Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
To be a vibrant Catholic Community
unified in its commitment
to growing disciples for Christ
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
Mob: 0417 279 437
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
Mob: 0437 521 257
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
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,
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
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
Weekday Masses 27th - 30th June, 2017
Tuesday: 9.30am Penguin
Next Weekend 1st & 2nd July, 2017
Saturday Mass: 9:30am Ulverstone
Saturday Vigil: 6.00pm Penguin
Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am
Port Sorell
Devonport:
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
Ulverstone:
Penguin:
Latrobe:
Port Sorell:
Readings next week Thirteenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
PREGO REFLECTION:
Where have I noticed God’s presence in my life?
What has challenged me?
Have I felt anxious or afraid?
What has brought me joy
or consolation?
I hold these issues gently in mind as I slow myself down, in
whatever way that suits me best.
Perhaps I use an image, light a candle or
listen to soothing music to still my mind and prepare for prayer.
I read the
Gospel slowly, noticing any feelings that stir within me.
I read the text
again.
This time I may want to imagine being one of the disciples journeying
with Jesus.
What is it like?
How do I feel when I hear Jesus telling me not to
be afraid, or hearing how precious I am in the eyes of our Creator God?
I talk
to Jesus as I would to a good friend about how this makes me feel, and I listen
to what Jesus says to me.
When I feel ready I draw my prayer to a close by
thanking God for loving me in such a tender, personal way.
I end my prayer
saying “Our Father....”
Readings next week – Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: Margaret Charlesworth, Roseller Narciso, Chloe Dizon, Sr Marie-Therese OCD, Fr Peter Cryan OCD, Pat Wood, Robert
Windebank, Mary Hutchinson, Fr Laurie Bissett MSC, Victoria Webb & …,
Let us pray for those who have died recently: Patricia Woods, Colin Gabbedy, Fr Liam O’Brearthuin OCD, Anne
Elliott, Chad Lewis, Joan Singline, Mary Excell, Betty Roberts, Sr Campion Luttrell PBVM, Irene Renkowski, Barbara Kelley, June
Morris, Dorothy
Hamilton, Earl Williams.
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 21st – 27th
June
Weekly
Ramblings
On the Notice Boards in our
Churches this weekend there is some information about Steven Smith, one of our
Tasmanian Seminarians and his trip to Vietnam as part of his seminary
experience last year.
From the 1st July until
Christmas Steven is appointed to our parish as part of his formation for
Priesthood (Deacon Paschal was here for the same formation period two years
ago). Steven will be introduced to all centres as quickly as possible and given
the opportunity to learn more about our Parish. I know that you will make him
welcome and be helpful and encouraging to him as he continues on his journey to
Priesthood.
Thanks to all those
parishioners who support the Parish through the Planned Giving Envelopes. By
taking weekly envelopes you make it much easier for us to form a budget to work
towards our goals. At this stage, unfortunately, it is almost purely concerned
with paying bills and meeting maintenance needs as they occur.
In the 3 1/2 years I have
been here I have not spoken about money and only rarely about the challenges we
face to meet our needs financially. In the next few weeks we will be presenting
a report of our finances from 2016/17 and some budget information for this
coming year. There will need to be some conversation about our giving in the
future but it will only happen when appropriate and within the context of the
Scriptures of the particular Sunday because I know that the majority of us are
on fixed incomes and don't have any real extra income to spare.
This weekend I begin a new
message series titled 'Diving Deeper'. This will be the first message series
that I have worked with a team to assist me in preparing the message so
hopefully it will a good start for the future.
Please take care on the roads and in your homes,
KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS: meeting THIS SUNDAY 25th June at 4pm
(please note change of time) in the Devonport Parish Hall.
Any men who are interested in joining this group are invited to come along.
MACKILLOP
HILL
PLANNED GIVING PROGRAMME:
St MARY’S COLLEGE NORTH WEST PAST SCHOLARS LUNCHEON:
FOOTY
TICKETS: Round 13 (16th June)
footy margin 17
Winners; Carol Quinn, Charlies Angels, Pat Coventry.
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
SOLEMNITY OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL:
RACHEL’S VINEYARD has helped many men and women to
move on with hope. You are not alone, there is hope after an abortion
experience. We can help, our next Rachel’s Vineyard retreat for healing
after abortion will be held in Hobart, on Oct 13th -15th 2017. To speak to
someone please call Anne Sherston on the confidential phone lines 6229:8739 or 0478
599 241.
Winter has arrived and as a Parish community we would like
to help those around us who are not as fortunate as ourselves. Winter is a hard
time for many people who do not have enough to keep themselves and their
families warm. We are asking for your help with donations of any clean
blankets, sleeping bags, and bed clothes that you no longer use. We would also
like to collect any old coats, jackets and warm clothing that could be put to
good use, by those who need it. As always non-perishable goods are always
needed and would also be gratefully appreciated.
BEING GOOD-HEARTED IS NOT ENOUGH
This is an article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original article can be found here
Charity is about being good-hearted, but justice is about something more. Individual sympathy is good and virtuous, but it doesn’t necessarily change the social, economic, and political structures that unfairly victimize some people and unduly privilege others. We need to be fair and good of heart, but we also need to have fair and good policies.
Jim Wallis, speaking more-specifically about racism, puts it this way: When we protest that we are not implicated in unjust systems by saying things like: “I have black friends”, we need to challenge ourselves: It’s not just what’s in our hearts that’s at issue; it’s also what’s at the heart of public policy. We can have black friends but if our policies are racist there’s still no justice in land. Individual good will alone doesn’t always make for a system that’s fair to everyone.
And it’s precisely on this point where we see the crucial distinction between charity and justice, between being good-hearted as individuals and trying as a community to ensure that our social, economic, and political systems are not themselves the cause of the very things we are trying to respond to in charity. What causes poverty, racism, economic disparity, lack of fair access to education and health care, and the irresponsibility with which we often treat nature? Individual attitudes, true. But injustice is also the result of social, economic, and political policies that, whatever their other merits, help produce the conditions that spawn poverty, inequality, racism, privilege, and the lack of conscientious concern for the air we breathe.
Most of us, I suspect, are familiar with a story that’s often used to distinguish between charity and justice. It runs this way: There was a town built alongside a river, but situated around a bend so that the townsfolk could see only that part of the river that bordered their town. One day a few of the children were playing by the river when they saw five bodies floating in the water. They quickly ran for help and the townspeople they alerted did what any responsible persons would do in that situation. They took care of the bodies. Pulling them from the river they found that two were dead and they buried them. Three were still alive. One was a child for whom they quickly found a foster home; another was a severely ill woman, her they put in a hospital; the last was a young man and, for him, they found a job and a place to live.
But the story didn’t end there. The next day more bodies appeared and, again, the townsfolk responded as before. They took care of the bodies. They buried the dead, placed the sick in hospitals, found foster homes for the children, and jobs and places to live for the adults. And so it went on for years so that taking care of the bodies that they found each day became a normal feature of their lives and became part of the life of their churches and their community. A few altruistically motivated people even made it their life’s work to take care of those bodies.
But … and this is the point, nobody ever went up the river to see from where and for what reasons those bodies kept appearing each day in the river. They just remained good-hearted and generous in their response to the bodies that found their way to their town.
The lesson is clear enough: It’s one thing (needed, good, and Christian) to take care of the needy bodies we find on our doorsteps, but it’s another thing (also needed, good, and Christian) to go upstream to try to change the things that are causing those bodies to be in the river. That’s the difference between good-hearted charity and acting for social justice.
Sadly though, as good church-going Christians we have been too slow to grasp this and consequently have not brought the demands of Jesus and faith to bear as strongly upon the question of social justice as we have been to bring them to bear upon charity. Too many, good, good-hearted, church-going, charitable women and men simply do not see the demands of justice as being anything beyond the demands of private charity and good-heartedness. And so we are often good-hearted enough that we will, literally, give a needy person the shirt off our back even as we refuse to look at why our closets are overfull while some others don’t have a shirt.
But this should not be misunderstood. The gospel-demand that we act for justice does not in any way denigrate the virtue of charity. Charity is still the ultimate virtue and, sometimes, the only positive difference we can make in our world is precisely the, one-to-one, love and respect that we give to each other. Our own individual goodness is sometimes the only candle that is ours to light.
But that goodness and light must shine publicly too, namely, in how we vote and in what public policies we support or oppose.
