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.
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.
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 18th – 21st September
Tuesday: 9:30am
Penguin
Devonport: 
Ministers of Communion: Vigil: M Heazlewood, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly,
P Shelverton
10:30am: M Sherriff, T&S Ryan, D & M
Barrientos
Cleaners: 21st
Sept: M.W.C. 28th Sept: M & R Youd
Ulverstone:
Penguin:
Latrobe:
Port Sorell:
I ask for the help of the Holy Spirit.
I may like to imagine the
scene in my mind’s eye.
Perhaps I can see the group gathered around a fire with
Jesus looking from disciple to disciple.
They are watching him, maybe sensing
something is different.
Jesus asks, ‘Who do people say I am?’
What do I notice
about the tone of his voice?
How do the disciples respond?
Now he looks
directly at me: ‘But you, who do you say I am?’
What is my response? How do I
feel?
Jesus now talks about his suffering to come.
How do I feel now?
I watch
as Peter takes him aside, trying to protect his friend.
Maybe I can identify
with this.
It can be hard to feel powerless to help those we care for.
I bring
to mind any situation where I feel I have no control, and speak to the Lord
about it.
I give what time I can, staying with the disciples gathered around
the Lord whom we love.
And I quietly ponder,
Who is Jesus for me?
Who am I for
Jesus?
When I am ready, I end with a slow and deliberate sign of the cross.
Readings next week –Twenty Fifth Sunday
in Ordinary Time (Year B)
Your prayers
are asked for the sick:
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Let us pray for those whose anniversary
occurs about this time: 12th – 18th September
Fr Paschal
on your 1st Year of Ordination to the Priesthood
Saturday 15th
September.
Weekly
Ramblings
Over these past few weeks I have been reflecting on the
Priesthood and how my understanding has changed in the 43 years since I was
ordained and in the 50 years since I applied to enter the Seminary. It has
become more of what I have been thinking about this week as Fr Paschal
celebrates his 1st anniversary of Ordination on Saturday (15th)
and Fr Fidelis commences his Priestly Ministry following his ordination on
Friday (14th).
My reflection has been further challenged by a question I
have heard repeated several times in recent weeks – what would you tell your
younger self (for me it would be my 24 year old self) about how to make sure
you are well prepared for the future and your role as a Pastor not just a
Priest.
One of the 1st things I would say would be to
ensure that I had a strong mentor/spiritual director from the beginning and
that spending time with that person regularly is an absolute priority. I would
also say that keeping ‘holy the Sabbath’ is so important – having a day off or
a time for renewal is essential and you neglect it to your peril. Essential
however to the whole life of the priest is the centrality of prayer – not just
praying the Divine Office and other prayers of the Church – but also that daily
practice of sitting in silence in presence of God and not let the busyness of
being the priest give you the reason that you don’t have time today! One other
thing that I would tell my younger self is to try to understand what people are
saying about your personality style and ask for help so that you might grow as
a rounded person so that your weaknesses might become strengths and that you
don’t crash through life thinking you’re ok.
I would also tell my younger self to strive to be a WEST
person – Welcoming, Encouraging, saying Sorry and giving Thanks. It is so easy
to presume/accept that people will respect you because you are a priest but
being gracious, grateful and appreciative will go a long way to allow people to
also love you for caring for and about them.
KARINGAL
MASS:
All parishioners are welcome to
attend Mass at Karingal on Thursday 20th September at 10:00am.
CATHOLIC
CHARISMATIC RENEWAL TASMANIA:
MT ZION
PRAYER GROUP: Invite
all parishioners to their regular meeting on Monday 24th September
at 7pm in the Community Room, Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone. At this meeting
John and Glenys Lee-Archer will share with us their recent experiences in their
pilgrimage to Halifax and Baltimore. There will be ample opportunity to ask
questions. There will also be a number of songs of praise and worship. We look
forward to your company. Please bring a plate for supper.
