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
Seminarian: Paschal OkponMob: 0447 478 297; alexchuksobi@yahoo.co.uk
Mob: 0438 562 731; paschalokpon@yahoo.com.au
Postal Address:
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
(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 8th - 11th December, 2015
Tuesday: 9:30am - Penguin... Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
11.30am - Ulverstone 11.30am - Devonport
Wednesday: 9:30am - Latrobe
Thursday: 10:30am - Eliza Purton
12noon - Devonport
(Anointing Mass)
Friday: 9:30am
- Ulverstone
Next Weekend 12th & 13th December,
2015
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
Devonport
Sunday Mass: 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- Now in Recess
Ministry Rosters 12th & 13th December, 2015
Devonport:
 Readers
Vigil: A McIntyre,
M Williams, C Kiely-Hoye 10:30am:
A Hughes, T Barrientos, P Piccolo
Vigil: B & B Windebank, T Bird, J
Kelly, T Muir,
Beau Windebank
10:30am: J DiPietro, S Riley, F Sly, M Sherriff
Cleaners 11th
December: P & T
Douglas
18th December: F Sly, M Hansen, R McBain
Piety Shop 12th
December: R McBain 13th
December: K Hull Flowers: A O’Connor
Ulverstone:
Reader: D Prior Ministers of
Communion: E
Standring, M Fennell, L Hay, T Leary
Cleaners: K Bourke Flowers: C Stingel Hospitality: M & K McKenzie
Penguin:
Greeters: J Garnsey, S Ewing Commentator: Y Downes Reader: T
Clayton
Procession: S Ewing, J Barker Ministers of Communion: A Guest, J Garnsey
Liturgy: Sulphur Creek J Setting Up: F Aichberger Care of Church: Y & R Downes
Latrobe:
Reader: M Eden Ministers of Communion: M Kavic, M Mackey Procession: J Hyde Music: Jenny
Port Sorell:
Readers: L Post, T Jeffries Ministers of
Communion: P Anderson, B Lee Cleaners/Flowers/Prepare:
B Lee, A
Holloway
Readings this Week: Second Sunday of Advent - Year C
First Reading: Baruch 5:1-9
Second Reading: Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11
Gospel: Luke 3:1-6
PREGO REFLECTION:
At the start of a new year in the life of the church, this
is a good time for us to look back as well as forward, but prayer begins in
this present moment. I take time to become still and remember that I am in
God’s presence. I become aware of how I am feeling, what thoughts are on my
mind. I don’t try to change anything – I allow myself to settle just as I am in
this moment. God sees me, knows me, and loves me in this moment and every
moment. In the opening lines of the Gospel, Luke places the coming of the word
of God to John the Baptist in a historical and personal context. I reflect a
while on my own history: who are the important people in my life story? When
did I first become aware of God’s word coming into my life? Who are the messengers
that I listen to? Keeping these reflections in mind, I slowly read the Gospel.
I imagine John calling me to repent... What do I need to do to be prepared to
receive God more fully in my life? Are there things that I need to let go of to
make more room for God? Over this last year are there things for which I need
to ask forgiveness? Are there any matters I need to put right? I share these
thoughts with God as I would a close friend, knowing that God forgives, accepts
and loves me. I pause for a while in God’s love, then express my thanks that
God invites me to be drawn deeper into that love, today and throughout this
coming year.
Readings Next Week: Third Sunday of Advent – Year C
First Reading: Zephaniah 3:14-18 Second Reading: Philippians 4:4-7 Gospel: Luke 3:10-18
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
Hugh Hiscutt, Marie Williams, Lorraine Duncan, Margaret
Charlesworth,
Kath Pearce, Geraldine Roden, Joy Carter & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Iolanthe Hannavy, Robyn Pitt,
Pat Haines, Joe Stolp, June Barnard,
Ludy Broomhall, Julie Hooper, Emily Triffett & Jack Armsby.
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 2nd
– 8th December
Lorraine Sullivan, Marjorie Simpson, Peter Flynn, Rustica
Bibera, Murray Soden,
Theo Kurrle & Elsie Williams.
May
they Rest in Peace
WEEKLY
RAMBLINGS:
As I mentioned in my homily last weekend this time is busy and so many things seem to be happening that it is almost impossible to find time to be peaceful to be able to reflect on this Advent time of preparation. In spite of everything else I have managed to make time this week and made decisions about not going to some things so that I can have some space.
By the time most people read these ramblings Fr Anthony Onyirioha will have celebrated his Mass of Thanksgiving and will have begun his ministry amongst us – we pray that the Lord will bless him and be with him all the days of his life. Thanks to the Lay Leaders of Liturgy who have stepped in this weekend to assist so that Fr Alex can concelebrate the Mass of thanksgiving on Saturday evening.
Thanks also to those people who have come forward to help with the planning for our next Whole of Parish Mass to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Mass will be celebrated on Sunday 7th February (I said 6th when I mentioned the date at our celebration on the Feast of Christ the King). Please add the date to your date claimer as it will happen almost immediately that everything restarts in February.
This week we have the Mass for the Anointing of the Sick at Our Lady of Lourdes at midday on Thursday. This Mass is an opportunity for people to receive the Sacrament and so I would ask that if you know of anyone who would benefit from the sacrament – please invite them along and if they need transport please let us know.
So please take care
on the roads and in your homes
MERSEY LEVEN ROSARY GROUP: will conduct an Hour of Grace at
Our Lady of Lourdes Church Tuesday 8th December (Feast of
the Immaculate Conception). This year Mass will be at 11:30am followed
by the Hour of Grace from 12noon – 1pm. This day is the starting day of our
Popes “Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy” so please come along and join us.
CHRISTMAS PARTY FOR SENIORS – ULVERSTONE:
Christmas Party for seniors will be held on Tuesday
December 8th at 1.45pm. Come along for some entertainment, a
cuppa and a chat. We hope to see you there!!