Resurrection
Dying into Life
Resurrection is not an isolated miracle as much as it is an
enduring relationship. The best way to speak about the Resurrection is not to
say “Jesus rose from the dead”—as if it was self-generated—but to say “Jesus
was raised from the dead” (as many early texts state). The Eternal Christ is
thus revealed as the map, the blueprint, the “promise,” “pledge,” and
“guarantee” (Paul’s metaphors) of what is happening everywhere, all summed up
in one person so we can see it in personified and singular form.
I think this is why Jesus usually called himself “The Son of
Man,” as in the Archetypal Human. His resurrection is not so much a miracle
that we can argue about, believe, or disbelieve, but an invitation to look
deeper at the pattern of death and rising in all that is human. Jesus, or any
member of “the Body of Christ,” cannot really die because we are all
participating in something eternal—the Universal Christ that has existed “from
the beginning.”
Death is not just the death of the physical body, but all
the times we hit bottom and must let go of how we thought life should be and
surrender to a Larger Power. And in that sense, we all probably go through many
deaths in our lifetime. These deaths to the small self are tipping points,
opportunities to choose transformation early. Unfortunately, most people turn
bitter and look for someone to blame. So their death is indeed death for them,
because they close down to growth and new life.
But if you do choose to walk through the depths—even the
depths of your own sin and mistakes—you will come out the other side, knowing
you’ve been taken there by a Source larger than yourself. Surely this is what
it means to be saved. Being saved doesn’t mean that you are any better than
anyone else or will be whisked off into heaven. It means you’ve allowed and
accepted the mystery of transformation here and now. And as now, so later!
If we are to speak of miracles, the most miraculous thing of
all is that God uses the very thing that would normally destroy you—the tragic,
sorrowful, painful, or unjust—to transform and enlighten you. Now you are
indestructible; there are no dead ends. This is what we mean when we say we are
“saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus.” This is not a one-time cosmic
transaction, but the constant pattern of all growth and change. Jesus is indeed
saving the world by guiding us through all would-be deaths to a life that is
always bigger than death.
Reference:
Grace Is Key
Death is not just our one physical dying, but it is going to
the full depth, hitting the bottom, going the distance, beyond where I am in
control, and always beyond where I am now. No wonder it is scary. Such death is
called “the descent into hell” in the early Apostles’ Creed, while in other
sources, “the pit,” “the dark night,” “Sheol,” or “Hades.” We all die
eventually; we have no choice in the matter. But there are degrees of death
before the final physical one. If we are honest, we acknowledge that we are
dying throughout our life, and this is what we learn if we are attentive: grace
is found at the depths and in the death of everything. After these smaller
deaths, we know that the only “deadly sin” is to swim on the surface of things,
where we never see, find, or desire God or love. This includes even the surface
of religion, which might be the worst danger of all. Thus, we must not be
afraid of falling, failing, moving “down.”
When you go to the full depths and death, sometimes even the
depths of your sin, you can always come out the other side—and the word for
that is resurrection. Something or someone builds a bridge for you,
recognizable only from the far side, that carries you across, either willingly,
or even dragging your feet. Something or someone seems to fill the tragic gap
between death and life, but only at the point of no return. None of us crosses
over by our own effort or merits, purity, or perfection. We are all carried
across by an uncreated and unearned grace—from pope, to president, to princess,
to peasant. The tomb is always finally empty. There are no exceptions to death,
and there are no exceptions to grace. And I believe, with good evidence, that
there are no exceptions to resurrection.
Reference:
From Infinite Love to Infinite
Love
We all want to know that this wonderful thing called life is
going somewhere good. It is going to someplace good because it came from
“original innocence” instead of “original sin.” “I know where I came from and
where I am going,” Jesus says, “but you do not” (John 8:14). So he came to tell
us!
If the original divine incarnation was and is true, then
resurrection is both inevitable and irreversible. If the Big Bang was the
external starting point of the eternal Christ Mystery, then we know Creation is
being led somewhere good, and it is not a chaotic or meaningless universe.
Alpha and Omega are in fact one and the same.
The Cosmic or Universal Christ is the divine lure, a
blinking, brilliant light set as the Omega Point of time and history that keeps
reminding us that love, not death, is the eternal thing. Love, which is nothing
more than endless life, is luring us forward, because love is what we also and
already are. All life is inexorably drawn to the fullness of its own existence.
“Like knows like” and, similar to an electromagnetic force, Love is drawing the
world into a fullness of love. I firmly believe we will finally be unable to
resist the allure. Catholics tried to visualize this human resistance in a
rather clumsy way in what they called “the fires of purgatory.”
But have no doubt, Love will always win. God does not lose.
Reference:
The True Self Says
YES/The False Self Prefers NO
It is not easy to live this way. It often takes a lifetime
of contemplative prayer and honest self-observation to stop critiquing
everything. Once you have learned how to say a fundamental yes, later no’s can
be very helpful and are surely necessary. But beginning with a fundamental yes
is the foundation of mature nonviolence and compassionate action.
The Risen Christ is a great big yes to everything (see 2
Corinthians 1:19), even early, incomplete stages. The Risen Christ is still and
forever the wounded Jesus—and yet now so much more. Your ordinary life and
temperament are not destroyed or rejected, but instead, “This perishable nature
will put on imperishability, and this mortal body will put on immortality” (1
Corinthians 15: 52-54)—one including the other, not one in place of the other.
The Risen Christ reveals that we can operate as a part of
the biggest ecosystem or force field possible—the Body of Christ.
Compassion and mercy come easily once you live inside the
Big Body of Love. The detours of the false self were all just delaying tactics,
bumps in the road, pressure points that created something new in the long run,
as pressure does to carbon deep beneath the earth.
The diamond of love will always be stronger than death.
Diamonds, once soft black carbon, become beautiful and radiant white lightning
under pressure. The true pattern, the big secret, has now been revealed and
exposed, “like a treasure hidden in a field” (Matthew 13:44). You did not find
the Great Love except by finding yourself too, and you cannot find your True Self
without falling into the Great Love.
References:
Love Is Stronger than
Death
Love has you. Love is you. Love alone, and your deep need
for love, recognizes love everywhere else. Remember that you already are what
you are seeking. As Paul states, any fear “that your lack of fidelity could
cancel God’s fidelity, is absurd” (Romans 3:3-4). Love can finally overcome
fear, and your house will be rebuilt on a new and solid foundation. This
foundation was always there, but it takes a long time to find that “It is love
alone that lasts” (1 Corinthians 13:13). All you have loved in your life and
been loved by are eternal and true. That is why it is very good theology to
believe that your dogs, cats, and horses will be with you in heaven. (It will
not be heaven if my recently deceased black Lab, Venus, is not there with me!)
Two of the primary metaphors of final salvation are Noah’s
ark (Genesis 6-9) and “the Peaceable Kingdom” (Isaiah 11:6-9). Interestingly
enough, both are filled with images of animals—as worth saving and as
representative of paradise regained. Note that God’s covenant with Noah is with
“every living creature” and not just with humans. For some reason, some
Evangelical Christians who say they believe the Bible, don’t like that! Yet
it’s said four times in a row (Genesis 9:8-17). I guess none of us are
completely consistent.
My fellow Franciscan Friar, Father Jack Wintz, has written a
theologically solid book on why we can consider all things loved, loving, and
lovable as participating in eternity, including animals. [1] What made us think
humans were the only ones who love and are lovable? If unconditional love,
loyalty, and obedience are the tickets to an eternal life, then Venus is surely
there long before me, along with all the dear wild animals who care for their
young at great cost to themselves—and accept their fate far better than most
humans. When I had to make the very painful decision to put Venus to sleep on
March 30 this year, she literally put her two black paws straight in front of
her, stared at me, slowly bowed her head straight to the ground and died. I
hope I will die with such trustful surrender.
References:
The Pattern for
Everything
Here is the map of the universal pattern:
At the same time, so you do not think I am playing lightly
with Scripture and Tradition, we must preserve the logical possibility of
“Hell,” as most religions do in some form. In doing so, we are preserving human
free will. It is indeed possible to refuse this whole journey of love.
Otherwise God is a Puppeteer and we are mere puppets. Love can only exist in
the realm of ever more perfect freedom.
Reference:
Taken from the weekly blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Baltimore. You can find the original blog here
Church health and growth are dependent on many factors, for sure. But bottom line, at the end of the day, churches don’t grow because they’re not healthy. And they’re not healthy because they’re focused on themselves. For all the talk about evangelization these days, the truth is that many churches remain resolutely focused on themselves, they’re all about the people already in the pews.
