Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Year C)

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish

Parish Priest:  Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437; mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au

Assistant Priest: Fr Alexander Obiorah

Mob: 0447 478 297; alexchuksobi@yahoo.co.uk

Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310

Parish Office:   90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310

(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)

Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: mlcathparish-dsl@keypoint.com.au

Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair:  Mary Davies

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au

Parish Mass Times: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au

Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com   

Parish Magazine: mlcathparishnewsletter.blogspot.com.au

Year of Mercy Blogspot: mlcpyom.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. MERSEY LEVEN CATHOLIC PARISH Holy Week & Easter Ceremonies 2016 DEVONPORT: Our Lady of Lourdes Church Good Friday:  Commemoration of the Passion       3.00pm Holy Saturday: EASTER VIGIL                            7.00pm Easter Sunday:  Easter Mass                                  11.00am PORT SORELL:  St Joseph’s Mass Centre Good Friday: Stations of the Cross                       10.00am Easter Sunday:  Easter Mass                                    8.00am LATROBE: St Patrick’s Church Good Friday: Stations of the Cross                       11.00am Easter Sunday Easter Mass                                      9.30am SHEFFIELD: Holy Cross Church Good Friday: Stations of the Cross                       11.00am Easter Sunday: Easter Mass                                   11.00am ULVERSTONE: Sacred Heart Church Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord’s Supper           7.30pm (Adoration till 9pm followed by Evening Prayer of the Church) Good Friday: Commemoration of the Passion       3.00pm Easter Sunday: Easter Mass                                    9.30am PENGUIN: St Mary’s Church Good Friday: Stations of the Cross                       11.00am Easter Sunday: Easter Mass                                     8.00am

Weekday Masses 22nd - 25th March, 2016

Tuesday:      9:30am - Penguin 

Wednesday:   9:30am - Latrobe

Thursday:     PLEASE REFER TO HOLY WEEK & EASTER TIMES

Next Weekend 26th & 27th March, 2016

Saturday Vigil:  7:00pm Devonport      

Sunday Mass:   8:00am Port Sorell

                   8:00am Penguin

                  9:30am Latrobe

                  9:30am Ulverstone

          11:00am Sheffield

                  11:00am Devonport 

Eucharistic Adoration:

Devonport:  concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus

Devonport:  Benediction with Adoration

Legion of Mary: Sacred Heart Church Community Room Ulverstone, Wednesdays 11am

Prayer Groups:

Charismatic Renewal – Devonport Emmaus House, Thursdays commencing 7.30pm

Christian Meditation - Devonport, Emmaus House Wednesdays 7pm.

Ministry Rosters 26th & 27th March, 2016

Devonport:

Readers: Easter Vigil 7pm: 1st Reading – Genesis 1:1-2:2 - B Paul 

2nd Reading – Ezekiel 36:16-28 - R Baker

3^rd Reading - Exodus 14:15-15:1- P Douglas 

Epistle: St Paul to the Romans - H Lim  

Prayer of the faithful: M Gaffney                     

11.00am Easter Sunday: K Pearce, P Picollo, J Phillips

Ministers of Communion: Vigil M Heazlewood,
B&J Suckling, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly, P Shelverton

10.30am: M Sherriff, T & S Ryan, D & M Barrientos, 
M O’Brien-Evans

Cleaners 25^th March:  F Sly, M Hansen, R McBain 

1^st April: M.W.C.  

Piety Shop 26^th March:  L Murfet   27th March: D French

Ulverstone:
Reader:  F Pisano Ministers of Communion:  M Murray, J Pisarskis, C Harvey, P Grech

Cleaners: B&V McCall, G Doyle Hospitality: K Foster

Penguin: 
Greeters: A Landers, P Ravaillion Commentator:  J Barker 
Readers:  EASTER READERS

Procession: Fifita Family Ministers of Communion: T Clayton, E Nickols

Liturgy:  Penguin Setting Up: E Nickols Care of Church: Y & R Downes

Port Sorell:

Readers:  M Badcock, E Holloway Ministers of Communion: D Leaman, B Lee 
Clean /Prepare/ A Hynes

Readings This Week; Palm Sunday

First Reading: Isaiah 50: 4-7

Second Reading: Philippians 2:6-11 

Gospel: Luke 22:14 - 23:56

PREGO ON TODAY'S GOSPEL:

As I come to my place of prayer, I ask the Lord to help me put aside any distractions I may bring. Perhaps it helps to fix my gaze on a cross or crucifix. I remind myself that this is God’s time … and our time together. When I am ready, I read the Gospel passage slowly, prayerfully, several times over. Perhaps I imagine myself in the scene. I try to stay close to the cross, even if I want to turn away. I notice how I feel as Jesus speaks these words of mercy … how he talks to the ‘good thief’. Jesus implores the Father to forgive those who have brought him to this place. I ponder what such astonishing forgiveness means to me. Am I sometimes challenged by people or situations that seem entirely beyond my own capacity to forgive? Are there times when I hurt others, oblivious to the effect on them? I bring all this to the Lord, trusting in his unconditional love and mercy … so great that even my darkest concerns can be left at the foot of the cross. Eventually, I take my leave, perhaps with a slow sign of the cross, expressing my love and gratitude for all that the Lord has done for me. 

