Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
pmccormack43@bigpond.com
Deacon in Residence: Rev Steven Smith
Mob: 0411 522 630
steven.smith@aohtas.org.au
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Felicity Sly
Mob: 0418 301 573
fsly@internode.on.net
Mob: 0417 279 437
mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
pmccormack43@bigpond.com
Deacon in Residence: Rev Steven Smith
Mob: 0411 522 630
steven.smith@aohtas.org.au
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Felicity Sly
Mob: 0418 301 573
fsly@internode.on.net
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com
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
THE FOLLOWING PUBLIC ACTIVITIES ARE SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Eucharistic Adoration Devonport, Benediction with Adoration Devonport, Legion of Mary, Prayer Group.
NO PUBLIC MASSES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE DUE TO
THE COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS) PANDEMIC
FOR LIVESTREAM MASS GO TO https://zoom.us then click join a meeting and when
it asks for Webinar ID type in 970 306 715 and click enter. You will be asked
to load zoom meeting then enter an email address and you are in!
Saturday 4th April
12 noon
Sunday 5th April
9:00 am
MINISTRY ROSTERS ARE SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER
NOTICE
Your prayers are asked for the
sick:
Tony Kiely, Sand Frankcombe, Judith Xavier, Pat Barker, Paul Richardson, & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently: Charles Johnson, Annette Camaya, Samuel
Lint, Eileen Ryan, Bruce Simpson, Archbishop John
Bathersby
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about
this time: 25th – 31st March, 2020
May the souls of the faithful departed,
through the mercy of
God, rest in peace. Amen
PROJECT COMPASSION – 5th SUNDAY
OF LENT:
Weekly Ramblings
By now many of you will have guessed that Fr Paschal will
not be able to return to Tasmania for, quite possibly, 6 months – he is
currently negotiating for his return tickets to be adjusted. Please keep him in
your prayers as he is stuck between two worlds. In the meantime, some of you
would already have seen Deacon Steven Smith during the livestreamed Mass – the
seminary has closed and our seminarians are back in Tasmania continuing their
studies so Steven will be with us for the foreseeable future. We welcome him
and wish him well.
We are livestreaming Mass most days and details can be
found on the front of the Newsletter today if you don’t already have access.
Again, if you or someone you know is reading this as a hard copy (printed by
the Parish) version and you have an email account would you be so kind as to
send an email to the parish Office so that we can add your details to our
contact list.
It is not just because we are looking for email addresses
but if this shutdown continues for any great length of time, then we will need
every avenue we have at our disposal to keep in contact with everyone. With the
physical newsletter there is a card which you might like to pass onto a
neighbour who might need assistance at some stage. There is a scanned copy with
the emailed newsletter – please contact the Office if you might like some hard
copies to use in your neighbourhood.
Another major issue for everyone is how to survive
financially during this time. If you have envelopes you can send them to the
Parish Office by Post or delivered to the letter drop at the front door.
Another way to give is electronically – Account
Name: Mersey Leven; BSB: 067 000; Acc No: 1031 5724. In the Description
area simply add your Name or Envelope Number. Thank You
In the OLOL School newsletter there was some information to
assist people to get online. If you already have access to the App store or
Google play search, Get Started, otherwise you can find information at
this website: https://beconnected.esafety.gov.au/get-started-app. If you have younger family members they might be able to help you work
out some of these digital challenges and make a difference in the coming
months.
Christian leaders within the Devonport Community are
inviting all people to join them in ‘Day of Prayer and Fasting’ on Tuesday 31st March from 7am to 7pm.
Further information
re: Holy Week and Easter – Holy Thursday 7pm livestream; Good Friday 3pm
livestream; Easter Vigil 7pm livestream; and Easter Sunday 9am livestream
Take
care and look after each other,
FOOTY MARGIN FUNDRAISER:
Winners from round 1- Points Margin 52: Kath Cochrane,
Helen Jaffray
Readings This Week: 5th Sunday of Lent – Year A
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAYS GOSPEL:
Readings Next Week: Palm Sunday – Year A
Letter From Rome
A Priest-Centred Church, Confused and Unprepared
With the public celebration of Mass cancelled, Catholics are not quite sure what to do by Robert Mickens, Rome. March 27, 2020.
This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete full access is via paid subscription
In the past five or six decades, Catholic bishops in almost every part of the world have stood by, paralyzed, watching helplessly as the number and quality of priesthood candidates have continued to dwindle.
Not a single pope in this period – from Paul VI to Francis – has offered any real solution to the problem. Their only answer to the priest shortage has been to instruct people to pray to God and encourage more young men to consider a vocation.
(Actually, Francis explicitly told bishops of the Amazon to explore other possibilities, such as ordaining married men, only to ignore them when they finally asked permission to do so.)
Closing parishes
In any case, it is clear to all but the blind that the strategy employed up till now – that is, do nothing – is not working.
How many parishes have the bishops closed, and how many living faith communities – some spanning several generations – have they dissolved because of an unwillingness (of their own and of the various popes) to open their eyes to other alternatives?
One of the worst nightmares for many bishops is what to do with parishes when it's not possible to provide them with a priest.
From no priests to no people
So isn't it ironic how the coronavirus pandemic has turned that upside-down. Now the question is what to do with parishes, and the priests assigned to them, when there are no people!
Make no mistake. Donald Trump's hope that churches will be packed on Easter Sunday is not unfounded. Unfortunately, it won't be this Easter – perhaps in 2021.
The COVID-19 crisis is not going to be over in a matter of weeks. It is going to drag on for months. We don't know when we'll be able to start congregating again.
For now we cannot celebrate Mass. And this has caused perplexity and disorientation.
Catholic bishops and their collaborators, the priests, appear dumbstruck and lame before this quandary.
They cannot see many alternatives, except to continue confecting the Eucharistic all by themselves, or in the presence of a few people, while everyone else watches them via television or the internet.
When there is no Eucharist
French liturgist Gilles Drouin reminds us this week in an interview with La Croix that the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) made it clear that Jesus Christ is present to us in more ways than the Eucharistic bread and wine alone.
The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, says: "Christ is always present in his Church, especially in liturgical celebrations" (SC 36).
During Mass he is present in the bread and wine, but also in the person of the priest and in the Word that is proclaimed. And, finally, he's present in the prayers and songs of the assembly.
But that doesn't solve the current problem of not being able to gather together for liturgy. And since the Church doesn't permit anyone to preside at the Eucharist except a validly ordained priest, what can we do?
No liturgy?
Celebration of Mass is not the only liturgy
"People can read the Word of God with members of their family or those they live with. Or they can pray the Liturgy of the Hours, either alone or with others," says Fr. Drouin.
"You don't have to be a monk or nun to do that! The psalms that make up the Liturgy of the Hours provide an incredible relief these days," he adds.
Unfortunately, most Catholics do believe that the Liturgy of the Hours (which is properly called the Divine Office and often referred to as the Breviary) is exclusively for the clergy and religious. That's because monks and nuns are obliged by canon law to pray "the hours" each day.