  ST MARY'S CHURCH PENGUIN:
All welcome to help with the gardens at the Church Saturday 12th December 9am -
midday for a pre-Christmas spruce up.
Please bring some gardening tools
with you.
Also we will be having a BBQ after
Mass same day 12th December. All welcome. Please bring a salad
or dessert.
MASS AT MEERCROFT: Saturday 12th December
at 10am – all parishioners welcome!
Eyes down 7.30pm.
Callers 10th
December Rod Clark & Merv Tippett.
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
AUSTRALIAN
CATHOLIC YOUTH FESTIVAL 2015: This weekend more than 3000 young Australians are gathered
in Adelaide for the second Australian Catholic Youth Festival. This is an opportunity
for young people to explore issues of faith and life through numerous
workshops, interactive activities, concerts, outreach, and prayer with the
support and fellowship of young Australians. 22 Tasmanians are in attendance at
the festival which has been running 3rd – 6th December.
Please keep these young people in your prayers.
STAR WARS
FUNDRAISER – 10 DAYS REMAINING! Only 10 Days until Catholic Youth Ministry’s Star Wars
Episode VII Fundraiser! Purchase your ticket online at: www.trybooking.com/JHYV or by calling
Rachelle Smith: 0400 045 368. Film will show Opening Night: Thursday 17th
December, 6pm at Village Cinemas Launceston and Eastlands. $30 pp – includes
small popcorn, 600ml drink, best-dressed competition and other give-aways.
FIRST
PREPARATION EVENING: WORLD YOUTH DAY 2016: Catholic Youth Ministry are
kick-starting the preparation for Tasmanian WYD16 pilgrims with this evening
session. All currently registered pilgrims and all considering joining the
pilgrimage (even if you’re not sure yet) should be there. This session will be
held: Wednesday 9th December, 6pm – 9pm at Launceston Parish Centre. If you
haven’t registered to come to this session please contact Rachelle asap on: rachelle.smith@aohtas.org.au
or 0400 045 368.
EMPTY CRIB:
The empty crib gives opportunity to place non-perishable
gifts of food for distribution by St Vincent de Paul Society through the
Christmas Hampers gifted to people less fortunate in our community. Your
contribution of food for gifts will be most welcome and appreciated.
LIONS CLUB OF PENGUIN PRESENT CAROLS BY CANDELIGHT:
Penguin Carols by Candle Light will be held on Sunday
13th December in Hiscutt Park from 7pm. If the weather is
bad on the day the Carols will be held at Penguin District School on Ironcliffe
Road. All welcome!
CHRISTMAS MASS TIMES
2015
OUR
LADY OF LOURDES DEVONPORT
Christmas Eve 6.00pm
Children’s Mass
8.00pm Vigil Mass
Christmas Day 10.30am
Mass
ST
PATRICK’S, LATROBE
Christmas Day 9.30am Mass
HOLY
CROSS SHEFFIELD
Christmas Day 11.00am
Mass
ST JOSEPH’S MASS CENTRE, PORT SORELL
Christmas Day 8.00am
Mass
SACRED
HEART ULVERSTONE
Christmas Eve 6.00pm Children’s Mass
Christmas
Day 9.00am Mass
ST
MARY’S PENGUIN
Christmas Eve 8.00pm
Vigil Mass
RECONCILIATION: will be celebrated in preparation for Christmas at:
Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone on Monday 14th December at 7.00pm
Our Lady of Lourdes Church Devonport on Wednesday 16th December at 7:00pm.
Laudato Si': On the Care of Our Common Home
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.
“Believe in a happy future, a better tomorrow. Slow down, recover values and the meaning of
life. Putting the brakes on ‘unrestrained delusions of grandeur’ is not a call to go back to the
Stone Age.” (Par 113-114, 225)
 Saint of the Week – St Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, hermit (Dec 9)
Little is known about the life of Juan Diego before his conversion, but tradition and
archaelogical and iconographical sources, along with the most important and oldest
indigenous document on the event of Guadalupe, "El Nican Mopohua" (written in Náhuatl
with Latin characters, 1556, by the Indigenous writer Antonio Valeriano), give some
information on the life of the saint and the apparitions.
Juan Diego was born in 1474 with the name "Cuauhtlatoatzin" ("the talking eagle") in
Cuautlitlán, today part of Mexico City, Mexico. He was a gifted member of the Chichimeca
people, one of the more culturally advanced groups living in the Anáhuac Valley.
When he was 50 years old he was baptised by a Franciscan priest, Fr Peter da Gand, one of
the first Franciscan missionaries. On 9 December 1531, when Juan Diego was on his way to
morning Mass, the Blessed Mother appeared to him on Tepeyac Hill, the outskirts of what is
Church Resources – Bulletin Notes 6
now Mexico City. She asked him to go to the Bishop and to request in her name that a shrine
be built at Tepeyac, where she promised to pour out her grace upon those who invoked her.
The Bishop, who did not believe Juan Diego, asked for a sign to prove that the apparition was
true. On 12 December, Juan Diego returned to Tepeyac. Here, the Blessed Mother told him to
climb the hill and to pick the flowers that he would find in bloom. He obeyed, and although it
was winter time, he found roses flowering. He gathered the flowers and took them to Our
Lady who carefully placed them in his mantle and told him to take them to the Bishop as
"proof". When he opened his mantle, the flowers fell on the ground and there remained
impressed, in place of the flowers, an image of the Blessed Mother, the apparition at Tepeyac.
With the Bishop's permission, Juan Diego lived the rest of his life as a hermit in a small hut
near the chapel where the miraculous image was placed for veneration. Here he cared for the
church and the first pilgrims who came to pray to the Mother of Jesus.
