Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
To be a vibrant Catholic Community
unified in its commitment
to growing disciples for Christ
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
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
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)
Care and Concern: If you are aware of anyone who is sick or in need of assistance in the Parish please visit them. Then, if they are willing and give permission, could you please pass on their names to the Parish Office. We have a group of parishioners who are part of the Care and Concern Group who are willing and able to provide some backup and support to them. Unfortunately, because of privacy issues, the Parish Office is not able to give out details unless prior permission has been given.
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Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
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.
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: - first Friday of each month.
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – meetings will be held in the Community Room, Ulverstone at 7pm.
Weekday Masses 20th - 24th March, 2017
Monday: 12noon Devonport
… St Joseph
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Next Weekend 25th & 26th March, 2017
Saturday Mass: 9:30am Ulverstone The Annunciation of the Lord
12noon Devonport
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell 9:00am Ulverstone 10:30am Devonport 11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 25th & 26th March, 2017
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil: P Douglas, T Douglas, M Knight
10:30am A
Hughes, T Barrientos, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil M
Heazlewood, B Suckling, M O’Brien-Evans, G Lee-Archer,
M Kelly, P Shelverton
10.30am: M
Sherriff, T & S Ryan, D & M Barrientos, M O’Brien-Evans
Cleaners 24th
March: K.S.C. 31st March: K Hull, F Stevens, M Chan
Piety Shop 25th
March: H Thompson 26th March: O McGinley No flowers during Lent
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: M & K
McKenzie
Ministers of
Communion:
E Reilly, M
& K McKenzie, M O’Halloran
Cleaners: M Swain, M
Bryan Hospitality: T Good Team
Penguin:
Greeters: A Landers, P Ravaillion Commentator: J Barker Readers: E Nickols, A Landers
Ministers of
Communion: J
Garnsey, S Ewing Liturgy: Penguin Setting Up: E Nickols
Care of Church: M Bowles, M Owen
Latrobe:
Reader: S Ritchie Minister of Communion: B Ritchie, P Marlow Procession of
gifts: J Hyde
Port Sorell:
Readers: M Badcock, G Duff Ministers of
Communion: B Lee Clean/Flow/Prepare: V Youd
Readings this week Third Sunday of Lent
First reading: Exodus 17:3-7
Second Reading: Romans 5:1-2. 5-8
Gospel: John 4:5-42
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
I take the time to still myself and become aware of God’s presence.I read the text slowly.
Perhaps I try to enter into the scene of this story ... the quiet noontide heat that surrounds the weary, thirsty Jesus, and the public-shy Samaritan woman with her empty water jar.
It is Jesus who initiates the conversation and gently and patiently leads her to seek another meaning for the water she needs.
In what ways do I recognise something of this in my life?
Maybe I can identify with the woman – her resistance to growth, her evasions, her growing understanding ...
What does living water mean to me?
I sit with Jesus' words.
When or how have I experienced Jesus leading me in this way, or acting within me?
I speak to him about this.
I may spend some time thanking the Lord for being my patient guide.
Perhaps I pray to be aware, and to listen to the way God stirs my heart.
I can also pray for others I know who thirst for so many things and are restless in their search.
I end my prayer giving glory: Glory be to the Father.....
Readings next week Fourth Sunday of
Lent
First reading: Samuel 16:1. 6-7. 10-13
Second Reading: Ephesians 5:8-14
Gospel: John
9:1-41
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: John Munro, Sr Joy Hanrahan, David
Welch & …,
Let us pray
for those who have died recently: Connie Fulton, Sr Mary of the Trinity, Marie O'Halloran, Eileen Costello, Aurea Magsayo, Lola Hutchinson and Lorraine Bowerman
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 15th – 21st
March
Stan Nelson, Norris Castles, Marion Sage, Mavis Jarvis,
Archbishop Guilford Young, Adeline Munro, Norma Ellings, Violet Smith, John Smink, Nola Bengtell, Maurice Kelly, Jim Suckling, Terence Murphy and
Gaudencio Floro. Also Ranulfo Cabrillas, Blas Jumawan, Alegandro Makiputin,
Loreto Che & Policronia Caballes.
May
they rest in peace
Weekly
Ramblings
This has been a busy few days.
On Friday we celebrated the Feast of St Patrick with Mass
at Latrobe followed by a lunch in the Hall – and as this is being written
before it all happens I can only tell you how good it was last year and !!!
On Saturday we had the Preparation Day for the children
preparing to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation in early April. The
preparation occurs with the children and family working through a series of
Stations inviting the child and parent/guardian to share and deepen their
understanding of different aspects of the mercy and love of God and how it is
made real by their own experiences. Sessions for their preparation for the
Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist will occur in a couple of months’
time.
