Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
To be a vibrant Catholic Community
unified in its commitment
to growing disciples for Christ
Parish Priest: Fr
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack Mob: 0437 521 257
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher Pastoral Council Chair: Jenny Garnsey
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com
Parish Prayer
Heavenly Father,
We thank you for gathering us together
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission
of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.
Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will
for the spiritual renewal of our parish.
Give us strength, courage, and clear vision
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,
and ask for her intercession and guidance
as we strive to bear witness
as we strive to bear witness
to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.
Amen.
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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Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
Devonport Friday
Adoration: Recommences 3rd February, 2017.
Devonport:
Benediction (1st Friday of the Month) - Recommences Friday 3rd
February, 2017.
Prayer Groups:
Charismatic Renewal - Devonport (Emmaus House)
Thursdays - 7:30pm - Recommencing 2nd February,
2017
Christian Meditation - Devonport, Emmaus House - Wednesdays 7pm. Recommencing 1st
February, 2017
Parish Office Closed until Tuesday 24th
January, 2017
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: Iris Wilson John Lee-Archer, Helen
Willis, David Welch & …
Let us pray
for those who have died recently: Rob Belanger, Carlene Norris, Cyprian Ibeke, Perpetua Floro Mark Marshall, Jenny Edwards, Joan Matthews, Anthony
Bird, Martin Xavier, Udofia John Okpon
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 11th – 17th
January
Gerald Kramer, Bridget Richards, Bernice Vidler, Kelvin
French, Gerry Doyle, Berna Adkins, Joanne Johnson, William Richardson, Gerard Reynolds and Brett Hunniford.
May they rest in peace
Readings This Week
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
First Reading: Isaiah 8:23 – 9:3
Second Reading: Corinthians 1:10-13, 17
Gospel: Matthew 4:12-23
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
I become
still and, when I am ready, slowly read this gospel text several times.
I may
like to try to enter the scene.
John the Baptist, seeing Jesus coming towards
him, invites his followers to “look” at Jesus.
What does the crowd see?
How do
they respond to his presence?
I too look at Jesus.
What do I see... feel...
hear...?
How do I want to respond to Jesus?
What might he wish to say to me?
Perhaps I must say with John, “I did not know him myself” and beg to learn to
see, to love and to follow Jesus more fully?
John tells us that Jesus has come
to “take away the sin of the world”: what do I see as the sin of the world
today?
May be I ask for God’s grace to free me from my own participation in the
world’s sin… or perhaps I feel called to labour with the Lord to bring healing
and peace… I ponder.
What do I want to pray for our world as we begin 2017?
I
ask God’s Spirit to show me where and how I can be a witness to Jesus in my
daily life this New Year… and to give me courage.
Readings Next Week
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
First Reading: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:1-3
Gospel:
John 1:29-34
SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM
A reminder that the Sacramental Program for children in Gr
3 and above (in 2017) will commence with a meeting on Monday, 20th
Feb in Devonport and on Tuesday, 21st Feb in Ulverstone. Both meetings
will commence at 7pm.
_________________________
ALPHA 2017
We will be launching a new series of ALPHA in 2017. The 12
week program looks at questions which impact on the lives of participants in a
relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
An invitation is extended to anyone who has been part of an
Alpha Program in the past to come to a meeting at the Parish House on Sunday,
29th Jan at 3.00pm to discuss what we need to do to have a team for
the next Program which will start (hopefully) late February.
ROSTERS FOR JANUARY
A reminder that the rosters for parishioners involved in
the weekly activities of the Parish are on the Notice Boards in each Mass
Centre.
ORTHODOXY, SIN, AND HERESY
Recently, while on the road giving a workshop, I took the opportunity to go the Cathedral in that city for a Sunday Eucharist. I was taken aback by the homily. The priest used the Gospel text where Jesus says, I am the vine and you are the branches, to tell the congregation that what Jesus is teaching here is that the Roman Catholic Church constitutes what is referred to as the branches and the way we link to those branches is through the mass and if we miss mass on a Sunday we are committing a mortal sin and should we die in that state we will go to hell.
Then, aware that what he was saying would be unpopular, he protested that the truth is often unpopular, but that what he just said is orthodox Catholic teaching and that anyone denying this is in heresy. It’s sad that this kind of thing is still being said in our churches.
Does the Catholic Church really teach that missing mass is a mortal sin and that if you die in that state you will go to hell? No, that’s not Catholic orthodoxy, though popular preaching and catechesis often suppose that it is, even as neither accepts the full consequences.
