Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Assistant Priest: Fr Alexander Obiorah
Mob: 0447 478 297; alexchuksobi@yahoo.co.uk
Postal Address:
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
Email: mlcathparish-dsl@keypoint.com.au
Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Mary Davies
Pastoral Council Chair: Mary Davies
Parish Mass Times: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: 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 10th - 13th May, 2016
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am
Latrobe
Thursday: 10:30am Eliza Purton
12noon Devonport
2:00pm Tandara
Mass Times Next Weekend 14th & 15th May, 2016
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin & Devonport
Sunday Mass 10:30am Devonport (Whole Parish Mass)
Devonport:
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 14th & 15th May, 2016
Saturday Vigil Devonport
& Penguin
Whole Parish Mass Sunday 15th May
at Our Lady of Lourdes Church Devonport
Devonport:
Ministers of Communion: Vigil T Muir, M
Davies, M Gerrand,
S Innes, D Peters, J Heatley
10.30am: B & N Mulcahy, L Hollister, K Hull, G & S
Fletcher
Cleaners 13th May: M & L Tippett, A Berryman
20th May: B Bailey, A Harrison, M Greenhill
Piety Shop 14th May: R Baker 15th May: K Hull
Flowers: A O’Connor
Ulverstone:
Cleaners: G & M
Seen, C Roberts Flowers: C Mapley
Penguin:
Greeter: J Garnsey Commentator: E Nickols Readers:
M Murray, R
Fifita
Procession: S Ewing, J Barker Ministers of Communion: A Guest, J Garnsey
Liturgy: Pine Road Setting Up: A Landers Care of Church: J & T Kiely
Port Sorell:
Clean/Flow/Prepare: G Wylie
Readings this Week: Ascension of the Lord
First Reading: Acts: 1:1-11
Second Reading: Hebrews 9:24-28; 10:19-23
Gospel: Luke 24:46-53
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAYS GOSPEL:
I go to my place of prayer; maybe I follow the example of
this Gospel text and, just as Jesus took the disciples to a place that was
special to them all, I go outside to a place that is special to me, or perhaps
I recall in my imagination a place where I have felt especially close to God.
Wherever I feel drawn to pray today, I let God look upon me with endless love.
I do not rush these moments I have set aside for prayer. I visualise the
ascension scene and place myself in this continually unfolding story of God’s
love active in the world. I see the Risen Jesus lifting his hands to bless me
and I ask for the grace I need at this time. I may also want to pray the prayer
of St Paul from today’s second reading May he enlighten the eyes of my mind so
that I can see the hope his call holds for me I reflect back over these last
few weeks of Easter and recall where I have seen God’s presence at work in my
life, and then I look forward asking God to show me what opportunities his call
holds for me. I listen to him and then I finish my prayer with a Glory be...
Readings next Week: Pentecost Sunday - Year C
First Reading: Acts: 2:1-11
Second Reading: Romans 8:8-17
Gospel: John 14:15-16, 23-26
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
Joan Singline, John
Kirkpatrick, Archbishop Adrian Doyle, Connie Fulton, Lorna Jones, Geraldine Roden, Joy Carter &...
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Bernadette Williams, Olga Andruszko and Maureen McManus, Fr Terry
Southerwood, Lola O’Halloran, Kath Smith, Kathy Clark, Harry Cartwright and John Roach.
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 4th
– 10th May
Fr Dan McMahon Don Breen, Robert Charlesworth,
Audrey Enniss, Leonard Field, Kathleen Bryan, Jean Clare, Kathleen Mack, Edward
McCormack, Pim Schneiders, Lauris Pullen, Don Burrows, Felicia Pereira, Aileen
O’Rourke, also Kate & Billy Last, Enid & Corrie Webb, Madeline Castles,
Hilary Clark Relatives, mother and daughter of Helen & Frank McLennan and
all our Mothers.
May they Rest in Peace
Lord,
Protect the lives, we pray,
of those who have given us the gift of life.
May our mothers know from day
to day
the deepening joy that comes from your presence.
We cannot pay our debts for all
the love that we have received;
but you, Lord, will not forget their due
reward.
Bless our mothers both on earth
and in heaven.
Amen
WEEKLY
RAMBLINGS:
I'm sitting and writing my ramblings for this weekend in
what, once upon a time, was the housekeepers sitting room at the Bellerive
Presbytery but which is now the kitchen.
I had an appointment in Hobart on Tuesday, another on Wednesday
and then the opportunity to concelebrate a Mass on Thursday - the main
celebrant of the Mass was Fr Peter O'Loughlin who this year, together with Frs
Chris Hope and Terry Yard, celebrates 50 years of priesthood. My reason for
wanting to be there for the Mass was that 50 years ago I was a Grade 10 student
at St Virgil's when Frs Terry and Peter returned to the College to celebrate
Mass not long after their ordination - just another sign of getting older.
This weekend we celebrate Mother's Day and on behalf of all
of us who aren't to all of you who are - Happy Mother's Day. Besides the great
act of giving birth to your children your role may not be always fully
appreciated but your gift to us is beyond measuring and for this we thank you.
May your day be an opportunity for us to remember and celebrate our
appreciation.
This next week is going to be extremely busy. On Wednesday
evening we have our Parish Pastoral Council Meeting when some long serving
members will retire; on Friday at 6pm we begin the 24 hours of Adoration in
Preparation for Pentecost; then on Sunday (15th) we have the whole of Parish
Mass at 10.30am at Our Lady of Lourdes; as well as all the other things that
happen in the Parish during the week.
24 HOUR ADORATION
… ‘COULD YOU NOT STAY AWAKE WITH ME FOR ONE HOUR?’ Matt.26:40
The Holy Eucharist remains at the centre of our
liturgical worship and services. The real presence of Jesus has made the
Eucharist the fulcrum, around which other sacraments rotate and it has remained
an unequalled source of grace. Having time with Jesus is one of the Church’s
age-long practice which has remained a delight.