(To access the above image, click on this link)
Part V
Words of Wisdom – The Outer Spiritual Disciplines
Words of Wisdom – The Outer Spiritual Disciplines
During November, Bulletin Notes is presenting a series of quotes on some of the spiritual
disciplines. Last month, we highlighted four inward disciplines (meditation, prayer, fasting
and study). Last week, we began focusing on the corporate disciplines, starting with
confession. This week, we highlight the corporate discipline of Worship. (Remaining
corporate disciplines will include Guidance and Celebration.)
This week’s image draws upon 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Meme of the week
If you ever wanted to respond to the knockers of the Church, this is the meme with which to
do it!
THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD AND THE DARKNESS OF FAITH
An article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original can be found here  When I first began teaching theology, I fantasized about writing a book about the hiddenness of God. Why does God remain hidden and invisible? Why doesn’t God just show himself plainly in a way that nobody can dispute? One of the standard answers to that question was this: If God did manifest himself plainly there wouldn’t be any need for faith. But that begged the question: Who wants faith? Wouldn’t it be better to just plainly see God? There were other answers to that question of course, except I didn’t know them or didn’t grasp them with enough depth for them to be meaningful. For example, one such answer taught that God is pure Spirit and that spirit cannot be perceived through our normal human senses. But that seemed too abstract to me. And so I began to search for different answers or for better articulations of our stock answers to this question. And there was a pot of gold at the end of the search; it led me to the mystics, particularly to John of the Cross, and to spiritual writers such as Carlo Carretto. What’s their answer? They offer no simple answers. What they offer instead are various perspectives that throw light on the ineffability of God, the mystery of faith, and the mystery of human knowing in general. In essence, how we know as human beings and how we know God is deeply paradoxical, that is, the more deeply we know anything, the more that person or object begins to become less conceptually clear. One of the most famous mystics in history suggests that as we enter into deeper intimacy we concomitantly enter into a “cloud of unknowing”, namely, into a knowing so deep that it can no longer be conceptualized. What does this mean? Three analogies can help us here: the analogy of a baby in its mother’s womb; the analogy of darkness as excessive light; and the analogy of deep intimacy as breaking down our conceptual images: First: Imagine a baby in its mother’s womb. In the womb, the baby is so totally enveloped and surrounded by the mother that, paradoxically, it cannot see the mother and cannot have any concept of the mother. Its inability to see or picture its mother is caused by the mother’s omnipresence, not by her absence. The mother is too present, too all enveloping, to be seen or conceptualized. The baby has to be born to see its mother. So too for us and God. Scripture tells us that we live, and move, and breathe, and have our being in God. We are in God’s womb, enveloped by God, and, like a baby, we must first be born (death as our second birth) to see God face to face. That’s faith’s darkness. Second: Excessive light is a darkness: If you stare straight into the sun with an unshielded eye, what do you see? Nothing. The very excess of light renders you as blind as if you were in pitch darkness. And that’s also the reason why we have difficulty in seeing God and why, generally, the deeper we journey into intimacy with God, the deeper we are journeying into Light, the more God seems to disappear and become harder and harder to picture or imagine. We’re being blinded, not by God’s absence, but by a blinding light to the unshielded eye. The darkness of faith is the darkness of excessive light. A final analogy: Deep intimacy is iconoclastic. The deeper our intimacy with anyone the more our pictures and images of that person begin to break down. Imagine this: A friend says to you: “I understand you perfectly: I know your family, your background, your ethnicity, your psychological and emotional temperaments, your strengths, your weakness, and your habits. I understand you.” Would you feel understood? I suspect not. Now imagine a very different scenario: A friend says to you: “You’re a mystery to me! I’ve known you for years, but you’ve a depth that’s somehow beyond me. The longer I know you, the more I know that you are your own mystery.” In this non-understanding, in being allowed to be the full mystery of your own person in that friend’s understanding, you would, paradoxically, feel much better understood. John of the Cross submits that the deeper we journey into intimacy, the more we will begin to understand by not understanding than by understanding. Our relationship to God works in the same way. Initially, when our intimacy is not so deep, we feel that we understand things and we have firm feelings and ideas about God. But the deeper we journey, the more those feelings and ideas will begin to feel false and empty because our growing intimacy is opening us to the fuller mystery of God. Paradoxically this feels like God is disappearing and becoming non-existent. Faith, by definition, implies a paradoxical darkness, the closer we get to God in this life, the more God seems to disappear because overpowering light can seem like darkness.
12 Step
Spirituality Week 1
Collated from a series of emails posted weekly by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe here
Saved by
Grace
The
spirituality of the Twelve Steps is another important part of my wisdom
lineage. Although I have never formally belonged to a Twelve Step group, I have
learned much from people who are in recovery. I truly believe that the Twelve
Step program (also known as Alcoholics Anonymous or A.A.) will go down in
history as America's greatest and unique contribution to the history of
spirituality. It represents what is good about American pragmatism. There's something
in the American psyche that becomes mistrustful and impatient with anything
that's too abstract, theoretical, or distant. Americans want a spirituality
that is relevant, that changes people, and that really makes a difference in
this world. For many, the Twelve Steps do just that. They make the Gospel
believable, practical, and even programmatic for many people. [1]
My first
eight years in Albuquerque, beginning in the late 1980s, I lived downtown, next
door to a little church where Twelve Step meetings were held. As the members
gathered right outside my back door almost every other evening, we became
friends. They invited me to join them in their closed meetings. [2] I felt very
privileged. It was like being welcomed into a sacred sanctuary of people who
weren't afraid to openly admit they were "sinners." [3] I'd go home
afterward thinking this felt more like church than the liturgy on Sunday
morning. It was as if each person was a priest, and they were all healing one
another. The God-talk was honest and experience-based, not
"belief"-based. There was no hesitancy for each person to describe
their history of failure and recovery--or death and resurrection, if you prefer
Christian vocabulary.