Here’s an example: Some years ago, I presided at the funeral of a young man, in his twenties, who had been killed in a car accident. In the months before his death he had for all practical purposes ceased practicing his Catholicism: He had stopped going to church, was living with his girlfriend outside of marriage, and had not been sober when he died. However his family and the congregation who surrounded him at his burial knew him, and they knew that despite his ecclesial and moral carelessness he had a good heart, that he brought sunshine into a room and that was a generous young man.
At the reception after the funeral one of his aunts, who believed that missing mass was a mortal sin that could condemn you to hell, approached me and said: “He had such a great heart and such a wonderful energy; if I were running the gates of heaven, I would let him in.” Her comment wonderfully betrayed something deeper inside of her, namely, her belief that a good heart will trump ecclesial rules in terms of who gets to go to heaven and the belief that God has wider criteria for judgment than those formulated in external church rules. She believed that it was a mortal sin to miss mass on Sunday but, for all the right reasons, could not accept the full consequences of that, namely, that her nephew was going to hell. Deep down, she knew that God reads the heart, understands human carelessness, welcomes sinners into his bosom, and does not exclude goodness from heaven.
But that still leaves the question: Is it orthodox Roman Catholic teaching to say that it is a mortal sin to not go to church on a Sunday and that such an ecclesial lapse can send you to hell? No, to teach that categorically would itself be bordering on heresy.
Simply stated, Catholic moral theology has always taught that sin is a subjective thing that can never be read from the outside. We can never look at an action from the outside and say: “That’s a sin!” We can look at an action from the outside and say: “That’s wrong!” But that’s a different judgment. From the outside we can judge an action as objectively wrong, but we can never make the judgment that it’s a sin. Moreover this isn’t new, liberal teaching, it is already found in our traditional Catechisms. Nobody can look at the action of someone else and say: “That’s a sin!” To teach that we can make such a judgment goes against Catholic orthodoxy. We can, and must, affirm that certain things are wrong, objectively wrong, but sin is something else.
Probably the most quoted line from Pope Francis is his famous response to a moral question where he simply responded: “Who am I to judge?” He’s in good company. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “You judge by appearances; I judge no one.” That, of course, does not mean that there isn’t any judgment. There is, it’s real, and it can condemn someone to hell. But it works this way: God’s Love, Life, Truth, and Light come into the world and we judge ourselves apposite them. God condemns no one, but we can condemn ourselves. It is God’s Love, Life, Truth, and Light against which we weigh ourselves and these determine who goes where, already here on earth and in eternity.
In our catechesis and our popular preaching we must be more careful in our use of the term “mortal sin” and in our judgments as to who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, fully aware that there wasn’t any group that Jesus was harsher on than on those who were making those kinds of judgments.
NON VIOLENCE
Ahimsa: Love Is Your Nature
Before you
speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart. —St. Francis of Assisi
[1]
Christianity
seems to have forgotten Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence. We’ve relegated
visions of a peaceful kingdom to a far distant heaven, hardly believing Jesus
could have meant we should turn the other cheek here and now. It took Gandhi, a
Hindu, to help us apply Jesus’ peace-making in very practical ways. As Gandhi
said, “It is a first class human tragedy that people of the earth who claim to
believe in the message of Jesus, whom they describe as the Prince of Peace,
show little of that belief in actual practice.” [2] Martin Luther King, Jr.,
drawing from Gandhi’s work, brought nonviolence to the forefront of civil rights
in the 1960s.
Nonviolent
training has understandably emphasized largely external methods or ways of
acting and resisting. These are important and necessary, but we must go even
deeper. Unless those methods finally reflect inner attitudes, they will not
make a lasting difference. We all have to admit that our secret inner attitudes
are often cruel, attacking, judgmental, and harsh. The ego seems to find its
energy precisely by having something to oppose, fix, or change. When the mind
can judge something to be inferior, we feel superior. We must recognize our
constant tendency toward negating reality, resisting it, opposing it, and
attacking it on the level of our mind. This is the universal addiction, as I
say in the introduction to Breathing Under Water. [3]
Authentic
spirituality is always first about you—about allowing your own heart and mind
to be changed. It’s about getting your own who right. Who is it that is doing
the perceiving? Is it your illusory, separate, false self; or is it your True
Self, who you are in God?
As Thomas
Keating says:
We’re all
like localized vibrations of the infinite goodness of God’s presence. So love
is our very nature. Love is our first, middle, and last name. Love is all; not
[love as] sentimentality, but love that is self-forgetful and free of
self-interest.
