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 25th – 28th September
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Devonport: 
10:30am: K Hull, F Sly, E Petts, S Riley, S
Arrowsmith
Ulverstone:
Penguin:
Latrobe:
Port Sorell:
Readings this week –Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
Now I turn slowly and prayerfully to the text.
I do not need to focus on
the whole passage; I simply go where I am drawn, perhaps imagining myself in
part of the scene as the story unfolds, using my senses to notice details
around me; watching Jesus himself ...
I may find myself on the road with the
disciples, hearing their fear and uncertainty as Jesus speaks of his death;
their arguments about status.
I ponder … is there anything I am afraid to ask
the Lord?
Do I relate to the disciples’ need to feel important?
Whatever comes
to mind, I bring it openly to God, trusting in his unfailing compassion and
love.
Or perhaps I am at the house when Jesus takes the little child into his
arms.
I notice the faces around me: the child … the disciples … Jesus himself.
Maybe I catch his eye … how do I feel?
Taking my time, I speak to him from my
heart as my trusted friend ... and listen for his response.
How might Jesus be
inviting me to recognise and welcome the ’little children’ in my own life –
those without status or power; those who are helpless in any way?
I ask him to
show me. In time, I gratefully take my leave.
Glory be ......
Readings next week –Twenty Sixth 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: 19th – 25th September
Weekly
Ramblings
But the greater hope for the 30 Days is that all of us will
take a little bit of time each day – I suggest 10 minutes – to go just a little
deeper into our relationship with Jesus. As well as the regular prayers we
might say this extra 10 minutes is an opportunity to just sit silently with a
favourite passage of Scripture or the Gospel from last Sunday and use the
Lectio Divina process (see the Prego Reflection in the Bulletin) to deepen your
understanding of what God might be saying to you. Yes you might say that this
is too hard or too different but I ask that you give it a go. You will be
amazed at what God can do in your prayer time if you give God a chance.
Please
take care on the roads and I look forward to seeing you next weekend.
Mersey Leven Parish Community welcome
and congratulate ….
MT ZION
PRAYER GROUP: Invite
all parishioners to their meeting this Monday 24th September at 7pm
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 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:
From the Parish Pastoral
Team (Felicity Sly – Chair)
PLENARY COUNCIL 2020:
You are invited to join and contribute to a series of Listening and Dialogue gatherings. You could choose to join one, two or three gatherings which will be held at Parish House, 90 Stewart Street Devonport, October 18th, 25th November 1 from 10am – 11:30am. Please contact Claire Kiely-Hoye 0418 100 402 if you wish to attend.
FOOTY TICKETS: Semi Final Friday 14th September. Melbourne won by 33 points.
Winners: Sasha
Davies, Bobbie Crocker, Anne Stegmann
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 27th
September – Merv Tippett & Graeme Rigney
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE
I believe that the core of the Judeo-Christian revelation is
that we are created in the image of God. We lose that and we lose the
foundation. Clearly, God is endlessly imaginative and creative. Those who are
intensely curious, open, and creative are probably deeply in touch with the One
who continues to generate all the “ten thousand things” that surround us.
The Jesuit priest, mystic, and paleontologist Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was just such a person. His insights have much
to teach us about the importance of human creativity and ingenuity. Theologian
John Haught reflects on Teilhard’s contributions to Christianity:
Our action in the world matters, therefore, because it
contributes both to the deeper incarnation of God and to the redemptive
gathering of the whole world, and not just human souls, into the body of
Christ. The exhilarating Pauline intuition of a universe summed up in Christ
(Colossians 1:13-20; Ephesians 1:9-10) matches our scientific understanding of
a world struggling to become more. [1] Our spiritual hope, our “resting on the
future,” therefore, is simply the flowering and prolongation in human
consciousness of what has always been an anticipatory universe. . . .
Finally, [this also has] a bearing on the meaning of
worship. As Teilhard writes, “To worship was formerly to prefer God to things,
relating them to him [sic] and sacrificing them for him. To worship is now
becoming to devote oneself body and soul to the creative act, associating
oneself with that act in order to fulfill the world by hard work and
intellectual exploration.” [2]
[1] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Human Energy, trans. J. M.
