2nd Sunday of Lent (Year A)

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 
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
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

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au

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.

Parish Prayer

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for gathering us together 
and calling us to serve as your disciples.

You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission

  of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.

Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will

 for the spiritual renewal of our parish.

Give us strength, courage, and clear vision 
as we use our gifts to serve you.

We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,

and ask for her intercession and guidance 
as we strive to bear witness

 to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.

Amen.

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 - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass - in recess until 7th February

Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone

Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – 6:30pm Mondays, Community Room, Ulverstone 

Weekday Masses 10th – 13th March, 2020                                           

Tuesday:    9:30am Penguin                                                  

Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe                                                  Thursday:  10:30am Eliza Purton                                                            12noon Devonport                                              Friday:      9:30am Ulverstone                                                          12noon Devonport                                                                7:00pm Devonport … Stations of the Cross                                        7:00pm Ulverstone … Stations of the Cross    

Next Weekend 14th & 15th March, 2020

Saturday Vigil:   6:00pm Penguin        

                    6:00pm Devonport     LWC 

Sunday Mass:    8:30am Port Sorell                                                                9:00am Ulverstone    LWC

                   10:30am Devonport                            

                   11:00am Sheffield      LWC

                    5:00pm Latrobe 

            

MINISTRY ROSTERS 14th & 15th March, 2020

Devonport:

Readers: Vigil: M Kelly, R Baker 10:30am: E Petts, K Pearce, O McGinley

Ministers of Communion: Vigil: 1 person required 10.30am: 1 person required

Cleaners: 13th March: D Atkins, V Riley 20th March: M & R Youd

Piety Shop: 14th March: R Baker 15th March: K Hull

Ulverstone:

Reader/s:  J & S Willoughby   Flowers: C Stingel Hospitality:  M & K McKenzie 

 

Penguin:

Greeters   G Hills-Eade, B Eade 

Commentator:  Y Downes

Readers: A Landers, E Nickols Liturgy: Penguin Setting Up: E Nickols 

Care of Church: M Bowles, J Reynolds

Latrobe:

Reader: K Adkins Procession of Gifts: Parishioner

Port Sorell: 

Readers: G Bellchambers, P Anderson Cleaners:  C & J Howard

Mersey Leven Parish Community welcome and congratulate …..

               Lacey Vella, daughter of Matthew & Rachael on her Baptisms this weekend.

Your prayers are asked for the sick:  Sand Frankcombe, Judith Xavier, Pat Barker, Paul Richardson, & …

Let us pray for those who have died recently:

Bruce Simpson, Annette McCulloch, Arnold Chave, Kellie Hofmeyer, Barry McCall, Christiana Okpon, Jeremy Martin, & … 

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 4th – 10th March, 2020

Pat Chisholm, Pauline Lamprey, Romualdo Bibera Snr, Barbara Moncrieff, Doris Roberts, Leonie Heron, Betty Waldon-Cruse, Graham Nicholson, Sybil Dobinson, David Gibbens, Patrick O’Brien, Betty Boskell, Bob McCormack, Kevin Sheedy. Also Graeme Sheridan, Santos & Abundia Makiputin, Rengel Gelacio, Victoriano & Marciana Visorro, Blas Jumawan, Ranulfo Cabrillas, Gervasio Torbiso, Pelagio & Felomina Makiputin, Ma. Arrah Deiparine, Maurisio Barimbad, Matilde Deiparine and deceased relatives and friends of Marshall, Speers, Hawes, Pilkington and Willis families.

May the souls of the faithful departed, 

through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen  

  

Weekly Ramblings

As you entered Church today you will have noticed that the Holy Water Fonts have been either removed or emptied. This is part of the precautions we are taking to ensure during this time of heightened awareness caused by the Coronavirus.

There is a letter from Archbishop Julian re other steps we are taking. These include Communion from the Chalice be suspended at this time; the sign of peace be a bow or other form of acknowledgement; and that we refrain from handshakes of any kind before and after Mass. These are simple steps that, along with good personal hygiene, should assist us with our care for people at this time.

During Fr Paschal’s absence the Youth Meeting at the Parish House each week are suspended until further notice.

