Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au
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
DAILY AND SUNDAY MASS ONLINE: You will need to go to the following link and register: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gHY-gMZ7SZeGMDSJyTDeAQ
Sunday 17th May 9:00am
Monday 18th May No Mass ... St John I
Tuesday 19th May 9:00am
Wednesday 20th May 9:00am ... St Bernardine of Siena
Thursday 21st May 9:00am ... St Christopher Magallanes
Friday 22nd May 9:00am ... St Rita of Cascia
Saturday 23rd May 9:00am
Sunday 24th May 9:00am … The Ascension of the Lord
If you are looking for Sunday Mass readings or Daily Mass readings,
Universalis has the readings as well
as the various Hours of the Divine Office - https://universalis.com/mass.htm
Your
prayers are asked for the sick:
Jane Fitzpatrick, Barry Mulcahy, Mark Aylett, & …
Let us pray for
those who have died recently: Pauline Cooper, Pauline Burnett, Reg Hinkley, Ted Horton, Ian Ravaillion, Robert Becker, Denis Prior, Ken Bailey, Irene Blachford, Barry Quinn, Peter Phair, Vanessa Beasley, Lorna Watson, Bill Bracken
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
I may wish to focus on my breathing as I slow down.
As I breathe out, I imagine getting rid of any fears, doubts, self-reliance, lack of trust.
that I was loved first, and the commandment is simply to respond to that love …?
that I will not be left orphaned?
Again, I pause, moving on only when ready.
I may like to end by asking the Spirit, now, to help me receive the Lord’s commandment to love and to keep it in my heart.
Weekly Ramblings
By
this weekend it will be two months since the Archbishop met with the Council of
Priests to speak about the challenges we would be facing during the
Corona-virus pandemic. Late last week the Government put forward a 3-stage plan
for the easing of some of the restrictions that were necessary to keep people
safe during these times.
On
Wednesday afternoon the whole of the Clergy met via an online platform to share
our thoughts about what steps we, as the Church in Tasmania, might take to
re-open Churches in line with the revised restrictions. At this stage I have
too many questions and concerns to make any big steps and I need to share some
thoughts with the members of the PPT and some others in the Parish. I mention
it now because I’m asking that you bear with me for a few more days – I hope to
be able to provide more information early next week, most likely in my Tuesday
update, with apologies to all those who receive the newsletter via ‘snail’
mail.
On
a positive note. One of the terrific things that I continue to be impressed
with is the great support that people are giving to people around them. I am
constantly hearing of wonderful people who are continually reaching out to
neighbours and friends to support them during this time. This support is so
important and crucial for our parish community as well as the wider local
community.
As
mentioned in an earlier edition of my Ramblings I am offering a Journey into
Prego session on Friday at 9.30am (following the on-line Mass). Please contact
me (mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au) if you would like to join this group – it has a
different sign-in. In the session we will be looking at the Gospel for the
following Sunday and using the Prego material that is included in the
Newsletter each week.
Stay safe, stay sane and, if you can, stay at home
CONTEMPLATIVE
PRAYER:
These are:
If you are not familiar with these
forms of prayer, I encourage you to give it a go. In this initial program over 4 weeks there will be appropriate
teaching to enable you to engage and incorporate into your own prayer. Wednesdays at 7 pm. Please
let John know by email if you are interested and
then he will send you the log in details.
Email: john.leearcher@gmail.com
ONLINE GIVING:
The details for online Planned
Giving are: Bank Commonwealth; Account Name: Mersey Leven; BSB: 067 000; Acc
No: 1031 5724. In the Description area simply add your Name or Envelope Number.
CARITAS/PROJECT COMPASSION
Please support the work of Caritas/Project Compassion by
making your Project Compassion offering online: Bank: CBA, Account Name:
Caritas Australia. BSB: 062438 Account No: 10038330. Reference please
put Agent Number 187907 then your surname.
We are unable to provide receipts, please
contact Caritas directly.
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
DAILY AND SUNDAY MASS ONLINE: You will need to go to the following link and register: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gHY-gMZ7SZeGMDSJyTDeAQ
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Please keep this confirmation email as that will be your entry point for all further Masses or Liturgies.
Monday 18th May No Mass ... St John I
Tuesday 19th May 9:00am
Wednesday 20th May 9:00am ... St Bernardine of Siena
Thursday 21st May 9:00am ... St Christopher Magallanes
Friday 22nd May 9:00am ... St Rita of Cascia
Saturday 23rd May 9:00am
Sunday 24th May 9:00am … The Ascension of the Lord
If you are looking for Sunday Mass readings or Daily Mass readings,
Universalis has the readings as well
as the various Hours of the Divine Office - https://universalis.com/mass.htm
Your
prayers are asked for the sick:
Jane Fitzpatrick, Barry Mulcahy, Mark Aylett, & …
Let us pray for
those who have died recently: Pauline Cooper, Pauline Burnett, Reg Hinkley, Ted Horton, Ian Ravaillion, Robert Becker, Denis Prior, Ken Bailey, Irene Blachford, Barry Quinn, Peter Phair, Vanessa Beasley, Lorna Watson, Bill Bracken
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 13th – 19th May,
Ethel
Dooley, Audrey Ennis, Marian Hamon, Tas Glover, Mary Carlton, Sylvia Street, Julia
Windridge, Mary Stevenson, Kathleen Laycock, Kit Hayes, Martin Healy, Lance
Cole, Richard Delaney, Patricia Down, Paul Sulzberger, Betty Broadbent,
Maryanne Morgan.
May
the souls of the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
I make myself comfortable and try to become still.