But, in fact, this is the prayer of the entire Church. And it is properly liturgical prayer.
While praying in an assembly or community is the ideal way of celebrating the Liturgy of the Hours, diocesan priests (especially) have for centuries mostly prayed the Breviary alone.
And there is no reason why any Catholic can't do so as well, as Fr. Drouin suggests.
The public prayer of the Church
Sacrosanctum concilium says that, outside of Mass, it is "especially (through) the celebration of the Divine Office" that the Church "is ceaselessly engaged in praising the Lord and interceding for the salvation of the entire world" (SC 99).
Furthermore, it says that, "as the public prayer of the Church", it is "a source of piety and nourishment for personal prayer" (SC 90).
"The laity, too, are encouraged to recite the Divine Office, either with priests, or among themselves, or even individually" (SC 100).
National episcopal conferences and individual bishops in many places have dispensed Catholics from their obligation to attend Mass on Sunday and other "days of obligation", while offering prayer resources to help them keep holy these liturgical feasts.
Besides the legalistic nature of this approach, it is also lacking in imagination. How many bishops have encouraged their people to pray the Liturgy of Hours – now or ever?
How many priests have introduced the Liturgy of the Hours in their parishes?
An acquired taste that satisfies
In a Church where, for most people, liturgy is not really liturgy unless they receive the Eucharist, this would require patience, creativity and painstaking catechesis.
Praying and meditating on the Word of God in the Liturgy of the Hours is a great gift to the People of God, but most of them have never been introduced to it, let alone helped to savor it.
It is, indeed, an acquired taste. But one that begins to satisfy.
The beauty of it is that it can also be done without an ordained priest, though some priests and seminarians, at least in Rome, carry around the Breviary and act as if only they can validly pray it.
Even in its communal form a layperson can lead the Liturgy of the Hours.
And when people begin to find fulfillment in praying the Hours in a community, they begin to feel the desire to do so privately and individually when they are separated from the community.
Feasting liturgically on the Word
Just imagine how beneficial it would be right now during this forced Eucharistic fast if the Liturgy of the Hours were already a main staple of every Catholic's liturgical life and a "nourishment for personal prayer".
It is a shame that the coronavirus pandemic has caught our Church so unprepared.
The Eucharistic fast would not mean liturgical famine. Catholics would be confident in knowing that, even with their priests absent, they were still feasting liturgically on the Word of God.
And then the Catholic people would not be so bewildered and disoriented by the temporary suspension of public celebrations of the Mass.
As for the men who stand at the altar… that's another question.
Radical Solidarity
This article is taken from the Daily Email sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM from the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the email by clicking here
A contemplative lens is the only frame through which we can
recognize and address the three sources of evil: the world, the flesh, and the
devil. When we remain in egoic consciousness, evil (especially in its first
hidden forms that look so much like goodness), will take over unchallenged.
This is exactly what Brazilian archbishop Dom Hélder Câmara (1909–1999) said
many years ago when he talked about the “spiral of violence”: institutional
violence provokes a violent response, which in turn is met with “necessary”
repression, [1] and then the same pattern repeats, each level growing more and
more violent without really resolving the underlying problem (or evil).
The spiral feeds upon itself. The individual zealot tries to
rise above “the rotten, decadent system,” [2] as Dorothy Day called it, by
attempting solutions that usually attack the symptoms. That attempt may make
the individual and the state feel moral, but it rarely touches the underlying
causes. Think of the policies that led the United States to build a wall at the
border instead of honestly asking why people want to come to begin with. Why
was a wall terrible in Berlin but salvific in Juarez, San Diego, and the
present state of Israel? We criminalize the actions of desperate individuals,
but rarely question the global economic systems and untouchable corporations
that keep such unequal circumstances in place for their own gain.
Frankly, addressing root causes and taking appropriate
action require a lot more work and spiritual intelligence. Our egos will always
be on the lookout for a quick fix and immediate satisfaction, which too often
leads to a deeply flawed solution. But the gift of contemplative practice is
the ability to remain humble and hold the tension between the rightness and
wrongness on each side of the issue until the Spirit moves in and offers us a
wiser course of action.
Câmara saw how many righteous cures were worse than the
disease itself (for example, communism as a response to poverty, fascism as a
desire for social order, prohibition as a solution to alcohol abuse, or our
current inability to tackle the issue of immigration in an intelligent way).
Non-contemplative “cures,” which lack love and holistic wisdom, never address
the underlying violence which most people have already agreed not to see. We
support the evil of the system and then pretend to hate this same evil in
individuals.
This lack of recognition of the root causes of evil is the
source of much of the moral powerlessness of most Christian nations,
institutions, and individuals. Because we thought we had God on our side, we
believed all the things we did were good or even God-blessed! But many people
now recognize that isn’t true and never has been, which leads me to believe we
are more than ready for authentic and effective contemplative action.
Prayer for
Our Community:
[1] Hélder Câmara, Spiral of Violence, trans. Della Couling
(Dimension Books: 1971), 30-31, 34.
Love In The Time Of Covid-19
This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here
In 1985, Nobel Prize winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, published a novel entitled, Love in the Time of Cholera. It tells a colorful story of how life can still be generative, despite an epidemic.
Well what’s besetting our world right now is not cholera but the coronavirus, Covid 19. Nothing in my lifetime has ever affected the whole world as radically as this virus. Whole countries have shut down, virtually all schools and colleges have sent their students home and are offering classes online, we’re discouraged from going out of our houses and from inviting others into them, and we’ve been asked not to touch each other and to practice “social distancing”. Ordinary, normal, time has stopped. We’re in a season that no generation, perhaps since the flu of 1918, has had to undergo. Furthermore, we don’t foresee an end soon to this situation. No one, neither our government leaders nor our doctors, have an exit strategy. No one knows when this will end or how. Hence, like the inhabitants on Noah’s Arc, we’re locked in and don’t know when the flood waters will recede and let us return to our normal lives.
How should we live in this extraordinary time? Well, I had a private tutorial on this some nine years ago. In the summer of 2011, I was diagnosed with colon cancer, underwent surgery for a resection, and then was subjected to twenty-four weeks of chemotherapy. Facing the uncertainty of what the chemotherapy would be doing to my body I was understandably scared. Moreover, twenty-four weeks is basically half a year and contemplating the length of time that I would be undergoing this “abnormal” season in my life, I was also impatient. I wanted this over with, quickly. So I faced it like I face most setbacks in my life, stoically, with the attitude: “I’ll get through this! I’ll endure it!”
I keep what might euphemistically be termed a journal, though it’s really more a Daybook that simply chronicles what I do each day and who and what enters my life on a given day. Well, when I stoically began my first chemotherapy session I began checking off days in my journal: Day one, followed the next day by: Day two. I had done the math and knew that it would take 168 days to get through the twelve chemo sessions, spaced two weeks apart. It went on like this for the first seventy days or so, with me checking off a number each day, holding my life and my breath, everything on hold until I could finally write, Day 168.