Opening with
"Hi, I'm Joe, and I'm an alcoholic" is a humble and honest admission
of deep need, which is what the Catholic penitential rite, "Lord have
mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy," is supposed to be. Jesus
taught us that God's love is not dependent on our "worthiness." He
healed and ate with sinners and outcasts when he was on earth. He told
parables, like those about the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18: 9-14)
and the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), where the one who did it wrong ended up
being right and the one who seemingly did it right ended up being wrong. The
entrance requirement for an A.A. meeting is not worthiness, but unworthiness,
not capacity, but deep need--just as it should be.
Worthiness
is not the issue; the issue is trust and surrender. As Thérèse of Lisieux said,
"Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and
gratitude."[4] Let's resolve this once and for all: You're not worthy!
None of us are. Don't even go down that worthiness road. It's a game of denial
and pretend. We're all saved by grace. We're all being loved in spite of
ourselves. A.A. had the courage to recognize that you don't come to God by
doing it right; you come to God by doing it wrong, and then falling into an
infinite mercy. [5] The Twelve Steps wisely call such mercy "Your Higher
Power."
I also want
to add what only the Gospel is fully prepared to proclaim: You're absolutely
worthy of love! Yet this has nothing to do with any earned worthiness on your
part. God does not love you because you are good. God loves you because God is
good!
And thus,
A.A. and the Gospel fit together like hand in glove.
References:
[1] Adapted
from Richard Rohr's Lineage,
https://cac.org/rohr-inst/ls-program-details/ls-lineage.
[2] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered (Center for Action
and Contemplation: 2005), MP3 download.
[3] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, How Do We Breathe Under Water?: The Gospel and 12-Step
Spirituality (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2005), CD, DVD, MP3
download.
[4] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Eucharist as Touchstone (Center for Action and
Contemplation: 2000), CD, MP3 download.
[5] Adapted
from Rohr, The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered.
The Power of
Powerlessness
I think the
Twelve Steps are inspired by the Holy Spirit and that they are the most
successful programmatic teaching of the true Gospel. [1] Bill Wilson and the
other founders of Alcoholics Anonymous rediscovered the spirituality of
imperfection and powerlessness, which was relegated to a subtext once
Christianity aligned with imperial thinking, beginning in 313 A.D. Once we
looked out at society from the top instead of the bottom, the Church focused
its moral program on a path of ascent instead of descent.
When you are
aligned with Empire, you are forced to prefer a spirituality of achievement,
performance, worthiness, and willpower, and surely not any talk of "all
people have sinned" and "fallen short of the glory" (Romans
5:12, 3:23). There is no longer room "for the last to be first and the
first to be last" (Mark 10:31). Conformity to cultural virtue becomes much
more important than love of littleness itself or love of any outsider (read
"sinner").
It's as if
Christianity has been saying, "We have the perfect medicine for what ails
you: grace and mercy. But the only requirement for receiving it is never to
need it!" Jesus called himself a physician and made his case clearly:
"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not
come to call the righteous but sinners" (Mark 2:17). Bill Wilson
recognized this truth and understood that the only way to give everyone equal
and universal access to God is to base salvation/enlightenment on woundedness
instead of self-created trophies. If we are honest, this utterly levels the
playing field. Julian of Norwich, my favorite English mystic, understood the
great turn around and said proudly: "Our wounds are our very
trophies!" They are the "holes in the soul" where the Light and
the Life can break through. [2] Exactly as Leonard Cohen's Anthem puts it:
"Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That's
how the light gets in."
The way of
the Twelve Steps is remarkably similar to Jesus' Way of the Cross, St. Francis'
Way of Poverty, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux's Little Way. These and many other
saints and mystics teach the power of powerlessness either directly or
indirectly. It was never totally lost in mainstream Christianity, although it
was a minority insight. [3] Many did recognize that it is the imperial ego that
has to go, and only powerlessness can do the job correctly. If we try to change
our ego with the help of our ego, we only have a better-disguised ego.
Until you
bottom out and come to the limits of your own fuel supply, there is no reason
for you to switch to a higher octane of fuel. Why would you? You will not learn
to actively draw upon a Larger Source until your usual resources are depleted
and revealed as inadequate to the task. In fact, you will not even know there
is a Larger Source until your own sources and resources utterly fail you. [4]
None of us
go to the place of powerlessness on our own accord. We have to be taken there.
Sad to say it, but it is largely sin, humiliation, failure, and various forms
of addiction that do the job. Sometimes, having ruined your marriage, your
children, your job, or your sterling self-image, you have to say, "My way
isn't working." [5] Maybe there is another way, maybe I really do need to
change. That is very often when you are finally ready to begin a sincere
spiritual journey. At that point your religion morphs into a living
spirituality. [6]
References:
[1] For more
on the Twelve Steps and the Gospel, see Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water:
Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (Franciscan Media: 2011).
[2] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered (Center for Action
and Contemplation: 2005), MP3 download.
[3] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
(Franciscan Media: 2011), 115.
[4] Ibid.,
3.
[5] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, The Little Way: A Spirituality of Imperfection (Center for
Action and Contemplation: 2007), MP3 download.
[6] For more
on the theme of spiritual development and growth, see Richard Rohr, Falling
Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass: 2011).
A Vital
Spiritual Experience
The Twelve
Step program helps people see that addiction is an illness which requires
understanding and spiritual healing--much more than a moral failure which
deserves condemnation. This is a gigantic breakthrough. Pope Francis gets this
when he says that the church should be "a field hospital on the edge of
the battlefield." Neither the healing of addiction nor the overcoming of
sin will happen by mere willpower, by just gritting your teeth and doing it.
