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 4th - 7th July, 2017
Tuesday: No Mass Penguin
Ministry Rosters 8th & 9th July, 2017
Devonport:
Vigil: B & B Windebank, T Bird, J Kelly, R Baker, Beau Windebank
10.30am: S Riley, M Sherriff, R Beaton, D Barrientos, M Barrientos
Cleaners 7th July: M.W.C. 14th July: F Sly, M Hansen, R McBain
Ulverstone:
Penguin:
Port Sorell:
Readings this 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:
I let his love surround me.
I read the Gospel slowly, a couple of times.
Jesus is instructing his disciples.
I may imagine myself seated with them at his feet, conscious that these words are addressed to me. What strikes me in his words?
Do I feel daunted by them, or is this challenging love life-giving for me?
Whatever my first response, I speak to the Lord about it.
How does this make me feel?
‘Follow in my footsteps’ – Jesus has led the way and is sending us out.
In what ways is he asking me to witness to him?
How do I experience Jesus's presence in my life – receiving and giving in family, work, community ...?
I turn to Jesus, and perhaps give thanks for the values I have received ... for leaders in my life … or for the example of ministers ... of ‘little ones’.
I end quietly, with a ‘Glory be to the Father …’
Readings next week – Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Your prayers are asked for the sick: Sr Marie-Therese OCD, Victoria Webb, Pat Wood, Fr Peter Cryan OCD, Robert Windebank & …,
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Michael Byrne, 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: 28th June – 4th July
Terry Charlesworth, Hedley Stubbs, Fr Michael Fitzpatrick, Herbert Smith, Rosslyn Wilson, Leonard Hamilton, Donald Wilson, Eileen White, Hazel Gaffney, Kathleen Edwards, Geraldine Roden, Ellen Joyce, Mary Woodcock, Pamela Withers, Kora Pembleton, Paul Mulcahy, Laurance Gibbons, Maud Powell, Harold Richardson and John Cochrane.
May they rest in peace
Weekly
Ramblings
Just after I had written my ramblings for last weekend I
received an email from Steven Smith to say that he was not able to get a
booking to do a Driving Test in Hobart until mid-July (even later on the NW
Coast) so he asked if it might be possible to delay his arrival until after
getting his licence – since having a licence is essential I said that that
would be ok.
I’m sure that most of you have worked out by now that I’m a
dreamer and sometimes my dreaming needs to be reined in so that sensible things
might happen. I had a dream that Fr James Mallon (The Author of the Divine
Renovation book I keep banging on about) might be able to come to Tasmania for
the Priests Plenary due to be held in April next year. After checking his
availability I found out on Thursday morning that he is booked elsewhere so
can’t come.
My reason for raising the possibility of him coming to
Tasmania was that I thought we might then be able to get him to Devonport to
speak to us as a Parish and share his vision of how we are all called to grow
as God’s Children. As I mentioned last weekend my homilies in the next few
weeks are about Diving Deeper – it is simply about seeing how God can work in
and through us in our daily lives and recognising his continuing presence
among us.
Pope Francis addressed a Conference in Rome last week and
said – "When Christians go about their daily lives without fear, they can
discover God's constant surprises. They need but have the courage to dare, not
to let fear stifle their creativity, not to be suspicious of new things, but
instead to embrace the challenges which the Spirit sets before them, even when
this means changing plans and charting a different course." You can read
more of his comments on the internet version of our newsletter at
http://mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au.
Anyone who welcomes you, welcomes me
NATIONAL ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER
SUNDAY CELEBRATION 2ND JULY
Today marks the day that all Catholics from all over Australia come together to celebrate and acknowledge the Traditional Owners who have walked upon and cared for this land for thousands of years and acknowledge the continued deep spiritual attachment and relationship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to this country and commit ourselves to the ongoing journey of Reconciliation.
Holy Father, God of Love,
You are the Creator of this land and of all good things.
Our hope is in you because you gave your son Jesus to reconcile the world to you.
We pray for your strength and grace to forgive, accept and love one another,
As you love us and forgive and accept us in the sacrifice of your Son.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Mersey Leven Parish Community welcome and congratulate
Noah Manjaly, son of Boby & Anju on his baptism
at Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone.
ST VINCENT DE PAUL COLLECTION:
Next weekend the St Vincent de Paul collection will be in
Devonport, Ulverstone, Port Sorell, Latrobe and Penguin to assist the work of
the St Vincent de Paul Society.
FOOTY
TICKETS: Round 14 (23rd June) footy margin 1–
Winners; Kath Riseley, Lachlan McCall
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
PETITION –
TIMOR SEA BORDER
The Tasmanian
Catholic Justice and Peace Commission is inviting us as parishioners to sign
this Petition which is available over
the next two Sundays and can be found in all Mass Centres.
ADDRESS OF HIS
HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE 75th CONVENTION OF SERRA INTERNATIONAL
Friday, 23 June 2017
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am pleased to greet all of you. From throughout the world you have
gathered for this International Convention, which has as its theme: Siempre
Adelante (Always Ahead). The Courage of Vocation. In the joy of the
Gospel, and with that boldness typical of the Christian mission, you have
gathered here to discover anew, at the school of the Master, the meaning of
every Christian vocation: to offer our lives as a gift, “anointing” our
brothers and sisters with the tenderness and mercy of God. I thank Mr
Dante Vannini, the President of Serra International, for his kind words.
I would like to reflect on something he said which, I believe, is central to
the experience of faith: to be friends.
To be friends to priests, sustaining their vocation and accompanying
them in their ministry: with this great gift you enrich the Church! This
is, above all else, what a Serran is – a “special friend” whom the Lord has
brought into the lives of seminarians and priests.
Today the word “friend” has become a bit overused. In our daily
lives, we run into various people whom we call “friends”, but that is just a
word we say. Within virtual communications, “friend” is one of the most
frequently found words. Yet we know that superficial knowledge has little
to do with that experience of encounter or closeness evoked by the word “friend”.
When Jesus speaks of his “friends”, he points to a hard truth: true
friendship involves an encounter that draws me so near to the other person that
I give something of my very self. Jesus says to his disciples: “No longer
do I call you servants… but I have called you friends, for all that I have
heard from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn 15:15). He
thus establishes a new relationship between man and God, one that transcends
the law and is grounded in trust and love. At the same time, Jesus frees
friendship from sentimentalism and presents it to us as a responsibility that
embraces our entire life: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).
We become friends, then, only if our encounter is more than something
outward or formal, and becomes instead a way of sharing in the life of another
person, an experience of compassion, a relationship that involves giving
ourselves for others.
It is good for us to reflect on what friends do. They stand at our
side, gently and tenderly, along our journey; they listen to us closely, and
can see beyond mere words; they are merciful when faced with our faults; they
are non-judgmental. They are able to walk with us, helping us to feel joy
in knowing that we are not alone. They do not always indulge us but,
precisely because they love us, they honestly tell us when they disagree.
They are there to pick us up whenever we fall.
This is the also the kind of friendship that you seek to offer to
priests. The Serra Club helps foster this beautiful vocation of being
laity who are friends to priests. Friends who know how to accompany and
sustain them in faith, in fidelity to prayer and apostolic commitment.
Friends who share the wonder of a vocation, the courage of a definitive
decision, the joy and fatigue of ministry. Friends who can offer priests
support and regard their generous efforts and human failings with understanding
and tender love. In this way, you are to priests like the home of
Bethany, where Jesus entrusted his weariness to Martha and Mary, and, thanks to
their care, was able to find rest and refreshment.