I may wish to focus on my breathing as I slow down.
I may wish to focus on my breathing as I slow down.
Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon the Early Church.
As I breathe in, I invite the Spirit to live in me.
As I breathe out, I imagine getting rid of any fears, doubts, self-reliance, lack of trust.
As I breathe out, I imagine getting rid of any fears, doubts, self-reliance, lack of trust.
When ready, I slowly read the Gospel.
Where do I find myself pausing?
Perhaps I notice what it means to me … to be so close to the Lord that I am in him and the Lord is in me? …
that I was loved first, and the commandment is simply to respond to that love …?
that I will not be left orphaned?
that I was loved first, and the commandment is simply to respond to that love …?
that I will not be left orphaned?
I stay with whatever is drawing my attention, noticing how I feel.
What might the Lord be saying to me through these words?
Do I wish to say something in response?
Again, I pause, moving on only when ready.
Again, I pause, moving on only when ready.
The Gospel message is that Jesus wishes to give me the Advocate, the Spirit of truth.
I may like to end by asking the Spirit, now, to help me receive the Lord’s commandment to love and to keep it in my heart.
I may like to end by asking the Spirit, now, to help me receive the Lord’s commandment to love and to keep it in my heart.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill my heart and enkindle in me the fire of your divine love.
Spirit, at work in me, renew the face of the world.
Amen.
Weekly Ramblings
By
this weekend it will be two months since the Archbishop met with the Council of
Priests to speak about the challenges we would be facing during the
Corona-virus pandemic. Late last week the Government put forward a 3-stage plan
for the easing of some of the restrictions that were necessary to keep people
safe during these times.
On
Wednesday afternoon the whole of the Clergy met via an online platform to share
our thoughts about what steps we, as the Church in Tasmania, might take to
re-open Churches in line with the revised restrictions. At this stage I have
too many questions and concerns to make any big steps and I need to share some
thoughts with the members of the PPT and some others in the Parish. I mention
it now because I’m asking that you bear with me for a few more days – I hope to
be able to provide more information early next week, most likely in my Tuesday
update, with apologies to all those who receive the newsletter via ‘snail’
mail.
On
a positive note. One of the terrific things that I continue to be impressed
with is the great support that people are giving to people around them. I am
constantly hearing of wonderful people who are continually reaching out to
neighbours and friends to support them during this time. This support is so
important and crucial for our parish community as well as the wider local
community.
As
mentioned in an earlier edition of my Ramblings I am offering a Journey into
Prego session on Friday at 9.30am (following the on-line Mass). Please contact
me (mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au) if you would like to join this group – it has a
different sign-in. In the session we will be looking at the Gospel for the
following Sunday and using the Prego material that is included in the
Newsletter each week.
Stay safe, stay sane and, if you can, stay at home
CONTEMPLATIVE
PRAYER:
The contemplative world is not just in a monastery. It can equally be in our domestic
settings. And how appropriate to be
considering such a world in our current situation. John is offering an introduction to two
contemplative prayer forms with the view to maybe establishing an ongoing
contemplative prayer group.
These are:
These are:
· Centering
Prayer - a receptive method of silent
prayer
· Chanting
– a contemplative practice of praying the psalms which naturally draws our
focus to the present and calms the dualistic mind.
If you are not familiar with these
forms of prayer, I encourage you to give it a go. In this initial program over 4 weeks there will be appropriate
teaching to enable you to engage and incorporate into your own prayer. Wednesdays at 7 pm. Please
let John know by email if you are interested and
then he will send you the log in details.
Email: john.leearcher@gmail.com
Email: john.leearcher@gmail.com
ONLINE GIVING:
The details for online Planned
Giving are: Bank Commonwealth; Account Name: Mersey Leven; BSB: 067 000; Acc
No: 1031 5724. In the Description area simply add your Name or Envelope Number.
CARITAS/PROJECT COMPASSION
Please support the work of Caritas/Project Compassion by
making your Project Compassion offering online: Bank: CBA, Account Name:
Caritas Australia. BSB: 062438 Account No: 10038330. Reference please
put Agent Number 187907 then your surname.
We are unable to provide receipts, please
contact Caritas directly.
Letter From Rome
The Jesuit Pope Looks To The Franciscans
Letter From Rome
The Jesuit Pope Looks To The Franciscans
The Jesuit Pope Looks To The Franciscans
Francis continues to appoint friars to major dioceses and may soon choose one
for a top Vatican job - Robert Mickens, Rome, May 15, 2020.
This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete full access is via paid subscription
Pope Francis recently shocked Catholics in Italy when he named Father Marco Tasca, a two-term superior general of the Conventual Franciscans (Grey Friars), to head the Archdiocese of Genoa.
The pope made the surprise appointment on May 6, just one month before the archbishop-elect's 63rd birthday.
Genoa is one of the most prestigious dioceses in Italy, and even in the world. It has a centuries-long history of being headed, from time to a time, by a cardinal.
And the last five archbishops of the northern Italian see were all given the red hat, dating back to Cardinal Giuseppe Siri.
Siri was the standard bearer of the country's Catholic traditionalists and was a perennial contender for the papacy. He participated in four conclaves, spanning from the one in 1958 that elected John XXIII to the one 20 years later that put John Paul II on the Throne of Peter.
"Hey Siri, who's the new archbishop of Genoa?
"The Archdiocese of Genoa is famous for its priests and bishops who have been molded very much into Siri's image and likeness. The list is long and a number of them were thought to be candidates for the job that Francis decided to give to a man called Fra Marco.
