Christians (martyrs, Mennonites, Amish, Quakers,
conscientious objectors, etc.).
"The nonviolent resister is willing to accept violence
if necessary, but never to inflict it," King writes. "Generously
endured suffering for the sake of the other has tremendous educational and
transforming possibilities." [7, emphasis mine] Almost more than anything
else! It is not that suffering of itself is "good." It is just that
one's newfound intimacy with life, with others, and with God is usually
attained in no other way. Please trust me on that. It is precisely what we mean
when we say that "the cross saves the world." Jesus was the paradigm
and model for our redemptive suffering.
References:
[1] Martin
Luther King, edited by James Melvin Washington, A Testament of Hope: The
Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Harper & Row: 1986), 40.
[2]
Ta-Nehisi Coates in an interview with Robert Siegel, 1 May 2015, National
Public Radio,
npr.org/2015/05/01/403597684/atlantic-staffer-criticizes-calls-for-nonviolence-in-baltimore.
[3] King and
Washington, A Testament of Hope, 8.
[4] Ibid.,
9.
[5] Ibid.,
48.
[6] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media:
2010), 152.
[7] King,
"An Experiment in Love," A Testament of Hope, 18.
Dorothy Day: Crying Out for Justice
We must cry out against injustice or by our silence consent
to it. If we keep silent, the very stones of the street will cry out. --Dorothy
Day [1]
I was delighted to hear Pope Francis mention the American
Catholics Thomas Merton (whom I introduced earlier this year) and Dorothy Day
in his address to the United States Congress. The Catholic Church and our world
in general have sadly and unfairly ignored women. With Sister Joan Chittister,
I hope that Pope Francis, "someone so devoted to the cause of the poor
also realizes that women are the poorest of the poor everywhere. And do
something loud, bold and continuous to call attention to the diminished status,
security and economic equality of women in order to change that." [2]
A common criticism of female activists in particular is that
they are too "aggressive" (even the nonviolent ones). Studies show
that in performance reviews, words like "bossy" and
"abrasive" are applied with regularity to women, but not to their male
colleagues. Thankfully, the lack of support has not deterred women from
speaking up loudly for all marginalized and suffering people. When the Vatican
reprimanded nuns in the U.S. for their "radical feminist themes" and
focus on social services, the "Nuns on the Bus" didn't slow down but
in fact increased their efforts.
We need prophetic voices to speak--and perhaps yell--truth
to power. When criticized for "ranting and screaming," Liberian
activist Leymah Gbowee responds, "the reason why I rant is because I am a
voice for many women that cannot speak out to heads of state, UN officials, and
those that influence systems of oppression. And so I rant. And I will not stop
ranting until my mission of equality of all girls is achieved."
Dorothy Day (1897-1980) is one of these women who will not
be silenced. She writes in her diary, "I too complain ceaselessly in my
heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for
instance." [3] Read Day's "harsh," necessary words: "We
need to change the system. We need to overthrow, not the government, as the
authorities are always accusing the Communists 'of conspiring to teach [us] to
do,' but this rotten, decadent, putrid industrial capitalist system which
breeds such suffering in the whited sepulcher of New York." [4] I know you
are wincing, but should you be?
Day was hardly a poster-child for sainthood, although she's
now being considered for exactly that--and by the church of New York! Many
recall Day saying, "Don't call me a saint; I don't want to be dismissed
that easily." In her youth she was a Marxist and agnostic. She had an
abortion. She was an anarchist and a zealous pacifist when it was especially
unpopular. Perhaps her own pain and mistakes became the source of her deep
compassion. Day writes, "I cannot worry much about your sins and miseries
when I have so many of my own. I can only love you all, poor fellow travelers,
fellow sufferers. . . . My prayer from day to day is that God will so enlarge
my heart that I will see you all, and live with you all, in His love." [5]
Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement, focused both
on the needs of individual people and also reforming the entire social system.
In that, I would find her a more complete role model than even Mother Teresa.
She worked to meet short-term goals (such as the hungry person in front of
her); and she worked for long-range structural change, too. Day's humility and
patience continue to inspire me:
We can do much to change the face of the earth, in that I
have hope and faith. But these pains and sufferings are the price we have to
pay. Can we change men in a night or a day?