On Monday we will be celebrating the Feast of St Joseph
(transferred from Sunday 19th because of Lent) with Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes
at midday – all welcome to join us for this Mass.
Workers were in and around Emmaus House removing asbestos
during the week and we hope that more work will be evident shortly as some of
the additions to the House are removed. Wilson Homes hope to be moving forward
with the development of the site ASAP.
Next Saturday (25th) there will be two Masses celebrated
for the Feast of the Annunciation – please check the Mass times for details.
Please take care on the roads and in your homes,
Like many First Australians, Uncle Richard was torn from his family and culture as a child. Forced to grow up in the State-run Kinchela Boys Home (KBH), he suffered violence and pain that haunted his adult years. Now, through Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation, a Caritas Australia partner, he is reconnecting with former KBH boys in a program that restores their wellbeing and helps their families.
Please donate to Project Compassion 2017 and help members
of the Stolen Generations support each other on the journey to wellbeing.
LEGION OF MARY: All Parishioners are invited to the Legion of Mary annual Acias (Consecration to Our Lady) at Sacred Heart Church, Alexandra Road Ulverstone this Sunday 19th March at 2pm with benediction, followed by afternoon tea in the Community Room.
CARE
& CONCERN: The Siloam group which meets under the banner
of Care and Concern focusses on supporting those who are experiencing loss and
grief following the death of a loved one.
The next meeting will be held Tuesday 21st March at 2.00 pm
at 120 Nicholls Street, Devonport.
If you would like to join us, please contact Mary Davies 6424:1183 or
0447241182 or Neville Smith 6424:3507.
MACKILLOP HILL
Spirituality in the Coffee Shoppe: Monday 27th March 10:30am – 12noon. Don’t miss an interesting
discussion over morning tea! 123 William Street Forth. Phone 6428:3095. No
bookings necessary.
MACKILLOP HILL LIBRARY: opening hours 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday.
OUR LENTEN LITURGY IN 2017:
Our words, actions and music in the liturgy lead us ever
deeper into the paschal mystery this Lent:
- After
the introduction, Mass begins with the priest greeting from the rear of
the church and then proceeds while Kyrie
Eleison or Lord have mercy is
sung. On the 1st, 3rd and 5th Sundays of
Lent, the Rite of Sprinkling (Asperges) may take place during the singing
of the Kyrie. The name
‘Asperges’ comes from the first word in the 9th verse of Psalm 51 in
the Latin translation, the Vulgate.
- By
the use of violet/purple vestments. Violet recalls suffering, mourning,
simplicity and austerity.
- By
having moments of silence before and after the readings and after the
homily RGIRM (2007) 45.
- At
the breaking of the bread (the Fraction Rite) there will be a short
narrative before intoning the Lamb of God
- By
the absence of flowers due to the penitential nature of the season.
- There
is no recessional hymn (at the end of Mass). The congregation leaves the
church in silence after the celebrant.
- There
is no Gloria or Alleluia verse (replaced by a Gospel acclamation).
- Images
are veiled immediately before the 5th Sunday of Lent in
accordance with local custom.
- On the 4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) flowers are permitted as well as music (eg music – that is musical instruments – being played during preparation of the gifts, or during the communion procession). Rose vestments may be worn on this Sunday.
ST
VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY: are
holding their annual Button Day in the Devonport/Latrobe area on 31st
March. If anyone is able to spare some time to assist in collecting could you please
contact Trish at St Vincent de Paul, East Devonport on 6427:7100. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.
GRAN’S VAN: The month of April has again been
allocated to our Parish to assist with Gran’s Van on the five Sundays in that
month. Help is required as follows, (a) cooking a stew, (meat will be
supplied), (b) assisting with the food distribution, (c) driving the van.
Helping with (b) and (c) would take about two hours of your time 6:30pm –
8:30pm. If you are able to assist with any of the above please contact Lyn
Otley 6424:4736 or Shirley Ryan 6424:1508.
FOOTY TICKETS:
Its AFL footy season again and we
are selling footy margin tickets. Buy a ticket (or two!) $2.00 each – three
prizes of $100.00 every week!! The footy margin is from the Friday night game each week.
Tickets will be available next weekend.
First game for the 2017 season, Collingwood v Western Bulldogs on Friday 24th March. Season ticket ($64.00 – including grand final $10 ticket) can be purchased from Parish Office.
First game for the 2017 season, Collingwood v Western Bulldogs on Friday 24th March. Season ticket ($64.00 – including grand final $10 ticket) can be purchased from Parish Office.
Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall,
Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 23rd
March Merv Tippett & Jon Halley.
NOTHING IS EVER REALLY OURS
This article is by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original web address is here
Everything is gift. That’s a principle that ultimately undergirds all spirituality, all morality, and every commandment. Everything is gift. Nothing can be ultimately claimed as our own. Genuine moral and religious sensitivity should make us aware of that. Nothing comes to us by right.