This is also
marvelously exemplified in Gandhi’s life and work. He never tried to win
anything. He just tried to show love; and that’s what ahimsa really means. It’s
not just a negative. Nonviolence doesn’t capture its meaning. It means to show
love tirelessly, no matter what happens. That’s the meaning of turning the
other cheek. Once in a while you have to defend somebody, but it means you’re
always willing to suffer first for the cause—that is to say, for communion with
your enemies. If you overcome your enemies, you’ve failed. If you make your
enemies your partners, God has succeeded. [4]
References:
[1]
Paraphrase of Francis of Assisi, Opuscoli di S. Francesco d’Assisi, ed. Fr.
Bernardo da Fivizzano (Firenze Tip. della SS. Concezione di R. Ricci: 1880),
272.
[2] Mahatma
Gandhi, Truth is God, ed. R. K. Prabhu (Navajivan Publishing House: 1955), 145.
[3] See
Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
(Franciscan Media: 2011).
[4] Thomas
Keating, Healing Our Violence through the Journey of Centering Prayer
(Franciscan Media: 2002), disc 5 (CD).
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Mary and Nonviolence (CAC: 2002), CD, discontinued; and
Richard Rohr
and Thomas Keating, Healing Our Violence through the Journey of Centering
Prayer (Franciscan Media: 2002), discs 2 and 5 (CD).
The Inner Witness
We each
carry a certain amount of pain from our very birth. If that pain is not healed
and transformed, it actually increases as we grow older, and we transmit it to
people around us. We can become violent in our attitudes, gestures, words, and
actions.
We must nip
this process in the bud by acknowledging and owning our own pain, rather than
projecting it elsewhere. For myself, I can’t pretend to be loving when inside
I’m not, when I know I’ve thought cruel, judgmental, and harsh thoughts about
others. At the moment the thought arises, I have to catch myself and hand over
the annoyance or anger to God. Contemplative practice helps me develop this
capacity to watch myself and to connect with my loving Inner Witness. Let me
explain why this is important.
If you can
simply observe the negative pattern in yourself, you have already begun to
separate from it. The watcher is now over here, observing yourself thinking
that thought—over there. Unless you can become the watcher, you’ll almost
always identify with your feelings. They feel like real and objective truth.
Most people
I know are overly identified with their own thoughts and feelings. They don’t
really have feelings; their feelings have them. That may be what earlier
Christians meant by being “possessed” by a demon. That’s why so many of Jesus’
miracles are the exorcism of devils. Most don’t take that literally anymore,
but the devil is still a powerful metaphor, which demands that you take it
quite seriously. Everyone has a few devils. I know I’m “possessed” at least
once or twice a day, even if just for a few minutes!
There are
all kinds of demons—in other words, there are lots of times when you cannot not
think a certain way. When you see certain people, you get afraid. When you see
other people, you get angry. For example, numerous studies show that many white
people have an implicit, unacknowledged fear of black men. Thank God, most of
us are not explicitly racist, but many of us have an implicit and totally
denied racial bias. This is why all healing and prayer must descend into the
unconscious where the lies we’ve believed are hidden in our wounds.
During
contemplation, forgotten painful experiences may arise. In such cases, it helps
to meet with a spiritual director or therapist to process old wounds and trauma
in healthy ways.
Over a
lifetime of practice, contemplation gradually helps you detach from who you
think you are and rest in your authentic identity as Love. At first this may
feel like an “identity transplant” until you learn how to permanently rest in
God.
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Mary and Nonviolence (CAC: 2002), CD, discontinued.
Following Jesus
Jesus’
teachings seem to have been understood rather clearly during the first few
hundred years after his death and resurrection. Values like nonparticipation in
war, simple living, and love of enemies were common among his early followers.
For example, the Didache, written around AD 90, calls readers to “share all
things with your brother; and do not say that they are your own. For if you are
sharers in what is imperishable, how much more in things which perish.” [1] At
this time, Christianity was countercultural, untouched by empire,
rationalization, and compromise.
However,
when the imperial edict of AD 313 elevated Christianity to a privileged
position in the Roman Empire, the church increasingly accepted, and even
defended, the dominant social order, especially concerning war, money, and
class. Morality became individualized and largely sexual. Formal Christianity
slowly lost its free and alternative vantage point, which is probably why what
we now call “religious life” began, and flourished, after 313. People went to
the edges of the church and took vows of poverty, living in satellites that
became “little churches,” without ever formally leaving the big church.
If you look
at texts in the hundred years preceding 313, it was unthinkable that a
Christian would fight in the army. The army was killing Christians; Christians
were being persecuted. By the year 400, the entire army had become Christian,
and Christians were killing the “pagans.” In a two-hundred-year period, we went
from being complete outsiders to directing the inside! Once you are inside, you
have to defend your power and your privilege.