He replaces Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, 77, who was ordained to the priesthood by Siri in 1966 and got his red hat post from Benedict XVI. The former pope also appointed Bagnasco president of the Italian Bishops' Conference where he burnished his credentials as one of the leading conservative cardinals in the Church.
Thus, more traditionally minded Catholics in Italy were miffed that Francis chose a "simple friar" who wears sandals as the latest man to step into Siri's shoes.
On the day it happened the theologian Massimo Faggioli could not resist sending this Tweet: "Hey Siri, who is new archbishops of Genoa?"
That must have felt like salt in the wounds for those in the Siri-Bagnasco camp.
They've tried put on a brave face on Tasca's appointment and console themselves, at least a little, by applauding the fact that the new archbishop has many years of experience governing a jurisdiction that is much larger than the archdiocese that awaits him along the Italian Riviera.
The Jesuit pope's first episcopal appointment was a Franciscan
This is the not first friar from one of the three main branches of the Franciscan Family that that Pope Francis has chosen for a top job.
In fact, the very first person the Jesuit pope made a bishop after his election in March 2013 was the superior general of the Order of Friars Minor – Jose Rodrigues Caraballo.
Francis named him archbishop-secretary of the Vatican congregation that deals with religious orders.
Next he chose a Capuchin Franciscan – Cardinal Sean O'Malley – as the North American member of his newly invented Council of Cardinals, a sort of international kitchen cabinet designed to help him in his task of universal governance and, more pointedly, to help him reform the Vatican.
The pope has named at least three other Italian Franciscans to major episcopal posts. The most prominent, perhaps, is Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa OFM. Francis named the 55-year-old former "custos" of the Holy Land as the de facto head of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem in 2016.
Last March the pope put another Grey Friar in charge of a large and important diocese when he named 68-year-old Bishop Gregory Hartmeyer as head of the Archdiocese of Atlanta in the United States.
One Franciscan among the pope's electors, and maybe more on the way
Francis has given the red hat to only one Franciscan who is currently among the cardinal electors. He's a 60-year-old Capuchin named Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) since 2018.
But the pope has put other Franciscans in like Marco Tasca and Archbishop Celestino Aos Braco of Santiago de Chile (another Capuchin appointed in 2019) in traditionally red-hat sees.
The names of Grey Friars, Capuchins and Friars Minor that the Argentine pope has appointed to become bishops or promoted to positions of greater responsibility are too many to cite here.
And he's not likely to stop looking to the men who were formed it the school of the great saint who's name he took when he was elected Bishop of Rome.
There are rumors that Pope Francis is seriously considering a Franciscan to take the place of the traditionalist Cardinal Robert Sarah as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.
He's Bishop Vittorio Francesco Viola OFM of Tortona, a suffragan see of Genoa.
The 54-year-old liturgist was not even a bishop yet when the pope appointed him to the diocese.
He had just finished several years as director of the diocesan Caritas in Assisi and was teaching at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute (Sant'Anselmo) in Rome.
If Francis eventually does name him to replace Cardinal Sarah, the traditionalists will be even more upset than they are with Marco Tasca's appointment.
Fra Vittorio Francesco is 100% committed to the liturgical reform that followed the Second Vatican Council. And under his watch, the congregation would likely put an end to any further attempts to undermine that reform.
A Practical Twofold Process
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
This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete full access is via paid subscription
Pope Francis recently shocked Catholics in Italy when he named Father Marco Tasca, a two-term superior general of the Conventual Franciscans (Grey Friars), to head the Archdiocese of Genoa.
The pope made the surprise appointment on May 6, just one month before the archbishop-elect's 63rd birthday.
Genoa is one of the most prestigious dioceses in Italy, and even in the world. It has a centuries-long history of being headed, from time to a time, by a cardinal.
And the last five archbishops of the northern Italian see were all given the red hat, dating back to Cardinal Giuseppe Siri.
Siri was the standard bearer of the country's Catholic traditionalists and was a perennial contender for the papacy. He participated in four conclaves, spanning from the one in 1958 that elected John XXIII to the one 20 years later that put John Paul II on the Throne of Peter.
"Hey Siri, who's the new archbishop of Genoa?
"The Archdiocese of Genoa is famous for its priests and bishops who have been molded very much into Siri's image and likeness. The list is long and a number of them were thought to be candidates for the job that Francis decided to give to a man called Fra Marco.
He replaces Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, 77, who was ordained to the priesthood by Siri in 1966 and got his red hat post from Benedict XVI. The former pope also appointed Bagnasco president of the Italian Bishops' Conference where he burnished his credentials as one of the leading conservative cardinals in the Church.
Thus, more traditionally minded Catholics in Italy were miffed that Francis chose a "simple friar" who wears sandals as the latest man to step into Siri's shoes.
On the day it happened the theologian Massimo Faggioli could not resist sending this Tweet: "Hey Siri, who is new archbishops of Genoa?"
That must have felt like salt in the wounds for those in the Siri-Bagnasco camp.
They've tried put on a brave face on Tasca's appointment and console themselves, at least a little, by applauding the fact that the new archbishop has many years of experience governing a jurisdiction that is much larger than the archdiocese that awaits him along the Italian Riviera.
The Jesuit pope's first episcopal appointment was a Franciscan
This is the not first friar from one of the three main branches of the Franciscan Family that that Pope Francis has chosen for a top job.
In fact, the very first person the Jesuit pope made a bishop after his election in March 2013 was the superior general of the Order of Friars Minor – Jose Rodrigues Caraballo.
Francis named him archbishop-secretary of the Vatican congregation that deals with religious orders.