Readings Next Week; Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord

First Reading: Acts 10:34, 37-43

Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-4 

Gospel: John 20: 1-9

                   

Your prayers are asked for the sick: Thomas McGeown, Lorna Jones, 

Pauline Burnett, Eleanor Mazengarb, Joe Allison, Geraldine Roden, 

Joy Carter, Kath Smith &...

Let us pray for those who have died recently: Kevin Sheedy, Bishop Ray Benjamin, Lauren Crowe, Maisie Gadsby, Bryn Peden, Glen Halley Snr, Thomas Beard, Ali Drummond, Daphne Fraser, Sheldon Broomhall, Fr Elio Proietto,

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 16^th – 22^nd March

Mavis Jarvis, Archbishop Guilford Yound, Adeline Munro, Norma Ellings, John Smink, Nola Bengtell, Jim Suckling, Gaudencio Floro, Myra Dare, Peggy Leary and Maurice Kelly.

May they rest in peace

Mersey Leven Parish Community welcome

 and congratulate ….

Harlow Loone & Daphnee Mahoney on their 

baptism this weekend.

WEEKLY RAMBLINGS:

On Wednesday I did a couple of extra things. I went to the Doctor’s and had a check-up and made a decision  - more about that in a minute. Then I went to SBSC and met up with three of the young people going to World Youth Day in Krakow in July (two others were on an excursion) – yes a group of 5 from the Parish will be going to Westbury this weekend to begin their Pilgrimage to WYD, Then I travelled with Br Bill Wilding to Launceston and visited Fr Terry Southerwood.

Back to the Doctor – and let’s include WYD as well!!  I asked him what was a reasonable weight loss that I might attempt in a two month period before I go on holidays at the end of May - He suggested that 4 kg was a reasonable loss so I am willing to attempt it as a WYD Fun(d)raising effort and I’m inviting parishioners to support me or bet against me making the weight by 27^th May – 3 days before I go on holidays. I am willing to say that I will contribute $50 for every kilo or part of a kilo I am over or under the weight. If I lose more then it will cost me, if I don’t lose enough it will cost me!! If anyone wants to join in this madness then simply fill in the slip at the back of the Church and give it to me in the next week or so. Current weight is 102.7kgs!

As many of you know I’ve been having a little war with Windows 10 – now my email provider (whom I have been with for almost 20 years) have sent me an email saying that they can no longer provide this service. So today I’ve also been trying to arrange a new personal email address – more about that in the weeks ahead.

On Tuesday evening as many priests as possible will gather with +Julian for the Mass of the Chrism and the Renewal of Priestly Commitment. As well many of us will gather during the day for a time of Reflection on the Priesthood – an opportunity for some quiet time before this special Mass.

I would like to extend a personal invitation to all parishioners to be part of as many of the ceremonies of Holy Week and the Easter Vigil as possible. These celebrations are an important part of the life of each and every one of us and with as many people as possible being present it really makes a difference.

Until next week take care in your homes and on the roads 

PROJECT COMPASSION 2016 

Until recently, people in Dhaniram’s village were unaware of the Government’s social security schemes that support India’s most vulnerable communities.  Since becoming involved in the Hamara Haq (‘Our Rights’) project, Dhaniram and his community have learnt about their rights and have been empowered to speak up for themselves. Now, real change is taking place.

Please donate to Project Compassion 2016 and help vulnerable communities in India learn more about their rights so they are empowered to speak up, ask for their rights and create lasting change.

KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS: Please note meeting date change owing to clash with Easter Sunday.

The next meeting of the Knights of the Southern Cross will be held at Emmaus House Devonport on Sunday 20th March commencing at 6pm with a shared tea. We welcome any interested men to come along.

RECONCILIATION:

Monday 21st March, Our Lady of Lourdes Church Devonport  7:00pm

Wednesday23rd March, Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone       7:00pm

EASTER VIGIL SUPPER:

There will be supper in the Devonport Parish Centre after the Parish Easter Vigil Mass (Saturday 26^th March). Please bring a plate of food to share. Food can be dropped into the kitchen before Mass. Volunteers to assist with catering would be greatly appreciated. Please contact Rosemarie Baker on 0408 123 586

DIVINE MERCY NOVENA: The Mersey Leven Catholic Community Rosary Group invite you to our annual Divine Mercy Novena commencing Good Friday 25^th March to 2^nd April at Sacred Heart Church at 10am daily and Emmaus House at 5:30pm daily. Divine Mercy Prayer cards are available at all Mass Centres.

For further information please contact Meriam 0438 005 263, Hermie 0414 416 661 or Michael 0447 018 068

                 

GRANS VAN:

The month of April has again been allocated to our Parish to assist with Grans Van on the four Sunday evenings in that month. Help is required as follows, (a) cooking a stew (b) assisting with the food distribution (c) driving the van. Help with (b) and (c) would take about two hours of your time.

If you are able to assist with any of the above please contact Lyn Otley 6424:4736 or Shirley Ryan 6424:1508.

MEN ALIVE:

Next session will be Friday 1st April 9:00am at Emmaus House. All men welcome. Enquiries Tony Ryan 6424:1508

ST VINCENT DE PAUL: will be holding their Button Day on Friday 8^th April. If anyone has an hour or two to spare it would be much appreciated. Please contact Marie.

The Beard family would like to say a massive thanks to all the members of the Sacred Heart community and wider Mersey Leven Parish who played a part in our son Thomas' funeral.

Your help with organisation and catering was greatly appreciated - 

Kathy & Kevin Beard

Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall, Devonport.  Eyes down 7.30pm!