At OLOL Church this weekend there are invitations to join with members of the other at the paranaple Centre on Holy Thursday, 9^th April for the combined Church activity. There are two sessions this year 6-7pm and 8-9pm and to attend you need to go online (or ask someone to assist you) to book a ticket. The event is free but to ensure that people actually get to attend the Churches are asking everyone to book. (Please see me if you have any trouble). The booking address is www.worshipexperience.com.au

The Times for Holy Week and Easter Ceremonies are included with the Bulletin today and will be included each week for your information.

Next week the young members of our Parish who are part of our Sacramental Preparation Program will be introduced to the Parish – as they embark on this journey I invite you to pray with and for them and their families on this special step in their faith lives.

Take care on the roads and in your homes,

PROJECT COMPASSION – 2nd SUNDAY OF LENT;

27 year old Phany was a struggling farmer and was forced to leave her daughter to take up construction work in the city. Her life has been transformed since joining a Caritas supported program, learning crop growing skills and better water management, to combat drought. Please help by donating through Parish boxes, envelopes, or phoning 1800 024 413 www.caritas.org.au/projectcompassion.

PRAYERS FOR RELIEF:

We continue our Prayer for Relief at OLOL Church, Devonport on Tuesday, 10th March at 6pm. This is opportunity for the Churches in Devonport to show their unity as we pray together for relief for all those suffering in all aspects of life.

HOUSE CLEANER REQUIRED:

4 hours per week Monday and Friday (am) including some ironing. 

Please phone 0474 595 075.

 GRANS VAN:

The month of April has been allocated to our Parish to assist with Gran’s Van on the four Sundays within that month. Help is required as follows a) cooking a stew (meat will be supplied), b) assisting with food distribution from the van, c) driving the van. Helping with b) and c) would take about two hours of your time 6:30pm to 8:30pm. If you are able to assist on any of the Sundays please contact Shirley or Tony Ryan 6424:1508

       

THURSDAY 12th March – Eyes down 7:30pm.  Callers Tony Ryan & Errol Henderson

FOOTY TICKETS: 2020 AFL Footy Season starts Friday 20th March.

There will be two weekly winners of $100.00.  The footy margin is for the Friday night game played at the MCG each week. Tickets will be sold at Port Sorell, Devonport and Ulverstone each weekend for $2.00.               

NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE;

Preparation Program for the visit of the relics of St Therese of Lisieux and her parents Ss Louis & Zelie Martin

To prepare for the visit of the relics on April 16th & 17th, a 33 day program is being offered in the Hobart and Launceston areas. It focusses on St Therese’s Little Way and her Offering to Merciful Love. The program involves a weekly meeting (60-90 minutes) and daily reading (10 minutes). A 33 day do-it-yourself version is also available to those who can’t attend a group session. Programs will start in the week of March 16th and end in the week of April 20th. To register your interest or for more details on this program please contact Ben Smith at the Archdiocesan Office for Life, Marriage & Family on 6208 6036 or ben.smith@aohtas.org.au.

Inaugural Archdiocesan Mass for Life

The Inaugural Archdiocesan Mass for Life will be held at 11am on Saturday 28^th March at Sacred Heart Church, New Town. Archbishop Julian Porteous will be the main celebrant. The Mass will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of Pope St John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae that promoted the building of a culture of life. For more information please contact Ben Smith at the Archdiocesan Office for Life, Marriage & Family on 6208 6036 or ben.smith@aohtas.org.au.

SEEK THE TRUTH - Acknowledgement and Sorrow for Survivors of Past Sexual Abuse

A ritual will be held to acknowledge the sexual abuse that took place at Marist College (now Marist Regional College) and in the Burnie Parish (now Burnie-Wynyard Parish), particularly while the Marist Fathers were custodians of both. Survivors of sexual abuse, together with their partners, family members, friends, and others associated with the College and Parish, are warmly invited to attend. A light lunch will follow at the Gardens.

The ritual will take place in Burnie on Saturday 21st March 2020, at 11.00am at the Emu Valley Rhododendron Gardens, 55 Breffny Rd, Romaine. People wishing to attend please contact comms@mrc.tas.edu.au

During the season of Lent Aid to the Church in Need would like to invite you to “Journey with the Martyrs” through an online Lent calendar. The Lent calendar   features 47 true stories of modern martyrs, witnesses of love, who heroically  offered their lives for God and their communities.  www.aidtochurch.org/lent2020  

                                    

Letter From Rome

Coronavirus uber alles

As COVID-19 spreads throughout the world, the disease is dominating everything

– even Church affairs by Robert Mickens, Rome. March 5, 2020. 