Can we give them as much as three
months or even a year? A child is forming in the mother's womb for nine long
months, and it seems so long. But to make a man in the time of our present
disorder with all the world convulsed with hatred and strife and selfishness,
that is a lifetime's work and then too often it is not accomplished.
Even the best of human love is filled with self-seeking. To
work to increase our love for God and for our fellow man (and the two must go
hand in hand), this is a lifetime job. We are never going to be finished.
Love and ever more love is the only solution to every
problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each
other's faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire
in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds
that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each
other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much. [6]
When we work for the love of God and others, then it is not
work at all. When we suffer for justice for God's little ones, it is not
suffering at all.
References:
[1] Dorothy
Day, edited by Robert Ellsberg, Dorothy Day, Selected Writings: By Little and
by Little (Orbis Books: 1992), 273.
[2] Joan
Chittister in an interview with Sean Salai, 10 September, 2014, America
Magazine,
americamagazine.org/content/all-things/faith-and-justice-14-questions-sister-joan-chittister-osb.
[3] Dorothy
Day, edited by Robert Ellsberg, The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day
(Marquette University Press: 2008), 8 August 1974.
[4] Dorothy
Day, "On Pilgrimage," Catholic Worker, September 1956.
[5] Day,
Dorothy Day, Selected Writings, 88.
[6] Ibid.,
87-88.
Cesar Chavez: Solidarity in Action
In giving of yourself, you will discover a whole new life
full of meaning and love. --Cesar Chavez [1]
Though he is fondly remembered by Mexican Americans, Cesar
Chavez is not otherwise well known in the United States, so I will share some
of the details of his life. Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) was born in Arizona to
Mexican American parents. He experienced discrimination and racism from a young
age and, when his parents' farm failed during the severe drought of the 1930s,
he suffered poverty too. Rather than continue on to high school after finishing
eighth grade, Chavez began working on farms in California.
From his experience in the fields, Chavez knew the very real
needs of farm workers and the injustice of agri-business. Through nonviolent
actions--such as boycotts, marches, pickets, strikes, and fasting--he advocated
for laborers' rights to fair wages and working conditions. Chavez's rallying
motto was "Si, se puede"--Yes, one can! Yes, we can make a difference.
Though not formally educated beyond eighth grade, Chavez
drew inspiration from reading, particularly about St. Francis of Assisi,
Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. My Franciscan brothers in California told
me that they knew personally that Cesar Chavez and his wife awoke early every
day to say the rosary next to their bed. Their children grew up hearing this.
Talk about a true catechism class!
With Dolores Huerta, Chavez founded the National Farm
Workers Association (which later became United Farm Workers). The organization
joined Filipino American farm laborers in a strike against grape growers in
California. The strike began in 1965 and continued for five years, gaining
national attention, with thousands of Americans boycotting table grapes. It
culminated in contracts for fair wages.
The grape strike was important not just for the workers
involved. In the words of Chavez's biographer, Jacques Levy: "To us the
boycott of grapes was the most near-perfect of nonviolent struggles, because
nonviolence also requires mass involvement. The boycott demonstrated to the
whole country, the whole world, what people can do by nonviolent action. Nonviolence
in the abstract is a very difficult thing to comprehend or explain. . . . It's
difficult to carry the message to people who aren't involved. Nonviolence must
be explained in context." [2]
The grape boycott showed that solidarity through actions and
not just words is essential. Levy writes, "Often only talk results when a
person with social concern wants to do something for the underdog nonviolently.
But just talking about change is not going to bring it about. . . . Nonviolence
becomes just an ideology, something to write about, read about, or talk about
while still being very comfortable. The ideology becomes a luxury, not a way of
life. And nothing can be changed while being comfortable." [3] I guess far
too many of us are what they call "limousine liberals."
When you agree to live simply, you do not consider the
immigrant, the refugee, the homeless person, or the foreigner as a threat to
you or see them as being in competition with you. You have chosen their
marginal state for yourself--freely and consciously becoming "visitors and
pilgrims" in this world, as St. Francis puts it (quoting 1 Peter 2:11). A
simple lifestyle is quite simply an act of solidarity with the way most people
have lived since the beginnings of humanity. It is thus restorative justice instead
of the world's very limited and punitive notion of retributive justice. [4]
Retributive justice and violence are the lazy and quite
uncreative way to approach the problem of evil. Restorative solutions require
much more from us, and not just others, and thus bring about transformation in
both ourselves and in the world. Chavez writes:
I don't subscribe to the belief that nonviolence is
cowardice, as some militant groups are saying. In some instances nonviolence
requires more militancy than violence. Nonviolence forces you to abandon the
shortcut, in trying to make a change in the social order. Violence, the
shortcut, is the trap people fall into when they begin to feel that it is the
only way to attain their goal. When these people turn to violence it is a very
savage kind.
