Friday, 14 July 2017

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

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 
Priest in Residence:  Fr Phil McCormack  
Mob: 0437 521 257
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310 
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160 
Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair:  Jenny Garnsey

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au
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. 

Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au  for news, information and details of other Parishes.


Parish Prayer


Heavenly Father,
We thank you for gathering us together 
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission
  of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.
Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will
 for the spiritual renewal of our parish.
Give us strength, courage, and clear vision 
as we use our gifts to serve you.
We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,
and ask for her intercession and guidance 
as we strive to bear witness
 to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.

Amen.

Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport:   - first Friday of each month.
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – meetings will be held on Monday evenings in the Community Room, Ulverstone from 7pm.

Weekday Masses 18th - 21st July, 2017                                                    
Tuesday:        9:30am Penguin                                         
Wednesday:   9:30am Latrobe                                 
Thursday:    10:30am Karingal                                                   
Friday:        11:00am Mt St Vincent                                                                                                               

Next Weekend 22nd & 23rd 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 22nd & 23rd July, 2017
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil:   M Gaffney, M Gerrand, H Lim   10:30am: E Petts, K Douglas
Ministers of Communion: Vigil: M Heazlewood, B Suckling, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly, P Shelverton
10.30am: M Sherriff, T&S Ryan, D Barrientos, M Barrientos
Cleaners 21st July: P Shelverton, E Petts 28th July: B Paul, D Atkins, V Riley
Piety Shop 22nd July: R Baker 23rd July: Kay Hull   Flowers: B Naiker
Mower Roster at Parish House: July - Tony Ryan

Ulverstone:
Reader: B O’Rourke 
Ministers of Communion: M Mott, M Fennell, J Jones, T Leary
Cleaners: M Mott Flowers: C Stingel Hospitality:  Filipino Community

Penguin:
Greeters: G & N Pearce Commentator: J Barker         
Readers:  Y Downes, J Garnsey 
Ministers of Communion: E Nickols, T Clayton   Liturgy: Sulphur Creek J Setting Up: T Clayton Care of Church: M Murray, E Nickols

Latrobe:
Reader: M Chan   Ministers of Communion: M Eden   Procession of Gifts: Parishioners

Port Sorell:
Readers: P Anderson, G Duff Ministers of Communion: D Leaman   Cleaners/Flowers/Prep: G Wylie

                                                  

 Readings this week – Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
First Reading: Isaiah 55:10-11 
Second Reading: Romans 8:18-23 
Gospel: Matthew 13:1-9

 PREGO REFLECTION:
As I come to my place of prayer I pause to take note of how I am. 
What sort of mood am I in? 
Whatever my sense of self, I give it to the Lord in trust. 
I know I can come as I am. 
I don’t have to pretend. 
I read the text prayerfully. 
I may feel a little shallow today or, perhaps, choked by the demands of life. 
Maybe I feel tempted, at times, to remain ‘at the edge’. 
But however I feel, I continue to trust. 
I read the text prayerfully, again, and allow the Lord who loves me with an everlasting love to touch me. 
If there is any hardness to the soil of my life, can I let the touch of the Sower soften it? 
Where do I sense there may be weeds or thorns? 
Again, I hand over these areas of my life to the one who loves me. 
Perhaps I am also conscious of a richness and a depth to my life. 
Where do I have a sense of these fertile places? 
I thank the Lord for them. 
What is the seed that the Lord wishes to plant with – or within – me? 
If I can, I share this with the Lord now, and offer him my willingness to accept that seed and help it flourish. 
Finally, I bring my prayer to a close with ‘Our Father …’

Readings next week – Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
First Reading: Wisdom 12:13.16-19
Second Reading: Romans 8:26-27
Gospel: Matthew 13:24-43


Your prayers are asked for the sick:  Mark Diaz, Bill Glassell, Sr Marie-Therese OCD, Fr Peter Cryan OCD, Victoria Webb, Robert Windebank & …,

Let us pray for those who have died recently: Don Mochrie, Maryanne Banks, Maria Minoza, Michael Byrne, Ernie Bonney,  Mary Ann Castillano, David Jones, Frances Preston, John Csoka, Pedro Reyes, Celina Rego, Patricia Woods.