This isn’t something we automatically know. During a class some years ago, a Monk shared with me how, for all the early years of his religious life, he had been resentful because he had to ask permission of his Abbott if he wanted anything: “I used to think it was silly, me, a grown man, supposedly an adult, having to ask a superior if I wanted something. If I wanted a new shirt, I would have to ask the Abbott for permission to buy it. I thought it was ridiculous that a grown man was reduced to being like a child.”
But there came a day when he felt differently: “I am not sure of all the reasons, but one day I came to realize that there was a purpose and wisdom in having to ask permission for everything. I came to realize that nothing is ours by right and nothing may be taken as owned. Everything’s a gift. Everything needs to be asked for. We need to be grateful to the universe and to God just for giving us a little space. Now, when I ask permission from the Abbott because I need something, I no longer feel like a child. Rather, I feel like I’m properly in tune with the way things should be, in a gift-oriented universe within which none of us has a right to ultimately claim anything as one’s own.
This is moral and religious wisdom, but it’s a wisdom that goes against the dominant ethos within our culture and against some of our strongest inclinations. Both from without and from within, we hear voices telling us: If you cannot take what you desire then you’re weak, and weak in a double way: First, you’re a weak person, too timid to fully claim what’s yours. Second, you’ve been weakened by religious and moral scruples so as to be incapable of seizing the day. To not claim what is yours, to not claim ownership, is not a virtue but a fault.
It was those kinds of voices that this monk was hearing during his younger years and because of them he felt resentful and immature.
But Jesus wouldn’t echo these voices. The Gospels make it pretty clear that Jesus would not look on so much that is assertive, aggressive, and accumulative within our society, despite the praise and envy it receives, and see this as admirable, as healthily seizing the day. I doubt too that Jesus would share our admiration of the rich and famous who claim, as by right, their excessive wealth and status. When Jesus states that it is harder for a rich person to go to heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, he might have mitigated this by adding: “Unless, of course, the rich person, childlike, asks permission from the universe, from the community, and from God, every time he buys a shirt!” When Jesus tells us that children and the poor go to heaven more easily he is not idolizing either their innocence or poverty. He’s idolizing the need to recognize and admit our dependence. Ultimately we don’t provide for ourselves and nothing is ours by right.
When I was in the Oblate novitiate, our novice master tried to impress upon us the meaning of religious poverty by making us write inside of every book that was given us the Latin words: Ad Usum. Latin for: For use. The idea was that, although this book was given to you for your personal use, you ultimately did not own it. It’s was just yours temporarily. We were then told that this was true of everything else given us for our personal use, from our toothbrushes to the shirts on our backs. They were not really ours, but merely given us for our use.
One of the young men in that novitiate eventually left the order and became a medical doctor. He remains a close friend and he once shared with me how even today, as a doctor, he still writes those words, Ad Usum, inside all his books: “I don’t belong to a religious order and don’t have the vow of poverty, but that principle our novice master taught us is just as valid for me in the world as it is for any professed religious. Ultimately we don’t own anything. Those books aren’t mine, really. They’ve been given me, temporarily, for my use. Nothing belongs to anybody and it’s good never to forget that!”
It’s not a bad thing as an adult to have to ask permission to buy a new shirt. It reminds us that the universe belongs to everyone and that all of us should be deeply grateful that it gives us even a little space.
Desertification as a spiritual challenge
Early Christians spent time in the desert because it was there that they felt best placed to turn themselves to God. Nearly 2000 years later, the deserts of the world can still orient us to God, but perhaps for a different reason. Jaime Tatay SJ uses Ignatian ideas to show that the desertification of the natural world should challenge us ‘to shape more enlightened and responsible ways of thinking, feeling and behaving’. The original article can be found here
When we think of a desert today, we imagine a waterless, desolate area of land with little or no vegetation, typically covered with sand or rocks. The Sahara, the Gobi or the Atacama deserts would be examples of such barren places. In a world that is becoming ever more crowded, we define deserts by an absence.
But the term ‘desert’ had a slightly different meaning for the first generations of Christians: they didn’t see deserts as being empty or lacking, they saw them as the purest examples of God’s creation. The so-called Desert Fathers searched for uninhabited spaces, where they could find God in places uncontaminated by anything other than his creation. These could be either bone-dry places or heavily forested areas where little or no human presence, and therefore solitude, was the norm. Anthony the Great was one of the first ascetics who moved into the wilderness – the Eastern Desert of Egypt – and the Christian monastic tradition began as others followed in his footsteps.
During Lent, Christians are invited to go – metaphorically and literally – into the desert, as the Desert Fathers did. This is not a quirky invitation, one for the adventurous or outdoorsy few; it is an invitation to all, an invitation to imitate Jesus’s own spiritual quest for silence, to simplify our lives and cultivate a contemplative attitude that will prepare us to grasp fully the mystery of Easter.