This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here 

but complete full access is via paid subscription

When Pope Francis appeared in public on Ash Wednesday with what seemed to be at least a very bad cold, many people wondered, "Has he got it?"

"Coronavirus? There are a lot worse viruses to worry about in the Vatican," the 83-year-old pope supposedly quipped to a couple of nervous aides.

Whether he actually said that or if it's just an urban legend, the point is clear: Francis is not overly preoccupied about his health or own mortality. In fact, he never has been.

But many other people sure are.

And when they saw him in a blustery St. Peter's Square for his weekly general audience on the first day of Lent, they grew pensive.

Francis gets sick just as coronavirus strikes Italy

The current coronavirus, known as COVID-19, had arrived in Italy – in Rome, in fact – in late January through two Chinese tourists. And by Ash Wednesday (Feb. 26) it was exploding in several parts of northern Italy.

People wondered if it were possible that the pope may have been infected, too. After all, he sees an awful lot of visitors from all over the world and shakes hands with many of them.

And didn't he recently get very upset with a Chinese woman who jerked his arm and only let go when he slapped her hand? (Never mind that the incident did not happen recently, but on New Year's Eve…)

But it was later on Ash Wednesday that Francis showed even more pronounced signs of illness, including a hacking cough and a runny nose.

It didn't help that he looked extremely fatigued as he made the 500 m. penitential pilgrimage from the Church of Sant'Anslemo to the Basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill.

Vatican media remains silent

Throughout Mass in the 5thcentury basilica his voice was even more hoarse than it was at the general audience. He did not look or sound good.

The next day he cancelled a number of major appointments and held only smaller meetings in his rooms at the Santa Marta Residence.

But the Vatican's communications department would not say if the pope was infected with the coronavirus or not.

And it said nothing the following Sunday, even after Francis announced that a cold was forcing him to skip the Roman Curia's weeklong annual Lenten retreat south of the city.

People were not totally convinced that it was just a cold. Many were suspicious and worried.

"Has he got it?"

That question kept popping up all over Rome. People were asking it in the coffee bars, at restaurants, on the buses and in post offices as they waited to pay their bills and collect their pensions.

Two more days passed.

Then on Tuesday, March 3, the Holy See Press Office finally clarified matters by announcing that the pope was suffering from a cold and was "without symptoms related to other pathologies."

The disease is spreading

Meanwhile, the whole world, it seems, is suddenly being turned upside down by fears of COVID-19. The virus has spread quickly the past several days to every continent in world.

As of March 5, Italy is the worst affected country in Europe.

It had reported 3,089 cases of infection and 107 deaths, the vast majority of them in three northern regions.

But Rome is the gateway to the south and, until now, it has reported only a few cases.

Local residents have tended to look at the epidemic as something that's not a serious threat. Many Romans feel the media and the Italian government have exaggerated the dangers for those of us in the Eternal City.

Foreign tourists, however, have heeded the warnings and are staying way. Those who were here earlier have cleared out of town, leaving streets and shops largely deserted.

If you take a walk through many areas of the historic center right now, you have the weird sensation that it's a chilly day in August – the month when a large chunk of the urban population disappears and tourism slows to a trickle.

Taking drastic measures

The Italian prime minister signed a decree on the evening of March 4, forcing all schools and universities to remain closed until March 15. People in Rome and other places where cases of infection are relatively few are not happy.

Working parents are wondering who will watch their housebound children. Some are demanding compensation from the government, joining shop-owners and those who rely on tourists to make their living in the call for economic assistance.

The most outrage came from professional football (i.e., soccer) fans, which probably constitute more than half the nation, when all premier league matches were postponed until months later.

The uproar forced officials to backtrack on that and allow games in places most affected by the virus to be played in empty stadiums.

A Lenten penance

Meanwhile, the government has forced churches in most of northern Italy, including Catholic shrines and parishes, to cancel any weekday liturgies or services.