Cohen (Harvest Books/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1962), 82-102.
“Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”
Abraham speaks these words to a soul in hell in the famous parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16, 19-21) and they are generally understood to mean that there exists between heaven and hell a gap that’s impossible to bridge. Nobody passes from hell to heaven. Hell is forever and no amount of regret or repentance there will get you to heaven. Indeed, once in hell, nobody in heaven can help you either, the gap between the two is eternally fixed!
But that’s not what this parable is teaching.
Some years ago, Jean Vanier delivered the prestigious Massey Lectures and he took up this parable. The point he emphasized is that the “unbridgeable chasm” referred to here is not the gap between heaven and hell as this is understood in the popular mind. Rather, for Vanier, the unbridgeable gap exists already in this world in terms of the gap between the rich and the poor, a gap that we have forever been unable to bridge. Moreover it’s a gap with more dimensions than we first imagine.
What separates the rich from the poor so definitively with a chasm that, seemingly, can never be bridged? What would bridge that gap?
The prophet Isaiah offers us a helpful image here (Isaiah 65, 25). Drawing upon a messianic dream he tells us how that gap will finally be bridged. It will be bridged, he submits, in the Messianic age, when we’re in heaven because it’s there, in an age when God’s grace is finally able to affect universal reconciliation, that the “the wolf and lamb will feed together” (or, as this is commonly read, “the lion and the lamb will lie down together.”)
The lion and the lamb will lie down together. But lions kill lambs! How can this change? Well, that’s the unbridgeable gap between heaven and hell. That’s the gap between the victim and the killer, the powerless and the powerful, the bullied and the bully, the despised and the bigot, the oppressed and the oppressor, the victim and the racist, the hated and the hater, the older brother and his prodigal brother, the poor and the rich. That’s the gap between heaven and hell.
If this is what Isaiah intuits, and I think it is, then this image contains a powerful challenge which goes both ways: It isn’t just the lion that needs to convert and become sensitive, understanding and non-violent enough to lie down with the lamb; the lamb too needs to convert and move to deeper levels of understanding, forgiveness and trust in order to lie down with the lion. Ironically, this may be a bigger challenge to the lamb than to the lion. Once wounded, once victimized, once hated, once spit on, once raped, once beaten-up by a bully, once discriminated against because of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation, and it becomes very difficult, almost impossible existentially, to truly forgive, forget, and move with trust towards the one who hurt us.
This is a tough saying, but life can be grossly unfair sometimes and perhaps the greatest unfairness of all is not the injustice of being victimized, violated, raped, or murdered, but that, after all this has been done to us, we’re expected to forgive the one who did it to us while at the same time knowing that the one who hurt us probably has an easier time of it in terms of letting go of the incident and moving towards reconciliation. That’s perhaps the greatest unfairness of all. The lamb has to forgive the lion who killed it.
And yet this is the invitation to all of us who have ever been victimized. Parker Palmer suggests that violence is what happens when someone doesn’t know what else to do with his or her suffering and that domestic abuse, racism, sexism, homophobia, and contempt for the poor are all cruel outcomes of this. What we need, he suggests, is a bigger “moral imagination”.
He’s right, I believe, on both scores: violence is what happens when people don’t know what to do with their sufferings and we do need a bigger moral imagination. But understanding that our abuser is in deep pain, that the bully himself was first bullied, doesn’t generally do much to ease our own pain and humiliation. As well, imagining how ideally we should respond as Christians is helpful, but it doesn’t of itself give us the strength to forgive. Something else is needed, namely, a strength that’s presently beyond us.
This is a tough teaching, one that should not be glibly presented. How do you forgive someone who violated you? In this life, mostly, it’s impossible; but remember Isaiah is speaking about the messianic time, a time when, finally, with God’s help, we will be able to bridge that unbridgeable chasm.