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 12th – 18th July
Ernest Pilcher, Joy Stephenson, Jean Somers, Mavis Cassidy, Neville Batepola, Mick Nolan, Richard Kelloyne-Lawrence, Bill Scott, Gwen McNamara, Roy O’Halloran, Greta Cooper, John Mason, Gwen McCormack, Lawrence Corbett, Jim Landers, Janice Dyson, Michelle Sherriff, Allen Menzie, Susanne Dooley and Suzanne Grimshaw.

May they rest in peace



 Weekly Ramblings

At our Parish Pastoral Council Meeting on Wednesday evening we continued on our journey to find new ways to progress the work on making the Parish Vision more of a reality. As you might expect this is going to take some time but it is hoped that we will be able to make an announcement shortly about a Forum where some of the issues and directions will be discussed and workshopped. More details to come.

On a lighter note – please keep Friday night, 4th August, free for the next Open House at Ulverstone. I am a brave man because that is the night that the Cats and the Swans play in Geelong – in fact it might be better not to be in the Parish House at all that night. As usual the night starts at 6.30pm with food and drink supplied – it is just an opportunity for people to get together in a social atmosphere.

As mentioned last weekend the ordination to the Priesthood of Deacon Paschal Okpon will take place in Hobart on Friday 15th September at the Cathedral. Paschal will be here on Sunday 17th to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving at the 10.30am Mass at OLOL – this will be followed by a luncheon in the hall. If anyone wishes to contribute towards a gift is asked to please place your offering in an envelope marked with his name and place it on the collection plate at Mass. A suitable gift for a newly ordained priest will be obtained and presented to him on the day. 

Please take care on the roads and in your homes,


Mersey Leven Parish Community welcome and congratulate 
Eden Lewin, Ari Nightingale and Hazel Douglas on their baptism 
this weekend at Our Lady of Lourdes Church Devonport.


PETER’S PENCE ANNUAL COLLECTION - this Sunday:
Peter’s pence Collection provides the Holy Father with the financial means to respond to those who are suffering as a result of war, oppression, natural disaster, and disease. Your support goes directly to supporting Pope Francis and his charitable works.
The Peter’s pence Collection derives its name from an ancient custom. In Ninth-Century England, King Alfred the Great collected money, a ‘pence’ from landowners as financial support for the Pope. Today, the Peter’s pence Collection supports the Pope’s philanthropy by giving the Holy Father the means to provide emergency assistance to those affected by natural disaster, war, oppression and disease. Pope Francis encourages us to “Open our eyes and see the misery of the world, the wounds of our brothers and sisters who are denied their dignity, and let us recognise that we are compelled to heed their cry for help!”
 Envelopes are available at all Mass Centres this weekend.
                                                                                                 

CARE AND CONCERN:
“Siloam” is the name of a group which meets under the banner of Care and Concern. We focus on aspects of grief and loss often experienced following the death of a loved one by offering the opportunity simply to share and talk about where we are at this time.
The next meeting will be Tuesday 18th July - 2.00 pm at MacKillop Hill, 123 William Street, Forth. Anyone is welcome to join us. If you require transport please phone Mary Davies 6424:1183 or 0447 241 182.
                                                                     

 MACKILLOP HILL:
SPIRITUALITY IN THE COFFEE SHOPPE: Monday 24th July 10:30am – 12 noon. Don’t miss some lively discussion over morning tea! Invite a friend!  All welcome! 123 William Street, Forth. Phone: 6428:3095 No bookings necessary.

MACKILLOP HILL LIBRARY:  Library opening hours 10am – 5pm Monday to Friday.
                                                                                               
REUNION LUNCHEON:
All past pupils of Our Lady of Mercy College Deloraine are invited to lunch on Friday 28th July at Pier 01 Ulverstone at 12noon. For further information phone Mary Owen 6435:4406.