As we pray for a New Pentecost, our parish looks
forward to a 24 hour Adoration of the Holy Eucharist at Our Lady of Lourdes Church,
beginning from 6pm of Friday, May 13, to 6pm of Saturday, May 14, the Pentecost
eve. This will be a good time for individuals, families and groups to
have special time with Jesus.
Please, you can be part of this Adoration by
filling in the sheet at the rear of the church. There can be any number of persons
for any hour and there is no limit to the number of hours one can adore; the
important thing is to get every hour covered. The less convenient the time, the
more sacrificial. Have a fruitful time with Jesus!
HAPPY ARE THOSE WHO
LIVE IN YOUR HOUSE, CONTINUALLY SINGING YOUR PRAISE! (Ps. 84:5)
CWL:
The Annual General Meeting of Devonport and Ulverstone branches will be
held next Wednesday 11th May 11.00 am at Emmaus House. Please bring lunch
to share. State President Sandra and Southern vice-President Deirdre will also
attend.
To assist with the catering for the luncheon after the
10:30am Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church Devonport, could you please indicate
on the form in the Church foyer what you could provide, either a salad or a
sweet. Sausages, hamburgers, tea and coffee will be provided – thank you!
PENTECOST
SUNDAY – PARISH CHOIR:
We
had an excellent sing last Monday night with a small group from all
centres. Some more people would help
make a full and balanced sound, so please come and join us. Our next and final rehearsal will be on
Saturday May 14th at 2 pm, at OLOL hall.
NORTH WEST JUSTICE NETWORK:
All parishioners are invited to attend a forum called
“Women in the Church” to be held at Sacred
Heart Catholic Church Community Room, Ulverstone on Tuesday 24 May 2016 at 7.00pm. Dr Trish Hindmarsh will
open the forum with an address and discussion will follow. Dr Hindmarsh is well
known to us as a teacher and the former Director of Catholic Education in
Tasmania. Trish received her initial formation as a Josephite until
1980. In Sydney Trish was Coordinator of the Mission and Justice
Education adult education program. She and her husband, Vin, were
house-parents to homeless teenagers in Sydney and have worked with the
Josephite Sisters in the Warmun Aboriginal community in the Kimberley.
Trish and Vin moved to Tasmania in 2005 and their flight to Stowport from the
metropolis of Sydney fits in with Trish’s interest in justice, peace and
ecology! Trish was a founding member of the Catholic Earthcare Australia
Committee and has been an active member of Women and the Australian Church
(WATAC) since its beginnings in 1986. She is a currently a member of the
Tasmanian Catholic Justice and Peace Commission and Australian representative
on the Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) International Committee.
FOOTY POINTS MARGIN TICKETS: Round
6 – North Melbourne by 16 points - Winners; Bev Zimic, R Guest
Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall,
Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 12th
May – Tony Ryan & Alan Luxton.
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
WALK WITH CHRIST – HOBART CITY, SUNDAY 29TH MAY
1:15 TO 3:00 pm.
Celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ by
walking with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament through the city of Hobart. Be at
St Joseph's Church (Harrington St) by 1.15 pm, and walk with us to St Mary's
Cathedral for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament concluding with Benediction at
3:00pm. Prayer intentions written in the 'Book of Life' in your parish
will be taken on the procession and presented at the Cathedral.
Paul - Week
1
Life as Participation
Saint Paul
has always been a hero of mine. Unfortunately, Christians have often
misunderstood Paul, seeing him as a moralist rather than a mystic. Yet Paul has
so much to teach us. He never knew Jesus in the flesh, so Paul's experience of
the Risen Christ is much closer to what our own could be. For the next two
weeks we are going to focus especially on Paul's teachings on love, which is
the theme for this year's Daily Meditations.
The entire
biblical revelation is gradually developing a very different consciousness, a
recreated self, and eventually a full "identity transplant" or
identity realization, as we see in both Jesus and Paul. The sacred text is
inviting you slowly, little by little, into a very different sense of who you
are: You are not our own. Your life is not about you; you are about Life! You
are gradually "pruned" as a separate vine and re-grafted to the Great
Vine of life and love and God. Once you are consciously reconnected to the
Source, your life will bear much fruit for the world (John 15:1-5).
Saint Paul
seems to understand this well because it happened rather dramatically to him.
He writes, "I live no longer not I, but Christ lives in me"
(Galatians 2:20). In the spiritual journey you come to the day when you know
you're not just living your own life by yourself. You realize that Someone Else
is living in you and through you, and that you are part of a much Bigger
Mystery. You realize that you're a mere drop in a Much Bigger Ocean, an ocean of
Love. You are a recipient, a conduit, a participant.
No biblical
writer had yet named what we now call "Trinity," but Paul has a deep
intuitive conviction about the Trinitarian flow passing through him. This will
become his profound understanding of love. He comes to know that he is hardly
"initiating" anything, but instead it is all happening to him. This
is the same transition we all must make. Like the divine conception in Mary,
you will eventually realize it is being done to you much more than you are
doing anything. All God needs is your "yes," it seems, which tends to
emerge progressively as you grow in inner freedom.
This
understanding gives you an utterly different sense of yourself as a person;
this person is truly a "sounding through" (per-sonare) much more than
an autonomous anything. That is what I mean by an identity transplant, and what
we foundationally mean by conversion. It is not about joining a new group or
church, but it is coming to know a new and essential self. Just as in Paul's conversion,
it takes quite a while for the scales to fall from our eyes (see Acts 9:18),
plenty of help from strangers like Ananias (Acts 9:10 ff.), and long quiet
retreats in "Arabia" (see Galatians 1:17).