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 25th – 28th September
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe … Sts Cosmas
& Damian
Thursday: 12noon Devonport … St Vincent de Paul
Friday: 9:30am
Ulverstone … Sts Wenceslaus, Lawrence
Ruiz & Companions
Weekend Masses 29th & 30th 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 29th & 30th September,
2018
Devonport:
Readers Vigil: A McIntyre, M Williams, C Kiely-Hoye
10:30am: A Hughes, T Barrientos, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil: B O’Connor, R Beaton, T Bird, Beau
Windebank, J Heatley
10:30am: K Hull, F Sly, E Petts, S Riley, S
Arrowsmith
Cleaners: 28th
Sept: M & R
Youd 5th Oct: M.W.C
Piety Shop: 29th Sept:
L Murfet 30th Sept: T Omogbai-Musa
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: M McLaren
Ministers of Communion: M Byrne, D Griffin, K Foster, R Locket
Cleaners: V Ferguson, E Cox Flowers: G Doyle
Hospitality: S & T Johnstone
Penguin:
Greeters: J Garnsey, P Lade Commentator: E Nickols Readers: J Garnsey, A Guest
Ministers of
Communion: P Lade,
S Ewing Liturgy: S.C. J Setting Up: S Ewing
Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton
Latrobe:
Reader: M Chan Minister of
Communion: H Lim Procession of Gifts: M Clarke
Port Sorell:
Readers: G Bellchambers, D Leaman Minister of Communion: L Post
Cleaners: G Richey
& G Wylie
Readings this 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
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
Conscious of the Lord’s loving presence with me, I take
time to come to some inner stillness, perhaps focusing on my breathing for a
while.
Now I turn slowly and prayerfully to the text.
I do not need to focus on the whole passage; I simply go where I am drawn, perhaps imagining myself in part of the scene as the story unfolds, using my senses to notice details around me; watching Jesus himself ...
I may find myself on the road with the disciples, hearing their fear and uncertainty as Jesus speaks of his death; their arguments about status.
I ponder … is there anything I am afraid to ask the Lord?
Do I relate to the disciples’ need to feel important?
Whatever comes to mind, I bring it openly to God, trusting in his unfailing compassion and love.
Or perhaps I am at the house when Jesus takes the little child into his arms.
I notice the faces around me: the child … the disciples … Jesus himself.
Maybe I catch his eye … how do I feel?
Taking my time, I speak to him from my heart as my trusted friend ... and listen for his response.
How might Jesus be inviting me to recognise and welcome the ’little children’ in my own life – those without status or power; those who are helpless in any way?
I ask him to show me. In time, I gratefully take my leave.
Glory be ......
Now I turn slowly and prayerfully to the text.
I do not need to focus on the whole passage; I simply go where I am drawn, perhaps imagining myself in part of the scene as the story unfolds, using my senses to notice details around me; watching Jesus himself ...
I may find myself on the road with the disciples, hearing their fear and uncertainty as Jesus speaks of his death; their arguments about status.
I ponder … is there anything I am afraid to ask the Lord?
Do I relate to the disciples’ need to feel important?
Whatever comes to mind, I bring it openly to God, trusting in his unfailing compassion and love.
Or perhaps I am at the house when Jesus takes the little child into his arms.
I notice the faces around me: the child … the disciples … Jesus himself.
Maybe I catch his eye … how do I feel?
Taking my time, I speak to him from my heart as my trusted friend ... and listen for his response.
How might Jesus be inviting me to recognise and welcome the ’little children’ in my own life – those without status or power; those who are helpless in any way?
I ask him to show me. In time, I gratefully take my leave.
Glory be ......
Readings next week –Twenty Sixth Sunday
in Ordinary Time (Year B)
First Reading: Numbers 11:25-29
Second Reading: James 5:1-6
Gospel: Mark
9:38-43, 45, 47-48
Your prayers
are asked for the sick:
Glen Grantham, Joy Kiely, Charlotte Milic, Carmel
Covington, Trish Ridout, Deborah Leary, Mary Webb, Rosalinda Grimes & ….