FOOTY TICKETS:  Round 16 (7th July) footy margin 59 – Winners; Raynor Allford, Charlies Angels


  
BINGO - Thursday Nights
OLOL Hall, Devonport.  Eyes down 7.30pm! Callers for Thursday 20th July 
Rod Clark, John Mitchell & Terry Bird


NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:

THE JOURNEY CATHOLIC RADIO PROGRAM – AIRS 16 July 2017
This week on the Journey Nick Weir reads the Gospel of Matthew, and the reflection is spoken by Fr Steve Varney.  Bruce Downes, The Catholic Guy reminds us “What to do when you’re Uninspired”(Repeat) and Marilyn Rodrigues, The Peaceful Parent, encourages us to “know our Neighbours”  As always, we have some fabulous music helping us to create a show for you that is all about faith, hope, love and life. Go to www.jcr.org.au  or www.itunes.jcr.org.au  where you can listen anytime and subscribe to weekly shows by email.

SACRAMENTS BASIC COURSE:
A new FREE course for adults on the Sacraments will be offered by the Verbum Domini Biblical & Catechetical Institute over four Saturdays starting July 29 (9am-2.30pm) at the Pastoral Centre, Launceston. Module 1 will provide a fresh look at the biblical basis of Baptism and Confirmation and how these sacraments are so necessary for our Christian life. TCEO teachers can obtain professional learning credit for attendance. Parishioners, RCIA team members, and catechists are encouraged to attend. Register: call Dr Christine Wood 6208:6236. Information: https://hobart.catholic.org.au/    
                                                                                        


Congratulations to Kiely Plumbing – celebrating 50 years of service to the Tasmanian Community.


                                                                                 


UNDERSTANDING GRACE MORE DEEPLY
The original of this article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI can be found here 
The mark of genuine contrition is not a sense of guilt, but a sense of sorrow, of regret for having taken a wrong turn; just as the mark of living in grace is not a sense of our own worth but a sense of being accepted and loved despite our unworthiness. We are spiritually healthy when our lives are marked by honest confession and honest praise.

Jean-Luc Marion highlights this in a commentary on St. Augustine’s famous Confessions. He sees Augustine’s confession as a work of a true moral conscience because it is both a confession of praise and a confession of sin. Gil Bailie suggests that this comment underlines an important criterion by which to judge whether or not we are living in grace: “If the confession of praise is not accompanied by the confession of sin it an empty and pompous gesture. If the confession of sins is not accompanied by a confession of praise, it is equally vacuous and barren, the stuff of trashy magazines and tabloid newspapers, a self-preening parody of repentance.”

Gil is right, but doing both confessions at one and the same time is not an easy task. We generally find ourselves falling into either a confession of praise where there is no real confession of our own sin; or into the “self-preening parody of repentance” of a still self-absorbed convert, where our confession rings hollow because it shows itself more as a badge of sophistication than as genuine sorrow for having strayed.

In neither case is there a true sense of grace. Piet Fransen, whose masterful book on grace served as a textbook in seminaries and theology schools for a generation, submits that neither the self-confident believer (who still secretly envies the pleasures of the amoral that he’s missing out on) nor the wayward person who converts but still feels grateful for his fling, has yet understood grace.  We understand grace only when we grasp existentially what’s inside the Father’s words to his older son in the parable of the prodigal son: My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.

The older brother would not be bitter if he understood that everything his father owns is already his, just as he would not be envious of the pleasures his wayward brother tasted if he understood that, in real life, his brother had been dead. But it takes a deeper grasp of what grace is to intuit that, namely, to grasp that life inside God’s house dwarfs all other pleasures.  The same is true for the convert who has given up his wayward life but still secretly rejoices in the experience and sophistication it brought him and nurses a condescending pity for the less-experienced.  He too has not yet really understood grace.

In his book, The Idea of the Holy, now considered a classic, Rudolf Otto submits that in the presence of the holy we will always have a double reaction: fear and attraction. Like Peter at the Transfiguration, we will want to build a tent and stay there forever; but, like him too before the miraculous catch of fish, we will also want to say: “Depart from me for I am a sinful man.” In the presence of the holy, we want to burst forth in praise even as we want to confess our sins.