NO BINGO - Thursday 24th March

                      FOOTY TICKETS:

Its AFL footy season again and we are selling footy margin tickets. 

Buy a ticket (or two!) $2.00 each – three prizes of $100.00 every week!!

Round 1 (Thursday 24^th March – Carlton v Richmond) – You need to be in it to win it!!

NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:

THE JOURNEY CATHOLIC RADIO PROGRAM – AIRS 27^th MARCH 2016

This week on The Journey Bishop Peter Ingham presents his Easter Message; Sr Hilda Scott OSB asks us to “Claim the Risen Lord;” Trish McCarthy reflects on the “Joy of a Spirit Filled Life” and Fr Dave Callaghan MGL reminds us that “Jesus Is the Answer.”  Go to www.jcr.org.au or www.itunes.jcr.org.au where you can listen anytime or subscribe to weekly shows by email.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC), are hosting a 3 day retreat in Alice Springs. It is an opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholics and those working in Indigenous Ministry to strengthen their foundation of Faith through formation workshops and a renewal of the Spirit in concert with fellow workers in Christ. Location: Northern Territory Dates: 19th -21st April 2016 (18th and 22nd April travel days) Go to : http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/formation-and-spiritual-retreat-for-those-working-in-indigenous-ministry-tickets-20138690365 For further information please contact the Tasmanian NATSICC Representative Jaimi-Lee Armstrong via email: jaimilee.armstrong@gmail.com or NATSICC Secretariat Craig Arthur email: craig@natsicc.org.au

                                                                 

Alternative Orthodoxy Week 1

Taken from a series of daily emails from Fr Richard Rohr. You can subscribe to the emails here 

New Ways

The "alternative orthodoxy" of Francis of Assisi is of crucial importance in our age, just as it was in his own time. Above all, Francis loved God and wanted to imitate Jesus in very practical ways. In other words, it was action and lifestyle itself that mattered much more than mentally believing dogmatic or moral positions to be true or false. Francis directly said to the first friars, "You only know as much as you do!" [1]

Jesus' first recorded word in at least two Gospels is unfortunately translated with the moralistic, churchy word repent. The word quite literally means change or even more precisely "Change your minds!" (Mark 1:15, Matthew 4:17). Given that, it is quite strange that the religion founded in Jesus' name has been very resistant to change and has tended to love and protect the past and the status quo much more than the positive and hopeful futures that could be brought about by people agreeing to change. Maybe that is why our earth is so depleted and our politics are so pathetic. We have not taught a spirituality of actual change or growth, which is what an alternative orthodoxy always asks of you.

Francis didn't bother questioning any of the mainline Christian doctrines. He was not personally oppositional, nor was he an intellectual. He just took the imitation of Christ absolutely seriously and tried to live the way that Jesus lived! This is such a simple and obvious agenda that I think we had to find a way to avoid it. The civil religion we have today doesn't demand changes to our lifestyle or familiar habits. The best way to avoid actually changing is to go into your head and endlessly argue about what "changing" means. Human minds love to argue, oppose, critique, judge, evaluate, and adjust--it gives our little minds a job. Academics, politicians, and seminary professors love to stay right there and rarely hit the streets of the incarnate or suffering world as Jesus clearly did. What else are the healing stories about?

Franciscan alternative orthodoxy doesn't bother fighting popes, bishops, Scriptures, or dogmas. It just quietly but firmly pays attention to different things--like simplicity, humility, non-violence, contemplation, solitude and silence, earth care, nature and other creatures, and the "least of the brothers and sisters." These are our true teachers. The Rule of Saint Francis--which Rome demanded Francis develop--was often thought of as "Tips for the Road" and hardly a rule at all. Like Jesus, Francis taught his disciples while walking from place to place and finding ways to serve, to observe, and to love in the world that was right in front of them.

Frankly, this is exactly what Pope Francis is doing for the whole church right now, and this is not making some cardinals, priests, and lay people very happy, especially those who live in their heads, always clarifying doctrinal and moral positions, as if God needed them to do that. Pope Francis is formally a Jesuit; but he is really a Franciscan--in his entire style, message, and emphasis. (Apologies to my many wonderful Jesuit friends!)

In Laudato Si', Pope Francis writes, "In the heart of this world, the Lord of life, who loves us so much, is always present. He does not abandon us, he does not leave us alone, for he has united himself definitively to our earth, and his love constantly impels us to find new ways forward. Praise be to him!" [2, emphasis mine] I believe the Franciscan worldview with its alternative orthodoxy can help us "find new ways forward" and stop being so afraid of change.

To be afraid of change is to be afraid of growing up. Change and growth are finally the same thing. Unfortunately, the church has trained many people in not growing up.

References:

[1] "The Legend of Perugia," Saint Francis of Assisi: Omnibus of Sources (Franciscan Press: 1991), 74.

[2] Pope Francis, Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Returning to Essentials: Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2015), CD, MP3 download;

and The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis (Sounds True: 2010), CD.

A Different Worldview

Before we begin to outline Franciscan alternative orthodoxy, it is helpful to look at the Franciscan worldview, which grew out of the historical and cultural context in which St. Francis lived. Today's meditation will be a little longer to give a full background.

