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: Parish Office:
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Jenny Garnsey
Pastoral Council Chair: Jenny Garnsey
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.
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Weekday Masses 31st May - 3rd June, 2016
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 12noon
Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
12noon Devonport
Mass Times Next Weekend 4th & 5th June
2016
Saturday: 9:00am Ulverstone
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin (L.W.C.) & Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell (L.W.C.)
9:00am
Ulverstone
10:30am
Devonport (L.W.C.)
11:00am
Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Every
Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Devonport: Benediction with Adoration - first Friday of
each month.
Legion of Mary: Sacred Heart Church Community Room,
Ulverstone, Wednesdays, 11am
Christian Meditation:
Devonport, Emmaus House - Wednesdays 7pm.
Prayer Group:
Charismatic Renewal
Devonport, Emmaus House - Thursdays 7.30pm
Ministry Rosters 4th & 5th June, 2016
Readers: Vigil: M Gaffney, M Gerrand, H Lim
10:30am E Petts, K Douglas
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil D Peters,
M Heazlewood, S Innes, M Gerrand,
P Shelverton, M Kenney
10.30am: F Sly, E Petts, K Hull, S Arrowsmith, G & S Fletcher
10.30am: F Sly, E Petts, K Hull, S Arrowsmith, G & S Fletcher
Cleaners 3rd June: M.W.C. 10th June: K.S.C.
Piety Shop 4th June: H Thompson 5th June: O McGinley
Flowers:M O’Brien-Evans
Ulverstone:
Reader: E Cox Ministers of
Communion:
E Reilly, M
& K McKenzie, M O’Halloran
Cleaners: M Swain, M
Bryan Flowers: M Bryan Hospitality:
B O’Rourke, S McGrath
Penguin:
Greeter: J & T Kiely Commentator: Reader: J Barker
Procession: Fifita family Ministers of Communion: A Guest, S Ewing
Liturgy: Sulphur Creek C Setting Up: M Murray Care of Church: Y & R Downes
Latrobe:
Reader: P Marlow Ministers of Communion: I Campbell, M Eden
Procession: Parishioners Music:
Jenny
Port Sorell:
Readers: V Duff, G Duff Ministers of Communion: T Jeffries
Clean/Flow/Prepare: C Howard
Readings this Week: The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
(Corpus Christi) – Year C
First Reading: Genesis 14:18-20
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Gospel: Luke 9:11-17
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAYS GOSPEL:
I settle down comfortably in the place where I like to pray
and ask the Holy Spirit to open my heart and mind. Perhaps, I can light a
candle to remind me of the Lord’s presence. I read this familiar text several
times and then perhaps put it aside. I try to visualise the scene, the
location, the people. I hear their voices, their comments. To whom do I feel
close? Where do I stand? Maybe I am an onlooker, or I imagine myself as one of
the characters. What happens? Perhaps I am struck by Jesus’ actions as he
prepares the food: he blesses it, breaks it, hands it over to be distributed to
the people. Does it remind me of anything? I stay with the scene as long as I
can and gradually become aware of my own feelings. I ponder. In my life, who
are the hungry, whether materially or spiritually? What do I do to feed them? I
look at myself: what do I hunger for? I speak to the Lord and tell him what is
in my heart. I listen. Eventually, I slowly take my leave, thanking the Lord
for any insights he has given me.
Readings Next Week: 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
First Reading: 1 Kings 17:17-24
Second Reading: Galatians 1:11-19
Gospel: Luke 7:11-17
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
Wendy Lander, Mary Powell, Noreen Burton, Joan
Singline, Lorna Jones, Geraldine Roden, Joy Carter &..........
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Pamela Jack, Betty Broadbent, Jack Choveaux, Alicia Visorro, Sonal Perera, Anthony
Smith, Olga Andruszko, Maureen McManus and Bernadette Williams.
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 25th
– 31st May
Kathleen Bennell, Shirley Keenan,
Dianne McMullen, Joseph Mantuano, Ida Penraat, George Batten, Tracie Cox, Joseph Sallese, Lorraine Keen,
Dalton Smith, Robert Roberts, Mary Marlow, Graeme Garland, Bernard Stubbs, Vera Tolson, Mary Hyland, Beryl
Purton, Rita Beach, Miss Barbara O’Rourke, Nanette O’Brien, Johanna Smink, Lois Dudfiled. Also Genaro &
Jeffrey Visorro, Fortunato & Asuncion Carcuevas, Robert Patrick King, Bruce
Smith and Ma Arrah Deiparine.
May
they Rest in Peace
WEEKLY
RAMBLINGS:
Last
weekend at the Ulverstone Mass I mentioned that there was a possibility that
the Presbytery might be able to be used for a Rapid Assistance Program of the
State Government. CatholicCare has several properties around the State that can
be used in an emergency and they would like to offer the Presbytery for use by
the program for a set period of time. If anyone has any questions or comments
please see Corey McGrath or Ken McKenzie (members of the Parish Finance
Committee) or Ed Reilly (member of the Pastoral Council) – all members of the
Ulverstone Community - and they will be addressed as soon as practically
possible.