Next he chose a Capuchin Franciscan – Cardinal Sean O'Malley – as the North American member of his newly invented Council of Cardinals, a sort of international kitchen cabinet designed to help him in his task of universal governance and, more pointedly, to help him reform the Vatican.
The pope has named at least three other Italian Franciscans to major episcopal posts. The most prominent, perhaps, is Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa OFM. Francis named the 55-year-old former "custos" of the Holy Land as the de facto head of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem in 2016.
Last March the pope put another Grey Friar in charge of a large and important diocese when he named 68-year-old Bishop Gregory Hartmeyer as head of the Archdiocese of Atlanta in the United States.
One Franciscan among the pope's electors, and maybe more on the way
Francis has given the red hat to only one Franciscan who is currently among the cardinal electors. He's a 60-year-old Capuchin named Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) since 2018.
But the pope has put other Franciscans in like Marco Tasca and Archbishop Celestino Aos Braco of Santiago de Chile (another Capuchin appointed in 2019) in traditionally red-hat sees.
The names of Grey Friars, Capuchins and Friars Minor that the Argentine pope has appointed to become bishops or promoted to positions of greater responsibility are too many to cite here.
And he's not likely to stop looking to the men who were formed it the school of the great saint who's name he took when he was elected Bishop of Rome.
There are rumors that Pope Francis is seriously considering a Franciscan to take the place of the traditionalist Cardinal Robert Sarah as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.
He's Bishop Vittorio Francesco Viola OFM of Tortona, a suffragan see of Genoa.
The 54-year-old liturgist was not even a bishop yet when the pope appointed him to the diocese.
He had just finished several years as director of the diocesan Caritas in Assisi and was teaching at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute (Sant'Anselmo) in Rome.
If Francis eventually does name him to replace Cardinal Sarah, the traditionalists will be even more upset than they are with Marco Tasca's appointment.
Fra Vittorio Francesco is 100% committed to the liturgical reform that followed the Second Vatican Council. And under his watch, the congregation would likely put an end to any further attempts to undermine that reform.
A Practical Twofold Process
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
As in the early church, the desert Christians were deeply
committed to Jesus’ teachings and lived practice. Their chosen solitude and
silence were not anti-social but a way to become better at seeing clearly and
at loving deeply. Withdrawal was for the sake of deeper encounter and presence.
Speaking of the relationship between contemplation and
action, Diana Butler Bass describes the natural flow from solitude to prayer to
active love:
[Their response to Jesus’] “Come follow me” was intimately
bound up with the practice of prayer. For prayer connects us with God and
others, “part of this enterprise of learning to love.” Prayer is much more than
a technique, and early Christians left us no definitive how-to manual on
prayer. Rather, the desert fathers and mothers believed that prayer was a
disposition of wholeness, so that “prayer and our life must be all of a piece.”
They approached prayer, as early church scholar Roberta Bondi notes, as a
practical twofold process: first, of “thinking and reflecting,” or “pondering”
what it means to love others; and second, as the “development and practice of
loving ways of being.” [1] In other words, these ancients taught that prayer
was participation in God’s love, the activity that takes us out of ourselves,
away from the familiar, and conforms us to the path of Christ. [2]
Through their solitude, the abbas and ammas learned to be
sparing and intentional with their words and to preach more through their
lifestyle than through sermons. There were few “doctrines” to prove at this
time in Christianity, only an inner life to be experienced so the outer life
might be changed. Abba Isidore of Pelusia said, “To live without speaking is
better than to speak without living. For the former who lives rightly does good
even by his silence but the latter does no good even when he speaks. When words
and life correspond to one another they are together the whole of philosophy.”
[3]
An old abba was asked what was necessary to do to be saved.
He was sitting making rope. Without glancing up, he said, “You’re looking at
it.” James Finley, a member of our Living School faculty, puts it this way:
“This dance of infinite love is rhythmically playing itself out in the rhythms
of our life standing up and sitting down, waking up and falling asleep. The
rhythms of the day by day are the rhythms of love given to us as this
inherently sacred nature of life itself.” [4] Just as so many of the mystics
have taught, doing what you’re doing with care, presence, and intention is a
form of prayer, the very way to transformation and wholeness. There is no
trick, no magic formula to becoming one with Reality. There is only living and,
as you know, this is much harder than it first seems.
[4] James Finley, Intimacy: The Divine Ambush, disc 1
(Center for Action and Contemplation: 2013), CD, MP3 download.
Leaving Peace Behind As Our Farewell Gift
This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here
There is such a thing as a good death, a clean one, a death that, however sad, leaves behind a sense of peace. I have been witness to it many times. Sometimes this is recognized explicitly when someone dies, sometimes unconsciously. It is known by its fruit.
I remember sitting with a man dying of cancer in his mid-fifties, leaving behind a young family, who said to me: “I don’t believe I have an enemy in the world, at least I don’t know if I do. I’ve no unfinished business.” I heard something similar from a young woman also dying of cancer and also leaving behind a young family. Her words: “I thought that I’d cried all the tears I had, but then yesterday when I saw my youngest daughter I found out that I had a lot more tears still to cry. But I’m at peace. It’s hard, but I’ve nothing left that I haven’t given.” And I’ve been at deathbeds other times when none of this was articulated in words, but all of it was clearly spoken in that loving awkwardness and silence you often witness around deathbeds. There is a way of dying that leaves peace behind.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus gives a long farewell speech at the Last Supper on the night before he dies. His disciples, understandably, are shaken, afraid, and not prepared to accept the brute reality of his impending death. He tries to calm them, reassure them, give them things to cling to, and he ends with these words: I am going away, but I will leave you a final gift, the gift of my peace.
