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.
Weekday Masses 31st January – 3rd Feb,
2017 Next Weekend 4th
& 5th Feb, 2017
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin … St John Bosco Saturday
Mass: 9:00am Ulverstone
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin & Thursday: 12noon Devonport Devonport
Friday 9:30am Ulverstone Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
12noon Devonport 9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am
Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
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 recommencing 8th
February, 2017.
Prayer Group:
Charismatic Renewal - Devonport, Emmaus House - Thursdays
7.00pm
Meetings, with Adoration and Benediction are held each
Second Thursday of the Month in OLOL Church, commencing at 7.00 pm
Ministry Rosters 4th
& 5th February, 2017
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil: M Kelly, B Paul, R Baker 10:30am
E Petts, K Douglas
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil: D Peters, M
Heazlewood, T Muir, M Gerrand, P Shelverton, M Kenney
10.30am: F Sly, E
Petts, K Hull, S Arrowsmith, S Samarakkody, R Batepola
Cleaners 3rd
Feb: M.W.C. 10th Feb: B Paul, D Atkins, V Riley
Piety Shop 4th
Feb: R Baker 5th Feb: K Hull Flowers: M O’Brien-Evans
Ulverstone:
Readers: A & F
Pisano Ministers of Communion: M Mott, M Fennell, T Leary
Cleaners: K.S.C. Flowers: C Stingel Hospitality:
K Foster
Penguin:
Greeters: G Hills-Eade, B Eade Commentator: Y Downes Readers: M Murray, T Clayton
Ministers of
Communion: J
Barker, E Nickols Liturgy: S. Creek J Setting Up: S Ewing
Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton
Readings This Week
4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
First Reading: Zechariah 2:3, 3:12-13
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
How am I, as I come to prayer today?
I may like to focus
gently on my breathing for a while, resting in the presence of the One who
awaits me with unfailing compassion and tenderness.
In time, I turn slowly and reverently to the words of St
Matthew’s well known ‘Beatitudes’.
I try to hear them as if for the first time,
perhaps imagining Jesus speaking to me directly, or to someone I know.
‘Happy
are you … for you shall be ...’ I take time to savour the two halves of each
phrase, noticing the blessing of happiness and fulfilment promised to Jesus’s
followers.
Does anything specially touch me, or bring to mind a
particular situation?
I might bring this gently into Jesus’s gaze, asking for
his blessing.
Presently, I may reflect on how Jesus’s promise of happiness
compares with the very different values of the world around me.
I ponder … What
is the ‘happiness’ or blessing that I most deeply desire ... for myself … for
my family, or community … for this world, at this time?
I share my thoughts
openly with the Lord, speaking easily as to a dear friend, asking confidently
for any special grace.
When I am ready, I slowly take my leave, thanking the
Lord for all his blessings, and asking him to stay close by today.
Readings Next Week
5th Sunday
in Ordinary Time (Year A)
First Reading: Isaiah 58:7-10
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Gospel: Matthew 5:13-16
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: David Welch
Let us pray
for those who have died recently: Sr Ellen Holland, Fr Joe McMahon, Ivan Bourke, Angela Lester, Joanne Nash-Lade, Kevin Kingsley, Hilda Kennedy, Val Palmer, Sheila Tranter,
Val Fielding and Rob Belanger.
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 25th – 31st
January
George Windridge, Bruce Peters, Nicola Tenaglia, Gusta
Schneiders, Lorraine Horsman, Robert Hatton, Thomas Naylor, Noreen Sheehan, Carole Anne Walker, John Ryan, Thomas
Kelly, Elizabeth Mazey, Sheila Poole, Trevor Delaney, Sheila Bourke, John Dunn,
Ruby Grubb, Jason Pullen, Clifford Smith, Coral Hankey, Lance Cox and Lindsay
Kenney.