I
leave on my holidays this Monday 30th returning for the weekend 9th/10th
July. During my time away I will be visiting Ireland, a Parish in the USA,
attending a Conference on Parish Renewal in Canada, a conference in Dublin as
well as spending time with friends in Ireland and trying to keep the weight
off. On most weekends Fr Alex will be supported by Fr Emmanuel (from the
Cathedral), although he will be by himself during the week.
I
will try and send back my weekly ramblings (they really will be ramblings) from
wherever I am each week – not because I have to but because that’s just what I
do. I’ll also have a Holiday Blog and that can be accessed by visiting http://holidaysjune2016.blogspot.com.au
– there is something there now but it will be really up and running next week. My
weekly homily will also be uploaded whilst I am away – for the most part they
have already been written and will just be tweaked at the last minute so don’t
worry that I am doing extra work whilst away.
This
coming Friday, 3rd June, we celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart.
Mass on Friday will be 9:30am at Our Lady of Lourdes Church and 11am at Sacred
Heart with the children of the school. Following Mass parishioners are invited
to gather for lunch at the Lighthouse. Also, we encourage all parishioners to
join us for Mass at Ulverstone on Sunday morning (9am) and then remain for
Morning Tea to celebrate the Feast Day.
My
mobile will be off line from Monday morning although my email will work whilst
I am away. So please take care and I look forward to catching up when I return.
KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS: will be meeting Sunday 29th May at the Quality Gateway Inn, Fenton Street Devonport for a social get together with wives/partners commencing at 5.30 pm followed by a meal at 6.00pm.
ST MARY’S COLLEGE OSA:
Annual General Meeting will be held 12noon Saturday 4th
June at Felicity’s home. All members welcome. RSVP Monday 30th May,
Felicity Sly 6424:1933 or Lillian Hay 6428:2773
MT ST VINCENT AUXILIARY:
Will be holding a ‘Craft & Cake Stall’ after Mass next Sunday
5th June in the Community Room, Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone.
CHARISMATIC
PRAYER GROUP:
Will be meeting on Thursday 9 June 2016 in Our Lady of
Lourdes Church Devonport 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm with prayer, praise,
reflection, worship, Adoration and Benediction. All welcome.
FOOTY POINTS MARGIN TICKETS: Round
9 – Sydney won by 14 points - Winners; Nita Bourke
BINGO….
Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall,
Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 2nd
June – Jon Halley & Alan Luxton
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
The critical importance of Fathering. The afternoon will
include a discussion on the importance of Fathers and Grandfathers, and some
practical insights and information on Intentional Fathering.
Presented by Robert Falzon, co-founder of MenAlive. Copies
of Robert’s new book co-authored with Dr Peter O’Shea, The Father Factor, will
be on sale for $20.00 (normal retail $25.00).
Venue: The Murphy Room, Catholic Diocesan Centre, 35 Tower
Road, New Town25th June – 1pm – 5pm. Cost $8.00. Register by COB 17th
June. For more information and to RSVP: Martin Stone 6223:8132 or martin.stone@menalive.org.au
Parish
Office and all parishioners of Mersey Leven wish Fr Mike a very safe and happy
holiday (if you can call it a holiday!!) and we look forward to hearing all
about his adventure when he returns.
Let us pray the
traditional Gaelic Blessing for Fr Mike:
May the wind
always be at your back
May the sun
shine warm upon your face
May rains fall
softly on your fields
And until we
meet again
May God hold you
in the palm of his hand
FAITH AND FEAR
From an article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original article can be found here
A common soldier dies without fear, yet Jesus died afraid. Iris Murdoch wrote this and that truth can be somewhat disconcerting. Why? If someone dies with deep faith, shouldn’t he or she die within a certain calm and trust drawn from that faith? Wouldn’t the opposite seem more logical, that is, if someone dies without faith shouldn’t he or she die with more fear? And perhaps the most confusing of all: Why did Jesus, the paragon of faith, die afraid, crying out in a pain that can seem like a loss of faith?
The problem lies in our understanding. Sometimes we can be very naïve about faith and its dynamics, thinking that faith in God is a ticket to earthly peace and joy. But faith isn’t a path to easy calm, nor does it assure us that we will exit this life in calm, and that can be pretty unsettling and perplexing at times. Here’s an example:
The renowned spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, in a book entitled, In Memoriam, shares this story around his mother’s death: Nouwen, a native of the Netherlands, was teaching in the USA when he received a call that his mother was dying back home in the Netherlands. On his flight home, from New York to Amsterdam, he reflected on his mother’s faith and virtue and concluded that she was the most Christian woman he had ever known. With that as a wonderfully consoling thought, he fantasied about how she would die, how her last hours would be filled with faith and calm, and how that faith and calm would be her final, faith-filled witness to her family.