It is during
this transition that people like St. Anthony of the Desert, John Cassian,
Evagrius Ponticus, and the early monks went off to Egypt, Syria, and the
deserts of Palestine. They critiqued the self-protective, privileged lifestyle
of mainline Christianity by utterly leaving it! Soon they learned and taught a
different way of seeing called “contemplation.” From that point through the
modern period, most governments assumed that Christian monks and priests could
not, or should not, wage war or kill others.
Why this
split between two brands of Christianity? Why were some expected to take the
Sermon on the Mount seriously, while the rest were exempt? Even as recently as the Vietnam War, laity
could kill, while the clergy could not. As a Franciscan, I received an
immediate draft deferment in the 1960s. When the Gospel is heard and understood
at its deepest level, Christians cannot and will not kill or wage war.
References:
[1] Didache:
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Chapter 4.8.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer
(Paulist Press: 2014), 47-51.
A Nonviolent Atonement (At-One-Ment)
Jesus’
teachings seem to have been understood rather clearly during the first few
hundred years after his death and resurrection. Values like nonparticipation in
war, simple living, and love of enemies were common among his early followers.
For example, the Didache, written around AD 90, calls readers to “share all
things with your brother; and do not say that they are your own. For if you are
sharers in what is imperishable, how much more in things which perish.” [1] At
this time, Christianity was countercultural, untouched by empire, rationalization,
and compromise.
However,
when the imperial edict of AD 313 elevated Christianity to a privileged
position in the Roman Empire, the church increasingly accepted, and even
defended, the dominant social order, especially concerning war, money, and
class. Morality became individualized and largely sexual. Formal Christianity
slowly lost its free and alternative vantage point, which is probably why what
we now call “religious life” began, and flourished, after 313. People went to
the edges of the church and took vows of poverty, living in satellites that
became “little churches,” without ever formally leaving the big church.
If you look
at texts in the hundred years preceding 313, it was unthinkable that a
Christian would fight in the army. The army was killing Christians; Christians
In the
thirteenth century, the Franciscans and the Dominicans were the Catholic
Church’s debating society, as it were. We invariably took opposing positions in
the great debates in the universities of Paris, Cologne, Bologna, and Oxford.
Both opinions usually passed the tests of orthodoxy, although one was
preferred. The Franciscans often ended up presenting the minority position in
those days. I share this bit of history to show that my understanding of the
atonement theory is not heretical or new, but has very traditional and orthodox
foundations. In the thirteenth century the Catholic Church seemed to be more
broad-minded than it became later. Like the United States’ Supreme Court, it
could have both a majority and a minority opinion, and the minority position
was not kicked out! It was just not taught in most seminaries. However, the
Franciscans and other groups taught the minority position.
Thomas
Aquinas and the Dominicans agreed with the mainline position that some kind of
debt had to be paid for human salvation. Many scriptures and the Jewish temple
metaphors of sacrifice, price, propitiation, debt, and atonement do give this
impression. But Franciscan teacher, Blessed John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308),
who founded the theological chair at Oxford, said that Jesus wasn’t solving any
problems by coming to earth and dying. Jesus wasn’t changing God’s mind about
us; rather, Jesus was changing our minds about God. That, in a word, was our
nonviolent at-one-ment theory. God did not need Jesus to die on the cross to
decide to love humanity. God’s love was infinite from the first moment of
creation; the cross was just Love’s dramatic portrayal in space and time.
Scotus built
his argument on the pre-existent Cosmic Christ described in Colossians and
Ephesians. Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) who came
forward in a moment of time so we could look upon “the One we had pierced”
(John 19:37) and see God’s unconditional love for us, in spite of our failings.
The image of
the cross was to change humanity, not a necessary transaction to change God—as
if God needed changing! Scotus concluded that Jesus’ death was not a “penal
substitution” but a divine epiphany for all to see. Jesus was pure gift, and the
idea of gift is much more transformative than any idea of necessity, price, or
transaction. It shows that God is not violent, but loving.
Duns Scotus
firmly believed that God’s perfect freedom had to be maintained at all costs.
If God “needed” or demanded a blood sacrifice to love God’s own creation, then
God was not freely loving us. Once you say it, its inherent absurdity is
obvious! Unfortunately, the mainstream “theory” led many people to dislike and
mistrust “God the Father.” This undercut the mystical, transformative journey
for most Christians.
Jesus was
not changing the Father’s mind about us; he was changing our mind about God—and
thus about one another too. If God and Jesus are not violent, punishing,
torturing, or vindictive, then our excuse for the same is forever taken away
from us. This is no small point! And, of course, if God is punitive and
torturing, then we have full modeling and permission to do the same. Does this
need much proof at this point in Christian history?
Jesus’ full
journey revealed two major things: that salvation could have a positive and
optimistic storyline, neither beginning nor ending with a cosmic problem; and
even more that God was far different and far better than the whole history of
violent religion had up to then demonstrated. Jesus did not just give us
textbook and transactional answers, but personally walked through the full
human journey of both failure and rejection—while still forgiving his
enemies—and then said, “Follow me” and do likewise (see John 12:26; Matthew
10:38). This is the crucial message of nonviolence that most of Christianity
has yet to hear. Without it, the future of humanity is in grave peril.
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer
(Paulist Press: 2014), 70-73.
Jesus Reveals the Lie of Scapegoating
If your ego
is still in charge, you will find a disposable person or group on which to
project your problems. People who haven’t come to at least a minimal awareness
of their own dark side will always find someone else to hate or fear. Hatred
holds a group together much more quickly and easily than love and inclusivity,
I am sorry to say. René Girard developed a sociological, literary, and
philosophical explanation for how and why the pattern of scapegoating is so
prevalent in every culture. [1]
In Leviticus
16 we see the brilliant ritualization of what we now call scapegoating, and we
should indeed feel sorry for the demonized goat. On the Day of Atonement, a
priest laid hands on an “escaping” goat, placing all the sins of the Jewish
people from the previous year onto the animal. Then the goat was beaten with
reeds and thorns, and driven out into the desert. And the people went home
rejoicing, just as European Christians did after burning a supposed heretic at
the stake or American whites did after the lynching of black men. Whenever the
“sinner” is excluded, our ego is delighted and feels relieved and safe. It sort
of works, but only for a while. Usually the illusion only deepens and becomes
catatonic, blind, and repetitive—because of course, scapegoating did not really
work to eliminate the evil in the first place.
Jesus came
to radically undo this illusory scapegoat mechanism, which is found in every
culture in some form. He became the scapegoat to reveal the universal lie of
scapegoating. Note that John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sin [singular] of the world” (John 1:29). It seems “the sin of
the world” is ignorant killing, hatred, and fear. As Blaise Pascal so
insightfully wrote, “People never do evil so completely and so cheerfully as
when they do it with a religious conviction.” [2] We see this in much of the
United States in our own time, with churches on every corner.
The Gospel
is a highly subversive document. It painstakingly illustrates how the systems
of both church and state (Caiaphas and Pilate) conspired to condemn Jesus.
Throughout most of history, church and state have sought plausible scapegoats
to carry their own shame and guilt. So Jesus became the sinned-against one to
reveal the hidden nature of scapegoating, and we would forever see how wrong
power can be—even religious power! (See John 16:8-11 and Romans 8:3.) Finally
Jesus says from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what
they’re doing” (Luke 23:34). The scapegoat mechanism largely operates in the
unconscious; people do not know what they are doing. Scapegoaters do not know
they are scapegoating, but they think they are doing a “holy duty for God”
(John 16:2). You see why inner work, shadow work, and honest self-knowledge are
all essential to any healthy religion.
The vast
majority of violence in history has been sacralized violence. Members of ISIS
probably believe they are doing God’s will. The Ku Klux Klan used the cross as
their symbol! With God on your side, your violence becomes necessary and even
“redemptive violence.” But there is no such thing as redemptive violence.
Violence doesn’t save; it only destroys in both short and long term.
Jesus
replaced the myth of redemptive violence with the truth of redemptive
suffering. He showed us how to hold the pain and let it transform us, rather
than pass it on to the others around us. Spiritually speaking, no one else is
your problem. You are first and foremost your own problem.
There are no
bad goats to expel.
References:
[1] I highly
recommend James Alison’s exploration of René Girard’s work, particularly
Alison’s series of studies Jesus: The Forgiving Victim,
http://www.forgivingvictim.com/.
[2] Blaise Pascal,
Pensées, trans. W. F. Trotter (New York: P. F. Collier, 1910), no. 895.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer
(Paulist Press: 2014), 72-73; and
CONSPIRE
2016: Everything Belongs (CAC: 2016), sessions 2 and 3 (MP4 video download).
Ending the Cycle of Violence
Picture
yourself before the crucified Jesus; recognize that he became what you fear:
nakedness, exposure, vulnerability, and failure. He became sin to free you from
sin. (See 2 Corinthians 5:21.) He became what we do to one another in order to
free us from the lie of punishing and scapegoating each other. He became the
crucified so we would stop crucifying. He refused to transmit his pain onto
others.
In your
imagination, receive these words as Jesus’ invitation to you from the cross:
My beloved,
I am your self. I am your beauty. I am your goodness, which you are destroying.
I am what you do to what you should love. I am what you are afraid of: your
deepest and best and most naked self—your soul. Your sin largely consists in
what you do to harm goodness—your own and others’. You are afraid of the good;
you are afraid of me. You kill what you should love; you hate what could
transform you. I am Jesus crucified. I am yourself, and I am all of humanity.
And now
respond to Jesus on the cross, hanging at the center of human history, turning
history around:
Jesus,
Crucified, you are my life and you are also my death. You are my beauty, you
are my possibility, and you are my full self. You are everything I want, and
you are everything I am afraid of. You are everything I desire, and you are
everything I deny. You are my outrageously ignored and neglected soul.
Jesus, your
love is what I most fear. I can’t let anybody love me for nothing. Intimacy with
you or anyone terrifies me.
I am
beginning to see that I, in my own body, am an image of what is happening
everywhere, and I want it to stop today. I want to stop the violence toward
myself, toward the world, toward you. I don’t need to ever again create any
victim, even in my mind.
You alone,
Jesus, refused to be crucifier, even at the cost of being crucified. You never
asked for sympathy. You never played the victim or asked for vengeance. You
breathed forgiveness.
We humans
mistrust, murder, attack. Now I see that it is not you that humanity hates. We
hate ourselves, but we mistakenly kill you. I must stop crucifying your blessed
flesh on this earth and in my brothers and sisters.
Now I see
that you live in me and I live in you. You are inviting me out of this endless
cycle of illusion and violence. You are Jesus crucified. You are saving me. In
your perfect love, you have chosen to enter into union with me, and I am slowly
learning to trust that this could be true.
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, On Transformation: Collected Talks (Franciscan Media: 1997), disc
1 (CD).
5 MYTHS OF UNSUCCESSFUL CHURCHES
It’s the New Year, and most people make plans for a year more successful than the last. So lets resolve to put to rest some of the old and tired excuses, myths really, that tend to hang around unsuccessful churches and their leaders. Here are five of the most common.
“We don’t need to grow.”
Living things grow. Unless every household in your zip code is already attending church you’ve got work to do. Of course, growth itself is not a sure sign of success. You could be experiencing growth based on new neighborhood development. That’s automatic growth. We’re talking about intentional growth, growth as a choice. Successful churches grow by intentionally going deeper (discipleship) and going wider (outreach and evangelization).
“What works for you won’t work for us.”
We hear this one a lot. It goes something like, “What works in the city/suburbs/south/north, etc. won’t work here.” As a matter of fact, I agree. . . up to a point. People are different, and so there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach. But what this argument badly misses is that churches can learn transferable principles for success, they just need to be implemented and adapted for different environments and local cultures.
When Nativity first began learning from places like Saddleback and North Point, people wondered if and how a Catholic Church in Baltimore could learn from Evangelical churches on the West Coast and the Deep South, and everywhere in between. But you know what? With a little work and imagination we discovered lots of great ideas and transferable principles we could use.
“We have an ugly building, we have a bad location.”
Unsuccessful churches love to blame their problems on their circumstances. I certainly did. I use to grown and complain all the time when I first came here about how ugly our church building was, and what a handicap that appeared to be. Until I learned that right here in our community there was an Evangelical church meeting in a warehouse, they were about twice as big as us and growing.
Pretty churches don’t make disciples. Of course, your church needs to be a clean and inviting environment. But it’s a myth that you need a beautiful or state-of-the-art facility to create an environment that will attract people.
“We don’t have enough money.”
This is a tried and true excuse for doing nothing. But it’s a myth. Our partner parish in Haiti doesn’t have any money. They have no paid staff, other than the pastor, they have virtually no budget, they really have no money. And they have a vibrant parish. When it comes to our parish, we are currently on solid footing financially, it’s true. But money didn’t fund our growth, it followed it.
“People don’t like big churches.”
This is a common myth, except that the success of big churches in itself flies in the face of it. If people truly don’t like big churches, there wouldn’t be any… or at least any successful ones.