May they rest in peace
Weekly
Ramblings,
I’ve spoken recently of the challenge of being a Pastor
rather than just being the Parish Priest, which up until last year I thought
was just doing everything that a Priest needs to do in the Parish. I’ve also
mentioned that I need a group of people to support me in all the aspects of
leadership because there are many things that people simply expect will happen
and, sadly, these days are simply not possible. Last weekend I mentioned that
one of my friends had commented that “If Father were to spend 2 hours a week
knocking on the door of lapsed Catholics I think you would find that they would
start coming back to the faith.”
So what does the future hold? And how does our Parish meet
the challenges of growing rather than declining? I’ve spoken about Alpha being
a part of my vision for the Parish but it is only a part. During this past week
we have celebrated the Feast Days of Francis de Sales and the Conversion of St
Paul. Both feasts reminded me that God works in different ways to what we might
expect.
Francis de Sales tells us (even today) that the role of the
ordinary people (the laity) is central to the life of the Church and without
everyone being allowed to use their gifts and talents the Church is less than
it could be. The Conversion of Paul reminds us that we can’t make any
judgements about who is the right person to be the witness who shows us how God
is really calling us to live the Gospel.
I’ve also been reading (again) – this time a book by Dr
Susan Muto of the Epiphany Academy of Formative Spirituality based on
the writing of St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower - Twelve Little Ways
to Transform Your Heart. By reminding me that change in a Parish really only
happens with little steps and only by God’s Grace I am being made aware then
prayer has to be central to what I am doing, what we are doing.
As we start back into normal Parish activities our Charismatic
Prayer Group recommences this week; Adoration and Benediction will be
celebrated next Friday (1st Friday) followed by Adoration each Friday; also, if
there are other opportunities for prayer that parishioners would be interested
in being part of please let us know in the Parish Office.
Elsewhere there is the note regarding the Open House next
Friday evening at the Parish House, Devonport, commencing at 6.30pm. I hope to
be able to announce what will be happening with Alpha that evening – but
definitely more info in the Weekly Ramblings next weekend.
Please take care on the roads as people move about in the lead up to school returning shortly,
SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM:
Families with children in Grade 3 or above
are warmly invited to participate in our Sacramental Program to prepare to
celebrate the sacraments of RECONCILIATION, CONFIRMATION and EUCHARIST this
year.
Information sessions to explain the
preparation program will be held on:
Monday 20th February, 7.00pm at Our Lady of Lourdes Church,
Stewart Street, Devonport or
Tuesday 21st February 7.00pm at Sacred Heart Church,
Alexandra Road, Ulverstone
For further information please contact the
Parish Office 6424:2783
KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS - meeting 29th January at 6pm for shared meal, commencing at 6:30pm
at Emmaus House, Devonport.
HEALING MASS 2017
Catholic Charismatic Renewal, are sponsoring a HEALING MASS
at St Mary’s Catholic Church Penguin on Thursday 16th February commencing
at 7.00pm. All denominations are welcome to come and celebrate the
liturgy in a vibrant and dynamic way using charismatic praise and worship, with
the gifts of tongues, prophecy, and healing. After Mass teams will be available
for individual prayer. Please bring a friend and a plate for supper and
fellowship in the adjacent hall. Please
note early start at 7.00 pm.
If you wish to know more or require transport, please
contact Celestine Whiteley 6424:2043, Michael Gaffney 0447 018 068, Tom Knaap
6425:2442.
Thursday
Nights - OLOL Hall, Devonport. Eyes down
7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 2nd February –
Jon Halley & Rod Clark.
COLUMBAN ART CALENDARS 2017:
We have seven calendars left to sell at a reduced price of
$6.00 available from ‘Parish House’ 6424:2783. As this is the second year that
we have had extra calendars we will be reducing our order by this number next
year!!!(Just in case you thought to wait until they go on sale next year lol).