But that’s not the way it played out. Far from being calm and unafraid, his mother, in the final hours leading up to her death, was seemingly in the grip of some inexplicable darkness, of some deep inner disquiet, and of something that looked like the antithesis of faith. For Nouwen this was very disconcerting. Why? Why would his mother be undergoing this disquiet when for all her life she had been a woman of such strong faith?
Initially this unsettled him deeply, until a deeper understanding of faith broke through: His mother had been a woman who every day of her adult life had prayed to Jesus, asking him to empower her to live as he lived and to die as he died. Well, seemingly, her prayer was heard. She did die like Jesus who, though having a rock-solid faith, sweated blood while contemplating his own death and then cried out on the cross, anguished with the feeling that God had forsaken him. In brief, her prayer had been answered. She had asked Jesus to let her die as he did and, given her openness to it, her prayer was granted, to the confusion of her family and friends who had expected a very different scene. That is also true for the manner of Jesus’ death and the reaction of his family and disciples. This isn’t the way anyone naturally fantasizes the death of a faith-filled person.
But a deeper understanding of faith reverses that logic: Looking at the death of Henri Nouwen’s mother, the question is not, how could this happen to her? The question is rather: Why wouldn’t this happen to her? It’s what she asked for and, being a spiritual athlete who asked God to send her the ultimate test, why wouldn’t God oblige?
There’s a certain parallel to this in the seeming doubts suffered by Mother Teresa. When her diaries were published and revealed her dark night of the soul, many people were shocked and asked: How could this happen to her? A deeper understanding of faith would, I believe, ask instead: Why wouldn’t this happen to her, given her faith and her openness to enter into Jesus’ full experience?
But, this has still a further complication: Sometimes for person of deep faith it doesn’t happen this way and instead he or she dies calm and unafraid, buoyed up by faith like a safe ship on stormy waters. Why does this happen to some and not to others? We have no answer. Faith doesn’t put us all one the same conveyor-belt where one dynamic fits all. Sometimes people with deep faith die, as Jesus did, in darkness and fear; and sometimes people with deep faith they die in calm and peace.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross submits that each of us goes through five clear stages in dying, namely, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Kathleen Dowling Singh suggests that what Kubler-Ross defines as acceptance needs some further nuance. According to Singh, the toughest part of that acceptance is full surrender and, prior to that surrender, some people, though not everyone, will undergo a deep interior darkness that, on the surface, can look like despair. Only after that, do they experience joy and ecstasy.
All of us need to learn the lesson that Nouwen learned at his mother’s deathbed: Faith, like love, admits of various modalities and may not be judged simplistically from the outside.
Bias From
the Bottom Week 1
Liberation Theology
One of the
great themes of the Bible, which begins in the Hebrew Scriptures and is
continued in Jesus and Paul, is called "the preferential option for the
poor"; I call it "the bias toward the bottom." We see the
beginnings of this theme about 1200 years before Christ with an enslaved people
in Egypt. Through their history God chooses to engage humanity in a social and
long-standing conversation. The Hebrew people's exodus out of slavery, through
twists and turns and dead ends, finally brings them to the Promised Land,
eventually called Israel. This is a standing archetype of the perennial
spiritual journey from entrapment to liberation. It is the universal story.
Moses,
himself a man at "the bottom" (a murderer on the run and caring for
his father-in-law's sheep), first encounters God in a burning bush (Exodus
3:2). Like so many initial religious experiences, this happens while Moses is
alone--externally and interiorly. The encounter is nature-based and transcendent
at the same time: "Take off your shoes; this is holy ground" (see
Exodus 3:5). This religious experience is immediately followed by a call to a
very costly social concern for Moses' own oppressed people, whom he had not
cared about up to then. God said, "I have heard the groaning of my people
in Egypt. You, Moses, are to go confront the Pharaoh and tell him to let my
people go" (see Exodus 3:9-10).
There, at
the very beginning of the Judeo-Christian tradition, is the perfect integration
of action and contemplation. First, the transformative experience takes place
through the burning bush. Immediately it has social, economic, historical, and
political implications. How did we ever lose sight of this when our Scriptures
and tradition begin this way? The connection is clear.
There is no
authentic God experience that does not situate you in the world in a very
different way. After an encounter with True Presence you see things quite
differently, and it gives you freedom from your usual loyalties and low-level
payoffs--the system that gave you your security, your status, your economics,
and your very identity. Your screen of life expands exponentially. This
transformation has costly consequences. Moses had to leave Pharaoh's palace to
ask new questions and become the liberator of his people.