Then one day, about half way through the twenty-four weeks, I had an awakening. I don’t know what specifically triggered it, a grace from above, a gesture of friendship from someone, the feel of the sun on my body, the wonderful feel of a cold drink, perhaps all of these things, but I woke up, I woke up to the fact that I was putting my life on hold, that I wasn’t really living but only enduring each day in order check it off and eventually reach that magical 168th day when I could start living again. I realized that I was wasting a season of my life. Moreover, I realized that what I was living through was sometimes rich precisely because of the impact of chemotherapy in my life. That realization remains one of the special graces in my life. My spirits lifted radically even as the chemotherapy continued to do the same brutal things to my body.
I began to welcome each day for its freshness, its richness, for what it brought into my life. I look back on that now and see those three last months (before day 168) as one of richest seasons of my life. I made some lifelong friends, I learned some lessons in patience that I still try to cling to, and, not least, I learned some long-overdue lessons in gratitude and appreciation, in not taking life, health, friendship, and work for granted. It was a special joy to return to a normal life after those 168 days of conscripted “sabbatical”; but those “sabbatical” days were special too, albeit in a very different way.
The coronavirus has put us all, in effect, on a conscripted sabbatical and it’s subjecting those who have contracted it to their own type of chemotherapy. And the danger is that we will put our lives on hold as we go through this extraordinary time and will just endure rather than let ourselves be graced by what lies within this uninvited season.
Yes, there will be frustration and pain in living this through, but that’s not incompatible with happiness. Paul Tournier, after he’d lost his wife, did some deep grieving but then integrated that grief into a new life in a way that allowed him to write: “I can truly say that I have a great grief and that I am a happy man.” Words to ponder as we struggle with this coronavirus.
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: BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
THE FOLLOWING PUBLIC ACTIVITIES ARE SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Eucharistic Adoration Devonport, Benediction with Adoration Devonport, Legion of Mary, Prayer Group.
NO PUBLIC MASSES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE DUE TO
THE COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS) PANDEMIC
FOR LIVESTREAM MASS GO TO https://zoom.us then click join a meeting and when
it asks for Webinar ID type in 970 306 715 and click enter. You will be asked
to load zoom meeting then enter an email address and you are in!
Sunday 29th March 9:00 am
Monday 30th March NO MASS
Tuesday 31st March
9:00 am
Wednesday 1st April 9:00 am
Thursday 2nd April 12 noon
Friday 3rd April
9:00 am
Saturday 4th April 12 noon
Saturday 4th April 12 noon
Sunday 5th April
9:00 am
MINISTRY ROSTERS ARE SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER
NOTICE
Your prayers are asked for the
sick:
Tony Kiely, Sand Frankcombe, Judith Xavier, Pat Barker, Paul Richardson, & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently: Charles Johnson, Annette Camaya, Samuel
Lint, Eileen Ryan, Bruce Simpson, Archbishop John
Bathersby
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about
this time: 25th – 31st March, 2020
Antonio
Sciamanna, Doreen Alderson, Andrew Kirkpatrick, Robert Charlton, Mary Marshall, Paul Banim, Horace Byrne, Eileen Murfet, Beris McCarthy, Fred Harrison, Christina
Burdon, Brendan Littlejohn
May the souls of the faithful departed,
through the mercy of
God, rest in peace. Amen
PROJECT COMPASSION – 5th SUNDAY
OF LENT:
Tawonga
is a 10 year old girl living with a disability, and struggling with food insecurity and discrimination in
Malawi. Since participating in a Caritas Australia
supported program, Tawonga’s life has transformed.
Please help by donating through Parish boxes,
envelopes, or 1800 024 413 www.caritas.org.au/projectcompassion.
Weekly Ramblings
This is Week 2 of life in a Parish that now only has a digital
platform by which we can contact the majority of our Parishioners – and I must
say that it is challenging and that doesn’t include all the other stuff that
Government and others are asking us to do.
By now many of you will have guessed that Fr Paschal will
not be able to return to Tasmania for, quite possibly, 6 months – he is
currently negotiating for his return tickets to be adjusted. Please keep him in
your prayers as he is stuck between two worlds. In the meantime, some of you
would already have seen Deacon Steven Smith during the livestreamed Mass – the
seminary has closed and our seminarians are back in Tasmania continuing their
studies so Steven will be with us for the foreseeable future. We welcome him
and wish him well.
We are livestreaming Mass most days and details can be
found on the front of the Newsletter today if you don’t already have access.
Again, if you or someone you know is reading this as a hard copy (printed by
the Parish) version and you have an email account would you be so kind as to
send an email to the parish Office so that we can add your details to our
contact list.
It is not just because we are looking for email addresses
but if this shutdown continues for any great length of time, then we will need
every avenue we have at our disposal to keep in contact with everyone. With the
physical newsletter there is a card which you might like to pass onto a
neighbour who might need assistance at some stage. There is a scanned copy with
the emailed newsletter – please contact the Office if you might like some hard
copies to use in your neighbourhood.
Another major issue for everyone is how to survive
financially during this time. If you have envelopes you can send them to the
Parish Office by Post or delivered to the letter drop at the front door.
Another way to give is electronically – Account
Name: Mersey Leven; BSB: 067 000; Acc No: 1031 5724. In the Description
area simply add your Name or Envelope Number. Thank You
In the OLOL School newsletter there was some information to
assist people to get online. If you already have access to the App store or
Google play search, Get Started, otherwise you can find information at
this website: https://beconnected.esafety.gov.au/get-started-app. If you have younger family members they might be able to help you work
out some of these digital challenges and make a difference in the coming
months.
Christian leaders within the Devonport Community are
inviting all people to join them in ‘Day of Prayer and Fasting’ on Tuesday 31st March from 7am to 7pm.
Further information
re: Holy Week and Easter – Holy Thursday 7pm livestream; Good Friday 3pm
livestream; Easter Vigil 7pm livestream; and Easter Sunday 9am livestream
Take
care and look after each other,
FOOTY MARGIN FUNDRAISER:
Due to the suspension of the AFL Footy Season until 31st May (with a review at that time) Mersey Leven Parish will also suspend footy
margin tickets. If you wish to withdraw from the competition we understand and
will be happy to refund your money, otherwise we will just hang in there to see
what happens!!! An alternative which we will consider post May 31st
(if the season is cancelled) will be to choose a number randomly by a person
who has no interest in the footy margins and it will become a Lucky Number Fundraiser. Any opinions
about this option can be sent to Parish Office.
Winners from round 1- Points Margin 52: Kath Cochrane,
Helen Jaffray
Readings This Week: 5th Sunday of Lent – Year A
First Reading: Ezekiel 37:12-14
Second Reading: Romans 8:8-11
Gospel: John 11:1-45
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAYS GOSPEL:
As I prepare to pray, I take the time to relax into God’s presence, breathing in his life and love.
When I am ready, I turn to this Gospel. I may prefer to take the whole text from my Bible or Missal and slowly absorb the drama and confrontation involved … or I may stay with this abbreviated text.