There is another phrase that describes you. You chose it for the
theme of this convention: Siempre adelante! Keep moving
forward! Like you, I believe that this is a synonym for the Christian
vocation. For the life of every missionary disciple bears the impress of
his or her vocation. The voice of the Lord invites his disciples to leave
the safety of their homeland and to begin the “holy journey” towards the
promised land of encounter with him and with our brothers and sisters.
Vocation is an invitation to go forth from ourselves, to rejoice in our
relationship with the Lord, and to journey along the ways that he opens up
before us.
Of course, we cannot make progress unless we take a risk. We do
not advance toward the goal if, as the Gospel says, we are afraid to lose our
lives (cf. Mt 16:25-26). No ship would ever set out into
the deep if it feared leaving the safety of the harbour. So too,
Christians cannot enter into the transforming experience of God’s love unless
they are open to new possibilities, and not tied to their own plans and
cherished ways of doing things. Pastoral structures can fall into this
same temptation, being concerned more with self-preservation than with adapting
themselves to the service of the Gospel.
On the other hand, when Christians go about their daily lives without
fear, they can discover God’s constant surprises. They need but have the
courage to dare, not to let fear stifle their creativity, not to be suspicious
of new things, but instead to embrace the challenges which the Spirit sets
before them, even when this means changing plans and charting a different
course.
We can take as our inspiration Saint Junípero, as he made his way,
limping, towards San Diego to plant the cross there! I fear those
Christians who do not keep walking, but remain enclosed in their own little
niche. It is better to go forward limping, and even at times to fall,
while always trusting in the mercy of God, than to be “museum Christians” who
are afraid of change. Even though they received a charism or vocation,
instead of serving the eternal newness of the Gospel, they are caught up in
defending themselves and their own roles.
A vocation is a calling received from an Other. It entails letting
go of ourselves, setting out and placing ourselves at the service of a greater
cause. In humility, we become co-workers in the Lord’s vineyard,
renouncing every spirit of possession and vainglory. How sad it is to see
that at times we, men and women of the Church, do not know how to cede our
place. We do not let go of our responsibilities serenely, but find it
hard to hand over to others the works that the Lord had entrusted to us!
So you too, siempre adelante! With courage, creativity
and boldness. Do not be afraid to renew your structures. Do not
rest on your laurels, but be ever ready to try new things. As in the
Olympic Games, may you always be ready to “pass the torch”, above all to future
generations, knowing that the flame is lit from on high, precedes our response
and exceeds our efforts. Such is the Christian mission: “One sows and
another reaps” (Jn 4:37).
Dear brothers and sisters, I encourage you to be true friends to
seminarians and priests, showing your love for them by promoting vocations and
through prayer and pastoral cooperation. Please, keep pressing
forward! Forward in hope, forward with your mission, ever looking beyond,
opening new horizons, making room for the young and preparing the future.
The Church and priestly vocations need you. May Mary Most Holy, Mother of
the Church and Mother of priests, be with you every step of the way. And
I ask you, please, to pray for me!
TO WHOM CAN WE GO?
The original of this article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI can be found here
“To whom else shall we go? You have the message of eternal life.” Peter says these words to Jesus. But they are spoken in a very conflicted context: Jesus had just said something that upset and offended his audience and the gospels tell us that everyone walked away grumbling that what Jesus was teaching was “intolerable”. Jesus then turns to his apostles and asks them: “Do you want to walk away too?” Peter answers: “To whom else can we go?” But that’s more a statement of stoic resignation than an actual question.
His words function at two levels. On the surface, they express an unwanted humility and helplessness that sometimes beset us all: “I have no alternative! I’m so invested in this relationship that now I have no other options. I’m stuck with this!” That’s a humble place to stand and anyone who has ever given himself or herself over in an authentic commitment will eventually stand on that place, knowing that he or she no longer has another practical choice.
But those words also express a much deeper quandary, namely, where can I find meaning if I cannot find it in faith in God? All of us have at some point asked ourselves that question. If I didn’t believe in God and had no faith or religion, what would give meaning to my life?
Where can we go if we no longer have an explicit faith in God? A lot of places, it seems. I think immediately of so many attractive stoics who have wrestled with this question and found solace in various forms of what Albert Camus would call “metaphysical rebellion” or in the kind of Epicureanism that Nikos Kazantzakis advocates in Zorba, the Greek. There’s a stoicism which offers its own kind of salvation by drawing life and meaning simply from fighting chaos and disease for no other reason than that that these cause suffering and are an affront to life, just as there is an Epicureanism that meaningfully grounds life in elemental pleasure. There are, it would seem, different kinds of saints.
There are also different kinds of immortality. For some, meaning outside of an explicit faith, is found in leaving a lasting legacy on this earth, having children, achieving something monumental, or becoming a household name. We’re all familiar with the axiom: Plant a tree; write a book; have a child!
Poets, writers, artists, and artisans often have their own place to find meaning outside of explicit faith. For them, creativity and beauty can be ends in themselves. Art for art’s sake. Creativity itself can seem enough.
And there are still others for whom deep meaning is found simply in being good for its own sake and in being honest for its own sake. There’s also virtue for virtue’s sake and virtue is indeed its own reward. Simply living an honest and generous life can provide sufficient meaning with which to walk through life.
So, it appears that there are places to go outside of explicit faith where one can find deep meaning. But is this really so? Don’t we believe that true meaning can only be found in God? What about St. Augustine’s classic line? You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until the rest in you. Can anything other than faith and God really quiet the restless fires within us?
Yes, there are things that can do that, but all of them – fighting chaos, curing diseases, having children, living for others, building things, inventing things, achieving goals, or simply living honest and generous lives – leave us, in an inchoate way, radiating the transcendental properties of God and working alongside God to bring life and order to the world. How so?
Christian theology tells us that God is One, True, Good, and Beautiful. And so, when an artist gives herself over to creating beauty, when a couple has a child, when scientists work to find cures for various diseases, when artisans make an artifact, when builders build, when teachers teach, when parents parent, when athletes play a game, when manual laborers labor, when administrators administrate, when people just for the sake integrity itself live in honesty and generosity, and, yes, even when hedonists drink deeply of earthily pleasure, they are, all of them, whether they have explicit faith or not, acting in some faith because they are putting their trust in either the Oneness, Truth, Goodness, or Beauty of God.
Lord, to whom else can we go? You have the message of eternal life. Well, it seems that there are places to go and many go there. But these aren’t necessarily, as is sometimes suggested by misguided spiritual literature, empty places that are wrong and self-destructive. There are, of course, such places, spiritual dead-ends; but, more generally, as we can see simply by looking at the amount of positive energy, love, creativity, generosity, and honesty that still fill our world, those places where people are seeking God outside of explicit faith still has them meeting God.
Visualizing the
Pattern of Reality
Using Friday's meditation as a guide explore what each of these points on Jesus’ Life Map mean to you, in
your own personal journey. You might create a collage (cutting and pasting
pictures from magazines, or by creating a digital collection), draw, paint, or
journal this map. Gather all the materials you’ll need and give yourself an
hour or two to fully enter this practice in silence and solitude.
Follow the spiral in six key experiences or realizations:
from conception, to growth through suffering, to a big fall or crisis where
Someone held you, to a small death to self, and finally to resurrection into
fuller life. At each point along the journey, listen and look for the ways in
which God was revealing God’s presence and participation. Represent these
moments in pictures, symbols, colours, or a few words.
This is just a snapshot of your life so far; the pattern
will continue to unfold, ever wider and deeper, until the final return home to
the source of all life and love. You might choose to repeat this practice at
regular intervals, perhaps every five or ten years, as a way of remembering and
giving gratitude for the ways in which you’ve been led.
“My dear people, we are already the children of God. . . .