When people are involved in something constructive, trying
to bring about change, they tend to be less violent than those who are not
engaged in rebuilding or in anything creative. Nonviolence forces one to be
creative; it forces any leader to go to the people and get them involved so
that they can come forth with new ideas. I think that once people understand
the strength of nonviolence--the force it generates, the love it creates, the
response that it brings from the total community--they will not be willing to
abandon it easily. [5]
References:
[1] Cesar
Chavez, edited by Ilan Stavans, An Organizer's Tale: Speeches (Penguin Books:
2008), 236.
[2] Jacques
E. Levy, Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa (University of Minnesota Press:
2007), 269.
[3] Ibid.,
269-270.
[4] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
(Franciscan Media: 2014), 38.
[5] Chavez,
An Organizer's Tale, 64.
Desmond Tutu: Economy of Grace
Forgiveness is an absolute necessity for continued human
existence. --Desmond Tutu [1]
Desmond Tutu (b. 1931) is the first black Archbishop of Cape
Town, South Africa, and has used his position to defend human rights, fighting
poverty, homophobia, racism, and sexism. Tutu's work is grounded in his belief
that all humans are beloved of God and deserving of respect and forgiveness.
The economy of grace was exemplified in Desmond Tutu's
"Truth and Reconciliation Commission" in South Africa after the fall
of apartheid, where all had to take proper and public responsibility for their
mistakes, not for the sake of any punishment but for the sake of truth and
healing. In fact, the healing was the baring--and the bearing--of the truth
publicly. This is revolutionary and unheard of in human history but is actually
quite biblical, starting with the prophet Ezekiel during and after the Exile,
and dramatically lived out by Jesus. Ezekiel laid the biblical groundwork for
truth-speaking, accountability, and restorative justice. For him, the cement that
holds the whole thing together is Yahweh being true to Yahweh's Self, and not
merely reacting to human failure. [2]
Tutu spoke eloquently and emphatically about God's love, the
very basic quality of God's character. Tutu couldn't conceive of a God who wasn't
love. He has said, "I would not worship a God who is homophobic."
From Tutu's sermon at All Saints Church in Pasadena:
[God's] family has no
outsiders. Everyone is an insider. When Jesus said, "I, if I am lifted up,
will draw. . . ." Did he say, "I will draw some, and tough luck for
the others"? He said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all."
All! All! All! - Black, white, yellow; rich, poor; clever, not so clever;
beautiful, not so beautiful. All! All! It is radical. All! Saddam Hussein,
Osama bin Laden, Bush - all! All! . . . Gay, lesbian, so-called
"straight;" all! All! All are to be held in the incredible embrace of
the love that won't let us go. [3]
In 2010, I was invited to meet with Tutu in Cape Town. He
told me that he--and I--were mere "lightbulbs." We get all the credit
and seem to be shining brightly for all to see, but we both know that if this
lightbulb were to be unscrewed from its source for even a moment, the
brightness would immediately stop. He laughed hilariously afterwards, and gave
me a wink of understanding. [4]
Not only are we connected to our Divine Source, but we are
interdependent--or "quantumly entangled," as we'll explore in a
couple weeks--with others. Tutu explains the beautiful Nguni Bantu (from
Southern Africa) word ubuntu, which roughly translates "human
kindness" or, as Tutu says, "the essence of being human":
Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't
exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness.
You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality--Ubuntu--you
are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just
individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you
do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the
whole of humanity. [5]
We don't need to be stingy once we live inside the Gospel.
We now enjoy a world of Abundance and Infinite Source. That pretty much changes
everything.
References:
[1] Desmond
Tutu, as quoted by Dalene Fuller Rogers and Harold G. Koenig in Pastoral Care
for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul (Routledge:
2002), 31.
[2] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps,
(Franciscan Media: 2011), 40.
[3] Desmond
Tutu, "And God Smiles," sermon preached at All Saints Church,
Pasadena, California, 6 November 2005.