What aspect strikes me most? As I place myself in the scene, with whom or what do I identify most with Martha’s faith, Jesus’s anguish, the doubtful crowd? In what ways do I myself need to be unbound? Or can I help others to be more free? I speak to the Lord from my heart, and end with an ‘Our Father’.
Readings Next Week: Palm Sunday – Year A
First Reading: Isaiah 50:4-7
Second Reading: Philippians 2:6-11
Gospel: Matthew 26:14-27:66
Letter From Rome
A Priest-Centred Church, Confused and Unprepared
A Priest-Centred Church, Confused and Unprepared
With the public celebration of Mass cancelled, Catholics are not quite sure what to do by Robert Mickens, Rome. March 27, 2020.
This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete full access is via paid subscription
In the past five or six decades, Catholic bishops in almost every part of the world have stood by, paralyzed, watching helplessly as the number and quality of priesthood candidates have continued to dwindle.
Not a single pope in this period – from Paul VI to Francis – has offered any real solution to the problem. Their only answer to the priest shortage has been to instruct people to pray to God and encourage more young men to consider a vocation.
(Actually, Francis explicitly told bishops of the Amazon to explore other possibilities, such as ordaining married men, only to ignore them when they finally asked permission to do so.)
Closing parishes
In any case, it is clear to all but the blind that the strategy employed up till now – that is, do nothing – is not working.
How many parishes have the bishops closed, and how many living faith communities – some spanning several generations – have they dissolved because of an unwillingness (of their own and of the various popes) to open their eyes to other alternatives?
One of the worst nightmares for many bishops is what to do with parishes when it's not possible to provide them with a priest.
From no priests to no people
So isn't it ironic how the coronavirus pandemic has turned that upside-down. Now the question is what to do with parishes, and the priests assigned to them, when there are no people!
Make no mistake. Donald Trump's hope that churches will be packed on Easter Sunday is not unfounded. Unfortunately, it won't be this Easter – perhaps in 2021.
The COVID-19 crisis is not going to be over in a matter of weeks. It is going to drag on for months. We don't know when we'll be able to start congregating again.
For now we cannot celebrate Mass. And this has caused perplexity and disorientation.
Catholic bishops and their collaborators, the priests, appear dumbstruck and lame before this quandary.
They cannot see many alternatives, except to continue confecting the Eucharistic all by themselves, or in the presence of a few people, while everyone else watches them via television or the internet.
When there is no Eucharist
French liturgist Gilles Drouin reminds us this week in an interview with La Croix that the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) made it clear that Jesus Christ is present to us in more ways than the Eucharistic bread and wine alone.
The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, says: "Christ is always present in his Church, especially in liturgical celebrations" (SC 36).
During Mass he is present in the bread and wine, but also in the person of the priest and in the Word that is proclaimed. And, finally, he's present in the prayers and songs of the assembly.
But that doesn't solve the current problem of not being able to gather together for liturgy. And since the Church doesn't permit anyone to preside at the Eucharist except a validly ordained priest, what can we do?
No liturgy?
Celebration of Mass is not the only liturgy
"People can read the Word of God with members of their family or those they live with. Or they can pray the Liturgy of the Hours, either alone or with others," says Fr. Drouin.
"You don't have to be a monk or nun to do that! The psalms that make up the Liturgy of the Hours provide an incredible relief these days," he adds.
Unfortunately, most Catholics do believe that the Liturgy of the Hours (which is properly called the Divine Office and often referred to as the Breviary) is exclusively for the clergy and religious. That's because monks and nuns are obliged by canon law to pray "the hours" each day.
But, in fact, this is the prayer of the entire Church. And it is properly liturgical prayer.
While praying in an assembly or community is the ideal way of celebrating the Liturgy of the Hours, diocesan priests (especially) have for centuries mostly prayed the Breviary alone.
And there is no reason why any Catholic can't do so as well, as Fr. Drouin suggests.
The public prayer of the Church
Sacrosanctum concilium says that, outside of Mass, it is "especially (through) the celebration of the Divine Office" that the Church "is ceaselessly engaged in praising the Lord and interceding for the salvation of the entire world" (SC 99).
Furthermore, it says that, "as the public prayer of the Church", it is "a source of piety and nourishment for personal prayer" (SC 90).
"The laity, too, are encouraged to recite the Divine Office, either with priests, or among themselves, or even individually" (SC 100).
National episcopal conferences and individual bishops in many places have dispensed Catholics from their obligation to attend Mass on Sunday and other "days of obligation", while offering prayer resources to help them keep holy these liturgical feasts.
Besides the legalistic nature of this approach, it is also lacking in imagination. How many bishops have encouraged their people to pray the Liturgy of Hours – now or ever?
How many priests have introduced the Liturgy of the Hours in their parishes?
An acquired taste that satisfies
In a Church where, for most people, liturgy is not really liturgy unless they receive the Eucharist, this would require patience, creativity and painstaking catechesis.
Praying and meditating on the Word of God in the Liturgy of the Hours is a great gift to the People of God, but most of them have never been introduced to it, let alone helped to savor it.
It is, indeed, an acquired taste. But one that begins to satisfy.
The beauty of it is that it can also be done without an ordained priest, though some priests and seminarians, at least in Rome, carry around the Breviary and act as if only they can validly pray it.
Even in its communal form a layperson can lead the Liturgy of the Hours.
And when people begin to find fulfillment in praying the Hours in a community, they begin to feel the desire to do so privately and individually when they are separated from the community.
Feasting liturgically on the Word
Just imagine how beneficial it would be right now during this forced Eucharistic fast if the Liturgy of the Hours were already a main staple of every Catholic's liturgical life and a "nourishment for personal prayer".
It is a shame that the coronavirus pandemic has caught our Church so unprepared.
The Eucharistic fast would not mean liturgical famine. Catholics would be confident in knowing that, even with their priests absent, they were still feasting liturgically on the Word of God.
And then the Catholic people would not be so bewildered and disoriented by the temporary suspension of public celebrations of the Mass.
As for the men who stand at the altar… that's another question.
Radical Solidarity
This article is taken from the Daily Email sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM from the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the email by clicking here
A contemplative lens is the only frame through which we can
recognize and address the three sources of evil: the world, the flesh, and the
devil. When we remain in egoic consciousness, evil (especially in its first
hidden forms that look so much like goodness), will take over unchallenged.
This is exactly what Brazilian archbishop Dom Hélder Câmara (1909–1999) said
many years ago when he talked about the “spiral of violence”: institutional
violence provokes a violent response, which in turn is met with “necessary”
repression, [1] and then the same pattern repeats, each level growing more and
more violent without really resolving the underlying problem (or evil).
The spiral feeds upon itself. The individual zealot tries to
rise above “the rotten, decadent system,” [2] as Dorothy Day called it, by
attempting solutions that usually attack the symptoms. That attempt may make
the individual and the state feel moral, but it rarely touches the underlying
causes. Think of the policies that led the United States to build a wall at the
border instead of honestly asking why people want to come to begin with. Why
was a wall terrible in Berlin but salvific in Juarez, San Diego, and the
present state of Israel? We criminalize the actions of desperate individuals,
but rarely question the global economic systems and untouchable corporations
that keep such unequal circumstances in place for their own gain.