According to Bill W., a "vital spiritual experience" is necessary for
addicts to wake up and begin the process of recovery. Paralleling the teaching
of Jesus, Bill saw that it is only vulnerability, surrender, and powerlessness
that keep us open to ongoing healing and love from God, not grandiosity. This
is also how human love relationships work: in a dance of mutual honesty and
vulnerability, grace and forgiveness.
I am
convinced that what we now call addiction is what the Gospels illustrated with
stories of demonic possession. Our modern sensibilities are rather embarrassed
by these frequent stories in the Gospels, but in this light they now make
sense. Once you understand the nature of addiction--an inability to do what is
in your own best interest--the language of "the devil made me do it"
is actually fairly accurate. Such "demons" must indeed be
"exorcised" by a positive encounter with a much more powerful Source.
Jesus enters the situation, and the demons are both exposed and disempowered.
In moments of sincere divine communion, your addictions show themselves to be
false and temporary solutions to your very real loneliness and emptiness.
Most
addictions are not substance addictions (alcohol, drugs, food, consumer
objects, etc.), but process addictions (patterns of thinking and reacting).
Spiritual traditions at their higher levels discovered that the primary
addiction for all humans is addiction to our own way of thinking. That should
be obvious. Contemplation teaches you how to observe your small mind and,
frankly, to see how inadequate it is to the task in front of you. As Eckhart
Tolle now says, 98% of human thought is "repetitive and useless." How
humiliating is that? When you see how self-serving, how petty, how
narcissistic, and how compulsive your thinking is, you realize that you, too,
are trapped and unfree. [1] You might even call it "possessed."
Some time
ago I counseled a young father who was very discouraged with himself. He could
not stop being irritated at others, biting off people's heads, resenting every
little thing. In desperation and anguish he said, "How can I change this?
I don't know how to be different!" He sounded like Paul: "What a
wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans
7:24). Then I asked him if he was that way with his two little children, and
without any hesitation he said, "No, not at all; hardly ever."
You see the point,
I am sure. The only way to be delivered from our "body of death" as
Paul calls it (Romans 7:24), or what Tolle calls the "pain body," is
to find oneself inside of a "body of resurrection" (1 Corinthians
15:20ff, Romans 6:4). In other words, experience of a deeper love entanglement
absorbs all our negativity and nameless dread of life and the future. Paul's
code phrase for this positive, realigned place is en Cristo, which is to live
by choice and embodiment within the force field of the Risen Christ.
You see, the
only cure for possession is repossession--by Something Greater. Until we have
found our own ground and connection to the Whole, we are unsettled, grouchy,
and on the edge of falling apart. That man's children help him realign; that is
what a "vital spiritual experience" does for all of us. Afterward,
you know you rightly belong in this world, and that you are being held by some
Larger Force. For some seemingly illogical reason life then feels okay and even
good and right and purposeful. [2] This is what it feels like to be
"saved."
References:
[1] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, The Little Way: A Spirituality of Imperfection (Center for
Action and Contemplation: 2007), MP3 download.
[2] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
(Franciscan Media: 2011), 113
A New
Mind
The Twelve
Step program gave meaning and effectiveness to transformation.
"Salvation" is not just something you believe, but something you
begin to experience. Both Jesus and Paul were change agents. They were hated by
their own groups precisely because they were constantly talking about change.
The first thing Jesus said when he started preaching was, "Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17). The word usually translated
as "repent" is the Greek word metanoia; this might be best translated
as "turn around your mind" or change. But most of us won't move
toward any new way of thinking or actual change until we're forced to, which
usually means some form of suffering or some disturbance that upsets our
habitual path.
Addicts--the
majority of us--have an intense resistance to change. We like predictability.
That's one of the reasons addicts find it easier to have a relationship with a
process or a substance rather than with people. People are unpredictable. But
it feels like this glass of wine or going shopping (or whatever it might be)
can change your superficial mood very quickly. Even though the mood shift
doesn't last, it makes you feel like you are in control for a while. You don't
have to change your thinking; you don't have to change your way of relating to
people. Basically, you stop growing at that point. They say you can usually
tell when a drug addict began using, because he or she will reflect the
emotional maturity of someone at that approximate age.
Cardinal
Newman (1801-1890) said it so well: "To live is to change, and to be
perfect is to have changed often." The Twelve Step program understands you
can't change people by mere knowledge or willpower, whereas much of organized
religion seems to think you can. For example, you don't become more charitable
by saying to yourself, "Be charitable!" You actually become more
charitable by noticing when you are not being charitable and "weeping"
over it. But none of us want to see our own faults; they usually have to be
shoved in our face or we have to fall right into them. At least I do. And even
then, many will just deny their mistakes more forcibly. Peter's three denials
come to mind here.
Transformative
religion goes against our basic survival instinct which is to live. But darn
it, the spiritual teacher is always telling us to die. You can see why the ego
resists. The addict puts up a fortified wall against change, against death to
self (the false self), and therefore against all real spiritual growth. A.A.
understands that it usually takes a bottoming out experience to break that wall
against change. The highly fortified religious ego is perhaps the most
resistant to change of any, because "God" is used to maintain its own
security and superiority.
This is the
addictive pattern of thinking that characterizes so much of our religion and
politics today. It creates very cognitively rigid, dualistic thinking in
service to the ego. This thinking is largely impregnable to either love or
logic. Could this be the deepest meaning of sin?
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, How Do We Breathe Under Water?: The Gospel and 12-Step
Spirituality (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2005), CD, DVD, MP3 download
Emotional
Sobriety
Bill Wilson
saw "emotional sobriety" as the final culmination of the Twelve
Steps. Full sobriety is not just to stop drinking, but to become a spiritually
awakened person who has found some degree of detachment from your own
narcissistic emotional responses. The word emotion comes from the Latin for
movement. It's a body-based reaction that snags you quickly and urgently. The
body holds shame, guilt, hurts, memories, and childhood conditioning. Emotions
feel like truth. So it's very hard to "unhook" from our feelings.