That insight can help us to understand grace. Piet Fransen begins his signature book on grace, The New Life of Grace, by asking us to imagine this scene: Picture a man who lives his life in mindless hedonism. He simply drinks in the sensual pleasures of this world without a thought for God, responsibility, or morality. Then, after a long life of illicit pleasure, he has a genuine deathbed conversion, sincerely confesses his sins, receives the sacraments of the church, and dies in that happy state. If our spontaneous reaction to this story is: “Well, the lucky fellow! He had fling and still made it in the end!” we have not yet understood grace but instead are still embittered moralizers standing like the older brother in need of a further conversation with our God.

And the same holds true too for the convert who still feels that what he’s experienced in his waywardness, his fling, is a deeper joy than the one known by those who have not strayed. In this case, he’s come back to his father’s house not because he senses a deeper joy there but because he deems his return an unwanted duty, less exciting, less interesting, and less joy-filled than a sinful life, but a necessary moral exit strategy. He too has yet to understand grace.

Only when we understand what the father of the prodigal son means when he says to the older brother: Everything I have is yours”, will we offer both a confession of praise and a confession of sin.
                                                       

Begin with Gratitude

This article is taken from the daily email published by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe by clicking here
Philippians is probably my favorite of Paul’s letters because it describes how we need to work with the rebellious, angry, and dualistic mind. Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians during one of his many imprisonments. He even mentioned being “in chains,” and yet ironically this is the most positive and joy-filled of all of his letters.

In a most succinct and perfect summary, Paul says that you should “Pray with gratitude, and the peace of God which is beyond all knowledge, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). First, you must begin with the positive, with gratitude (which might take your whole prayer time). Second, you need to pray as long it takes you to find “peace,” to get to a place beyond agitation (whether five minutes or five hours or five days). Third, note that he says this is a place beyond “knowledge,” beyond processing information or ideas. Fourth, you must learn how to stand guard, which is what many call “creating the inner witness” or the witnessing presence that calmly watches your flow of thoughts (mind) and feelings (heart). Finally, you must know what the goal is: your egoic thoughts can actually be replaced with living inside the very mind of Christ (en Christo). This is not self-generated knowing, but knowing by participation—consciousness itself (con-scire, to know with).

Paul then goes on to suggest that we fill our minds “with everything that is true, everything that is noble, everything that is good, everything that we love and honor, everything that can be thought virtuous or worthy of praise” (Philippians 4:8). Norman Vincent Peale called this “the power of positive thinking.” I call it “replacement therapy.” If we don’t choose love and compassion, the human mind naturally goes in the other direction, and we risk joining a vast majority of people who live their later years trapped in a sense of victimhood, entitlement, and bitterness.

We are not free until we are free from our own compulsiveness, our own resentments, our own complaining, and our own obsessive patterns of thinking. We have to catch these patterns early in their development and nip them in the bud. And where’s the bud? It’s in the mind. That’s the primary place where we sin, as Jesus himself says (Matthew 5:21-48). Any later behaviors are just a response to the way our minds work. We can’t walk around all day writing negative, hateful mental commentaries about other people, or we will become hate itself.

Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, In the Footsteps of St. Paul (Franciscan Media: 2015), CD.
                                                      

MAKING UP OUR MINDS ABOUT THE CHURCH
This article comes from the weekly blog by Fr Val Farrell - you can access his blog here 

Sometimes I imagine that I can still hear him say it. His neat little body shook with vigour as he pronounced the last two words; "I want to make the church, strong again". He's dead now; far too young as we all agreed at his Requiem. He died of an illness that comes in a glass; I should know. The good old diocese of Lancaster rallied round for both our sakes, as it has done for some others. Hard to know when it has truly helped and when it has just postponed, but I at least, have much for which to be grateful.

Of course, there's a price to be paid for lifting people up, putting them back on their feet, healing even. A price that is doled out not in simple financial payments, but in those honest virtues of listening, learning and patience. Not in the accusing finger of blame, but in the precious currency of time, and that even more precious one, acceptance.

All too tempting to look for a simple, one-stroke answer, one that will unburden us of the drudgery of hearing the same old excuses, over and over again. Going to A.A. might do it, or "Drying Out" or the Therapy Unit that footballer went to. There's just got to be an answer, a straight forward, complete, once and for all answer, so that the whole messy business can be over and done with for good.

Sorry, no, there isn't. Whatever the malady, it's the human condition that is the real problem. And the human condition is not something that distracts from our glorious mission, it IS our Mission.

Let's not lose heart with the Church either, when we find that for all its theological stature, the cement used in its building was once again the human condition. It is still our church, our stupid old, sin-laden Church and we love it. Where would we be without it? In the face of everything the Human Condition brings to the surface, the church is ready with its secret weapon: not being ashamed to be weak. 

St. Paul knew the churches secret. In second Corinthians he tells us: "If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness". (2.Cor 11-30,) Good old Paul in at the very heart of it as usual. Encouraged by the Apostle let's dare to ask today's question. A question not just about weak human beings but about the Church itself. Is it really such a dreadful thing to be so weak that we lose buildings and territory? Right enough, even in the days when school children knew the marks of the true church and could rattle them off for the catechist’s questions, what really mattered to them and their parents was not so much the big universal church, but the little one down the road, their church. Losing such an icon of fondness and devotion never comes easy and churchmen rightly struggle to prevent it happening. But if the tide of history asks us to do so, let's not look at it for more than it is. Let's not be afraid to be weak, losing ground and face.

Perhaps we thought that having come so far, history would not repeat itself. The pain of growth and change would never again come to trouble us. If so, we were wrong. The future we plan for may yet be thousands of years off, in which case the discomfort we presently endure is no more than our version of the catacombs. We all want the Church to be strong again, yes ALL of us. But first we must not be afraid to be weak for we have his parting words for it, "I am with you always, yes to the end of time." (Matt: 28-20)
PS: The word puzzle is not a serious issue, just a thought to get you reading the post.
                                                                

5 CHALLENGES GROWING CHURCHES FACE

This article comes from the weekly blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of Nativity, Baltimore USA. you can find the original of the article here


Healthy growing churches are great and that’s what everyone wants for their church. But don’t be fooled: growing churches don’t mean churches without problems. They have challenges just like any kind of church…just different ones. Here are 5:

1. The Pastor Is Less Available
When I first came to Nativity I stood by the front door before and after Mass, to greet as many people as possible. I kept a pocket calendar in hand and anyone who wanted my time was scheduled on the spot. As our church grew, I had to transition away from being available all the time to everyone, for anything.
It is usually estimated that one pastor can pastor about 200 people. Not surprisingly, the average size of churches in the United States is…200. Besides, you’ll burn yourself out trying to be totally available to 200 parishioners, and you’ll die trying to be available to 2,000.
As our church has grown, my role has become narrower.  I had to make the decision that not every parish event required my presence in order to be authentic (that was hard), not every meeting had to be chaired by me, not every request or decision had to come to my desk. Hardest of all was limiting time for pastoral care and trying to change expectations when it came to that care.

2. Not Everybody Knows Everybody
There is a myth that small churches are intimate churches where everyone knows everyone else. The corollary of this myth is that the bigger a church grows the more impersonal it will become. The truth is a church can be impersonal or friendly at any size, its not a function of size. It’s the function of building a deliberate culture that is warm and welcoming (or not). In our parish not everybody knows everybody, its true. But because we invite everyone to join a small group and/or serve on a ministry team, most people are known, and cared for and loved. And this in turn influences the entire culture and everyone’s experience here.

3. The Leaders Leadership Style Needs to Change
In a small church the pastor leads the people. In a growing church, the pastor can become a lid on leadership, and eventually a lid on growth. Growing churches need growing leaders, who are willing to transition increasingly to become leaders of leaders. Their main job is lifting up staff and volunteer leaders, equipping and empowering them to lead others.

4. Systems and Structures Have to Replace Spontaneity
This is a hard one for any entrepreneurial leaders who love freedom and spontaneity.  But if your church is going to be intentional about growth, you need to be building infrastructure and you have to be increasingly disciplined about honoring those systems and structures.

5. Dealing With Critics
So once you start growing, all the critics will disappear, right?
Sorry to break the news…but just the opposite. They’ll line up.
You’ll have internal critics who want things to be the way they used to be (after all, the people heading for the Promised Land all wanted to go back to Egypt). But the critics are not just internal. Your neighboring churches are not going to celebrate your growth.  Growth attracts a growing number of external critics. Don’t let critics slow you down or dishearten you. More often than not it’s fueled by jealousy, but whatever the reason it’s coming your way and it’s part of the process.
                                                          

Will the Real Ignatius Please Stand Up?
As the Society of Jesus prepares to celebrate the feast of its founder on 31 July, Ron Darwen SJ explores two different portrayals of St Ignatius of Loyola, and describes how the Jesuits' first General continues to accompany them on their spiritual journeys, as they strive to follow his example. Ron Darwen SJ joined the Jesuits in 1949 and has been Novice Master, Tertian Master and is now based in Birmingham where he is involved in giving the Spiritual Exercises. The original of this article can be found here
On the 31st of July the Church celebrates the feast of St Ignatius of Loyola, one of the founding fathers of the Society of Jesus and its first Superior General. Earlier this year the Jesuits held a General Congregation, the 35th in their history, at which they elected Fr Adolfo Nicolás of the Japanese Province to replace the out-going and much loved Fr Peter-Hans Kolvenbach as their new General and latest successor to Ignatius.

After that election, the Congregation took some time to reflect about the role of the Society in today's world. The Congregation was trying to "rediscover its charism", "reaffirm its mission today" and examine "the governance needed for the service of its universal mission". What, I wonder, would Ignatius have made of their conclusions? Would he have felt at home in their discussions? And would he have been able to recognize “the Jesuit” they described?

Knowing the Mind of Ignatius
The answer to those questions depends on what you think he was like. And that is problematic, since the picture we have of Ignatius has changed significantly over the years. If you were to put that question to a Jesuit novice or to a member of the Christian Life Communities, likely as not they would describe a man who could “find God in all things”, who developed a way of following God’s will in everyday life, someone who used his imagination in his prayer and who liked nothing better than to converse with people about “the things of God”. But that is actually quite a contemporary view of the man and very far from the Ignatius I was introduced to when I entered Jesuit life.

Of course it is not at all surprising that each generation has a different slant on an admittedly complex character. To some extent we probably all see in Ignatius things that are important to us. But the founder’s character has, on occasion, been the victim of rather less innocent attempts to mould Jesuit identity. A few years ago, the late Irish Jesuit, Joe Veale wrote of the interpretations of Ignatius' life. Most of our popular images, he points out, go back to the first official biographies, written towards the end of the sixteenth century by Pedro de Ribadeneira and Gian Pietro Maffei. But there is a source which pre-dates them, an Autobiography consisting of the personal reminiscences of Ignatius dictated to, and written up by, an early Jesuit companion, Gonsalves da Camara. This narrative has to be the seminal portrayal of the personality of Ignatius.

Not everyone appreciated the picture of Ignatius which emerged from da Camara’s pen. In 1567, Francis Borgia, the Jesuits’ third General, recalled all the copies of the Autobiography so as to clear the way for Ribadeneira's "true" account of the founder’s life:

The Provincials are to make a good job of gathering in what Fr Louis Gonsalves [da Camara] wrote, or any other writing about the life of our Father, and they are to keep them and not permit them to be read or to be circulated among our people or others. For being an imperfect thing, it is not appropriate that it cause problems.

The instruction seems to have worked. Some months later Ribadeneira, answering a query from Ignatius’ friend and companion Jerome Nadal, comments that:

the gathering in of Fr Louis Gonsalves writings about the life of our Father did not originate with me, but from the fathers who remembered our Father. And it seemed a good idea to his paternity so that when what is written gets published it should not appear that there be divergence or contradiction or that the work not have as much authority as what was written almost from the mouth of the Father. This although very faithful in substance is short on the details of some things and in relating of times by then well past, his memory was failing him owing to his old age.

The Autobiography duly fell into oblivion. It is true that the Bollandists included a Latin translation in the 1731 Acta Sanctorum but the original Spanish remained unedited until the first edition of Ignatian biographica in 1904. However you read these goings-on, two things are for sure. First, the image of the founder mattered then, just as it does now. Second, Ignatius’ own self-understanding, as it was handed on to his spiritual sons in the Autobiography, was to be marginalised and effectively lost for centuries to the great impoverishment of the Society at large and its spirituality in particular.

Ignatius, Man of Action
So how did that crucial depiction of Ignatius as it appears in the work of Ribadeneira impact on the identity and mission of Jesuits? Like any historian, Ribadeneira had his own preoccupations, many of them dictated by the age and culture in which he lived. His biography of Ignatius appeared in the aftermath of the Council of Trent, and so is marked decisively by the ethos of the Counter-Reformation and its aggressive stance towards Protestantism. It is not surprising to find that Ribadeneira’s Ignatius is a great soldier saint. Spinning such an image hardly required a huge amount of invention. There was already much in the life of Ignatius to suggest a penchant for swash-buckling derring-do. His upbringing had been that of a minor aristocrat and his almost exaggerated sense of chivalry got him into hot water in Pamplona, famously resulting in his leg being shattered by an enemy cannon-ball. Was such a man not destined to take his place among the great reformers of the Church’s history? Certainly, such a re-telling of his life was to forge a powerful myth, that of a kind of clerical Errol Flynn, and generations of young Jesuits would be inspired (and, one imagines, occasionally brow-beaten) by fervorinos from their novice masters exhorting them to imitate the heroic knight. Joe Veale, remarks:

The St Ignatius we inherited from the 19th Century was stern, more than a little inhuman, a soldier, militant, militaristic, a martinet expecting prompt unquestioning execution, the proposer of blind obedience, not greatly given to feeling or affection, rational, a man of ruthless will-power, hard in endurance, of a sensibility (if it were there at all) under stern control, heroic. That was when he was not a superhuman, Olympian figure, just this side of apotheosis, remote among baroque clouds and shafts of light and gambolling cherubs.

This Ignatius, who survives in the popular imagination of many Catholics today for whom the Jesuits are something like a spiritual SAS, the Pope’s shock troops, was pre-eminently a doer. And surprising as it may seem, I have to admit that it was this Ignatius that led me to enter the Jesuit Novitiate in Roehampton 1949. I had been brought up in Preston in the heart of Catholic Lancashire, a descendant of St Edmund Arrowsmith, and a member of the Gerard family – John being the only Jesuit to have escaped from the Tower of London. The blood of the martyrs flowed through my veins, and I was privileged to be accepted as a Jesuit novice. As a descendant of one of the forty martyrs, I thought I would give my life to the conversion of England, teaching for the rest of my days in one of "our schools" with Ignatius as guide and mentor.

Ignatius, Mystical Master
That said, the Ignatius I have come to know since then tells a different story and that shift echoes a general change in the way Jesuits understand themselves. It is above all the rediscovery of the Autobiography which has put the Society back in touch with Ignatius, the man of prayer, someone with an extraordinary capacity for sensitivity to his interior life, keenly aware of the motions of the spirits, good and bad, able to taste the sweetness of the Trinity even in the most challenging of environments, and gifted with a visionary insight which created and responded to a wealth of apostolic opportunities aimed at helping others to experience Jesus Christ as he had. Joe Veale again:

There we see a man of feeling often given to tears; a spirit of soaring imagination; a dreamer with sensitive self awareness, attentive to the subtle movements of his sensibility; a man of strong affectivity with a gift for friendship and affection; a companionable person.

It has been one of the great privileges of my Jesuit life, straddling the Vatican Council and enjoying the great rediscovery of Jesuit identity which followed it, to see just what a potent agent of ecclesial transformation this Ignatius could be. As a novice in the old days, I had made the Spiritual Exercises along with thirty companions. The novice master would give us five talks a day and for me the experience was dominated by the vision of a large red notebook in which I wrote down every word that came from his mouth, hardly a transformative process! But years later I was to make the Spiritual Exercises the way Ignatius himself intended them to be given: “one to one”. Having a guide or director to accompany you on a daily basis, helping you to articulate, explain and discern your prayer is quite a different prospect, and it was thus that I learned what Ignatius was actually trying to do for people: introduce them to how God speaks directly to the heart.

Ignatius as mystic is probably the Ignatius most members of the Society know best these days. The last thirty years have seen a tremendous growth in the giving of his Spiritual Exercises and now spirituality is something that practically every Jesuit can talk about in some form or other. Although not always adept in the arts of “communal discernment”, Jesuits know deep down that Ignatius’ true genius lay in the way he handed his destiny over to those mysterious but profound experiences in which he knew God to be calling him. It is a daunting challenge to follow in those footsteps, in some ways rather more testing than trying to keep up with the militant Ignatius of the Counter Reformation in his camouflage and flak-jacket. Brian O'Leary observes:

Ignatius the mystic has replaced Ignatius the soldier saint. For reasons that are part historically well grounded, and in part politically correct, references to Ignatius' soldierly background and mentality are very rare nowadays. Everything that Ignatius did and wrote is traced back to his mystical experiences on Manresa, at La Storta and in Rome. Hence the strong interest in the Autobiography and the Spiritual Journal . As always there is truth in both, that he was both a doer and a mystic. The challenge of his life to present day Jesuits has been to hold together a spirituality that does justice to both. Today's Jesuit should have a foot in both camps.

Having a foot in both camps is no mean feat (if you’ll pardon the pun). In fact, if there is a new challenge emerging for Jesuits in the early years of this new century it seems to be precisely that of deepening the integration of prayer and action. That, in any case, is, my reading of the latest General Congregation.

General Congregation 35
No doubt had Ignatius paid an impromptu visit to the Congregation as it sat in Rome, he would have identified strongly with this group of priests and brothers, active in the life of the Church, as they discussed their mission, trying to work out what they ought to be doing. Ignatius the doer would have felt very much at home. But I think he would also have been keen to point out that doing was not enough. He would want them to say something about the subtle and tricky business of identity, about deep motivation and drive, about what makes the Jesuit heart beat that little bit faster, about what Hopkins calls the “dearest, freshness, deep-down things”.

Perusing the decrees, I’ve got a feeling his spirit was there. The first document responds to just those questions: what are Jesuits all about in today's world? How do they see themselves in the Church? What makes them tick? And so it takes up the question of fundamental Jesuit identity and offers a poetic image in its title, "A fire that kindles other fires". Jim Corkery, an Irish Jesuit who helped to write this Decree, wrote recently:

At a time when people frequently admire what Jesuits do, although without knowing why we do it, it is important to indicate that none of our Jesuit schools and universities, nor any of our pastoral, social or spirituality centres, not even the Jesuit Refugee Service is understandable unless the ‘polarity’ of being with Christ and at the same time being active in the world is expressed and made visible in them. Living ‘polarities’ is central to Jesuit identity. [...] Ideally Jesuits live out of an awesome grace that tilts us towards seeing the world with the eyes of Christ, loving it with his heart and serving it with his compassion. It is not a matter of meeting needs, doing good, acting justly alone. Nor is it a matter of having faith, praying, living contemplatively, alone. Rather it is a matter of doing both together.

Ignatius, I cannot help but feel, would have been enchanted to read those words. They seem to sum up for me who he really was: mystic and militant, or, as Nadal put it: a contemplative in action. A hundred years after Ignatius's death, a Belgian Jesuit, suggesting an epitaph for his grave stone, grappled with the same notion. It is in Latin and not easy to translate, but I will have a go:
Non coerceri a maximo, contineri tamen a minimo, divinum est.
(Not to be daunted or held back by the greatest challenge and yet to be concerned with the nitty-gritty, that is the path to holiness.)

Ignatius had an uncanny feel for the big picture. He could see the wood for the trees and at the same time realised the importance of the trees. William Blake's words could well have come from Ignatius: "if you would do good, you must do it in minute particulars". Ignatius the man of vision, the man of order, could do both at once. That is what modern Jesuits still try to do.




           

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