Francis was born in Assisi, Italy, in the year 1181. He died in 1226. It was a time of great social and economic change and much violence between Italian city-states. Before and during his life, Europe and the Muslim world were involved in four Crusades, and there were more to come. Christians were fighting Muslims; Muslims had overtaken what Christians considered their holy places in Jerusalem; and the Christians of the West were fighting the Eastern Orthodox Christians. Added to that, Assisi itself was in an ongoing war with Perugia, a little city to the west. In the year 1202, Francis was taken prisoner in a battle against Perugia. In 1204, he escaped from prison. He emerged dazed, disillusioned, and deeply hoping for something more, something different than all the terrible violence that had destroyed his youth. His world was obsessed with war, with security, with self-protection, and with fear of the outsider. (Does this sound familiar?) Everyone in Assisi was armed; revenge, scapegoating, cruelty, torture, and aggression against enemies were rampant and even socially sanctioned and idealized, much as they are today.

Francis seemed to realize that there was an intrinsic connection between violence and possessions, power, and prestige. So he rejected all of them. His father was among the first generation of the new propertied business class. Francis recognized that his father's obsession with money and property had destroyed his father's soul, and so he set out on a very different path. Francis concluded that the only way out of such a world was to live a life of voluntary poverty or "non-possession." He refused to be part of the moneyed class because he knew that once you owned something you'd have to protect it, and for some reason, you would inevitably try to get more of it. Francis said, "Look, Brothers, if we have any possessions, we will need arms to protect them. . . . Therefore, we do not want to possess anything in this world."

Francis felt that in order to find a way out, he had to live in close proximity and even solidarity with the excluded ones in his society. He literally changed sides. He had been born among the upper class in Upper Assisi. In the lower part of town lived the lower class. Francis not only moved to the other side of town, but he actually moved to the plain below Assisi where there was a leper colony. The word "leper" did not always refer to the contagious disease. Rather, the lepers in both Jesus' and Francis' times represented the excluded ones, the ones whom society had decided were unacceptable, unworthy, or unclean for a number of reasons. Francis told us to identify not with the upper class and the climb toward success, power, and money, but to go to where Jesus went--to where there was pain, to the excluded ones. We were to find our place not in climbing but in descending, not at the top but at the bottom, not among the insiders but with the outsider. What an upside down world!

Francis, seeing the beginnings of the propertied leisure class, told us to work for our pay; and if work was not available, we were to humbly beg, just as the Buddha advised his monks. Francis recognized that his society was becoming a structured system of protected and unequal social relationships. He knew the violence, mistrust, ambition, and pride which that worldview would engender. So he insisted on what he called equal power relationships in religious communities. He rejected all titles like Superior or Abbot. Francis did not want anyone to act as if he was higher than anyone else. Even those who led the community were to be called friars or brothers, and they only held the office for a short term and then returned to the equality of brotherhood. No one should stay at the top for very long; and when they were there, they were to be servant leaders or "guardians" of the mission and message of the friars.

In Francis we see the emergence of a very different worldview, a worldview that is not based on climbing, achieving, possessing, performing, or any idealization of order, but a life that enjoys and finds deep satisfaction on the level of naked being itself--much more than doing or having. He learned this from Jesus. It seems to me the Franciscan worldview is now desperately important if the 7.4 billion of us are going to exist happily together on this one limited planet. Voluntary simplicity is now essential for social survival. Francis warned us where we were headed eight hundred years ago.

Reference:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis (Sounds True: 2010), disc 1 (CD).

Learning How to Love

Francis' emphasis on action, practice, and lifestyle was revolutionary for its time, just as it is now. It is the foundation of Franciscan alternative orthodoxy. For Francis and Clare, Jesus became someone to actually imitate and not just to collectively worship. Believe it or not, this has hardly ever been the norm or practice of most Christians. We preferred Sunday morning worship services and arguing about how to conduct them or prohibiting each other from attending "heretical" church services. God must just cry.

The Franciscan School found a way to be both very traditional and very revolutionary at the same time by emphasizing practice over theory, or orthopraxy over orthodoxy. In general, the Franciscan tradition taught that love and action are more important than intellect or speculative truth. Love is the highest category for the Franciscan School (the goal), and we believe that authentic love is not possible without true inner freedom (contemplative practice helps with this), nor will love be real or tested unless we somehow live close to the disadvantaged (the method), who frankly teach us that we know very little about love.

Orthodoxy teaches us the theoretical importance of love; orthopraxy helps us learn how to love. To be honest, even my Franciscan seminary training did not teach me how to love. It taught me how to obey and conform, but not how to love. I'm still trying to learn how to love every day of my life. As we endeavor to put love into action, we come to realize that on our own, we are unable to obey Jesus' command to "Love one another as I have loved you." To love as Jesus loves, we must be connected to the Source of love. Franciscanism found that connection in solitude, silence, and some form of contemplative prayer. Contemplation quiets the monkey mind and teaches us emotional sobriety and psychological freedom from our addictions and attachments. Otherwise, most talk of "change of life" is largely an illusion and a pretense.

Early on, Francis found himself so attracted to contemplation, to living out in the caves and in nature, that he was not sure if he should dedicate his life to prayer or to action. So he asked Sister Clare and Brother Sylvester to spend some time in prayer about it and then come back and tell him what they thought he should do. After a few weeks, they both came back. Francis knelt down and put his arms out, prepared to do whatever they told him. They both, in perfect agreement, without having talked to one another, said Francis should not be solely a contemplative; nor should he only be active in ministry. Francis was to go back and forth between the two (much as Jesus did). Francis jumped up with great excitement and immediately went on the road with this new permission and freedom.