Afterward,
though, nothing could stop Paul. Read the full two chapters of 2 Corinthians
11-12 if you want to see a big human ego (Paul's "I am") that has now
surrendered all of its autonomy to the one divine life (the Great "I
AM"). Paul is almost giddy to tell you about it, jumping from one idea to
the next with incomplete ideas, run-on sentences, and even a bit of bragging.
He still has a big ego, but it is now being used for non-egoic purposes.
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media:
2008), 49-50.
What Is Conversion?
"Suddenly,
while he was traveling to Damascus and just before he reached the city, there
came a light from heaven all around him. He fell to the ground and then he
heard a voice saying, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' 'Who are you,
Lord?' he asked, and the voice answered, 'I am Jesus, and you are persecuting
me.'" --Acts 9:3-5, Jerusalem Bible
I believe
that almost all of the great themes of Paul's teaching emerged pivotally around
his conversion experience. Something happened to this man that utterly
redefined his life. Like all true converts (con-vertere means to turn around)
there was a clear before and after. Unless you understand that the world was
utterly realigned and redefined for Paul, you cannot appreciate the radicalism
of his new vision.
Jesus'
choice of words, "Why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4) is key.
Later, during Paul's retreat in Arabia, he must surely have pondered this
question: "Why does he say I was persecuting him, when I was persecuting
others?" Paul gradually came to his great doctrine of the Body of Christ
(1 Corinthians 12:12ff.). For him, there was a complete, organic, and even
ontological union between Christ and those who are loved by him, which Paul
eventually realizes is everyone. This is why Paul is called "the apostle
to the nations" (or "gentiles"). This enlightening experience
taught Paul non-dual consciousness, which is the same mystical mind that had
allowed Jesus to say things like "Whatever you do to the least, you do to
me" (Matthew 25:40).
Until grace
achieves that victory in your mind and heart, you cannot comprehend most of
Jesus and Paul. Before conversion you tend to think of God as almost entirely
"out there." After transformation you don't look out at reality as if
it is hidden in the distance. You look out from reality! You're in the middle
of it now. You're a part of it. Your life is participating in God's Life. Paul
is almost obsessed by this idea. It underwrites absolutely everything he says.
Paul is the great announcer of what is happening everywhere all the time.
You're not writing the story; you're a character inside of a story that is
already being written through you. Paul's code word for consciously living
within this reality, used numerous times throughout all his letters, is en
Christo, or living inside the Christ Mystery.
We all bear
the mystery of the suffering of God, the sad woundedness that Jesus visibly
shares with humanity. We simultaneously bear the conscious glory of God and
even "share in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). We carry both at the
same time. This requires non-dual consciousness. You are another wonderful instance
of both the agony and ecstasy of God, and all you can do is say yes to both of
them. This realization becomes more than enough to fill your life with meaning,
vitality, purpose, and wondrous direction. This is what true conversion looks
like.
Conversion
is not a moral achievement accomplished by good behavior or New Year's
resolutions (Paul knew he was a hateful murderer). Conversion is a mystical,
unitive knowing that usually comes to people who need it intensely, who realize
that only holding one side of life's equation--the glory or the agony--has
gotten them nowhere. Holding everything together becomes enlightenment itself.
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation (Franciscan Media:
2002), disc 1 (CD).
Unitive Consciousness
After
conversion, self-consciousness (in the negative sense) slowly falls away and is
replaced by what the mystics call pure consciousness or unitive
consciousness--which is love. Self-consciousness implies a dualistic split.
There is me over here, judging, analyzing, labeling that or me over there. The
mind is largely dualistic before spiritual conversion and even foolishly calls
such argumentation "thinking." In true conversion the subject-object
split is overcome at least for a moment. You can't maintain this non-dual state
twenty-four hours a day; you have to return to dualistic thought regularly to
function in this practical world of necessary choices. But now, maybe for the
first time, you know there is something more and you will always long to return
there. To refuse or resist that invitation might just be the core meaning of
biblical "hard heartedness" or sin. Once you've experienced any true
union (perhaps at times of peace, acceptance, surrender, prayer, intimate sex,
all authentic love), you know that is what you were created for.
Recall what
it's like to fall in love. It's an experience of forgetting about yourself and
living through another for at least a while. Similarly, having a baby often
reorients one's whole life to be completely absorbed and focused on the needs
of another. I've watched this happen with so many young parents after they have
their first baby. In a very short time they outgrow their youthful narcissism
because, perhaps for the first time, their center is outside themselves. Both
marriage and parenting are almost perfectly made-to-order to cure you from your
self-centeredness. Of course, many are afraid of the cure, whether married,
single, or celibate.
Paradoxically,
such unitive consciousness (love) doesn't destroy your sense of self; it
actually increases it. When you first fell in love you never felt more alive,
more a whole person. Yet at the same time you had also lost yourself! You'd
given yourself away to another person, and yet you felt more like yourself than
you ever did before. True union does not absorb distinction, but actually
intensifies it. The more one gives oneself in creative union to any other, the
more one becomes oneself. This is wonderfully mirrored for the Christian in the
Trinity: perfect giving and perfect receiving among three, and yet they are
each utterly and fully themselves.
The more you
become yourself, the more capable you are of not over-protecting your false
boundaries. After all, you really have nothing to protect. That's the great freedom
and the great happiness of truly converted people. There's no longer a little
self here to fuss over or pander to. The little self--which you thought you
were--has passed away. Paul says of himself, "I live no longer not I"
(Galatians 2:20). This is exactly what Jesus meant by "you must lose
yourself to find yourself" (Mark 8:35), which he says repeatedly in
different settings and formulations.
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation (Franciscan Media:
2002), disc 1 (CD).
We Are Two-Way Mirrors
There is
only one thing you must definitely answer for yourself: "Who am I?"