All I know is that when the whole pattern is revealed, we shall all be like
him” (1 John 3:2).
HEALTHY COMPETITION AND UNHEALTHY COMPARISONS
This article is taken from the Weekly Blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity in Baltimore. You can access the Blog here
I confess that I take some time every week to look at other church web sites. Nothing wrong with that, you can learn a lot from others and using your neighbor’s good ideas is an entrenched part of the culture of churchworld.
But, if I were entirely honest I would have to admit that there was a period of time, not even so very long ago, when visiting other church web sites, I found myself looking for their attendance information. When I found a church with larger attendance than ours, it made me feel bad. And when I found a church with smaller attendance, sad to say I took some satisfaction in it. Eventually the Lord impressed on me that this wasn’t helpful for my over all perspective or healthy for my heart.
How often do we visit another church or find ourselves in conversation with a colleague from elsewhere, secretly sizing ourselves up against them?
There is a big difference between unhealthy comparison, which leads to pride and/or envy and healthy competition.
Comparisons, it is said, are odious. And that’s because they always create opposition, with winners and losers.
Healthy competition occurs when we have a clear sense of mission, vision, purpose and are committed to serving them to the utmost of our ability. That happens, in turn, when we set goals for the team and for individual team members, and then stay focused on those goals, consistently and honestly evaluating what’s working and what’s not.
Competition, that is healthy competition, among churches and within a church staff can unify your team, and create momentum, productivity, and excitement.
The objective shouldn’t be about beating or besting anyone else, but being our best selves. We should always be about serving our mission as successfully as we can, perhaps in a way that encourages and inspires others.
For another take on this check out vanderbloemen.com.
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 4th - 7th July, 2017
Tuesday: No Mass Penguin
Wednesday: 9.30am Latrobe
Thursday: 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
12noon Devonport
Next Weekend 8th & 9th July, 2017
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 8th & 9th July, 2017
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil: M Kelly, B Paul, R Baker 10:30am: F Sly, J Tuxworth
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil: B & B Windebank, T Bird, J Kelly, R Baker, Beau Windebank
Vigil: B & B Windebank, T Bird, J Kelly, R Baker, Beau Windebank
10.30am: S Riley, M Sherriff, R Beaton, D Barrientos, M Barrientos
Cleaners 7th July: M.W.C. 14th July: F Sly, M Hansen, R McBain
Piety Shop 8th July: R McBain 9th July: P Piccolo Flowers: B Naiker
Ulverstone:
Reader: S Lawrence Ministers of Communion: P Steyn, E Cox, C Singline,
C McGrath Cleaners: M Swain, M Bryan Flowers: C Mapley
Hospitality: M McLaren
Penguin:
Greeters: Fefita Family Commentator: E Nickols Readers: Fefita Family
Ministers of Communion: S Ewing, J Garnsey Liturgy: Pine Road
Setting Up: A Landers Care of Church: M Bowles, M Owen
Port Sorell:
Readers: G Bellchambers, G Duff
Ministers of Communion: B Lee Cleaners/Flowers/Prep: G Wylie
Readings this 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:
As I settle to pray, I take the time to become aware of God’s loving presence.
I let his love surround me.
I read the Gospel slowly, a couple of times.
Jesus is instructing his disciples.
I may imagine myself seated with them at his feet, conscious that these words are addressed to me. What strikes me in his words?
Do I feel daunted by them, or is this challenging love life-giving for me?
Whatever my first response, I speak to the Lord about it.
How does this make me feel?
‘Follow in my footsteps’ – Jesus has led the way and is sending us out.
In what ways is he asking me to witness to him?
How do I experience Jesus's presence in my life – receiving and giving in family, work, community ...?
I turn to Jesus, and perhaps give thanks for the values I have received ... for leaders in my life … or for the example of ministers ... of ‘little ones’.
I end quietly, with a ‘Glory be to the Father …’
I let his love surround me.
I read the Gospel slowly, a couple of times.
Jesus is instructing his disciples.
I may imagine myself seated with them at his feet, conscious that these words are addressed to me. What strikes me in his words?
Do I feel daunted by them, or is this challenging love life-giving for me?
Whatever my first response, I speak to the Lord about it.
How does this make me feel?
‘Follow in my footsteps’ – Jesus has led the way and is sending us out.
In what ways is he asking me to witness to him?
How do I experience Jesus's presence in my life – receiving and giving in family, work, community ...?
I turn to Jesus, and perhaps give thanks for the values I have received ... for leaders in my life … or for the example of ministers ... of ‘little ones’.
I end quietly, with a ‘Glory be to the Father …’
Readings next week – Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
First Reading: Zechariah 9:9-10
Second Reading: Romans 8:9, 11-13
Gospel: Matthew 11:25-30
Your prayers are asked for the sick: Sr Marie-Therese OCD, Victoria Webb, Pat Wood, Fr Peter Cryan OCD, Robert Windebank & …,
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Michael Byrne, 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: 28th June – 4th July
Terry Charlesworth, Hedley Stubbs, Fr Michael Fitzpatrick, Herbert Smith, Rosslyn Wilson, Leonard Hamilton, Donald Wilson, Eileen White, Hazel Gaffney, Kathleen Edwards, Geraldine Roden, Ellen Joyce, Mary Woodcock, Pamela Withers, Kora Pembleton, Paul Mulcahy, Laurance Gibbons, Maud Powell, Harold Richardson and John Cochrane.
May they rest in peace
Weekly
Ramblings
Just after I had written my ramblings for last weekend I
received an email from Steven Smith to say that he was not able to get a
booking to do a Driving Test in Hobart until mid-July (even later on the NW
Coast) so he asked if it might be possible to delay his arrival until after
getting his licence – since having a licence is essential I said that that
would be ok.
I’m sure that most of you have worked out by now that I’m a
dreamer and sometimes my dreaming needs to be reined in so that sensible things
might happen. I had a dream that Fr James Mallon (The Author of the Divine
Renovation book I keep banging on about) might be able to come to Tasmania for
the Priests Plenary due to be held in April next year. After checking his
availability I found out on Thursday morning that he is booked elsewhere so
can’t come.
My reason for raising the possibility of him coming to
Tasmania was that I thought we might then be able to get him to Devonport to
speak to us as a Parish and share his vision of how we are all called to grow
as God’s Children. As I mentioned last weekend my homilies in the next few
weeks are about Diving Deeper – it is simply about seeing how God can work in
and through us in our daily lives and recognising his continuing presence
among us.
Pope Francis addressed a Conference in Rome last week and
said – "When Christians go about their daily lives without fear, they can
discover God's constant surprises. They need but have the courage to dare, not
to let fear stifle their creativity, not to be suspicious of new things, but
instead to embrace the challenges which the Spirit sets before them, even when
this means changing plans and charting a different course." You can read
more of his comments on the internet version of our newsletter at
http://mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au.
Please take care on the roads and in your homes
NATIONAL ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER
Today marks the day that all Catholics from all over Australia come together to celebrate and acknowledge the Traditional Owners who have walked upon and cared for this land for thousands of years and acknowledge the continued deep spiritual attachment and relationship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to this country and commit ourselves to the ongoing journey of Reconciliation.
Holy Father, God of Love,
You are the Creator of this land and of all good things.
Our hope is in you because you gave your son Jesus to reconcile the world to you.
We pray for your strength and grace to forgive, accept and love one another,
As you love us and forgive and accept us in the sacrifice of your Son.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Mersey Leven Parish Community welcome and congratulate
Noah Manjaly, son of Boby & Anju on his baptism
at Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone.
ST VINCENT DE PAUL COLLECTION:
Next weekend the St Vincent de Paul collection will be in
Devonport, Ulverstone, Port Sorell, Latrobe and Penguin to assist the work of
the St Vincent de Paul Society.