Frankly, addressing root causes and taking appropriate
action require a lot more work and spiritual intelligence. Our egos will always
be on the lookout for a quick fix and immediate satisfaction, which too often
leads to a deeply flawed solution. But the gift of contemplative practice is
the ability to remain humble and hold the tension between the rightness and
wrongness on each side of the issue until the Spirit moves in and offers us a
wiser course of action.
Câmara saw how many righteous cures were worse than the
disease itself (for example, communism as a response to poverty, fascism as a
desire for social order, prohibition as a solution to alcohol abuse, or our
current inability to tackle the issue of immigration in an intelligent way).
Non-contemplative “cures,” which lack love and holistic wisdom, never address
the underlying violence which most people have already agreed not to see. We
support the evil of the system and then pretend to hate this same evil in
individuals.
This lack of recognition of the root causes of evil is the
source of much of the moral powerlessness of most Christian nations,
institutions, and individuals. Because we thought we had God on our side, we
believed all the things we did were good or even God-blessed! But many people
now recognize that isn’t true and never has been, which leads me to believe we
are more than ready for authentic and effective contemplative action.
Prayer for
Our Community:
O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and
through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all
beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens
and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our
world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us
better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of
God, amen.
[1] Hélder Câmara, Spiral of Violence, trans. Della Couling
(Dimension Books: 1971), 30-31, 34.
[2] Dorothy Day, “On Pilgrimage,” The Catholic Worker
(September 1956), https://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/articles/710.html.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, What Do We Do with Evil? (CAC
Publishing: December 2019), 65-66,67, 69.
Love In The Time Of Covid-19
This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here
In 1985, Nobel Prize winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, published a novel entitled, Love in the Time of Cholera. It tells a colorful story of how life can still be generative, despite an epidemic.
Well what’s besetting our world right now is not cholera but the coronavirus, Covid 19. Nothing in my lifetime has ever affected the whole world as radically as this virus. Whole countries have shut down, virtually all schools and colleges have sent their students home and are offering classes online, we’re discouraged from going out of our houses and from inviting others into them, and we’ve been asked not to touch each other and to practice “social distancing”. Ordinary, normal, time has stopped. We’re in a season that no generation, perhaps since the flu of 1918, has had to undergo. Furthermore, we don’t foresee an end soon to this situation. No one, neither our government leaders nor our doctors, have an exit strategy. No one knows when this will end or how. Hence, like the inhabitants on Noah’s Arc, we’re locked in and don’t know when the flood waters will recede and let us return to our normal lives.
How should we live in this extraordinary time? Well, I had a private tutorial on this some nine years ago. In the summer of 2011, I was diagnosed with colon cancer, underwent surgery for a resection, and then was subjected to twenty-four weeks of chemotherapy. Facing the uncertainty of what the chemotherapy would be doing to my body I was understandably scared. Moreover, twenty-four weeks is basically half a year and contemplating the length of time that I would be undergoing this “abnormal” season in my life, I was also impatient. I wanted this over with, quickly. So I faced it like I face most setbacks in my life, stoically, with the attitude: “I’ll get through this! I’ll endure it!”
I keep what might euphemistically be termed a journal, though it’s really more a Daybook that simply chronicles what I do each day and who and what enters my life on a given day. Well, when I stoically began my first chemotherapy session I began checking off days in my journal: Day one, followed the next day by: Day two. I had done the math and knew that it would take 168 days to get through the twelve chemo sessions, spaced two weeks apart. It went on like this for the first seventy days or so, with me checking off a number each day, holding my life and my breath, everything on hold until I could finally write, Day 168.
Then one day, about half way through the twenty-four weeks, I had an awakening. I don’t know what specifically triggered it, a grace from above, a gesture of friendship from someone, the feel of the sun on my body, the wonderful feel of a cold drink, perhaps all of these things, but I woke up, I woke up to the fact that I was putting my life on hold, that I wasn’t really living but only enduring each day in order check it off and eventually reach that magical 168th day when I could start living again. I realized that I was wasting a season of my life. Moreover, I realized that what I was living through was sometimes rich precisely because of the impact of chemotherapy in my life. That realization remains one of the special graces in my life. My spirits lifted radically even as the chemotherapy continued to do the same brutal things to my body.
I began to welcome each day for its freshness, its richness, for what it brought into my life. I look back on that now and see those three last months (before day 168) as one of richest seasons of my life. I made some lifelong friends, I learned some lessons in patience that I still try to cling to, and, not least, I learned some long-overdue lessons in gratitude and appreciation, in not taking life, health, friendship, and work for granted. It was a special joy to return to a normal life after those 168 days of conscripted “sabbatical”; but those “sabbatical” days were special too, albeit in a very different way.
The coronavirus has put us all, in effect, on a conscripted sabbatical and it’s subjecting those who have contracted it to their own type of chemotherapy. And the danger is that we will put our lives on hold as we go through this extraordinary time and will just endure rather than let ourselves be graced by what lies within this uninvited season.
Yes, there will be frustration and pain in living this through, but that’s not incompatible with happiness. Paul Tournier, after he’d lost his wife, did some deep grieving but then integrated that grief into a new life in a way that allowed him to write: “I can truly say that I have a great grief and that I am a happy man.” Words to ponder as we struggle with this coronavirus.
For A Time Such As This: Your Parish And The COVID-19 Crisis: Week 1
This article is taken from the Blog posted
by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timoneum,
Baltimore. You can find the original blog by clicking here
Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? Esther 4:14 (NIV)
In a time of such unprecedented crisis and cataclysmic
change, everything looks unclear. Things
we were so sure of last week – our schedules, our methods, our finances – have
suddenly been thrown into a fog of doubt.
You might be doubting how your parish will continue
operating in the weeks to come, or what that even means. So much, including the public celebration of
the Sacraments, has been taken away from us.
But, no matter what happens, our mission remains
unchanged. We are still called to love
God, love others, and make disciples. The methods we use, however, will have to
change. We will have to sacrifice some
of what we thought church should be. There is just no avoiding it. But it’s also true that no one has any idea
what the new normal will be or when it starts.
In the weeks to come, I will use this space to explore what
we are doing at Nativity to weather this crisis and rebuild beyond it. But honestly, we’re making it up as we go
along, just like you. We’ll be sharing
with you what we’re doing, what’s working, and what isn’t. As always, our only
credential is that, like you, we’re actually in the trenches.
Here are three you can take right now, whatever your
circumstances:
- Assess and evaluate your situation in three areas.
- Pastoral Care & Communication
- Is your web site up to date? Does it address the current
crisis? Is your email list up-to-date? Are your social media channels active?
- How are you using the tools you have or can develop (live
streaming, Facebook Live, etc.) to reach your parishioners and be present to
them through this crisis. How are you providing hope and help?
- How are you helping those in need, especially those who will
become sick and the elderly? Are you calling people?