As of now, it's not clear whether it will allow Christians to attend the Sunday Eucharist.

As some others have noted, it is poignant that COVID-19, and all the excessive measures we're being asked to adopt to prevent its spread, has been visited upon us at the beginning of Lent.

This five-week period is marked by prayer, fasting and almsgiving. It is a penitential season that usually entails making personal sacrifices.

And it's possible that this year we will have to spend all of Lent also making communal sacrifices that are required to contain – and, for some of us, recover from – the coronavirus.

Fortunately, it is not as deadly as the plague or even some other epidemics from the past. But it is quite serious for elderly people and those already in precarious health or with certain pre-existing medical conditions.

So, it's really no joking matter.

Laughter is the best medicine

And, yet, it's said that laughter is the best medicine. And we'll certainly all go crazy if we don't try to keep at least some sense of humor in the midst of all this.

So allow me to pass on some advise (that someone sent me) from a few illustrious saints and even a couple of notorious sinners.

• "Stay calm and don't lose your head." – St. John the Baptist-- 
• "This is not the Apocalypse." – St. John the Evangelist-- 
• "Wash your hands often." – Pontius Pilate-- 
• "Avoid greeting people with a hug and kiss." – Judas-- 
• "Don't touch your eyes, nose, mouth or any open wounds." – St. Thomas the Apostle-- 
• "Pets and other animals cannot spread this disease." – St. Francis of Assisi-- 
• And, finally, "Avoid going to China." – Matteo Ricci

Oh, and don't forget: if someone from China tries to forcefully shake your hand, call Pope Francis!

                                 

Ours To Do

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 

I founded the Center for Action and Contemplation more than thirty years ago because I saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation. Over the years, I met many activists who were doing excellent social analysis and advocating for crucial justice issues, but they were not working from an energy of love except in their own minds. They were still living out of their false self with the need to win, to look good, to defeat the other side, and to maintain a superior self-image.

They might have had the answer, but they were not themselves the answer. In fact, they were usually part of the problem. Most revolutions fail. Too many reformers self-destruct from within. For that very reason, I believe, Jesus and other great spiritual teachers first emphasize transformation of consciousness and awakening of soul. Unless that happens, there is no lasting or grounded reform or revolution. When a subjugated people rise to power, they often become as controlling and dominating as their oppressors because they have not yet faced the shadow side of power. We actually need fewer reformations and more transformations.

The same dualism often masquerades in a new form which only looks like enlightenment. We are all easily allured by the next new thing until we discover that it’s also run by unenlightened people who in fact do not love God/Reality but themselves. They do not love the truth but the illusion of control. The need to be in power, to have control, and to say someone else is wrong is not enlightenment. Such unenlightened leaders do not want true freedom for everybody but only for their own new ideas. My great disappointment with many untransformed liberals is that they often lack the ability to sacrifice the self or create foundations that last. They can neither let go of their own need for change and control, nor can they stand still in a patient, humble way as people of deep faith can. It is no surprise that Jesus prayed not just for fruit, but "fruit that will last" (John 15:16). Too many conservatives, on the other hand, idolize anything that appears to have lasted, but then stop asking the question, “Is this actually bearing any fruit?” It is the perennial battle between idealism and pragmatism.

In order to become truly prophetic people who go beyond the categories of liberal and conservative, we have to teach and learn ways to integrate needed activism with a truly contemplative mind and heart. I’m convinced that once we learn how to look out at life from the contemplative eyes of the True Self, personal politics and economics are going to change on their own. I don’t need to tell you what your politics should or shouldn’t be. Once you see things contemplatively, you’ll begin to seek the bias toward the bottom (not the top, which is far too defended and idealized), you’ll be free to embrace your shadow, and you can live at peace with those who are different. From a contemplative stance, you’ll know what action is yours to do almost naturally. And what you do not need to do at all!

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.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, ed. Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Orbis Books: 2018), 154-155.

                              

Jean Vanier - Revisited

This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here  

Like many others, I was deeply distressed to learn of the recent revelations concerning Jean Vanier. He was a person whom I much admired and about whom, on numerous occasions, I have written glowingly. So, the news about him shook me deeply. What’s to be said about Jean Vanier in the light of these revelations?