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE
ARCHDIOCESE
Trinity Weekend for young adults: 4-5 February 2017, 12noon
Saturday – 12noon Sunday: gather with Fr Richard Ross in the peaceful surrounds
of Westbury to pray, reflect and socialise in the light of the Trinity. More
information:
ST MARY’S COLLEGE is seeking nominations for a very
special book being created and published as part of its 150 year anniversary
celebrations in 2018 featuring images and stories by and about 150 significant
College members over its history. All information, including contact details
and submission criteria, plus an online or printable form can be found at
smc.tas.edu.au/150-faces-project/ we look forward to receiving your
submissions. Further enquiries to Marg Rootes College Archivist on 6108:2560.
An invitation to all parishioners’ family and
friends …
Come one, come all to our first Open House
for 2017
Friday 3rd February ‘Parish House’ 90 Stewart
Street Devonport,
Starting at 6:30pm.
Nibbles and drinks supplied (or bring your
own poison!).
We would love to see you!!
Acedia And Sabbath
Early Christian monks believed in something they called, Acedia. More colloquially, they called it, the Noonday Devil, a name that essentially describes the concept. Acedia, for them, was different from ordinary depression in that it didn’t draw you into the dark, chaotic areas of your mind and heart, to have you diseased before your own complex and infinite depth; it was more of a flattening out, a dearth of energy, that put you into a semi-vegetative state that simply deadened all deep feeling and thoughts.
The early church considered it one of the seven capital sins. Later it was renamed as Sloth. There’s an abundance of good spiritual literature on the concept of acedia, not least Kathleen Norris’ rather definitive work on how acedia was understood by the early church.
But until recently, acedia hadn’t been studied in depth as a psychological concept. Happily that’s changing, with important implications for spirituality. To offer just one example: I recently attended a lecture on acedia given by a Jungian specialist, Lauren Morgan Wuest. I cannot do justice to her full thesis here, but let me risk an over-simplified synopsis.
Having read the literature of the Desert Fathers and the various commentaries on the idea of acedia, she attempted to interface that spiritual literature with the insights of contemporary psychology, particularly those from the Jungian school of thought. What were her conclusions?
In brief, her view is that acedia is not a clinical diagnosis, meaning that it isn’t a pathology requiring treatment, nor is it an ordinary depression. Rather the symptoms of acedia are the result of a healthy instinctual reflex of our bodies and minds which, when they not given something they need, sometimes forcefully shut us down, much like an ordinary depression shuts someone down; except that in the case of acedia, the shutdown of energy is for the purpose of health. Simplistically put, because we won’t sit down on our own and give our bodies and minds the rest, nourishment, and space they need, our bodies and minds conspire together to sit us down, forcibly. In essence, that’s acedia, and, in essence, it’s for our own health.
As a psychologist, she didn’t go on to draw out the potential ramifications of this for spirituality, particularly how this might relate to the practice of Sabbath in our lives, but all the implications are there.
When you read the Judeo-Christian scriptures, particularly the early sections in Genesis which chronicle the creation of the world and how God “rested” on the Sabbath, you see that there’s a divinely-ordered rhythm to how work and rest are supposed to unfold in our lives. Briefly stated, there’s to be pattern, a rhythm, to our lives which works this way: You work for six days, and then have a one day sabbatical; you work for seven years, and then have a one-year sabbatical; you work for seven times seven years, and then have a Jubilee year, a sabbatical for the whole planet; and then you work for a lifetime, and go on an eternity of sabbatical.
In essence, our lives of work, our everyday agenda, and our normal anxieties, are to be regularly punctuated by a time in which we lay down the hammer, lay down our agenda, lay down our work-a-day worries and simply sit, rest, vegetate, enjoy, soak-in, luxuriate, contemplate, pray, and let things take care of themselves for a while. That’s the biblical formula for health, spiritual, human, psychic, and bodily. And whenever we don’t do this voluntarily, in effect, whenever we neglect to do Sabbath in our lives, our bodies and minds are likely to do it for us by shutting down our energies. Acedia is our friend here: We will do Sabbath, one-way or the other.
