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.



Weekday Masses 8th - 11th August, 2017

Tuesday:        9:30am Penguin … St Mary MacKillop

12noon Devonport Wednesday:   9:30am Latrobe

Thursday: 10:30am Eliza Purton
12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone … St Clare

Next Weekend 12th & 13th August 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 12th & 13th  August, 2017

Devonport:

Readers: Vigil:   M Kelly, B Paul, R Baker   10:30am: F Sly, J Tuxworth, K Pearce

Ministers of Communion: Vigil: B, B & B Windebank, T Bird, J Kelly, R Baker

10.30am: S Riley, M Sherriff, R Beaton, D & M Barrientos

Cleaners 11th August: K.S.C 18th August: M & R Youd

Piety Shop 12^th August: H Thompson 13^th August: O McGinley

Ulverstone:

Readers: A & F Pisano Ministers of Communion: M Murray, J Pisarskis, C Harvey, P Grech

Cleaners: K.S.C. Flowers: M Swain Hospitality: M & K McKenzie

Penguin:

Greeters: Fefita Family Commentator:   Readers: Fefita Family

Ministers of Communion: E Nickols, J Barker

Liturgy: Penguin Setting Up: E Nickols Care of Church: M Bowles, M Owen

Latrobe:

Reader: H Lim   Ministers of Communion: M Kavic, Z Smith   Procession of Gifts: J Hyde

Port Sorell:

Readers: G Bellchambers, E Holloway Ministers of Communion: B Lee

Cleaners/Flowers/Prep: G Bellchambers, M Gillard



Readings this week – Transfiguration of the Lord – Year A

First Reading: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14

Second Reading: 2 Peter 1:16-19

Gospel: Matthew 17:1-9

PREGO REFLECTION:

If it helps and if I am able, I go to a quiet place somewhere outside, where I can be alone before God.
I imagine Jesus inviting me to come with him to my place of prayer.
I read the Gospel slowly, and then I allow myself to be drawn more deeply into the story.
When I read about the Transfiguration, perhaps I imagine that I am one of the disciples … or I watch from a distance as the scene unfolds before me.
What do I see? What do I hear? What do I feel?
How do I respond when I see Jesus transformed with light like the sun?
God is inviting me to listen to his Beloved Son.
What does Jesus want to say to me in my prayer today?
I listen ... If I feel fear, as did the disciples, how do I want to respond when I hear Jesus tell me to stand up and let go of my fear?
As I finish my prayer, I let Jesus come with me into the rest of my day, and with him I say “Our Father ...”

Readings next week – Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

First Reading: 1 Kings 19:9.11-13

Second Reading: Romans 9:1-5

Gospel: Matthew 14:22-33

Your prayers are asked for the sick: Joy Hanrahan, Mark Diaz, Victoria Webb, Dawn Stevens, & …

Let us pray for those who have died recently: Mikhail Yastrebov, Alexander Obiorah snr, Nancy Bynon, Olga Delaney, Irene Aitken, Bill Glassell, Jimmy Powell, Joan Davidson,  Margaret Charlesworth, Peter Sulzberger, Fr John Reilly, Ashton Shirley, Michael Byrne, Don Mochrie, Maryanne Banks, Maria Minoza, Mary Ann Castillano.

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 2^nd – 8^th August

Jack O’Rourke, Nancy Padman, Tadeusz Poludniak, Shirley Fraser, Helena Rimmelzwaan, Thomas Hays, Mary Ellen Sherriff, Sydney Dooley, John Fennell, Pauline Taylor, Ellen & Stan Woodhouse, Terry O’Rourke, Janice Nielsen, Dorothy Smith, Jean Stuart and Kevin Breen. Also Berta & Stan Yastrebov and family.

May they rest in peace

Weekly Ramblings

I spent a couple of days in Melbourne this week attending the Corpus Christi Priests Association Jubilarians Mass and Dinner. Whilst there I also managed to catch up with two of my classmates from my own ordination year as well as I stayed the night at Corpus Christi College at Carlton and caught up with our Tasmanian Seminarians.

I also managed to catch up with several close friends who have been experiencing poor health in recent times and stayed the night at the old seminary site at Clayton as a guest of the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny. As well I managed to meet with members of the Australian Alpha Team at the headquarters in Box Hill and chatted with them regarding how we might be able to move forward with Alpha in our Parish. All in all a good visit although like every time you try to visit people interstate there is always much more I could have done if I had more time.