[4] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation: Daily Meditations for
Men (Loyola Press: 2010), 352.
[5] Desmond
Tutu, Ubuntu Women Institute USA,
uwi-usa.blogspot.be/2012/01/ubuntu-brief-meaning-of-african-word.html .
FAITH, DOUBT, DARK NIGHTS, AND MATURITY
An article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original can be found here
In one of his books on contemplative prayer, Thomas Keating shares with us a line that he occasionally uses in spiritual direction. People come to him, sharing how they used to have a warm and solid sense of God in their lives but now complain that all that warmth and confidence have disappeared and they’re left struggling with belief and struggling to pray as they used to. They feel a deep sense of loss and invariably this is their question: “What’s wrong with me?” Keating’s answer: God is wrong with you!
His answer, in essence, says this: Despite your pain, there is something very right with you. You have moved past being a religious neophyte, past an initiatory stage of religious growth, which was right for you for its time, and are now being led into a deeper, not lesser, faith. Moreover, that loss of fervor has brought you to a deeper maturity. So, in effect, what you’re asking is this: I used to be quite sure of myself religiously and, no doubt, probably somewhat arrogant and judgmental. I felt I understood God and religion and I looked with some disdain at the world. Then the bottom fell out of my faith and my certainty and I’m now finding myself a lot less sure of myself, considerably more humble, more empathetic, and less judgmental. What’s wrong with me?
Asked in this way, the question answers itself. Clearly that person is growing, not regressing.
Lost is a place too! Christina Crawford wrote those words, describing her own painful journey through darkness into a deeper maturity. To be saved, we have to first realize that we’re lost, and usually some kind of bottom has to fall out of our lives for us to come to that realization. Sometimes there’s no other cure for arrogance and presumption than a painful loss of certitude about our own ideas about God, faith, and religion. John of the Cross suggests that a deeper religious faith begins when, as he puts it, we forced to understand more by not understanding than by understanding. But that can be a very confusing and painful experience that precisely prompts the feeling: What’s wrong with me?
A curious, paradoxical dynamic lies behind this: We tend to confuse faith with our capacity on any given day to conjure up a concept of God and imagine God’s existence. Moreover we think our faith is strongest at those times when we have affective and emotive feelings attached to our imaginations about God. Our faith feels strongest when bolstered by and inflamed by feelings of fervor. Great spiritual writers will tell us that this stage of fervor is a good stage in our faith, but an initiatory one, one more commonly experienced when we are neophytes. Experience tends to support this. In the earlier stages of a religious journey it is common to possess strong, affective images and feelings about God. At this stage, our relationship with God parallels the relationship between a couple on their honeymoon. On your honeymoon you have strong emotions and possess a certain certainty about your love, but it’s a place you come home from. A honeymoon is an initiatory stage in love, a valuable gift, but something that disappears after it has done its work. A honeymoon is not a marriage, though often confused with one. It’s the same with faith; strong imaginative images of God are not faith, though they’re often confused with it.
Strong imaginative images and strong feelings about God are, in the end, just that, images. Wonderful, but images nonetheless, icons. An image is not the reality. An icon can be beautiful and helpful and point us in the right direction, but when mistaken for the reality it becomes an idol. For this reason, the great spiritual writers tell us that God at certain moments of our spiritual journey “takes away” our certainty and deprives us of all warm, felt feelings in faith. God does this precisely so that we cannot turn our icons into idols, so that we cannot let the experience of faith get in the way of the end of faith itself, namely, an encounter the reality and person of God.
Mystics such as John of the Cross call this experience of seemingly losing our faith, “a dark night of the soul”. This describes the experience where we used to feel God’s presence with a certain warmth and solidity, but now we feel like God is non-existent and we are left in doubt. This is what Jesus experienced on the cross and this is what Mother Teresa wrote about in her journals.
And while that darkness can be confusing, it can also be maturing: It can help move us from being arrogant, judgmental, religious neophytes to being humble, empathic men and women, living inside a cloud of unknowing, understanding more by not understanding than by understanding, helpfully lost in a darkness we cannot manipulate or control, so as to finally be pushed into genuine faith, hope, and charity.