As Pope Francis has pointed out,
Christian spirituality proposes a growth marked by moderation and the capacity to be happy with little. It is a return to that simplicity which allows us to stop and appreciate the small things, to be grateful for the opportunities which life affords us, to be spiritually detached from what we possess, and not to succumb to sadness for what we lack.[i]
But why must we go into the wilderness to put this into practice instead of staying in our churches and homes? One reason stands out. When we read the gospels, we realise that Jesus didn’t go to the local synagogue or even to the Temple in Jerusalem when he wanted to pray. He preferred to go to the wilderness. Like Moses, the prophets and John the Baptist before him, Jesus talked to his Father, the Creator, in a place where he could be most in touch with creation.
Across the gospels, we find many examples of divine encounter in the midst of nature. At the very beginning of Jesus’s apostolic life, ‘the Spirit led Jesus into the desert’. Later on, Matthew tells us that, after Jesus had ‘dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray’. Luke also reminds us several times that Jesus ‘would withdraw to deserted places and pray’.
Sometimes he would rather go to a garden. Or a lakeshore. Or the Judean desert. The place changed, but the pattern is obvious. Jesus went to Jerusalem to argue with the priests or celebrate Passover, but when he needed to be with God, he fled to places devoid of synagogues and unmediated by the authorities that governed them. We could paraphrase Henry David Thoreau’s oft-quoted phrase – ‘in the wilderness is the preservation of the world’ – by saying that, for Jesus, in the wilderness dwells the living God.
Pope Francis highlights this pattern:
The Lord was able to invite others to be attentive to the beauty that there is in the world because he himself was in constant touch with nature, lending it an attention full of fondness and wonder. As he made his way throughout the land, he often stopped to contemplate the beauty sown by his Father, and invited his disciples to perceive a divine message in things.[ii]
So, during Lent, we are specially invited to imitate Jesus and go into the spiritual and natural wildernesses of our time for transformation and encounter with God. However, to accept this invitation we have to overcome several obstacles in our contemporary, noisy, hyper-connected, rapidly urbanising world.
The first, obvious challenge, is the very place where most of us live today: cities. In a world where more than half of humanity lives in urban areas, one needs to make an effort to find repose, silence and time within those environments to stop and contemplate. And even more effort is required if one wants to get out of the city and move into the diminishing wilderness surrounding the urban jungle.
Which brings us to the second major challenge to finding God in creation: the increasing degradation of that creation that is a living sacrament of the presence of the Creator. At this point it is illustrative to distinguish between the (natural) deserts that the first monks looked for and the (human-caused) desertification going on in many parts of the world today.
Desertification is the process by which fertile land becomes desert, as a result of drought, warming weather, deforestation, or inappropriate agriculture. Pope Francis has warned us of this grave problem in the context of the Amazon in particular.[iii]
The challenge that desertification poses to us is not only economic and cultural, but spiritual as well: ‘God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement’.[iv]
The physicality of this environmental destruction, the way in which we feel it, means that the desert can still, as it did for the Desert Fathers, mediate our relationship with God too, although in a different way. Today’s deserts can be the agent for the conversion we strive for particularly in Lent – our full conversion, which must include an ecological dimension. To facilitate that, we can draw on a Christian spiritual tradition not so different from the one the Desert Fathers cultivated.
Those familiar with the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola know that the ‘Contemplation to Attain Love’ is not only the concluding meditation of the month-long retreat originally designed by the Basque mystic. It is, above all, a sending forth into the world urging the retreatant to live with eyes wide open and find God in creation, ‘in all things’.
This is a meditation that surely inspired the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. In God’s Grandeur, one of Hopkins’ best-known poems, we are invited to contemplate the plants, the animals, the waters and the skies – in a word, creation – to discover that, ‘There lives the dearest freshness deep down things’.
However, we live in a world where water and air are being polluted, the atmosphere and the oceans are warming up, and animal and plant species are disappearing at an alarming rate. Isn’t it becoming more difficult to find God out there in the wilderness, when the wilderness is of our making? Finding God in the natural desert is one thing, but how are we to find him in the deserts that are formed from the destructive tendencies of humankind? As Benedict XVI said: ‘The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast’.[v]
In short, desertification is as much a cultural and spiritual challenge as it is a technological and economic one. We need, more than ever, to go beyond the scientific information and technological assessments and contemplate the destruction of nature with eyes wide open – we need to undertake a spiritual exercise as well as a scientific on in order to determine the causes and effects of this destruction.