I suspect that almost everyone reading this will have had an experience of grieving the death of a loved one, a parent, spouse, child, or friend, and finding, at least after a time, beneath the grief a warm sense of peace whenever the memory of the loved one surfaces or is evoked. I lost both of my parents when I was in my early twenties and, sad as were their farewells, every memory of them now evokes a warmth. Their farewell gift was the gift of peace.
In trying to understanding this, it is important to distinguish between being wanted and being needed. When I lost my parents at a young age, I still desperately wanted them (and believed that I still needed them), but I came to realize in the peace that eventually settled upon our family after their deaths that our pain was in still wanting them and not in any longer needing them. In their living and their dying they had already given us what we needed. There was nothing else we needed from them. Now we just missed them and, irrespective of the sadness of their departure, our relationship was complete. We were at peace.
The challenge for all of us now, of course, is on the other side of this equation, namely, the challenge to live in such a way that peace will be our final farewell gift to our families, our loved ones, our faith community, and our world. How do we do that? How do we leave the gift of peace to those we leave behind?
Peace, as we know, is a whole lot more than the simple absence of war and strife. Peace is constituted by two things: harmony and completeness. To be at peace something has to have an inner consistency so that all of its movements are in harmony with each other and it must also have a completeness so that it is not still aching for something it is missing. Peace is the opposite of internal discord or of longing for something we lack. When we are not at peace it is because we are experiencing chaos or sensing some unfinished business inside us.
Positively then, what constitutes peace? When Jesus promises peace as his farewell gift, he identifies it with the Holy Spirit; and, as we know, that is the spirit of charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, longsuffering, fidelity, mildness, and chastity.
How do we leave these behind when we leave? Well, death is no different than life. When some people leave anything, a job, a marriage, a family, or a community, they leave chaos behind, a legacy of disharmony, unfinished business, anger, bitterness, jealousy, and division. Their memory is felt always as a cold pain. They are not missed, even as their memory haunts. Some people on the other hand leave behind a legacy of harmony and completeness, a spirit of understanding, compassion, affirmation, and unity. These people are missed but the ache is a warm one, a nurturing one, one of happy memory.
Going away in death has exactly the same dynamic. By the way we live and die we will leave behind either a spirit that perennially haunts the peace of our loved ones, or we will leave behind a spirit that brings a warmth every time our memory is evoked.
What Would You Do Now If You Knew What Was Coming Next!
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
There was no way we could have known the impact COVID-19 would have on our parishes. But in hindsight, we can see clearly the path the virus took through our normal operating procedures, dismantling with ease the methods and processes we had relied on. Looking back, we can see the steps we might have taken months or years ago to avert the worst of this crisis.
As I write this, some diocese across our country are beginning to reopen churches for private prayer and, in some cases, public Mass. Some see this as a positive development that reflects the impact of our collective efforts to contain the virus. But while we might be tempted to assume that reopening will bring back all as it was, we might do better to take this opportunity to reflect on what the future might hold.
It seems increasingly likely that mitigation strategies will be with us for much longer than we initially expected. In my own state, reopening will occur in phases, with large gatherings, such as we experience for weekend Masses, permitted only in the final stage. The length of these phases will be dependent on measurable variables like hospitalizations and ICU capacity, meaning limits will likely be present for as long as the virus is with us. To think that things will go back to normal in a few weeks or even months would be a mistake. Besides government regulation, there are other, more practical, challenges that we will face:
Will there be limits on occupancy of our church buildings? Will we have to operate at some percentage of capacity for an extended period? How will that be enforced?
-
Will it be safe for the elderly to return to campus? How will we replace the impact of lectors, ministers, and ushers who are at-risk?
-
Will there be a second wave of quarantine in the fall or winter bringing renewed stay-at-home restrictions?
-
Will larger parishes have to stay closed longer than those with smaller congregations?
And then we will have to reckon with how to create a contactless church experience for those who do return:
-
Will interior and exterior doors have to remain open?
-
Will choirs be able to sing together?
-
Will we have to remove common touchpoints like hymnals?
-
Will it be safe to have children’s ministry?
-
Will we still be passing the collection basket?
-
Will Holy Water Fonts and the Sign of Peace become things of the past?
-
How will Communion be distributed?
I do not raise these questions to frighten or confuse. By asking now, when we have time to prepare, we can make sure the work of our mission is uninterrupted come what may. Until now, we’ve merely been reacting to the crisis. Now, we can look ahead and try, as best we can, to anticipate the steps we can take.
Reevaluate your content
“Content is king.” This golden rule of digital media means that your content is the defining factor to how people are paying attention to you online. Create systems and channels now where you can continue to publish creative and compelling digital content well into the future. For example, if you cannot gather children together safely on the weekend, consider turning your children’s ministry or Liturgy of the Word into a weekly resource for parents. At our parish, our children’s discipleship team collaborates on a weekly video lesson that is creative, funny, and compelling for kids. Distribution channels like a private Facebook group or weekly email carry this content to parents.
But, it’s also important to recognize that not all content transfers well to digital media. It would be a mistake to simply digitize what you used to do in-person. The 30-minute lecture that works for your Wednesday night Bible study crowd will probably not capture the attention of someone casually checking Facebook. But, a 5-minute summary, complete with visual cues and reflection questions, might.
Reevaluate how you use technology
Technology enables you to do more with less. Many parishes have noticed that online livestreams of services have attracted, in some cases, more people that would have stepped foot in their church on a given weekend. And they did it all with less effort, expense, and stress than a whole weekend of in-person gatherings.