Or, restated, "Where do I abide?" If you can get that right, the rest
largely takes care of itself. Paul answers the questions directly: "You
are hidden with Christ in God, and God is your life" (Colossians 3:3-4).
Every time you start hating yourself, ask, "Who am I?" The answer
will come, "I am hidden with Christ in God" in every part of my life.
I am bearing both the mystery of suffering humanity and God's glory. Maybe
right now I must bear the suffering part to be in solidarity with both humanity
and "Christ," which is just another word for everything (see 1
Corinthians 3:21-23, 15:20-28, or Colossians 1:15-20).
God keeps
looking at what is good in the human person. What is entirely good in me is
called God and, of course, God finds this always and entirely lovable. God
fixes God's gaze intently where I refuse to look, on my shared, divine nature
as God's daughter or son (1 John 3:2). God looks at me and sees Christ. And one
day my gaze matches God's gaze. This is what we mean by prayer. At those times
I will find God entirely lovable and myself fully lovable at the same time.
Why? Because it is the same set of eyes that is doing the looking (2
Corinthians 3:18), and we henceforth look out at life together and agree on
what we see.
"The
eye with which I see God is the same one with which God sees me. My eye and
God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love,"
said the non-dual teacher Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 - c. 1328). [1] No wonder
they called him "Master"! All you have to do is receive the gaze and
then return what you have received. It is an entire agenda for your whole life.
All you really do is complete the circuit, "love returning love" as
my father, Saint Francis, put it. We are two-way mirrors.
We are saved
by standing consciously and confidently inside the force field that is Christ,
not by getting it right in our private selves. This is too big a truth for the
small self to even imagine. We're too tiny, too insecure, too ready to beat
ourselves up. We do not need to be correct, but we can always try to remain
connected to our Source. The great and, for some, disappointing surprise is
that many people who are not correct are the most connected.
All we can
do is fall into the Eternal Mercy--into Love--which we can never actually fall
out of because "we belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God" (1
Corinthians 3:23) as Paul so beautifully stated. Eventually, we know that we
are all saved by mercy in spite of ourselves. The supreme irony is that we are
saved much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right! That must be the
final humiliation to the ego.
Our holiness
is first of all and really only God's holiness, and that is why it's certain
and secure. It is a participation in love, a mutual indwelling, not an
achievement or performance on our part. "If anyone wants to boast, let him
boast in the Lord," Paul shouts at the end of his long argument (1
Corinthians 1:31). Jeremiah said the same long before Paul (Jeremiah 9:22-23).
References:
[1] Johannes
Eckhart, Meister Eckhart's Sermons, Sermon IV, "True Hearing,"
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/eckhart/sermons.vii.html, 32-33.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media:
2008), 50-51;
and Great
Themes of Paul: Life as Participation (Franciscan Media: 2002), disc 5 (CD).
Love Is One Body
Therefore I,
the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling
with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as
also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's
gift. --The School of Paul, Ephesians 4:1-7, NASB
I like to
picture the unity of spirit described here as an energy field, a dynamic force
field, created by sharing the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Love. Here is how
one of the great Pauline scholars, Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, explains it:
The church
differs from all other human groupings in so far as its unity is not functional
but organic. Its members are not merely united by a common purpose, but share a
common existence. An autonomous Christian is as impossible as an independent
arm or leg. Arms and legs exist only as parts. If they are given the status of
an independent whole by amputation, they are no longer an arm or a leg. For a
while they may look as if they were, but corruption has begun, and they can
neither grasp nor walk. The same is true of believers. Their existence is
loving--"without love I am nothing" (1 Cor. 13:2)--which necessarily
implies a relationship to another person. To love and be loved is of the
essence of Christianity and is constitutive of the being of the believer. They
are bound together by what makes them be what they are. Only now does it become
clear what Paul tentatively envisaged when he said, "It is no longer I who
live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). [1]
For Paul,
this is what he means by Christ: the participatory mystery of Jesus continued
through space and time
in us. As Paul
says to the Athenians, "In him we live and move and have our being"
(Acts 17:28). This is similar to France's motto of "liberty, equality, and
fraternity." Paul is naming what we eventually will call the
"communion of saints" in the Apostles Creed. This "energy
field" is created by all those who pass love back and forth and is thus an
infinitely expanding force field. The "church" was intended to be the
group that consciously lived and exemplified this different quality of being.
The church's vocation is a privilege, like Israel's itself, to bring God's work
to visibility and possibility. But also like Israel we made ourselves into a
chosen elite--a country club for the saved--instead of a neon sign pointing
beyond ourselves.
When Paul
addresses his letters to "the saints" he is clearly not speaking of
the later Roman idea of canonized saints. He is speaking of the living
communities of love who make up his audio-visual aids all over Greece and Asia
Minor. Paul does not make heroes of individuals, but precisely as members of
the Body do they "shine like stars" as "perfect children of God
among a deceitful and underhanded brood" (Philippians 2:15). Following
directly from Jesus, Paul sees his small communities as a certain and effective
"leaven" by which God will eventually change the whole debauched
Roman Empire. Social scientists now tell us that Paul was unbelievably
successful in a mere ten year period largely because he gave people back their
dignity and self-esteem by telling them they were equally and fully
"children of God." This is still revolutionary, but this wonderful
message lost most of its impact when the Church began operating as if some had
that dignity and others did not.
References:
[1] Jerome
Murphy-O'Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford University Press: 1998), 288.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation (Franciscan Media:
2012), disc 9 (CD).
Everything That Rises Will Converge
In Romans
8:22, Paul says, "From the beginning until now, the entire creation as we
know it has been groaning in one great act of giving birth." Just this one
line from Paul should be enough to justify a Christian belief in evolution. Yet
to this day, the issue of evolution still divides some Christians, questioning what
is rather obvious: that God creates things that create themselves. Wouldn't
this be the greatest way that God could create--to give autonomy, freedom, and
grace to things to keep self-creating even further? (Uncreative minds tend to
not see or allow creativity anywhere else. In fact, that is what makes them so
uncreative!)