Here, Ignatian spirituality proves helpful again. In the first week of the Spiritual Exercises, the retreatant is invited to meditate on sin – social and personal. Ignatius insists on the importance of the retreatant being affected and moved by what he or she meditates on. Could we adapt this type of prayer to contemplate the desertification and degradation of the natural world? Could the expanding cultural and biological deserts of our time be the locus of – or, even better, the stimulus for – transformation, or ecological conversion? We can’t just ‘know’ what’s going on out there, in the atmosphere, in the oceans and in the forests; we also need to ‘feel’ and then reflect on our personal contribution to all these transformations and disfigurements. This ecological orientation is integral to any cultural transformation that truly seeks to shape more enlightened and responsible ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.[vi]
Again, Pope Francis, quoting Patriarch Bartholomew, seems to be pointing in this direction when he speaks ‘of the need for each of us to repent of the ways we have harmed the planet, for “inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage”, we are called to acknowledge “our contribution, smaller or greater, to the disfigurement and destruction of creation”.’[vii]
Back in 2001, John Paul II called for a global ecological conversion. Now, Francis details the personal and social character of this call affirming that,
the ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion … [an] ecological conversion, whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them. Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.[viii]
The Desert Fathers were ‘convinced that [the desert] was the best place for encountering the presence of God’.[ix] In Lent, we are called to seek the wilderness, convinced it is the best place for repenting, contemplating and meditating upon the external and internal deserts of our time. May this repentance, contemplation and meditation lead us to ecological conversion.
Jaime Tatay is a forest engineer and a Jesuit priest. He is the author of many articles on ecology, spirituality and Catholic Social Teaching. He is also part of the @Ecojesuit team (www.ecojesuit.com)
[i] Pope Francis, Laudato si’ (2015), §222.
[ii] Ibid., §97.
[iii] Ibid., §38.
[iv] Pope Francis, Evangelii gaudium (2013), §215.
[v] Pope Benedict XVI, Homily for the Solemn Inauguration of the Petrine Ministry, 24 April 2005.
[vi] Donal Dorr, ‘Ecological conversion and cultural transformation’, Thinking Faith, 20 July 2015.
[vii] Laudato si’, §8.
[viii] Ibid., §217.
[ix] Ibid., §126.
Nature - Week 2
This reflection is taken from the Daily email series by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
Great Chain of Being
I would like to reclaim an ancient, evolving, and very
Franciscan metaphor—the Great Chain of Being—to name the nature of the
universe, God, and the self, and to direct our future thinking.
Using this image, medieval theologians tried to communicate
a linked and coherent world. The essential and unbreakable links in the chain
include the Divine Creator, the angelic heavenly host, the human, the animal,
the world of plants and vegetation, and planet Earth itself with its minerals
and waters. In themselves and in their union together the links proclaim the
glory of God (see Psalm 104) and the inherent dignity of all things. This image
became the ontological basis for calling anything and everything sacred.
Without it, the idea of “sacred” is subject to the feelings and whims of the
individual.
Saint Bonaventure, who is called the second founder of the
Franciscan Order, took Francis of Assisi’s intuitive genius and spelled it out
into an entire philosophy. He wrote: “The magnitude of things . . . clearly
manifests . . . the wisdom and goodness of the triune God, who by power,
presence and essence exists uncircumscribed in all things.” [1] God is “within
all things but not enclosed; outside all things, but not excluded; above all
things, but not aloof; below all things, but not debased.” [2] Bonaventure
spoke of God as one “whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is
nowhere.” [3] Therefore the origin, magnitude, multitude, beauty, fullness,
activity, and order of all created things are the very “footprints” and
“fingerprints” (vestigia) of God. Now that is quite a lovely and very safe
universe to live in. Welcome home!
Bonaventure
said further:
Therefore, open your eyes, alert the ears of your spirit,
open your lips and apply your heart so that in all creatures you may see, hear,
praise, love and worship, glorify and honor your God, lest the whole world rise
against you. [4]
It is hard to imagine how different the last seven hundred
years might have been if this truly catholic (kata holos, or “according to the
whole”) vision had formed more Christians. Instead, our seeing has been partial
and usually prejudicial. We have hardly seen at all. The individual decided
where and if God’s image would be recognized and honored.
The primary losers according to this labeling system were
“sinners,” variously defined: heretics defined by the empowered group; witches,
usually defined by males; Muslims and Jews; indigenous peoples and religions;
buffalo, whales, and elephants; land, water, and air itself. Finally, the
Divine Presence ended up being almost nowhere except in gatherings of our own
small group—and even there we had levels of worthiness! No wonder we live in a
secular and empty world where hardly anything seems sacred.
How can we call ourselves monotheists if we cannot see that
“one God” unites our world? How can we call ourselves Christians if we don’t
believe that being “Christ-like” means loving “the least of the brothers and
sisters” (Matthew 25:40)?
Once the Great Chain was broken, and even one link
withdrawn, the whole catholic/universal vision collapsed. It seems that we
either honor God in all things or we soon lose the basis for seeing God in
anything.
