Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
OUR VISION
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
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
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
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER
Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
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.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Weekday Masses 28th - 31st August
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin ... St Augustine
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe ... Passion of John the Baptist
Thursday: 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Weekend Masses 1st - 2nd September, 2018
Saturday Vigil 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 1st & 2nd September,
2018
Devonport: 
Readers Vigil: M Gaffney, H Lim, M Stewart 10:30am: A Hughes, T Barrientos, P Piccolo
Ulverstone:
Penguin:
Latrobe:
Port Sorell:
Readings this week –Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
Gospel: John 6:60-69
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
As I come to my place of prayer, I allow my mind to slow
and settle in whatever way suits me best.
When I feel ready, I reflect over
these last few weeks of the Gospel teaching on the Eucharist ... from the
description of the feeding of the Five Thousand to the teaching of Jesus as the
Bread of Life.
How have I responded to these readings?
I hold these thoughts in
mind and then slowly read the Gospel passage.
It may help my prayer to use my
imagination to see the events and actions unfold before me.
I perhaps place
myself within the scene as a bystander, or as one of the Twelve.
What do I
notice?
Where is my attention drawn?
What do I feel?
Jesus says his words are
spirit and they are life.
What does this mean to me?
I read the Gospel again,
this time perhaps focusing on the end of the passage, where only Jesus and the
Twelve are present.
I place myself in the heart of the scene, and when Jesus
says ‘What about you [my name], do you want to go away too ...?’
How do I
respond?
In silence I listen to Jesus as he in turn responds to me.
I close my
prayer making a slow sign of the cross.
Readings next week –Twenty Second Sunday
in Ordinary Time (Year B)
Gospel: Mark
7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
Joy Kiely, Charlotte Milic, Carmel Covington, Deborah Leary, Edgar Nool, Mary Webb, Rosalinda Grimes, Trish Ridout & ….
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Antonia (Toni) Ross, Natasha Gowans, Nilo Floresta, Alan O’Rourke, June Bourke, Heather Margetts, Joseph Thi, John Brown, Tony Barker, Anthony Shaddock-Johnston
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 22nd – 28th August
Patricia Smith, Bernard Hensby, Jean Flight, Vincenzo DeSantis, Lyn Chessell, Nial McKee, Len Burton, Joseph Hawkes, Michael Cassidy, Jack Page, Robert Lee.
Weekly
Ramblings
Late on Sunday afternoon we learnt
of the death of Mrs Antonia (Toni) Ross, Fr Richard’s mother. Her funeral was
celebrated at Corpus Christi Church, Bellerive on Friday and Frs Phil, Paschal
and I were able to be there with priests from the Diocese and interstate to
pray for the repose of her soul and support Fr Richard and his family. May she
Rest in Peace. 
Please
take care on the roads and I look forward to seeing you next weekend. 
A working bee in the garden at St Mary’s Church will take place on Saturday 1st from 10am. Roses need to be pruned, garden beds need to be rejuvenated and a general clean up. Any helpers would be most appreciated.
Following 6pm Mass Saturday 1st September at St Mary's Church Penguin the parishioners will be holding a Casserole Night. All welcome. Parishioners are invited to bring a casserole dish and/or a sweet dish to share with everyone. A great way to get to know fellow parishioners and to have the time to sit and chat to old friends. For more information with regard either of these notices please phone 6429:1353.
MACKILLOP HILL SPIRITUALITY CENTRE - Spirituality in the Coffee Shoppe. Monday 27th August 10.30 - 12 noon Come along…share your issues and enjoy a lively discussion over morning tea! Phone: 6428 3095 Email: rsjforth@bigpond.net.au
YOUTH GROUP: Fr Paschal is in need of some Board
Games for the Youth Group, if anyone has any that are no longer needed, they
would be greatly appreciated. Please
contact Fr Paschal or drop them into the Office.
MERSEY LEVEN ROSARY GROUP; Early reminder that our Annual Rosary Pilgrimage will be held on Sunday 7th October 2018. Please make a note in your diaries of this important event in the life of our Parish. A bus will be provided for those without transport. For further details contact Hermie 0414 416 661, Paschale 0439 570 924 or Michael 0447 018 068.
CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL TASMANIA welcomes your attendance with Fr Alexander Obiorah and Fr Paschal Okpon to the Charismatic healing Mass at St Mary’s Catholic Church, Penguin on Thursday 20 September at 7pm. After Mass, teams will be available for individual prayer. Please bring a friend and a plate for supper to share in the Hall. Contacts: Celestine 6424:2043, Michael 0447 018 068, or Tom 6425 2442.
FOOTY
TICKETS:
Round 22 (Friday 17th August) Richmond won by 8 points.
Congratulations to the following winners; Zillah Jones, Helen Jaffray &
Eileen Smith. NO Tickets this weekend – Bye next Friday
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 30th August – Tony Ryan & Graeme Rigney
The Sick and Aged Priest Fund was established to ensure that all diocesan priests incardinated into the Archdiocese of Hobart would receive adequate accommodation, health care and support needed in their retirement, or should they become ill. Retirement expenses are currently met by the Sick and Aged Priest Fund via donations and bequests, and by priests themselves. There are no federal or state government grants to support clergy in retirement.
Please give generously to the Sick and Aged Priest Appeal on the weekend of 1 and 2 September.
Swallowed by a Whale
and the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
The gift you carry for
others is not an attempt to save the world but to fully belong to it. It’s not
possible to save the world by trying to save it. You need to find what is
genuinely yours to offer the world before you can make it a better place. Discovering
your unique gift to bring to your community is your greatest opportunity and
challenge. The offering of that gift—your true self—is the most you can do to
love and serve the world. And it is all the world needs. —Bill Plotkin [1]
[1] Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of
Nature and Psyche (New World Library: 2003), 13.
BEAUTIFUL STOICS
This article is taken from the archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article and many others here
There’s a rich literature being written today by some highly intelligent, sensitive men and women who might best be described as agnostic stoics. Unlike some of their atheistic counterparts whose one-sided attacks on religion suggest that they “doth protest too much”, this group doesn’t protest at all. They don’t attack faith in God; indeed they often see salient religious doctrines like belief in the incarnation in Christ, belief in original sin, and belief in a resurrection as helpful myths that can be invaluable for our self-understanding, akin to the great myths of the ancient world. They’re warm to spirituality and are sometimes better apologists for depth of soul and the place of mystery in our lives than their explicitly religious counterparts. It’s just that, in the end, they bracket belief in God.
At an intellectual level, you see this in people like the late James Hillman and many of his followers (though some of those followers have, unlike their master, taken a more belligerent and negative attitude towards faith in God and religion). You see this too is in a good number of contemporary novelists who write from fairly deliberate agnostic perspective. And you see this in wonderful biographical books, like Nina Riggs’, The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying.