I believe
the Exodus story is the root of all liberation theology, which Jesus fully
teaches and exemplifies, especially in the three synoptic Gospels (see Luke
4:18-19). Jesus is primarily a healer of
the poor and powerless. That we do not even notice this reveals our blindness
to Jesus' obvious bias.
Liberation
theology focuses on freeing people from religious, political, social, and
economic oppression (i.e., what Pope John Paul II called "structural
sin" and "institutional evil"). It goes beyond just trying to
free individuals from their own particular "naughty behaviors," which
is what sin now seems to mean to most people in our individualistic culture.
Structural sin is accepted as good and necessary on the corporate or national
level. Large organizations--including the Church--and governments get away with
and are even applauded for killing (war), greed, vanity, pride, and ambition.
Yet individuals are condemned for committing these same sins. Such a convenient
split will never create great people, nations, or religions.
Liberation
theology, instead of legitimating the self-serving status quo, tries to read
reality, history, and the Bible not from the side of the powerful, but from the
side of the pain. Its beginning point is not sin management, but "Where is
the suffering?" Our starting point makes all the difference in how we read
the Bible. Jesus spends little time trying to ferret out sinners or impose
purity codes in any form. He just goes where the pain is. I dare you to try to
disprove that.
References:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Gospel Call for Compassionate Action (Bias from the Bottom) in
CAC Foundation Set (CAC: 2007), CD, MP3 download;
and Job and
the Mystery of Suffering (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 1998), 126.
The Invitation of Grace
As I shared
earlier this year, the Bible is "a text in travail." Sometimes the
biblical writers catch a glimpse of God's true character--love, mercy, and
justice--and sometimes they lose sight of it. Old Testament scholar and
theologian Walter Brueggemann traces the evolution of human consciousness
through three sections of Hebrew Scriptures: the Torah (the five books of the
Pentateuch), the Prophets, and the Wisdom literature (including Job, the Psalms,
Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes). Just as children must begin with structure
and rules, religion starts with setting boundaries, rituals, and rules about
who is in and who is out. It's all about protecting the status quo, our tribal
and egoic identity. But eventually we have to develop the capacity for
self-criticism, as the prophets did, which is the necessary second stage. If we
do both of these stages well, we will normally be catapulted toward wisdom and
holiness.
Another way
to look at this is a series of Order > Disorder > Reorder. Most
conservatives get trapped in the first step and most liberals get stuck in the
second. Healthy religion is all about getting you to the third, Reorder. There
is no nonstop flight. You must learn the wisdom of both the first and second
stages before moving on. Much of the chaos and instability of our time stems
from many young and sophisticated people now beginning life in the second stage
of Disorder and criticism, without first learning deeply from Order. It appears
to be a disaster. The three stages must be in proper sequence for life to
unfold somewhat naturally.
Throughout
Scripture, even in the first books of the Torah, there are wisdom statements
such as this: "I will do the work for you; you only need to be still"
(see Exodus 14:14). From the very beginning, we see the message of divine grace
forming. But the biblical stories quickly move back into legalism and priest
craft, painting a picture of God as demanding "smells and bells" and
purity and debt codes. Sometimes in the same paragraph you'll read an
absolutely enlightening line that just oozes with grace, and the next line is
punitive, accusatory, and shame-based. Grace and fear keep taking turns on
center stage. This is how life is for each of us, if we're honest.
The Bible
clearly affirms law, authority, and tradition, as most literature in history
has done, but then it does something different and even rare: it affirms
reform, change, and the voiceless. The Bible idealizes the victim, contrary to
most of the world's stories and histories. Think of David and Goliath, the
story of a young boy victorious over a giant. Yet when that boy becomes a king,
the prophet Nathan chastises and corrects him. The biblical text keeps
self-correcting. This is what makes the Bible an inspired book. It reveals an
alternative consciousness; it critiques itself.
This is the
necessary Disorder that keeps all Order from becoming idolatrous and
self-serving. The prophets always present Israel with "The Great
However" that stops them in their tracks. This "but" dispels any
idealization of perfect order, any so-called normal, forcing the people to
recognize their own hypocrisy and phony self-interest. The prophets help them
see that they are using religion to worship themselves and not Yahweh.
Prophetic criticism is never good news for pretenders and opportunists--which
is just about all of us until we learn the compassion, mercy, and forgiveness
that Disorder teaches us.
In my mind,
liberation theology, the Prophets, and the view from the side of pain, is
absolutely necessary to move us into the third stage of true Wisdom. To pass
through to Wisdom, we need to experience a major humiliation to our ego. This
often comes through suffering or failure--anything that brings us to readiness
before Grace and Mystery. But that very desire for grace and God is best
created by an initial experience of love, order, meaning, purpose, and
direction. The easiest path of growing up spiritually, and in many ways the
most natural, is to start with some "law and order." Then we must
critically recognize that Order cannot solve all or even most problems,
especially pain and suffering. Finally, without rejecting either Order or
Disorder, grace will move you toward God's Reorder. This is enlightened
awareness, which is not nearly as common as we would like.
References:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Gospel Call for Compassionate Action (Bias from the Bottom) in
CAC Foundation Set (CAC: 2007), CD, MP3 download;
and Dancing
Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer (Paulist Press: 2014),
94.
Stories from the Bottom
Most of
political and church history has been controlled and written by people who have
the access, the power, and the education to write books and get them published.
One of the few subversive texts in history, believe it or not, is the Bible!
The Bible is most extraordinary because it repeatedly and invariably
legitimizes the people on the bottom, and not the people on the top. The
rejected son, the barren woman, the sinner, the leper, or the outsider is
always the one chosen by God. Please do not take my word on this, but check it
out for yourself. It is rather obvious, but for some reason the obvious needs
to be pointed out to us. In every case, we are presented with some form of
powerlessness--and from that situation God creates a new kind of power. This is
the constant pattern which is hidden in plain sight.
Many barren
women are mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, and we repeatedly see God showing
them favor. Sarah, Abraham's wife, was barren and past child-bearing years when
God blessed her with baby Isaac (Genesis 17:15-19). Rachel, Jacob's wife, was
barren until God "opened her womb" and she bore Joseph (Genesis
30:22-24). Barren Hannah poured out her soul before the Lord, and God gave her
Samuel (1 Samuel 1).
Even before
Moses, God chose a "nobody," Abraham, and made him a somebody. God
chose Jacob over Esau, even though Esau was the elder, more earnest son and
Jacob was a shifty, deceitful character. Election has nothing to do with
worthiness but only divine usability, and in the Bible, usability normally
comes from having walked through one's own wrongness or "littleness."
We see this especially in Mary, a "humble servant" (Luke 1:48). God
chose Israel's first king, Saul, out of the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest and
weakest tribe. The pattern always seems to be that "the last will be
first, and the first will be last" (Matthew 20:16). This is so
consistently the pattern that we no longer recognize its subversive character.
They became merely sweet rags to riches stories.
One of the
more dramatic biblical stories in this regard is the story of David. God chose
him, the youngest and least experienced son of Jesse, to be king over the
nation. His father, who had many sons, did not even mentioned David as a
possibility, but left him out in the fields (1 Samuel 16). David was thus the
forgotten son who then became the beloved son of Yahweh, the archetypal whole
man of Israel, laying the foundation for the son of David, Jesus.
In case
after case, the victim becomes the real victor, leading Rene Girard to speak of
"the privileged position of the victim" as the absolutely unique and
revolutionary perspective of the Bible. Without it, we are hardly prepared to
understand the "folly of the cross" of Jesus. Without this bias from
the bottom, religion ends up defending propriety instead of human pain, the
status quo instead of the suffering masses, triumphalism instead of truth,
clerical privilege instead of charity and compassion. And this, from the Christianity that was once
"turning the whole world upside down" (Acts 17:6).
References:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer
(Paulist Press: 2014), 93;
and Richard
Rohr with Joseph Martos, The Great Themes of Scripture: Old Testament
(Franciscan Media: 1987), 49-50.
God's Most Distressing Disguise
In Jesus we
have an almost extreme example of God taking sides. It starts with one who
empties himself of all divinity (see Philippians 2:6-7), comes as a homeless
baby in a poor family, then a refugee in a foreign country, then an invisible
carpenter in his own country which is colonized and occupied by an imperial
power, ending as a "criminal," accused and tortured by heads of both
systems of power, temple and empire, abandoned by most of his inner circle,
subjected to the death penalty by a most humiliating and bizarre public ritual,
and finally buried quickly in an unmarked grave. If God in any way planned this
story line, God surely intended the message to be subversive, clear, and
unavoidable. Yet we largely made Jesus into a churchy icon that any priestly or
policing establishment could gather around without even blushing.
Ilia Delio,
a Franciscan scientist and theologian, challenges us to take the scandal and
downward movement of the Incarnation quite seriously and to let it rearrange
our priorities.
An
incarnational bias is evident today in our globalized culture. The
"problem" of immigrants, welfare recipients, incarcerated, mentally
ill, . . . disabled, and all who are marginalized by mainstream society, is a
problem of the incarnation. When we reject our relatedness to the poor, the
weak, the simple, and the unlovable we define the family of creation over and
against God. In place of God we decide who is worthy of our attention and who
can be rejected. Because of our deep fears, we spend time, attention, and money
on preserving our boundaries of privacy and increasing our knowledge and power.
We hermetically seal ourselves off from the undesired "other," the
stranger, and in doing so, we seal ourselves off from God. By rejecting God in
the neighbor, we reject the love that can heal us.
Until we
come to accept created reality with all its limits and pains as the living
presence of God, Christianity has nothing to offer to the world. It is sound
bites of empty promises. When we lose the priority of God's love in weak,
fragile humanity, we lose the Christ, the foundation on which we stand as
Christians.