Healthy
parents love their children so much that they want them to keep growing,
producing, and performing to their highest potential. Good parents are even
excited when their children surpass them, as my uneducated farmer parents were
when I went off to higher studies. Mature parents are generative about their
children and say, in my paraphrase of Jesus' words: "Don't get too excited
about the things that I did. You're going to do even greater things!"
(John 14:12). Immature parents only see their children as images and extensions
of themselves. Truly loving parents empower and delight in the even larger and
independent successes of those they love.
For a long
time most people were satisfied with a very static universe. But now we clearly
see the universe is unfolding and expanding. It's moving until, as Augustine
put it, "In the end there will only be Christ loving himself," or as
Paul writes, "There is only Christ, he is everything and he is in
everything" (Colossians 3:11). Paul sees history as an ongoing process of
ever greater inclusion of every lesser force until in the end, "God will
be all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28). Christ is our word for the One
reality that includes everything and excludes nothing; it is really universal
forgiveness in all directions!
Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, the twentieth century Jesuit, would agree. In Ilia Delio's
words, Teilhard "described the human species in evolution toward the
fullness of unity in love. . . . [He said] the way forward is a new
spirituality by which humans around the globe can unite to become one mind and
one heart in love, a new ultrahumanity united only by love." [1] Teilhard
believed that "everything that rises must converge." [2]
References:
[1] Ilia
Delio, Compassion: Living in the Spirit of St. Francis (Franciscan Media:
2011), xiv.
[2] Teilhard
de Chardin, The Future of Man (Image Books: 1964), 186.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation (Franciscan Media:
2002), disc 11 (CD);
Christ,
Cosmology, and Consciousness (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2010), MP3
download;
and A New
Cosmology: Nature as the First Bible (Center for Action and Contemplation:
2009), disc 2 (CD, MP3 download).
DANIEL BERRIGAN – RIP
Before you get serious about Jesus, first consider how good you’re going to look on wood! Daniel Berrigan wrote those words and they express a lot about who he was and what he believed in. He died yesterday at age 94.
No short tribute can do justice to Dan Berrigan. He defies quick definition and facile description. He was, at once, the single-minded, obsessed activist, even as he was one of the most complex spiritual figures of our generation. He exhibited both the fierceness of John the Baptist and the gentleness of Jesus. An internationally-known social justice advocate, an anti-war priest, a poet, a first-rate spiritual writer, a maverick Jesuit, he, along with his close friend, Dorothy Day, was one of our generation’s foremost advocates for non-violence. Like Dorothy Day, he believed that all violence, no matter how merited it seems in a given situation, always begets further violence. For him, violence can never justify itself by claiming moral superiority over the violence it is trying to stop. Non-violence, he uncompromisingly advocated, is the only road to peace. Like Dorothy Day, he couldn’t imagine Jesus with a gun.
Berrigan lived by the principle of non-violence and spent his life trying to convince others of its truth. This got him into a lot of trouble, both in society at large and in the church. It also landed him to prison. In 1968, along with his brother, Philip, he entered a federal building in Catonsville, Maryland, removed a number of draft records and burned them in garbage cans. For this, he was given three and a half years in prison. But this also indelibly stamped him into the consciousness of a whole generation. He was forever after known as a member of the Catonsville Nine and once appeared on the cover of Time Magazine.
I was in the seminary during those tumultuous years in the late 1960s, when anti-war protests in the USA were drawing such huge crowds and Daniel Berrigan was one of their poster boys. Moreover, I was in a seminary where most everything in our ethos was asking us to distrust Berrigan and the anti-war movement. In our view at that time, this was not what a Catholic priest was supposed to be doing. I wasn’t a fan of his then. I’m a late convert.
That conversion began when, as a graduate student, I began to read Berrigan’s books. I was gripped by three things: First, by the gospel challenge he was spelling out so clearly; next, by his spiritual depth; and, finally, not least, by the brilliance and poetry of his language. He was, flat-out, a very good writer and a very challenging Christian. I envied his vocabulary, his turn of phrase, his intelligence, his wit, his depth, and his radical commitment. I began to read everything he’d written and he began to have a growing influence on my life and ministry. I had never before seen how non-negotiable is Jesus’ challenge to act not just with charity about also with justice.
Father Larry Rosebaugh, an Oblate colleague who also went to prison for anti-war protests and who was later shot to death in Guatemala, shares in his autobiography how, the night before he performed his first act of civil disobedience that landed him in prison, he spent the entire night in prayer with Daniel Berrigan. Berrigan’s advice to him then was this: If you can’t do this without becoming bitter and angry at those who arrest you, don’t do it! Prophecy is about making a vow of love, not of alienation. There’s a thin line here, one that’s too often crossed when we are trying to be prophetic.
Ironically, for all his critical counsel on this, Berrigan, by his own admission, struggled mightily with exactly this, namely, to have his protest issue forth from a center of love and not from a center of anger. At age 62, he wrote an autobiography, To Dwell in Peace, within which he candidly shared that he had never enjoyed a healthy relationship with his own father and that his father had never blessed him or his brother, Philip. Rather his father was always more threatened by his sons’ energies and talents than proud of them. With this admission, Berrigan went on to ask whether it was any wonder that he, Daniel, had forever been a thorn in the side of every authority-figure he ever encountered: presidents, popes, bishops, religious superiors, politicians, policemen. It took him 60 years to make peace with the absence of his father’s blessing; but, God writes straight with crooked lines, the radicalness this fired in him helped challenge a generation.