FOOTY
TICKETS: Round 14 (23rd June) footy margin 1–
Winners; Kath Riseley, Lachlan McCall
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm! Callers for Thursday 6th
July – Rod Clark, John Mitchell & Alan Luxton
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
PETITION –
TIMOR SEA BORDER
Archbishop Julian Porteous has
passed on to The Tasmanian Catholic Justice and Peace Commission a Petition to
the House of Representatives regarding the Timor Sea Border between Australia
and Timor Leste (East Timor). The petition is being sent to all Dioceses in
Australia by the Sisters of St Joseph NSW and others concerned about ongoing
justice for the people of Timor Leste, our closest neighbours. The TCJPC wishes
to support the call for the Australian Government to act in fairness and good
faith in finalizing a permanent maritime border between Australia and
Timor-Leste. The lack of a border has meant that Timor Leste has lost several
billion dollars of tax revenue owed to them from oil and gas fields that
instead went to Australia.
The Tasmanian
Catholic Justice and Peace Commission is inviting us as parishioners to sign
this Petition which is available over
the next two Sundays and can be found in all Mass Centres.
ADDRESS OF HIS
HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE 75th CONVENTION OF SERRA INTERNATIONAL
TO THE 75th CONVENTION OF SERRA INTERNATIONAL
Paul VI Audience Hall
Friday, 23 June 2017
Friday, 23 June 2017
Your Eminence, Your Excellency,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am pleased to greet all of you. From throughout the world you have
gathered for this International Convention, which has as its theme: Siempre
Adelante (Always Ahead). The Courage of Vocation. In the joy of the
Gospel, and with that boldness typical of the Christian mission, you have
gathered here to discover anew, at the school of the Master, the meaning of
every Christian vocation: to offer our lives as a gift, “anointing” our
brothers and sisters with the tenderness and mercy of God. I thank Mr
Dante Vannini, the President of Serra International, for his kind words.
I would like to reflect on something he said which, I believe, is central to
the experience of faith: to be friends.
To be friends to priests, sustaining their vocation and accompanying
them in their ministry: with this great gift you enrich the Church! This
is, above all else, what a Serran is – a “special friend” whom the Lord has
brought into the lives of seminarians and priests.
Today the word “friend” has become a bit overused. In our daily
lives, we run into various people whom we call “friends”, but that is just a
word we say. Within virtual communications, “friend” is one of the most
frequently found words. Yet we know that superficial knowledge has little
to do with that experience of encounter or closeness evoked by the word “friend”.
When Jesus speaks of his “friends”, he points to a hard truth: true
friendship involves an encounter that draws me so near to the other person that
I give something of my very self. Jesus says to his disciples: “No longer
do I call you servants… but I have called you friends, for all that I have
heard from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn 15:15). He
thus establishes a new relationship between man and God, one that transcends
the law and is grounded in trust and love. At the same time, Jesus frees
friendship from sentimentalism and presents it to us as a responsibility that
embraces our entire life: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).
We become friends, then, only if our encounter is more than something
outward or formal, and becomes instead a way of sharing in the life of another
person, an experience of compassion, a relationship that involves giving
ourselves for others.
It is good for us to reflect on what friends do. They stand at our
side, gently and tenderly, along our journey; they listen to us closely, and
can see beyond mere words; they are merciful when faced with our faults; they
are non-judgmental. They are able to walk with us, helping us to feel joy
in knowing that we are not alone. They do not always indulge us but,
precisely because they love us, they honestly tell us when they disagree.
They are there to pick us up whenever we fall.
This is the also the kind of friendship that you seek to offer to
priests. The Serra Club helps foster this beautiful vocation of being
laity who are friends to priests. Friends who know how to accompany and
sustain them in faith, in fidelity to prayer and apostolic commitment.
Friends who share the wonder of a vocation, the courage of a definitive
decision, the joy and fatigue of ministry. Friends who can offer priests
support and regard their generous efforts and human failings with understanding
and tender love. In this way, you are to priests like the home of
Bethany, where Jesus entrusted his weariness to Martha and Mary, and, thanks to
their care, was able to find rest and refreshment.
There is another phrase that describes you. You chose it for the
theme of this convention: Siempre adelante! Keep moving
forward! Like you, I believe that this is a synonym for the Christian
vocation. For the life of every missionary disciple bears the impress of
his or her vocation. The voice of the Lord invites his disciples to leave
the safety of their homeland and to begin the “holy journey” towards the
promised land of encounter with him and with our brothers and sisters.
Vocation is an invitation to go forth from ourselves, to rejoice in our
relationship with the Lord, and to journey along the ways that he opens up
before us.
Of course, we cannot make progress unless we take a risk. We do
not advance toward the goal if, as the Gospel says, we are afraid to lose our
lives (cf. Mt 16:25-26). No ship would ever set out into
the deep if it feared leaving the safety of the harbour. So too,
Christians cannot enter into the transforming experience of God’s love unless
they are open to new possibilities, and not tied to their own plans and
cherished ways of doing things. Pastoral structures can fall into this
same temptation, being concerned more with self-preservation than with adapting
themselves to the service of the Gospel.
On the other hand, when Christians go about their daily lives without
fear, they can discover God’s constant surprises. They need but have the
courage to dare, not to let fear stifle their creativity, not to be suspicious
of new things, but instead to embrace the challenges which the Spirit sets
before them, even when this means changing plans and charting a different
course.
We can take as our inspiration Saint Junípero, as he made his way,
limping, towards San Diego to plant the cross there! I fear those
Christians who do not keep walking, but remain enclosed in their own little
niche. It is better to go forward limping, and even at times to fall,
while always trusting in the mercy of God, than to be “museum Christians” who
are afraid of change. Even though they received a charism or vocation,
instead of serving the eternal newness of the Gospel, they are caught up in
defending themselves and their own roles.
A vocation is a calling received from an Other. It entails letting
go of ourselves, setting out and placing ourselves at the service of a greater
cause. In humility, we become co-workers in the Lord’s vineyard,
renouncing every spirit of possession and vainglory. How sad it is to see
that at times we, men and women of the Church, do not know how to cede our
place. We do not let go of our responsibilities serenely, but find it
hard to hand over to others the works that the Lord had entrusted to us!
So you too, siempre adelante! With courage, creativity
and boldness. Do not be afraid to renew your structures. Do not
rest on your laurels, but be ever ready to try new things. As in the
Olympic Games, may you always be ready to “pass the torch”, above all to future
generations, knowing that the flame is lit from on high, precedes our response
and exceeds our efforts. Such is the Christian mission: “One sows and
another reaps” (Jn 4:37).
Dear brothers and sisters, I encourage you to be true friends to
seminarians and priests, showing your love for them by promoting vocations and
through prayer and pastoral cooperation. Please, keep pressing
forward! Forward in hope, forward with your mission, ever looking beyond,
opening new horizons, making room for the young and preparing the future.
The Church and priestly vocations need you. May Mary Most Holy, Mother of
the Church and Mother of priests, be with you every step of the way. And
I ask you, please, to pray for me!
TO WHOM CAN WE GO?
The original of this article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI can be found here
“To whom else shall we go? You have the message of eternal life.” Peter says these words to Jesus. But they are spoken in a very conflicted context: Jesus had just said something that upset and offended his audience and the gospels tell us that everyone walked away grumbling that what Jesus was teaching was “intolerable”. Jesus then turns to his apostles and asks them: “Do you want to walk away too?” Peter answers: “To whom else can we go?” But that’s more a statement of stoic resignation than an actual question.