In a fortnight’s time we will be hosting the Archbishop as he comes to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation at the Vigil Mass at Devonport (19^th August) and at the 9am Mass at Ulverstone (20^th August). There are 24 children and 1 adult being confirmed at these two ceremonies - please pray for these candidates and their families that this sacrament will become the opportunity for them to have deeper relationship with God and our community.
This coming week we have the Parish Pastoral Council Meeting which will be looking at our Parish Vision and making preparations for the Parish Forum (Gathering) to be held on Sunday, 27th August, at 2pm in the Community Room at Ulverstone. This will be an opportunity to seek your assistance to find ways to ‘give flesh’ to the ideas that are being developed in conjunction with the Parish Pastoral Council.

Please take care on the roads and in your homes,

MACKILLOP HILL

ST MARY MACKILLOP’S FEASTDAY: Tuesday 8^th August - You are warmly invited to celebrate this special occasion by joining us for afternoon tea at 123 William Street, Forth on Tuesday 8th August between 2:30pm and 5:30pm RSVP Monday 7^th August. Phone 6428:3095      Email   mackillophill.forth@sosj.org.au

LIVING IN HOPE: SCRIPTURE GATHERINGS

What – a series of 3 sessions based on the Sunday Gospels

When – Thursday mornings 10am -11:30am August 10th, 17th & 24th

Where - ‘Parish House’ 90 Stewart Street, Devonport.

If you would like to join this group for reflection/discussion please contact Clare Kiely-Hoye 6428:2760

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 19 (28^th July) footy margin 6 – Winners; Dawn Cornelius

BINGO - Thursday Nights

OLOL Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm! Callers for Thursday 10^th August – Tony Ryan & Alan Luxton.



NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:

SACRED HEART CATHOLIC SCHOOL ULVERSTONE – KINDERGARTEN ENROLMENTS 2018

Sacred Heart Catholic School are seeking expressions of interest for Kindergarten enrolments for 2018 in order to help finalise numbers.

Children born in 2013 and turning five in 2018 are eligible for enrolment. Parents/Carers wishing to enrol their child/children for Kindergarten in 2018 will need to do this as soon as possible.

For families interested in finding out more information about Sacred Heart Catholic School, please feel free to make an appointment by phone 6425:2680 or email: debbie.butcher@catholic.tas.edu.au

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 info email youth@aohtas.org.au or call Tom 0400 045 368.

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



SUICIDE – REDEEMING THE MEMORY OF A LOVED ONE

This is an article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original of the article can be found here

One year ago, virtually everyone who knew him was stunned by the suicide death of the most prominent American Hispanic theologian that we have produced up to now, Virgilio Elizondo. Moreover, Virgil wasn’t just a very gifted, pioneering theologian, he was also a beloved priest and a warm, trusted friend to countless people. Everyone dies, and the death of a loved one is always hard, but it was the manner of his death that left so many people stunned and confused. Suicide! But he was such a faith-filled, sensitive man. How could this be possible?

And those questions, like the muddy waters of a flood, immediately began to seep into other emotional crevices, leaving most everyone who knew him with a huge, gnawing question: What does this do his work, to the gift that he left to the church and to the Hispanic community? Can we still honor his life and his contribution in the same way as we would have had he died of a heart attack or cancer? Indeed, had he died of a heart attack or cancer, his death, though sad, would undoubtedly have had about it an air of healthy closure, even of celebration, that we were saying farewell to a great man we had had the privilege to know, as opposed to the air of hush, unhealthy quiet, and unclean grief that permeated the air at his funeral.

Sadly, and this is generally the case when anyone dies by suicide, the manner of that death becomes a prism through which his or her life and work are now seen, colored, and permanently tainted. It shouldn’t be so, and it’s incumbent on us, the living who love them, to redeem their memories, to not take their photos off our walls, to not speak in guarded terms about their deaths, and to not let the particular manner of their deaths color and taint the goodness of their lives. Suicide is the least glamorous and most misunderstood of all deaths. We owe it to our loved ones, and to ourselves, to not further compound a tragedy.