References:
[1] Bonaventure, Bonaventure: The Soul’s Journey to God, 1,
14, trans. Ewert Cousins (Paulist Press: 1978), 65.
[2] Ibid., 5, 8, 100ff.
[3] Ibid., 5, 8, 100.
[4] Ibid., 1, 15, 67-68.
Adapted from Richard Rohr with John Feister, Hope Against
Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety
(Franciscan Media: 2001), 135-137.
The Univocity of Being
Christ has something in common with all creatures. With the
stone he [sic] shares existence, with the plants he shares life, with the
animals he shares sensation, and with the angels he shares intelligence. Thus
all things are transformed in Christ since in the fullness of his nature he
embraces some part of every creature. —Bonaventure [1]
In the stories of his life, St. Francis is quoted as talking
to or about larks, lambs, rabbits, pheasants, falcons, cicadas, waterfowl,
bees, the famous wolf of Gubbio, pigs whom he praised for generously giving
their bodies for our food, and hooked fish that he tried to throw back into the
water whenever possible. He addresses inanimate creation too, as if it were
indeed ensouled. His “Canticle of the Creatures” includes fire, wind, water,
Brother Sun, Sister Moon, and, of course, “our Sister Mother Earth” herself. He
even told the friars to only cut down part of a tree for their needs so that it
could sprout again.
So-called “nature mysticism” was a worthy entranceway for
Francis, and then Bonaventure laid the theological foundation for the same by
seeing all things as likenesses of God, fingerprints and footprints (vestigia
Dei) that reveal the divine DNA underlying all living links in creation. John
Duns Scotus would philosophically name this “the univocity of all being.” In
other words, we may speak of all beings with “one consistent voice.” Dawn
Nothwehr, a Franciscan sister, lovingly calls it “cosmic mutuality.” [2]
The Franciscan notion of the “univocity of being” gave an
early philosophical foundation to what we now call the circle of life or
ecosystems, holons and fractals (parts that replicate the whole), unitive or
contemplative thinking, and mysticism itself. Duns Scotus believed creation was
more than an “analogy of being,” as Thomas Aquinas taught; there was an
objective continuity between Creator and Creatures.
References:
[1] Bonaventure, “Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent,” The
Works of St. Bonaventure (St. Anthony Guild: 1960).
[2] Dawn M. Nothwehr, Franciscan Theology of the
Environment: An Introductory Reader (Franciscan Media: 2003).
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative
Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 46-47, 161, 176-177; and
Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The
Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016), 78f.
Creation Is the
Primary Cathedral
Creation itself—not ritual or spaces constructed by human
hands—was Francis’ primary cathedral. It is no accident that the majority of
Jesus’ stories and metaphors are based on human and natural observations, not
classroom theology. It is not unimportant that both Jesus and Francis were
peripatetic teachers—talking while walking—and on the road of the world. In our
own time, major teachers like Thomas Berry and Teilhard de Chardin have
rediscovered this natural and universal theology.
The Gospel transforms us by putting us in touch with that
which is much more constant and satisfying, literally the “ground of our
being,” and has much more “reality” to it than theological concepts or the mere
ritualization of reality. Daily cosmic events in the sky and on the earth are
the Reality above our heads and beneath our feet every minute of our lives: a
continuous sacrament. I find that a preoccupation with religious rituals tends
to increase the more we remain untouched by Reality Itself—to which the best
rituals can only point.
Jesus himself commonly points to things like the red sky, a
hen, lilies, the fig tree, a donkey caught in a pit, the birds of the air, the
grass in the field, the temple animals that he released from their cages, and
on and on. He was clearly looking at the seemingly “nonreligious” world,
ordinary things all around him, and appeared to do most of his teaching out of
doors. Francis said, “Wherever we are, wherever we go, we bring our cell and
our soul with us. Our Brother Body is our cell and our soul is the hermit
living in the cell. If our soul does not live in peace and solitude within this
moving cell, of what avail is it to live in a man-made cell?” [1]
Both Jesus and Francis knew that everything created was a
message about the nature of God. Nature was not empty of divinity. Seeing
nature as secular or merely functional created much of the loneliness and
seeming meaninglessness in our contemporary worldview.
In the five-day Men’s Rites of Passage [2]—that was a focus
of my work for fifteen years—so many men felt that prayers and rituals inside
of human-scale buildings were rather domesticated and controlled. They often
perceived that the salvation offered inside these artificial constructs was
also “small” and churchy. Almost without exception, the greatest breakthroughs
for our men occurred during extended times of silence in nature, where the
human and the merely verbal were not in control, or during rituals that were
raw and earthy. Remember that good ritual, like art itself, merely imitates
nature.
References:
[1] “Legend of Perugia,” St. Francis of Assisi: Omnibus of
Sources, 1055-1056.