In his later years, Berrigan began to work in a hospice, finding among the dying a depth that grounded him against what he so feared in our culture, shallowness.
His own generation will give him a mixed judgment: loved by some, hated by others. But history will speak well of him. He was always on the side of God, peace, and the poor.
Daniel Berrigan RIP.
THREE WAYS TO SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN THE UNCHURCHED AND CHURCH-SHOPPERS
Over the years we have been able to predict with some accuracy who is likely to show up in our lobby on any given Sunday. We always talk about Timonium Tim, the name we’ve given to the quintessentially unchurched guy and his family in our community. We plan every aspect of our weekend experience around the unchurched as we strive “to become a church for the unchurched.” Our mission is to make Tim a disciple.
Besides Tim, there is another species of church-goers who might also show up: church-shoppers. It is critically important to be able to recognize the difference between the unchurched and church-shoppers. Otherwise you’ll find yourself in a consumer culture, in which your church will not be healthy and cannot grow.
Here are three signs to look for:
#1. The unchurched want to be fed and they grow slowly; church-shoppers want to be pampered and pleased and they judge quickly.
Every visitor has a set of questions when they step into your church. These usually include things like: Is the message relevant? Are people friendly? Is the music good?
Did my kids enjoy it?
The difference to note is, church-shoppers ask questions in order to evaluate; the unchurched ask questions in order to learn and grow.
Church shoppers are a bit like most Yelp reviewers- the people who take time to write a lengthy review of a restaurant usually either love it or hate it. There’s not much middle ground. When it comes to your church, after one visit, church shoppers will either sing its praises or foretell its doom. And what they love today, they might hate tomorrow.
As you provide an excellent first time experience for the unchurched, they will begin to get it, to value it, and to grow in it.
#2. The Unchurched expect to be challenged; expect church-shoppers to challenge you.
Without using the word, the unchurched know they are “unchurched.” Perhaps they are even a little embarrassed that they haven’t been to a church in a while, and they know they have some work to do on their lives. Showing up at your church is a small act of courage that we should honor. But, the unchurched expect to be challenged or moved in some way, and if they recognize life value in attending your church, then over time they are willing to change their lifestyle.
Church shoppers want you to change to fit their lifestyle; they just haven’t yet found a congregation willing to do that. And when you don’t, expect to be challenged. Let it go, and let them go.
#3. The unchurched are willing to (eventually) serve the church’s ministry. Church-shoppers never will, they expect the church to serve them.
No matter how hard you try, confirmed church shoppers will never get up out of the pew and serve. They just don’t get it.
On the other hand, consistently preached from the pulpit, attractively modeled by other parishioners, made entirely easy and accessible to get into by parish staff, unchurched people will eventually join a ministry and serve, and their service will dramatically impact their experience of Church.
This spring season we will see this played out again here at Nativity as we make a major ministry push. Starting this weekend, we’re challenging everyone who isn’t serving to join us for a single information session and learn more about it. I predict hundreds will. And most of them will be recently unchurched. Long attending church-shoppers will sit this one out once again.
Reflections on the Feast of the Ascension
The Feast of the Ascension strikes many Christians as the poor relative of the two rather bigger celebrations which top and tail the long and joyful season of Eastertide: Easter itself, and Pentecost. But Damian Howard SJ ascribes to this feast the utmost significance. What are we to make of the story of Jesus being taken up into a cloud, an episode that not only sounds like mythology but also violates our modern sense of space?
(Damian Howard SJ lectures in theology at Heythrop College, University of London and sits on the Editorial Board of Thinking Faith.)
In between our celebrations of the Lord’s Resurrection at Easter and of the gift of the Spirit to His disciples, the ‘birthday of the Church’ at Pentecost, we observe another feast: the Feast of the Ascension. For all the memorable imagery that the story of Jesus’s ascension into heaven evokes, it still strikes many Christians as a rather curious episode. To put it crudely, had Jesus simply ascended vertically into space we would by now expect him to be somewhere in the outer reaches of the solar system, a thought that is hardly an aid to Christian devotion. Yet the event of the Ascension, which appears in both the New Testament books authored by Luke (his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles), serves as the narrative lynchpin of the grand story told by scripture. It is, as one scholar argues, the culmination of every biblical event leading up to it and the condition of the drama that follows it.[1] To understand why this is so will take a little explaining.
A good way to begin would be to ask yourself a question: what, in a nutshell, is the core of the New Testament message? There are doubtless as many answers to that question as there are Christians, but most of them would probably involve one or more of a bundle of ideas: resurrection–reconciliation–new life–triumph over sin and death, all very good, very Eastery answers – and all, incidentally, very much about us human creatures. The centrality of these notions to most Christians explains both why Easter and Pentecost are so important to us andwhy the Ascension is not. Easter and Pentecost can be quickly established to be all about us: the promise of forgiveness and new life for us, the gift of the Spirit to us. It is not quite so clear what the Ascension has to offer us? The best answer I have been able to come up with is that Christ’s withdrawal brings about a new mode by which Christ can be present to us, intimate, yet universal and ‘interceding for us at the right hand of the Father’.
If you were to ask the same question to the New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, you would be given a subtly different response, one that puts centre stage someone other than us. For Tom Wright, the core truth of Christianity is that Jesus, and hence God, has become King. The crucified Nazarene has been raised by God to be the universal Lord. Christ’s rising from the dead is not in itself the end of the story but a vitally important part of the trajectory that takes him to his heavenly throne. Wright’s interpretation hardly denies the importance of resurrection; it just sees it as part of a bigger picture. Jesus is raised to be King.