Before Francis, the "secular" priests worked with the people in the parishes and were considered "active." Those who belonged to religious orders went off to monasteries and prayed. Francis found a way to do both. Thus Franciscans were called friars instead of monks. Francis took prayer on the road; in fact, prayer is what enabled him to sustain his life of love and service to others over the long haul, without becoming cynical or angry. Francis didn't want a stable form of monastic life [1]; he wanted us to mix with the world and to find God amidst its pain, confusion, and disorder. For me, that is still the greatest art form--to "dance while standing still"! So you see that 30 years ago, when I founded the Center for Action and Contemplation, I was just being a good Franciscan.

References:

[1] I wrote my Bachelor's thesis on this theme in 1966.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 81, 87, 98;

Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That which I Am Seeking (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), disc 1 (CD, MP3 download);

In the Footsteps of Francis: Awakening to Creation (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2010), CD, MP3 download;

and Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer (Paulist Press, 2014).

Incarnation Is Already Redemption

The alternative orthodoxy of Francis and the mainline orthodoxy of most Christian denominations largely have different starting points. Francis' alternative orthodoxy emphasizes incarnation instead of redemption. For Franciscans, Christmas is already Easter because in becoming a human being, God already shows that it's good to be human, to be flesh. The problem is already somehow solved. Flesh does not need to be redeemed by any sacrificial atonement theory. This opens up an entirely different field in which to move freely.  

Our sense of shame and guilt seems to localize in the body. The body ages and dies and so it looks inferior, but actually the soul can age and die too, and that is probably what we meant by the word "hell." Both body and soul are on a journey. Of all people, Christians should have known that "flesh" is not a bad word. In fact, "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14) according to the inspired words of John's Gospel.  Unfortunately Paul used the same word "flesh" (sarx) in a most judgmental and dualistic way--and that is the one most people remember. It got us off to a bad start.

I think my wonderful Church history and liturgy professor, Fr. Larry Landini, in Centerville, Ohio, may have given the best explanation for why so many Christians seem to be ashamed and afraid of the body. In 1970, on the last day of class, as he was backing out of the classroom, Fr. Landini offered these final words to us: "Just remember, on the practical level the Christian Church has been much more influenced by Plato than it has been by Jesus." He then left the room, leaving us laughing and stunned, but fully prepared to understand the sad truth of what he had just said, since he had led us through the history of spirituality and liturgy for four full years.

For Plato, body and soul were incompatible enemies; matter and spirit were at deep odds with one another, utter opposites. But for Jesus, there is no animosity between body, soul, and spirit whatsoever. In fact, this is the heart of Jesus' healing message, and this is why incarnation is at the heart of Franciscan theology. Jesus healed both body and soul in most Gospel stories.

Francis understood the deep implications of the Incarnation and took Incarnation to its logical conclusions: Real Presence is everywhere--in the neighbor, in the other, in nature, in animals, in Brother Sun and Sister Moon, in sinner and enemies, in the collective Body of Christ, and yes, in distilled form in the bread and in the wine, just as it was distilled and focused in the person of Jesus. The principle is this: we must struggle with the truth in one concrete place--and then universalize from there. This has sometimes been called the first philosophical problem of "the one and the many."

The Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed, which many Christians recite at church, go back to the second and third centuries. In them we say, "We believe in the resurrection of the body." I want to point out what that is not saying: We believe in the resurrection of the spirit or the soul--yet that is exactly what most Christians have almost exclusively concentrated on. The Christian religion makes the most daring affirmation: God is redeeming matter and spirit, or the whole of creation. The very end of the Bible speaks of the "new heavens and the new earth" and the descent of the "new Jerusalem from the heavens" to "live among us" (Revelation 21:1-3). This physical universe and our own physicality are somehow going to share in the Eternal Mystery, whatever it is in its fullness. Embodiment is not insignificant; your body is not bad. In fact, it is the new and lasting temple (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and throughout Paul). It is the very hiding place of God--so only the humble and the humbled will find such a Treasure.

For much of Christian history we've severely limited people's in-depth experience of God by making religious faith largely into a set of mental abstractions. We split the mind from the body and both of them from the spirit. Many of us are now victims of not knowing how to receive, access, enjoy, suffer, and appreciate what can only be known in its wholeness. No wonder so many have left the church, doubt the truth of Christianity, become practical materialists inside the church (including many clergy) or agnostics and atheists outside the church (including many who are actual "believers"). I am not sure which is sadder. What they seem to affirm or seem to reject is too often not the real thing anyway. As wise Augustine said in the 4th century, "God has many that the church does not have; and the church has many that God does not have." Any who put body and spirit together are already "had" by God! They are privileged to "carry in their bodies the very brand marks of Jesus" (Galatians 6:17).

Reference:

Adapted from Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That which I Am Seeking (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), discs 3 and 4 (CD, MP3 download);

Fully Human, Fully Divine

Francis emphasized an imitation and love of the humanity of Jesus, and not just the proving or worshiping of his divinity. Even Christian art changed after Francis; take a look at paintings before and after Francis' life (1182-1226) or Medieval Art from the 5th century through the 15th century. Francis fell in love with the humanity and humility of Jesus, which made Jesus imitable. But in most of Christian history we have emphasized the divinity, omnipotence, omniscience, and "almightiness" of Jesus, which makes actually following him--or loving him--seem unrealistic. We are on two utterly different planes. A God who is "totally other" alienates totally.