Here are 5 warning signs:
1 – Member Preferences Trump Everything
In insider-focused churches, member preference rules. Everything from the content of the preaching to the selection of the music is determined by what the “people” want.
As a result, people-pleasing rules when it comes to staff leadership and decision making. The challenge is, this leaves no objective standards. The standard is whatever people say they like, and the people are always the same people…and probably a very small circle of people.
2- Emotions Drive Decision Making
In these churches, members are so focused on pleasing themselves that discussion about future direction becomes very emotional: what people feel, who’s happy, who’s not happy, who’s thinking of leaving if they don’t get their way. Meanwhile, any sense of strategy, not to mention mission, is lost.
3 – Sacrifice Is Neither Given nor Expected
In an insider-focused church, no one sacrifices anything for anyone. They are coming to be served, and service is what they expect. Their contribution is consumption, they simply show up and that fulfills their end of the bargain. The rest is on the church staff, or whomever, as long as its not them.
4- Any Growth Is “Transfer Growth”
Internally focused churches might actually grow numerically, especially if they’re in growing communities. But it’s not real growth, because its not healthy growth (because it’s not mission-induced growth). In an insider-focused church, the growth that takes place is “transfer growth.” This kind of growth attracts serial church shoppers. And guess what serial church shoppers are looking for? A new church to be all about them (because their previous church somehow failed them in that demand).
5- Innovation Is Not Tolerated
Most insider-focused congregations aren’t excited about the future, they’re afraid of it. They cling stubbornly, desperately, blindly to the present or the past, preferring the way things are or the way things used to be over the way things could be, or the ways things should be. As a result innovation is intolerable. Or worse, it is characterized as unorthodox, unfaithful.
The antidote to insider-focus is simple: embracing your mission to reach the lost and make church matter.
For a fuller treatment of this topic take a look at careynieuwhof.com
Alive with love: the Sacred Heart of Jesus
The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was promoted by St Claude La Colombière and St Margaret Mary Alacoque, whose relics will come to London with the Sacred Heart of Mercy Mission this week. James Hanvey SJ explains why this devotion will always be central to the life of the Church and why it is the foundation of our intimacy with Christ. ‘Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, has a heart… With him it is always personal.’ The original of this article can be found at the thinkingfaith.org website by clicking here
The first time I visited Paray-le-Monial I arrived in late morning and it was raining. We had travelled through the French countryside from Ars. It was poor part of France at the time of the Curé, and even today the landscape appeared austere. The small town of Paray-le-Monial had a quiet, understated charm. Like Ars, it was a place of pilgrimage but somehow remained unspoiled.
Some churches have a formal beauty. They are places that you can explore and admire; one might stay for a few moments of prayer but they’re not really ‘home’. The ancient basilica was quite different; it invited you to pray. It was not difficult to see how Paray-le-Monial was a sanctuaire. Both the convent in which Margaret Mary Alacoque lived and the house of the Jesuit community of Claude La Colombière had a modesty and uncluttered quality – interesting but not distracting. Of course, both saints would have appreciated this simplicity; they would not have wanted anything to obscure the centre of their own life and devotion, the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The image of the Sacred Heart can be found in many of our churches. Once it was a familiar feature of many Catholic homes, as were the prayers and practices that went with it: the offering, the first Friday novena[1], the hope and consolations of the 12 promises,[2] the acts of reparation. Fashions in devotions change as they do in everything else. The Church, however, has a faith-memory; it can keep important truths and insights alive and renew them. The form and imagery may change, but devotion to the Sacred Heart remains always central in the Church’s own life and heart. This should not surprise us. The devotion is more than a series of prayers and practices. It is something experienced and contemplated. It is nothing less than our participation in the redemptive love of God made real in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. As Pope Benedict XVI writes,
In the Heart of Jesus, the centre of Christianity is set before us. It expresses everything, all that is genuinely new and revolutionary in the new covenant. This heart calls to our heart. It invites us to step forth out of the futile attempt of self-preservation and, by joining in the task of love, by handing ourselves over to him and with him, to discover the fullness of love which alone is eternity and which alone sustains the world.[3]
Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is a real person. He has a heart. This is the most challenging and consoling thing about him. In him we find the infinite and eternal God who chooses us and offers us a share in the Triune life. In all its material, historical and physical density, the ‘him’ is the reality we cannot escape, erase or deny. Jesus is not a myth like one of the Greek gods taking on human or animal shape, nor is he some cipher for a philosophical idea of the transcendent that every human may recognise though it makes no further demand upon us. Jesus’s reality and the claim that it entails shocks and resists all attempts to construct the category into which he will fit. The person of Jesus haunts and pushes us beyond our limits into new realms of thinking and existing. With him we always have to begin anew. With Jesus it is always personal; we always have to begin in either response to or refusal of the encounter. We cannot slip or evade the personal relationship that his person requires of us. This is the meaning of the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is always a personal, affective, devotional relation with the whole of Jesus, contained in the image of his heart alive with love.
We cannot look upon the wounded heart of Jesus without encountering a love that is so completely human. The humanity of Christ is before us in all its vulnerability and strength. The image of the Sacred Heart offers a deep intimacy and like all such relationships we may long for it but it can frighten us. To be so exposed and so committed and, of course, so vulnerable. Yet, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is also a waiting heart. In it we can experience something of the patient, generous love of God which will not coerce or threaten us. The love in the heart of Christ seeks only our love, and what good is a love that is not freely given? The heart of Jesus creates the sacred, personal space for that deeply hidden and intensely personal exchange of ‘heart to heart’ – cor ad cor loquitur.
From our own experience with others we know that this intimacy can be fleeting even when we desire it. Often it can take many years of sharing and coming to know each other in the course of all life’s twists and turns. True intimacy only really happens when we trust someone; it is a resting in them, an ‘at-homeness.’ So it is with Jesus. The Sacred Heart – his heart – is the unchanging guarantee of a love that waits for us, that makes a home for us, for all that we are and all that we carry. His heart is a sanctuary for us.
The heart of Christ is an open heart. All can find their place in it for all have a place in it. There are no limits to the love of God that we discover in the heart of God’s Son. When we allow ourselves to be drawn to that love, we find that we are also drawn beyond ourselves to a greater, deeper love, especially those whose own heart is wounded. Then we begin to understand the beauty and mystery of the Sacred Heart that is itself wounded. The wound is infinite because Jesus’s love is infinite. It is also the mark of truth. This heart is no symbol of a false love. That it carries the wound of love – a love that knows the depths of betrayal and rejection – means that it also carries our truth as well as God’s truth. We see here the consequences of our sin and that calls us into a greater truth. It also creates in us a greater freedom. Unless we recognise this truth we cannot change; we always remain in our illusions and self-justifications, minimising the consequences and protecting our interests. That is how systems as well as individuals perpetuate and inflict suffering, whether it is on other persons or nature and natural life itself. In the wound of the Sacred Heart we see our own hardness of heart; we have to confront our solipsistic indifference. Yet Christ, too, does expose his heart not to crush us with just guilt but to heal our own woundedness and show us that sacrifice is not only the cost but also the gift of love. Devotion to the Sacred Heart is the school of such a free, courageous and responsive love; we learn again how to love, how to give without seeking return, how to grow beyond ourselves.
Here is the meaning of reparation: when we become servants of this love in our families, communities and our world, we become ministers of compassion and agents of healing. We want to return this love; to make amends for what we or others have broken. This is not guilt but recognition and gratitude. The Sacred Heart of Jesus opens the eyes of our hearts. Just as we cannot make Christ into a faceless abstraction so we cannot make anyone we love into a faceless project. We do not see a problem or a threat but only a person, a history; we cannot read a statistic without realising that it is also a story, a life: not a someone or somebody that could be anyone or anybody, but this person who has a name given to him or her by a father, a mother or someone who loved them from the very beginning of their life and did not wish them to be invisible and unknown. Out of this personal relationship and resistance to the impersonal, the work of reparation begins: whatever is broken we can work to repair; whatever is lost, we can go in search of. Whoever feels humiliated and despised, we can esteem and restore. Whoever is abandoned, used and abused, we can work to bring into the heart of the community with justice and compassion. We can speak the name of those who are forgotten, whose lives are counted as without value, and write their stories in the book of life.