But there is a truth here that should be considered. People don’t like big churches that feel big and impersonal. Nobody wants to feel unimportant, and an impersonal community is no community at all. But this isn’t really determined by the size of the church but rather the spirit of the church. Big churches are successful when they feel intimate. That’s why a key to most successful churches is investing time and attention in small groups and ministry. Getting people involved and growing will ensure they’re not lost in the crowd.
Letter from Rome
What to Expect from Francis in 2017
Taken from an article by Robert Mickens in the January Edition of Commonweal - you can subscribe to Commonweal here. (https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/letter-rome-107)
We are now
fully into 2017.
And despite a
worrying and uncertain future on the international geo-political horizon
—especially with the January 20 inauguration of the next United States
President, Donald Trump—it promises to be an exciting calendar year for the
pontificate of Pope Francis.
Expect the
Jesuit pope to press the accelerator on his herculean efforts to reform the
culture and structure of the central Vatican offices, known as the Roman Curia,
and continue his evangelical push to re-orient the global church’s ethos,
mission, and priorities.
There are a
number of important church-related anniversaries that are set to take place in
2017 and Francis, who has shown amazing energy despite turning eighty last
month, will be personally involved in several of them.
All eyes will
be on his trip next May 12-13 to Portugal’s most famous Marian shrine where he will celebrate the one-hundredth
anniversary of the first of a month-long series of apparitions by Our Lady of
Fatima.
Incidentally,
the pilgrimage comes just two months after Jorge Mario Bergoglio marks the
fourth anniversary of his election as Bishop of Rome.
Watch for
history’s first New World pope, who has emerged as the globe's leading voice
for progressive causes and the main proponent in reviving the reforming spirit
of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), to give a fresh and creative impulse
to the so-called “message of Fatima.” He is likely to reaffirm the popular
piety tied to the apparitions, while also casting Fatima’s message in a much
more appealing social and communitarian context for contemporary society.
This year also
happens to see the one-hundredth anniversary of the Latin Church’s first
compilation of a comprehensive Code of Canon Law.
Promulgated by
Benedict XV in May 1917, the code took legal effect one year later before being
replaced with an updated edition in 1983. The anniversary provides Francis with
the opportunity to give a major address on the proper place of church law as being
at the service of Catholic theology and life, rather than as a heavy yoke that
stifles the surprising action of the Holy Spirit in the earthly pilgrimage and
ongoing growth of God’s people.
The fifth
centenary of the start of the Protestant Reformation (1517-1648) is also being
remembered this year. The catalyst of that turbulent and transformative chain
of events, of course, was the bold challenge that an Augustinian monk and
priest named Martin Luther launched in October 1517 when he published his “95 Thesis”
calling for massive Church reforms. Pope Francis helped the spiritual heirs of
Luther inaugurate the five-hundredth anniversary commemorations last autumn
when he attended a joint, Catholic-Lutheran prayer service in Sweden.
This ongoing
Luther Year will be another opportunity for the Argentine pope to more fully
articulate and implement his vision for a new phase of ecumenism. He will
continue to seek ways to convince Catholics and other Christian leaders that
full unity among the various denominations can accommodate more diversity than
has been admitted up to now.
It will be a
daunting task, and Francis will continue face opposition from doctrinal
hardliners in the Roman Church. Nonetheless, watch for him to intensify his
efforts in uniting the fractured Christian world around the basic essentials of
the faith.
But the
anniversary that could lead to one of the biggest Church events of 2017
occurs next
August 15. That's the one-hundredth anniversary of the birthday of Blessed
Oscar Romero, the Salvadoran archbishop who was gunned down by a right-wing
government-backed assassin in 1980 while celebrating Mass.
Pope Francis
declared Romero a martyr in February 2015 and ordered his beatification three
months later in San Salvador.
Officials in
the archdiocese that the late prelate guided for nearly three years before his
murder are working around the clock to see that the man already known as
"San Romero” and the unofficial patron saint of Latin America is
officially canonized in 2017.
And there are
encouraging signs that his canonization could indeed take place in this
calendar year.
The papal
nuncio to El Salvador, Archbishop Léon Kalenga Badikebele, has played a key
role in removing any obstacles. He reportedly told the tiny nation’s nine
active bishops that those that did not wholeheartedly back the canonization
efforts could submit their resignations immediately!
The only thing
standing in the way at this point is a verified miracle.
A church
tribunal in San Salvador is currently concluding its investigation into what
appears to be a cure attributed to the would-be-saint’s intervention. It is
believed that the tribunal will be able to send a meticulous and detailed
report of its findings to the Congregation for Saints in Rome sometime next
month.
Once that
happens the supposed miracle would be further investigated by two Vatican
commissions—one made up of seven medical experts and another consisting of six
theologians. If both groups decide the miracle is legitimate, then the
bishop-members of the congregation must give their approval.