Compassion
continues the Incarnation by allowing the Word of God to take root within us,
to be enfleshed in us. The Incarnation is not finished; it is not yet complete
for it is to be completed in us. [1]
Reference:
[1] Ilia
Delio, Compassion: Living in the Spirit of St. Francis, (Franciscan Media:
2011), 61.
Universal, Inherent Dignity
Paul offers
a theological and solid foundation for human dignity and human flourishing that
is inherent, universal, and indestructible by any evaluation, whether it be
race, religion, gender, nationality, class, education, or social position. We
now believe the reason that this one man enjoyed such immense success in such a
short time is that he gave human dignity back to a world that had largely lost
it. One more god in Greece and Asia Minor would have meant little, but when
Paul told shamed populations they were temples of the divine, this made hearts
burn with desire and hope.
The Acts
account of Pentecost goes out of its way to emphasize that people from all over
the world heard the Galileans speaking in the pilgrims' individual languages
after the descent of heavenly fire and wind (see Acts 2:1-11). At least 17
nations or groups are listed and "about three thousand persons" (Acts
2:41) were baptized and received the Holy Spirit that day. The theological
message is clear: God's favor is both totally democratic and unmerited. It was
meant to be the end of all tribal, ethnic, and elitist religion. But it did not
last long; by 313 A.D. Christianity began aligning with empires and emperors in
both Constantinople and Rome.
One of the
reasons Paul's teachings had so much influence in Asia Minor was that he
restored human dignity at a time when perhaps four out of five people were
slaves, women were considered the property of men, temple prostitution was a
form of worship, and oppression and injustice toward the poor and the outsider
were the universal norm. Human rights did not yet exist. Into this corrupt and
corrupting empire Paul shouts, "One and the same Spirit was given to us
all to drink!" (1 Corinthians 12:13). He utterly levels the playing field:
"You, all of you, are sons and daughters of God in Christ Jesus . . .
where there is no distinction between male or female, Greek or Jew, slave or
free, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (see Galatians 3:26-28).
This is
quite amazing, considering the divided world at the time! In Paul's estimation,
the old world was forever gone and a new world was born. This was surely
impossible and frightening to some people, but utterly attractive and hopeful
to the majority who had no dignity whatsoever. Who does not want to be told
they are worthy and good? Who does not want their social shame taken away? No
longer was the human body a cheap thing, degraded by slavery, or sexual,
verbal, and physical abuse. Paul is saying, "You are the very temple of
God." Scholars now believe this is Paul's supreme and organizing idea.
Such an unexpected affirmation of human dignity began to turn the whole Roman
Empire around.
Paul's
teaching on sexuality (1 Corinthians 6:15-20) is not the moralistic message
that many of us have come to expect from Christianity. Paul is just saying that
your body has dignity, so preserve it and defend it. We would now call this a
healthy sense of boundaries and identity. When a woman had no sexual protection
at all, this was revolutionary. A woman could now claim her own autonomy and refuse
to give her body away to every man who wanted it. A man could start respecting
and being responsible with his own body. This is a positive and dignifying
message, not a finger-shaking, moralistic one. But we are now coming at it from
the other side of history. People who hate Christianity after centuries of
shaming moralism must also be honest and admit that feminism most strongly
emerged in the Western cultures that were formed by what Rene Girard
brilliantly called "the virus of the Gospel."
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, an unpublished talk, February 2015 at the Center for Action and
Contemplation.
A View from the Bottom
In almost
all of history, the vast majority of people understood the view from the bottom
due to their own life circumstance. Most of the people who have ever lived on
this planet have been oppressed and poor. But their history was seldom written
except in the Bible (until very recently in such books as Howard Zinn's A
People's History of the United States). Only in modern times and wealthy
countries do we find the strange phenomenon of masses of people having an
establishment mentality.
This
relatively new thing called "the middle class" gives many of us just
enough comfort not to have to feel the pinch or worry about injustice for
ourselves. Most of us in the Northern Hemisphere have a view from the top even
though we are nowhere near the top ourselves. The mass of people can normally
be bought off by just giving them "bread and circuses," as the Romans
said. Many Americans can afford to be politically illiterate, hardly vote, and
terribly naive about money, war, and power. One wonders how soon this is going
to catch up with us.
Only by
solidarity with other people's suffering can comfortable people be converted.
Otherwise we are disconnected from the cross--of the world, of others, of
Jesus, and finally of our own necessary participation in the great mystery of
dying and rising. In the early Christian Scriptures, or the "New"
Testament, we clearly see that it's mostly the lame, the poor, the blind, the
prostitutes, the drunkards, the tax collectors, the sinners--those on the
bottom and the outside--that really hear Jesus' teaching and get the point and
respond to him. It's the leaders and insiders (the priests, scribes, Pharisees,
teachers of the law, and Roman leaders) who crucify him. That is evident in the
text.