First, that what he did was very wrong and deeply harmful, not least to the women he victimized. Without knowing the specifics of what happened (and without wanting to know them) enough is known to know that this was serious abuse of trust. No cloak of justification can be placed around it.

Second, what he did may not be linked to or identified with clerical sexual abuse. Vanier was not a cleric, nor indeed a canonically vowed religious. He was a layman, a public celibate admittedly, but his betrayal of his commitment to celibacy may not be identified with the clerical sexual abuse. He broke the sixth commandment, albeit in a way that merits a harsh judgment, given his public stature and the abuse of a particular kind of sacred trust. However, his breaking of his professed celibacy doesn’t put into question the legitimacy and fruitfulness of vowed celibacy itself, any more than a married man being unfaithful to his wife puts into question the legitimacy and fruitfulness of the vocation of marriage.

Third, Vanier’s transgressions do not negate the good work of L’Arche nor cast any negative shadow on the dedication and good work of the many women and men who work there and who have worked there. By their fruits you shall know them! Jesus taught that and no one, no one, can deny or question the good work that L’Arche has done and continues to do in more than thirty countries. L’Arche is a work of God, of grace, of the Holy Spirit. It turns out now that its founder had some flaws. So be it. Jesus is the only founder who had no flaws. Indeed, the good work being done by L’Arche attests too to the fact that Vanier is and was bigger than his sins. Nobody who is essentially duplicitous can leave behind such a grace-filled legacy.

Finally, the disillusionment and anger we feel says as much about us as it says about Jean Vanier. In Luke’s Gospel, a young man comes up to Jesus and says to him: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (18.18-23) Jesus immediately challenges the way he is being addressed by saying: “Don’t call me good! Only God is good.”  That was our mistake with Jean Vanier, just as it’s our mistake with other persons whom we cloak with divinity in an idealization that’s supposed to be reserved for God alone. And whenever we do that, and we did it to Jean Vanier, we cannot not ultimately be disappointed and disillusioned. Nobody, except God, does God well, all the rest of us eventually disappoint.

What Jean Vanier did to us was unfair. We cannot not feel betrayed by his betrayal. Conversely, though, what we did to him was also unfair. We asked him to be God for us and that’s also not a fair request.

When I was a twenty-one-year-old seminarian, searching for mentors, one of my seminary teachers came back from a Vanier retreat gushing with superlatives as he described Vanier as the “holiest, most-wonderful, most single-minded, spiritual man” he’d ever met. My critical faculties immediately put me on guard: “No one’s that good!” So, I deliberately didn’t look to Vanier for mentorship. However, in the fifty years since, I did look to him for mentorship. Though I never met him personally, I read his books, was much influenced by numerous persons who counted him as a formidable influence in their lives (including Henri Nouwen), I wrote a Preface for one of his last books, and wrote a glowing tribute to him for the newspapers when he died. So, I was also enough besotted by him so that now I too felt dismayed and disillusioned when I learned of his moral lapses.

However, disillusionment is curious phenomenon. After the initial shock, you soon enough realize it’s a positive thing. It’s the dispelling of an illusion, and an illusion is always in the mind of the one who doing the perceiving rather than on the part of the one being perceived. With Jean Vanier, the illusion was on our part, not his. There was, as we now know, a certain falsity in his life – but there was one on our part too.

Yes, the revelations about Jean Vanier shook me deeply, but not to my core because at our core, when we touch it, we know that no one, except God, is good, at least with a goodness that has no imperfections. Once we accept that, we can accept too that nobody’s perfect, even a Jean Vanier. At our core we can accept that, despite this betrayal, Jean Vanier did a lot of good and that L’Arche is clearly a graced reality.

                            

A Fresh Look At The Last Supper

The Easter Triduum begins on the evening of Holy Thursday, with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.  The first reading of that liturgy puts us in mind of the Passover lamb, whose blood became a sign of God’s fidelity to his people.  Gerard J. Hughes SJ suggests that our understanding of Jesus’s actions at the Last Supper should be informed by this tradition and by the account of God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. 

Gerard J. Hughes SJ is a tutor in philosophy at Campion Hall, Oxford. He is the author of Aristotle on Ethics, Is God to Blame? and Fidelity without Fundamentalism (DLT, 2010).