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Joan Jarvis, Paul Reynolds, Herman & Luka Kappelhof, Iris
Bird, Maria Jakimow, Lillian Yost, Anthony O'Boyle, Anna Leary, Joseph Cowmeadow, Joan Daly,
Peter Birchall, Jan Abela, Christine McGee, Edgar Nool, Helene De Lafontaine, Peter
Shaw, Fr Peter Wood, Maurice Vanderfeen, Natasha Gowans, Hilario Abarquez, Tony
Barker, Andrew McLennan
Let us pray for those whose anniversary
occurs about this time: 19th – 25th September
Donald Philp, Stanley Henderson, Jack Cocoran, Peg McKenna,
Joan McCarthy, Marie Stewart, Olive Rundle, Mely Pybus, Mike Downie,
Phyliss Arrowsmith, Kaye Jackson, Harold Davis, Betty Lewis, Pauline Kennedy, John Mahoney, Harry Desmond,
Kathleen Howard, Pauline Jackson, Agnes Bonis, Evelyn Murray and Denny Sproule.
May they Rest in Peace
Weekly
Ramblings
Last weekend with the Bulletin we included a short handout
with information about the upcoming 30 Days of Prayer and Fasting. At the
Parish Pastoral Team meeting, meeting this Sunday, we will be finalising the
list of particular times and places when we will be inviting people to gather to
pray and share the fruits of their prayer with others. This list will be
available next weekend in the Bulletin and on Notice Boards around the Parish.
Please
take care on the roads and I look forward to seeing you next weekend.
Mersey Leven Parish Community welcome
and congratulate ….
Roy Triffett son of James & Rebecca and
Hunter Busscher son of
Blair & Alyssa on their Baptism this weekend.
MT ZION
PRAYER GROUP: Invite
all parishioners to their meeting this Monday 24th September at 7pm
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 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.
From the Parish Pastoral
Team (Felicity Sly – Chair)
As the 30 Days of Prayer approach, there will be opportunities advertised
to join with others in prayer during the month. There is no obligation to join
a group for prayer, or to commit to being part of that group for the month.
Fasting has been mentioned as part of this month. Regular fasting was part of
weekly lives for Catholics in the past, and now is only required one hour prior
to receiving communion, and during Fridays and on Ash Wednesday, dependent on
your age and health. A quick google search led me to websites that list between
4 and 15 spiritual benefits of fasting. One benefit that I connected with is:
Getting too busy with life and missing important time with Jesus. Fasting can
help refocus on Jesus. This assumes that when I’m aware of not eating that I
take this time to focus my thoughts on Jesus, or to pray. The PPT meet on
Sunday afternoon, so if there is anything you want discussed, please talk to a
PPT member.
PLENARY COUNCIL 2020:
You are invited to join and contribute to a series of Listening and Dialogue gatherings. You could choose to join one, two or three gatherings which will be held at Parish House, 90 Stewart Street Devonport, October 18th, 25th November 1 from 10am – 11:30am. Please contact Claire Kiely-Hoye 0418 100 402 if you wish to attend.
FOOTY TICKETS: Semi Final Friday 14th September. Melbourne won by 33 points.
Winners: Sasha
Davies, Bobbie Crocker, Anne Stegmann
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 27th
September – Merv Tippett & Graeme Rigney
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE
FEAST OF ST THERESE: will be celebrated with a Sung Mass
at the Carmelite Monastery, 7 Cambridge St., Launceston on Monday 1st October
at 9:30am. Carmelite Fr Sunny Peackal OCD will be the principal celebrant and
homilist. Mass will be followed by morning tea. All are welcome to join the Carmelite
Nuns for this celebration.
An Anticipatory Universe
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
I believe that the core of the Judeo-Christian revelation is
that we are created in the image of God. We lose that and we lose the
foundation. Clearly, God is endlessly imaginative and creative. Those who are
intensely curious, open, and creative are probably deeply in touch with the One
who continues to generate all the “ten thousand things” that surround us.
The Jesuit priest, mystic, and paleontologist Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was just such a person. His insights have much
to teach us about the importance of human creativity and ingenuity. Theologian
John Haught reflects on Teilhard’s contributions to Christianity:
Throughout Teilhard’s lifetime, Catholicism still adhered to
the picture of an essentially static and unchanging cosmos. During the last
century, however, Teilhard became one of the very few Christian thinkers to
acknowledge that the Darwinian revolution and contemporary cosmology . . .