How did we
miss such a core point about how power coalesces and corrupts, no matter who
has it? Once Christians were the empowered group, we kept this obvious point
from hitting home by blaming the Jews, then heretics, then sinners. But
arrogant power is always the problem, not the Jews or any other scapegoated
group. When any racial, gender, or economic group has all the power it does the
same thing--no exceptions. Catholics would have crucified Jesus too if he had
critiqued the Catholic Church the way he did his own religion.
After Jesus'
death and resurrection, the first Christians go "underground." They
are the persecuted ones, meeting in secrecy in the catacombs. During this time,
we see a lot of good interpretation of the Scriptures, with a liberationist
worldview (i.e., a view from the bottom). The Church was largely of the poor
and for the poor.
The turning
point, at which the Church moved from the bottom to the top, is the year 313
A.D. when Emperor Constantine supposedly did the Church a great favor by
beginning to make Christianity the established religion of the Holy Roman
Empire. That's how the Apostolic Church became Roman Catholicism. As the
Church's interests became linked with imperial world views, our perspective
changed from the view from the bottom and powerlessness (the persecuted, the
outsiders) to the view from the top where we were now the ultimate insiders
(with power, money, status, and control). Emperors convened (and controlled?)
most of the early Councils of the Church, not bishops or popes. The Council in
325 was held at the Emperor's villa in a suburb of Constantinople called Nicea,
where the highly abstract Nicene Creed was composed, in which the words love,
justice, and peacemaking are never used once. The Nicene Creed is a far cry
from the "creeds" spoken by Jesus three centuries before.
References:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Scripture as Liberation (CAC: 2002), MP3 download;
and Gospel
Call for Compassionate Action (Bias from the Bottom) in CAC Foundation Set
(CAC: 2007), CD, MP3 download.
INHERITING LEADERSHIP:
6 WAYS TO PREPARE FOR YOUR NEXT BIG TRANSITION
From the weekly blog posted by Fr Michael White, Pastor at the Church of the Nativity. you can find the original blog here
This is the time of year for new leadership transitions. In the Catholic world, May to July is usually the season for ordinations and new church assignments. Some are becoming pastors for the first time- others are just moving on. You might be taking over the reins from a great leader, or someone who didn’t really succeed. In any case, every leadership transition means stepping into new and unfamiliar territory.
If that’s you, I hope you’re excited. But don’t get attached to those big ideas just yet. Dwight Eisenhower once said, “Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” Here are six things to keep in mind when preparing for your next leadership transition.
Inheriting New People
You’re new to them; they’re new to you. But keep in mind, just as you want to be liked and succeed, most people want to like you and see you succeed. It’s where they go to church, after all. Before getting to know the ins-and-outs of every program, get to know the people. Build trust before you build programs. After all, leadership is first about leading people, not programs.
Inheriting a New Staff
Here’s one of the toughest transitions and potential for conflict. You might be inheriting a great blessing or burden- usually a mix. Learn about them individually, their personality and work style. Learn about their influence (or lack thereof) on the church culture. Patrick Lencioni’s excellent book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, can also help you prepare.
Inheriting a New Culture
Every organization has a culture, an established pattern of thinking and doing. Culture is the probably the hardest and most frustrating parts of a new church because it takes the longest time and most effort to shape. It permeates everything, but can’t be traced to one person or activity. Acknowledge that you have a personal culture, the church has a culture, and those aren’t always going to align. Both parties can probably learn something. Have some grace and patience, and don’t expect people to change faster than they can handle.
Inheriting Expectations
Every person in the pew has their own set of expectations for you- how to preach, how you spend your time, money, pastoral priorities, etc. Some expect you to be like the old pastor, their favorite pastor… Decide to be yourself and lead from your own strengths.
Inheriting a Schedule
Don’t expect to keep your same sleep and work schedule at your new assignment. Of course, Mass times and office hours differ place to place, but times are usually a result of other cultural factors you haven’t though about, or that even make sense.
Inheriting New Customs
Pastors that don’t try to understand a new church’s customs and traditions are like bad tourists. They leave people upset and make a public display of their own ignorance. Learn what and why people do what they do. Usually (not always) there’s a reason. It might not be a good reason, and the custom needs to go, but that assessment takes time. Learning customs is not just a sign of respect; it can help lead the necessary change when the time is right.
Corpus Christi transforming creation
An article by Fr Harry Elias sj. The original article can be found on the ThinkingFaith website by clicking here
This is what Paul says about the Last Supper, which he calls the Lord’s Supper:
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17).
The Lord’s Supper was for Paul a sharing, a partnership or communion with the sacrificial offering of Christ by the eating and drinking of bread and wine, and through Christ with God. Mention is made of three interrelated embodiments of Christ’s self-offering: the body of Christ that was put to death; the bread, taken, blessed and shared; and the many who partake of this bread.