CREATING THE FUTURE
Taken from the Blog by Fr Michael White, Church of the Nativity, Baltimore USA. The original blog can be found here
If you have never read any of Jim Collins’ books, you should take a look sometime and start with Good to Great. Collins writes insightfully and effectively about organizational health and leadership development. One of the things that he reflects on is the climate of uncertainty and overwhelming change brought on by technology, politics, and economics. If you think back 15 years ago and consider what has happened since, the destabilizing events – in the country, in the markets, in your work – have defied all expectations. Life, more than ever is uncertain, the future is unknown and we now live our lives in unprecedented change.
And the Church has to deal with it like everybody else. We’ve done a pretty good job of resisting change for a few centuries, but further resistance is only going to accelerate the patterns of demise and decline already seen in parishes and dioceses in nearly every part of the world.
Collins argues that companies, and I would argue churches as well, who navigate this type of world exceptionally well don’t merely react, they create. They don’t merely survive, they prevail. They don’t merely succeed, they thrive. They build great enterprises that can endure. Organizations and churches do not thrive on chaos, but they can thrive in it.
How?
Setting performance benchmarks to drive consistent progress. It’s about concrete, clear, intelligent, and rigorously pursued performance mechanisms to stay on track. It’s not rocket science, any organization can do it, so why don’t more try?
Discipline. It is very uncomfortable to take an organization and get it focused on just a few things it can do well (just look at the average church bulletin) and even more difficult to maintain the focus. Keeping an unwavering commitment to high performance in difficult conditions takes discipline and so does not overreaching in good conditions.
Some people might believe that a world characterized by radical change and disruptive forces no longer favors those who engage in consistency. Yet the great irony is the opposite is the case. In an out of control environment consistency and focus give you control which you can use to succeed.
At Nativity we focus on the weekend, we just try and be the best we can be when it comes to our music, our message, and our ministry-service. Sure there are lots of temptations to do other things, and it is also difficult to maintain this commitment in challenging times. But over time, it has paid off. Our weekend Masses are usually standing room only and they continue to grow. Of course, we have to keep it fresh, and we have to keep taking risks and trying new things, but always within the discipline of our focus.
One of the things we say to church leaders as we travel across the country and around the world, is that you are not inevitably doomed to irrelevance and eventual death. You can create your own future. After all, Christ promised that his Church would not fail. Let’s be a part of that plan.
‘Between Politics and Apocalypse’:René Girard’s Reading of Global Crisis
'Politics can no longer save us,’ according to René Girard, the French Catholic theologian who died on 4 November 2015. What did he mean? In a paper delivered two days after Girard’s death, Michael Kirwan SJ explored Girard’s ‘apocalyptic’ vision of a world in crisis and a planet in danger of becoming a ‘scapegoat’. In such a framework, how does the refugee become ‘the central figure of our political history’?
An article reprinted from the Jesuits in Britain website - Thinking Faith. The original of the article can be found here
In October 2015, an event at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas examined René Girard’s work and its analogy to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The event celebrated the launch of two volumes of essays, which neatly summarise the relationship.[1] How We Became Human sets out the evidence for a broad compatibility between the mechanism of evolution on the one hand, and Girard’s account of mimetic desire on the other. By contrast, Can We Survive Our Origins?looks at our contemporary crises, and offers the possibility that the adaptations which enabled our species to come into being may not be the ones needed for our continued survival. Do we need to be ‘re-wired’, so as to defuse the evolutionary programming which has brought us to where we, are but cannot take us further? Stanley Kubrick’s rendition of Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi novel,2000: A Space Odyssey has been cited in relation to this question. The film and novel chart, as a kind of diptych, our development from ape to human, and then from human to ‘star child’; a two-stage journey centred on a mysterious black monolith which draws us up to the next ‘level’. Girard differs from Clarke, in seeing our next stage not as an odyssey into space, but a journey of conversion towards the non-violent, transformative power of the gospel. The summons is serious. If we do not answer it, the alternative is, simply, our total self-destruction.
Girard’s later work (i.e. his post-2001 writings) has been called ‘apocalyptic’, a term he takes with the utmost seriousness, for the reasons given above. It conveys a sense that we are in the ‘end-times’, insofar as evolution, the long and arduous process by which we have come to where we are, has run its course. In the face of global threats – the philosopher Slavoj Žižek in Living in the End Times (2010) names the ‘four horsemen of the apocalypse’ as the worldwide ecological crisis, economic imbalances, the biogenetic revolution, and exploding social divisions and ruptures – there is no conceivable adaptive strategy which will enable our survival. So what matters now is not survival, but salvation: an intentional acceptance of the invitation to conversion which requires us to override our evolutionary programming, so that we may ‘choose life’.