MERSEY
LEVEN ROSARY GROUP:
FOOTY TICKETS: Qualifying Final Friday 7th September. Melbourne won by 29 points. Winners: MLCP
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 20th September – Tony Ryan & Terry Bird.
The Creative Mind of Christ
God created each of us with particular gifts that we can
discover and use in the service of co-creating a more whole and loving world.
There are many parts of the Body of Christ; I am only one part, a “mouth.” When
I first began to teach, no one was more surprised than I was that some people
valued what I had to say! If I am able to speak well, it is only because
somehow, by grace, God has helped me get my false self out of the way. When we
are centered in our True Self we are most in touch with our creative source and
most open to be a conduit of Love.
Fidelity to contemplative practice over months, years, and
even a lifetime opens our hearts, minds, and bodies to the ongoing creative
flow of Spirit. From our experiences of
contemplation—union with Love—we can then live and work in ways that are more
compassionate and healing.
We humans are creatures of habit; our brains are wired to
think the same thoughts again and again like a broken record. Most of these
habitual thoughts are dualistic and negative. We are obsessed with labeling
things good or bad, right or wrong. Only very rarely do we change our minds
about these pre-determined, fixed assumptions. Obviously, this limits our
ability to be creative and think outside the box!
In contemplative practice, we refuse to identify with any
one side (while still maintaining our intelligence and ability to think
critically). We hold the tension of seeming conflicts and paradoxes, going
beyond words to pure, open-ended experience, which has the potential to unify contradictions.
This is a creative tension because when held with loving intention, something
utterly new and creative can emerge.
Authentic and full knowing is subject to subject through a
process of mirroring, seeing and being seen, observing reality as it is. This
is the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:16). It really is a different way
of knowing, and you can recognize it by its gratuity, open-endedness,
compassion, and by the way it is so creative and energizing in those who allow
it.
Truly great thinkers and creatives take for granted that
they have access to a different and larger mind. They recognize that a divine
flow is already happening and that everyone can plug into it. In all cases, it
is a participative kind of knowing, a being known through and not an autonomous
knowing. This is how we can become co-creators with our loving Creator.
Woe to chastity that is not practiced out of love, but woe to love that excludes chastity.
These are the words of Benoit Standaert, a Benedictine monk, and I believe they can be profitably read in our culture today where, to the detriment of everyone, the sexually active and vowed celibates alike, sexuality and chastity are generally seen as opposed to each other, as enemies.
Unfortunately, this opposition is not very well understood today, either in our culture or in our churches. In our current culture, chastity is mostly seen as a naiveté, a lack of critical sophistication, a quality you honor and protect only in children. Indeed, within the popular culture today, chastity is often disdained and seen as a fear-based moral rigidity. Ironically many of us in our churches who are trying to defend chastity are no healthier. We never link the chastity we defend to a spirituality that’s wholesome enough to able to celebrate sexuality as a beautiful gift from God that’s intended to be linked to exuberance, spirituality, and delight.
Sexuality and chastity aren’t enemies, as our culture and churches make them out to be. They’re different sides of the same coin. They need each other. Sexuality without chastity is invariably soulless and not respectful. Conversely, chastity that sees itself as somehow above or divorced from sex will invariably end up in sterility, judgment, and anger. Woe to either – if it doesn’t take the other seriously.
Unfortunately, with few exceptions, our churches have never grasped sexuality well; just as our culture, with even fewer exceptions, has never grasped chastity well. One searches, mostly in vain, for a Christian spirituality of sexuality that’s truly wholesome and which properly honors the wonderful gift God gave us in our sexuality. Likewise, one searches, mostly entirely in vain, for a secular voice that grasps the importance of chastity. When Moses was standing before the burning bush and God told him, Take off your shoes because the ground you are standing on is holy, God was speaking pre-eminently about how we, as humans, stand before each other inside the mystery of love and sexuality. Sex is life-giving only if it is given and received with proper respect.