Although some view it as a stop-gap measure, consider continuing or even investing more into your livestreaming operation. When churches are reopened for services, there will still be a large part of your congregation that cannot attend. The elderly, the immunocompromised, and the sick will continue to stay at home. Livestreaming also has a large role to play in evangelization, which I have discussed in detail here and here.
Technology has a large role to play in creating contactless church experiences when we do open. Online giving can, and must, replace passing the basket. Music lyrics and responses projected onto a screen can replace physical hymnals and missalettes.
Reevaluate the way you hire and develop staff
The pandemic will likely have severe impacts on parish finances meaning furloughs, layoffs, and pay cuts for lay parish staff – and I don’t want to make light of that. Each of those impacts real people with real families. But, over time, we will recover. We’ll be able to take stock of our finances and how our hiring decisions reveal our priorities in ministry.
When hiring for the future, we should value certain skills that like digital communication and aptitude with technology. We should also value certain character traits such as adaptability, flexibility, and grit. For existing parish staff and those who will be retained from furlough, we should provide ample opportunities for development of their existing skills with an emphasis on using technology in their current roles.
My friend Pastor Carey Nieuwhof writes, “Because crisis is an accelerator, it reveals and amplifies the weaknesses that were already there, and also accelerates trends that were emerging anyway. Crisis doesn’t create failure, it accelerates it. Crisis doesn’t create momentum, it accelerates the momentum that was already there.” (link)
COVID-19 didn’t create many of the changes we are seeing in the Church and culture. It only accelerated what was already happening. By preparing now, we can set ourselves up for success moving forward.
Beyond The Pandemic: Believe Everything or Deny Everything?
It falls on all of us to ask how the extreme situation that we are living through can change us, individually and collectively, says Mauricio López Oropeza. Through this pandemic we are invited to a conversion in which we learn to embrace our fragility, interconnection and mystery, ‘just as in these Easter days the meaning of Jesus’s death and passion is a passage to the promised new life of the resurrection.’
Mauricio López Oropeza is Executive Secretary of REPAM.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here
In his iconic work, The Plague, Albert Camus addresses the depth and ambivalence of the human condition. His story is set in the context of an extreme experience in which existential questions come to the fore, just as is happening today. Science will reveal more to us about the reasons for the Covid-19 pandemic in due course, but it is left to all of us to ask now about our own existence in the midst of this crisis and the way in which we decide to act in it, as individuals and as a society.
What I consider to be the central proposal of Camus’ existential reflection, even though it was written in 1947, can still shake all of us in 2020 as it prompts us to ask how we stand before this pandemic and if we are capable of looking beyond it.
Yes, they had suffered together, in body no less than in soul, from a cruel leisure, exile without redress, thirst that was never slaked. Among the heaps of corpses, the clanging bells of ambulances, the warnings of what goes by the name of fate, among unremitting waves of fear and agonized revolt, the horror that such things could be, always a great voice had been ringing in the ears of these forlorn, panicked people, a voice calling them back to the land of their desire, a homeland. It lay outside the walls of the stifled, strangled town, in the fragrant brushwood of the hills, in the waves of the sea, under free skies, and in the custody of love. And it was to this, their lost home, toward happiness, they longed to return, turning their backs disgustedly on all else.
In a world where everything seemed to be within the grasp of our own human capabilities, developments and intelligence, with our technology that supports increasingly individualistic and alienating ways of life. In dominant societies that function under the premises of quasi-autonomy, self-determination and nationalisms. There, where apparently everything was under our control and superficial relations were enough to sustain our entire existence, in that precise moment of history, in the heart of that reality, a microscopic viral presence bursts in to transform everything, to disrupt everything, to question everything ... at least momentarily. This virus shows us our smallness. And it comes at a time when we have reached the limits of our planet's carrying capacity (ecological limits) and the obscenest levels of inequality.
We have no idea of the real implications that this pandemic will have, of how much it will redefine our lives. Each of our views is limited by our reduced understanding of the world according to our own definition of a more-or-less stable normality that will not return, at least in the short term. When it is so difficult to predict a material future with certainty, we find ourselves turning to more existential questioning of our deep identity. As we face these months and years to come, on which internal and external forces will we draw? How must we conduct ourselves as sons and daughters of this time with regards to ourselves and others? And in what sense can a mystery that transcends us sustain us on our journey?
Camus’ essential question on being is voiced by the character of a Jesuit priest, Paneloux. This priest, and his relationship with the plague of the novel’s title and those affected by it, shows us two pathways to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his first sermon, Fr Paneloux speaks to his congregation without associating himself with them. He begins by saying: ‘Calamity has come on you, my brethren, and, my brethren, you deserved it’. He experiences this situation as something apart from himself and as something that he is called to interpret without being transformed by it; he must dictate the course of action from a privileged, distant position, even one of power or superiority.
In this time of the Covid-19 pandemic we see political, religious and social leaders who, regardless of their ideology, have lost empathy with the pain in front of them and are acting from interests so fleeting or particular that their words fade along with their legitimacy as the pandemic advances. Unfortunately, we have too many examples of leaders who, out of incapacity, attachment to particular interests, fear or an inner void, dissociate themselves from the cries of the others.
‘If today the plague is in your midst, that is because the hour has struck for taking thought. The just man need have no fear, but the evildoer has good cause to tremble’. This notion of a divine punishment that Paneloux expresses finds echoes in the words of those who today try to make us forget the enormous structural inequalities, the prevailing untenable situation of poverty and injustice, and the predominance of the god of money. In order to seize and justify power for themselves, they turn a blind eye to these and instead manipulate the needs and beliefs of those they wish to control, placing the burden of guilt and failure on them. Paneloux again: ‘For a long while God gazed down on this town with eyes of compassion; but He grew weary of waiting, His eternal hope was too long deferred, and now He has turned His face away from us.’