This is true for all of us.
Emotions in
and of themselves have no moral value; they are neither good nor bad. They are
just sirens alerting us of something we should pay attention to. If we learn to
listen to them instead of always obeying them, they can be very good teachers.
We need to be aware that our emotions can mislead us because we often misread
the situation. Emotions are far too self-referential and based in our early
practiced neural responses, or what some call our defense mechanisms. Our basic
"programs for survival," which are the source of most emotions, are
largely in place by the age of four or five. The three most common programs
involve the needs for 1) survival and security, 2) affection and esteem, and 3)
power and control. (These correlate to the head, the heart, and the gut centers
of the Enneagram.)
We build our
lives around our programs for survival, which we falsely assume will give us
happiness. The problem is, these programs will not work in the long haul. They
are almost entirely dependent on outside events and other people conforming to
our needs. They are inherently unstable because your happiness moment by moment
is based outside of yourself. All the great religions of the world at the highest
levels would say God alone--something stable, inside us, and reliable--is the
source of all sustained happiness. Once you encounter a Loving God (not the
toxic, judgmental, punishing version of God that many of us have grown up
with), you have found both your Ground and your Goal. John of the Cross, Teresa
of Ávila, and many other mystics believed the experience of absolute union
between God and the soul is essential to transformation. Then happiness is an
"inside job" and not dependent on outer circumstances or other
peoples' response to you. Of course, you will still have ups and downs and
emotions of all kinds, but they don't have you. You don't identify with them;
you let them come and you let them go.
You could
define your ego self as all the things you are attached to, including your own
ways of thinking, feeling, and seeing, your program for happiness, your
addictions, and your childhood conditioning. Even though you will find these
are not working for you, like an addict, you keep doing them over and over
again, thinking the result will change. The pattern becomes repetitive,
obsessive, and compulsive. Your early spiritual practice must be anything that
helps you recognize the problem, detach from this cycle, and stop the obsessive
repetition of patterns. Over time, this practice will rewire the brain itself.
It is work, even though grace keeps you doing the work!
Contemplation
or Centering Prayer can help here. For twenty minutes perhaps, you choose to
not cater to your thoughts, emotions, addictions, and programs for happiness.
You are not allowing them to have you, but instead you have them--as a little
listening and learning device. The Indwelling Holy Spirit is the Stable Witness
that calmly joins you in compassionately observing your thoughts and emotions
and then compassionately letting go of them. Bill Wilson called this Step 11,
and I am told it is the one taught the least, because until the last decades we
had very few teachers of true contemplative prayer.
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Emotional Sobriety: Rewiring Our Programs for
"Happiness" (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2011), CD, DVD, MP3
download.
Experiencing
Intimacy
Addiction
has been variously described as a moral weakness, a simple lack of willpower, a
cowardly inability to face life, or a spiritual illness or disease. I agree
with Alcoholics Anonymous that addiction is the latter: a disease of the soul,
an illness resulting from longing, frustrated desire, and deep inner
dissatisfaction and emptiness. Ironically, this is the necessary beginning of
any spiritual path, much more than a moral failure. I have met so many people
in recovery who are spiritually mature, sometimes more than those who are
regular church-goers.
A.A. says,
in its own inspired way, that addicts are souls searching for love in all the
wrong places, but still searching for love. The Twelve Step program has learned
over time that addiction emerges out of a lack of inner experience of intimacy
with oneself, with God, with life, and with the moment. I would drink myself
into oblivion too, or look for some way to connect with solid reality, if I
felt bereft of love, esteem, joy, or communion. Fortunately the Twelve Steps
provide a "way to connect with solid reality." I suspect Bill W. knew
that "can-do" Americans needed a program to get us going. We needed
to "work the steps." He also knew that we would only realize over
time that it is all grace from beginning to end. We cannot engineer our own
enlightenment. It is largely done to us. Someone Else is the Doer.
One helpful
clarification is that many addicts tend to confuse intensity with intimacy,
just as young people often do with noise, bright lights, fast movement,
artificial highs, and overstimulation of any sort. Manufactured intensity and
true intimacy are opposites. In the search for intimacy, the addict takes a
false turn, hopefully just a detour, and relates to an object, a substance, an
event, or a repetitive anything (shopping, thinking, blaming, abusing, eating)
in a way that cannot give them the intimacy with the moment that they are
really seeking. Then over time, the addict is forced to "up the ante"
when the fix does not work. You will always need more and more of anything that
is not working.
If something
is really working for you, then less and less will be required to satisfy you.
When I return from my Lenten hermitage of under-stimulation, it takes very
little to totally delight me. It seems like everything has been painted with
rich and new colors. Everything has fresh and full meaning. The addict has
actually denied himself this joy, a happiness that is everywhere and always, a
simple feeling of being alive, when our very feet connect lovingly with the
ground beneath us, and our head and hair meet the undeserved air.
Addicts
develop a love and trust relationship with a substance or compulsion of some
kind, which becomes their primary emotional relationship with life itself. This
is a god who cannot save. It is momentary intensity passing for the intimacy
they really want, and it is quickly over. I urge all of us--consumers,
compulsives, and unconscious alike--to not waste any more time or worship on
gods that cannot save. We were made to breathe the Air that always surrounds
us, feeds us, and fills us. Some of us call this experience God, but the word
is not important.
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
(Franciscan Media: 2011), 114-117.