All of which has serious implications for Christian belief and practice. If we were to think very schematically, we might say we have two styles of Christian living here: let’s call them Resurrection-Christianity and Kingdom-Christianity. (I am sketching here ‘ideal types’ for the sake of reflection and these should not be taken as applying to any individual or group in particular, still less as criteria for some kind of orthodoxy.) Resurrection-Christianity would focus, obviously, on the Resurrection, on the fact that Christ has overcome death and won eternal life for those who believe in Him. Kingdom-Christianity is more attentive to the arrival of the Kingdom of God, in other words a state of affairs abroad in the world, such that a new source of power and of ultimate authority is enabling and challenging human beings to allow themselves to be transformed, to receive ‘eternal life’ in the here and now. The two styles are hardly opposed to each other but their focus is appreciably different.
What makes Kingdom-Christianity so convincing an interpretation is the way it makes sense of the whole narrative of the Bible by offering a ‘crowning moment’ in the shape of the final resolution of an expectation spelt out in a spectacular apocalyptic scene by the prophet Daniel (7:13-14):
I saw one like a human being
coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
and was presented before him.
To him was given dominion
and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
that shall never be destroyed.[2]
Here, the coronation of the ‘one like a human being’ (the original expression is translated literally as ‘one like a Son of Man’, from which you can deduce whence Jesus derives His favourite way of referring to Himself) is presented exactly as an onlooker in heaven would enjoy the scene. It is a dream-vision, an imaginative rendition of the deep, hope-filled aspiration of faithful Jews, suffering persecution at the hands of an enemy so powerful they could scarcely envisage ever overcoming it. The Ascension, Douglas Farrow points out, is quite simply the very same event as viewed from the earth, the Son of Man setting out on His journey to take up His throne alongside the ‘Ancient One’.[3]
Hence, in the Ascension we see the mystery alluded to in the Hebrew Bible acted out in full view of the disciples. You can see now that the Ascension is no quirky interlude between Resurrection and Pentecost but a dramatic consummation that makes sense of them: the Resurrection is the beginning of Christ’s heavenly journey, Pentecost the echo on earth of heaven’s jubilation at his coronation. The Ascension is crucial, not decorative.
Farrow defends this view of the centrality of the Ascension from the understandable and legitimate anxiety that it downplays resurrection hope as an end in itself:
In the Bible, the doctrine of the resurrection slowly emerges as a central feature of the Judeo-Christian hope. But if, synechdochically, it can stand for that hope, the hope itself is obviously something more. Resurrection may be a necessary ingredient, since death cuts short our individual journeys, but it is not too bold to say that the greater corporate journey documented by the scriptures continually presses, from its very outset and at every turn, towards the impossible feat of the ascension.[4]
So Kingdom-Christianity in no way cancels out or negates Resurrection-Christianity: it includes it but situates it in a bigger picture and it is a picture that does not have us at the centre, with our desires and hopes, but the person of, if you like to think of it like this, King Jesus.
In his book Surprised by Hope,[5] Tom Wright works out some of the consequences of what is for many a surprising angle on the Biblical story. The problem is not that Resurrection-Christianity (he does not use the term) is false. Rather, it is that if it becomes detached from its original moorings in the proclamation of Jesus as King, then it can drift into something lesser. An example is the way many modern Christians have come to think that the point of Christianity is about ‘getting to heaven when you die’. A Christianity rooted in its original proclamation of the Kingdom of God is not in the first place about life after death, but very much about life in the here and now under the new conditions of God’s reign (which is also not in any way to deny life after death!). If it totally loses its anchor in the Kingdom proclamation, an exclusive concern with resurrection has been known to see this world as a decadent and evil place without hope; salvation begins to look like escape. This is a Gnostic tendency to which Christianity has long been vulnerable. For Wright, the time has come to get back to the original Kingdom-Christianity of the Bible with its confidence in the resurrection of the body, its utter Christ-centredness and its concern for the mission of Christians to help transform the world in accordance with the in-breaking Kingdom.
I must confess both to excitement about Wright’s work and also to a certain perplexity. The excitement springs from the plausibility of his biblical interpretation, from the stress he puts on the Gospel as a God-event rather than the transmission of some new information, and on the implications of all this for the way we think about Christian action and witness in the world. But my perplexity is twofold. First, Wright is suspicious about a great deal of the Christian tradition as it has come down to us over the years. He regrets the medieval corruptions that set in, entailing the loss of the ‘real narrative’ of the Kingdom, until, that is, modern exegesis came into existence. An evangelical Protestant like Wright is entitled to think like that, of course, even if it puts a Catholic on the back foot. But is Christian tradition so badly in need of correction or has it, perhaps, managed to hang on to the Kingdom-story rather more than Wright allows? After all, leaf through any hymn book, Protestant or Catholic, and dozens of images of kingship will jump out at you. But still, Wright might say, these may not correspond to the way people actually think and act in their religious lives. Maybe there is a case to answer here.
The second difficulty is that my modern imagination rather baulks at the thought of Jesus sitting on a throne as King in heaven. It’s a fine metaphor but in what sense does it represent a state of affairs? My mind is uneasy with what sounds like mythology and I find myself restlessly wanting to ‘demythologise’ it, to translate it into categories more related to my way of seeing the world. The problem is that the Ascension is essentially an ‘is’ statement whereas demythologising usually ends up with ‘ought’ statements like saying that ‘living in the Kingdom of God’ really just boils down to living by ‘Kingdom values’ or, ‘building the Kingdom’ by being good citizens, speaking up for the victims of injustice and behaving in an ecologically responsible manner. If that is the ‘cash-value’ of the doctrine of the Ascension, then it seems to have made no real difference. Yet the only alternative would seem to mean fixating on a rather literalist interpretation of the doctrine itself; if my (or your) imagination cannot cope, that’s just too bad, because that’s how it is…
An answer to both perplexities comes in the shape of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. What I see in his famous itinerary for a 30 day transformative retreat experience is a playing out of precisely the kind of spirituality that flows naturally from the Kingdom narrative: not one of resurrection as an end in itself (though resurrection is very present) but a vivid engagement with Christ, the Eternal King, and a focused and prolonged imaginative effort to contemplate the world under the aspect of the Kingdom of Christ and to discern in depth the difference that this truth makes: i.e. that it calls me to become a servant of Christ’s mission.