His words function at two levels. On the surface, they express an unwanted humility and helplessness that sometimes beset us all: “I have no alternative! I’m so invested in this relationship that now I have no other options. I’m stuck with this!” That’s a humble place to stand and anyone who has ever given himself or herself over in an authentic commitment will eventually stand on that place, knowing that he or she no longer has another practical choice.
But those words also express a much deeper quandary, namely, where can I find meaning if I cannot find it in faith in God? All of us have at some point asked ourselves that question. If I didn’t believe in God and had no faith or religion, what would give meaning to my life?
Where can we go if we no longer have an explicit faith in God? A lot of places, it seems. I think immediately of so many attractive stoics who have wrestled with this question and found solace in various forms of what Albert Camus would call “metaphysical rebellion” or in the kind of Epicureanism that Nikos Kazantzakis advocates in Zorba, the Greek. There’s a stoicism which offers its own kind of salvation by drawing life and meaning simply from fighting chaos and disease for no other reason than that that these cause suffering and are an affront to life, just as there is an Epicureanism that meaningfully grounds life in elemental pleasure. There are, it would seem, different kinds of saints.
There are also different kinds of immortality. For some, meaning outside of an explicit faith, is found in leaving a lasting legacy on this earth, having children, achieving something monumental, or becoming a household name. We’re all familiar with the axiom: Plant a tree; write a book; have a child!
Poets, writers, artists, and artisans often have their own place to find meaning outside of explicit faith. For them, creativity and beauty can be ends in themselves. Art for art’s sake. Creativity itself can seem enough.
And there are still others for whom deep meaning is found simply in being good for its own sake and in being honest for its own sake. There’s also virtue for virtue’s sake and virtue is indeed its own reward. Simply living an honest and generous life can provide sufficient meaning with which to walk through life.
So, it appears that there are places to go outside of explicit faith where one can find deep meaning. But is this really so? Don’t we believe that true meaning can only be found in God? What about St. Augustine’s classic line? You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until the rest in you. Can anything other than faith and God really quiet the restless fires within us?
Yes, there are things that can do that, but all of them – fighting chaos, curing diseases, having children, living for others, building things, inventing things, achieving goals, or simply living honest and generous lives – leave us, in an inchoate way, radiating the transcendental properties of God and working alongside God to bring life and order to the world. How so?
Christian theology tells us that God is One, True, Good, and Beautiful. And so, when an artist gives herself over to creating beauty, when a couple has a child, when scientists work to find cures for various diseases, when artisans make an artifact, when builders build, when teachers teach, when parents parent, when athletes play a game, when manual laborers labor, when administrators administrate, when people just for the sake integrity itself live in honesty and generosity, and, yes, even when hedonists drink deeply of earthily pleasure, they are, all of them, whether they have explicit faith or not, acting in some faith because they are putting their trust in either the Oneness, Truth, Goodness, or Beauty of God.
Lord, to whom else can we go? You have the message of eternal life. Well, it seems that there are places to go and many go there. But these aren’t necessarily, as is sometimes suggested by misguided spiritual literature, empty places that are wrong and self-destructive. There are, of course, such places, spiritual dead-ends; but, more generally, as we can see simply by looking at the amount of positive energy, love, creativity, generosity, and honesty that still fill our world, those places where people are seeking God outside of explicit faith still has them meeting God.
Visualizing the
Pattern of Reality
This article is taken from the Daily Email from Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe to the email series here
Using Friday's meditation as a guide explore what each of these points on Jesus’ Life Map mean to you, in
your own personal journey. You might create a collage (cutting and pasting
pictures from magazines, or by creating a digital collection), draw, paint, or
journal this map. Gather all the materials you’ll need and give yourself an
hour or two to fully enter this practice in silence and solitude.
Follow the spiral in six key experiences or realizations:
from conception, to growth through suffering, to a big fall or crisis where
Someone held you, to a small death to self, and finally to resurrection into
fuller life. At each point along the journey, listen and look for the ways in
which God was revealing God’s presence and participation. Represent these
moments in pictures, symbols, colours, or a few words.
This is just a snapshot of your life so far; the pattern
will continue to unfold, ever wider and deeper, until the final return home to
the source of all life and love. You might choose to repeat this practice at
regular intervals, perhaps every five or ten years, as a way of remembering and
giving gratitude for the ways in which you’ve been led.
“My dear people, we are already the children of God. . . .
All I know is that when the whole pattern is revealed, we shall all be like
him” (1 John 3:2).
HEALTHY COMPETITION AND UNHEALTHY COMPARISONS
This article is taken from the Weekly Blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity in Baltimore. You can access the Blog here
I confess that I take some time every week to look at other church web sites. Nothing wrong with that, you can learn a lot from others and using your neighbor’s good ideas is an entrenched part of the culture of churchworld.
But, if I were entirely honest I would have to admit that there was a period of time, not even so very long ago, when visiting other church web sites, I found myself looking for their attendance information. When I found a church with larger attendance than ours, it made me feel bad. And when I found a church with smaller attendance, sad to say I took some satisfaction in it. Eventually the Lord impressed on me that this wasn’t helpful for my over all perspective or healthy for my heart.
How often do we visit another church or find ourselves in conversation with a colleague from elsewhere, secretly sizing ourselves up against them?
There is a big difference between unhealthy comparison, which leads to pride and/or envy and healthy competition.
Comparisons, it is said, are odious. And that’s because they always create opposition, with winners and losers.
Healthy competition occurs when we have a clear sense of mission, vision, purpose and are committed to serving them to the utmost of our ability. That happens, in turn, when we set goals for the team and for individual team members, and then stay focused on those goals, consistently and honestly evaluating what’s working and what’s not.
Competition, that is healthy competition, among churches and within a church staff can unify your team, and create momentum, productivity, and excitement.
The objective shouldn’t be about beating or besting anyone else, but being our best selves. We should always be about serving our mission as successfully as we can, perhaps in a way that encourages and inspires others.
For another take on this check out vanderbloemen.com.
The Solemnity of Peter and Paul
On Thursday we celebrated the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. ‘They were both apostles of Christ who sacrificed their lives to the same persecution, but their origins, personalities and achievements remind us that we live with diversity as well as uniformity in the Church of Christ.’ Peter Edmonds SJ describes how God’s grace worked differently in the lives of these two saints, neither of whom had straightforward paths to holiness. The original of this article can be found here
29 June is the day set apart in the Catholic world for the celebration of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. Apart from Mary, the mother of Jesus, St Joseph and St John the Baptist, these are the only human figures commemorated in the calendar of the universal Church with a day given the rank of ‘Solemnity’. Like all saints, Peter and Paul did not come with sanctity ready-made from heaven. We respect them because in them the grace of God achieved its purpose. Such grace works in different ways. Sometimes God’s grace, like the prophet Jeremiah, has to ‘destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant’ (Jeremiah 1:10). Paul and Peter offer us instances of each of these dynamics.
In Paul’s case, God’s grace had ‘to destroy and overthrow’. Paul boasted how ‘as to the law he was a Pharisee. . . as to righteousness under the law blameless’, but, ‘ Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things’ (Philippians 3:4-7). When Paul prayed to be freed from ‘the thorn in the flesh’, a messenger of Satan sent to torment him, the Lord replied, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Corinthians 12:10). As to boasting, he wrote, ‘If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness’ (2 Corinthians 11:30). Luke in Acts gives a dramatic instance of this grace of God at work. His account of Paul’s conversion begins with Paul ‘breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord’, but it concludes by describing how Paul, having met the light of Christ, had to be led by the hand and brought into Damascus. ‘For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank’ (Acts 9:1-9).