At a conference in 2012, on the theme of ‘Catastrophe and Conversion’, René Girard asserted in a plenary session that ‘politics can no longer save us’. The statement was both shocking and comprehensible. Its import came home shortly afterwards, at the time of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, when the world’s leaders, fully aware of the evidence of anthropogenic climate change and of the urgency of the crisis, were unable to agree on the required programme of action. The same sense of paralysis pervades the current migration crisis in Europe. Girard’s espousal of the language and conceptuality of ‘apocalypse’, taken in full religious seriousness, proposes a move ‘beyond politics’. We may ask about the appropriateness and responsibility of this gesture, especially given sensationalist and dramatic resonances of ‘apocalyptic’ in its more popular sense: ‘the end of the world is nigh!’ Is Girard suggesting a taking leave of political engagement (because of its inherent ineffectuality); or is it preferable to see this as a call to a better, more expansive understanding of ‘politics’?
Girard’s declaration that ‘politics can no longer save us’ implies a theological complement to our political efforts. This is centred not on our technological and political capability, but on the biblical notion of apocalypse. This stresses instead the helplessness of our situation, without being paralysed by it; it resists any vestiges of enlightenment optimism: that we can sort this out by ourselves through the same technological mastery that has generated our difficulties in the first place. An ‘apocalyptic’ narrative also allows for an interconnected account, rather than seeing the environmental and political, human and natural crises as separate.
René Girard’s ‘mimetic theory’ is a cluster of insights regarding, among other things, the communal response to the experience of destabilisation and ‘meltdown’ which occurs within a group as a result of the excessively rivalrous interactions of its members. In pre-state societies, without the restraint exercised by judicial and penal institutions, the escalation of intra-group aggression is a threat to the very survival of the community. It is classically represented in terms of uncontrollably malign forces, such as plagues, floods, conflagrations. The resolution, albeit temporary and imperfect, of this crisis is the phenomenon of exclusionary violence – ‘scapegoating’ – for which Girard is best known. The identification and marginalisation of ‘someone to blame’, and the transference of the community’s aggression onto that individual or group, restores peace and brings about unity once again. While this unity is strictly tentative, the cathartic experience is strong and memorable enough to ground a new but mistaken perception of a transcendent order: for Girard (following Émile Durkheim), this is the origin of religion. Violence, as he famously claims, is the ‘heart and secret soul of the sacred’.
Violence arises out of situations of extreme social and natural instability – the ‘four horsemen’ listed by Žižek are related to one another, or perhaps are better described as one single crisis. There is an intuition of this in Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’, which asserts the affinity between environmental depredation and extreme poverty. So there is a chance that Girard’s theory about violence might be extended to include much more. There are several aspects of Girard’s theory which are of especial relevance. Firstly, the description of the planet as the innocent ‘victim’ is now a common motif in theological discourse. Mimetic theory, as an ‘anthropology of the victim’, helps us to align a theological reflection upon climate depredation with other theologies which are ‘partisan’ for the marginalised: liberation, political, black, feminist, queer theologies, etc. Secondly, in the mimetic crisis as described by Girard, there is often a conflation of natural and human causes, as frightened people look for someone/something to blame. A plague or a famine is, for the modern mind, the result of natural factors, but for pre-modern societies the cause may be found in the malice of neighbours, witchcraft, the demonic or divine displeasure. Most recently, Jean-Pierre Dupuy has explored this problem in his reading of the nuclear stand-off of the Cold War as an idolatrous worship of the primitive sacred, and in his ‘treatise on the metaphysics of tsunamis’. He notes, for example, the tendency of victims of the atomic bombs in Japan to speak of something that dropped impersonally ‘from the sky’, as if this terrible act of aggression were a purely natural catastrophe.
The atrocity of 9/11 and the conflicts generated by it are, for Girard in his later work, one signal marker of a phase-change ushering in the era of a newly unbridled ‘escalation to extremes’, a globalised re-launching of the age-old dynamic of violence between nations and groups. Such is the argument of his 2007 book, Achever Clausewitz (English version: Battling to the End, 2010). Girard argues that violence is a phenomenon which we can no longer hope to keep under control by ‘sacrificial’ means. The traditional institution of ‘limited’ warfare (i.e. warfare restricted to a local theatre of conflict, with constraints on weapons and tactics employed, and on the numbers of actors put at risk) held sway in Europe up until the First World War; but the history since then has been of uncontrollable escalation of conflict from these codified parameters. Girard offers a historical thesis: the origins of our crisis are to be found in the French Revolution and its Napoleonic aftermath. This begins in 1806, the year in which Hegel perceived Napoleon as ‘the world spirit on horseback’ riding from the Battle of Jena. This is the first mass mobilisation for warfare. It initiates a fateful escalation of conflict between Germany and France, and foreshadows the modern era of actual and potentially unlimited violence: two World Wars, the Cold War, terrorism and the ‘War on Terror’, all of which have led to every citizen on the planet being placed in the frontline, as a potential combatant.
On this view, our situation is unprecedented, and immensely serious; only the language and conceptuality of ‘apocalypse’ approaches adequacy in helping us to comprehend it – though Girard and Girardian scholars are keen to make it clear that ‘apocalypse’ is not being used here with its popular, sensationalist meaning of a violent divine vengeance. James Alison, for example, distinguishes between ‘apocalyptic’ – a genre of thought and writing associated with cataclysmic violence of the false sacred – and ‘eschatology’, theory of the ‘end times’, which concerns the revelation of the true, nonviolent power of God. Jesus preaches and instills in his followers an ‘eschatological imagination’, not an apocalyptic one. S. Mark Heim considers ‘two kinds of apocalypse’, as absolutely contrasting alternatives – the reign of God and that of the anti-Christ – which can nevertheless look identical. Apocalypses describe the increased violence that may stem from the unmasking of violence: like the increased dosage of a medicine which is no longer working, ‘the sacrificial solution is applied with redoubled, even frenzied effort, but with diminishing success’. The final book of the Bible in particular, seems to mirror the sacrificial violence which is being overcome. The true ending of the Bible is neither the self-destruction of the world, nor a climactic battle. It is, rather, ‘a new creation into which people are adopted’: the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven. Biblical commentators (such as Christopher Rowlands and Richard Bauckham) agree that there is a transvaluation of ‘apocalypse’ in the New Testament, into a non-violent phenomenon. They emphasise the other meaning of apocalypse: ‘unconcealing the true state of things, and of opening the way for a reversal of the present order’.
This is why we need to be careful as to how we read the Book of Revelation. It would appear to be what Girard would refer to as a ‘mixed text’, or a text ‘in travail’, just as Walter Brueggemann speaks of texts which are to be read from ‘within the fray’ and ‘above the fray’. This one is written, surely, by and for people who are struggling within the vortex of mimetic contagion, rather than from a position of serene detachment above it. Particularly problematic passages would include the cries for vengeance from the martyrs (Revelation 6: 9-10), and the extraordinary ‘mythologising’ events of 11:3-13, in which the two unnamed corpses are resuscitated, and a retributionary earthquake kills 7000 people. The problem is that we are tempted to accord Revelation a special status, because it is the last book of the Bible, whereas these curious, violent texts, as Heim counsels, ‘need to be interpreted from the centre of the passion narratives and the Gospels rather than the other way round.’
Such then is the biblical concept of ‘apocalypse’. How is this term to be used helpfully and responsibly to describe the present-day situation of crisis? Dupuy has analysed the prospect of nuclear ‘apocalypse’ in terms of the paralysing fascination of nuclear protection during the Cold War: the age of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’. The Cold War was one act of homage to our externalised violence, a ‘false god’ as implacable as the most destructive forces of nature. For Michael Northcott, it is ‘the new religion of capitalism’, rather than the arms race, which functions ‘sacrificially’: its irrevocable destruction of the earth’s resources constitutes a ‘crescendo towards paroxysm’, destined to escalate in the struggle for global economic domination between the United States and China.[2] This paroxysm is structurally similar to that of the Cold War, and is likewise to be read in terms of a Clausewitzian escalation of violence, with no logical limit. Earth’s ‘backlash’, in terms of extreme and catastrophic weather conditions, clearly invites a Girardian reading of classic ‘signs’ of apocalyptic disintegration: natural disorder aligned with divine wrath. Girard writes:
Violence is today unleashed at a global and planetary level, bringing about something heralded by the gospel texts on this theme: a fusing of natural and man-made disasters, a confusion of the natural and the artificial orders: global warming and the rising of oceans are today no longer just metaphors [of human violence]. The violence which once generated the sacred, no longer produces anything but itself.
For Northcott, this escalation has necessitated a growing level of planetary ‘sacrifice’, registered in the fact that the ‘innocent victim’ is now, for the first time, our nurturing and sustaining mother-earth, the very basis and condition of the survival of all biological life. The ‘apocalyptic’ dimension of this is that ‘Promethean man’ is delivered up to the law of his own intrinsic dynamic, as it is expressed in the model of the montée aux extrêmes, which Northcott translates as ‘crescendo towards paroxysm’. The religious analogy extends to the dominant ‘cult’ of consumerism; a cult essentially driven by mimetic desire. Appetites are relentlessly mediated through desires, such as those promoted by advertising, and now the victims are all too apparent. ‘Girard’s analysis reveals the link between the cult of consumerism and the sacrifice of the earth: the earth itself becomes the victim, the necessary oblation and scapegoat’.
Girard’s work has been described as ‘the Kingdom of God become scientific’; on the whole it is the biblical terminology which is most typical in his writing, rather than scientific. We have seen how Žižek likewise turns to the Bible. Yet another philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, has been using theological language to describe the failure of contemporary political systems. He sees the current migrant crisis as a graphic example of this failure. It is the classic task of the State to protect citizens: but the collective inability of European states to decide whether to embrace refugees or turn them back demonstrates that every contemporary state is, according to Agamben, a ‘failed state’:
[G]iven the by now unstoppable decline of the nation-state and the general corrosion of traditional political-juridical categories, the refugee is perhaps the only thinkable figure for the people of our time and the only category in which one may see today – at least until the process of dissolution of the nation-state and of its sovereignty has achieved full completion – the forms and limits of a coming political community. It is even possible that, if we want to be equal to the absolutely new tasks ahead, we will have to abandon, without reservation, the fundamental concepts through which we have so far represented the subjects of the political … and build our political philosophy anew starting from the one and only figure of the refugee.[3]
Growing sections of humanity, and not just isolated or exceptional individuals, are no longer representable inside the nation-state. The refugee, a marginal figure, becomes instead the central figure of our political history, because he/she unhinges the trinity of state-nation-territory. Agamben envisages instead some version of reciprocal territoriality or aterritoriality – such as that proposed for Jerusalem, for example – as a new model for international relations.
The general point here is that what W.T. Cavanaugh has described as the ‘soteriology’ of the State (that is, its power to save) is now failing us. The purpose of the State (understood by Thomas Hobbes) is to protect citizens from the violence and chaos which is generated from their own interactions – what Hobbes described as the vicious ‘war of all against all’. Only this protective function legitimates the State’s monopoly on violence, ceded by citizens for the sake of self-preservation. And yet it is the impotence of states which has now become evident, not their protective power. We have become all too aware of their inability to respond effectively, either singly or in cooperation, to the financial, environmental and security threats to humanity.
At the same time, the religious resonances are clear: an inversion of the status of marginalised victim and citizen, which reminds us of the stone which the builders rejected; the roadside victim in Luke’s parable; the groups of needy people listed in Matthew 25 who are the hidden face of Christ. The new polity which Agamben envisages, formed round the marginal figure now become central, is once again an ‘apocalyptic’ scenario, of the New Jerusalem, enthroned at its centre the Lamb of God: slain since the foundation of the world, but now triumphant.
Michael Kirwan SJ is Head of Theology at Heythrop College, University of London.
[1] Pierpaolo Antonello and Paul Gifford (eds.), How We Became Human, and Can We Survive our Origins? (Michigan State University Press, 2015).
[2] Michael Northcott, ‘Girard, Climate Change and Apocalypse’, in Can We Survive Our Origins, pp. 287-310. See in the same volume: Michael Kirwan, ‘A New Heaven and a New Earth: Apocalypticism and its Alternatives’, pp. 311-330.
[3] Giorgio Agamben, ‘Beyond Human Rights’, published in ‘Means Without End. Notes on Politics’, in Theory Out of Bounds, vol. 20. (University of Minnesota Press, London, 2000) [Open 2008/No.15/ Social Engineering]; p. 90.
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