Finances
# 2. Prioritize
Setting priorities gives your staff and congregation
touchstones to rally around in this time of uncertainty. They also give structure to your own time as
a leader. Crises tend to upend our
schedules at the time when we need a steady structure the most.
Finally, form a leadership team, if you do not have one
already. This is an essential step to
navigating this crisis. Get people
around you whose counsel you trust and who you can lean on as a leader. They don’t need to be made up of just staff. Lay leaders in your parish can work,
too. Leadership teams are small (4-6
people) and meet regularly (at least once a week over video conference – but
you might consider meeting more often, even daily, during the acute period of
this crisis).
#3. Communicate
Before this crisis, one of the greatest challenges parishes
faced was just getting the attention of our parishioners and community. That no
longer seems a problem. But we need a relevant message to keep them engaged.
This crisis could very well be a calamity for many churches,
especially those who were already struggling. It could be … but it need not be,
at least not if we approach it prayerfully, strategically, and creatively. It
could be that you have been placed in your parish for such a time as this.
In a time of such unprecedented crisis and cataclysmic
change, everything looks unclear. Things
we were so sure of last week – our schedules, our methods, our finances – have
suddenly been thrown into a fog of doubt.
You might be doubting how your parish will continue
operating in the weeks to come, or what that even means. So much, including the public celebration of
the Sacraments, has been taken away from us.
But, no matter what happens, our mission remains
unchanged. We are still called to love
God, love others, and make disciples. The methods we use, however, will have to
change. We will have to sacrifice some
of what we thought church should be. There is just no avoiding it. But it’s also true that no one has any idea
what the new normal will be or when it starts.
In the weeks to come, I will use this space to explore what
we are doing at Nativity to weather this crisis and rebuild beyond it. But honestly, we’re making it up as we go
along, just like you. We’ll be sharing
with you what we’re doing, what’s working, and what isn’t. As always, our only
credential is that, like you, we’re actually in the trenches.
Don’t try to predict what lies in the fog. Focus on the steps right in front of you.
Here are three you can take right now, whatever your
circumstances:
#1. Evaluate
- Assess and evaluate your situation in three areas.
- Pastoral Care & Communication
- Is your web site up to date? Does it address the current crisis? Is your email list up-to-date? Are your social media channels active?
- How are you using the tools you have or can develop (live streaming, Facebook Live, etc.) to reach your parishioners and be present to them through this crisis. How are you providing hope and help?
- How are you helping those in need, especially those who will become sick and the elderly? Are you calling people?
Finances
What percentage of your offertory comes
electronically/automatically and how long can you operate on just those funds?
How long can you operate if those contributions fall by 20%,
40%?
Where is your discretionary spending?
Operations
Do you have a leadership team to lead through this crisis?
Are they a healthy and cohesive group?
Is your team prepared/equipped to work remotely
indefinitely?
How are you keeping connected as a team and supporting one
another?
# 2. Prioritize
You will likely be operating with reduced resources over the
next few weeks and months. This is a
time to make priorities and cut all non-essential efforts and activities. Some of this has probably already been forced
on you by state prohibitions. Focus on
doing a few things well. For example, if
you’re the pastor spend more time on your weekly homily and, if you can,
broadcast or record it.
Setting priorities gives your staff and congregation
touchstones to rally around in this time of uncertainty. They also give structure to your own time as
a leader. Crises tend to upend our
schedules at the time when we need a steady structure the most.
Finally, form a leadership team, if you do not have one
already. This is an essential step to
navigating this crisis. Get people
around you whose counsel you trust and who you can lean on as a leader. They don’t need to be made up of just staff. Lay leaders in your parish can work,
too. Leadership teams are small (4-6
people) and meet regularly (at least once a week over video conference – but
you might consider meeting more often, even daily, during the acute period of
this crisis).
#3. Communicate
While virtual media is not the same as in-person services,
they can foster genuine spiritual reflection.
There are plenty of resources online to help you live stream video of
your daily and weekend Masses, daily devotions, daily homilies. Solicit prayer requests on your website. Make sure you have an active presence on
social media at this time.
Before this crisis, one of the greatest challenges parishes
faced was just getting the attention of our parishioners and community. That no
longer seems a problem. But we need a relevant message to keep them engaged.
This crisis could very well be a calamity for many churches,
especially those who were already struggling. It could be … but it need not be,
at least not if we approach it prayerfully, strategically, and creatively. It
could be that you have been placed in your parish for such a time as this.
A Question of Forgiveness
Adjusting to life without their usual access to the sacraments is a huge challenge for many Catholics. Perhaps we can use this moment in the life of the Church to ask ourselves how the sacrament of reconciliation in particular can and does permeate our everyday lives, says Gemma Simmonds CJ. ‘The definition of a sacrament is that it is a sign which makes real what it signifies. What is made real by the signs of forgiveness that we offer one another in the ordinary unfolding of our daily lives?’ Gemma Simmonds CJ is Director of the Religious Life Institute at the Margaret Beaufort Institute in Cambridge.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here
Lent is a time for reflecting on our sins and therefore, presumably, on the forgiveness that we seek for them, but this particular Lent has challenges all of its own. We cannot meet physically to worship together and suggestions on how we do socially distanced confession have ranged from the hilarious to the solemnly bizarre. Perhaps this is a good time for us to reflect on how we do domestic Church, and how the great liturgical moments in the year or the great theological themes that underpin them permeate our ordinary lives. After all, we all want and need forgiveness in our lives, don’t we? Or do we? It is one of the great ironies of the Christian faith that its founder apparently teaches us to pray for something that few of us in our right minds would actually want. In the Our Father, Christians pray on a regular basis to be forgiven ‘as we forgive those who trespass against us’. There can surely be little worse than for God to forgive me in the way that I usually forgive others. Such forgiveness would be decidedly partial, offered grudgingly and hedged with conditions. ‘I forgive you’ – if you grovel suitably and for a proper length of time. ‘I forgive you’ – as long as you never come within a whisker of ever doing something like that again. ‘I forgive you’, but part of me will never quite forget, and will bring up the list of your past misdeeds at the least hint of any future conflict between us. Most of us would be inclined instead to pray that God will forgive our sins more thoroughly and permanently than this.
In the Catholic tradition forgiveness has been enshrined within sacramental status but this seems to have done little to extend the phenomenon of reconciliation and the forgiveness of sins in everyday social and spiritual practice. We are prepared to ask for and to receive absolution of our sins through the ministry of the Church, which offers us pardon and peace when we ask forgiveness after a sincere confession made with a firm purpose of amendment, but this does not lead inevitably to a heightened capacity or willingness to forgive others. In many religious orders the monastic culpa was enshrined in regular practice, whereby members accused themselves, or were accused by another member of the community, of infringements against the rule: breaking the silence, or the rules of fasting, or a piece of china. They would kneel in the chapter room or the monastic refectory, holding the broken bits of china in their hands until their penance was deemed to have been fulfilled. It was by no means easy to do this, but people were generally willing to ask pardon for broken china. They were less willing or able to ask pardon if they broke each other’s hearts. In the end such practices were judged to be empty and inappropriate gestures, and have largely disappeared from the discipline of religious orders. They were rarely replaced by something more likely to encourage genuine mutual confession and reconciliation.