As for Peter, he was a fisherman from Galilee, depicted by the Jerusalem authorities as a man uneducated and ordinary (Acts 4:13). His was a situation in which God’s grace had ‘to build up and plant’. Gospel incidents provide examples of such grace in action. When Peter sank below the waves after walking on the water, Jesus ‘immediately reached out his hand and caught him saying, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”’ (Matthew 14:31). At the last supper the Lord said to Peter, ‘Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail’ (Luke 22:31-32). And when Peter had denied his Lord three times, Luke tells us how ‘The Lord turned and looked at Peter’. He then went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:61-62).
The Story of Peter in Mark
Peter goes under at least three names in the New Testament. Sometimes he is Simon, sometimes Peter, sometimes Simon Peter and sometimes Cephas. He is referred to 181 times. His story is first given in Mark, the earliest gospel, and we can watch him as his career unfolds. He is the first of the disciples to be named. We admire him for his ready response to Jesus when he called him as he cast his net into the sea. At a word, he and his brother Andrew left their nets and followed Jesus (Mark 1:16-18). Soon we enter his house and meet his mother-in-law in Capernaum (1:29). But before the end of Mark’s first chapter, he and his companions were not following Jesus, but ‘hunting’ him. They interrupt Jesus at prayer and urge him to return to the town, but Jesus refuses. Here is a hint that Simon did not grasp what the mission of Jesus was all about (1:35-38).
But we are reassured when we find the name of Simon (now also called Peter) heading the list of the ‘Twelve whom he also called apostles’. These were called ‘to be with Jesus’, the first qualification for discipleship (3:14). He and two others were privileged to be with Jesus when he raised the daughter of Jairus from death (5:37). At the mid-point in the gospel, when Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was, it was Peter who replied that he was the Messiah (8:27-30). We congratulate Peter because he is the first human being in this gospel to make this identification, already known to the reader from the title of the gospel (1:1).
But our congratulations turn sour when we find Jesus using a new name for Peter; no longer speaking in parables (4:33), Jesus speaks openly about the suffering ahead of him in Jerusalem. Peter in response, using the word with which Jesus addressed demons (1:25), ‘rebuked’ Jesus. So serious was this misunderstanding that Jesus addressed Peter as Satan (8:33). At the Transfiguration of Jesus, which should have brought encouragement to the disciples, they were terrified, and Peter did not know what to say (9:2-8). Peter also failed at Gethsemane when Jesus sought support from him and his companions. Jesus complained, ‘Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour?’ (14:32-42). Straight after this, all the disciples fled.
Jesus was taken before the high priest where all the priests, the elders and the scribes were assembled. There for the first time, he confessed his identity as Messiah and Son of the Blessed one, and spoke of himself as the Son of Man. In contrast, Peter three times denied that he ever knew Jesus, sealing this denial with an oath (15:53-72). Surely this must be the end of Peter’s discipleship. But Jesus had other plans. At the supper before Jesus’s arrest, Peter had declared with bravado, ‘Though all become deserters, I will not.’ (14:29). Although quite aware the opposite was the case, Jesus promised to meet them again in Galilee. The gospel ends with a young man telling the women at the tomb to inform Peter that Jesus was going ahead to Galilee: ‘There you will see him’ (16:7). Jesus had said to Peter, ‘the way you think is not God’s way, but man’s’ (8:34). We may well say the same about this new beginning offered to Peter.
Peter in the Other Gospels
The other evangelists record the story of Peter in a similar way to Mark. They too record his flight and apostasy during the passion of Jesus, but they make additions which serve to elevate the prestige of Peter. Luke greatly expands the story of Peter’s call and structures it according to the pattern of the call stories of great figures of Israel’s history. An experience of God is followed by an objection by the one called, then there is a reassurance and finally a mission. We find these elements in the call stories of Moses (Exodus 3:7-12), of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-9) and of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-7). Peter has an experience of God in the great catch of fish; he objects, for he is a sinful man; but then the Lord reassures him and promises him that he will be a ‘fisher of people’. This prediction is fulfilled at Pentecost time when 3000 are converted on the same day after Peter’s speech (Acts 2:41). The plea of Peter, ‘Depart from me, because I am a sinful man’ suggests that the original context of this scene was after the Resurrection when Peter would have been so bruised by the sin of his denials (Luke 5:1-11).
In Matthew, Peter makes an even more impressive confession than in Mark. Jesus is ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God’. At once Jesus praises Peter, and tells him that he is blessed. ‘Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven’. Peter is then given a promise and a commission. ’On this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 16:16-19). Many experts on this gospel believe that this scene, too, took place after the Resurrection as one of the several ‘church-founding’ appearances.
In John, the most significant addition to traditions about Peter is explicitly included as a post-Resurrection story. As in Luke, the disciples have been fishing and have made an enormous catch. But this time the dialogue with Peter takes place after the fish have been landed. Three times Peter is asked whether he loved Jesus, as if in compensation for his three denials. Three times Peter affirms his love. This is how he qualifies for his appointment as a shepherd of the lambs and sheep that belong to Jesus (John 21:15-19; 1 Peter 5:1-2). Jesus’s description of himself as a good shepherd earlier in this gospel clarifies what this task involves (John 10:11-18).
The Story of Paul
In contrast to Peter, Paul never knew the earthly Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:16). He was born far away, in Tarsus in Cilicia. He was proud of his strict Jewish upbringing. His Galatian readers are presumed to know of his earlier life in Judaism (Galatians 1:13). He was a ‘Hebrew born of Hebrews’ and ‘a Pharisee’ (Philippians 3:5). According to Acts, he was brought up in Jerusalem ‘at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law’ (Acts 22:3). But, like Peter, he had sinned; he had persecuted the Church of God (Galatians 1:13; Philippians 3:6). ‘For this reason’, he wrote, ‘I am unfit to be called an apostle’ (1 Corinthians 15:9).In Acts, his attempts to destroy the Church are described in ever more dramatic terms (Acts 9:1-2; 22:4-5; 26:10-11). The accounts of his conversion in Acts are echoed in more sombre ways in his letters. He claimed to have received the gospel ‘through a revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Galatians 1:12), to have ‘seen Jesus our Lord’ (1 Corinthians 9:1), that the risen Jesus ‘last of all, as to one untimely born, appeared to me’ (1 Corinthians 15:8). Paul’s own writings cultivate a much plainer style than Luke in Acts.
The second half of Acts details the missionary journeys of Paul, his arrest and trials, and his journey to Rome. Paul speaks to Jewish and Gentile audiences (13:16-41; 17:22-31 etc). He defends himself before Roman governor and Jewish king (26:1-29). He performs miracles (14:8-10), he endures the hardships of prison (16:19-24) and survives shipwreck (27:1-44). Paul is often said to be the hero of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul gives his own version of his missionary and pastoral life in what he terms his ‘fool’s speech’ in 2 Corinthians (11:1-12:13). Elsewhere, his letters may give a less picturesque account of his activities, but they prove his reputation as the greatest of early Christian missionaries in his responses to the problems and dilemmas of people new to the Christian gospel.
Paul was no academic theologian, but he was a theologian in the sense that he always approached pastoral problems through theology. Any study of the nature of the person of Jesus, the character of the Church, the status of humanity before God has to begin with a study of the thought of Paul. In Philippians we find the great hymn celebrating the emptying of Christ (Philippians 2:6-11); in 1 Corinthians the church envisaged as the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-31); in Romans the need for Christ to release humanity from the tyranny of sin (Romans 5:1-21). And we can prolong the list: the hymn to love in 1 Corinthians belongs to the literature of the world (1 Corinthians 13:1-14) and his verses on the Eucharist and his summary of the gospel message about the death and resurrection of Christ give us information about Jesus dating long before the gospel accounts (1 Corinthians 11:23-34; 15:1-11).
Paul might also be described as the first Christian mystic. He could write that, ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20). For him, he told the Philippians, ‘Living is Christ and dying is gain’ (Philippians 1:21). He wrote to the Galatians that he was again ‘in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you’ (Galatians 4:19). And it was surely about himself that he was writing when he speaks of a ‘person in Christ who was caught up into the third heaven. . . was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat’ (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).
Peter and Paul
We know that Paul and Peter suffered together in the time of the emperor Nero some thirty years after the death of Jesus. The basilica of St Peter is built over his tomb. Paul, too, has a basilica in his honour, not far from the Tre Fontane, the traditional site of his beheading. They lie near each other in Rome. Did they meet in their lifetimes? In the Acts, their stories are given separately: Peter is prominent in the first half of the book and Paul in the second. They meet but once, at the so-called Jerusalem council in Acts 15. Peter speaks and Paul speaks; James adds his opinion and the meeting comes to a harmonious conclusion.
But in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, the picture is more complicated. Three meetings are recorded. First Paul visits Peter in Jerusalem, where they spend two weeks together. This took place three years after Paul’s conversion experience. We are not told what they discussed (Galatians 1:18). After fourteen years, they meet again in Jerusalem. Here Barnabas and Paul share the ‘the right hand of fellowship’ with Peter, James and John. They agree that Peter is to preach to the circumcised (the Jews) and Paul to the uncircumcised (the Gentiles). Paul is to remember the poor (Galatians 2:9-10).
Paul mentions a third meeting with Peter in Antioch, where there is a sharp exchange of views. Peter has given up his practice of eating at the same table as Gentile converts. This led Paul to disagree in public with Peter because he ‘was not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel’ (Galatians 2:13). Peter no doubt thought that he was serving the interests of Jewish Christians in their tensions with Jews who were not Christians, but Paul, because of his theological vision of what God had done in Christ, saw such divisions as a betrayal of the gospel. Ultimately Paul’s view won; for Christians, Christ is the end of the law and we have been set free (Galatians 5:1). By the time that Acts was written, this tension belonged to the past, even though in 2 Peter, the book commonly regarded as the last to be written in the New Testament, there is a warning about ‘our beloved brother Paul. . . In his letters, there are some things in them difficult to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction’ (2 Peter 3:15-16).
Peter and Paul have much in common in that they were both apostles of Christ who sacrificed their lives to the same persecution, but their origins, personalities and achievements remind us that we live with diversity as well as uniformity in the Church of Christ. Paul complained to his Corinthian converts that some were saying, ‘I belong to Paul’ and others ‘I belong to Cephas [Peter]’ (1 Corinthians 1:12). His appeal that we all be united in the same mind and in the same purpose (1 Corinthians 1:10) is surely the appeal that we are to heed on this Solemnity of Peter and Paul.
Peter Edmonds SJ is a tutor in biblical studies at Campion Hall, University of Oxford.
On Thursday we celebrated the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. ‘They were both apostles of Christ who sacrificed their lives to the same persecution, but their origins, personalities and achievements remind us that we live with diversity as well as uniformity in the Church of Christ.’ Peter Edmonds SJ describes how God’s grace worked differently in the lives of these two saints, neither of whom had straightforward paths to holiness. The original of this article can be found here
29 June is the day set apart in the Catholic world for the celebration of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. Apart from Mary, the mother of Jesus, St Joseph and St John the Baptist, these are the only human figures commemorated in the calendar of the universal Church with a day given the rank of ‘Solemnity’. Like all saints, Peter and Paul did not come with sanctity ready-made from heaven. We respect them because in them the grace of God achieved its purpose. Such grace works in different ways. Sometimes God’s grace, like the prophet Jeremiah, has to ‘destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant’ (Jeremiah 1:10). Paul and Peter offer us instances of each of these dynamics.
In Paul’s case, God’s grace had ‘to destroy and overthrow’. Paul boasted how ‘as to the law he was a Pharisee. . . as to righteousness under the law blameless’, but, ‘ Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things’ (Philippians 3:4-7). When Paul prayed to be freed from ‘the thorn in the flesh’, a messenger of Satan sent to torment him, the Lord replied, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Corinthians 12:10). As to boasting, he wrote, ‘If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness’ (2 Corinthians 11:30). Luke in Acts gives a dramatic instance of this grace of God at work. His account of Paul’s conversion begins with Paul ‘breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord’, but it concludes by describing how Paul, having met the light of Christ, had to be led by the hand and brought into Damascus. ‘For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank’ (Acts 9:1-9).
As for Peter, he was a fisherman from Galilee, depicted by the Jerusalem authorities as a man uneducated and ordinary (Acts 4:13). His was a situation in which God’s grace had ‘to build up and plant’. Gospel incidents provide examples of such grace in action. When Peter sank below the waves after walking on the water, Jesus ‘immediately reached out his hand and caught him saying, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”’ (Matthew 14:31). At the last supper the Lord said to Peter, ‘Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail’ (Luke 22:31-32). And when Peter had denied his Lord three times, Luke tells us how ‘The Lord turned and looked at Peter’. He then went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:61-62).
The Story of Peter in Mark
Peter goes under at least three names in the New Testament. Sometimes he is Simon, sometimes Peter, sometimes Simon Peter and sometimes Cephas. He is referred to 181 times. His story is first given in Mark, the earliest gospel, and we can watch him as his career unfolds. He is the first of the disciples to be named. We admire him for his ready response to Jesus when he called him as he cast his net into the sea. At a word, he and his brother Andrew left their nets and followed Jesus (Mark 1:16-18). Soon we enter his house and meet his mother-in-law in Capernaum (1:29). But before the end of Mark’s first chapter, he and his companions were not following Jesus, but ‘hunting’ him. They interrupt Jesus at prayer and urge him to return to the town, but Jesus refuses. Here is a hint that Simon did not grasp what the mission of Jesus was all about (1:35-38).
But we are reassured when we find the name of Simon (now also called Peter) heading the list of the ‘Twelve whom he also called apostles’. These were called ‘to be with Jesus’, the first qualification for discipleship (3:14). He and two others were privileged to be with Jesus when he raised the daughter of Jairus from death (5:37). At the mid-point in the gospel, when Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was, it was Peter who replied that he was the Messiah (8:27-30). We congratulate Peter because he is the first human being in this gospel to make this identification, already known to the reader from the title of the gospel (1:1).
But our congratulations turn sour when we find Jesus using a new name for Peter; no longer speaking in parables (4:33), Jesus speaks openly about the suffering ahead of him in Jerusalem. Peter in response, using the word with which Jesus addressed demons (1:25), ‘rebuked’ Jesus. So serious was this misunderstanding that Jesus addressed Peter as Satan (8:33). At the Transfiguration of Jesus, which should have brought encouragement to the disciples, they were terrified, and Peter did not know what to say (9:2-8). Peter also failed at Gethsemane when Jesus sought support from him and his companions. Jesus complained, ‘Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour?’ (14:32-42). Straight after this, all the disciples fled.
Jesus was taken before the high priest where all the priests, the elders and the scribes were assembled. There for the first time, he confessed his identity as Messiah and Son of the Blessed one, and spoke of himself as the Son of Man. In contrast, Peter three times denied that he ever knew Jesus, sealing this denial with an oath (15:53-72). Surely this must be the end of Peter’s discipleship. But Jesus had other plans. At the supper before Jesus’s arrest, Peter had declared with bravado, ‘Though all become deserters, I will not.’ (14:29). Although quite aware the opposite was the case, Jesus promised to meet them again in Galilee. The gospel ends with a young man telling the women at the tomb to inform Peter that Jesus was going ahead to Galilee: ‘There you will see him’ (16:7). Jesus had said to Peter, ‘the way you think is not God’s way, but man’s’ (8:34). We may well say the same about this new beginning offered to Peter.
Peter in the Other Gospels
The other evangelists record the story of Peter in a similar way to Mark. They too record his flight and apostasy during the passion of Jesus, but they make additions which serve to elevate the prestige of Peter. Luke greatly expands the story of Peter’s call and structures it according to the pattern of the call stories of great figures of Israel’s history. An experience of God is followed by an objection by the one called, then there is a reassurance and finally a mission. We find these elements in the call stories of Moses (Exodus 3:7-12), of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-9) and of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-7). Peter has an experience of God in the great catch of fish; he objects, for he is a sinful man; but then the Lord reassures him and promises him that he will be a ‘fisher of people’. This prediction is fulfilled at Pentecost time when 3000 are converted on the same day after Peter’s speech (Acts 2:41). The plea of Peter, ‘Depart from me, because I am a sinful man’ suggests that the original context of this scene was after the Resurrection when Peter would have been so bruised by the sin of his denials (Luke 5:1-11).
In Matthew, Peter makes an even more impressive confession than in Mark. Jesus is ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God’. At once Jesus praises Peter, and tells him that he is blessed. ‘Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven’. Peter is then given a promise and a commission. ’On this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 16:16-19). Many experts on this gospel believe that this scene, too, took place after the Resurrection as one of the several ‘church-founding’ appearances.
In John, the most significant addition to traditions about Peter is explicitly included as a post-Resurrection story. As in Luke, the disciples have been fishing and have made an enormous catch. But this time the dialogue with Peter takes place after the fish have been landed. Three times Peter is asked whether he loved Jesus, as if in compensation for his three denials. Three times Peter affirms his love. This is how he qualifies for his appointment as a shepherd of the lambs and sheep that belong to Jesus (John 21:15-19; 1 Peter 5:1-2). Jesus’s description of himself as a good shepherd earlier in this gospel clarifies what this task involves (John 10:11-18).
The Story of Paul
In contrast to Peter, Paul never knew the earthly Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:16). He was born far away, in Tarsus in Cilicia. He was proud of his strict Jewish upbringing. His Galatian readers are presumed to know of his earlier life in Judaism (Galatians 1:13). He was a ‘Hebrew born of Hebrews’ and ‘a Pharisee’ (Philippians 3:5). According to Acts, he was brought up in Jerusalem ‘at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law’ (Acts 22:3). But, like Peter, he had sinned; he had persecuted the Church of God (Galatians 1:13; Philippians 3:6). ‘For this reason’, he wrote, ‘I am unfit to be called an apostle’ (1 Corinthians 15:9).In Acts, his attempts to destroy the Church are described in ever more dramatic terms (Acts 9:1-2; 22:4-5; 26:10-11). The accounts of his conversion in Acts are echoed in more sombre ways in his letters. He claimed to have received the gospel ‘through a revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Galatians 1:12), to have ‘seen Jesus our Lord’ (1 Corinthians 9:1), that the risen Jesus ‘last of all, as to one untimely born, appeared to me’ (1 Corinthians 15:8). Paul’s own writings cultivate a much plainer style than Luke in Acts.
The second half of Acts details the missionary journeys of Paul, his arrest and trials, and his journey to Rome. Paul speaks to Jewish and Gentile audiences (13:16-41; 17:22-31 etc). He defends himself before Roman governor and Jewish king (26:1-29). He performs miracles (14:8-10), he endures the hardships of prison (16:19-24) and survives shipwreck (27:1-44). Paul is often said to be the hero of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul gives his own version of his missionary and pastoral life in what he terms his ‘fool’s speech’ in 2 Corinthians (11:1-12:13). Elsewhere, his letters may give a less picturesque account of his activities, but they prove his reputation as the greatest of early Christian missionaries in his responses to the problems and dilemmas of people new to the Christian gospel.
Paul was no academic theologian, but he was a theologian in the sense that he always approached pastoral problems through theology. Any study of the nature of the person of Jesus, the character of the Church, the status of humanity before God has to begin with a study of the thought of Paul. In Philippians we find the great hymn celebrating the emptying of Christ (Philippians 2:6-11); in 1 Corinthians the church envisaged as the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-31); in Romans the need for Christ to release humanity from the tyranny of sin (Romans 5:1-21). And we can prolong the list: the hymn to love in 1 Corinthians belongs to the literature of the world (1 Corinthians 13:1-14) and his verses on the Eucharist and his summary of the gospel message about the death and resurrection of Christ give us information about Jesus dating long before the gospel accounts (1 Corinthians 11:23-34; 15:1-11).
Paul might also be described as the first Christian mystic. He could write that, ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20). For him, he told the Philippians, ‘Living is Christ and dying is gain’ (Philippians 1:21). He wrote to the Galatians that he was again ‘in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you’ (Galatians 4:19). And it was surely about himself that he was writing when he speaks of a ‘person in Christ who was caught up into the third heaven. . . was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat’ (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).
Peter and Paul
We know that Paul and Peter suffered together in the time of the emperor Nero some thirty years after the death of Jesus. The basilica of St Peter is built over his tomb. Paul, too, has a basilica in his honour, not far from the Tre Fontane, the traditional site of his beheading. They lie near each other in Rome. Did they meet in their lifetimes? In the Acts, their stories are given separately: Peter is prominent in the first half of the book and Paul in the second. They meet but once, at the so-called Jerusalem council in Acts 15. Peter speaks and Paul speaks; James adds his opinion and the meeting comes to a harmonious conclusion.
But in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, the picture is more complicated. Three meetings are recorded. First Paul visits Peter in Jerusalem, where they spend two weeks together. This took place three years after Paul’s conversion experience. We are not told what they discussed (Galatians 1:18). After fourteen years, they meet again in Jerusalem. Here Barnabas and Paul share the ‘the right hand of fellowship’ with Peter, James and John. They agree that Peter is to preach to the circumcised (the Jews) and Paul to the uncircumcised (the Gentiles). Paul is to remember the poor (Galatians 2:9-10).
Paul mentions a third meeting with Peter in Antioch, where there is a sharp exchange of views. Peter has given up his practice of eating at the same table as Gentile converts. This led Paul to disagree in public with Peter because he ‘was not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel’ (Galatians 2:13). Peter no doubt thought that he was serving the interests of Jewish Christians in their tensions with Jews who were not Christians, but Paul, because of his theological vision of what God had done in Christ, saw such divisions as a betrayal of the gospel. Ultimately Paul’s view won; for Christians, Christ is the end of the law and we have been set free (Galatians 5:1). By the time that Acts was written, this tension belonged to the past, even though in 2 Peter, the book commonly regarded as the last to be written in the New Testament, there is a warning about ‘our beloved brother Paul. . . In his letters, there are some things in them difficult to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction’ (2 Peter 3:15-16).
Peter and Paul have much in common in that they were both apostles of Christ who sacrificed their lives to the same persecution, but their origins, personalities and achievements remind us that we live with diversity as well as uniformity in the Church of Christ. Paul complained to his Corinthian converts that some were saying, ‘I belong to Paul’ and others ‘I belong to Cephas [Peter]’ (1 Corinthians 1:12). His appeal that we all be united in the same mind and in the same purpose (1 Corinthians 1:10) is surely the appeal that we are to heed on this Solemnity of Peter and Paul.
Peter Edmonds SJ is a tutor in biblical studies at Campion Hall, University of Oxford.
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