The Last Supper is a key event in Holy Week; our commemoration of it in our Maundy Thursday liturgy sets the tone and is the background for everything else. If we think carefully about what Jesus did at that Passover meal we shall discover how important it was, and so have a better understanding of what he was trying to do on that fateful night and on the day of his death.

Sacrificing to God?

We use the word ‘sacrifice’ in both a very specific and in a more general sense. In the more general sense we can speak of parents making sacrifices for the good of their children; they do without something good so as to be able to better provide for them. Soldiers will be willing to sacrifice their very lives for the good of their country. The more technical sense is used in a specifically religious context, where the worshipper once again does without something valuable – a goat, or a lamb, for example – as an expression of submission to a god, or to satisfy the demands of a god. As in the more general sense, the worshipper would expect that depriving themselves of something valuable as an act of worship would lead to greater benefits to come. To that extent, both types of sacrifice have much in common. The difference lies in the link between the sacrifice and the hoped-for benefits. It is easy to see the causal connection between a parent’s sacrificed holiday and the financing of their children’s education, or a soldier’s heroic sacrifice of his or her life and the success of their country’s campaign. But in the religious sense, the connection is not so clear. What is the god responding to when the worshipper kills a lamb? What does the god gain by it? Is it the death, the blood of the lamb, which causes the god to feel well-disposed? Why should it? Or is the lamb simply a symbol, and what the god is responding to is the recognition and devotion of the believer rather than to whatever it is that the believer has given up?

In both contexts, to make a sacrifice can sometimes seem senseless or counterproductive. Was the sacrifice of so many lives in Flanders worth it? Is that what won the war? And in the biblical tradition, we have statements such as, ‘What I want is steadfast love, not sacrifice’ (Hosea 6:6, repeated in Matthew 9:13); and the Letter to the Hebrews reminds its readers that Jesus himself said,

‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said “See, I have come to do your will, O God”’. (Heb 10:5)

So there is a long-standing tradition in the Bible in which the pointlessness of animal sacrifice is made very clear indeed. So what are we to make of the Paschal lamb? Or the death of Jesus? Did God want his son to die?

Abraham, Isaac and Jesus

Think for a moment about the famous story of Abraham bartering with God, as one might do in an Eastern market. (Gen 18-19) How many just men must there be in Sodom for God to relent and not punish the city? Abraham uses his haggling skills, tentatively at first, to beat God’s asking price down from fifty to just ten good men. The assumption behind this story is that God is justified in punishing Sodom, but not in punishing everyone in Sodom. There is a moral issue involved:  can the wicked be punished, at almost any cost to the just? Abraham does not dispute that in general terms the inhabitants of Sodom deserve all the fire and brimstone that God can throw at them. But he is sure that God sees the general moral point: and indeed God’s final answer is that the innocent should not suffer in the process of God’s punishing the guilty.

What, then, are we to make of the story, just three chapters later in Genesis 22, in which God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? There is a brutal reading of this story, in which it might appear that the very God whose sense of justice was evident in the story of Sodom is now behaving outrageously to both Abraham and Isaac, asking Abraham to sacrifice his own innocent son. What kind of God could possibly demand such a morally outrageous thing?

But perhaps the story should be read quite differently; unlike the Sodom story, the story of Abraham and Isaac is not trying to make a moral point at all. A good parallel would be the story of Job. Satan claimed that Job was faithful to God only because God had given him a very good life –wife, children and riches. So God allows Satan to put Job’s fidelity to the test. And, humbly but triumphantly, Job’s faith in God never faltered despite the disasters by which Satan tempted him and the convictions of his friends that he, or his children or someone, must have offended God and Job was being punished for it; Job did not claim to understand what God was doing, he simply trusted. The book of Job is not about ethics, in the way in which the old story about Sodom was:  it is about the nature of faith and what faith should be based upon. The conclusion is that there comes a point at which understanding has to be replaced by sheer trust.

The story of Abraham and Isaac can be read in the same way. In the story as it is in Genesis, Abraham knows what he has been asked to do, but Isaac does not. But in Jewish tradition there is a variant version of the story, in which it is Isaac who knows what is to happen, and Abraham who does not ; and still a third version, where both Isaac and Abraham know what is being asked of them. In all three versions the story illustrates how being tested brought the very best out of Abraham and Isaac. They remembered that God had promised to multiply the children of Isaac throughout the whole world; and, despite the apparently awful fate which awaited Isaac, they trusted in God. The lamb which God provided to be slain instead of Isaac was the sign of God’s fidelity.