We know that this cannot be done without cost, without enduring commitment or fidelity. But if we have come to know the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we will also know that we have his Spirit too, and ‘nothing is impossible to God.’ For the Sacred Heart of the crucified and risen Christ is a sort of living icon of the Holy Spirit. More than the great rainbow seen by Noah signalling the cosmic covenant and a new beginning, the Spirit is the new and eternal covenant that God’s love for us in Christ does not fail, ‘And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’ (Romans 5:5).
St Jean Eudes thought that the deepest living of the Christian life – we could also say the truly human life – is the mutual indwelling of our heart in the heart of Christ. Although our heart – the love that becomes our very essence – must always be finite, it can, nevertheless, have a limitless capacity for receiving and being transformed by God’s love. St Isaac of Nineveh expresses it beautifully:
And what is a merciful heart? - It is the heart’s burning for the sake of the entire creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing; and by the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful man pour forth abundant tears. From the strong and vehement mercy which grips his heart and from his great compassion, his heart is humbled and he cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in creation. For this reason he offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner he even prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in his heart in the likeness of God.
This is a heart that is fully alive. In our hearts the world longs to see the heart of Jesus. In this Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has reminded us that this is our gift; to carry the merciful heart of Jesus in our own heart. It is such a heart, overflowing with compassion, that is the dynamic core of our Christian witness and the mission of the Church.
Before I left Paray-le-Monial I was given an unexpected gift. In Musée de Hieron, not far from the old Jesuit residence, are some works by the 20th century artist Jean-Georges Cornélius. One painting powerfully impressed itself upon me: Jéhovah devient notre père (above). It seemed to sum up so much of what contemporary theology had been trying to express about the reality of the cross at the heart of God’s Trinitarian life. This painting did not use words or sophisticated philosophical theology. It simply showed the crucified Christ held in the arms of the Father; a traditional artistic theme. In a profoundly personal moment between the Father and the Son, the painting caught a delicate heart-consoling, heart-breaking ambivalence in their closeness: the love was evident and palpable but, as for any parent holding a suffering and dying child, the pain of the Father as well as that of the Son was visible. And there was also a gentle, trusting peace. Supported in the Father’s arms the Son was held, lovingly secure. Theirs was not a closed relationship. Even in such profound intimacy and suffering, their love draws us in. We cannot be onlookers or spectators; we are moved not just by empathy but by grace. In their suffering their heart was one. So are we all held close to the Father’s heart.
[1] In one of the apparitions of St Margaret Mary, Christ spoke: ‘In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.’
[2] I will give them all of the graces necessary for their state of life.
I will establish peace in their houses.
I will comfort them in all their afflictions.
I will be their strength during life and above all during death.
I will bestow a large blessing upon all their undertakings.
Sinners shall find in My Heart the source and the infinite ocean of mercy.
Tepid souls shall grow fervent.
Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection.
I will bless every place where a picture of my heart shall be set up and honored.
I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
Those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart, never to be blotted out.
I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who shall receive communion on the First Friday in nine consecutive months the grace of final penitence; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without receiving their sacraments; My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.
[3] Joseph Ratzinger, Behold the Pierced One (Ignatius Press, 1986), p.69.
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
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 on Monday evenings in the Community Room, Ulverstone from 7pm.
Weekday Masses 27th - 30th June, 2017
Tuesday: 9.30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9.30am Latrobe … St Irenaeus
Thursday: 12noon
Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Next Weekend 1st & 2nd July, 2017
Saturday Mass: 9:30am Ulverstone
Saturday Vigil: 6.00pm Penguin
Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am
Port Sorell
9:00am
Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 1st & 2nd July, 2017
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil: V Riley, A Stegmann, M Stewart
10:30am: K
Pearce, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil: D Peters, M Heazlewood, T Muir, M Gerrand, P Shelverton, M Kenney
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 30th
June: P & T
Douglas 7th July: M.W.C.
Piety Shop 1st
July: L Murfet 2nd July: D French Flowers: B Naiker
Ulverstone:
Reader: R Locket
Ministers of
Communion: M Murray, J Pisarskis, C Harvey, P Gretch
Cleaners: M Swain, M
Bryan Flowers: M Webb Hospitality:
S & T Johnstone
Penguin:
Greeters: G Hills-Eade, B Eade Commentator: Y Downes
Readers: M & D Hiscutt Ministers of
Communion: A Guest,
J Barker
Liturgy: Sulphur Creek C Setting Up: F Aichberger
Care of Church: Y & R Downes
Latrobe:
Reader: S Ritchie Ministers of Communion: B Ritchie, Z Smith Procession of Gifts: Parishioners
Port Sorell:
Readers: D Leaman, T Jeffries Ministers of Communion: L Post Cleaners/Flowers/Prep: G Wylie
Readings next week Thirteenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
First Reading: 2 Kings 4:8-11. 14-16
Second Reading: Romans 6:3-4. 8-11
Gospel: Matthew 10:37-42
PREGO REFLECTION:
Before I begin praying with this Gospel, I reflect back on
my day or on the last week.
Where have I noticed God’s presence in my life?
What has challenged me?
Have I felt anxious or afraid?
What has brought me joy or consolation?
I hold these issues gently in mind as I slow myself down, in whatever way that suits me best.
Perhaps I use an image, light a candle or listen to soothing music to still my mind and prepare for prayer.
I read the Gospel slowly, noticing any feelings that stir within me.
I read the text again.
This time I may want to imagine being one of the disciples journeying with Jesus.
What is it like?
How do I feel when I hear Jesus telling me not to be afraid, or hearing how precious I am in the eyes of our Creator God?
I talk to Jesus as I would to a good friend about how this makes me feel, and I listen to what Jesus says to me.
When I feel ready I draw my prayer to a close by thanking God for loving me in such a tender, personal way.
I end my prayer saying “Our Father....”
Where have I noticed God’s presence in my life?
What has challenged me?
Have I felt anxious or afraid?
What has brought me joy or consolation?
I hold these issues gently in mind as I slow myself down, in whatever way that suits me best.
Perhaps I use an image, light a candle or listen to soothing music to still my mind and prepare for prayer.
I read the Gospel slowly, noticing any feelings that stir within me.
I read the text again.
This time I may want to imagine being one of the disciples journeying with Jesus.
What is it like?
How do I feel when I hear Jesus telling me not to be afraid, or hearing how precious I am in the eyes of our Creator God?
I talk to Jesus as I would to a good friend about how this makes me feel, and I listen to what Jesus says to me.
When I feel ready I draw my prayer to a close by thanking God for loving me in such a tender, personal way.
I end my prayer saying “Our Father....”
Readings next week – Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
First Reading: Jeremiah 20:10-13
Second Reading: Romans 5:12-15
Gospel: Matthew 10:26-33
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: Margaret Charlesworth, Roseller Narciso, Chloe Dizon, Sr Marie-Therese OCD, Fr Peter Cryan OCD, Pat Wood, Robert
Windebank, Mary Hutchinson, Fr Laurie Bissett MSC, Victoria Webb & …,
Let us pray for those who have died recently: Patricia Woods, Colin Gabbedy, Fr Liam O’Brearthuin OCD, Anne
Elliott, Chad Lewis, Joan Singline, Mary Excell, Betty Roberts, Sr Campion Luttrell PBVM, Irene Renkowski, Barbara Kelley, June
Morris, Dorothy
Hamilton, Earl Williams.
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 21st – 27th
June
Max Clifford, Therese Lizotte, Dean Mott, Rhys Tobin, Dylan
Burgess, Max Stuart, Anne Morton, Harold Richardson, Leslie Constable, Ruth Edillo, Dudley McNamara, Patricia Barrenger, Dorothy Smith, Robin
Millwood, William (Bill) Wing and Basil Triffett.
May they rest in peace
Weekly
Ramblings
On the Notice Boards in our
Churches this weekend there is some information about Steven Smith, one of our
Tasmanian Seminarians and his trip to Vietnam as part of his seminary
experience last year.
From the 1st July until
Christmas Steven is appointed to our parish as part of his formation for
Priesthood (Deacon Paschal was here for the same formation period two years
ago). Steven will be introduced to all centres as quickly as possible and given
the opportunity to learn more about our Parish. I know that you will make him
welcome and be helpful and encouraging to him as he continues on his journey to
Priesthood.
Thanks to all those
parishioners who support the Parish through the Planned Giving Envelopes. By
taking weekly envelopes you make it much easier for us to form a budget to work
towards our goals. At this stage, unfortunately, it is almost purely concerned
with paying bills and meeting maintenance needs as they occur.