I hope this doesn't upset some of my Christian friends, but an awful lot of Christians are not really Christian. That's not a moral judgment; it's a description. Many Christians simply believe in a Supreme Being who made all things; that Supreme Being happens to be Jesus. He was the available God figure in Europe, so we pushed him into that position, while avoiding Jesus' living message: that the human and the divine coexist in him. He is actually a "third something." This is hard for us to grasp or even imagine, because it seems a contradiction in terms, an irreconcilable paradox. Already in Byzantine art and many later icons Jesus is shown holding up his two fingers, indicating, "I am fully human, and I am fully divine at the same time." We were struck dumb by this paradox.

For most Christians today, Jesus is totally divine, but not really human. Here is the price we pay for our inability to think non-dually: When we deny what Jesus holds together, we can't put it together in ourselves! And that's the whole point: you and I are also daughters of heaven and daughters of earth, sons of God and sons of this world. Both are true at the same time, which defies all reason and logic. We also are a living paradox. But we need a model, an exemplar, a promise, and a guarantee (all words used in Pauline letters) to imagine such a far off impossibility. For us, that model is Jesus. In Scholastic philosophy we call this an "Exemplary Cause"; this is how Jesus "causes" our salvation. It is not a magic act accomplished by moral behavior; rather, salvation is a gradual realization of who we are--and always have been--and will be eternally.

Two years before he died, in September of 1224, Francis' body was emblazoned with the stigmata, the five wounds of Christ. This is highly documented and attested to--not a Catholic fairy tale. Francis walked around like a living Christ the last two years of his life and this was witnessed by crowds of people. Clearly the Christ Mystery was something Francis believed not just with his mind, but lived with his spirit and his body; so much so that it finally overtook him in a psychosomatic way. Modern science now recognizes that psychic diseases and memories do affect our bodies in profound ways. Body and soul really are one, and psychology and medicine are making this more and more obvious and compelling for our practical lives. To live happily in such wholeness is often called holiness.

References:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 82;

The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis (Sounds True: 2010), disc 3 (CD);

and Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), disc 4 (CD, MP3 download).

Incarnation instead of Atonement

Franciscans never believed that "blood atonement" was required for God to love us. Our teacher, John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), said Christ was Plan A from the very beginning (Colossians 1:15-20, Ephesians 1:3-14). Christ wasn't a mere Plan B after the first humans sinned, which is the way most people seem to understand the significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Great Mystery of Incarnation could not be a mere mop-up exercise, a problem solving technique, or dependent on human beings messing up.

Scotus taught that the Enfleshment of God had to proceed from God's perfect love and God's perfect and absolute freedom (John 1:1-18), rather than from any mistake of ours. Did God intend no meaning or purpose for creation during the first 14.8 billion years? Was it all just empty, waiting for sinful humans to set the only real drama into motion? Did the sun, moon, and galaxies have no divine significance? The fish, the birds, the animals were just waiting for humans to appear? Was there no Divine Blueprint ("Logos") from the beginning? Surely this is the extreme hubris and anthropomorphism of the human species!

The substitutionary atonement "theory" (and that's all it is) seems to imply that the Eternal Christ's epiphany in Jesus is a mere afterthought when the first plan did not work out. I know there are many temple metaphors of atonement, satisfaction, ransom, "paying the price," and "opening the gates"; but do know they are just that--metaphors of transformation and transitioning. Too many Christians understood these in a transactional way instead of a transformational way.

How and why would God need a "blood sacrifice" before God could love what God had created? Is God that needy, unfree, unloving, rule-bound, and unable to forgive? Once you say it, you see it creates a nonsensical theological notion that is very hard to defend. Many rightly or wrongly wondered, "What will God ask of me if God demands violent blood sacrifice from his only Son?" Particularly if they had a rageaholic or abusive parent, they were already programmed to believe in punishment as the shape of the universe. A violent theory of redemption legitimated punitive and violent problem solving all the way down--from papacy to parenting. There eventually emerged a disconnect between the founding story of necessary punishment and Jesus' message. If God uses and needs violence to attain God's purposes, maybe Jesus did not really mean what he said in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), and violent means are really good and necessary. Thus our history.

In Franciscan parlance, Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity; Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. This grounds Christianity in pure love and perfect freedom from the very beginning. It creates a very coherent and utterly positive spirituality, which draws people toward lives of inner depth, prayer, reconciliation, healing, and even universal "at-one-ment," instead of mere sacrificial atonement. Nothing changed on Calvary, but everything was revealed as God's suffering love--so that we could change! (Please read that again.)

Jesus was precisely the "once and for all" (Hebrews 7:27) sacrifice given to reveal the lie and absurdity of the very notion and necessity of "sacrificial" religion itself. Heroic sacrifices to earn God's love are over! That's much of the point of Hebrews 10 if you are willing to read it with new eyes. But we perpetuated such regressive and sacrificial patterns by making God the Father into the Chief Sacrificer, and Jesus into the necessary victim. Is that the only reason to love Jesus?

This perspective allowed us to ignore Jesus' lifestyle and preaching, because all we really needed Jesus for was the last three days or three hours of his life. This is no exaggeration. The irony is that Jesus undoes, undercuts, and defeats the sacrificial game. Stop counting, measuring, deserving, judging, and punishing, which many Christians are very well trained in--because they believe that was the way God operated too. This is no small thing. It makes the abundant world of grace largely inaccessible--which is, of course, the whole point.