[2] My work with men’s spirituality is now carried by
Illuman. Visit Illuman.org for information about male initiation rites and
other resources.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative
Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 47-48.
Nature Reflects God's
Goodness
God brought things into being in order that his [sic]
goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them; and
because his goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone,
he produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in the
representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For
goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and
divided. —Thomas Aquinas [1]
Nature itself is the primary Bible. As Paul says in Romans
1:20, “What can be known about God is perfectly plain, for God has made it
plain. Ever since God created the world, God’s everlasting power and deity is
there for the mind to see in all the things that God has created.” The world
itself is the primary locus of the sacred, and actually provides all the
metaphors that the soul needs for its growth.
If you scale chronological history down to the span of one
year, with the Big Bang on January 1, then our species, Homo sapiens, doesn’t
appear until 11:59 PM on December 31. That means our written Bible and the
church appeared in the last nanosecond of December 31. I can’t believe that God
had nothing to say until the last nanosecond. Rather, as both Paul and Thomas
Aquinas say, God has been revealing God’s love, goodness, and beauty since the
very beginning through the natural world of creation. “God looked at everything
God had made, and found it very good” (Genesis 1:31).
Acknowledging the intrinsic value and beauty of creation,
elements, plants, and animals is a major paradigm shift for most Western and
cultural Christians. In fact, we have often dismissed it as animism or
paganism. We limited God’s love and salvation to our own human species, and
even then we did not have enough love to go around for all of humanity! God
ended up looking quite miserly and inept, to be honest.
Listen instead to the Book of Wisdom:
How dull are all people who, from the things-that-are, have
not been able to discover God-Who-Is, or by studying the good works have failed
to recognize the Artist. . . . Through the grandeur and beauty of the creatures
we may, by analogy, contemplate their Author. [2]
All you have to do today is walk outside and gaze at one
leaf, long and lovingly, until you know, really know, that this leaf is a
participation in the eternal being of God. It’s enough to create ecstasy. The
seeming value or dignity of an object doesn’t matter; it is the dignity of your
relationship to the object that matters, that transforms object to subject, and
allows you to meet things center to center or subject to subject, inner dignity
to inner dignity. For a true contemplative, a gratuitously falling green leaf
will awaken awe and wonder just as much as a golden tabernacle in a cathedral.
References:
[1] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, 47, 1.
[2] Wisdom 13:1, 5, New Jerusalem Bible; paraphrase, R.
Rohr.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, A New Cosmology: Nature as the
First Bible, disc 1 (CAC: 2009), CD, MP3 download; and
Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The
Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016), 170.
One Part of Creation
If you would learn more, ask the cattle,
Seek information from the birds of the air.
The creeping things of earth will give you lessons,
And the fishes of the sea will tell you all.
There is not a single creature that does not
know
That everything is of God’s making.
God holds in power the soul of every living
thing,
And the breath of every human body.
—Book of Job 12:7-10 [1]
My friend and fellow Franciscan Jack Wintz has written a
book called Will I See My Dog In Heaven? In it he takes the scriptural,
Christian, and Franciscan traditions to their logical conclusions and his
conclusion is Yes, of course!
As Franciscans, we studied the scriptures and chanted Psalms
that were filled with allusions to the natural world and animals. From the
beginning of the Bible to the end, it is clear that a loving God includes all
of creation in God’s Kingdom. In the Genesis story, God’s love, beauty, and
goodness overflow into creation; and all creatures, including humans, are
living peacefully in God’s presence. Isaiah prophesies the “peaceable kingdom”
to come (11:1-9; 65:17-25). In Revelation, John hears “every creature in heaven
and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, everything in the universe”
giving God “blessing and honor, glory and might, forever and ever” (Revelation
5:13). Finally, John sees “a new heaven and a new earth” (21:1) and the Bible
ends with a new garden, complete with “the river of life-giving water” and “the
tree of life” (22:1-2).
God shows authentic and primal concern for all animals by
directing Noah to take a male and female of every species onto the ark (see
Genesis 7:2-3) to be saved. After the flood, God makes a covenant, not just
with people but with all of creation: “God said: ‘This is the sign of the
covenant that I am making between me and you and every living creature with you
for all ages to come: I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant
between me and the earth’” (Genesis 9:12-13, emphasis mine). How did we miss
that? God’s plan is clearly social, historical, and universal, and not the
anthropocentric and individualistic model that most of us grew up with.
Don’t worry: I won’t try to fit the whole Bible into this
meditation. But I do encourage you, if you are so inclined, to study Scripture
for yourself. Note especially these few selections: Daniel 3:57-82 and Psalms
104 and 148 calling on nature to bless and praise the Lord. As Wintz says, “We
are a part of the Creation, not apart from it.” [2] To love something is to be
present to its inmost core and dignity. That might well be a definition of
contemplation.