Sexuality, as we know, is more than sex. When God created the first human beings, God looked at them and said: “It’s not good for a person to be alone!” That wasn’t just true for Adam and Eve, it’s true for every human being, every living thing, and every molecule and atom in the universe. It’s not good to be alone and sexuality is the fire within us that at every level of our being, conscious and unconscious, body and soul, drives us outward beyond our aloneness, towards family, community, friendship, companionship, procreation, co-creation, celebration, delight, and consummation. Sexuality is linked to our very instinct to continue breathing and cannot be separated from the sacredness we feel inside of us as creatures made in the image and likeness of God. And, as an energy, sexuality is sacred, never to be denigrated in the name of something higher or reduced to the casual.
Chastity, as we don’t always know, is first of all not even a sexual concept. It’s about much more. Chastity is proper respect and proper patience, not just for how we stand before sex but for how we stand before all of life. Chastity is not celibacy, much less frigidity. One can be celibate, but not chaste; just as one can be sexually active, and chaste. Chastity, properly understood, is not anti-sexual; it strives to protect sexuality from its own excessive power by surrounding it with the needed filters, patience and respect, thus allowing the other person to be fully herself or himself, allowing us to be fully ourselves, and allowing sex to be what it was intended to be, a sacred, life-giving gift.
Annie Dillard in Holy the Firm offers an interesting image of chastity. She describes how, one day, watching a butterfly struggle to emerge from its cocoon, she gave in to impatience. The process was fascinating but interminably slow; at a point, she took a candle and added some heat to the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged more quickly, but, because the process had not been given the necessary time and freedom to unfold on its own terms, the butterfly emerged with damaged wings. The natural order of things had not been given its due, a fault in chastity, an ill-advised impatience, a prematurity that causes a limp in nature.
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 18th – 21st September
Tuesday: 9:30am
Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am
Latrobe … St Januarius
Thursday: 10:00am Karingal
7:00pm
Penguin … Healing Mass
Friday: 11:00am Mt St Vincent … St Matthew
Weekend Masses 22nd & 23rd 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 22nd & 23rd September,
2018
Devonport:
Readers Vigil: M Kelly, R Baker 10:30am: J Henderson, J Phillips, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion: Vigil: M Heazlewood, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly,
P Shelverton
10:30am: M Sherriff, T&S Ryan, D & M
Barrientos
Cleaners: 21st
Sept: M.W.C. 28th Sept: M & R Youd
Piety Shop: 22nd Sept:
A Berryman 23rd Sept: D French
Presbytery Mower roster -
Sept: T Ryan
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: S Lawrence
Ministers of Communion: E Reilly, M & K McKenzie, M O’Halloran
Cleaners: V Ferguson, E Cox Flowers: M Bryan Hospitality: M Byrne, G Doyle
Penguin:
Greeters: G Hills-Eade, B Eade Readers: A Landers, E Nickols Ministers of Communion: M Hiscutt, M Murray
Liturgy: Penguin Setting Up: A Landers Care of Church: J & T Kiely
Latrobe:
Reader: H Lim Minister of
Communion: I
Campbell Procession of Gifts: Parishioner
Port Sorell:
Readers: M Badcock, L Post Minister of Communion: L Post
Cleaners: C Howard
Readings this week –Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
First Reading: Isaiah 50:5-9
Second Reading: James 2:14-18
Gospel: Mark 8:27-35
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
After I become settled, I read this passage a few times,
very slowly.
I ask for the help of the Holy Spirit.
I may like to imagine the scene in my mind’s eye.
Perhaps I can see the group gathered around a fire with
Jesus looking from disciple to disciple.
They are watching him, maybe sensing something is different.
Jesus asks, ‘Who do people say I am?’
What do I notice about the tone of his voice?
How do the disciples respond?
Now he looks directly at me: ‘But you, who do you say I am?’
What is my response? How do I feel?
Jesus now talks about his suffering to come.
How do I feel now?
I watch as Peter takes him aside, trying to protect his friend.
Maybe I can identify with this.