The body of Jesus was seen from the outset as a sacrificial body. In Luke’s Gospel, Simeon takes the baby Jesus in his arms and tells Mary that the child is destined ‘to be a sign that will be opposed’ and that a sword will pierce her soul, too (Luke 2:34-35). Throughout his life Jesus was committed to the will of his Father and gave up his own life for the sake of reconciling and gathering together his people with God. It was through his sacrifice that Jesus received his new, resurrection body and established the new covenant ‘in his blood’ for the forgiveness of sins, a covenant of which the prophet Jeremiah had spoken (Jeremiah 31:31-37). The Passover setting of the Last Supper in Matthew, Mark and Luke was a recalling of the old covenant in which God took Israel as his people after their exodus from slavery in Egypt. That was a covenant of love for a particular people that had to be spread to all others.
At the Last Supper, Christ took bread and wine, blessed them (gave thanks to God for them) and declared the bread and wine to be his own body and blood, his sacrificial body, the embodiment of his sacrificial offering. He then gave them to his disciples to share. Earliest church tradition attests that the bread and wine were not merely a sign of Christ’s sacrificial body but actually were his body: the bread and wine had become a new creation. By becoming Christ’s flesh and blood, their identity was that of the Word of God (John 1:1). In offering the bread and wine, and in their being eaten and drunk, we come to communion (koinonia) with Christ in spirit, and through him with the Father, ‘so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life’ (Romans 6:4). Through our faith in Christ handed down to us by the Church, the joy and spiritual strength of hope we receive from the bread of life, the heavenly manna (John 6:50-51), enables us to endure the misfortunes in the wilderness of our lives. The Lord invites each one of us to his supper, to relax, rest and be refreshed in his personal love and in the Father’s love.
The third embodiment of the sacrificial body of Christ mentioned by Paul is the many who ‘are one body’. In baptism, we are born anew (1 Peter 1:23), and in the one Spirit baptised into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). We are transformed into the likeness of Christ’s sacrificial body and take on his identity, the identity of the Word of God, without losing our innate individuality. ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ says Paul to the Galatians ‘and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’ (Galatians 2:19-20). Those who are baptised become, Peter says, ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood’ (1 Peter 2:9). We are asked, ‘by the mercies of God, to present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship’ (Romans 12:1). As priests in, with and through Christ the High Priest, we can offer our own selves with our works to the Father in order to make atonement and intercession. For Paul, the suffering in his own flesh causes rejoicing as it is ‘completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church.’ (Colossians 1:24)
Paul urges us to live a life that is holy not by being ‘conformed to this world’, but by being ‘transformed by the renewing of [our] minds, so that [we] may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2). Having called Christ our Passover, Paul goes on to say: ‘Therefore, let us celebrate the festival [of Christ’s passing over from death to life, the day of his resurrection], not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’ (1Corinthians 5:8). Holiness includes as well ‘[maintaining] the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’, witnessing as one body to the one Lord and the one God (Ephesians 4:3-4). This is why Paul had to warn the Corinthian church that to indulge in any form of boasting which caused divisions was to eat the bread and drink the cup in an unworthy manner, to eat and drink judgment against themselves. We need to ‘examine [ourselves] and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup’ (1 Corinthians 11:28-29). John’s Gospel, in recounting Jesus washing the feet of the disciples instead of the institution of the Eucharist, brings out the significance of the latter as a mission to serve others in our daily lives.
Through the Incarnation, the body of Christ became inseparable from creation, so that creation is given the hope that ‘it will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God’ (Romans 8:21). The assurance of that hope is the Holy Spirit given to us (Romans 8:15-16). Paul goes on to say: ‘we know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved.’(Romans 8:22-24). As stewards of creation, we are the ones who must help to realise creation’s longing. As we come to the altar and offer up ‘the fruits of the earth and the work of our hands’, both are blessed and are transformed into Christ’s sacrificial body in which he, and now we and all creation become an offering to the Father in order to receive freedom in newness of life. In that hope we can continue our struggle for that newness to flourish, for creation to yield the abundance and delight of its food and healing, knowledge, power and wisdom, beauty and wonder, so that it will become transformed finally into the fit environment of our own redeemed bodies – the fresh wineskin for the new wine. The final festivity to come is compared to the wedding feast of a king for his son (Matthew 22:2), with Jesus as the bridegroom and the new creation as his bride (Revelation 21:1-2).
The enactment of the Church’s faith in the common remembrance of the new covenant in Christ’s sacrifice is not just a way of passing on knowledge, or merely a symbol shaping a community. The bread and wine is sacrament – both sign and realisation – of a new creation, binding it together and transforming it from within.
Harry Elias SJ assists in the Hurtado Jesuit Centre in Wapping, East London