In this pandemic, whose expansion is rapid and difficult to stop, this notion of blame and punishment must be definitively silenced. This global crisis is affecting everyone, and at the same time it is revealing the profound situation of inequality in which the virus most affects those whom God loves the most, those whom Christ himself called as the most beloved, the blessed.
After this crisis, each and every one of these leaders must be called to give an account of their failures when the world needed leaders who would be touched by the cries of the poor and the earth, and act accordingly.
The same character, Father Paneloux, experiences an inner rupture and a deep transformation as he witnesses the pain and senselessness of the death of the most vulnerable as a consequence of the plague. As a result of that personal experience of suffering, he presents us with a second way of responding.
In the face of the death of a child, of an innocent, everything changes. The story narrates the profound pain that this little boy suffers from the plague, stating that it was a true ‘scandal’ because,
… they had never had to witness over so long a period the death-throes of an innocent child … From between the inflamed eyelids big tears welled up and trickled down the sunken, leaden-hued cheeks. When the spasm had passed, utterly exhausted, tensing his thin legs and arms, on which, within forty-eight hours, the flesh had wasted to the bone, the child lay flat, racked on the tumbled bed, in a grotesque parody of crucifixion.
Like Paneloux in the face of this pandemic, we are called to look into the eyes of the most vulnerable, the many innocent people who are losing their lives. Taking refuge in a bubble will not change the fact that those dying will eventually challenge us asking, as this child asked Paneloux: what did we do in this situation?
It is true that today it is essential to take care of ourselves (to stay at home for those who have that privilege) in order to take care of others, but this stretch of our human history is a real watershed. Here a line is marked between before and after, and the grotesque, crucified victims of the pandemic invite us to embrace life in such a way that we will stand up and offer ourselves to the service of others when the time comes. A life of genuine alterity will be born, just as in these Easter days the meaning of Jesus’s death and passion is a passage to the promised new life of the Resurrection. Will it be possible for us to participate in a true Easter for our whole humanity, in which a new world could be born as the fruit of a great conversion?
Paneloux, before that innocent child about to die, experiences the same conversion to which we are being invited: ‘Paneloux gazed down at the small mouth, fouled with the sores of the plague and pouring out the angry death-cry that has sounded through the ages of mankind. He sank on his knees, and all present found it natural to hear him say in a voice hoarse but clearly audible across that nameless, never ending wail: My God, spare this child!’ Helplessness will continue to be a part of our lives, but if we are able to recognise the cry of all life in the unjust deaths of so many, we will be able to understand that our cry to God is for him to change us radically through this undesirable pandemic that is not a punishment, but a sign of the times, along with so many others that involve the death of the most vulnerable.
After this experience of conversion, Paneloux, ‘spoke in a gentler, more thoughtful tone than on the previous occasion, and several times was noticed to be stumbling over his words. A yet more noteworthy change was that instead of saying you, he now said we’. He himself had moved from the place of the judge or interpreter, to the very place of those who suffered from the pain of the plague.
In this second sermon he encouraged his hearers to discern the meaning within even their horrendous situation: ‘we might try to explain the phenomenon of the plague, but, above all, should learn what it had to teach us … there were some things we could grasp as touching God, and others we could not’. How much good it does us to see ourselves vulnerable and without all the answers, since in this way all the supposed absolute truths about God held tightly in the hands of some, excluding others, fail as they slip through the fingers, opening some space for mystery.
So what does all this teach us about the profound changes that our world needs to embrace in order to face the uncertain tomorrow with hopeful eyes? There are attitudes that we must eradicate completely in our personal, communal and societal structures, because they are inequitable, self-centred and individualising, destructive, false and unsustainable; and we can also identify new pathways that will lead to a new humanity: a more incarnated humanity, in communion with pain and hope, in a process of permanent conversion, and in a transcendental search above the material.
Paneloux, redeemed by the encounter with the concrete pain of his neighbours, which he lived as his own pain, says: ‘My brothers, a time of testing has come for us all. We must believe everything or deny everything. And who among you, I ask, would dare to deny everything?’ This pandemic calls for a capacity for transcendence necessarily anchored in a sense of mystery and in the embrace of otherness. Otherwise, we will commit the same mistake of pretending to be in control of everything, until a new pandemic, or the imminent climate catastrophe, reaches us.
Pope Francis, too, recently expressed this desire for change:
Today I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption (Laudato Si’, §191) and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. We need to reconnect with our real surroundings. This is the opportunity for conversion... What we are living now is a place of metanoia (conversion), and we have the chance to begin. So let’s not let it slip from us, and let’s move ahead.[i]
The path to the new, already blossoming in the midst of this crisis, will be held up on three legs of a tripod:
1. Awareness of our own fragility and finiteness as a starting point, so that we create and recreate the new from our limited being. Many cultures and traditions can show us how to turn our backs on societies centered on consumption and unlimited accumulation, on market economies that swallow up human beings, and on a vision of an unlimited planet that we must destroy. We must end the ‘throw-away culture’ in order to weave a culture of sobriety and solidarity, which will arise from the awareness of our own fragility.
2. Awareness of our undeniable interconnection. Never before has society realised that we are absolutely intertwined. A tiny virus has shaken us from the illusion that each one of us is enough for him- or herself, or that I can remain isolated without taking responsibility for the consequences of my acts (or omissions) with respect to the lives of others. Nature has always cried at us, trying to communicate this interrelationship and the fragile balance in ecosystems. The potential new post-Covid-19 society will have to be sustained by existential ties that allow us to rethink all relationships, institutions and structures, otherwise we will again be at the mercy of the next pandemic, even more fragile in our capacity for resilience.