References:
[1] Book of Job 12:7-10, Jerusalem Bible; paraphrase, R.
Rohr.
[2] Jack Wintz, Will I See My Dog in Heaven? (Paraclete
Press: 2009), 29.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, A New Cosmology: Nature as the
First Bible, disc 2 (CAC: 2009), CD, MP3 download.
Our Only Home
Our world is a sacred whole in which we have a sacred mission.
—Joanna Macy [1]
We are summoned to become fully human. We must mature into
people who are, first and foremost, citizens of Earth and residents of the
universe, and our identity and core values must be recast accordingly. —Bill
Plotkin [2]
Joanna Macy, David Korten, and Bill Plotkin all speak of our
era today as the time of the Great Turning. Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown
write: “[If] there is to be a livable world for those who come after us, it
will be because we have managed to make the transition from the Industrial
Growth Society to a Life-sustaining Society.” [3] In another place, they say
this change “is germinating now, that sustainable society on which the future
depends. Its seeds are sprouting in countless actions in defense of life, and in
fresh perceptions of our mutual belonging in the living body of Earth—bold new
perceptions deriving from both science and spirituality.” [4]
In his
address to the United Nations General Assembly last year, Pope Francis said:
[It] must be stated
that a true “right of the environment” does exist, for two reasons. First,
because we human beings are part of the environment. We live in communion with
it, since the environment itself entails ethical limits which human activity
must acknowledge and respect. Man, for all his remarkable gifts, which “are
signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology,”
(Laudato Si’, 81) is at the same time a part of these spheres. He possesses a
body shaped by physical, chemical and biological elements, and can only survive
and develop if the ecological environment is favorable. Any harm done to the
environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity. Second, because every
creature, particularly a living creature, has an intrinsic value, in its
existence, its life, its beauty and its interdependence with other creatures.
We Christians, together with the other monotheistic religions, believe that the
universe is the fruit of a loving decision by the Creator, who permits man
respectfully to use creation for the good of his fellow men and for the glory
of the Creator; he is not authorized to abuse it, much less to destroy it. In
all religions, the environment is a fundamental good. [5]
I am grateful we have a pope who recognizes the immense
responsibility we humans have to care for the earth. Unfortunately, there are
still many who deny the clear scientific evidence of our devastating impact.
Climate change and its effects—unpredictable, changing patterns of drought,
flooding, and powerful storms—are upon us. We have no time to lose. So many
people and creatures will suffer and face extinction if we do not quickly
change our lifestyle. Let us work together to creatively find solutions, to
reduce our carbon footprint, to live more simply and sustainably on this, our
only home. Humanity and the earth really will live or die together. The health
of the planet and our continued existence depend upon our choices and actions.
References:
[1] Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown, Coming Back to Life:
Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World (New Society Publishers: 1998), 21.
[2] Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating
Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (New World Library: 2008), 7.
[3] Macy and Brown, Coming Back to Life, 17.
[4] Ibid., 6.
[5] Pope Francis, Address to U. N. General Assembly, New
York, September 25, 2015,
http://time.com/4049905/pope-francis-us-visit-united-nations-speech-transcript/.
HIRING THE RIGHT PEOPLE: 3 THINGS TO REMEMBER
From the weekly blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church ofthe Nativity, Baltimore MA. The original blog can be found here
Early spring is always a season when most churches begin to actively consider staffing issues, especially recruiting new staff. No matter how strong your team is, regardless of how cohesive your ministry, staffing is going to be an annual project because people come and people go. If you want to build and maintain a great group you have to become proficient at hiring the right people. Here are 3 things to remember:
- The right person will make it their business to know your church, understand your ministry, and appreciate your history before they ever show up for an interview. He or she will be proficient in your mission, vision, and values. They will have done their homework, they will have proficiency on your website.
- The right person for your next hire is considering leaving their current position for the “right reasons,” like pursing the professional opportunities your position offers. They will be interested in raising the bar of excellence in whatever area they’re applying for. They’re not interested in simple replacement of an existing staffer, or maintenance of a preexisting program. They want to come to your church to take what you’re doing in any particular ministry, to a whole new level. They have a demonstrated track record of commitment to performance, finding solutions, fixing problems. They’re committed to looking for new ideas and fresh approaches, an ability to translate those new ideas into their program or department, and the wisdom and prudence to implement them effectively.
- The right person, who is the right person for your church, can be a refreshing addition but must be a cultural fit. They’ve got to be able to work with the existing staff, speak their language, recognize their unexpressed values. They should have the capacity to socialize with the rest of the staff, and their spouse should be the same kind of match.
There are so many important considerations when approaching a new hire, but these are definitely three at the top of our list as we begin some interviews of potential candidates in the coming season.
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