It’s no secret that today the practice of Sabbath is more and more disappearing within our culture. Indeed, our culture constitutes a virtual conspiracy against the practice of Sabbath. Among the many culprits responsible for this, I highlight our addiction to information technology, our current inability to go for any stretch of time without being connected to others and the world through a phone, a commuter pad, or a computer screen. We are finding ourselves less and less able to step away from all that we are connected to through information technology, and consequently we are finding ourselves less and less able to simply rest, to let go of things, to be in Sabbath-mode. Perhaps the most important ascetical practice for us today would be the practice of Cyber-Sabbaths.
Already seven hundred years ago, the Sufi poet, Rumi, lamented: I have lived too long where I can be reached! That’s a cry for Sabbath time that went up long before today’s information technology placed us where we can always be reached, and that cry is going up everywhere today as our addiction to information technology increases. One worries that we will not find the asceticism needed to curb our addiction, but then acedia may well do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
The Path of Descent
These are a collation of emails sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM as part of his Daily Reflection. You can subscribe to receive these emails here
The Paschal Mystery
The path of
descent, or the pattern of falling upward, is found throughout the Bible.
Jacob’s son, Joseph, is thrown into the well by his own brothers and then
rescued (Genesis 37:20-28). The prophet Jeremiah is thrown into a cistern by
the civil leaders after he preaches retreat and defeat, and he is rescued by a
eunuch (Jeremiah 38:6-13). Jonah is swallowed by a whale and then spit up on
the right shore (Jonah 2:1-11). The people of Israel are sent into exile in
Babylon and then released and allowed to return home by Cyrus, the King of
Persia (2 Chronicles 36:15-23). Enslavement and exodus is the great lens
through which Jewish history is read.
Add to that
the story of Job as one unjustly but trustfully suffering and restored (Job
42:9-17), and the four “Servant songs” of Isaiah 42-53, describing one who
suffers in a way that is vicarious, redemptive, and life-giving for others. The
Jewish psyche and expectation are gradually formed by these stories and images.
Clearly they were known by Jesus, and he evidently sees himself as representing
this pattern.
For example,
three times in Mark’s Gospel Jesus makes clear that this is his destiny. “He
began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by
the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after
three days” (Mark 8:31). However, this pattern of falling and rising is either
misunderstood or rejected by the apostles themselves (Mark 8:32 ff., 9:30 ff.,
10:32 ff.), just as you and I reject and fear any language of descent.
The pattern
of down and up, loss and renewal, enslavement and liberation, exile and return,
transformation through darkness and suffering is quite clear in the Hebrew
Scriptures. Jesus says, “no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah” (Luke
11:29). Jonah in the belly of the whale is a metaphor for what would later
become the doctrine of the cross.
The
theological term for this classic pattern of descent and ascent was coined by
Saint Augustine as “the paschal mystery.” We now proclaim it publicly at every
Eucharist as “the mystery of faith”!
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (St. Anthony Messenger
Press: 2008), 187-188.
The Sign of Jonah
Jesus’ primary
metaphor for the mystery of transformation is the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39,
16:4; Luke 11:29). Jesus tells the growing crowds, “It is an evil and
adulterous generation that wants a sign” (Luke 11:29), and he then says the
only sign he will give is the sign of Jonah. As a Jew, Jesus knew well the
graphic story of Jonah the prophet who was running from God and was used by God
almost in spite of himself. Jonah was swallowed by a whale and taken where he
would rather not go. This was Jesus’ metaphor for death and rebirth.
Rather than
look for impressive apparitions or miracles, Jesus said we must go inside the
belly of the whale for a while. Then and only then will we be spit up on a new
shore and understand our call, our place, and our purpose. Paul wrote about
“reproducing the pattern” of Jesus’ death and thus understanding resurrection
(Philippians 3:10-11). Unless you have gone down, you do not know what up is!
Unless you descend, you won’t long for and make inner space for ascent.
This is the
only pattern Jesus promises us. And we see this pattern mirrored in other
traditions as well. Native religions speak of winter and summer; mystical
authors speak of darkness and light; Eastern religions speak of yin and yang or
the Tao. Christians call it the paschal mystery, but we are all pointing to the
same necessity of both descent and ascent, and usually in that order.