The definition of a sacrament is that it is a sign which makes real what it signifies. What is made real by the signs of forgiveness that we offer one another in the ordinary unfolding of our daily lives? Forgiving another person can be an immensely hard challenge. We often mistake forgiveness for excusing. Excusing another is a rational exercise. We seek to find an explanation for why they have behaved so badly: they didn’t know any better, they had a terrible childhood, they were having an off day, they were under terrible pressure, they were stressed or provoked or in some way pushed off balance. These are excuses, and often reasonable ones, but this is not forgiving. Forgiveness is what is offered in the face of the inexcusable and, as such, is not generally within our human capacity. It is an attribute of God – indeed it is the attribute of God. Jesus knew this, and perhaps that is why he taught us to pray for forgiveness, so that by experiencing God’s willingness to forgive us seventy times seven – the Jewish number of infinity – we might learn to open our hearts and minds to the grace offered by God whereby we become able to forgive each other.
The sacrament of confession, as practised in the Catholic tradition, is considerably in abeyance these days, compared with former times. It’s another irony of modern life that as it has fallen into disuse in terms of sacramental practice, it has become a regular form of popular entertainment. From kiss-and-tell newspaper articles, to lurid public confessions followed by harrowing recrimination and tear-jerking reconciliations on daytime TV shows, there is nothing that people like more, it would appear, than watching others ‘fessing up and being absolved or condemned. But the real-life dramas lived by those who have been deeply wounded by others are too terrible to turn into the modern gladiator shows that appear on our television screens. When we do come face-to-face with unspeakable evil in the public domain, we hardly know how to react. The vocabulary of sin has largely disappeared from social discourse, but we have managed to keep a firm hold on the language of condemnation. Banner headlines in our tabloid newspapers shrieked, ‘ROT IN HELL!’ when a perpetrator was convicted of child murder some years ago. We know how to pass judgement and sentence, but we have not kept the terminology of absolution or forgiveness, because, by and large, we have not kept the mechanisms that enable this process to take place. We have lost them because, apart from within restricted religious circles, the basic concept of sin itself has been largely lost. This leaves us stranded, for without such a concept, it’s impossible for us to get our minds round the phenomenon of gross evil within society.
When we are dealing with lesser transgressions, there’s a tendency, even within religious circles, to think that dwelling on sin is part of the negative, embarrassing shadow-side of primitive religious attitudes and best avoided. We fall back on pop psychology or motivational positive-speak in order to show that we have a healthy approach to human frailty. Saint Ignatius, in his Spiritual Exercises, will have none of this. He encourages us to contemplate our sins as vividly and honestly as possible. This is not, however, in order for us to wallow in our guilt, but so that we can experience at depth the fullness of amazing grace. If we don’t think our sins amount to much, then God’s forgiveness doesn’t amount to much either. When the woman with a bad reputation fell on her knees before Jesus in the house of Simon the Leper, bathing Jesus’s feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair, Simon was disgusted by this public freak show of repentance. Jesus rebuked him, reminding him that ‘her sins, her many sins must have been forgiven her, or she would not have shown such great love. It is the man who is forgiven little, who shows little love’.
What it comes down to, in the end, is love. Jesus himself makes a direct correlation between being forgiven and developing the capacity to love and to be loving. Many years of experience in prison ministry taught me that the most difficult act of forgiveness for many people is that of forgiving themselves. If we can be harsh with others, we can be harsher still with ourselves, acting as judge, jury and executioner at our own trial. If we are taught to pray daily for God’s forgiveness as we forgive others, then part of that prayer is also for the grace to forgive ourselves. That capacity is developed through encounters with the mercy and compassionate understanding of others. This comes in personal relationships but also through the various formal and informal healing ministries of the Church, of which we are a constituent part. In his exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis says, ‘a small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties’.[1]
If we begin to experience forgiveness through an honest confrontation with our own sinfulness, we may experience an extraordinary transformation and expansion at the level of the heart. When we enact forgiveness in our encounters with others, we initiate for them a process of encounter with God which will make of our churches truly transformed and transformative communities. It is a high-risk strategy both at the personal and at the corporate levels but, Pope Francis continues,
I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. [...] More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving...[2]
Prior to that paragraph in Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis speaks of open and closed doors within the Church. There may be an allusion to physical entrance here, but far more important is the space that we make for anyone, whatever their moral failings, to find a home where they feel accepted. Pope Francis speaks of the Eucharist as ‘the fullness of sacramental life’, but he warns that it is not ‘a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’. The sacrament of reconciliation may not be the fullness of sacramental life in that sense, but we are called to approach the whole notion of forgiveness with the same prudence and boldness that he calls on us to use with the Eucharist. The Church, whether institutional or domestic, frequently acts, ‘as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems’.[3]
Whatever our experience and expectation as part of that Church, it is primarily driven by that hunger for encounter with God’s mercy, mediated by human compassion – what Pope Francis later refers to as the ‘revolution of tenderness.’[4] Jesus preaches such a revolution at Simon’s house in the parable in which the whole equation of debt and precise repayment is cancelled in an act of unreasonable generosity. Such liberality and openness of heart is beyond most of us, but we need it as much as we need to eat daily bread. So, as we approach the bread of the Eucharist in new ways during this time of exclusion from physical community, it’s perhaps worth our asking to be also nourished with the grace of forgiveness for ourselves and for others, so that we can become instruments of peace in a wounded and unforgiving world.
[1] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (2013), §44
[2] Ibid., §49
[3] Ibid., §47
[4] Ibid., §88
Adjusting to life without their usual access to the sacraments is a huge challenge for many Catholics. Perhaps we can use this moment in the life of the Church to ask ourselves how the sacrament of reconciliation in particular can and does permeate our everyday lives, says Gemma Simmonds CJ. ‘The definition of a sacrament is that it is a sign which makes real what it signifies. What is made real by the signs of forgiveness that we offer one another in the ordinary unfolding of our daily lives?’ Gemma Simmonds CJ is Director of the Religious Life Institute at the Margaret Beaufort Institute in Cambridge.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here
Lent is a time for reflecting on our sins and therefore, presumably, on the forgiveness that we seek for them, but this particular Lent has challenges all of its own. We cannot meet physically to worship together and suggestions on how we do socially distanced confession have ranged from the hilarious to the solemnly bizarre. Perhaps this is a good time for us to reflect on how we do domestic Church, and how the great liturgical moments in the year or the great theological themes that underpin them permeate our ordinary lives. After all, we all want and need forgiveness in our lives, don’t we? Or do we? It is one of the great ironies of the Christian faith that its founder apparently teaches us to pray for something that few of us in our right minds would actually want. In the Our Father, Christians pray on a regular basis to be forgiven ‘as we forgive those who trespass against us’. There can surely be little worse than for God to forgive me in the way that I usually forgive others. Such forgiveness would be decidedly partial, offered grudgingly and hedged with conditions. ‘I forgive you’ – if you grovel suitably and for a proper length of time. ‘I forgive you’ – as long as you never come within a whisker of ever doing something like that again. ‘I forgive you’, but part of me will never quite forget, and will bring up the list of your past misdeeds at the least hint of any future conflict between us. Most of us would be inclined instead to pray that God will forgive our sins more thoroughly and permanently than this.