It can be hard to feel powerless to help those we care for.
I bring to mind any situation where I feel I have no control, and speak to the Lord about it.
I give what time I can, staying with the disciples gathered around the Lord whom we love.
And I quietly ponder,
Who is Jesus for me?
Who am I for Jesus?
When I am ready, I end with a slow and deliberate sign of the cross.
I ask for the help of the Holy Spirit.
I may like to imagine the scene in my mind’s eye.
Perhaps I can see the group gathered around a fire with
Jesus looking from disciple to disciple.
They are watching him, maybe sensing something is different.
Jesus asks, ‘Who do people say I am?’
What do I notice about the tone of his voice?
How do the disciples respond?
Now he looks directly at me: ‘But you, who do you say I am?’
What is my response? How do I feel?
Jesus now talks about his suffering to come.
How do I feel now?
I watch as Peter takes him aside, trying to protect his friend.
Maybe I can identify with this.
It can be hard to feel powerless to help those we care for.
I bring to mind any situation where I feel I have no control, and speak to the Lord about it.
I give what time I can, staying with the disciples gathered around the Lord whom we love.
And I quietly ponder,
Who is Jesus for me?
Who am I for Jesus?
When I am ready, I end with a slow and deliberate sign of the cross.
Readings next week –Twenty Fifth Sunday
in Ordinary Time (Year B)
First Reading: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20
Second Reading: James 3:16 – 4:3
Gospel: Mark
9:30-37
Your prayers
are asked for the sick:
Herman Kappelhof, Joy Kiely, Charlotte Milic, Carmel
Covington, Trish Ridout, Deborah Leary, Mary Webb, Rosalinda Grimes & ….
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Paul Reynolds, Herman and Luka Kappelhof, Maria Jakimov, Anthony O'Boyle, Anna Leary, Joseph Cowmeadow, Joan Daly, Peter Birchall, Jan
Abela, Christine McGee, Edgar Nool, Helene De Lafontaine, Fr Peter Wood MSC, Peter Shaw, Maurice Vanderfeen, Natasha Gowans, Hilario
Abarquez, Andrew McLennan, Antonia (Toni) Ross, Nilo Floresta, Tony Barker, Anthony
Shaddock-Johnston
Let us pray for those whose anniversary
occurs about this time: 12th – 18th September
Silvano Paladin, John Kopplemann, Fausta Farrow, John Hill,
Jan Deeka, Cyril Scattergood, Cyril Smith, Sybil O’Connor, John Stanford Hall, Molly Page, Melba Robertson, Dorothy
Crawford, Leonard Payne, Patrick Laird, Margaret Scanlon, Shirley Ranson, Aubrey Sheridan, Jennie Richards, Marie
& Don Stewart.
May they Rest in
Peace
Fr Paschal
on your 1st Year of Ordination to the Priesthood
Saturday 15th
September.
Mersey
Leven Parish are deeply grateful to you for your ministry among us.
Weekly Ramblings
Over these past few weeks I have been reflecting on the
Priesthood and how my understanding has changed in the 43 years since I was
ordained and in the 50 years since I applied to enter the Seminary. It has
become more of what I have been thinking about this week as Fr Paschal
celebrates his 1st anniversary of Ordination on Saturday (15th)
and Fr Fidelis commences his Priestly Ministry following his ordination on
Friday (14th).
My reflection has been further challenged by a question I
have heard repeated several times in recent weeks – what would you tell your
younger self (for me it would be my 24 year old self) about how to make sure
you are well prepared for the future and your role as a Pastor not just a
Priest.
One of the 1st things I would say would be to
ensure that I had a strong mentor/spiritual director from the beginning and
that spending time with that person regularly is an absolute priority. I would
also say that keeping ‘holy the Sabbath’ is so important – having a day off or
a time for renewal is essential and you neglect it to your peril. Essential
however to the whole life of the priest is the centrality of prayer – not just
praying the Divine Office and other prayers of the Church – but also that daily
practice of sitting in silence in presence of God and not let the busyness of
being the priest give you the reason that you don’t have time today! One other
thing that I would tell my younger self is to try to understand what people are
saying about your personality style and ask for help so that you might grow as
a rounded person so that your weaknesses might become strengths and that you
don’t crash through life thinking you’re ok.