In the 3 1/2 years I have
been here I have not spoken about money and only rarely about the challenges we
face to meet our needs financially. In the next few weeks we will be presenting
a report of our finances from 2016/17 and some budget information for this
coming year. There will need to be some conversation about our giving in the
future but it will only happen when appropriate and within the context of the
Scriptures of the particular Sunday because I know that the majority of us are
on fixed incomes and don't have any real extra income to spare.
This weekend I begin a new
message series titled 'Diving Deeper'. This will be the first message series
that I have worked with a team to assist me in preparing the message so
hopefully it will a good start for the future.
Please take care on the roads and in your homes,
KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS: meeting THIS SUNDAY 25th June at 4pm
(please note change of time) in the Devonport Parish Hall.
Any men who are interested in joining this group are invited to come along.
MACKILLOP
HILL
Spirituality
in the Coffee Shoppe:
Join us
for a chat on topics of interest to YOU over a cuppa! This
Monday 26th June 2017
10.30am – 12 noon
Phone: 6428 3095 Email: mackillophill.forth@sosj.org.au
PLANNED GIVING PROGRAMME:
New envelopes are being distributed
during June. If you are not already part of this programme and would like to
join, or do not wish to continue giving, please contact the Parish office.
Please note: The new envelopes (Yellow in
colour) should not be used until starting date 2nd July, therefore once you start using them you need
to discard any old envelopes (pink in colour) – thank you!
St MARY’S COLLEGE NORTH WEST PAST SCHOLARS LUNCHEON:
Luncheon and Annual General Meeting will be held at Felicity
Sly's home, 108 James Street, Devonport Saturday 1st July commencing
at noon. Cost $10. Please RSVP to Felicity Sly by Wednesday 28th June:
Phone 6424:1933, 0418 301 573 or email fsly@internode.on.net
FOOTY
TICKETS: Round 13 (16th June)
footy margin 17
Winners; Carol Quinn, Charlies Angels, Pat Coventry.
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm! Callers for Thursday 29th
June – Merv Tippett & Rod Clark
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
SOLEMNITY OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL:
Carmelite Monastery, 7 Cambridge Street Launceston on
Sunday 16th July 9.30am - Sung Mass. Celebrant and
Homilist Archbishop Julian Porteous, DD. A Novena of Masses and Prayers
July 7th – 15th Intentions may be sent to Mother Teresa-Benedicta. Morning
Tea after Mass. All are welcome!
RACHEL’S VINEYARD has helped many men and women to
move on with hope. You are not alone, there is hope after an abortion
experience. We can help, our next Rachel’s Vineyard retreat for healing
after abortion will be held in Hobart, on Oct 13th -15th 2017. To speak to
someone please call Anne Sherston on the confidential phone lines 6229:8739 or 0478
599 241.
Winter has arrived and as a Parish community we would like
to help those around us who are not as fortunate as ourselves. Winter is a hard
time for many people who do not have enough to keep themselves and their
families warm. We are asking for your help with donations of any clean
blankets, sleeping bags, and bed clothes that you no longer use. We would also
like to collect any old coats, jackets and warm clothing that could be put to
good use, by those who need it. As always non-perishable goods are always
needed and would also be gratefully appreciated.
Donations can be dropped off at St Vincent de Paul Society,
18 Murray Street, East Devonport or you can phone the office on 6427:7100 to
arrange for collection of your items.
This weekend at all Mass Centres, envelopes for the Vinnies
Winter Appeal are available for your donation.
We hope you are able to help!
BEING GOOD-HEARTED IS NOT ENOUGH
This is an article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original article can be found hereCharity is about being good-hearted, but justice is about something more. Individual sympathy is good and virtuous, but it doesn’t necessarily change the social, economic, and political structures that unfairly victimize some people and unduly privilege others. We need to be fair and good of heart, but we also need to have fair and good policies.
Jim Wallis, speaking more-specifically about racism, puts it this way: When we protest that we are not implicated in unjust systems by saying things like: “I have black friends”, we need to challenge ourselves: It’s not just what’s in our hearts that’s at issue; it’s also what’s at the heart of public policy. We can have black friends but if our policies are racist there’s still no justice in land. Individual good will alone doesn’t always make for a system that’s fair to everyone.
And it’s precisely on this point where we see the crucial distinction between charity and justice, between being good-hearted as individuals and trying as a community to ensure that our social, economic, and political systems are not themselves the cause of the very things we are trying to respond to in charity. What causes poverty, racism, economic disparity, lack of fair access to education and health care, and the irresponsibility with which we often treat nature? Individual attitudes, true. But injustice is also the result of social, economic, and political policies that, whatever their other merits, help produce the conditions that spawn poverty, inequality, racism, privilege, and the lack of conscientious concern for the air we breathe.
Most of us, I suspect, are familiar with a story that’s often used to distinguish between charity and justice. It runs this way: There was a town built alongside a river, but situated around a bend so that the townsfolk could see only that part of the river that bordered their town. One day a few of the children were playing by the river when they saw five bodies floating in the water. They quickly ran for help and the townspeople they alerted did what any responsible persons would do in that situation. They took care of the bodies. Pulling them from the river they found that two were dead and they buried them. Three were still alive. One was a child for whom they quickly found a foster home; another was a severely ill woman, her they put in a hospital; the last was a young man and, for him, they found a job and a place to live.
But the story didn’t end there. The next day more bodies appeared and, again, the townsfolk responded as before. They took care of the bodies. They buried the dead, placed the sick in hospitals, found foster homes for the children, and jobs and places to live for the adults. And so it went on for years so that taking care of the bodies that they found each day became a normal feature of their lives and became part of the life of their churches and their community. A few altruistically motivated people even made it their life’s work to take care of those bodies.
But … and this is the point, nobody ever went up the river to see from where and for what reasons those bodies kept appearing each day in the river. They just remained good-hearted and generous in their response to the bodies that found their way to their town.
The lesson is clear enough: It’s one thing (needed, good, and Christian) to take care of the needy bodies we find on our doorsteps, but it’s another thing (also needed, good, and Christian) to go upstream to try to change the things that are causing those bodies to be in the river. That’s the difference between good-hearted charity and acting for social justice.
Sadly though, as good church-going Christians we have been too slow to grasp this and consequently have not brought the demands of Jesus and faith to bear as strongly upon the question of social justice as we have been to bring them to bear upon charity. Too many, good, good-hearted, church-going, charitable women and men simply do not see the demands of justice as being anything beyond the demands of private charity and good-heartedness. And so we are often good-hearted enough that we will, literally, give a needy person the shirt off our back even as we refuse to look at why our closets are overfull while some others don’t have a shirt.
But this should not be misunderstood. The gospel-demand that we act for justice does not in any way denigrate the virtue of charity. Charity is still the ultimate virtue and, sometimes, the only positive difference we can make in our world is precisely the, one-to-one, love and respect that we give to each other. Our own individual goodness is sometimes the only candle that is ours to light.
But that goodness and light must shine publicly too, namely, in how we vote and in what public policies we support or oppose.
Resurrection
This article is a collation from the Daily email series sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe to these emails by clicking here
Dying into Life
The Resurrection is not a one-time miracle that proved Jesus
was God. Jesus’ death and resurrection name and reveal what is happening
everywhere and all the time in God and in everything God creates. Reality is
always moving toward resurrection. As prayers of the Catholic funeral Mass
affirm, “Life is not ended but merely changed.” This is the divine mystery of
transformation, fully evident in the entire physical universe. This is why I
believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus, even if it is a new kind of
physicality, which Paul struggles to describe (see 1 Corinthians 15:35).
Resurrection is not an isolated miracle as much as it is an
enduring relationship. The best way to speak about the Resurrection is not to
say “Jesus rose from the dead”—as if it was self-generated—but to say “Jesus
was raised from the dead” (as many early texts state). The Eternal Christ is
thus revealed as the map, the blueprint, the “promise,” “pledge,” and
“guarantee” (Paul’s metaphors) of what is happening everywhere, all summed up
in one person so we can see it in personified and singular form.
I think this is why Jesus usually called himself “The Son of
Man,” as in the Archetypal Human. His resurrection is not so much a miracle
that we can argue about, believe, or disbelieve, but an invitation to look
deeper at the pattern of death and rising in all that is human. Jesus, or any
member of “the Body of Christ,” cannot really die because we are all
participating in something eternal—the Universal Christ that has existed “from
the beginning.”