So each year I write a column on suicide, hoping it might help produce more understanding around the issue and, in a small way perhaps, offer some consolation to those who have lost a loved one in this way. Essentially, I say the same things each year because they need to be said. As Margaret Atwood once put it, some things need to be said and said and said again, until they don’t need to be said any more. Some things need still to be said about suicide.

What things? What needs to be said, and said again and again about suicide? For the sake of clarity, let me number the points:

First, in most cases, suicide is the result of a disease, a sickness, an illness, a tragic breakdown within the emotional immune system or simply a mortal biochemical illness.

For most suicides, the person dies, as the does the victim of any terminal illness or fatal accident, not by his or her own choice. When people die from heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and accidents, they die against their will. The same is true in suicide.

We should not worry unduly about the eternal salvation of a suicide victim, believing (as we used to) that suicide is the ultimate act of despair. God’s hands are infinitely more understanding and gentler than our own. We need not worry about the fate of anyone, no matter the cause of death, who leaves this world honest, over-sensitive, over-wrought, too bruised to touch, and emotionally-crushed, as is the case with most suicides. God’s understanding and compassion exceed our own. God isn’t stupid.

We should not unduly second-guess ourselves when we lose a loved one to suicide: What might I have done? Where did I let this person down? What if? If only I’d been there at the right time!Rarely would this have made a difference. Most of the time, we weren’t there for the very reason that the person who fell victim to this disease did not want us to be there. He or she picked the moment, the spot, and the means precisely so we wouldn’t be there. Suicide seems to be a disease that picks its victim precisely in such a way so as to exclude others and their attentiveness. This is not an excuse for insensitivity, but is a healthy check against false guilt and fruitless second-guessing. Suicide is a result of sickness and there are some sicknesses which all the love and care in the world cannot cure.

Finally, it’s incumbent upon us, the loved ones who remain here, to redeem the memory of those who die in this way so at to not let the particular manner of their deaths become a false prism through which their lives are now seen. A good person is a good person and a sad death does not change that. Nor should a misunderstanding.



CHURCH ATTENDANCE: WHY BOTHER?

From the weekly blog by Fr Michael white, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity. You can find the original of the blog here

Fewer Christians are attending church each year.

This is true in North and South America, Eastern and Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, you name it.

There are lots of reasons why. The culture of religion has been usurped by professional and kids sports. Add that to a list that includes secularization, rejection of authority, the abuse scandal, and a culture drowning in options.

But underneath any and every reason is a haunting question people increasingly ask themselves:

Why bother?

No kidding, for more and more people, it just no longer makes sense to go to church. In many churches, the weekend experience is, frankly, boring and bad: mediocre, uninspiring music and irrelevant messages easily awaken the question “why bother?”

But even if your church has a great weekend experience, that question doesn’t go away. Think about it. Here at Nativity we live stream all of our Sunday morning Masses and then we rebroadcast them throughout the day, six more times! Additionally, all of my weekend messages are available on demand on line. You can catch Nativity on any device, anywhere, anytime.

Why bother going to church?

If your church doesn’t have an online experience, no worries, about a million others do. You can access almost any church you want, anywhere, anytime. Free. Increasingly, there’s no point to attending, at least to merely attending church.

The time has come, in an urgent way, when we must move beyond “attending” church, out of obligation, guilt, mere habit, or some consumer impulse to “go to communion.” We have to help our parishes make this transition too:

A transition from attending church to being church. Being church means a change in mindset, attitude, and actions from consumers to contributors. This means

A full, active, and joyful celebration of the Eucharist, that includes singing and staying till the end.

Getting up out of the pews to serve other parishioners in a parish ministry, as well as a commitment beyond the weekend experience to discipleship steps of serving, giving, and prayer.

Developing a heart for Evangelization, through (among other things) a lifestyle that increasingly reflects Christ.

Don’t Attend Church. Be the Church.

Alternative Orthodoxy

Taken from the Daily email by Fr Richard Rohr. You can subscribe to receive the emails here

A Third Way

The Franciscan Tradition in which I’ve been formed is an “alternative orthodoxy” or heterodoxy. While we are part of the Roman Catholic faith and embrace the great Christian Tradition, we are not mainstream. Francis (c. 1181-1226) and Clare (1194-1253) of Assisi paid attention to and emphasized different things than the Church’s leaders and theologians of their time. Franciscans don’t throw out the mainline tradition; we simply place our effort and our energy on overlooked or misunderstood aspects of the tradition. We all do that in our own ways. There’s something honest about the Franciscan experience in naming it.

Francis didn’t bother questioning doctrines and dogmas of the Church. He just took the imitation of Christ seriously and tried to live the way that Jesus lived! One of the earliest accounts of Francis, the “Legend of Perugia,” quotes Francis as telling the first friars, “You only know as much as you do.” [1] His emphasis on action, practice, and lifestyle was foundational and revolutionary for its time and is at the root of Franciscan alternative orthodoxy. Francis and Clare fell in love with the humanity and humility of Jesus. For them Jesus was someone to actually imitate and not just to worship as divine.

You may be wondering, “How can Franciscanism be an alternative and still be called orthodox (right and true)?” Heterodoxy is precisely a third something in between orthodoxy and heresy! I sincerely think Francis found a Third Way, which is the creative and courageous role of a prophet and a mystic. He repeated the foundational message of all prophets: the message and the medium for the message have to be the same thing. Francis emphasized the medium itself, instead of continuing to clarify the mere verbal message (which tends to be the “priestly” job).

The early Franciscan friars and Poor Clares wanted to be Gospel practitioners instead of merely “word police,” “inspectors,” or “museum curators” as Pope Francis calls some clergy. Both Francis and Clare offered their rules as a forma vitae, or form of life. They saw orthopraxy (correct practice) as a necessary parallel, and maybe even precedent, to verbal orthodoxy (correct teaching). History has shown that many Christians never get to the practical implications of their beliefs! “Why aren’t you doing what you say you believe?” the prophet invariably asks. As the popular paraphrase of Francis’ Rule goes, “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.

References:

[1] “The Legend of Perugia,” Saint Francis of Assisi: Omnibus of Sources (Franciscan Press: 1991), 74.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Returning to Essentials: Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy, disc 1 (CAC: 2015), CD, MP3 download; and

Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 81, 86-87.

Spirituality of Change

Metanoia, Jesus’ first message upon beginning his ministry (Mark 1:15, Matthew 4:17), is unfortunately translated with the moralistic word repent. Metanoia literally means change or even more precisely “Change your mind!” So it is strange that the religion founded in Jesus’ name has been resistant to change and has tended to love and protect the past and the status quo much more than the positive and hopeful futures that could be brought about by people open to change. Maybe that is why our earth is so depleted and our politics are so pathetic. We have not taught a spirituality of actual change or growth, which is what an alternative orthodoxy always asks of us.

CAC faculty member Cynthia Bourgeault describes this process of transformation:

[It is] the full emergence of the glory of the mind of Christ. The alternative orthodoxy begins in a view that God is not opposed to us; God is for us. How is God served by people who fail to germinate? God is rapturously delighted in every human being whose heart breaks open and blooms. Then, as human beings come to their glory, the world comes to its glory. It’s a view which is inclusive, recognizing that human beings on all paths are called to glorification, to the full emergence of the human being. It’s evolutionary in that we are a work in progress, both individually and collectively. Creation itself is not static but dynamic. [1]

One of the CAC’s Core Principles is: “We do not think ourselves into a new way of living, but we live ourselves into a new way of thinking.” [2] However, much of religion doesn’t demand changes to our lifestyle or habits. The best way to avoid actually changing is to go into one’s head and endlessly argue about what “changing” means. Human minds love to argue, oppose, critique, judge, evaluate, and adjust—it gives our little minds a job. Academics, politicians, and seminary professors love to stay right where they are and rarely hit the streets of the incarnate or suffering world as Jesus clearly did.

Franciscan alternative orthodoxy doesn’t bother fighting popes, bishops, Scriptures, or dogmas. As stated in another of CAC’s core principles, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same.” This alternative orthodoxy quietly but firmly pays attention to different things—like simplicity, humility, non-violence, contemplation, solitude and silence, earth care, nature and other creatures, and the “least of the brothers and sisters.” These are our true teachers. The Rule of Saint Francis—which Rome demanded Francis develop—was often thought of as “Tips for the Road” and hardly a rule at all. Like Jesus, Francis taught his disciples while walking from place to place and finding ways to serve, to observe, and to love in the world that was right in front of them.

References:

[1] Cynthia Bourgeault, Returning to Essentials: Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy, disc 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2015), CD, MP3 download.

[2] “The Eight Core Principles of the Center for Action and Contemplation,” https://cac.org/about-cac/missionvision/.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis (Sounds True: 2010), CD.

Simplicity

Most of us have grown up with a capitalist worldview which makes a virtue and goal out of accumulation, consumption, and collecting. It’s hard for us to see this as an unsustainable and unhappy trap because all of our rooms are decorated in this same color. It is the only obvious story line that our children see. “I produce therefore I am” and “I consume therefore I am” might be today’s answers to Descartes’ “I think therefore I am.” These identities are all terribly mistaken.

This foundational way of seeing has blinded us so that we now tend to falsely assume more is better. The course we are on assures us of a predictable future of strained individualism, severe competition as resources dwindle for a growing population, and perpetual war. Our culture ingrains in us the belief that there isn’t enough to go around. This determines much if not most of our politics. In the United States there is never enough for health care, education, the arts, or basic infrastructure. The largest budget is always for war, bombs, and military gadgets.

E. F. Schumacher said years ago, “Small is beautiful,” and many other wise people have come to know that less stuff invariably leaves room for more soul. In fact, possessions and soul seem to operate in inverse proportion to one another. Only through simplicity can we find deep contentment instead of perpetually striving and living unsatisfied. Simple living is the foundational social justice teaching of Jesus, Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, Pope Francis, and all hermits, mystics, prophets, and seers since time immemorial.

Franciscan alternative orthodoxy asks us to let go, to recognize that there is enough to go around and meet everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed. A worldview of enoughness will predictably emerge in an individual as they move toward naked being instead of thinking that more of anything or more frenetic doing can fill up our longing and restlessness. Francis did not just tolerate or endure such simplicity, he actually loved it and called it poverty. Francis dove into simplicity and found his freedom there. This is hard for most of us to even comprehend. Thankfully, people like Dorothy Day and Wendell Berry have illustrated how this is still possible even in our modern world.

Francis knew that climbing ladders to nowhere would never make us happy nor create peace and justice on this earth. Too many have to stay at the bottom of the ladder so we can be at the top. Alternative orthodoxy levels the playing field and offers abundance and enoughness to all, regardless of their status or state of belonging to religion or group.

References:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis, discs 1 and 2 (Sounds True: 2010), CD.

For more on simple living see Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), chapter 3.

Incarnation instead of Atonement

Franciscan alternative orthodoxy emphasizes incarnation instead of redemption. For the Franciscans, Christmas is more significant than Easter. Christmas is already Easter! Since God became a human being, then it’s good to be human, and we’re already “saved.” Franciscans never believed in the sacrificial atonement theory because it wasn’t necessary. Christ was Plan A, not Plan B. Atonement implies that God had a plan, we messed it up, and then God had to come back in to mop-up our mistakes.

As I mentioned earlier this month, Franciscan John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) said the plan from the beginning was to reveal Godself as Christ. Jesus didn’t come as a remedy for sin—as if God would need blood before God could love what God created. The idea that God, who is love, would demand the sacrifice of his beloved Son in order to be able to love what God created is the conundrum that reveals how unsatisfying that quid pro quo logic really is.

Franciscans believe that Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity. It didn’t need changing: God has organically, inherently loved what God created from the moment God created. Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. This sets everything on an utterly positive foundation. Rather than being an ogre, God is Love. Rather than being sinners in the hands of an angry God, we are inherently and forever loved by God, no matter what we do or don’t do.

This is such an essential and foundational element in healthy Christianity that we will spend a whole week of meditations later in the year trying to clarify it. For now, just realize that the Church in the thirteenth century was broad-minded enough to accept this alternative orthodoxy as a minority position.

References:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking, disc 3 (CAC: 2012), CD, MP3 download; and

Returning to Essentials: Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy, disc 2 (CAC: 2015), CD, MP3 download.

At Home in the World

Franciscan alternative orthodoxy emphasized the cosmos instead of churchiness. For the first few centuries, Franciscans’ work was not about the building of churches and the running of services in the churches. We were not intended to be parish priests. Francis himself refused priesthood, and most of the original friars were laymen rather than clerics. Francis knew that once you are in an authority position in any institution, your job is to preserve that institution, and your freedom to live and speak the full truth becomes limited. We were to always occupy the position of “minority” in this world. (The M in OFM stands for minor: Ordo Fratrum Minorum.) Francis wanted us to live a life on the edge of the inside—not at the center or the top, but not outside throwing rocks either. This unique position offers structural freedom and hopefully spiritual freedom, too.

Francis, a living contemplative, walked the roads of Italy in the thirteenth century shouting, “The whole world is our cloister!”[1] By narrowing the scope of salvation to words, theories, churches, and select groups, we have led many people not to pay any attention to the miracles that are all around them all the time here and now. Either this world is the very “Body of God” or we have little evidence of God at all.

The early Franciscans said the first Bible was not the written Bible, but creation itself, the cosmos. “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divinity—however invisible—have become visible for the mind to see in all the things that God has made” (Romans 1:20). This is surely true; but you have to sit still in it for a while, observe it, and love it without trying to rearrange it by thinking you can fully understand it. This combination of observation along with love—without resistance, judgment, analysis, or labeling—is probably the best description of contemplation I can give. You simply participate in “a long, loving look at the Real.” [2]

For Francis, nature itself was a mirror for the soul, for self, and for God. Clare used the word mirror more than any other metaphor for what is happening between God and soul. The job of religion and theology is to help us look in the mirror that is already present. All this “mirroring” eventually effects a complete change in consciousness. Thomas of Celano, Francis’ first biographer, writes that Francis would “rejoice in all the works of the Lord and saw behind them things pleasant to behold—their life giving reason and cause. In beautiful things he saw Beauty Itself, and all things were to him good.” [3] This mirroring flows naturally back and forth from the natural world to the soul. All things find themselves in and through one another. Once that flow begins, it never stops. You’re home, you’re healed, you’re saved—already in this world.

References:

[1] “Sacred Exchange between St. Francis & Lady Poverty,” Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999), 552.

[2] William McNamara as quoted by Walter J. Burghardt, “Contemplation: A Long, Loving Look at the Real,” Church, No. 5 (Winter 1989), 14-17.

[3] Thomas of Celano, “Second Life of St. Francis,” Saint Francis of Assisi: Omnibus of Sources (Franciscan Press: 1991), 494-5.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking, disc 3 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), CD, MP3 download; and

In the Footsteps of Francis: Awakening to Creation (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2010), CD, MP3 download.

Ignatius, Peter and Mission

The life of the saint whose feast we celebrate on 31 July was changed completely when he read the stories of the saints who had come before him. But tradition has it that Ignatius had a devotion to St Peter even before his conversion as a convalescent, and that it was Peter’s intercession that brought about his recovery. To mark Ignatius’s feast, Philip Endean SJ explores this tradition and how it may have played out, both in Ignatius’s own life and in the mission of the Society of Jesus ever since. The original of this article can be found here

A few years before he died, Ignatius Loyola dictated his life story. He recalled how serious his injuries had been after the cannonball shattered his leg. On June 28, the vigil of the feast of St Peter and St Paul, the doctors told him that ‘unless he felt improvement by midnight he could be counted as dead’, and he received the sacraments. But then healing came. As Ignatius’s own dictated narrative puts it, ‘the said patient had a regular devotion to St Peter, and so Our Lord willed that that same midnight he should begin to find himself better.’

Peter and the Church

‘A regular devotion to St Peter’. There is no hint of this detail in any of the earlier documents about Ignatius’s life, but Peter’s role in Ignatius’s recovery soon became part of the biographical tradition. In his full-dress Latin biography published a few years after Ignatius’s death, Pedro de Ribadeneira explicitly speaks of ‘the direct intervention of Divine Providence and Saint Peter’s intercession’. In a Spanish version, he comments that Ignatius had always had Peter ‘as a particular patron and advocate, and as such had reverenced and served him’. When a few years later, Juan de Polanco, who had served as Ignatius’s secretary for the last nine years of his life, repeated the substance of Ribadeneira’s account, he added another detail: the youthful Ignatius had even venerated Peter with Spanish hymns composed in his honour.

In this year of 2017, the Reformation jubilee reminds us of a sharp polemical significance that may be informing Ignatius’s recollection of his healing, and of St Peter’s role in it. Though Luther’s rupture with the Church centred originally on the theology of grace and on the abusive practice of indulgences, it had quickly broadened to a bitter rejection of papal authority as such. In his trenchant treatise on the sacraments, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, written in 1520, Luther complains that ‘the Roman pontiff with his despotism’ has betrayed the freedom that comes from dying and rising with Christ in baptism. Instead of preaching and defending this liberty, and teaching the gospel of justification by faith alone, ‘he seeks only to oppress us with his decrees and his laws, and to enslave and ensnare us in the tyranny of his power’.

Against such a background, one can easily understand why one respected commentator on Ignatius’s Autobiography claims that Ignatius’s devotion to St Peter, which predates what he presents as his conversion, ‘is not to be understood as a devotion to just any old saint’. Rather, it says something quite emphatic about a devotion to the Church, for which ‘St Peter even in the Middle Ages was understood and venerated’ as a representative figure – a devotion only intensified by the struggle of Christians against the Moors in Spain. Ignatius’s mature achievement, ‘the founding of his order that would be wholly at the Pope’s disposal’, has its roots in an instinctive attitude going deeper than any formal theology. Though Ignatius throughout his life had to struggle with authority figures in the Church lacking sympathy with his project, and accusing him all too easily of illuminist heresy, he was always a man of the Church. His movement may have represented some version of reform, but never protest. For all the tensions he had to live with, Ignatius’s life within the Church was always, and impressively, an unquestioned given.

The other reference to St Peter in Ignatius’s Autobiography reinforces the point. In Paris, Ignatius was short of money, and he thought of offering himself as paid help to one of the teachers. He tells us that he found consolation in imagining the master as Christ, and the various students as the apostles – Peter, John and so on. He continues revealingly: ‘and when the master commands me, I’ll think that it’s Christ who’s commanding me, and when someone else commands me, I’ll think it’s St Peter who’s commanding me.’ Peter is not simply one disciple among others. He also commands.

Growing in devotion

But Ignatius’s devotion to Peter nevertheless involved something more than respect for order and authority. Peter was important, not so much because he represented an authority to be defended against its critics, but rather because he provided the foundation on which new forms of church life could be securely built, manifesting new and greater divine glory. Perhaps it is significant that in the Autobiography, Peter appears, discreetly and simply, as Ignatius is healed, before the other saints come on the scene. Perhaps Peter represents a tacit, traditional foundation for the daydreams, and for the discernment between them, that come later, with Ignatius's convalescence.

As another commentator on the Autobiography has noted, Peter’s presence at Ignatius’s healing seems to emerge from a devotion centred on exterior practices and cults, and on a God whose providence is found in particular events conceived as momentary divine interventions. But by the time the text was dictated, Ignatius was operating differently. When he recalls his aggressive reaction, shortly after leaving Loyola, to a Moor questioning Mary’s perpetual virginity, he comments that he was not yet ‘considering anything within himself, nor knowing what humility was, or charity, or patience, or discernment in regulating and balancing these virtues’. Gradually Ignatius’s religion had become more interior. At the end of the Autobiography, ‘devotion’ meant a habitual facility in finding God, whatever the situation. ‘(E)very time and hour he wanted to find God, he found him.’

Ignatius’s devotion did not stay still. His apostolic project could only exist in change, in interaction, in relationship. ‘La Compagnia si può dire solamente in forma narrative’ – as Pope Francis, who is obviously uniquely placed to speak of Peter’s role in Ignatian spirituality, put it during his celebrated interview with Antonio Spadaro in August 2013. Talk about the Society of Jesus and its charism – whether what others say of it or how it imagines itself – must take a narrative form. If you do not get beyond philosophical and theological discussion, if you are content with abstractions such as ‘devotion to Peter’, you miss important points.

On matters of authority and obedience in general, and on papal devotion in particular, Ignatius’s thought can easily seem contradictory. We can find a revealing pair of examples in his letters. Writing to the king of Ethiopia, in the context of an attempt to bring him within the Western church, Ignatius is uncompromising on Rome’s authority. The patriarch in Alexandria or Cairo is like ‘a limb severed from the body’. ‘The Catholic Church is but one throughout the whole world; there cannot be one church under the Roman pontiff and another under the Alexandrian. As Christ her bridegroom is one, so his spouse the Church is one.’ Contrast this with the instruction Ignatius gave to the first Jesuits to be sent as a group to Germany, to the effect that they should avoid losing credibility ‘as papiste (Ignatius coins an Italian word in the middle of a Latin text), through ill-judged partisanship’. Their ‘zeal in countering heresy’ must rather be such as ‘to reveal love for the heretics themselves and a compassionate desire for their salvation’. How can the same man have written both letters?

Ignatius’s loyalty to Peter and the Church may never have wavered, but it was constantly deepening and broadening. It was chiefly expressed through service and mission, and thus its expressions took different forms in different contexts. There was always a greater divine glory that could be imagined. Explaining the Jesuit’s vow of special obedience to the pope for mission in the Constitutions, Ignatius is direct: ‘The intention of the fourth vow pertaining to the pope was not to designate a particular place but to have the members distributed throughout the various parts of the world’. Whenever Jerónimo Nadal, sent by Ignatius around Europe to explain the Jesuit way of life, evoked St Peter’s role in Ignatius’s healing at Loyola, he encouraged in his hearers not only a devotion to Peter but also to Paul, the missionary. Nadal may have been elaborating on his source, but he was doing so in a way that fully respected its spirit.

The centre and the horizon

As Pope Francis put it in the Spadaro interview, a Jesuit’s centredness in Christ and in the Church makes sense only if this enables him to look ‘at the horizon towards which he must go’. A true devotion to the centre leads us to become ‘searching, creative and generous’. Being a ‘contemplative in action’ amounts to a twofold ‘profound closeness’: both to ‘holy mother the hierarchical church’, and to the experience of the people of God on the peripheries.

‘It is difficult to speak of the Society’, says Pope Francis. Its central commitments to Christ and the Church are expressed through service and mission to others. The theories are set within a context of narratives – narratives recounting the immediate and ever different dealings of God with God’s people. The process is guided by an ‘aura mystica’ that ‘never defines its borders or completes its thought’. It requires us to be people ‘of incomplete thought, of open thought’. Living as a loyal Catholic Christian with this sort of commitment can lead to painful tensions. Pope Francis refers to the difficulties he himself experienced as a Jesuit in this regard. For his part, the theologian Karl Rahner, adopting the persona of Ignatius speaking to a contemporary Jesuit, evoked the ‘miracle’ of how the same Society can be both radically charismatic and at the same time profoundly united with the institutional Church. ‘You must try to bring about the miracle of this identification over and over again. The sums will never work out. But keep on trying to do it. One of the two on its own isn’t enough. Only the two together are enough to crucify you.’

Peter missioning

One final text from the early Jesuits. Speaking to the community in Alcalá in 1561, Jerónimo Nadal was developing the analogy between the new Society of Jesus and the Lord’s disciples being sent out on mission. Before the gospel had been written, the disciples had lived by tradition; the first Jesuits, prior to the writing of the Constitutions had lived in the same way, without a written text. Ignatius, speaking to his companions, had used words of St Peter: ‘you know, brothers, our way and order of life; therefore, as you go, act that way’.

There is no record in Scripture of Peter saying anything like this. The quotation thus reveals the workings of the early Jesuits’ own spiritual imaginations. Prior to written constitutions, they lived from a deep intimacy and companionship among themselves, no doubt firstly with Christ, but now nevertheless with Peter representing him. In one sense that way and order of life contains within itself everything that Jesuit disciples need. That life requires them to live euntes – in going out. To borrow from Jorge Mario Bergoglio in his speech at the consistory before the 2013 conclave, it is as though there is a Christ knocking at the door from within his disciples and within the Church, bidding us to let him come out. This is the Christ of whom Peter is the vicar, or representative. And if the Church keeps that Jesus within itself, it becomes ‘self-referential and sick’.

References

Besides the hyperlinks, see Ignatius’s Autobiography, nn. 3, 75, 14, 99 – commentaries by Burkhard Schneider and Antoine Lauras; Ribadeneira in Claude Pavur’s ET, pp. 12-13, Spanish in FN 4.85; Polanco in FN 2.517 – the Latin is ambiguous as to whether Ignatius himself did the composing. The English translation of Pope Francis’s interview is worth comparing with the Italian original. The two Ignatian letters cited (24/9/1549; 16/2/1555) can be found in standard selections. Constitutions VII.1.B [605]; Jerónimo Nadal in MN 5.268, 5.245-46.

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Friday, 4 August 2017

Transfiguration of the Lord (Year A)