What these authors all have in common is this: They look at life’s deepest questions and face those questions with courage and sensitivity, but only from an agnostic and stoic perspective. How do you make sense of things, if there’s no God? How do you face the finality of death, if there’s no afterlife? How do you ground love as an absolute, if there’s no Absolute upon which to ground it? How can the precious events of our lives have lasting meaning, if there’s no personal immortality? How do we face the shortcomings of our lives and own mortality, if this life is all there is?
They face these questions honestly and courageously without an explicit belief in God and come to peace with them, find meaning for themselves, and garner the insight and courage they need to live with answers that don’t include faith in God and belief in an afterlife. There’s a courageous stoicism in that for sure, but in many of their writings there’s also a certain beauty. You get the sense that this is an honest, beautiful soul wrestling with life’s deepest questions and coming to an acceptable peace that itself encapsulates the kind of compassion that all the great religions place at their center. Inside of religious literature you can meet some beautiful saints. Inside of secular literature you can meet some beautiful stoics.
But there’s one thing upon which I want to challenge these beautiful stoics: They try to answer a deep question: How do we make sense of life if there’s no God and no afterlife and how do we make sense of life if the tenets of faith are not true, but mere projection? That’s a fair question, worth asking. But this is my protest: While these authors face with courage and honesty the question of what it means if God doesn’t exist and there’s no afterlife, they never face with the same courage and honesty the question: What if there really is a God and an afterlife and the essential tenets of faith are true? How does one live then? What if our probing minds and noble sentiments are in fact grounded in a loving, personal God? That would be an even more-honest and more-courageous agnosticism, and an even more beautiful stoicism.
True agnosticism speaks of an open mind, one so open that it’s reticent to shut down any real possibility. And the existence of God is a real possibility.
At any given time in history, our age included, the vast majority of human beings believe in the existence of God and the existence of an afterlife. Atheists have never been the cognitive majority. If this is true, and it is, then why are good, courageous, honest, and sensitive men and women reluctant to take their agnosticism down both alleyways, that is: How do we shape our lives if there’s no God and no afterlife – and how do we shape our lives if there is a God and an afterlife?
If one wants to look at the meaning of life as courageously and honestly as possible, shouldn’t the question of God and the afterlife, and not just its antithesis, be one of the horizons against which that discernment occurs? I suspect the reluctance of many of these authors to give equal consideration to the possibility of the truth of religion comes from the fact that, up to modern times, the bulk of all literature perennially considered life’s deep questions more or less exclusively from a religious rather than an agnostic perspective. What our agnostic authors are contributing is an alternative, a different voice from the dominant voice in history (though not the dominant voice within secular society today).
Still it makes for some valuable insights from some beautiful stoics.
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.
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)
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month.
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart of Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Mondays 7pm Community Room Ulverstone
Weekday Masses 28th - 31st August
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin ... St AugustineWednesday: 9:30am Latrobe ... Passion of John the Baptist
Thursday: 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Weekend Masses 1st - 2nd September, 2018
Saturday Vigil 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Readers Vigil: M Gaffney, H Lim, M Stewart 10:30am: A Hughes, T Barrientos, P Piccolo
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Please
take care on the roads and I look forward to seeing you next weekend.
and the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 1st & 2nd September,
2018
Devonport:
Readers Vigil: M Gaffney, H Lim, M Stewart 10:30am: A Hughes, T Barrientos, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil: D Peters, M Heazlewood, T Muir, M
Gerrand, P Shelverton
10:30am: F Sly, E Petts, K Hull, S
Arrowsmith
Cleaners: 31st Aug: F Sly, M Hansen, R McBain 7th Sept: M.W.C.
Piety Shop: 1st
Sept: L Murfet 2nd Sept: P Piccolo
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: E Cox Ministers of
Communion: P Steyn,
E Cox, C Singline, M Barry
Cleaners: Flowers: C Mapley Hospitality: Filipino Community
Penguin:
Greeters: J Garnsey Commentator: E Nickols Readers: Fifita Family
Ministers of
Communion: J
Garnsey, S Ewing Liturgy: SCJ
Setting Up: T Clayton
Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton
Latrobe:
Reader: M Eden Minister of Communion: M Mackey Procession of Gifts: Parishioner
Port Sorell:
Readers: G
Bellchambers, L Post Minister of Communion: P
Anderson Cleaners: C
Howard
Readings this week –Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
First Reading: Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18
Second Reading: Ephesians 5:21-32
Gospel: John 6:60-69
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
As I come to my place of prayer, I allow my mind to slow
and settle in whatever way suits me best.
When I feel ready, I reflect over
these last few weeks of the Gospel teaching on the Eucharist ... from the
description of the feeding of the Five Thousand to the teaching of Jesus as the
Bread of Life.
How have I responded to these readings?
I hold these thoughts in
mind and then slowly read the Gospel passage.
It may help my prayer to use my
imagination to see the events and actions unfold before me.
I perhaps place
myself within the scene as a bystander, or as one of the Twelve.
What do I
notice?
Where is my attention drawn?
What do I feel?
Jesus says his words are
spirit and they are life.
What does this mean to me?
I read the Gospel again,
this time perhaps focusing on the end of the passage, where only Jesus and the
Twelve are present.
I place myself in the heart of the scene, and when Jesus
says ‘What about you [my name], do you want to go away too ...?’
How do I
respond?
In silence I listen to Jesus as he in turn responds to me.
I close my
prayer making a slow sign of the cross.
Readings next week –Twenty Second Sunday
in Ordinary Time (Year B)
First Reading: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8
Second Reading: James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27
Gospel: Mark
7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
Joy Kiely, Charlotte Milic, Carmel Covington, Deborah Leary, Edgar Nool, Mary Webb, Rosalinda Grimes, Trish Ridout & ….
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Antonia (Toni) Ross, Natasha Gowans, Nilo Floresta, Alan O’Rourke, June Bourke, Heather Margetts, Joseph Thi, John Brown, Tony Barker, Anthony Shaddock-Johnston
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 22nd – 28th August
Patricia Smith, Bernard Hensby, Jean Flight, Vincenzo DeSantis, Lyn Chessell, Nial McKee, Len Burton, Joseph Hawkes, Michael Cassidy, Jack Page, Robert Lee.
Weekly
Ramblings
Late on Sunday afternoon we learnt
of the death of Mrs Antonia (Toni) Ross, Fr Richard’s mother. Her funeral was
celebrated at Corpus Christi Church, Bellerive on Friday and Frs Phil, Paschal
and I were able to be there with priests from the Diocese and interstate to
pray for the repose of her soul and support Fr Richard and his family. May she
Rest in Peace.