It is and has always been about love from the very beginning.

References:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), disc 3 (CD, MP3 download);

and Things Hidden: Scripture As Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2007), 200-202.

                                                                                  

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION?

Taken from the blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Baltimore, USA. The original blog can be found here

In this week’s post, I’d like to introduce you to something we’ve started at Church of the Nativity. We’re pretty excited and we think you will be too.

It’s called: the Rebuilt Parish Association, or the “RPA” for short.

We officially launched the RPA during our Matter.15 conference this past November. Based on all the great feedback and increase of questions and requests related to our book Rebuilt, we wanted to find a new way to foster a national and international community of like-minded churches looking to “rebuild,” and then help provide resources we’ve found most effective for growing a healthy parish.

The RPA’s mission is simple. We focus on three things. 1) Equip 2) Inspire 3) Encourage

We exist to equip parishes by developing and providing effective and proven ministry materials. Parishes will have access to many of our past message series transcripts and videos, as well as curriculum for small groups, children’s ministry and more. It’s all geared toward the practical, easy to implement steps to get that ministry out of your staff’s head and into the lives of your parishioners.

Then we want to inspire parishes by hosting inspirational teaching events. We’ve already hosted a number of accessible and practical webinars featuring our staff members on topics like how to build and run a small group program and how to preach a message series. We’re there to answer questions in real time and get to the bottom of what works in ministry and what doesn’t.

And finally we want to encourage parishes by facilitating idea sharing and conveying compelling advice. Each webinar, for example, has generated a lot of collaboration and great ideas from members of different parish staffs across the country, not just us. That’s the goal. Encouragement also means learning from one another. That’s really where the RPA came from, when our staff realized (and continues to realize) we had a lot to learn from the healthiest and fastest growing churches in the country, which just so happened to be evangelical megachurches like Saddleback and Willow Creek.

Evangelization and discipleship isn’t about another program or curriculum, and we have no intention of making the RPA just another one of those things. We think it’s part of a movement. It’s about learning how to collaborate as a team of churches, together forming the Church, in a way that can effectively move your parish and parishioner’s hearts.


It’s really all about Making Church Matter, isn’t it?

                                                                           

Patrick: 

the saint who couldn’t be silent

This article from the ThinkingFaith.org website - tells the story of St Patrick the original article can be found here

On 17 March, people across the world will discover their long-forgotten Irish ancestry, or blithely ignore their lack of any relation to the Emerald Isle, and join together in celebration of St Patrick’s Day. Its worldwide popularity speaks not only of the human fondness for an excuse for a party, but also of the extraordinary diaspora of Irish people around the world. St Patrick is patron of famous destinations of Irish migrants like New York, Newark and Boston, and also of places as unlikely as Nigeria, Melbourne and Rolla, Missouri. But what is behind all of these parties? 

Like so many Christian feasts, St Patrick’s Day has been somewhat hijacked. In a similar way to Christmas and Easter, a secular celebration has taken over a time of real joy for Christians – it is so often said that it is hardly worth repeating, but the accoutrements of Christmas go on sale towards the end of summer, to be replaced by Easter eggs on 1 January. Another example is the feast day of St Valentine. Although still celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, this saint has disappeared from our ordinary liturgical celebrations, partly because very little is known about him. This, however, has not stopped the explosion of the commercial celebration of St Valentine’s Day. 

The situation is very similar for St Patrick. We really have no idea who he was, but from some of the writing attributed to him[1] we can say that he was a Romano-British peasant, although we cannot say with any certainty where he was born. Nor can we be sure when exactly he lived, but it seems most likely that he was active as a missionary in Ireland in the second half of the fifth century. As a child of sixteen he was kidnapped and taken slave in Ireland, before which time he was not, according to his Confessio, a practising Christian. In Ireland, the kidnapped Patrick was put to work as a shepherd, and he spent much time in prayer and fasting as he came to know God more. He tells us that after six years he began to receive visions, and one of the first was that a ship was waiting to take him home to his family. He escaped from his captivity and ran many miles to the coast to get to the ship and eventually, through many a twist and tale, to his family.  

In another, later vision, Patrick received the clearest sense of his vocation as a missionary priest and bishop. He tells us that he:

…saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: ‘The Voice of the Irish’. As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea – and they cried out, as with one voice: ‘We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us’.[2]

This Victoricus could be the saintly bishop of Rouen, St Victricius, which would fit with the fact that Patrick studied in France for the priesthood. After ordination he acted on the vision and left for Ireland, where he spent many years in missionary endeavours. Although we cannot be certain where exactly he worked, it seems that it was mainly in modern day Northern Ireland and on the West Coast of Ireland, eventually being ordained Bishop of Armagh.

But what does this saint, so strong in missionary zeal and about whom we know very little, have to do with our modern day celebrations? In many ways, very little – St Patrick has about as much to do with a pint of Guinness as St Valentine has to do with a box of chocolates and a romantic meal for two. 