CHRISTMAS IS COMING
From a weekly blog by Fr Michael White, PP of the Church of the Nativity, Baltimore USA. The original can be found here  It never fails to amaze me. It just gets earlier and earlier every year. Christmas is officially on the mind of almost every American. If you haven’t started already, your church is probably already planning to buy your Advent candles, wreaths, and lights for Christmas. But have you and your staff sat down together to plan for the most important thing in your sanctuary this Christmas: the visitors? At Nativity, we are still catching our breath after our big Matter Conference, and already our staff has shifted focus to December 24/25. Of course, every Sunday in Advent is important and special. I love the joyful anticipation each Sunday brings as another Advent candle is lit. It only increases our hope and desire to bring God’s love closer to the unchurched in Timonium through an excellent Christmas Eve experience. Ever since we decided to relocate our Christmas Eve Mass to the local fairgrounds, conveniently a mile north of our church, we have adopted this maxim: Christmas Eve is a paradigm for everything. What does that mean? Here are just a few things we learned in the process. 1. It’s All About Perspective The reason we moved our services off campus wasn’t really about a change in location; it was about a change in perspective. We changed our primary focus away from the people who are in our pews every Sunday to reaching the ones we knew we’d only see on Christmas. Each Sunday leading up to Christmas, respectfully challenge your parishioners to keep these people in mind, and to issue a personal invitation to a friend or family member without a church to attend church with them. 2. It’s All About Environment Environment is not the same as location. We don’t have a pretty church, but the fairgrounds, locally called “The Cow Palace,” wasn’t an aesthetic improvement! It did help create visibility and accessibility. Environment is ultimately about creating a worshipful experience that unchurched people will feel welcoming and engaging. 3. It’s All About Excellent Ministry Christmas Eve requires the ministry and involvement of lots of people. Start preparing your ministry teams early on- not a week before Christmas. We discovered that our Christmas programs were a great opportunity to re-evaluate our existing ministries and use the momentum to build new teams to kick-start ministry for the rest of the year. Let your Christmas ministry set the standard for the rest of the year. It’s not too early to make Christmas a priority in your parish planning. Make no mistake, the unchurched are already thinking about Christmas. Is your church thinking about them? Southwell the Poet: In and out of context
An article by Brian McClorry sj. The original article can be found here
(On 1 December, the Society of Jesus celebrates the feast of a number of English Jesuit reformation martyrs, among them Saints Edmund Campion and Robert Southwell. Southwell is perhaps best known for his poetry, to which Brian McClorry SJ offers an introduction here. How does Southwell’s poetry open up a space for Ignatian conversational prayer?)
Clive James once provocatively remarked that poetry is ‘any piece of writing that can’t be quoted except out of context’. If poetry drowns in its context (the personal or the public context of the poet), maybe it’s not quite poetry. Then context rather than the poetry becomes the focus of any reading of the poem. But since poetry is also read in a context, the ‘out of context’ lines can have a particular resonance. Then poetry is found to be in part a reminder and a maker of our common and varied world. And at the same time the ‘otherness’ of the context can also be salutary and freeing. This too might be part of what Seamus Heaney somewhat ambiguously called ‘the redress of poetry’.
Some context
Certainly Robert Southwell (1561-95), Jesuit priest, martyr and saint, had a considerable context. He lived during the reign of Elizabeth I (1533-1603; crowned 1558, excommunicated 1570), and overlapped with Shakespeare (1564-1616) and John Donne (1572-1631). George Herbert (1593-1633) was born two years before Southwell was executed. The reforming and controversial Council of Trent (1545-63) ended shortly after his birth. Southwell’s English context was of state censorship, licensing and surveillance, violence and tortured death. To be a Jesuit was to be treasonous. The Reformation and its aftermath, whichever ‘side’ you took or found you were on, was an uncertain and fearful time.
Southwell was born in Norfolk and went to Flanders in 1576 at the age of 14. After being refused entry to the Jesuits in Paris, he made his way to Rome on foot where, in 1579, he joined the Jesuit novitiate and subsequently taught at the faction-riven English College. Southwell was ordained in 1584, wonderfully young. He was back in England in 1586, captured in 1592, tortured and eventually hung, drawn and quartered in 1595. It was a time when English Catholics were under threat, and England was threatened by foreign ‘Catholic’ powers. The Spanish Armada was dispersed in 1588, while Southwell was in England and free; Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) was another of his contemporaries.
Clearly Southwell’s poetry came out of and is directed towards his own enmeshed political, religious and ecclesiastical contexts. It is in large measure for variously embattled English Catholics, not only landed recusants, a purpose with its own real importance and interest. But with Clive James’s remark in view, what follows considers a few of Southwell’s English poems which can to some degree be read ‘out of context’.
The Babe
Southwell, who died young but older than John Keats, wrote some 55 poems in English. A few are still commonly anthologised. Sometimes phrases, like the opening line of A childe my Choycestick in the mind: ‘Let folly praise what phancy loves I praise and love that childe’, which moves so easily – the ‘l’s’ and the ‘f’s’ doing their duty well – that the thought can pass before it fully registers. There is a sharp distinction between ‘phancy’ – ‘fancy’ – in the sense of whim, even a whim of iron, and an imagination which tries to stay rooted in a personal and more than individual truth-telling. There is very little punctuation in the poem, unlike the fastidious attention paid to this craft in the very long (over 800 lines including the introduction) of Saint Peters complaynt. Scant punctuation (like Emily Dickinson without the dashes) is fairly typical of Southwell and gives the reader room to shape the poem and to be shaped by it.
Of course the ‘childe’ is the Christ-child, the subject of Southwell’s most famous poem, The burning Babe. In sixteen lines this poem moves from the ‘I’ of the author to the ‘I’ of the child and back to the ‘I’ of the author. Shifting in persona writing keeps the author and the ‘childe’ in mutual conversation, rather like the ‘colloquy’ or conversational prayer Ignatius advocates in hisSpiritual Exercises. But it is also a proper device for poetry and gives the poet space for an exploration which a conventional doctrinal imagination would find difficult to undertake. The poem ends with a last-line discovery: ‘And straight I called unto mynde, that it was Christmas day.’ which contains two of the poem’s three punctuation marks.