This weekend the children preparing
to receive the Eucharist for the first time next weekend continued their
preparation program. We all know the challenges that families encounter at this
time and so I ask that you pray with me that they will truly be strengthened by
this sacrament so that they hear the words of Jesus – ‘Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I
shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world’ and know the power of
his love and presence in their lives.
Next Saturday we have been invited
to join the parishioners of the Burnie-Wynyard Parish at a presentation by
members of the National Working Party preparing for the Plenary 2020. Details of
the gathering at Marist College are on the Noticeboards – if you are intending
to be there please contact the Burnie Parish Office on 64321 2216. The Parish
Pastoral Team meets this Sunday and will be looking at plans for our response
to the Plenary initiatives from a National, Diocesan and local perspective. The
gathering in Burnie will be a great launching pad for what we do in our Parish
in the months to come.
During the week Pope Francis, as well as many other Church
leaders, wrote regarding the recent revelations of cover-ups in the USA regarding
the Abuse of Minors. I know that words are not enough to take away the pain and
anguish caused by abuse of any kind so I will be in Our Lady of Lourdes Church this
coming Friday (31st Aug) from 7.00pm and I invite you to join me for
a time of prayer for healing. If you wish to read Pope Francis’ letter you can
find it here: https://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html
and click on Letters.
Please
take care on the roads and I look forward to seeing you next weekend.
ST MARY’S CHURCH PENGUIN
A working bee in the garden at St Mary’s Church will take place on Saturday 1st from 10am. Roses need to be pruned, garden beds need to be rejuvenated and a general clean up. Any helpers would be most appreciated.
Following 6pm Mass Saturday 1st September at St Mary's Church Penguin the parishioners will be holding a Casserole Night. All welcome. Parishioners are invited to bring a casserole dish and/or a sweet dish to share with everyone. A great way to get to know fellow parishioners and to have the time to sit and chat to old friends. For more information with regard either of these notices please phone 6429:1353.
MACKILLOP HILL SPIRITUALITY CENTRE - Spirituality in the Coffee Shoppe. Monday 27th August 10.30 - 12 noon Come along…share your issues and enjoy a lively discussion over morning tea! Phone: 6428 3095 Email: rsjforth@bigpond.net.au
YOUTH GROUP: Fr Paschal is in need of some Board
Games for the Youth Group, if anyone has any that are no longer needed, they
would be greatly appreciated. Please
contact Fr Paschal or drop them into the Office.
OLOL READERS – Rosters are available in the sacristy this week-end.
FROM THE PARISH PASTORAL TEAM (FELICITY SLY – CHAIR)
The Parish Pastoral Team will be meeting on Sunday. I would like to thank Jenny Garnsey, who has resigned from the PPT, due to work commitments. Jenny has been a hard working participant in, and chair of, the Parish Pastoral Council and we appreciate all she has contributed. She has been of great assistance to the new representatives of the MLCP as we form the PPT.
One of the items on the agenda of our meeting is the Plenary Council 2020. The opening phrase on the Plenary Council website (http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au) states:
Together, we are on a journey of listening to God by listening to one another. Thank you to the parishioners who have given the PPT the opportunity to listen; please keep these conversations happening.
I’m inviting others to join me at the Plenary Council gathering to be held at Marist College on Saturday, September 1, from 10am - 12.30pm. I would enjoy some company on the journey to and from Burnie, so if you would like to travel with me, please phone or email me (contact details are on the masthead of this Newsletter). 2020 seems a long way off, but I’m sure it will be here before we know it!
Felicity Sly
MERSEY LEVEN ROSARY GROUP; Early reminder that our Annual Rosary Pilgrimage will be held on Sunday 7th October 2018. Please make a note in your diaries of this important event in the life of our Parish. A bus will be provided for those without transport. For further details contact Hermie 0414 416 661, Paschale 0439 570 924 or Michael 0447 018 068.
CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL TASMANIA welcomes your attendance with Fr Alexander Obiorah and Fr Paschal Okpon to the Charismatic healing Mass at St Mary’s Catholic Church, Penguin on Thursday 20 September at 7pm. After Mass, teams will be available for individual prayer. Please bring a friend and a plate for supper to share in the Hall. Contacts: Celestine 6424:2043, Michael 0447 018 068, or Tom 6425 2442.
FOOTY
TICKETS:
Round 22 (Friday 17th August) Richmond won by 8 points.
Congratulations to the following winners; Zillah Jones, Helen Jaffray &
Eileen Smith. NO Tickets this weekend – Bye next Friday
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 30th August – Tony Ryan & Graeme Rigney
The Sick and Aged Priest Fund was established to ensure that all diocesan priests incardinated into the Archdiocese of Hobart would receive adequate accommodation, health care and support needed in their retirement, or should they become ill. Retirement expenses are currently met by the Sick and Aged Priest Fund via donations and bequests, and by priests themselves. There are no federal or state government grants to support clergy in retirement.
Please give generously to the Sick and Aged Priest Appeal on the weekend of 1 and 2 September.
Swallowed by a Whale
This article is taken from the Daily Emails from Fr Richard Rohr OFM
The gift you carry for
others is not an attempt to save the world but to fully belong to it. It’s not
possible to save the world by trying to save it. You need to find what is
genuinely yours to offer the world before you can make it a better place. Discovering
your unique gift to bring to your community is your greatest opportunity and
challenge. The offering of that gift—your true self—is the most you can do to
love and serve the world. And it is all the world needs. —Bill Plotkin [1]
Vocation does not come
from willfulness. It comes from listening. . . . That insight is hidden in the
word vocation itself, which is rooted in the Latin for “voice.” Vocation does
not mean a goal I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. . . . I must listen
for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity. —Parker Palmer [2]
I believe that the Book of Jonah can best be read as God
moving someone from a mere sense of duty or career to a sense of personal call,
vocation, or destiny. Notice that this vocation is almost thrust upon Jonah. It
sometimes takes being “swallowed by a whale” and taken into a dark place of
listening and discernment to let go of our small, separate self and its private
agenda. Jonah had to be shoved out of the boat, or he would never reach Nineveh,
the place to which God had called him. Eventually, we must allow ourselves to
be drawn by our soul’s desire rather than driven by ego needs.
The motivating energies of ego and soul are very different.
The soul’s impulse comes quietly and generously from within; we do not look for
payment, reward, or advancement because we have found our soul gift, our
inherent gladness. To be an oblate—someone who is offered—is quite different
from seeking security, status, or title.
Listen, wait, and pray for your unique gift, your True Self.
Meditation should lead to a clarity about what you are and, maybe even more
importantly, what you are not. I have found it difficult over the years to tell
people when something is not their gift; it is usually very humiliating for the
person to face their own illusions and sense of entitlement. One sign that
something is your vocation is that you would do it for free, even if there is
no reward or social payoff. This clarifies a vocation quite quickly.
Parker Palmer writes:
How much dissolving and shaking of ego we must endure before
we discover our deep identity—the true self within every human being that is
the seed of authentic vocation. . . .
Today I understand vocation . . . not as a goal to be
achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean
scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of
true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice “out there”
calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice “in here”
calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood
given me at birth by God. [3]
[1] Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of
Nature and Psyche (New World Library: 2003), 13.
[2] Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the
Voice of Vocation (Jossey-Bass: 2000), 4.
[3] Ibid., 9-10.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing
the World from a Place of Prayer (Paulist Press: 2014), 82-83.
BEAUTIFUL STOICS
This article is taken from the archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article and many others here
There’s a rich literature being written today by some highly intelligent, sensitive men and women who might best be described as agnostic stoics. Unlike some of their atheistic counterparts whose one-sided attacks on religion suggest that they “doth protest too much”, this group doesn’t protest at all. They don’t attack faith in God; indeed they often see salient religious doctrines like belief in the incarnation in Christ, belief in original sin, and belief in a resurrection as helpful myths that can be invaluable for our self-understanding, akin to the great myths of the ancient world. They’re warm to spirituality and are sometimes better apologists for depth of soul and the place of mystery in our lives than their explicitly religious counterparts. It’s just that, in the end, they bracket belief in God.
At an intellectual level, you see this in people like the late James Hillman and many of his followers (though some of those followers have, unlike their master, taken a more belligerent and negative attitude towards faith in God and religion). You see this too is in a good number of contemporary novelists who write from fairly deliberate agnostic perspective. And you see this in wonderful biographical books, like Nina Riggs’, The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying.
What these authors all have in common is this: They look at life’s deepest questions and face those questions with courage and sensitivity, but only from an agnostic and stoic perspective. How do you make sense of things, if there’s no God? How do you face the finality of death, if there’s no afterlife? How do you ground love as an absolute, if there’s no Absolute upon which to ground it? How can the precious events of our lives have lasting meaning, if there’s no personal immortality? How do we face the shortcomings of our lives and own mortality, if this life is all there is?
They face these questions honestly and courageously without an explicit belief in God and come to peace with them, find meaning for themselves, and garner the insight and courage they need to live with answers that don’t include faith in God and belief in an afterlife. There’s a courageous stoicism in that for sure, but in many of their writings there’s also a certain beauty. You get the sense that this is an honest, beautiful soul wrestling with life’s deepest questions and coming to an acceptable peace that itself encapsulates the kind of compassion that all the great religions place at their center. Inside of religious literature you can meet some beautiful saints. Inside of secular literature you can meet some beautiful stoics.
But there’s one thing upon which I want to challenge these beautiful stoics: They try to answer a deep question: How do we make sense of life if there’s no God and no afterlife and how do we make sense of life if the tenets of faith are not true, but mere projection? That’s a fair question, worth asking. But this is my protest: While these authors face with courage and honesty the question of what it means if God doesn’t exist and there’s no afterlife, they never face with the same courage and honesty the question: What if there really is a God and an afterlife and the essential tenets of faith are true? How does one live then? What if our probing minds and noble sentiments are in fact grounded in a loving, personal God? That would be an even more-honest and more-courageous agnosticism, and an even more beautiful stoicism.
True agnosticism speaks of an open mind, one so open that it’s reticent to shut down any real possibility. And the existence of God is a real possibility.
At any given time in history, our age included, the vast majority of human beings believe in the existence of God and the existence of an afterlife. Atheists have never been the cognitive majority. If this is true, and it is, then why are good, courageous, honest, and sensitive men and women reluctant to take their agnosticism down both alleyways, that is: How do we shape our lives if there’s no God and no afterlife – and how do we shape our lives if there is a God and an afterlife?
If one wants to look at the meaning of life as courageously and honestly as possible, shouldn’t the question of God and the afterlife, and not just its antithesis, be one of the horizons against which that discernment occurs? I suspect the reluctance of many of these authors to give equal consideration to the possibility of the truth of religion comes from the fact that, up to modern times, the bulk of all literature perennially considered life’s deep questions more or less exclusively from a religious rather than an agnostic perspective. What our agnostic authors are contributing is an alternative, a different voice from the dominant voice in history (though not the dominant voice within secular society today).
Still it makes for some valuable insights from some beautiful stoics.
STATEMENT FROM FR. MICHAEL WHITE
This statement was read by Fr Michael at all Masses at the Church of the Nativity on the weekend 18/19th August in response to the release of the report regarding the Church in Pennsylvania. I include it here because of the honesty and the challenge he presents to all of us in the Church
The terrible news out of Pennsylvania this week brought revelations that our own former Archbishop was found by a Grand Jury to be criminally negligent. This, following revelations earlier this summer of multiple, credible charges of child abuse by the former Archbishop of Washington.
Nativity stands in unity with Archbishop Lori and his official statement. Both the enormity and the depravity of the revelations provoke an array of responses, so many in fact, that to choose any one would seem to diminish my real reaction. Above everything I find myself appalled and angry.
I am appalled and angered that at least some church hierarchy, over an extended period of time, valued the institution of the Church over the safety and protection of children.
I am appalled and angered that the criminal acts and irresponsible practices of so many priests and bishops led to the abuse of so many children.
I am appalled and angered that these revelations will damage and perhaps even destroy some people’s commitment to the Church and their faith in Christ.
I am appalled and angered that, as a result, some, perhaps many who desperately need Christ in their lives will now not know him.
You may be appalled and angry too. You may be so angry that you are contemplating walking away from the Church. I get that. I do. And I pray you don’t.
Beginning in September, we will offer Eucharistic Adoration every Saturday, to invoke God’s mercy in the face of this catastrophe. To launch this new practice we will set aside the entire weekend of September 15 & 16 as a special time of prayer and adoration. We had been planning a weekend celebration that weekend, marking the parish’s 50th anniversary, but this is not a time for celebration. It is a time for prayer and new resolve.
We cannot allow men, however important or eminent their position, to get in the way of our faith in Christ. We cannot base our faith on any human being. Not a bishop, not the pope, especially not me, flawed as I am. To base your faith on any human being and their actions is a folly destined for disappointment. Christ alone is our foundation.
Neither can we equate the clergy, the hierarchy, or even the institution of the Church with the Church itself:
- the Church Christ, and Christ alone heads
- the Church Christ established as the wellspring of grace
- the Church he promised not even hell itself would prevail against (a promise now being put to the test).
We pledge our prayers for victims of child abuse and their families.
We renew our commitment to maintain the highest possible standards of safety for all of our children in all of our programs.
We firmly resolve to redouble our mission to reach Timonium for Christ, and to help other churches do the same elsewhere.
And I respectfully, humbly invite you, despite everything that has been revealed and anything to come, to continue to stand with us in that mission.
This statement was read by Fr Michael at all Masses at the Church of the Nativity on the weekend 18/19th August in response to the release of the report regarding the Church in Pennsylvania. I include it here because of the honesty and the challenge he presents to all of us in the Church
The terrible news out of Pennsylvania this week brought revelations that our own former Archbishop was found by a Grand Jury to be criminally negligent. This, following revelations earlier this summer of multiple, credible charges of child abuse by the former Archbishop of Washington.
Nativity stands in unity with Archbishop Lori and his official statement. Both the enormity and the depravity of the revelations provoke an array of responses, so many in fact, that to choose any one would seem to diminish my real reaction. Above everything I find myself appalled and angry.
I am appalled and angered that at least some church hierarchy, over an extended period of time, valued the institution of the Church over the safety and protection of children.
I am appalled and angered that the criminal acts and irresponsible practices of so many priests and bishops led to the abuse of so many children.
I am appalled and angered that these revelations will damage and perhaps even destroy some people’s commitment to the Church and their faith in Christ.
I am appalled and angered that, as a result, some, perhaps many who desperately need Christ in their lives will now not know him.
You may be appalled and angry too. You may be so angry that you are contemplating walking away from the Church. I get that. I do. And I pray you don’t.
Beginning in September, we will offer Eucharistic Adoration every Saturday, to invoke God’s mercy in the face of this catastrophe. To launch this new practice we will set aside the entire weekend of September 15 & 16 as a special time of prayer and adoration. We had been planning a weekend celebration that weekend, marking the parish’s 50th anniversary, but this is not a time for celebration. It is a time for prayer and new resolve.
We cannot allow men, however important or eminent their position, to get in the way of our faith in Christ. We cannot base our faith on any human being. Not a bishop, not the pope, especially not me, flawed as I am. To base your faith on any human being and their actions is a folly destined for disappointment. Christ alone is our foundation.
Neither can we equate the clergy, the hierarchy, or even the institution of the Church with the Church itself:
- the Church Christ, and Christ alone heads
- the Church Christ established as the wellspring of grace
- the Church he promised not even hell itself would prevail against (a promise now being put to the test).
We pledge our prayers for victims of child abuse and their families.
We renew our commitment to maintain the highest possible standards of safety for all of our children in all of our programs.
We firmly resolve to redouble our mission to reach Timonium for Christ, and to help other churches do the same elsewhere.
And I respectfully, humbly invite you, despite everything that has been revealed and anything to come, to continue to stand with us in that mission.
The Spirit and the Letter
In a letter ‘To the People of God’ this week, Pope Francis addressed the suffering caused by clerical abuse, expressing deep sorrow for the ‘heart-wrenching pain’ of victims and giving voice to the shame of the Church. James Hanvey SJ, Master of Campion Hall, University of Oxford, believes that, in trying to be attentive to the Spirit’s voice and presence, the pope’s letter marks a definitive moment from which there can be no turning back.
This article has been copied from the ThinkingFaith.org website - you can find the original article here
Pope Francis’ letter ‘To the People of God’ marks a definitive moment in the Church’s life. When placed alongside his letter in April to the Chilean bishops’ conference, it is an example of inspired leadership that has all the marks of his papacy: it is pastoral, practical, spiritual and prophetic. The pope decries ‘the deep wounds of pain’, in the victims and in the Church, arising from sexual abuse perpetrated by priests, bishops and cardinals, and asks for a profound transformation of hierarchical and presbyteral culture. This is a task that can only be accomplished by the whole People of God.
In recent months, the inexorable weight of suffering caused by abuse in the Church in all its forms has broken into the light. So too has the reality that the Church, whatever the motives, colluded with abusers to try to silence victims and hide the truth. How could any group in the Church ever think that protecting itself was of greater service to God than recognising the vast well of pain and destroyed lives – the lives of the innocent faithful? How could a Church defend the dignity of the human person and claim to be the advocate for the poor and powerless, the voice of the voiceless and the memory for the forgotten ones, when it was itself as adroit as any secular State in suppressing the cry of those it claimed to love and cherish? If the justification was to prevent scandal from undermining the faith of the People of God, who was being protected, the Church or the clerical caste? It is in this context, and with these questions legitimately being asked, that Pope Francis has written his letter to the People of God.
Some will think it just more pious words, understandably doubting if the call to penance and prayer is adequate given the enormity of the crisis and the depth of pain that it has caused and continues to cause. Yet, Francis has shown by his actions that he is not in the business of rhetoric. The letter hears the cry of the victims, too long muffled, silenced or denied, and speaks to the truth of clerical abuse in the Church, which must have been present even beyond the 70 years mapped by the Pennsylvania grand jury report. It would be a mistake to think that such abuse could be localised to America, Chile, the UK or Europe. The pope’s letter is not a political strategy, an admission of guilt in the hope that the issue can be defused, contained and forgotten once public attention is distracted by the next shock or event. Francis is not a politician; he is a servant of God and God’s Church. The Church, like those who have suffered abuse, cannot ‘just move on.’ The reality of abuse and its truth – always a deeply personal one - must erupt into the present and rupture it; it cannot be tamed or wrapped in words and consigned to history. To do so would be the greatest betrayal of all. The Spirit does not play politics or deal in deception and distraction. The coin of the Spirit is truth: the truth about God and the truth about us. Pope Francis has discerned that in the visibility and voice of those who are suffering, the Spirit is speaking. If we do not listen and then respond beyond the necessary protocols and legal instruments, the Church will miss the grace that is being offered. It will run the risk of making itself and its own survival an end in itself, succumbing to the temptation ofinstitutional idolatry.
In trying to be attentive to the Spirit’s voice and presence, I believe Francis’ letter marks a definitive moment from which there can be no turning back. The letter not only recognises the victims of clerical abuse and the culture that perpetuates it, it describes the desolation in which the Church lives because of it. Yet, the pope’s letter is not a letter of desolation it is one of consolation. The Spirit breathes through its pages.
The Spirit of witness
In the voices of all those who have been abused, the Spirit bears witness against the abusers and speaks for their victims. This is why the first response of the Church is not to rob them of their voice and their testimony. The first work of a Church genuine in its desire for conversion and repentance is to listen. This is often the hardest work of all. To analyse, categorise and bureaucratise the testimony of anyone who has been or is being abused is another act of violence. Their unique history is translated and retold in other narratives that they no longer control. Their voice is lost, their face made anonymous. If the Church really cares and sincerely desires to change, then it must listen to and honour each abused person. It must give space and time, for only then can it begin to hear, within the history of each person’s suffering, what has been taken from them and all those down the years who have been hidden.
Abuse is not just one moment or even multiple moments of violence, manipulation, deception and subjection. It enters the soul as well as the heart and mind. It is a rupture in the self and the fundamental sense of security on which identity depends. Abuse, even when buried, still has the power to hijack, destroy and undermine a life. It cannot be easily or conveniently ‘healed’ because the life of the person – their identity and confidence in themselves and their relationships – is always under threat. Often, in the case of clerical abuse, either the way in which the abuser has imposed their power or used the very formulas of faith to conceal and bind the person they are abusing, make the language of spirituality or the sacraments themselves sites of destructive memory and recall. This is why we must be very cautious about rushing to invoke such discourses as sources of understanding or promote them as strategies for recovery. The predatory abuser has already populated them, and they can be contaminated for the person who has been abused. Indeed, they may also be a symptom of the very clerical culture that has willingly or unwilling allowed abuse to remain possible.
The testimony of those who have been abused will now always be part of the Church’s identity. Their perseverance and courage is a kairos of conversion and renewal for the Church. The witness carried by the suffering of those who have been abused and their unmasking of its cause is certainly a source of desolation, but it is not disabling. It grounds the Church against the idolatry that places the institutional reputation before the lives of God’s people. Without this witness, the Church loses the truth that is the very freedom and joy of its life, the condition of its mission. The Church cannot guarantee its own existence or survival: it lives always from Christ and the life-giving Spirit. Only when it rejoices in its own poverty is it free to serve Christ and him alone.
The deepest threat to such freedom is fear: fear of acknowledging sin and corruption; fear of losing influence and security; fear of losing control and power. In all his writings, Francis highlights this temptation. This is why the Church needs to live constantly beyond itself in sacrifice and self-giving love for the life of the world. As Vatican II saw clearly in Lumen Gentium, this is not only the form of discipleship that shapes every Christian life, it is the form of the holiness to which we are all called, whatever direction our lives and relationships may take. It is especially the case for vocations to priesthood and religious life.
Clericalism pretends to protect the sacrament of priesthood; in fact, it instrumentalises it, placing it not at the disposal of God or the community but purely for the benefit of self. This is the great temptation of every gift of office, secular or ecclesial, and the only way of resisting it, is to seek to live with an interior knowledge of one’s own poverty, the habitus of humility and gratitude for the gift with which one has been entrusted. This is what is visible in the lives of so many priests and religious (women and men) spent in the ‘widows’ mite’ of mundane service. In this sense, conversion is not a sudden moment but a life-long process that requires prayer (in good times, bad times and boring times), honesty, humility, courage and faith. The deeper the love we have for Christ and the world created and redeemed in him, the more we will wish to remove whatever is an obstacle to him and his work. Under the dynamic power of this love, the Church will constantly ask the Spirit to renew and dilate its life that it may live more fully the semper maior of a cruciform love. This is the process that Francis has been speaking about in all of his writings and homilies. He understands that the Church is not just an institutional structure but one that is made up of people. If the structures are relationships and these relationships are to reflect the economy of God’s truth, mercy and love, then that economy must be rooted in the lives and relationships of all its members.
The Spirit of remembering and intercession
The Spirit is the one who calls all things to mind and in that act also intercedes. In ‘remembering’ the Holy Spirit takes our narrative and places it within that of Christ’s narrative, salvation history. As the psalmist says, ‘In your light we see light.’ The transpositional and interpretive work of the Spirit makes the reconciling and liberating grace of Christ accessible and active within the tortured history of humanity. In such a way the Spirit guarantees the ultimate justice of God, for no innocent suffering is ever lost or devalued, it is illuminated and shines in the darkness. In the crucified and risen Christ, the Church sees every victim and their wounds, and through the action of the Holy Spirit, every celebration of Eucharist is an anamnesis of him and them made present before us and in every moment that has gone before or still to come. It is, indeed, a dangerous memory for it subverts the strategies of the avoidance and suppression. It reverses the values of all the hierarchies of power and, as the letter of Pope Francis makes clear, the Lord shows us ‘on which side he stands.’ Whenever the priest who abuses celebrates the Eucharist he stands in this penetrating light which exposes all that is hidden; he encounters this Lord and in him the victims of his own abuse.
Through the epiclesis of the Spirit, the whole community is present both in witness and in intercession, for the Spirit is also the creator of this solidarity. Solidarity does not mean that we take on the guilt of the perpetrator but the suffering of the victims, resolving to hear their cry and seek justice for them; we become their advocates in prayer and in life. In this way, we can begin to experience the deep grace of the Church’s life and its hope: the real communio of the saints for whom intercession is a real work of repair. The faith-full community of Eucharist and intercession brings to the long, obscure and crooked road of history a healing and guiding light, already a sign that the Kingdom is present. We cannot love Christ unless we love his Church, no matter how disfigured and weak, yet never abandoned by the Spirit that dwells with the community and, like the Shekinah, fills it with a glory that will heal the world.
The Spirit of consolation and new life
There are no barriers for the Holy Spirit. Even the secular world that maintains that it has no place for God cannot be immune to the Spirit. It can even be the Spirit’s instrument. Is it not this secular world that has held the Church accountable when it could not do so for itself? Is it not the secular courts and agencies that have taught the Church the necessity of transparency, without which there can be no credibility? Through these institutes of the State, the Spirit is teaching the Church ‘to say an emphatic “no” to all forms of clericalism.’ The secular world, too, calls the Church to conversion: to be a Church it can trust and believe.
At the risk of some distorting generalisation, up to now the Church has relied on technical changes to deal with the abuse crisis: procedures, protocols, legal structures, etc. These are necessary, but they will not change a culture; they are the necessary signs of conversion, but they are not conversion itself. Indeed, they may become substitutes for it. The pope is engaged in something much more difficult: he is asking for the profound adaptive change that conversion requires. Such adaptive change is no threat to the essence and the truth of the Church; it recovers it.
Francis is asking us to go much further than safeguarding programmes, procedures and disciplinary structures, essential though they undoubtedly are. The pope, servant of the Council, recognises that we must renew ecclesial culture, creating a priesthood and episcopacy that are conformed to the sacrament upon which they are based. New structures will need to be developed that give this expression, embody justice and compassion, and protect all parties from falsehood and exploitation. These structures will need to reflect an effective subsidiarity within the life of the Church and an openness to expertise irrespective of gender or ecclesial status. The Spirit must be allowed to penetrate every aspect of the Church’s life and this will require a willingness to discern and learn from all sources. This is the adaptive change of conversion that embeds a new habitus. Such change is always the most difficult and painful. Often it will put those who advocate it or lead it at risk of rejection or scapegoating. It requires us to face the truth and not shift the blame; it obliges us not to short-circuit the process with ‘quick fixes’ to avoid pain or embarrassment. It moves us to another level of perception and understanding, to step out beyond what is familiar and comfortable, to let our minds and hearts be renewed until we begin to have ‘the mind of Christ’. This takes time; it requires the grace of fortitude and perseverance, but also faith in God’s people and the charisms that the Spirit has so richly bestowed upon them.
There will be many who wish to resist the adaptive change of conversion to which Pope Francis and those who have been abused are calling the Church. They may have convinced themselves that such change is not necessary, or that what is needed is some restorationist reform rather than an institutional metanoia. Yet, there can be no flight from the reality that now faces the Church. Those who think that they can restore the Church’s dignity or that of its priests by dressing in ever more extravagant vestments, confusing liturgy with theatre, thinking that God is somehow more attentive to a ‘sacred language’ than to the unadorned prayer of the anawim, risk being the guardians of an empty tomb. They are deaf to the words of the angel: ‘why do you seek the living among the dead?’ They have forgotten the common dress and language of the God who comes pro nobis, transcendent in his very poverty and simplicity; whose dignity lies in the washing of our feet.
The Risen Christ is not the prisoner of history but its Lord and saviour. A Church that confesses and follows him must understand that in order to be faithful to Christ in history, we must change ourselves in order to change history. This is the condition of the Church’s very existence and mission: to witness more clearly and effectively to the Lord who alone can heal and restore what is human in a world that is desperately trying to remember what the human is.
The pope’s letter is marking out the road we must take if we genuinely love the Church, the Body of Christ, and believe in her mission.
In a letter ‘To the People of God’ this week, Pope Francis addressed the suffering caused by clerical abuse, expressing deep sorrow for the ‘heart-wrenching pain’ of victims and giving voice to the shame of the Church. James Hanvey SJ, Master of Campion Hall, University of Oxford, believes that, in trying to be attentive to the Spirit’s voice and presence, the pope’s letter marks a definitive moment from which there can be no turning back.
This article has been copied from the ThinkingFaith.org website - you can find the original article here
Pope Francis’ letter ‘To the People of God’ marks a definitive moment in the Church’s life. When placed alongside his letter in April to the Chilean bishops’ conference, it is an example of inspired leadership that has all the marks of his papacy: it is pastoral, practical, spiritual and prophetic. The pope decries ‘the deep wounds of pain’, in the victims and in the Church, arising from sexual abuse perpetrated by priests, bishops and cardinals, and asks for a profound transformation of hierarchical and presbyteral culture. This is a task that can only be accomplished by the whole People of God.
In recent months, the inexorable weight of suffering caused by abuse in the Church in all its forms has broken into the light. So too has the reality that the Church, whatever the motives, colluded with abusers to try to silence victims and hide the truth. How could any group in the Church ever think that protecting itself was of greater service to God than recognising the vast well of pain and destroyed lives – the lives of the innocent faithful? How could a Church defend the dignity of the human person and claim to be the advocate for the poor and powerless, the voice of the voiceless and the memory for the forgotten ones, when it was itself as adroit as any secular State in suppressing the cry of those it claimed to love and cherish? If the justification was to prevent scandal from undermining the faith of the People of God, who was being protected, the Church or the clerical caste? It is in this context, and with these questions legitimately being asked, that Pope Francis has written his letter to the People of God.
Some will think it just more pious words, understandably doubting if the call to penance and prayer is adequate given the enormity of the crisis and the depth of pain that it has caused and continues to cause. Yet, Francis has shown by his actions that he is not in the business of rhetoric. The letter hears the cry of the victims, too long muffled, silenced or denied, and speaks to the truth of clerical abuse in the Church, which must have been present even beyond the 70 years mapped by the Pennsylvania grand jury report. It would be a mistake to think that such abuse could be localised to America, Chile, the UK or Europe. The pope’s letter is not a political strategy, an admission of guilt in the hope that the issue can be defused, contained and forgotten once public attention is distracted by the next shock or event. Francis is not a politician; he is a servant of God and God’s Church. The Church, like those who have suffered abuse, cannot ‘just move on.’ The reality of abuse and its truth – always a deeply personal one - must erupt into the present and rupture it; it cannot be tamed or wrapped in words and consigned to history. To do so would be the greatest betrayal of all. The Spirit does not play politics or deal in deception and distraction. The coin of the Spirit is truth: the truth about God and the truth about us. Pope Francis has discerned that in the visibility and voice of those who are suffering, the Spirit is speaking. If we do not listen and then respond beyond the necessary protocols and legal instruments, the Church will miss the grace that is being offered. It will run the risk of making itself and its own survival an end in itself, succumbing to the temptation ofinstitutional idolatry.
In trying to be attentive to the Spirit’s voice and presence, I believe Francis’ letter marks a definitive moment from which there can be no turning back. The letter not only recognises the victims of clerical abuse and the culture that perpetuates it, it describes the desolation in which the Church lives because of it. Yet, the pope’s letter is not a letter of desolation it is one of consolation. The Spirit breathes through its pages.
The Spirit of witness
In the voices of all those who have been abused, the Spirit bears witness against the abusers and speaks for their victims. This is why the first response of the Church is not to rob them of their voice and their testimony. The first work of a Church genuine in its desire for conversion and repentance is to listen. This is often the hardest work of all. To analyse, categorise and bureaucratise the testimony of anyone who has been or is being abused is another act of violence. Their unique history is translated and retold in other narratives that they no longer control. Their voice is lost, their face made anonymous. If the Church really cares and sincerely desires to change, then it must listen to and honour each abused person. It must give space and time, for only then can it begin to hear, within the history of each person’s suffering, what has been taken from them and all those down the years who have been hidden.
Abuse is not just one moment or even multiple moments of violence, manipulation, deception and subjection. It enters the soul as well as the heart and mind. It is a rupture in the self and the fundamental sense of security on which identity depends. Abuse, even when buried, still has the power to hijack, destroy and undermine a life. It cannot be easily or conveniently ‘healed’ because the life of the person – their identity and confidence in themselves and their relationships – is always under threat. Often, in the case of clerical abuse, either the way in which the abuser has imposed their power or used the very formulas of faith to conceal and bind the person they are abusing, make the language of spirituality or the sacraments themselves sites of destructive memory and recall. This is why we must be very cautious about rushing to invoke such discourses as sources of understanding or promote them as strategies for recovery. The predatory abuser has already populated them, and they can be contaminated for the person who has been abused. Indeed, they may also be a symptom of the very clerical culture that has willingly or unwilling allowed abuse to remain possible.
The testimony of those who have been abused will now always be part of the Church’s identity. Their perseverance and courage is a kairos of conversion and renewal for the Church. The witness carried by the suffering of those who have been abused and their unmasking of its cause is certainly a source of desolation, but it is not disabling. It grounds the Church against the idolatry that places the institutional reputation before the lives of God’s people. Without this witness, the Church loses the truth that is the very freedom and joy of its life, the condition of its mission. The Church cannot guarantee its own existence or survival: it lives always from Christ and the life-giving Spirit. Only when it rejoices in its own poverty is it free to serve Christ and him alone.
The deepest threat to such freedom is fear: fear of acknowledging sin and corruption; fear of losing influence and security; fear of losing control and power. In all his writings, Francis highlights this temptation. This is why the Church needs to live constantly beyond itself in sacrifice and self-giving love for the life of the world. As Vatican II saw clearly in Lumen Gentium, this is not only the form of discipleship that shapes every Christian life, it is the form of the holiness to which we are all called, whatever direction our lives and relationships may take. It is especially the case for vocations to priesthood and religious life.
Clericalism pretends to protect the sacrament of priesthood; in fact, it instrumentalises it, placing it not at the disposal of God or the community but purely for the benefit of self. This is the great temptation of every gift of office, secular or ecclesial, and the only way of resisting it, is to seek to live with an interior knowledge of one’s own poverty, the habitus of humility and gratitude for the gift with which one has been entrusted. This is what is visible in the lives of so many priests and religious (women and men) spent in the ‘widows’ mite’ of mundane service. In this sense, conversion is not a sudden moment but a life-long process that requires prayer (in good times, bad times and boring times), honesty, humility, courage and faith. The deeper the love we have for Christ and the world created and redeemed in him, the more we will wish to remove whatever is an obstacle to him and his work. Under the dynamic power of this love, the Church will constantly ask the Spirit to renew and dilate its life that it may live more fully the semper maior of a cruciform love. This is the process that Francis has been speaking about in all of his writings and homilies. He understands that the Church is not just an institutional structure but one that is made up of people. If the structures are relationships and these relationships are to reflect the economy of God’s truth, mercy and love, then that economy must be rooted in the lives and relationships of all its members.
The Spirit of remembering and intercession
The Spirit is the one who calls all things to mind and in that act also intercedes. In ‘remembering’ the Holy Spirit takes our narrative and places it within that of Christ’s narrative, salvation history. As the psalmist says, ‘In your light we see light.’ The transpositional and interpretive work of the Spirit makes the reconciling and liberating grace of Christ accessible and active within the tortured history of humanity. In such a way the Spirit guarantees the ultimate justice of God, for no innocent suffering is ever lost or devalued, it is illuminated and shines in the darkness. In the crucified and risen Christ, the Church sees every victim and their wounds, and through the action of the Holy Spirit, every celebration of Eucharist is an anamnesis of him and them made present before us and in every moment that has gone before or still to come. It is, indeed, a dangerous memory for it subverts the strategies of the avoidance and suppression. It reverses the values of all the hierarchies of power and, as the letter of Pope Francis makes clear, the Lord shows us ‘on which side he stands.’ Whenever the priest who abuses celebrates the Eucharist he stands in this penetrating light which exposes all that is hidden; he encounters this Lord and in him the victims of his own abuse.
Through the epiclesis of the Spirit, the whole community is present both in witness and in intercession, for the Spirit is also the creator of this solidarity. Solidarity does not mean that we take on the guilt of the perpetrator but the suffering of the victims, resolving to hear their cry and seek justice for them; we become their advocates in prayer and in life. In this way, we can begin to experience the deep grace of the Church’s life and its hope: the real communio of the saints for whom intercession is a real work of repair. The faith-full community of Eucharist and intercession brings to the long, obscure and crooked road of history a healing and guiding light, already a sign that the Kingdom is present. We cannot love Christ unless we love his Church, no matter how disfigured and weak, yet never abandoned by the Spirit that dwells with the community and, like the Shekinah, fills it with a glory that will heal the world.
The Spirit of consolation and new life
There are no barriers for the Holy Spirit. Even the secular world that maintains that it has no place for God cannot be immune to the Spirit. It can even be the Spirit’s instrument. Is it not this secular world that has held the Church accountable when it could not do so for itself? Is it not the secular courts and agencies that have taught the Church the necessity of transparency, without which there can be no credibility? Through these institutes of the State, the Spirit is teaching the Church ‘to say an emphatic “no” to all forms of clericalism.’ The secular world, too, calls the Church to conversion: to be a Church it can trust and believe.
At the risk of some distorting generalisation, up to now the Church has relied on technical changes to deal with the abuse crisis: procedures, protocols, legal structures, etc. These are necessary, but they will not change a culture; they are the necessary signs of conversion, but they are not conversion itself. Indeed, they may become substitutes for it. The pope is engaged in something much more difficult: he is asking for the profound adaptive change that conversion requires. Such adaptive change is no threat to the essence and the truth of the Church; it recovers it.
Francis is asking us to go much further than safeguarding programmes, procedures and disciplinary structures, essential though they undoubtedly are. The pope, servant of the Council, recognises that we must renew ecclesial culture, creating a priesthood and episcopacy that are conformed to the sacrament upon which they are based. New structures will need to be developed that give this expression, embody justice and compassion, and protect all parties from falsehood and exploitation. These structures will need to reflect an effective subsidiarity within the life of the Church and an openness to expertise irrespective of gender or ecclesial status. The Spirit must be allowed to penetrate every aspect of the Church’s life and this will require a willingness to discern and learn from all sources. This is the adaptive change of conversion that embeds a new habitus. Such change is always the most difficult and painful. Often it will put those who advocate it or lead it at risk of rejection or scapegoating. It requires us to face the truth and not shift the blame; it obliges us not to short-circuit the process with ‘quick fixes’ to avoid pain or embarrassment. It moves us to another level of perception and understanding, to step out beyond what is familiar and comfortable, to let our minds and hearts be renewed until we begin to have ‘the mind of Christ’. This takes time; it requires the grace of fortitude and perseverance, but also faith in God’s people and the charisms that the Spirit has so richly bestowed upon them.
There will be many who wish to resist the adaptive change of conversion to which Pope Francis and those who have been abused are calling the Church. They may have convinced themselves that such change is not necessary, or that what is needed is some restorationist reform rather than an institutional metanoia. Yet, there can be no flight from the reality that now faces the Church. Those who think that they can restore the Church’s dignity or that of its priests by dressing in ever more extravagant vestments, confusing liturgy with theatre, thinking that God is somehow more attentive to a ‘sacred language’ than to the unadorned prayer of the anawim, risk being the guardians of an empty tomb. They are deaf to the words of the angel: ‘why do you seek the living among the dead?’ They have forgotten the common dress and language of the God who comes pro nobis, transcendent in his very poverty and simplicity; whose dignity lies in the washing of our feet.
The Risen Christ is not the prisoner of history but its Lord and saviour. A Church that confesses and follows him must understand that in order to be faithful to Christ in history, we must change ourselves in order to change history. This is the condition of the Church’s very existence and mission: to witness more clearly and effectively to the Lord who alone can heal and restore what is human in a world that is desperately trying to remember what the human is.
The pope’s letter is marking out the road we must take if we genuinely love the Church, the Body of Christ, and believe in her mission.
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