Please take care on the roads and I look
forward to seeing you next weekend.
KARINGAL
MASS:
All parishioners are welcome to
attend Mass at Karingal on Thursday 20th September at 10:00am.
CATHOLIC
CHARISMATIC RENEWAL TASMANIA:
Welcomes your attendance with Fr Alexander Obiorah to the Charismatic healing Mass at St Mary’s Catholic Church Penguin
Thursday
20th 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.
MT ZION
PRAYER GROUP: Invite
all parishioners to their regular meeting on Monday 24th September
at 7pm in the Community Room, Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone. At this meeting
John and Glenys Lee-Archer will share with us their recent experiences in their
pilgrimage to Halifax and Baltimore. There will be ample opportunity to ask
questions. There will also be a number of songs of praise and worship. We look
forward to your company. Please bring a plate for supper.
MERSEY
LEVEN ROSARY GROUP:
The Mersey Leven Parish is holding its 16th annual
Rosary Pilgrimage around the 6 Churches of our Parish on Sunday 7th October. It is
also the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. We are praying especially for
Australia and its protection, peace, families, rekindling of our faith,
direction in our church and for the salvation of souls together with other
Catholics at locations across Australia and the whole world. In conjunction
with the forthcoming ’30 days of prayer’ event in our parish, starting on the
first weekend of October, it is a great opportunity for our parish to kick off
this event by joining in our pilgrimage. We encourage everyone to join us in
this occasion. A bus is available for those needing transport
but booking is highly essential. Itinerary will be posted at the foyer in all
churches. For further details contact Hermie 0414 416 661 or Michael 0447 018
068.
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 20th September – Tony Ryan & Terry Bird.
The Creative Mind of Christ
This article is taken from the Daily Emails from Fr Richard Rohr OFM and the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
God created each of us with particular gifts that we can
discover and use in the service of co-creating a more whole and loving world.
There are many parts of the Body of Christ; I am only one part, a “mouth.” When
I first began to teach, no one was more surprised than I was that some people
valued what I had to say! If I am able to speak well, it is only because
somehow, by grace, God has helped me get my false self out of the way. When we
are centered in our True Self we are most in touch with our creative source and
most open to be a conduit of Love.
Fidelity to contemplative practice over months, years, and
even a lifetime opens our hearts, minds, and bodies to the ongoing creative
flow of Spirit. From our experiences of
contemplation—union with Love—we can then live and work in ways that are more
compassionate and healing.
We humans are creatures of habit; our brains are wired to
think the same thoughts again and again like a broken record. Most of these
habitual thoughts are dualistic and negative. We are obsessed with labeling
things good or bad, right or wrong. Only very rarely do we change our minds
about these pre-determined, fixed assumptions. Obviously, this limits our
ability to be creative and think outside the box!
In contemplative practice, we refuse to identify with any
one side (while still maintaining our intelligence and ability to think
critically). We hold the tension of seeming conflicts and paradoxes, going
beyond words to pure, open-ended experience, which has the potential to unify contradictions.
This is a creative tension because when held with loving intention, something
utterly new and creative can emerge.
Authentic and full knowing is subject to subject through a
process of mirroring, seeing and being seen, observing reality as it is. This
is the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:16). It really is a different way
of knowing, and you can recognize it by its gratuity, open-endedness,
compassion, and by the way it is so creative and energizing in those who allow
it.
Truly great thinkers and creatives take for granted that
they have access to a different and larger mind. They recognize that a divine
flow is already happening and that everyone can plug into it. In all cases, it
is a participative kind of knowing, a being known through and not an autonomous
knowing. This is how we can become co-creators with our loving Creator.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Just This (CAC Publishing: 2017),
38-39.