Joseph and the Babe
Southwell’s ‘infancy’ poetry is not confined to the child Jesus or to Mary, though Mary is the subject of poems from her conception to the Assumption. However Josephes Amazement – more Joseph’s ‘problem’ than his wonder or puzzlement – does not end with a discovery. The poem is avowedly about Joseph’s horrified reaction to the unplanned pregnancy of his betrothed. Southwell’s Joseph feels betrayed. From the 56th line out of 80 the poem (punctuated only by an occasional full stop) is very strongly in persona, in the person of Joseph. And Joseph’s anguish at Mary’s pregnancy, his sense of shocked betrayal, is neither resolved nor allayed. The last six lines run:
Yett still I tredd a maze of doubtful end
I goe I come she drawes she drives away
She woundes she heales she doth both marr and mend
She makes me seeke and shun depart and stay
She is a frende to love a foe to lothe
And in suspence I hange betwene them both
Although the context of Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph’s shock remain, they are for Southwell perhaps shadowed by a love for England in the time of the Reformation. The poem can also be quoted or read ‘out of context’ when relationships of love are strained or distorted by events or misunderstanding. Southwell’s reluctance to punctuate lets the poem’s space expand endlessly or contract to a zero point. As a whole the poem has a holding quality of ambiguity and capaciousness, as well as a fine lack of religious or pious determinism. Joseph continues to live in a harsh version of Keats’s ‘negative capability’
Peter and the love of life
Something similar might be said about the long and short versions of Saint Peters complaynte, although these poems do have a kind of ongoing resolution. Peter’s denial of Christ and his endless remorse are based in the New Testament, but Elizabethan England was also the scene of real and perceived betrayal and ultimate denial, whether of monarch or belief. Although the long version of the poem ends conventionally with ‘Amen’, it is Jesus who is asked to say ‘Amen’ toPeter’s prayer. Once again the mutuality heralded in The burning Babe is present. For anyone who has denied or betrayed anyone, in the remote past or recently, the encouragement is inviting: let Jesus say ‘Amen’ to our prayer of confusion. And to any prayer.
However, all is not well in the poem. The references to the ‘Jews’ in the short version are hard to read: like many of his contemporaries, Southwell seems to have forgotten that Jesus and Peter were both Jews. It is not for nothing that Nicholas King SJ’s translation of John’s Gospel has ‘Judeans’ rather than ‘Jews’. However, Jesus’s death, as early commentators on the Spiritual Exercises rather misleadingly suggest, is to be considered as the fault of the person who prays. So in Sinnes heavy loade, ‘Yea, flatt thou fallest with my faultes oppreste’. In some sense everyone is involved and the ‘Jews’ are not singled out.
In the related Christs bloody sweate the speaker admits, ‘I withered am and stonye to all good’, but the poem is also wonderfully, almost blatantly, clever. The first four lines can be read horizontally as usual, but these same lines also divide visually into four distinct columns – so we have five verses for the price of one. Similarly there is a jaunty rhythm in Lifes deaths loves lifewhich belies the content of the poem. It is often as if Southwell’s use of the English language of his time had a healing and sustaining capacity for life in life-denying circumstances. We read poetry for some ‘redress’.
However, for Southwell it is ‘heaven’ (where the believer is with the beloved) more than Jesus’s resurrection which is the primary image of hope. Even apart from the penal context of the Elizabethan period, an immediate joy in this life, here and now, struggles to find what Hopkinscalled ‘root room’. Certainly the title of another poem, What joy to live, has to work to find joy given the line, ‘Heere bewty is a bayte that swallowed chokes’. Even if Southwell’s titles are on occasion carefully ironic, his wordplay gives a (fugitive) sense of life.
Grace’s court
‘I dwell in graces court’ is the first line of Content and ritche, where ‘graces court’ sounds like an aggressive alternative to the court of Elizabeth, and is perhaps also a happy rendering of the frequent ‘court of heaven’ metaphor in Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises. The phrase implicitly and strongly asks where and how we do or might live, so that life in Christ may be real, significant and true. But finding where we really ‘dwell’ seems full of cloistered pressures, and Southwell works with wit and will on this intimate claustrophobia in I dye alive, a poem not surprisingly included in R.S. Thomas’s 1963 Penguin Anthology of Religious Verse. Here, ‘graces court’ is no place of ease:
My death to end my dying life denyes
And life my living death no whit amends
The mode of Southwell’s translation of Aquinas’s Lauda Sion, and especially his own Of the Blessed sacrament of the Aulter, is almost deftly catechetical:
What god as auctor made he alter may
No change so hard as making all of nought
But in I dye alive the teaching tone shifts into a sense of the Eucharist as a Mass for hard, indeed penal, times, which reflects Jesus’s situation in Gethsemane.
A note on reading
Good and varied Elizabethan spelling is not an obstacle to reading the poems – if read aloud (even, perhaps especially, to oneself) many conundrums dissolve. A few words may need explanation – ‘sely’ or ‘selye’, a favourite word, means not ‘silly’ but ‘simple’ or ‘helpless’, with maybe some awareness of ‘holy’; and in Content and ritche we read, ‘To ruyne runne amaygne’, where ‘amaygne’ means ‘swiftly’. But as well as the needed comprehension of words there is also a sense which comes from Southwell’s rhymes and rhythms which hold the poems together. This ‘music’ is both medium and message and needs to be included in any ‘reading’. Then the ‘reading’ offers a comprehension which cannot be reduced to or finalised by the ‘straight’ meaning of the words, and is hospitable to the reader’s own story and context. This is the ‘place’ for one’s own ‘colloquy’ or Ignatius’s conversational prayer.
Brian McClorry SJ works in spirituality at St Beuno’s Jesuit Spirituality Centre, North Wales.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment