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 24th - 28th July, 2017
Tuesday: Funeral Hobart
- No Mass Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Ministry Rosters: 29th - 30th July, 2017
Devonport:
Ulverstone:
Penguin:
Latrobe:
Port Sorell:
PREGO REFLECTION:
Readings next week – Seventeenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: Mark Diaz, Victoria Webb, Dawn Stevens, Robert
Windebank & …,
Let us pray for those who have died recently: Margaret Charlesworth, Peter Sulzberger, Ashton Shirley, Fr John Reilly,
Michael Byrne, Don Mochrie, Maryanne Banks, Maria Minoza, 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: 19th – 25th
July
May they rest in peace
Weekly
Ramblings
On Tuesday this past week we were informed of the death of
Fr John Reilly – a man who after years as a Christian Brother was ordained for
the priesthood in Tasmania and who served in a number of Parishes throughout
the state including Launceston, Scottsdale, South Hobart and Cygnet. In recent
years he has been a resident of Eldercare at Franklin (Fr Peter Nicholls is
also a resident there). Fr Jack (as he was known) died just over a month short
of his 40th anniversary of Ordination. May he rest in peace. (His
Funeral Mass will be celebrated at Cygnet on Tuesday and both Fr Smiley and I
will be attending – hence no Mass at Penguin – sorry)
Also during the week I was speaking to Steven Smith and he
will be arriving back with us on Tuesday afternoon to commence his work in the
Parish. He will be introduced into the various Mass Centres over the following
month – he will be with Fr Smiley one week and me the following week on the
same run and then will be on the other Mass timetable the following fortnight –
just so he is not with the same priest each weekend!
In coming weeks we will be asking people to complete an
updated information form. The Archdiocese has been gradually installing a
Parish Data Program on parish computers (ours was Thursday) and in order for it
to be of real value we need to check details of parishioners. It will be a
simple form which take just a few moments to complete – more about that
shortly.
If anyone wishes to contribute to a gift that will be
presented to Paschal Okpon at his Mass of Thanksgiving on Sunday, 17th
September (10.30am Mass at OLOL) please place your gift in an envelope on the
normal collection with his name clearly on the front of the envelope.
This weekend the children preparing for the Sacraments will
be presented with the Lord’s Prayer at our Masses – this is part of their
preparation of the reception of the Sacraments which will occur in the next
month or so.
A reminder of two events coming shortly.
- The Sacramental Preparation
Day for Confirmation will be held at Our Lady of Lourdes Church next
Saturday, 29th from 10am. Please keep these children and their
families in your prayers.
- The next Open House is at the
Community Room at Ulverstone on Friday, 4th August from 6.30pm.
All Welcome – all food and drink supplied
Please take care on the roads and in your homes
REUNION
LUNCHEON:
BINGO - Thursday Nights
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.
ST MARY MACKILLOP’S FEASTDAY :
Tuesday 8 August - You are warmly invited to celebrate this special
occasion by joining us for afternoon tea at 123 William Street, Forth – Tuesday
8th August between 2.30 and 5.30 pm RSVP Mon 7 August, Phone 6428 3095 Email
rsjforth@bigpond.net.au
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH WOMEN: will host an ecumenical service
called Fellowship Day at OLOL Church on Friday 28th July at 1.30 pm. All
welcome. Please bring a plate. Mrs Clare Kiely-Hoye will give the address.
KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS: Please note change to
our meeting time. The KSC will be meeting SUNDAY, 30th July, at 4pm
at the Devonport Parish Hall. Any men who are interested in joining this group
are invited to come along.
LIVING IN HOPE: SCRIPTURE GATHERINGS
Gracefest will come to Launceston this year and it’s going
to be HUGE as we will officially launch Tasmania’s pilgrimage to the Australian
Catholic Youth Festival in Sydney! The event will be a small taste of what you
can expect at the festival this year which will itself involve more than 15,000
participants. We’re very excited to welcome Stephen Kirk and his band along
with Sam Clear who will also be speaking at the ACYF. The night will include
live music, food, talks, praise & worship, activities, discussion, fellowship,
adoration, and much more that will all add to the festivities. Gracefest will
be held on Saturday 12 August from 6pm-9pm at St Ailbe’s Hall, Margaret St
Launceston and is open to all young people from year 9 up until 30 years of
age. Registration for the event is free and you will simply need to visit the
following website to register online: www.gracefesttasmania.org.au For
more information on the event, email youth@aohtas.org.au
or call Tom on 0400 045 368.
CARMEL CORNER - Happiness is attained when we know
how to find the Master in the depths of our soul’. St Elizabeth of the Trinity.
Carmelite
Secular Order meet every 2nd Sunday of the month. For more information please
call Sandra 6331 4991.
Law and Grace
This article is taken from the daily email series published by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe by clicking here
Grace Must Win
The Purpose of the Law
An Economy of Grace
Worldview of Abundance
Implanted Desire
Covenant Love
THE GOSPEL CHALLENGE TO ENJOY OUR LIVES
The original of this article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI can be found here
Joy is an infallible indication of God’s presence, just as the cross is an infallible indication of Christian discipleship. What a paradox! And Jesus is to blame.
When we look at the Gospels we see that Jesus shocked his contemporaries in seemingly opposite ways. On the one hand, they saw in him a capacity to renounce the things of this world and give up his life in love and self-sacrifice in a way that seemed to them almost inhuman and not something that a normal, full-blooded person should be expected to do. Moreover he challenged them to do the same: Take up your cross daily! If you seek your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life, you will find it.
On the other hand, perhaps more surprisingly since we tend to identify serious religion with self-sacrifice, Jesus challenged his contemporaries to more fully enjoy their lives, their health, their youth, their relationships, their meals, their wine drinking, and all the ordinary and deep pleasures of life. In fact he scandalized them with his own capacity to enjoy pleasure.
We see, for example, a famous incident in the Gospels of a woman anointing Jesus’ feet at a banquet. All four Gospel accounts of this emphasize a certain raw character to the event that disturbs any easy religious propriety. The woman breaks an expensive jar of very costly perfume on his feet, lets the aroma permeate the whole room, lets her tears fall on his feet, and then dries them with her hair. All that lavishness, extravagance, intimation of sexuality, and raw human affection is understandably unsettling for most everyone in the room, except for Jesus. He’s drinking it in, unapologetically, without dis-ease, without any guilt or neurosis: Leave her alone, he says, she has just anointed me for my impending death. In essence, Jesus is saying: When I come to die, I will be more ready because tonight, in receiving this lavish affection, I’m truly alive and hence more ready to die.
In essence, this is the lesson for us: Don’t feel guilty about enjoying life’s pleasures. The best way to thank a gift-giver is to thoroughly enjoy the gift. We are not put on this earth primarily as a test, to renounce the good things of creation so as to win joy in the life hereafter. Like any loving parent, God wants his children to flourish in their lives, to make the sacrifices necessary to be responsible and altruistic, but not to see those sacrifices themselves as the real reason for being given life.
Jesus highlights this further when he’s asked why his disciples don’t fast, whereas the disciples of John the Baptist do fast. His answer: Why should they fast? The bridegroom is still with them. Someday the bridegroom will be taken away and they will have lots of time to fast. His counsel here speaks in a double way: More obviously, the bridegroom refers to his own physical presence here on earth which, at a point, will end. But this also has a second meaning: The bridegroom refers to the season of health, youth, joy, friendship, and love in our lives. We need to enjoy those things because, all too soon, accidents, ill health, cold lonely seasons, and death will deprive us of them. We may not let the inevitable prospect of cold lonely seasons, diminishment, ill health, and death deprive us of fully enjoying the legitimate joys that life offers.
This challenge, I believe, has not been sufficiently preached from our pulpits, taught in our churches, or had a proper place in our spirituality. When have you last heard a homily or sermon challenging you, on the basis of the Gospels, to enjoy your life more? When have you last heard a preacher asking, in Jesus name: Are you enjoying your health, your youth, your life, your meals, your wine drinking, sufficiently?
Granted that this challenge, which seems to go against the conventional spiritual grain, can sound like an invitation to hedonism, mindless pleasure, excessive personal comfort, and a spiritual flabbiness that can be the antithesis of the Christian message at whose center lies the cross and self-renunciation. Admittedly there’s that risk, but the opposite danger also looms, namely, a bitter, unhealthily stoic life. If the challenge to enjoy life is done wrongly, without the necessary accompanying asceticism and self-renunciation, it carries those dangers; but, as we see from the life of Jesus, self-renunciation and the capacity to thoroughly enjoy the gift of life, love, and creation are integrally connected. They depend on each other.
Excess and hedonism are, in the end, a bad functional substitute for genuine enjoyment. Genuine enjoyment, as Jesus taught and embodied, is integrally tied to renunciation and self-sacrifice.
And so, it’s only when we can give our lives away in self-renunciation that we can thoroughly enjoy the pleasures of this life, just as it is only when we can genuinely enjoy the legitimate pleasures of this life that we can give our lives away in self-sacrifice.
A Mysterious Ignatian Prayer
The ‘Prayer for Generosity’ is much-loved by followers of Ignatian spirituality, although little is known about its authorship. The prayer is attributed frequently to St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, but was it really composed by him? Jack Mahoney SJ investigates the origins of this ‘brief but elegant prayer’. The original of the article can be found on the Thinking Faith website
When I was about ten years old and my elder brother was about fifteen, he went on a school retreat to Craighead House, the Jesuit spirituality centre which existed then near Bothwell in Scotland, and came back enthusiastic about a prayer for generosity which had figured in the retreat. He could not remember it all, so he wrote to the Jesuit priest who had given the retreat and asked for a copy of the prayer, which duly arrived. This was a brave thing for a young Scots lad to do; and no doubt my brother’s devotion to the prayer contributed to his decision a few years later to study for the diocesan priesthood and then to spend fifty years of his life in generous priestly ministry.
The prayer which must have helped mould my brother’s priestly vocation and life was, of course, the one beginning, ‘Lord, teach me to be generous’:
Lord, teach me to be generous,
to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and not to look for any reward,
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.
To continue reading click here
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 24th - 28th July, 2017
Tuesday: Funeral Hobart - No Mass Penguin
Tuesday: Funeral Hobart - No Mass Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Next Weekend Masses 29th - 30th 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: 29th - 30th July, 2017
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil: A McIntyre, M Williams, C Kiely-Hoye
10:30am: K
Pearce, P Piccolo
Ministers of
Communion: Vigil: B
O’Connor, R Beaton, K Brown, Beau Windebank, J Heatley, T Bird
10.30am: K Hull, L Hollister, F Sly, E Petts, S Riley, S
Arrowsmith
Cleaners 28th
July: B Paul, D
Atkins, V Riley; 4th August: M.W.C.
Piety Shop 29th July:
L Murfet 30th July: D French Flowers: B Naiker
Mower Roster at Parish House: July
- Tony Ryan
Ulverstone:
Readers: M & K McKenzie Ministers of Communion: E Reilly, M & K McKenzie, M
O’Halloran
Cleaners: B & V
McCall, G Doyle Flowers: M Bryan Hospitality:
K Foster
Penguin:
Greeters: G Hills-Eade, B Eade Commentator: Y Downes
Readers:
E Nickols, A
Landers
Ministers of
Communion: J
Barker, M Murray Liturgy: Sulphur Creek C
Setting Up: F Aichberger Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton
Latrobe:
Reader: S Ritchie Ministers of Communion: B Ritchie, I Campbell Procession of Gifts: J Hyde
Port Sorell:
Readers: G Bellchambers, E Holloway Ministers of Communion: B Lee Cleaners/Flowers/Prep: G Wylie
Readings this week – Sixteenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
First Reading: Wisdom 12:13, 16-9 Second Reading: Romans 8:26-27 Gospel:
Matthew 13:24-43
PREGO REFLECTION:
How do I come to prayer today?
I ask the Lord to help me be
aware of his welcoming presence here with me, and try to offer anything that
burdens me into his hands.
In time, I turn slowly and prayerfully to the
Gospel.
Perhaps I imagine myself among the crowd, noticing how Jesus looks and
speaks as he tells this story. How do I respond to it myself …? with amusement
…. puzzlement … confidence … or …?
I ask the Lord to show me what he wants me
to see and hear within it.
Perhaps I think of something promising within my own
life that was sabotaged unexpectedly.
I share this with the Lord.
Or perhaps I am
drawn to ponder the mix of ‘wheat’ and ‘weeds’ within the world around me … and
within my own self.
Can I entrust both the bad and the good to God to deal with
in his own time?
I ask to recognise those things that I may simply need to ‘let
be’ for the time being, and for a greater trust in God’s love for the whole
world, and for me.
Eventually I end my prayer with a slow sign of the cross,
asking the Lord to stay close as I continue my daily life.
Readings next week – Seventeenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
First Reading: 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12 Second Reading: Romans 8:28-30 Gospel:
Matthew 13:44-52
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: Mark Diaz, Victoria Webb, Dawn Stevens, Robert
Windebank & …,
Let us pray for those who have died recently: Margaret Charlesworth, Peter Sulzberger, Ashton Shirley, Fr John Reilly,
Michael Byrne, Don Mochrie, Maryanne Banks, Maria Minoza, 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: 19th – 25th
July
Teresa
Askew, Deda Burgess, Marlene Willett, Ronald Buxton, Brian Innes, William
Dooley, Joseph Peterson, Edward Mahony, Jean Braid, Robbie McIver, Marie
Foster, Fay Capell, Richard Carter, Marie Kingshott, Peter Kelly, Joyce
Cornick, Michael
Campbell and Barry Stuart.
May they rest in peace
Please take care on the roads and in your homes
Weekly
Ramblings
On Tuesday this past week we were informed of the death of
Fr John Reilly – a man who after years as a Christian Brother was ordained for
the priesthood in Tasmania and who served in a number of Parishes throughout
the state including Launceston, Scottsdale, South Hobart and Cygnet. In recent
years he has been a resident of Eldercare at Franklin (Fr Peter Nicholls is
also a resident there). Fr Jack (as he was known) died just over a month short
of his 40th anniversary of Ordination. May he rest in peace. (His
Funeral Mass will be celebrated at Cygnet on Tuesday and both Fr Smiley and I
will be attending – hence no Mass at Penguin – sorry)
Also during the week I was speaking to Steven Smith and he
will be arriving back with us on Tuesday afternoon to commence his work in the
Parish. He will be introduced into the various Mass Centres over the following
month – he will be with Fr Smiley one week and me the following week on the
same run and then will be on the other Mass timetable the following fortnight –
just so he is not with the same priest each weekend!
In coming weeks we will be asking people to complete an
updated information form. The Archdiocese has been gradually installing a
Parish Data Program on parish computers (ours was Thursday) and in order for it
to be of real value we need to check details of parishioners. It will be a
simple form which take just a few moments to complete – more about that
shortly.
If anyone wishes to contribute to a gift that will be
presented to Paschal Okpon at his Mass of Thanksgiving on Sunday, 17th
September (10.30am Mass at OLOL) please place your gift in an envelope on the
normal collection with his name clearly on the front of the envelope.
This weekend the children preparing for the Sacraments will
be presented with the Lord’s Prayer at our Masses – this is part of their
preparation of the reception of the Sacraments which will occur in the next
month or so.
A reminder of two events coming shortly.
- The Sacramental Preparation
Day for Confirmation will be held at Our Lady of Lourdes Church next
Saturday, 29th from 10am. Please keep these children and their
families in your prayers.
- The next Open House is at the Community Room at Ulverstone on Friday, 4th August from 6.30pm. All Welcome – all food and drink supplied
Please take care on the roads and in your homes
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 17 (14th July)
footy margin 61 – Winners; N Mulcahy; A & D Smith; J McBain
BINGO - Thursday Nights
OLOL Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm! Callers for Thursday 27th
July – Tony Ryan & Graeme Rigney.
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.
ST MARY MACKILLOP’S FEASTDAY :
Tuesday 8 August - You are warmly invited to celebrate this special
occasion by joining us for afternoon tea at 123 William Street, Forth – Tuesday
8th August between 2.30 and 5.30 pm RSVP Mon 7 August, Phone 6428 3095 Email
rsjforth@bigpond.net.au
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH WOMEN: will host an ecumenical service
called Fellowship Day at OLOL Church on Friday 28th July at 1.30 pm. All
welcome. Please bring a plate. Mrs Clare Kiely-Hoye will give the address.
KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS: Please note change to
our meeting time. The KSC will be meeting SUNDAY, 30th July, at 4pm
at the Devonport Parish Hall. Any men who are interested in joining this group
are invited to come along.
LIVING IN HOPE: SCRIPTURE GATHERINGS
What – a series of 3 sessions based on the Sunday Gospel
When – Thursday morning 10-11.30am August 10th, 17th &
24th
If you would like to join the proposed group, please
contact Clare Kiely-Hoye 64282760 asap
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
Gracefest will come to Launceston this year and it’s going
to be HUGE as we will officially launch Tasmania’s pilgrimage to the Australian
Catholic Youth Festival in Sydney! The event will be a small taste of what you
can expect at the festival this year which will itself involve more than 15,000
participants. We’re very excited to welcome Stephen Kirk and his band along
with Sam Clear who will also be speaking at the ACYF. The night will include
live music, food, talks, praise & worship, activities, discussion, fellowship,
adoration, and much more that will all add to the festivities. Gracefest will
be held on Saturday 12 August from 6pm-9pm at St Ailbe’s Hall, Margaret St
Launceston and is open to all young people from year 9 up until 30 years of
age. Registration for the event is free and you will simply need to visit the
following website to register online: www.gracefesttasmania.org.au For
more information on the event, email youth@aohtas.org.au
or call Tom on 0400 045 368.
CARMEL CORNER - Happiness is attained when we know
how to find the Master in the depths of our soul’. St Elizabeth of the Trinity.
Carmelite
Secular Order meet every 2nd Sunday of the month. For more information please
call Sandra 6331 4991.
TASMANIAN PARLIAMENTARY PRAYER BREAKFAST: An opportunity to learn from the story of an exceptional
role model, who as a committed Christian, provided leadership to the NSW Police
Force for 9 ½ years.
Andrew Scipione AO APM, former NSW Police Commissioner, is
the guest speaker at the 12th Tasmanian Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast. Kelly
Ottoway and Randal Muir, accomplished Tasmanian musicians, will be performing along
with St Mary’s College Choir. Wed August 16, 2017 from 7 – 9 am in the
Federation Ballroom of Hotel Grand Chancellor
For bookings go to our new website:
tasmanianprayerbreakfast.com or contact Susan on 0407 499 456
Law and Grace
This article is taken from the daily email series published by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe by clicking here
Grace Must Win
The relationship between law and grace is a central issue
for almost anyone involved in religion. Basically, it is the creative tension
between religion as requirements and religion as transformation. Is God’s favor
based on a performance principle (Law)? Or does religion work within an
entirely different economy and equation? This is a necessary boxing match, but
a match in which grace must win. When it doesn’t, religion becomes moralistic,
which is merely the ego’s need for order and control. I am sorry to say, but
this is most garden-variety religion. We must recover grace-oriented
spirituality if we are to rebuild Christianity from the bottom up.
In Romans and Galatians, Paul gives us sophisticated studies
of the meaning, purpose, and limitations of law. He says its function is just
to get us started, but legalism too often takes over. Yet Paul’s brilliant
analysis has had little effect on the continued Christian idealization of law,
even though he makes it very clear: Laws can only give us information; they
cannot give us transformation (Romans 3:20; 7:7-13). Laws can give us very good
boundaries, but boundary-keeping of itself is a long way from love.
Paul describes Israel as looking for a righteousness derived
from the law and yet failing to achieve the purposes of the law. Why did they
fail? Because they relied on being privately good instead of trusting in God
for their goodness! In other words, they stumbled over the stumbling stone (see
Romans 9:31-32). Law is a necessary stage, but if we stay there, Paul believes,
it actually becomes a major obstacle to transformation into love and mercy. Law
often frustrates the process of transformation by becoming an end in itself. It
inoculates us from the real thing, which is always relationship. Paul says that
God gave us the law to show us that we can’t obey the law! (See Romans 7:7-13
if you don’t believe me.) Paul even says that the written law brings death, and
only the Spirit can bring life (Romans 7:5-6; 2 Corinthians 3:6). This man is
truly radical, but it did not take churches long to domesticate him. We’ve
treated Paul as if he were a moralist instead of the first-rate mystic and
teacher that he is.
Ironically, until people have had some level of inner God
experience, there is no point in asking them to follow Jesus’ ethical ideals.
It is largely a waste of time. Indeed, they will not be able to even understand
the law’s meaning and purpose. Religious requirements only become the source of
deeper anxiety. Humans quite simply don’t have the power to obey any spiritual
law, especially issues like forgiveness of enemies, nonviolence, self-emptying,
humble use of power, true justice toward the outsider, and so on, except in and
through union with God. Or as Jesus put it, “the branch cut off from the vine
is useless” (John 15:5).
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as
Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 72, 78-79, 82.
The Purpose of the Law
Why did Paul come to the subtle but crucial understanding of
the limited and dangerous possibilities of law/requirements? Probably because
Paul himself had been a man of the law, and he saw that it led him to
“breathing threats to slaughter the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9:1). As he tells
us in Philippians (3:4-6), Paul was a perfect law-abiding Pharisee: “As far as
the Law can make you perfect, I was faultless,” he says. He seems to wonder,
“How could such perfect religious observance still create hateful and violent
men like me?” That was Paul’s utterly honest and humble question. (Many folks
today would be wise to ask the same question of themselves.)
What is the law really for? It’s not to make God love you.
God already loves you, and you cannot make God love you any more or any less by
any technique whatsoever. The purpose of spiritual law is to sharpen your
awareness about your own weaknesses and about who God is for you in that
situation. When you recognize your own radical inability to really obey the
purpose of the law and, in that same moment ask for God’s mercy, you have
achieved its deepest purpose. If you have ever tried to get rid of a negative
thought by mere will power, instead of by a “Higher Power,” you have surely
experienced this reality. Surrender is the goal, not personal success.
God not only allows us to make mistakes, but even uses our
mistakes in our favor! That is the brilliant Gospel economy of grace, and it is
the only thing worthy of being called “good news and a joy for all the people”
(Luke 2:10). When you come out of the boxing ring of the creative tension of
law and grace, you will know that you have finally won the match; but ironically,
you will have won by losing!
References:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as
Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 82-84; and
New Great Themes of Scripture, disc 4 (Franciscan Media:
2012), CD.
An Economy of Grace
God’s freely given grace is a humiliation to the ego because
free gifts say nothing about being strong, superior, or moral. Thus only the
soul can understand grace, never the mind or the ego. The ego does not know how
to receive things freely or without logic. It likes to be worthy and needs to
understand in order to accept things as true. The ego prefers a worldview of
scarcity or quid pro quo, where only the clever can win. That problem—and its
overcoming—is at the very center of the Gospel plot line. It has always been
overcome from God’s side. The only problem is getting us in on the process!
God’s inclusion of us reveals God’s humility, graciousness, and love. Only
inside an economy of grace can we see that God wants free and willing partners.
An economy of merit cannot process free love or free anything. “Not servants,
but friends” (John 15:15) is God’s plan. Yet to this day, most Christians seem
to prefer being servants. Actual divine friendship is just too incredible to
imagine.
If we’re honest, culture forms us much more than the Gospel.
It seems we have kept the basic storyline of human history in place rather than
allow the Gospel to reframe and redirect the story. Except for those who have
experienced grace at their core, Christianity has not created a “new mind”
(Romans 12:2) or a “new self” (Ephesians 4:23-24) that is significantly
different than the cultures it inhabits. The old, tired win/lose scenario seems
to be in our cultural hard drive, whereas the experience of grace at the core
of reality, which is much more imaginative and installs new win/win programs in
our psyche, has been neglected and unrecognized by most of Christianity. People
who live their entire lives inside of a system of competing, measuring,
earning, counting, and performing can’t understand how the win/win scenario of
the Gospel would even be interesting or attractive.
Up to now, Christianity has largely mirrored culture instead
of transforming it. Reward/punishment, good guys versus bad guys, has been the
plot line of most novels, plays, operas, movies, and wars. This is the only way
that a dualistic mind, unrenewed by prayer and grace, can perceive reality. It
is almost impossible to switch this mind during a short sermon or service on a
Sunday morning. As long as we remain inside of a dualistic, win/lose script,
Christianity will continue to appeal to low-level and vindictive moralisms and
will not rise to the mystical banquet that Jesus offered us. The spiritual path
and life itself will be mere duty instead of delight, “jars of purification”
instead of 150 gallons of intoxicating wine at the end of the party (John
2:6-10). We will focus on maintaining order by sanctified violence instead of
moving toward a higher order of love and healing—which is the very purpose of
the Gospel.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as
Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 156-157, 159, 177.
Worldview of Abundance
The flow of grace through us is largely blocked when we are
living inside a worldview of scarcity, a feeling that there’s just not enough:
enough of God, enough of me, enough food, enough health care to go around,
enough mercy to include and forgive all faults. The problem is exacerbated by
the fact that the human mind is actually incapable of imagining anything
infinite or eternal. So it cannot imagine an infinite love or a God whose “love
is everlasting,” as the Psalms continually shout. In other words, the mind of itself
cannot know God.
The many “multiplication” of food stories in the
Gospels—when Jesus feeds a crowd with very little (for example, Matthew
14:15-21)—clearly exemplify abundance as the foundation of reality. The
spiritual point is grace, not some mere physical miracle. Notice in almost
every case that the good apostles, who represent our worldview of scarcity,
advise Jesus against feeding the crowd: “But how will two fish and five loaves
be enough for so many?” Jesus is trying to move them from their worldview of
scarcity to one of abundance, but does so with great difficulty. In the end,
there is always much food left over, which should communicate the point:
Reality, with its inherent overflowing, always has more than enough of itself
to give. Just observe the seeds, spermatozoa, and pollen of the natural world.
Our unhealthy economics and politics persist because even
Christians largely operate out of a worldview of scarcity: there is not enough
land, water, money, and housing for all of us; and in America there are never
enough guns to keep us safe. A saint always knows that there is more than
enough for our need but never enough for our greed. In the midst of the
structural stinginess and over-consumption of our present world, how do we
possibly change consciousness and teach the mind to operate from mercy and
graciousness? It will always be an uphill battle, and it will always depend
upon a foundational and sustained conversion. Even the churches tend to be
stingy with grace and mercy, as Pope Francis continues to point out.
Only our personal experiences of unconditional, unearned,
and infinite love and forgiveness can move us from the normal worldview of
scarcity to the divine world of infinite abundance. That’s when the doors of
mercy blow wide open! That’s when we begin to understand the scale-breaking
nature of the Gospel. Catholics and much of the world are now stunned to
observe a pope who exemplifies this worldview in our time. We can no longer say
it is impossible idealism.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Today Is a Time for Mercy,”
December 10, 2015, https://cac.org/richard-rohr-on-mercy-mp3.
Implanted Desire
We first see the idea of grace in the Hebrew Scriptures
through the concept of election or chosenness. This is eventually called “covenant
love” because it finally becomes a mutual giving and receiving. This love is
always initiated from YHWH’s side toward the people of Israel, and they
gradually learn to trust it and respond in kind. The Bible shows a relentless
movement toward intimacy and divine union between Creator and creatures. For
this to happen, there needs to be some degree of compatibility, likeness, or
even “sameness” between the two parties. In other words, there has to be a
little bit of God in us that wants to find itself.
We see the message of implanted grace most clearly in Jesus.
He recognizes that he is one with God. Jesus knows that it is God in him doing
the knowing, loving, and serving. Jesus fully trusts his deepest identity and
never doubts it, which is the unique character of his divine sonship. We often
doubt, deny, and reject our true identity, finding it hard to believe what we
did not choose or create ourselves. Such unaccountable gratuity is precisely
the meaning of grace and also why we are afraid to trust it. Yes, it is God in
us that always seeks and knows God; like always knows like. We are made for one
another from the beginning (Ephesians 1:4-6). Maybe the ultimate grace is to
know that it is all grace to begin with! It is already a grace to recognize
that it is grace.
God doesn’t love the Israelites, anybody else, or even us
today because we are good. God loves us from a free and deliberate choice.
Receiving God’s love has never been a “worthiness contest.” This is very hard
for almost everyone to accept. It is finally a surrendering and never a full
understanding. The proud will seldom submit until they are “brought down from
their thrones,” as Mary put it (Luke 1:52). It just does not compute inside our
binary, judging, competing, and comparing brains.
God does not love you because you are good; God loves you
because God is good. And then you can be good because you draw upon such an
Infinite Source. The older I get, the more I am sure that God does all the
giving and we do all of the receiving. God is always and forever the initiator
in my life, and I am, on occasion, the half-hearted respondent. My mustard seed
of a response seems to be more than enough for a humble God, even though the
mustard seed is “the tiniest of all the seeds” (Matthew 13:32).
God makes use of everything that we offer and thus expands
our freedom. Otherwise it would not be a covenant love, but a mere coercion.
God even implants the desire within us to desire even more intimacy with God.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as
Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 163-164.
Covenant Love
YHWH, YHWH, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to
anger, rich in kindness, and abounding in faithfulness. For the thousandth
generation, YHWH maintains his kindness, forgiving all our faults,
transgressions, and sins. —Exodus 34:6-7
In this marvelous early affirmation, we have, in the words
of Walter Brueggemann, “a formulation so studied that it may be reckoned to be
something of a classic, normative statement to which Israel regularly returned,
meriting the label ‘credo.’” [1] In it are found five generous and glorious
adjectives that describe the heart and soul of Israel’s belief. Somehow,
against all odds and unlike their neighbors, they were able to experience a God
who was merciful (in Hebrew, rhm), compassionate/gracious (hnn), steadfast in
love (hsd), tenaciously faithful (‘emeth), and forgiving (ns’). This is the
dynamic center of their entire belief system, as it should be ours. Like all
spiritual mystery, it seems to be endlessly generative and fruitful,
culminating in the full-blown—and literally unthinkable—concept of grace. God
then grows us from the inside out.
In Ezekiel, chapters 36-37, God really chews Israel out
through the prophet, telling the people, in effect, “You haven’t done anything
right, you’ve missed the whole point.” YHWH disqualifies the children of Israel
as a worthy people, almost as if to tell them to throw the whole thing out and
start over. Then, seemingly out of nowhere (but really coming from divine
mercy, which is always present), God promises to rebuild the project from the
bottom up, and says, “I am not doing this for your sake, house of Israel, but
for the sake of my holy name” (Ezekiel 36:22). God is God’s own reference
point. God is just being true to Godself in loving. God’s faithfulness has
never been dependent on our worthiness or readiness. This is restorative
justice, the divine form of justice.
The word translated as “steadfast love” is often rendered
“covenant love” or “faithful love.” Today we often call it unconditional love.
It’s “one-sided love,” if you will, because Israel never keeps its side of the
covenant, just as we never keep our side of the relationship to this day. YHWH
has learned to do it all from God’s side since we are basically unreliable as
lovers. That is the constant message of much of the Hebrew Scriptures from
Moses to Job. Yet, as Paul says, “Is it possible that YHWH has rejected God’s
people? Of course not!” (Romans 11:1). Divine Love is not determined by the
worthiness of the object but by the Total Generosity of the Subject.
References:
[1] Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament:
Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Fortress: 1997), 216.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality
(Franciscan Media: 2008), 168-170.
THE GOSPEL CHALLENGE TO ENJOY OUR LIVES
The original of this article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI can be found here
Joy is an infallible indication of God’s presence, just as the cross is an infallible indication of Christian discipleship. What a paradox! And Jesus is to blame.
When we look at the Gospels we see that Jesus shocked his contemporaries in seemingly opposite ways. On the one hand, they saw in him a capacity to renounce the things of this world and give up his life in love and self-sacrifice in a way that seemed to them almost inhuman and not something that a normal, full-blooded person should be expected to do. Moreover he challenged them to do the same: Take up your cross daily! If you seek your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life, you will find it.
On the other hand, perhaps more surprisingly since we tend to identify serious religion with self-sacrifice, Jesus challenged his contemporaries to more fully enjoy their lives, their health, their youth, their relationships, their meals, their wine drinking, and all the ordinary and deep pleasures of life. In fact he scandalized them with his own capacity to enjoy pleasure.
We see, for example, a famous incident in the Gospels of a woman anointing Jesus’ feet at a banquet. All four Gospel accounts of this emphasize a certain raw character to the event that disturbs any easy religious propriety. The woman breaks an expensive jar of very costly perfume on his feet, lets the aroma permeate the whole room, lets her tears fall on his feet, and then dries them with her hair. All that lavishness, extravagance, intimation of sexuality, and raw human affection is understandably unsettling for most everyone in the room, except for Jesus. He’s drinking it in, unapologetically, without dis-ease, without any guilt or neurosis: Leave her alone, he says, she has just anointed me for my impending death. In essence, Jesus is saying: When I come to die, I will be more ready because tonight, in receiving this lavish affection, I’m truly alive and hence more ready to die.
In essence, this is the lesson for us: Don’t feel guilty about enjoying life’s pleasures. The best way to thank a gift-giver is to thoroughly enjoy the gift. We are not put on this earth primarily as a test, to renounce the good things of creation so as to win joy in the life hereafter. Like any loving parent, God wants his children to flourish in their lives, to make the sacrifices necessary to be responsible and altruistic, but not to see those sacrifices themselves as the real reason for being given life.
Jesus highlights this further when he’s asked why his disciples don’t fast, whereas the disciples of John the Baptist do fast. His answer: Why should they fast? The bridegroom is still with them. Someday the bridegroom will be taken away and they will have lots of time to fast. His counsel here speaks in a double way: More obviously, the bridegroom refers to his own physical presence here on earth which, at a point, will end. But this also has a second meaning: The bridegroom refers to the season of health, youth, joy, friendship, and love in our lives. We need to enjoy those things because, all too soon, accidents, ill health, cold lonely seasons, and death will deprive us of them. We may not let the inevitable prospect of cold lonely seasons, diminishment, ill health, and death deprive us of fully enjoying the legitimate joys that life offers.
This challenge, I believe, has not been sufficiently preached from our pulpits, taught in our churches, or had a proper place in our spirituality. When have you last heard a homily or sermon challenging you, on the basis of the Gospels, to enjoy your life more? When have you last heard a preacher asking, in Jesus name: Are you enjoying your health, your youth, your life, your meals, your wine drinking, sufficiently?
Granted that this challenge, which seems to go against the conventional spiritual grain, can sound like an invitation to hedonism, mindless pleasure, excessive personal comfort, and a spiritual flabbiness that can be the antithesis of the Christian message at whose center lies the cross and self-renunciation. Admittedly there’s that risk, but the opposite danger also looms, namely, a bitter, unhealthily stoic life. If the challenge to enjoy life is done wrongly, without the necessary accompanying asceticism and self-renunciation, it carries those dangers; but, as we see from the life of Jesus, self-renunciation and the capacity to thoroughly enjoy the gift of life, love, and creation are integrally connected. They depend on each other.
Excess and hedonism are, in the end, a bad functional substitute for genuine enjoyment. Genuine enjoyment, as Jesus taught and embodied, is integrally tied to renunciation and self-sacrifice.
And so, it’s only when we can give our lives away in self-renunciation that we can thoroughly enjoy the pleasures of this life, just as it is only when we can genuinely enjoy the legitimate pleasures of this life that we can give our lives away in self-sacrifice.
A Mysterious Ignatian Prayer
The ‘Prayer for Generosity’ is much-loved by followers of Ignatian spirituality, although little is known about its authorship. The prayer is attributed frequently to St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, but was it really composed by him? Jack Mahoney SJ investigates the origins of this ‘brief but elegant prayer’. The original of the article can be found on the Thinking Faith website
When I was about ten years old and my elder brother was about fifteen, he went on a school retreat to Craighead House, the Jesuit spirituality centre which existed then near Bothwell in Scotland, and came back enthusiastic about a prayer for generosity which had figured in the retreat. He could not remember it all, so he wrote to the Jesuit priest who had given the retreat and asked for a copy of the prayer, which duly arrived. This was a brave thing for a young Scots lad to do; and no doubt my brother’s devotion to the prayer contributed to his decision a few years later to study for the diocesan priesthood and then to spend fifty years of his life in generous priestly ministry.
The prayer which must have helped mould my brother’s priestly vocation and life was, of course, the one beginning, ‘Lord, teach me to be generous’:
Lord, teach me to be generous,
to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and not to look for any reward,
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.
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