The paschal
mystery is the pattern of transformation, and it indeed is a mystery—that is,
not logical or rational at all. We are transformed through death and rising,
probably many times in our lifetime. There seems to be no better cauldron of
growth and transformation, for some cosmic reason. Even in the Trinity, God
self-empties before the other can then fill the empty space. The Father pours
love into the Son; the Son pours love into the Spirit; the Spirit pours love
into the Father. Each is emptied and ready to receive the other’s love. Trinity
is for me the foundational template for all true love.
We seldom go
freely into the belly of the beast. Unless we face a major disaster such as the
death of a friend or spouse or the loss of a marriage or job, we usually will
not go there. As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent
because we are by training capitalists and accumulators. Mature religion shows
us how to enter willingly and trustingly into the dark periods of life. These
dark periods are good teachers.
We would
prefer clear and easy answers, but questions hold the greatest potential for
opening us to transformation. We try to change events in order to avoid
changing ourselves. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without
answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the
perilous dark path of contemplative prayer. Grace leads us to the state of
emptiness—to a momentary sense of meaninglessness—in which we ask, “What is it
all for?” The spaciousness within the question allows Love to fill and enliven
us.
Historic
cultures saw grief as a time of incubation, hibernation, initiation, and
transformation. Yet we avoid this sacred space. When we avoid such darkness, we
miss out on spiritual creativity and new awareness. Let’s be honest: there has
been little solid teaching on darkness in Western Christianity for the last
five hundred years. We have instead sought light, order, certitude, and
theological “answers” for everything, which by themselves do not teach us very
much.
Reference:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (The
Crossroad Publishing Company: 2003), 44-47.
Jesus' Invitation: Follow Me
I have found
the phenomenon of male initiation in every culture and on every continent until
the modern era. [1] Something that universal—and so uniform in its goals—was
surely fulfilling a deep human and social need. It was deemed necessary for
cultural and personal survival, it seems.
Throughout
history, men were more often in positions of power and privilege, whereas women
were often unfairly subjugated. Women, therefore, more naturally learned the
path of descent (self-emptying) through their “inferior” position to men.
We recognize
in initiation universal patterns of wisdom that need to be taught to the young
male in his early “tower building” stages. This was the rather universal conclusion:
Unless the male is led into journeys of powerlessness, he will invariably
misuse power. He becomes a loose cannon in the social fabric, even dangerous to
the family, always seeking his own dominative power and advancement to the
neglect of others. The human inclination to narcissism has to be exposed,
humbled, and used for good purposes.
Jesus
clearly taught the twelve disciples about surrender, the necessity of
suffering, humility, servant leadership, and nonviolence. They resisted him
every time, and so he finally had to make the journey himself and tell them,
“Follow me!” But Christians have preferred to hear something Jesus never said:
“Worship me.” Worship of Jesus is rather harmless and risk-free; following
Jesus changes everything.
The clear message
of Jesus’ teaching has not been taught with much seriousness in most churches.
Simplicity, humility, and “descent” were never expected of the clergy—certainly
not of the higher clergy—and, therefore, how could we ask it of the rest of the
church? Jesus was training the leaders because they could only ask of others
what they themselves had done first. Once we saw the clerical state as a place
of advancement instead of downward mobility, once ordination was not a form of
initiation but a continuation of patriarchal patterns, the authentic preaching
of the Gospel became the exception rather than the norm.
I have often
thought that this “non-preaching” of the Gospel was like a secret social
contract between clergy and laity, as we shake hands across the sanctuary. We
agree not to tell you anything that would make you uncomfortable, and you will
keep coming to our services. It is a nice deal, because once the Gospel is
preached, I doubt if the churches would be filled. Rather, we might be out on
the streets living the message. The discernment and the call to a life of
service, to a life that gives itself away instead of simply protecting and
procuring for itself in the name of Jesus, is what church should be about.
Right now, so much church is the clergy teaching the people how to be
co-dependent with them. It becomes job security instead of true spiritual
empowerment. Remember, anyone—male or female—who has not gone on journeys of
powerlessness will invariably abuse power.
References:
[1] See my
earlier meditations on initiation, beginning May 22, 2016:
https://cac.org/passing-death-life-now-2016-05-22/.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer
(Paulist Press: 2014), 88-90; and
The Path of
Descent (CAC: 2003), disc 1 (CD, MP3 download).
A Clod of Earth
The path of
descent involves letting go of our self-image, our titles, our public image. I
think this is one of the many meanings of the First Commandment: “You shall
have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). What is at stake here is not just
false images of God (which mostly serve our purposes), but also comfortable
images of ourselves. That’s probably what the saints meant when they said we
have to move to the place of faith, to the place of self-forgetfulness, of
nothingness, which ironically is the place of abundance!
The German
Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart (c. 1260—c. 1328) said in essence that the
spiritual life has more to do with subtraction than with addition. But in the
capitalistic West, we keep trying to climb higher up the ladder of spiritual
success. Some Buddhists call it spiritual materialism or spiritual consumerism.
We’ve turned the Gospel into a matter of addition instead of subtraction. When
we are so full of ourselves, we have no room—and no need—for God or others, or
otherness in general.
When C. G.
Jung was an old man, one of his students read John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress,
and he asked Jung, “What has your pilgrimage really been?” Jung answered: “In
my case Pilgrim's Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand
ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.”
[1] That’s a free man. We aren’t really free until we’re free from ourselves:
our ego, our reputation, our self-image, our need to be right, our need to be
successful, our need to have everything under control, even our need to be
loved by others—or to think of ourselves as loving.
The word
“human” comes from the Latin humus, which means earth. Being human means
acknowledging that we’re made from the earth and will return to the earth. For
a few years we dance around on the stage of life and have the chance to reflect
a little bit of God’s glory. We are earth that has come to consciousness. If we
discover this power in ourselves and know that we are God’s creatures, that we
come from God and return to God, that’s enough. As a human, I’m just a tiny
moment of consciousness, a small part of creation, a particle that reflects
only a fragment of God’s glory. And yet that’s enough.
In the words
of St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022):
What I have
seen is the totality recapitulated as One,
Received not
in essence but by participation.
It is just
as if you lit a flame from a live flame:
It is the
entire flame you receive. [2]
It’s really
that simple. If we have not experienced that connection, knowing that we are
indeed a fragment of the Great Flame, we will most certainly need to accumulate
more and more outer things as substitutes for self-worth. This, of course, is
the great spiritual illusion. We needn’t acquire what we already have. Our
value comes from our inherent participation in God.
References:
[1] C. G.
Jung Letters, Volume 1, selected and edited by Gerhard Adler in collaboration
with Aniela Jaffe (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), footnote 8, p. 19.
[2] J.
Koder, Syméon le Nouveau Théologien: Hymnes, Sources Chrétiennes (Éditions
du Cerf, Paris: 1969), 157-158.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go (The Crossroad Publishing
Company: 2003), 168-169, 172-173.
Going Up the Down Escalator
As
Christianity evolved in the centuries following Jesus’ death and resurrection,
it naturally drew ideas from the surrounding Mediterranean culture. Roman and
Greek mythology and philosophy used a great deal of Promethean, heroic, ascent
images. The ego is naturally attracted to heroic language. To the ego, heroism
feels like the way to go to God. No wonder Christian martyrs were immediately
canonized. We placed our focus on the heroic instead of the transformative, on
achieving rather than serving.
If the
Promethean is heroic expression, stoic spirituality is heroic repression. We
thought depriving ourselves or doing something contrary to nature, will, or
body would somehow please God, whereas it only made us feel “strong” and
significant. Jesus never advocates either asceticism or heroism. In fact, Jesus
says, “John the Baptist came along fasting and living an ascetic life and you
were upset with him. Now I come along eating and drinking and you don’t like me
either” (see Matthew 11:18-19). Jesus is neither a rigorist nor a legalist. He
is scandalously free from these ego games!