There is some irony in making this point. Everyone who has ever made the Exercises knows full well Ignatius’s fondness for regal and military metaphors. People often assume that behind it is Ignatius the (minor) nobleman harking back nostalgically to his time in the Spanish court or soldiering against the French. Yet Ignatius was no sentimentalist. If he used kingly language to speak of Jesus it was quite simply because he knew Jesus as a King.
In this he was helped by the standard, even ubiquitous iconography of the Middle Ages. One of the most common depictions of Jesus throughout the period was the eschatological Christ seated on a throne, surrounded by an oval aura called a mandorla and the four apocalyptic beasts. This figure, known as the maiestas domini, adorns many a Cathedral tympanum, reminding those entering below that Christ is indeed their King here and now. This Christ was majestic and powerful, not entirely dissimilar to the eastern Christian icon of Christ pantokrator, Lord of all. The mandorla was significant too, an unmistakeable reference to the birth canal. The figure of the King in the mandorla, the Kingdom in the very process of being born, echoes the Lord’s prayer: ‘thy Kingdom come!’ It is a dynamic image of God’s Kingdom coming to us as we look on, a reminder that if the Kingdom is indeed already a reality, nevertheless it has not yet fully arrived. It still has something of the subjunctive about it.
Ignatius, judging by the language he uses to speak of Christ in the Exercises, took this icon as his preferred depiction of the Lord. Whenever he imagines himself standing before God, offering himself for service in whatever way God will decide, he speaks of God/Christ as ‘the Divine Majesty’:
Then I shall reflect within myself and consider what, in all reason and justice, I ought for my part to offer and give his Divine Majesty, that is to say, all I possess and myself as well… (Sp Exx 234)[6]
The most important and transformative exercises are preceded by an invitation to imagine Christ as King and to allow oneself to enter into the scene of that image, adopting the behaviour appropriate to it:
how much more is it worthy of consideration to see Christ our Lord, the eternal king, as to all and to each one in particular his call goes out: ‘It is my will to conquer the whole world and every enemy and so enter into the glory of my Father… (Sp Exx 95)
And:
Here will be to see myself in the presence of God our Lord and of all his saints that I might desire and know what is more pleasing to His Divine Goodness. … here it will be to ask for the grace to choose what is more for the glory of his Divine Majesty and the salvation of my soul. (Sp Exx151-2)
Two vital clues suggest that the link with the Ascension was one Ignatius would have made himself. In the ‘Fourth Week’ of the Exercises, which deals with the Resurrection of Christ, Ignatius offers for meditation no less than 13 appearances of the Lord, including one to Paul which would have taken place after the Ascension. But he insists that it is the Ascension that should be the final mystery of the whole retreat to be contemplated. For Ignatius this is no mere detail, no pious addition to the list of biblical incidents but the highpoint, the climax of the whole movement of Christ that brings him to the divine throne before which he stood repeatedly seeking God’s will for his life. The other detail comes from an autobiographical incident that took place when Ignatius was on pilgrimage in Jerusalem. He was about to be expelled from the Holy Land by the Franciscan authorities but before heading for the coast he was desperate to do one last thing: to revisit a particular site from the pilgrim’s itinerary, the place where, tradition has it, Jesus ascended into heaven. Bribing the guards with a pair of scissors, of all things, Ignatius managed to get up to the Mount of Olives where he could check the exact position of Christ’s footprints before He was taken off into the cloud.
So, with regard to my first perplexity, it is clear that Ignatius at least, one of the Catholic tradition’s most brilliant and influential spiritual masters, is an unabashed exponent of Kingdom-Christianity. If you know anything about his life that observation will ring true; he was above all a man who desired to let God’s glory shine out here in the world by living his life as a divine mission. Knowing this, one could never say blandly that the tradition of the Church simply lost sight of the central significance of Jesus Christ as universal King. Indeed, it seems to have maintained it with clarity and vigour.
Ignatius has also relieved my second perplexity considerably, the anxiety that simply proclaiming the kingship of Christ as a literal state of affairs does not seem to get us very far. Appropriating this deep truth, as Ignatius’s life shows, requires a very special human faculty, one that Ignatius was forced to deploy by the very forces which were undermining the ‘Kingdom’ in his day. For at the time he is writing, the image of the Divine Majesty was facing a major crisis. This was thanks to the impending demise of that ancient, traditional cosmology in which the image of Christ as King in heaven made some sense. By the end of the 15th Century the new sciences and the successful circumnavigation of the globe had put that picture under severe pressure. Politically things were changing too. A united Christendom had been evidential warrant to the notion of a civilisation united under the rule of Christ. But now, under the impact of the Reformation, Christendom was breaking up, making it all but impossible to conceive of Christ as King of the universe. This is the decidedly inauspicious climate in which our young Basque finds himself not only drawn to the maiestas domini but also sensing its urgent appeal. I imagine him gazing longingly at some cathedral portal after Mass, on fire with the love of God and aware that, despite all the contradictory desires that filled his heart, it was only in the service of Christ’s mission that inner unity and purpose in life could be achieved. He must have seen depicted in this image a process, a dynamic by which human beings could allow order to be drawn out of the chaos of their lives. He understood that the only way to unleash the transformative power of the Kingdom was not merely by assent to a purported state of affairs but by the deepest possible imaginative exploration of what it means to live in the world where Jesus is King. For the key to engaging with the mystery of the Kingdom is, for Ignatius, as for the Spinner of parables Himself, the human imagination.
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