People
involved in promoting Romero’s cause say this final part of the process would
normally take up to a year or eighteen months to complete. But they also point
out that Pope Francis could step in at any moment and speed up the procedure.
In another hopeful sign, it is said that the prefect of the Congregation for
Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, is also working overtime to clear the path for
the canonization.
But where
would the ceremony take place?
Church
officials in Latin America are pushing hard for it to be in San Salvador. And,
ideally, they would like the pope to use the occasion to also beatify one of
Romero’s close friends and collaborators, Fr. Rutilio Grande. The Jesuit priest
was assassinated in 1977 by the same forces that eventually ordered the murder
of the archbishop three years later.
And August 15
would be an ideal date for such a canonization/beatification ceremony. It is
the pinnacle of the summer holiday season at the Vatican and in Italy—a perfect
time for the unpredictable Pope Francis to head to peripheries.
**********
It is well
known by now that Pope Francis will reconvene his Synod of Bishops in the
autumn of 2018 to focus on young people in the church. But the work to set the
stage for that major gathering has already begun.
The
preparatory document for Synod 2018 is undergoing final translations in the
various languages and Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, the Synod’s secretary
general, is expected to unveil it to the press in the coming days.
The text is
reportedly about twenty or so pages in length and will once again include a
questionnaire (as in the last two Synod gatherings on the family) to help take
the pulse of the situation of Catholic youth and the world in which they live.
Evidently, two
Italians in the Synod secretariat prepared the text, which was approved by the
Synod’s elected council of bishops back in November.
Fr. Raffaele
“Lello” Lanzilli, a Jesuit from a small mountain town about an hour outside of
Naples, appears to be the principal author.
Pope Francis
made Fr. Lanzilli an official of the Synod secretariat in 2015 after his Jesuit
confrere had completed more than twenty years teaching and ministering in
Albania, the second poorest country in Europe.
The Italian
priest is one the pope’s most trusted allies in Cardinal Baldisseri’s
secretariat. And he’s also a vital aide in helping transform the working
methods and functioning of the Synod so that it continues to become more of a
place for the world’s bishops to freely debate, discern, and deliberate on
issues facing the church.
But the
questionnaire to help prepare for the 2018 Synod assembly will only be helpful
if bishops from around the world actively encourage young people to answer its
queries and speak to the topics it raises with complete candor.
The pope knows
that, unfortunately, most bishops and priests do not have the patience or
desire to really listen to their concerns.
“It’s
important to ‘waste time’ with youngsters,” Francis said on Thursday to
participants of an Italian conference on vocations.
“Sometimes
they are annoying, because—as I said—they always come with the same issues; but
it’s their time,” he said.
“More than
speaking to them, we must listen to them, and give them just a ‘tiny drop,’ a
word here or there, and done, they can go. And this will be a seed with will
work from within,” the pope insisted.
The key
question concerning preparations for the 2018 Synod assembly is how many
bishops will actually “waste time” on their young people and really listen to
what they have to say about their own “issues.”
**********
There’s been a
bit of noise recently about how so many people who work at the Vatican are
demoralized or even terrorized by Pope Francis, even to the extent that they
call him a dictator or tyrant.
Yes, some
officials in the Roman Curia see the pope in precisely these terms and, since
they lack the courage or decency to speak honestly with him face-to-face, they
have enrolled the help of certain journalists to air their grievances.
One of the
most ridiculous accusations (which would be laughable, if it were not actually
so pathetic) is that Francis is purging people—just chucking them out Rome
insensitively.
Let’s be
honest. We’re not talking about lay people with families, but clerics and
members of religious orders.
The pope has
rightly begun to send priests back to their dioceses or religious orders where,
God (and anyone who ever dropped an envelope in the collection basket) knows,
they will not starve to death or lack a roof over their heads. And, given the
acute priest shortage, they certainly will not find themselves for long in the
unemployment line!
It’s hard to
calculate exactly how many of these men have spent most of their priestly lives
working inside the Vatican. They come to Rome as young clerics for an initial
five-year term and the next thing you know they are still here when they reach
the age of retirement.
The pope has
the right and the duty to send priests—and bishops, for that matter—back their
communities of origin (where people need them) after they’ve worked for a
limited time in the Roman Curia.
Those who complain
that this is somehow an injustice towards men who are ordained—not for the
Vatican, but for a specific local church or religious congregation—have failed
to understand the true nature of a priestly vocation.
Expect Synod
2018 to take up that issue, too.
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