The answer comes from the Confessio itself. In the very opening paragraphs of the autobiography, St Patrick offers a meditation on the gift of faith and the praise that we owe in return to God for such a gift. Perhaps this is St Patrick’s greatest relevance, particularly in a culture that seems increasingly hostile to declarations of faith. He refuses to stay quiet; his evangelising zeal comes from knowing that he must speak to others of Christ:

That is why I cannot be silent – nor would it be good to do so – about such great blessings and such a gift that the Lord so kindly bestowed in the land of my captivity. This is how we can repay such blessings, when our lives change and we come to know God, to praise and bear witness to his great wonders before every nation under heaven.[3]

Throughout the Confessio St Patrick speaks intimately about his feelings of unworthiness and sinfulness, but he also recounts the story of his conversion and his change of life as an act of thanksgiving to God. Despite the fact that we do not know all that much about him, and very little with certainty, he still teaches us that the Christian life is one of continual conversion, and that conversion requires a change of heart and a renewal of action in our lives. It seems oddly appropriate that St Patrick’s feast falls in the middle of Lent, a time when we are reminded of our need for conversion and repentance.

Of course, this is not to say that we should not celebrate St Patrick’s Day at all. Synthetic and de-Christianised it may be, but Christians can and should celebrate the feast of one of the great saints of Britain. The only way that we can hope to maintain Christian traditions within a secular culture is to stick to them; to keep the penitential seasons of Lent and Easter faithfully and celebrate Christmas and Easter well. These seasons and feasts offer us a chance to reclaim something of the Christian tradition surrounding them.

Enjoy the celebrations of St Patrick’s Day, but remember Christ’s call to conversion in your life; a call to conversion and change that St Patrick felt so strongly that he left behind everything he had and followed Jesus so that he might bring the gospel to others.

                                                        

THE POWER OF FEAR

From an article posted by Fr Ron Rolheiser. The original posting can be found here

Fear is the heartbeat of the powerless. So writes Cor de Jonghe. That’s true. We can deal with most everything, except fear.

The late Belgium spiritual writer, Bieke Vandekerkehove, in a very fine book, The Taste of Silence, shared very honestly about the demons that beset her as she faced a terminal illness at age nineteen.  She singled out three particular demons that tormented her as she faced the prospect of death, sadness, anger, and fear, and she suggested that we can more easily cope with the first two, sadness and anger, than we can with the third, fear. Here’s her thought:

Sadness can be handled through tears, through grieving. Sadness fills us like a water glass, but a glass can be emptied. Tears can drain sadness of its bite. We have all, no doubt, experienced the release, the catharsis, that can come through tears. Tears can soften the heart and take away the bitterness of sadness, even while its heaviness remains. Sadness, no matter how heavy, has a release valve. So too does anger. Anger can be expressed and its very expression helps release it so that it flows out of us. No doubt too we have also experienced this. The caution, of course, is that in expressing anger and giving it release we need to be careful not to hurt others, which is the ever-present danger when dealing with anger. With anger we have many outlets: We can shout in rage, beat drum, punch a bag, use profanity, physically exercise until we’re exhausted, smash some furniture, utter murderous threats, and rage away at countless things. This isn’t necessarily rational and some of these things aren’t necessarily moral, but they offer some release.  We have means to cope with anger.

Fear, on the other hand, has no such release valves. Most often, there’s nothing we can do to lighten or release it.  Fear paralyses us, and this paralysis is the very thing what robs us of the strength we would need to combat it. We can beat a drum, rage in profanity, or cry tears, but fear remains. Moreover, unlike anger, fear cannot be taken out on someone else, even though we sometimes try, by scapegoating. But, in the end, it doesn’t work. The object of our fear doesn’t go away simply because we wish it away. Fear can only be suffered. We have to live with it until it recedes on its own. Sometimes, as the Book of Lamentations suggests, all we can do is to put our mouth to the dust and wait.  With fear, sometimes all we can do is endure.

What’s the lesson in this?

In her memoirs, the Russian poet, Anna Akhmatova, recounts an encounter she once had with another woman, as the two of them waited outside a Russian prison. Both of their husbands had been imprisoned by Stalin and both of them were there to bring letters and packages to their husbands, as were a number of other women. But the scene was like something out of the existential literature of the absurd. The situation was bizarre. First of all, the women were unsure of whether their husbands were even still alive and were equally uncertain as to whether the letters and packages they were delivering would ever be given to their loved ones by the guards. Moreover the guards would, without reason, make them wait for hours in the snow and cold before they would collect their letters and packages, and sometimes they wouldn’t meet the women at all. Still, every week, despite the absurdity of it, the women would come, wait in the snow, accept this unfairness, do their vigil, and try to get letters and packages to their loved ones in prison. One morning, as they were waiting, seemingly with no end in sight, one of the women recognized Akhmatova and said to her: “Well, you’re a poet. Can you tell me what’s happening here?” Akhmatova looked at the woman and replied: “Yes, I can!” And then something like a smile passed between them.

Why the smile? Just to be able to name something, no matter how absurd or unfair, no matter our powerlessness to change it, is to be somehow free of it, above it, transcendent in some way. To name something correctly is to partly free ourselves of its dominance. That’s why totalitarian regimes fear artists, writers, religious critics, journalists, and prophets.  They name things. That’s ultimately the function of prophecy. Prophets don’t foretell the future, they properly name the present. Richard Rohr is fond of saying: Not everything can be fixed or cured, but it should be named properly. James Hillman has his own way of casting this. He suggests that a symptom suffers most when it doesn’t know where it belongs.


This can be helpful in dealing with fear in our lives. Fear can render us impotent. But, naming that properly, recognizing where that symptom belongs and how powerless it leaves us, can help us to live with it, without sadness and anger.