Death is not just the death of the physical body, but all
the times we hit bottom and must let go of how we thought life should be and
surrender to a Larger Power. And in that sense, we all probably go through many
deaths in our lifetime. These deaths to the small self are tipping points,
opportunities to choose transformation early. Unfortunately, most people turn
bitter and look for someone to blame. So their death is indeed death for them,
because they close down to growth and new life.
But if you do choose to walk through the depths—even the
depths of your own sin and mistakes—you will come out the other side, knowing
you’ve been taken there by a Source larger than yourself. Surely this is what
it means to be saved. Being saved doesn’t mean that you are any better than
anyone else or will be whisked off into heaven. It means you’ve allowed and
accepted the mystery of transformation here and now. And as now, so later!
If we are to speak of miracles, the most miraculous thing of
all is that God uses the very thing that would normally destroy you—the tragic,
sorrowful, painful, or unjust—to transform and enlighten you. Now you are
indestructible; there are no dead ends. This is what we mean when we say we are
“saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus.” This is not a one-time cosmic
transaction, but the constant pattern of all growth and change. Jesus is indeed
saving the world by guiding us through all would-be deaths to a life that is
always bigger than death.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Easter Homily: Reality Moves
Toward Resurrection,” March 27, 2016, Holy Family Parish, Albuquerque, New
Mexico, https://cac.org/easter-homily-reality-moves-toward-resurrection/.
Grace Is Key
The goodness of God fills all the gaps of the universe,
without discrimination or preference. God is the gratuity of absolutely
everything. The space in between everything is not space at all but Spirit. God
is the “Goodness Glue” that holds the dark and light of things together, the
free energy that carries all death across the Great Divide and transmutes it
into Life. When we say that Christ “paid the debt once and for all,” it simply
means that God’s job is to make up for all deficiencies in the universe. What
else would God do? Grace is what God does to keep all things God has made in
love and alive—forever. Grace is not something God gives; grace is who God is.
If we are to believe the primary witnesses, an unexplainable goodness is at
work in the universe. (Some of us call this phenomenon God, but the word is not
necessary. In fact, sometimes it gets in the way of the experience, because too
many have named God something other than grace.)
Death is not just our one physical dying, but it is going to
the full depth, hitting the bottom, going the distance, beyond where I am in
control, and always beyond where I am now. No wonder it is scary. Such death is
called “the descent into hell” in the early Apostles’ Creed, while in other
sources, “the pit,” “the dark night,” “Sheol,” or “Hades.” We all die
eventually; we have no choice in the matter. But there are degrees of death
before the final physical one. If we are honest, we acknowledge that we are
dying throughout our life, and this is what we learn if we are attentive: grace
is found at the depths and in the death of everything. After these smaller
deaths, we know that the only “deadly sin” is to swim on the surface of things,
where we never see, find, or desire God or love. This includes even the surface
of religion, which might be the worst danger of all. Thus, we must not be
afraid of falling, failing, moving “down.”
When you go to the full depths and death, sometimes even the
depths of your sin, you can always come out the other side—and the word for
that is resurrection. Something or someone builds a bridge for you,
recognizable only from the far side, that carries you across, either willingly,
or even dragging your feet. Something or someone seems to fill the tragic gap
between death and life, but only at the point of no return. None of us crosses
over by our own effort or merits, purity, or perfection. We are all carried
across by an uncreated and unearned grace—from pope, to president, to princess,
to peasant. The tomb is always finally empty. There are no exceptions to death,
and there are no exceptions to grace. And I believe, with good evidence, that
there are no exceptions to resurrection.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for
Our True Self (Jossey-Bass: 2013), xx-xxii.
From Infinite Love to Infinite
Love
We all want resurrection in some form. Jesus’ resurrection
is a potent, focused, and compelling statement about what God is still and
forever doing with the universe and with humanity. Science strongly confirms
this statement today with different metaphors and symbols: condensation,
evaporation, hibernation, sublimation, the four seasons, and the life cycles of
everything from salmon to stars—constantly dying and being reborn in different
forms. God appears to be resurrecting everything all the time and everywhere.
It is not something to “believe in” as much as it is something to observe and
be taught by.
I choose to believe in Jesus’ bodily resurrection because it
localizes the whole Mystery in this material and earthly world and in our own
bodies too, the only world we know and the world that God created and loves and
in which God chose to incarnate. (Read all of 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul keeps
saying this in many ways.)
We all want to know that this wonderful thing called life is
going somewhere good. It is going to someplace good because it came from
“original innocence” instead of “original sin.” “I know where I came from and
where I am going,” Jesus says, “but you do not” (John 8:14). So he came to tell
us!
The Alpha and the Omega of history have to match, or our
lives have no natural arc, trajectory, or organic meaning. The end has to be in
the beginning, as T. S. Eliot said in his Four Quartets. The Book of Revelation
(1:8, 21:6, 22:13) states that Jesus is the Alpha of history, which Duns Scotus
called “the first idea in the mind of God,” and also the “Omega Point,” which
is the final allurement of history into its future, an idea taught by Teilhard
de Chardin.
If the original divine incarnation was and is true, then
resurrection is both inevitable and irreversible. If the Big Bang was the
external starting point of the eternal Christ Mystery, then we know Creation is
being led somewhere good, and it is not a chaotic or meaningless universe.
Alpha and Omega are in fact one and the same.
The Cosmic or Universal Christ is the divine lure, a
blinking, brilliant light set as the Omega Point of time and history that keeps
reminding us that love, not death, is the eternal thing. Love, which is nothing
more than endless life, is luring us forward, because love is what we also and
already are. All life is inexorably drawn to the fullness of its own existence.
“Like knows like” and, similar to an electromagnetic force, Love is drawing the
world into a fullness of love. I firmly believe we will finally be unable to
resist the allure. Catholics tried to visualize this human resistance in a
rather clumsy way in what they called “the fires of purgatory.”
But have no doubt, Love will always win. God does not lose.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for
Our True Self (Jossey-Bass: 2013), 86-88, 92-93.
The True Self Says
YES/The False Self Prefers NO
The great wisdom teachers and mystics say in various ways
that you cannot truly see or understand anything if you begin with a no. You
have to start with a yes of basic acceptance, which means you do not too
quickly label, analyze, or categorize things as good or bad. The ego or false
self strengthens itself by constriction, by being against, or by re-action; it
feels loss or fear when it opens up to subtlety, growth, change, and Mystery.
Living out of the True Self involves positive choice, inner spaciousness, and
conscious understanding rather than resistance, knee-jerk reactions, or
defensiveness.
It is not easy to live this way. It often takes a lifetime
of contemplative prayer and honest self-observation to stop critiquing
everything. Once you have learned how to say a fundamental yes, later no’s can
be very helpful and are surely necessary. But beginning with a fundamental yes
is the foundation of mature nonviolence and compassionate action.
The Risen Christ is a great big yes to everything (see 2
Corinthians 1:19), even early, incomplete stages. The Risen Christ is still and
forever the wounded Jesus—and yet now so much more. Your ordinary life and
temperament are not destroyed or rejected, but instead, “This perishable nature
will put on imperishability, and this mortal body will put on immortality” (1
Corinthians 15: 52-54)—one including the other, not one in place of the other.
The Risen Christ reveals that we can operate as a part of
the biggest ecosystem or force field possible—the Body of Christ.
Compassion and mercy come easily once you live inside the
Big Body of Love. The detours of the false self were all just delaying tactics,
bumps in the road, pressure points that created something new in the long run,
as pressure does to carbon deep beneath the earth.
The diamond of love will always be stronger than death.
Diamonds, once soft black carbon, become beautiful and radiant white lightning
under pressure. The true pattern, the big secret, has now been revealed and
exposed, “like a treasure hidden in a field” (Matthew 13:44). You did not find
the Great Love except by finding yourself too, and you cannot find your True Self
without falling into the Great Love.
References:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as
the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2009), 49-51; and
Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self (Jossey-Bass:
2013), 183-185.
Love Is Stronger than
Death
I believe the meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus is summed
up in the climactic line from the Song of Songs, “Love is stronger than death”
(8:6). If the blank white banner that the Risen Christ usually holds in
Christian art should say anything, it should say: “Love will win!” Love is all
that remains. Love and life are finally the same thing, and you know that for
yourself once you have walked through death.