In later Jewish tradition, the lamb which God provided to be sacrificed became a symbol of Isaac himself; and there is evidence that at the time of Jesus, some Jews celebrated the Passover meal in such a way that the Paschal lamb was explicitly declared to be a symbol for the body of Isaac. The lamb which Abraham killed in place of Isaac on Mount Moriah (where the Jews were one day to build the Temple) was not seen as a sacrifice of atonement, but, like the Paschal lamb, as a symbol of God’s fidelity.

Jesus is described as the Lamb of God, perhaps in a parallel to the lamb in the Isaac story and to the Passover lamb. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus’s trust in God was tested and was not found wanting; God’s angel comforted him. So great was his faith that even at the hour of his death, when he felt forsaken by God, Jesus quoted psalm 22 which is an act of total trust. Though the psalm begins with an almost despairing wretchedness – ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ – it ends with confidence: ‘…future generations will be told about the Lord and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.’ So in Luke’s Gospel, when his death was imminent, Jesus could comfort the good thief in just that way: ‘Today you shall be with me in paradise’; and in his own final prayer, Jesus said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’ Christians believe that his trust in the fidelity of God was total, and was vindicated in his resurrection.

One major strand in Christian theology tried to explain the value of the death of Jesus in terms of a ransom paid by Jesus to the devil in exchange for the freedom of us sinners; or to say that only the supreme value of the blood of God’s son was sufficient recompense to God for our sins. The parallel with the story of Isaac was forgotten. St Anselm and then Abelard pointed out how it was totally unsuitable to see the value of what Jesus did in terms of ransom or atonement; they questioned whether ‘sacrifice’ in that sense was the best way to think of what Jesus’s death should mean for us. Perhaps we can all benefit from the thought that it is not sacrifice in that sense that God is interested in, but steadfast love, come what may.

Jesus in the Eucharist

So, if we can see the Paschal lamb not as a sacrifice offering, but as a symbol of the deliverance of God’s people from Egypt when all seemed lost, we can perhaps look differently at Jesus’s Last Supper. At the supper, Jesus tried to prepare his disciples for the test to come. Just as the Paschal lamb was seen by some Jews as a symbol of Isaac, and hence as a sign of God’s fidelity to his side of the Covenant, so, we may suppose, Jesus took bread as a symbol of himself given trustingly to God; and, in parallel to the reference to the lamb as the body of Isaac, in the Passover ritual, Jesus said ‘This is my body, which will be given up for you.’ And at the end of the meal, in a further effort to help the disciples to understand, he asked them to see the shedding of his blood as the sign of the new covenant with the God who spared his people in Egypt when they marked their doors with the blood of the Passover lamb. And just as Isaac did not die on Mount Moriah, despite what seemed about to be his end, so, in Christian belief Jesus’s death on the cross was not his end: he rose from the dead.  The disciples needed to recognise, and be themselves strengthened by, that total trust. Subsequent Christians, too, needed to see themselves in this light. The Emmaus story at the end of Luke’s Gospel was written to make precisely this point. Luke describes two very disillusioned disciples who finally learned how to understand the scriptures – perhaps including the very passages about Abraham and Isaac we have been considering – and so learned to recognise Christ in the breaking of bread, who, at that moment, was no longer visible. (Lk 24:13-25)

When Christians at the Eucharist say ‘Do this in memory of me’, the phrase is often understood as Jesus exhorting us not to forget all that he has done for us. But another interpretation is that Jesus meant: ‘Do this so that God may remember me’. So in one of the Eucharistic prayers, Catholics also ask God to remember what Jesus did: ‘look upon this sacrifice and see the victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself.’ We trustingly ask our Father to look upon us, as we try to follow the example of Jesus’s total trust in God. And so, in our Eucharist, we too pray to God that just as he was faithful to his Covenant and raised Jesus from the dead, so he would be faithful to us when we, his disciples, celebrate the Eucharist in Jesus’s name.