In the Catholic tradition forgiveness has been enshrined within sacramental status but this seems to have done little to extend the phenomenon of reconciliation and the forgiveness of sins in everyday social and spiritual practice. We are prepared to ask for and to receive absolution of our sins through the ministry of the Church, which offers us pardon and peace when we ask forgiveness after a sincere confession made with a firm purpose of amendment, but this does not lead inevitably to a heightened capacity or willingness to forgive others. In many religious orders the monastic culpa was enshrined in regular practice, whereby members accused themselves, or were accused by another member of the community, of infringements against the rule: breaking the silence, or the rules of fasting, or a piece of china. They would kneel in the chapter room or the monastic refectory, holding the broken bits of china in their hands until their penance was deemed to have been fulfilled. It was by no means easy to do this, but people were generally willing to ask pardon for broken china. They were less willing or able to ask pardon if they broke each other’s hearts. In the end such practices were judged to be empty and inappropriate gestures, and have largely disappeared from the discipline of religious orders. They were rarely replaced by something more likely to encourage genuine mutual confession and reconciliation.
The definition of a sacrament is that it is a sign which makes real what it signifies. What is made real by the signs of forgiveness that we offer one another in the ordinary unfolding of our daily lives? Forgiving another person can be an immensely hard challenge. We often mistake forgiveness for excusing. Excusing another is a rational exercise. We seek to find an explanation for why they have behaved so badly: they didn’t know any better, they had a terrible childhood, they were having an off day, they were under terrible pressure, they were stressed or provoked or in some way pushed off balance. These are excuses, and often reasonable ones, but this is not forgiving. Forgiveness is what is offered in the face of the inexcusable and, as such, is not generally within our human capacity. It is an attribute of God – indeed it is the attribute of God. Jesus knew this, and perhaps that is why he taught us to pray for forgiveness, so that by experiencing God’s willingness to forgive us seventy times seven – the Jewish number of infinity – we might learn to open our hearts and minds to the grace offered by God whereby we become able to forgive each other.
The sacrament of confession, as practised in the Catholic tradition, is considerably in abeyance these days, compared with former times. It’s another irony of modern life that as it has fallen into disuse in terms of sacramental practice, it has become a regular form of popular entertainment. From kiss-and-tell newspaper articles, to lurid public confessions followed by harrowing recrimination and tear-jerking reconciliations on daytime TV shows, there is nothing that people like more, it would appear, than watching others ‘fessing up and being absolved or condemned. But the real-life dramas lived by those who have been deeply wounded by others are too terrible to turn into the modern gladiator shows that appear on our television screens. When we do come face-to-face with unspeakable evil in the public domain, we hardly know how to react. The vocabulary of sin has largely disappeared from social discourse, but we have managed to keep a firm hold on the language of condemnation. Banner headlines in our tabloid newspapers shrieked, ‘ROT IN HELL!’ when a perpetrator was convicted of child murder some years ago. We know how to pass judgement and sentence, but we have not kept the terminology of absolution or forgiveness, because, by and large, we have not kept the mechanisms that enable this process to take place. We have lost them because, apart from within restricted religious circles, the basic concept of sin itself has been largely lost. This leaves us stranded, for without such a concept, it’s impossible for us to get our minds round the phenomenon of gross evil within society.
When we are dealing with lesser transgressions, there’s a tendency, even within religious circles, to think that dwelling on sin is part of the negative, embarrassing shadow-side of primitive religious attitudes and best avoided. We fall back on pop psychology or motivational positive-speak in order to show that we have a healthy approach to human frailty. Saint Ignatius, in his Spiritual Exercises, will have none of this. He encourages us to contemplate our sins as vividly and honestly as possible. This is not, however, in order for us to wallow in our guilt, but so that we can experience at depth the fullness of amazing grace. If we don’t think our sins amount to much, then God’s forgiveness doesn’t amount to much either. When the woman with a bad reputation fell on her knees before Jesus in the house of Simon the Leper, bathing Jesus’s feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair, Simon was disgusted by this public freak show of repentance. Jesus rebuked him, reminding him that ‘her sins, her many sins must have been forgiven her, or she would not have shown such great love. It is the man who is forgiven little, who shows little love’.
What it comes down to, in the end, is love. Jesus himself makes a direct correlation between being forgiven and developing the capacity to love and to be loving. Many years of experience in prison ministry taught me that the most difficult act of forgiveness for many people is that of forgiving themselves. If we can be harsh with others, we can be harsher still with ourselves, acting as judge, jury and executioner at our own trial. If we are taught to pray daily for God’s forgiveness as we forgive others, then part of that prayer is also for the grace to forgive ourselves. That capacity is developed through encounters with the mercy and compassionate understanding of others. This comes in personal relationships but also through the various formal and informal healing ministries of the Church, of which we are a constituent part. In his exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis says, ‘a small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties’.[1]
If we begin to experience forgiveness through an honest confrontation with our own sinfulness, we may experience an extraordinary transformation and expansion at the level of the heart. When we enact forgiveness in our encounters with others, we initiate for them a process of encounter with God which will make of our churches truly transformed and transformative communities. It is a high-risk strategy both at the personal and at the corporate levels but, Pope Francis continues,
I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. [...] More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving...[2]
Prior to that paragraph in Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis speaks of open and closed doors within the Church. There may be an allusion to physical entrance here, but far more important is the space that we make for anyone, whatever their moral failings, to find a home where they feel accepted. Pope Francis speaks of the Eucharist as ‘the fullness of sacramental life’, but he warns that it is not ‘a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’. The sacrament of reconciliation may not be the fullness of sacramental life in that sense, but we are called to approach the whole notion of forgiveness with the same prudence and boldness that he calls on us to use with the Eucharist. The Church, whether institutional or domestic, frequently acts, ‘as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems’.[3]
Whatever our experience and expectation as part of that Church, it is primarily driven by that hunger for encounter with God’s mercy, mediated by human compassion – what Pope Francis later refers to as the ‘revolution of tenderness.’[4] Jesus preaches such a revolution at Simon’s house in the parable in which the whole equation of debt and precise repayment is cancelled in an act of unreasonable generosity. Such liberality and openness of heart is beyond most of us, but we need it as much as we need to eat daily bread. So, as we approach the bread of the Eucharist in new ways during this time of exclusion from physical community, it’s perhaps worth our asking to be also nourished with the grace of forgiveness for ourselves and for others, so that we can become instruments of peace in a wounded and unforgiving world.
[1] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (2013), §44
[2] Ibid., §49
[3] Ibid., §47
[4] Ibid., §88