Love has you. Love is you. Love alone, and your deep need
for love, recognizes love everywhere else. Remember that you already are what
you are seeking. As Paul states, any fear “that your lack of fidelity could
cancel God’s fidelity, is absurd” (Romans 3:3-4). Love can finally overcome
fear, and your house will be rebuilt on a new and solid foundation. This
foundation was always there, but it takes a long time to find that “It is love
alone that lasts” (1 Corinthians 13:13). All you have loved in your life and
been loved by are eternal and true. That is why it is very good theology to
believe that your dogs, cats, and horses will be with you in heaven. (It will
not be heaven if my recently deceased black Lab, Venus, is not there with me!)
Two of the primary metaphors of final salvation are Noah’s
ark (Genesis 6-9) and “the Peaceable Kingdom” (Isaiah 11:6-9). Interestingly
enough, both are filled with images of animals—as worth saving and as
representative of paradise regained. Note that God’s covenant with Noah is with
“every living creature” and not just with humans. For some reason, some
Evangelical Christians who say they believe the Bible, don’t like that! Yet
it’s said four times in a row (Genesis 9:8-17). I guess none of us are
completely consistent.
My fellow Franciscan Friar, Father Jack Wintz, has written a
theologically solid book on why we can consider all things loved, loving, and
lovable as participating in eternity, including animals. [1] What made us think
humans were the only ones who love and are lovable? If unconditional love,
loyalty, and obedience are the tickets to an eternal life, then Venus is surely
there long before me, along with all the dear wild animals who care for their
young at great cost to themselves—and accept their fate far better than most
humans. When I had to make the very painful decision to put Venus to sleep on
March 30 this year, she literally put her two black paws straight in front of
her, stared at me, slowly bowed her head straight to the ground and died. I
hope I will die with such trustful surrender.
References:
[1] Jack Wintz, Will I See My Dog in Heaven? (Paraclete
Press: 2009).
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for
Our True Self (Jossey-Bass: 2013), 178-179.
The Pattern for
Everything
Jesus both reveals and identifies with humanity in all its
stages, and even reveals the trajectory of all history—at its beginning, at its
lowest points, and at its fulfilled end. Jesus, the Christ, illustrates “The
One, Single New Man” (Ephesians 2:15), an Archetype, a Stand-In for all of
humanity all at once (1 Corinthians 15:21-28, 45-49; Romans 5:15-21, 8:3;
Colossians 3:10-11; Ephesians 2:14-22).
Here is the map of the universal pattern:
1) At the beginning, for both Jesus and us, the soul is
already one with God. Just as Jesus is the Son of God, we also are sons or
daughters of God from conception. Jesus’ unique and inclusive “sonship”
declares us as “co-heirs” and “adopted children” in Paul’s theology (Romans
8:14-17). Yet this divine conception is hidden from all of us until we discover
it, as I believe Jesus had to do, too.
He is not “initiated” until he does.
2) There are several moments (Jesus’ baptism in Matthew
3:13-17 and Mark 1:9-11, Peter’s “confession” in Matthew 16:16, the
Transfiguration in Matthew 17:1-8 and Luke 9:28-36) where Jesus “gets the
message,” just as we often do when we are really listening. But we forget our
truth or even deny it; whereas Jesus never denies his deep identity and always
trusts God to be his faithful Father (see John 8:25-29).
3) Even the Gospels seem to jump over Jesus’ thirty years of
uneventfulness, paralleling midlife for most of us, during which all the seeds
are planted for a later sprouting. Jesus increasingly encounters trials and
hostility, leading to abandonment and betrayal, just as most human lives do in
some form or another. He thus identifies with humanity at its lowest points.
That’s the place of powerlessness as the separate ego allows itself to die, and
we are gradually re-grafted to the Vine (see John 15:1-6).
4) At our low points, we are one step away from either enlightenment
or despair. Without faith that there is a Bigger Pattern, and the grace to
surrender to that Bigger Pattern, most people will move into despair,
negativity, or cynicism. We need a promise, a hopeful direction, or it is very
hard not to give up. When you have not yet learned what transformation feels or
looks like, someone—perhaps some loving human or simply God’s own embrace—needs
to hold you now because you cannot hold yourself. When we experience this
radical holding, and even deep loving, this is salvation!
5) Thus, Jesus reveals and identifies with the final chapter
of the human journey at its promised and now fulfilled form. He becomes the
goal personified—the Risen Christ! This is where we are all heading: to
resurrection. What humanity fears, hates, destroys, pollutes, kills, and
crucifies, God promises to transform and raise up!
6) Quietly and unrecognized, the circle comes “full circle”
in what we call the Ascension of Jesus (Acts 1:9-11). We all return where we
first started, with the great school of life and death ushering us back home.
At the same time, so you do not think I am playing lightly
with Scripture and Tradition, we must preserve the logical possibility of
“Hell,” as most religions do in some form. In doing so, we are preserving human
free will. It is indeed possible to refuse this whole journey of love.
Otherwise God is a Puppeteer and we are mere puppets. Love can only exist in
the realm of ever more perfect freedom.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Great Themes of Paul: Life as
Participation, disc 10 (Franciscan Media: 2002), CD.
5 WARNING SIGNS YOUR PARISH IS INSIDER-FOCUSED
Taken from the weekly blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Baltimore. You can find the original blog here
Church health and growth are dependent on many factors, for sure. But bottom line, at the end of the day, churches don’t grow because they’re not healthy. And they’re not healthy because they’re focused on themselves. For all the talk about evangelization these days, the truth is that many churches remain resolutely focused on themselves, they’re all about the people already in the pews.
Here are 5 warning signs:
1 – Member Preferences Trump Everything
In insider-focused churches, member preference rules. Everything from the content of the preaching to the selection of the music is determined by what the “people” want.
As a result, people-pleasing rules when it comes to staff leadership and decision making. The challenge is, this leaves no objective standards. The standard is whatever people say they like, and the people are always the same people…and probably a very small circle of people.
2- Emotions Drive Decision Making
In these churches, members are so focused on pleasing themselves that discussion about future direction becomes very emotional: what people feel, who’s happy, who’s not happy, who’s thinking of leaving if they don’t get their way. Meanwhile, any sense of strategy, not to mention mission, is lost.
3 – Sacrifice Is Neither Given nor Expected
In an insider-focused church, no one sacrifices anything for anyone. They are coming to be served, and service is what they expect. Their contribution is consumption, they simply show up and that fulfills their end of the bargain. The rest is on the church staff, or whomever, as long as its not them.
4- Any Growth Is “Transfer Growth”
Internally focused churches might actually grow numerically, especially if they’re in growing communities. But it’s not real growth, because its not healthy growth (because it’s not mission-induced growth). In an insider-focused church, the growth that takes place is “transfer growth.” This kind of growth attracts serial church shoppers. And guess what serial church shoppers are looking for? A new church to be all about them (because their previous church somehow failed them in that demand).
5- Innovation Is Not Tolerated
Most insider-focused congregations aren’t excited about the future, they’re afraid of it. They cling stubbornly, desperately, blindly to the present or the past, preferring the way things are or the way things used to be over the way things could be, or the ways things should be. As a result innovation is intolerable. Or worse, it is characterized as unorthodox, unfaithful.
The antidote to insider-focus is simple: embracing your mission to reach the lost and make church matter.
For a fuller treatment of this topic take a look at careynieuwhof.com
Alive with love: the Sacred Heart of Jesus
The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was promoted by St Claude La Colombière and St Margaret Mary Alacoque, whose relics will come to London with the Sacred Heart of Mercy Mission this week. James Hanvey SJ explains why this devotion will always be central to the life of the Church and why it is the foundation of our intimacy with Christ. ‘Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, has a heart… With him it is always personal.’ The original of this article can be found at the thinkingfaith.org website by clicking here
The first time I visited Paray-le-Monial I arrived in late morning and it was raining. We had travelled through the French countryside from Ars. It was poor part of France at the time of the Curé, and even today the landscape appeared austere. The small town of Paray-le-Monial had a quiet, understated charm. Like Ars, it was a place of pilgrimage but somehow remained unspoiled.