CHASTITY AND LOVE
This article is taken from the archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article and many others here
Woe to chastity that is not practiced out of love, but woe to love that excludes chastity.
These are the words of Benoit Standaert, a Benedictine monk, and I believe they can be profitably read in our culture today where, to the detriment of everyone, the sexually active and vowed celibates alike, sexuality and chastity are generally seen as opposed to each other, as enemies.
Unfortunately, this opposition is not very well understood today, either in our culture or in our churches. In our current culture, chastity is mostly seen as a naiveté, a lack of critical sophistication, a quality you honor and protect only in children. Indeed, within the popular culture today, chastity is often disdained and seen as a fear-based moral rigidity. Ironically many of us in our churches who are trying to defend chastity are no healthier. We never link the chastity we defend to a spirituality that’s wholesome enough to able to celebrate sexuality as a beautiful gift from God that’s intended to be linked to exuberance, spirituality, and delight.
Sexuality and chastity aren’t enemies, as our culture and churches make them out to be. They’re different sides of the same coin. They need each other. Sexuality without chastity is invariably soulless and not respectful. Conversely, chastity that sees itself as somehow above or divorced from sex will invariably end up in sterility, judgment, and anger. Woe to either – if it doesn’t take the other seriously.
Unfortunately, with few exceptions, our churches have never grasped sexuality well; just as our culture, with even fewer exceptions, has never grasped chastity well. One searches, mostly in vain, for a Christian spirituality of sexuality that’s truly wholesome and which properly honors the wonderful gift God gave us in our sexuality. Likewise, one searches, mostly entirely in vain, for a secular voice that grasps the importance of chastity. When Moses was standing before the burning bush and God told him, Take off your shoes because the ground you are standing on is holy, God was speaking pre-eminently about how we, as humans, stand before each other inside the mystery of love and sexuality. Sex is life-giving only if it is given and received with proper respect.
Sexuality, as we know, is more than sex. When God created the first human beings, God looked at them and said: “It’s not good for a person to be alone!” That wasn’t just true for Adam and Eve, it’s true for every human being, every living thing, and every molecule and atom in the universe. It’s not good to be alone and sexuality is the fire within us that at every level of our being, conscious and unconscious, body and soul, drives us outward beyond our aloneness, towards family, community, friendship, companionship, procreation, co-creation, celebration, delight, and consummation. Sexuality is linked to our very instinct to continue breathing and cannot be separated from the sacredness we feel inside of us as creatures made in the image and likeness of God. And, as an energy, sexuality is sacred, never to be denigrated in the name of something higher or reduced to the casual.
Chastity, as we don’t always know, is first of all not even a sexual concept. It’s about much more. Chastity is proper respect and proper patience, not just for how we stand before sex but for how we stand before all of life. Chastity is not celibacy, much less frigidity. One can be celibate, but not chaste; just as one can be sexually active, and chaste. Chastity, properly understood, is not anti-sexual; it strives to protect sexuality from its own excessive power by surrounding it with the needed filters, patience and respect, thus allowing the other person to be fully herself or himself, allowing us to be fully ourselves, and allowing sex to be what it was intended to be, a sacred, life-giving gift.
Annie Dillard in Holy the Firm offers an interesting image of chastity. She describes how, one day, watching a butterfly struggle to emerge from its cocoon, she gave in to impatience. The process was fascinating but interminably slow; at a point, she took a candle and added some heat to the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged more quickly, but, because the process had not been given the necessary time and freedom to unfold on its own terms, the butterfly emerged with damaged wings. The natural order of things had not been given its due, a fault in chastity, an ill-advised impatience, a prematurity that causes a limp in nature.
Sexuality and chastity need each other. Sexuality brings the energy, the longing, the fire, and the urgency which keep us aware, consciously and unconsciously, that it’s not good to be alone. If we shut that off, we become sterile and angry. Chastity, on the other hand, tells us that, in that process of seeking union with all that’s beyond us, we must have enough patience and respect to let the other fully be other and ourselves be fully ourselves.