We must
acknowledge that much of Christian spirituality comes from other sources than
Jesus’ teaching. That’s not necessarily wrong, but we have to admit when we’re
listening to Western culture rather than Jesus. The ideas and practices we
usually associate with religion are not at all what Jesus emphasizes. Jesus is
the most unlikely founder of a religion. Religion normally begins by making a
distinction between the pure and the impure, the good and the bad. Yet Jesus
does the opposite: he finds God among the impure instead of among the pure! He
entertains the lost sheep instead of comforting those who think they are not lost.
Humans are
so hardwired to think dualistically, to divide the pure from the impure, that
in spite of Jesus’ clear example and teaching, Christianity went right back to
the same old pattern. The ego desperately wants to feel pure, saved, moral, significant,
and superior. We cannot allow God to come down to us, which is the meaning of
the Incarnation (see Philippians 2:5-8); we think we’ve got to go up to God.
We’re usually going up the down escalator! And we miss Jesus on the way—as he
de-escalates into our so very ordinary world.
References:
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, The Path of Descent (CAC: 2003), disc 3 (CD, MP3 download); and
Simplicity:
The Freedom of Letting Go (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2003), 80-81.
The Crucified Jesus
They will
look upon him whom they have pierced. —John 19:37
Those who
“gaze upon” the Crucified long enough—with contemplative eyes—are always deeply
healed of pain, unforgiveness, violence, and victimhood. It demands no
theological education, just an “inner exchange” by receiving the image within
and offering one’s soul back in safe return. It is no surprise that a naked man
nailed to a cross is such a deep, archetypal symbol in the Western psyche. It
was meant to transform all earthly suffering.
The crucified
Jesus offers, at a largely unconscious level, a very compassionate meaning to
history. The mystery of the rejection, suffering, passion, death, and
resurrection of Jesus is the interpretive key for what history means and where
it is going. Without such cosmic meaning and soul significance, the agonies and
tragedies of humanity feel like Shakespeare’s “sound and fury signifying
nothing.” [1] The body can live without food easier than the soul can live
without meaning.
If all of
our human crucifixions are leading to some possible resurrection, and are not
dead-end tragedies, this changes everything. If God is somehow participating in
our human suffering, instead of just passively tolerating it and observing it,
that also changes everything—at least for those who are willing to “gaze”
contemplatively.
We
Christians are given the privilege to name the mystery—as the path of descent,
the Way of the Cross, or the paschal mystery. Although we name and symbolize it
quite well, we have not lived it much better than many other religions and
cultures. All humble, suffering souls often learn this by grace.
Jesus,
however, brings it front and center. A “crucified God” became the logo and
central image of our Christian religion: a dying, bleeding, losing man. If that
isn’t saying you win by losing, what is it going to take for us to get the
message? How often do we have to look at the Crucified and miss the point? Why
did we choose that as our symbol if we’re not going to believe it? Life is all
about winning by losing—losing with grace and letting our losses teach and
transform us. And yes, this is somehow saying that God suffers—and our
suffering is also God’s suffering, and God’s suffering is ours (Colossians
1:24). That has the power to transform the human dilemma of tragedy, absurdity,
and all unjust suffering—which is just about all suffering.
References:
[1] William
Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (St. Anthony Messenger
Press: 2008), 186-187; and
The Path of
Descent (CAC: 2003), disc 1 (CD, MP3 download).
Continuing Paul's Conversion
Paul’s experience on the Road to Damascus was far from an isolated event in his life or the life of the Church, says Fr Harry Elias. It was the first step on a path of an ongoing conversion which we are called to continue today. The original of this article can be found here
For Paul, there was only one God: the God of Israel. The God who made covenants with Noah, Abraham and David, and promised a Kingdom where He Himself will rule. It was this God, the God of Paul’s ancestors, ‘who had set me apart before I was born and called me’ and ‘through his grace was pleased to reveal his Son to [or in] me so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles.’ (Galatians 1:15-16).
This is important for our understanding of what happened to Paul on the Damascus Road. He did not find a new God; he met, in Jesus, the risen Lord (see, for example, Acts 22:6-11). What did this mean for Paul, and what does it mean for us?
Paul’s recognition of Jesus as risen Lord meant a conversion in his reading of the scriptures that he knew so well already. His new reading drew on the early Church’s conviction that Jesus’s life, death and resurrection had been foretold, had happened ‘according to the scriptures’ (1Corinthians 15:3-4), as well as on early Jewish Christian apologetic, reflected for example in the speech of Stephen (Acts 7). Paul began to read those scriptures as prefigurations, echoes, of the coming of Christ, convinced now that Christ was the telos or fulfilment of the Law (Romans 10:4), the fulfilment of the narrative of God’s covenantal faithfulness in the new covenant through which God would ‘take away [Israel’s] sins’(Romans 11:27).
A striking example of Paul’s reading of the scriptures with Christ as telos is in a passage from Galatians in which Paul connects strongly with his mission to the Gentiles. He argues that through Christ, all nations gain blessings for themselves, and furthermore, even become co-heirs of God’s promise to Abraham: he saw in a new light the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham and his ‘seed’. Although this ‘seed’ was generally understood to be as numerous as the stars of heaven or as the dust of the earth (Genesis 26:4, 28:13-14), Paul identifies it first of all as one person, Christ (Galatians 3:16). Thus, he argues, the implementation of the promise was not through Moses and the Law, but in the seed that is Christ, because the seed of God could not be a mediator (of Gods), as Moses was of angels, since God is one (Galatians 3:19-20). He takes for granted that Christ is the Son of God (Galatians 4:4). His argument may seem tortuous, but his confidence rests above all on revelation by the Spirit, not only to him but also to the apostles and prophets (Ephesians 3:1-6).
Paul insisted that no practice – notably food laws nor the practice of circumcision, which for the Jews was their badge of identity as the chosen people – should stand in the way of Gentile believers being regarded as the brethren of the Lord and so of Jewish believers. Nowadays, the Spirit seems to be asking us not to allow any differences to stand in the way of treating every creature as the brethren of the Lord and thereby our brothers and sisters as well. The groundbreaking Vatican II Document Nostra Aetate says (§5) ‘We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God.’ In line with this, Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si’ points out: ‘Everything is related, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage’ (§92), and in that union he includes our Sister, Mother Earth (§1).
It seems to me possible to approach others not only as our brothers and sisters in the one creation but also as sharers of a common hope. Paul’s initial approach to the Corinthians was: ‘to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified’ (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul compared the faith of the crucified Christ to the faith of Abraham in the God ‘who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist’, hoping against hope in God’s promise to him being fulfilled (Romans 4:17,18,21). This kind of hope arises indeed out of the human condition faced as it is with grief over sin, loss and death. I myself ground this hope in my faith in the crucified and risen Lord but I thank God for his merciful love in granting this hope to others no matter what faith they would ground it in.
History shows us just how difficult it is to change an identity built into us through the centuries in order to include those who are not only very different in their practices but in the past have been treated as enemies. Paul had to face bitter opposition and even threats of assassination – both from those who felt circumcision and food laws were essential requirements, as well as from rulers who saw belief that Jesus is Lord undermining worship of Caesar and the stability of civic life. Even now, for Christians with different backgrounds, to live up to an identity which is to be all inclusive, where all are one in Christ through faith (Galatians 3:26-28), is a slow and painful process. However, the effect of two sides reaching out to each other in the rereading of their own and one another’s narratives (as well as in practical matters) - a rereading that is continually ‘on pilgrimage’- of itself creates brotherly ties, besides driving out the exclusiveness in our hearts and in our different narratives regarding God’s mercy. In any such efforts, then, we can be said to be continuing Paul’s conversion so as to enable the new creation to inch closer to the completion of Christ’s mission when the One God appears by becoming all in all (1Corinthians 15:28).
Harry Elias SJ assists in the Hurtado Jesuit Centre in Wapping, East London.
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