Some churches have a formal beauty. They are places that you can explore and admire; one might stay for a few moments of prayer but they’re not really ‘home’. The ancient basilica was quite different; it invited you to pray. It was not difficult to see how Paray-le-Monial was a sanctuaire. Both the convent in which Margaret Mary Alacoque lived and the house of the Jesuit community of Claude La Colombière had a modesty and uncluttered quality – interesting but not distracting. Of course, both saints would have appreciated this simplicity; they would not have wanted anything to obscure the centre of their own life and devotion, the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The image of the Sacred Heart can be found in many of our churches. Once it was a familiar feature of many Catholic homes, as were the prayers and practices that went with it: the offering, the first Friday novena[1], the hope and consolations of the 12 promises,[2] the acts of reparation. Fashions in devotions change as they do in everything else. The Church, however, has a faith-memory; it can keep important truths and insights alive and renew them. The form and imagery may change, but devotion to the Sacred Heart remains always central in the Church’s own life and heart. This should not surprise us. The devotion is more than a series of prayers and practices. It is something experienced and contemplated. It is nothing less than our participation in the redemptive love of God made real in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. As Pope Benedict XVI writes,
In the Heart of Jesus, the centre of Christianity is set before us. It expresses everything, all that is genuinely new and revolutionary in the new covenant. This heart calls to our heart. It invites us to step forth out of the futile attempt of self-preservation and, by joining in the task of love, by handing ourselves over to him and with him, to discover the fullness of love which alone is eternity and which alone sustains the world.[3]
Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is a real person. He has a heart. This is the most challenging and consoling thing about him. In him we find the infinite and eternal God who chooses us and offers us a share in the Triune life. In all its material, historical and physical density, the ‘him’ is the reality we cannot escape, erase or deny. Jesus is not a myth like one of the Greek gods taking on human or animal shape, nor is he some cipher for a philosophical idea of the transcendent that every human may recognise though it makes no further demand upon us. Jesus’s reality and the claim that it entails shocks and resists all attempts to construct the category into which he will fit. The person of Jesus haunts and pushes us beyond our limits into new realms of thinking and existing. With him we always have to begin anew. With Jesus it is always personal; we always have to begin in either response to or refusal of the encounter. We cannot slip or evade the personal relationship that his person requires of us. This is the meaning of the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is always a personal, affective, devotional relation with the whole of Jesus, contained in the image of his heart alive with love.
We cannot look upon the wounded heart of Jesus without encountering a love that is so completely human. The humanity of Christ is before us in all its vulnerability and strength. The image of the Sacred Heart offers a deep intimacy and like all such relationships we may long for it but it can frighten us. To be so exposed and so committed and, of course, so vulnerable. Yet, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is also a waiting heart. In it we can experience something of the patient, generous love of God which will not coerce or threaten us. The love in the heart of Christ seeks only our love, and what good is a love that is not freely given? The heart of Jesus creates the sacred, personal space for that deeply hidden and intensely personal exchange of ‘heart to heart’ – cor ad cor loquitur.
From our own experience with others we know that this intimacy can be fleeting even when we desire it. Often it can take many years of sharing and coming to know each other in the course of all life’s twists and turns. True intimacy only really happens when we trust someone; it is a resting in them, an ‘at-homeness.’ So it is with Jesus. The Sacred Heart – his heart – is the unchanging guarantee of a love that waits for us, that makes a home for us, for all that we are and all that we carry. His heart is a sanctuary for us.
The heart of Christ is an open heart. All can find their place in it for all have a place in it. There are no limits to the love of God that we discover in the heart of God’s Son. When we allow ourselves to be drawn to that love, we find that we are also drawn beyond ourselves to a greater, deeper love, especially those whose own heart is wounded. Then we begin to understand the beauty and mystery of the Sacred Heart that is itself wounded. The wound is infinite because Jesus’s love is infinite. It is also the mark of truth. This heart is no symbol of a false love. That it carries the wound of love – a love that knows the depths of betrayal and rejection – means that it also carries our truth as well as God’s truth. We see here the consequences of our sin and that calls us into a greater truth. It also creates in us a greater freedom. Unless we recognise this truth we cannot change; we always remain in our illusions and self-justifications, minimising the consequences and protecting our interests. That is how systems as well as individuals perpetuate and inflict suffering, whether it is on other persons or nature and natural life itself. In the wound of the Sacred Heart we see our own hardness of heart; we have to confront our solipsistic indifference. Yet Christ, too, does expose his heart not to crush us with just guilt but to heal our own woundedness and show us that sacrifice is not only the cost but also the gift of love. Devotion to the Sacred Heart is the school of such a free, courageous and responsive love; we learn again how to love, how to give without seeking return, how to grow beyond ourselves.
Here is the meaning of reparation: when we become servants of this love in our families, communities and our world, we become ministers of compassion and agents of healing. We want to return this love; to make amends for what we or others have broken. This is not guilt but recognition and gratitude. The Sacred Heart of Jesus opens the eyes of our hearts. Just as we cannot make Christ into a faceless abstraction so we cannot make anyone we love into a faceless project. We do not see a problem or a threat but only a person, a history; we cannot read a statistic without realising that it is also a story, a life: not a someone or somebody that could be anyone or anybody, but this person who has a name given to him or her by a father, a mother or someone who loved them from the very beginning of their life and did not wish them to be invisible and unknown. Out of this personal relationship and resistance to the impersonal, the work of reparation begins: whatever is broken we can work to repair; whatever is lost, we can go in search of. Whoever feels humiliated and despised, we can esteem and restore. Whoever is abandoned, used and abused, we can work to bring into the heart of the community with justice and compassion. We can speak the name of those who are forgotten, whose lives are counted as without value, and write their stories in the book of life.
We know that this cannot be done without cost, without enduring commitment or fidelity. But if we have come to know the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we will also know that we have his Spirit too, and ‘nothing is impossible to God.’ For the Sacred Heart of the crucified and risen Christ is a sort of living icon of the Holy Spirit. More than the great rainbow seen by Noah signalling the cosmic covenant and a new beginning, the Spirit is the new and eternal covenant that God’s love for us in Christ does not fail, ‘And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’ (Romans 5:5).
St Jean Eudes thought that the deepest living of the Christian life – we could also say the truly human life – is the mutual indwelling of our heart in the heart of Christ. Although our heart – the love that becomes our very essence – must always be finite, it can, nevertheless, have a limitless capacity for receiving and being transformed by God’s love. St Isaac of Nineveh expresses it beautifully:
And what is a merciful heart? - It is the heart’s burning for the sake of the entire creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing; and by the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful man pour forth abundant tears. From the strong and vehement mercy which grips his heart and from his great compassion, his heart is humbled and he cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in creation. For this reason he offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner he even prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in his heart in the likeness of God.
This is a heart that is fully alive. In our hearts the world longs to see the heart of Jesus. In this Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has reminded us that this is our gift; to carry the merciful heart of Jesus in our own heart. It is such a heart, overflowing with compassion, that is the dynamic core of our Christian witness and the mission of the Church.
Before I left Paray-le-Monial I was given an unexpected gift. In Musée de Hieron, not far from the old Jesuit residence, are some works by the 20th century artist Jean-Georges Cornélius. One painting powerfully impressed itself upon me: Jéhovah devient notre père (above). It seemed to sum up so much of what contemporary theology had been trying to express about the reality of the cross at the heart of God’s Trinitarian life. This painting did not use words or sophisticated philosophical theology. It simply showed the crucified Christ held in the arms of the Father; a traditional artistic theme. In a profoundly personal moment between the Father and the Son, the painting caught a delicate heart-consoling, heart-breaking ambivalence in their closeness: the love was evident and palpable but, as for any parent holding a suffering and dying child, the pain of the Father as well as that of the Son was visible. And there was also a gentle, trusting peace. Supported in the Father’s arms the Son was held, lovingly secure. Theirs was not a closed relationship. Even in such profound intimacy and suffering, their love draws us in. We cannot be onlookers or spectators; we are moved not just by empathy but by grace. In their suffering their heart was one. So are we all held close to the Father’s heart.
[1] In one of the apparitions of St Margaret Mary, Christ spoke: ‘In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.’
[2] I will give them all of the graces necessary for their state of life.
I will establish peace in their houses.
I will comfort them in all their afflictions.
I will be their strength during life and above all during death.
I will bestow a large blessing upon all their undertakings.
Sinners shall find in My Heart the source and the infinite ocean of mercy.
Tepid souls shall grow fervent.
Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection.
I will bless every place where a picture of my heart shall be set up and honored.
I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
Those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart, never to be blotted out.
I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who shall receive communion on the First Friday in nine consecutive months the grace of final penitence; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without receiving their sacraments; My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.
[3] Joseph Ratzinger, Behold the Pierced One (Ignatius Press, 1986), p.69.
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