Reflections on the Eucharist
In this article from the ThinkingFaith.org website Fr James Hanvey SJ ponders the sacred mystery in which we participate through the simple gifts of bread and wine. It all began on that one night in an upper room in Jerusalem…
O Christ, that is what you have done for us:
In a crumb of bread the whole mystery is
(Patrick Kavanagh, The Great Hunger, VI)
If baptism is the great sacrament that brings us to life in Christ, the Mass or the Eucharist is the beating, living heart of the Church, from which that life is nourished, refreshed and renewed each day.
In the Manresa Jesuit Centre for Spirituality in Dublin is a collection of stained glass windows by the Irish artist Evie Hone (1894-1955). Her work in stained glass is one of the most distinguished aspects of her art. There is a fine example of it, depicting the crucifixion, in the great east window of Eton College Chapel. The windows in Manresa, which are on a much smaller scale, were taken from the chapel in the Jesuit house at Rahan, Tullamore.
They are a series of densely coloured, vivid scenes from the life of Christ and also of Mary. One shows Jesus, with the bread and the cup, gathered with his disciples at the Last Supper. To encounter the sacraments through the image and metaphor of a stained glass window is not a bad way of coming to think and reflect upon their mysteries. This is especially true of the Mass or the Eucharist. The stained glass not only arranges shape and colour to capture a particular scene, it is somehow ‘alive’ or dynamic as it mediates the light upon which it depends. We never quite see it the same way twice; depending on the light, its intensity or angle, something we hadn’t seen before, or noticed in that way before, is given to us. The play of light on the colours and forms of the glass is infinite; so too is the way we come to reflect upon the reality and the meaning of the Eucharist. Sometimes, we can see the whole in its radiance and beauty, at others we focus on a part that we see in a new or deeper way. The light not only makes the coloured glass and shapes visible, but the light itself become visible and active: ‘For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light’ (Psalms 36:9).
You can read the complete article by clicking here
In this article from the ThinkingFaith.org website Fr James Hanvey SJ ponders the sacred mystery in which we participate through the simple gifts of bread and wine. It all began on that one night in an upper room in Jerusalem…
O Christ, that is what you have done for us:
In a crumb of bread the whole mystery is
(Patrick Kavanagh, The Great Hunger, VI)
If baptism is the great sacrament that brings us to life in Christ, the Mass or the Eucharist is the beating, living heart of the Church, from which that life is nourished, refreshed and renewed each day.
In the Manresa Jesuit Centre for Spirituality in Dublin is a collection of stained glass windows by the Irish artist Evie Hone (1894-1955). Her work in stained glass is one of the most distinguished aspects of her art. There is a fine example of it, depicting the crucifixion, in the great east window of Eton College Chapel. The windows in Manresa, which are on a much smaller scale, were taken from the chapel in the Jesuit house at Rahan, Tullamore.
They are a series of densely coloured, vivid scenes from the life of Christ and also of Mary. One shows Jesus, with the bread and the cup, gathered with his disciples at the Last Supper. To encounter the sacraments through the image and metaphor of a stained glass window is not a bad way of coming to think and reflect upon their mysteries. This is especially true of the Mass or the Eucharist. The stained glass not only arranges shape and colour to capture a particular scene, it is somehow ‘alive’ or dynamic as it mediates the light upon which it depends. We never quite see it the same way twice; depending on the light, its intensity or angle, something we hadn’t seen before, or noticed in that way before, is given to us. The play of light on the colours and forms of the glass is infinite; so too is the way we come to reflect upon the reality and the meaning of the Eucharist. Sometimes, we can see the whole in its radiance and beauty, at others we focus on a part that we see in a new or deeper way. The light not only makes the coloured glass and shapes visible, but the light itself become visible and active: ‘For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light’ (Psalms 36:9).
You can read the complete article by clicking here
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