[have] important implications for theology. In the first place, . . . the sciences have shown beyond any doubt that
the universe could not literally have come into being in a state of finished
perfection. Second, the figure of Christ and the meaning of redemption must now
be understood as having something to do with the fulfillment of the earth and
the whole universe, and not just the healing of persons or the harvesting of
souls from the material world. And third, after Darwin, Christian hope gets a
whole new horizon, not one of expiating [atoning for] an ancestral sin and
nostalgically returning to an imagined paradisal past, but one of supporting
the adventure of life, of expanding the domain of consciousness, of building
the earth, and of participating in the ongoing creation of the universe in
whatever small ways are available to each of us. . . .
Our action in the world matters, therefore, because it
contributes both to the deeper incarnation of God and to the redemptive
gathering of the whole world, and not just human souls, into the body of
Christ. The exhilarating Pauline intuition of a universe summed up in Christ
(Colossians 1:13-20; Ephesians 1:9-10) matches our scientific understanding of
a world struggling to become more. [1] Our spiritual hope, our “resting on the
future,” therefore, is simply the flowering and prolongation in human
consciousness of what has always been an anticipatory universe. . . .
Finally, [this also has] a bearing on the meaning of
worship. As Teilhard writes, “To worship was formerly to prefer God to things,
relating them to him [sic] and sacrificing them for him. To worship is now
becoming to devote oneself body and soul to the creative act, associating
oneself with that act in order to fulfill the world by hard work and
intellectual exploration.” [2]
[1] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Human Energy, trans. J. M.
Cohen (Harvest Books/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1962), 82-102.
[2 ] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution,
trans. René Hague (Harcourt Brace & Co.: 1969), 92-93.
John F. Haught, Resting on the Future: Catholic Theology for
an Unfinished Universe (Bloomsbury: 2015), 41, 52-53.
BRIDGING THE UNBRIDGEABLE GAP
This article is taken from the archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article and many others here
“Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”
Abraham speaks these words to a soul in hell in the famous parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16, 19-21) and they are generally understood to mean that there exists between heaven and hell a gap that’s impossible to bridge. Nobody passes from hell to heaven. Hell is forever and no amount of regret or repentance there will get you to heaven. Indeed, once in hell, nobody in heaven can help you either, the gap between the two is eternally fixed!
But that’s not what this parable is teaching.
Some years ago, Jean Vanier delivered the prestigious Massey Lectures and he took up this parable. The point he emphasized is that the “unbridgeable chasm” referred to here is not the gap between heaven and hell as this is understood in the popular mind. Rather, for Vanier, the unbridgeable gap exists already in this world in terms of the gap between the rich and the poor, a gap that we have forever been unable to bridge. Moreover it’s a gap with more dimensions than we first imagine.
What separates the rich from the poor so definitively with a chasm that, seemingly, can never be bridged? What would bridge that gap?
The prophet Isaiah offers us a helpful image here (Isaiah 65, 25). Drawing upon a messianic dream he tells us how that gap will finally be bridged. It will be bridged, he submits, in the Messianic age, when we’re in heaven because it’s there, in an age when God’s grace is finally able to affect universal reconciliation, that the “the wolf and lamb will feed together” (or, as this is commonly read, “the lion and the lamb will lie down together.”)
The lion and the lamb will lie down together. But lions kill lambs! How can this change? Well, that’s the unbridgeable gap between heaven and hell. That’s the gap between the victim and the killer, the powerless and the powerful, the bullied and the bully, the despised and the bigot, the oppressed and the oppressor, the victim and the racist, the hated and the hater, the older brother and his prodigal brother, the poor and the rich. That’s the gap between heaven and hell.
If this is what Isaiah intuits, and I think it is, then this image contains a powerful challenge which goes both ways: It isn’t just the lion that needs to convert and become sensitive, understanding and non-violent enough to lie down with the lamb; the lamb too needs to convert and move to deeper levels of understanding, forgiveness and trust in order to lie down with the lion. Ironically, this may be a bigger challenge to the lamb than to the lion. Once wounded, once victimized, once hated, once spit on, once raped, once beaten-up by a bully, once discriminated against because of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation, and it becomes very difficult, almost impossible existentially, to truly forgive, forget, and move with trust towards the one who hurt us.
This is a tough saying, but life can be grossly unfair sometimes and perhaps the greatest unfairness of all is not the injustice of being victimized, violated, raped, or murdered, but that, after all this has been done to us, we’re expected to forgive the one who did it to us while at the same time knowing that the one who hurt us probably has an easier time of it in terms of letting go of the incident and moving towards reconciliation. That’s perhaps the greatest unfairness of all. The lamb has to forgive the lion who killed it.
And yet this is the invitation to all of us who have ever been victimized. Parker Palmer suggests that violence is what happens when someone doesn’t know what else to do with his or her suffering and that domestic abuse, racism, sexism, homophobia, and contempt for the poor are all cruel outcomes of this. What we need, he suggests, is a bigger “moral imagination”.
He’s right, I believe, on both scores: violence is what happens when people don’t know what to do with their sufferings and we do need a bigger moral imagination. But understanding that our abuser is in deep pain, that the bully himself was first bullied, doesn’t generally do much to ease our own pain and humiliation. As well, imagining how ideally we should respond as Christians is helpful, but it doesn’t of itself give us the strength to forgive. Something else is needed, namely, a strength that’s presently beyond us.
This is a tough teaching, one that should not be glibly presented. How do you forgive someone who violated you? In this life, mostly, it’s impossible; but remember Isaiah is speaking about the messianic time, a time when, finally, with God’s help, we will be able to bridge that unbridgeable chasm.
The Eucharist and care of creation – an ancient perspective
What can a second century text about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist tell us about care of creation today? John Moffatt SJ finds, in the writings of Irenaeus, some ideas about what it means to live in right relationship to everything of this world and be in communion with the natural order. You can find the complete article on the ThinkingFaith.org website by clicking here
We sometimes see texts from the work Against the Heretics by Irenaeus, the second century Bishop of Lyons, quoted to prove the antiquity of Christian belief in the real presence. But some of those quotations are worth exploring in their wider context, because they form part of a much bigger argument. Irenaeus tells a story affirming God’s relation to the cosmos that binds the Eucharist into the goodness of the created order and the practice of social justice and care of creation.[1]
Irenaeus’s primary concern is anthropocentric, the salvation of individual humans through the death and resurrection of Christ. And that means specifically bodily resurrection and the life of the world to come. Nevertheless, his holistic depiction of the relation between creation and redemption, and therefore of the seamless nature of salvation, is still thought-provoking – particularly when we look at some of the ideas he was resisting, and recognise in them, too, some contemporary resonances.
You can read the remainder of this article by clicking here
What can a second century text about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist tell us about care of creation today? John Moffatt SJ finds, in the writings of Irenaeus, some ideas about what it means to live in right relationship to everything of this world and be in communion with the natural order. You can find the complete article on the ThinkingFaith.org website by clicking here
We sometimes see texts from the work Against the Heretics by Irenaeus, the second century Bishop of Lyons, quoted to prove the antiquity of Christian belief in the real presence. But some of those quotations are worth exploring in their wider context, because they form part of a much bigger argument. Irenaeus tells a story affirming God’s relation to the cosmos that binds the Eucharist into the goodness of the created order and the practice of social justice and care of creation.[1]
Irenaeus’s primary concern is anthropocentric, the salvation of individual humans through the death and resurrection of Christ. And that means specifically bodily resurrection and the life of the world to come. Nevertheless, his holistic depiction of the relation between creation and redemption, and therefore of the seamless nature of salvation, is still thought-provoking – particularly when we look at some of the ideas he was resisting, and recognise in them, too, some contemporary resonances.
You can read the remainder of this article by clicking here
No comments:
Post a Comment