3. Awareness of mystery as the energy that sustains everything. No one can save him- or herself, and in the darkness of these days the most essential search of many is for a profound encounter. Beyond the particular religions, embracing all of what is positive and valuable in each one of them, we are called to create new conditions for a planetary spirituality rooted in communion, co-responsibility, otherness and the capacity of contemplation of God´s presence in all.
Towards the end of his work Camus offers us a final lesson: ‘Yes, the plague had ended with the terror, and those passionately straining arms told what it had meant: exile and deprivation in the profoundest meaning of the words’. If we are to learn such a lesson, we must let the new understandings of these words that we have gained as a result of this pandemic shape the new world that we must create.
Read Gemma Simmonds CJ's reflection on The Plague
[i] Austen Ivereigh, 'Pope Francis says pandemic can be a "place of conversion"', The Tablet (8 April 2020): https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/17845/pope-francis-says-pandemic-can-be-a-place-of-conversion-
As in the early church, the desert Christians were deeply
committed to Jesus’ teachings and lived practice. Their chosen solitude and
silence were not anti-social but a way to become better at seeing clearly and
at loving deeply. Withdrawal was for the sake of deeper encounter and presence.
Speaking of the relationship between contemplation and
action, Diana Butler Bass describes the natural flow from solitude to prayer to
active love:
For those who went to the desert, “come follow me” [Matthew
19:21] was not an escape; rather, it served as an alternative practice of
engagement—the first step on the way toward becoming a new people, a universal
community of God’s love.
[Their response to Jesus’] “Come follow me” was intimately
bound up with the practice of prayer. For prayer connects us with God and
others, “part of this enterprise of learning to love.” Prayer is much more than
a technique, and early Christians left us no definitive how-to manual on
prayer. Rather, the desert fathers and mothers believed that prayer was a
disposition of wholeness, so that “prayer and our life must be all of a piece.”
They approached prayer, as early church scholar Roberta Bondi notes, as a
practical twofold process: first, of “thinking and reflecting,” or “pondering”
what it means to love others; and second, as the “development and practice of
loving ways of being.” [1] In other words, these ancients taught that prayer
was participation in God’s love, the activity that takes us out of ourselves,
away from the familiar, and conforms us to the path of Christ. [2]
Through their solitude, the abbas and ammas learned to be
sparing and intentional with their words and to preach more through their
lifestyle than through sermons. There were few “doctrines” to prove at this
time in Christianity, only an inner life to be experienced so the outer life
might be changed. Abba Isidore of Pelusia said, “To live without speaking is
better than to speak without living. For the former who lives rightly does good
even by his silence but the latter does no good even when he speaks. When words
and life correspond to one another they are together the whole of philosophy.”
[3]
An old abba was asked what was necessary to do to be saved.
He was sitting making rope. Without glancing up, he said, “You’re looking at
it.” James Finley, a member of our Living School faculty, puts it this way:
“This dance of infinite love is rhythmically playing itself out in the rhythms
of our life standing up and sitting down, waking up and falling asleep. The
rhythms of the day by day are the rhythms of love given to us as this
inherently sacred nature of life itself.” [4] Just as so many of the mystics
have taught, doing what you’re doing with care, presence, and intention is a
form of prayer, the very way to transformation and wholeness. There is no
trick, no magic formula to becoming one with Reality. There is only living and,
as you know, this is much harder than it first seems.
[1] Roberta C. Bondi, To Pray and to Love: Conversations on
Prayer with the Early Church (Fortress Press: 1991), 13-14.
[2] Diana Butler Bass, A People’s History of Christianity:
The Other Side of the Story (Harper One: 2010), 48.
[3] The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical
Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward, rev. ed. (Cistercian Publications: 1984,
©1975), 98.
[4] James Finley, Intimacy: The Divine Ambush, disc 1
(Center for Action and Contemplation: 2013), CD, MP3 download.
Leaving Peace Behind As Our Farewell Gift
This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here
There is such a thing as a good death, a clean one, a death that, however sad, leaves behind a sense of peace. I have been witness to it many times. Sometimes this is recognized explicitly when someone dies, sometimes unconsciously. It is known by its fruit.
I remember sitting with a man dying of cancer in his mid-fifties, leaving behind a young family, who said to me: “I don’t believe I have an enemy in the world, at least I don’t know if I do. I’ve no unfinished business.” I heard something similar from a young woman also dying of cancer and also leaving behind a young family. Her words: “I thought that I’d cried all the tears I had, but then yesterday when I saw my youngest daughter I found out that I had a lot more tears still to cry. But I’m at peace. It’s hard, but I’ve nothing left that I haven’t given.” And I’ve been at deathbeds other times when none of this was articulated in words, but all of it was clearly spoken in that loving awkwardness and silence you often witness around deathbeds. There is a way of dying that leaves peace behind.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus gives a long farewell speech at the Last Supper on the night before he dies. His disciples, understandably, are shaken, afraid, and not prepared to accept the brute reality of his impending death. He tries to calm them, reassure them, give them things to cling to, and he ends with these words: I am going away, but I will leave you a final gift, the gift of my peace.
I suspect that almost everyone reading this will have had an experience of grieving the death of a loved one, a parent, spouse, child, or friend, and finding, at least after a time, beneath the grief a warm sense of peace whenever the memory of the loved one surfaces or is evoked. I lost both of my parents when I was in my early twenties and, sad as were their farewells, every memory of them now evokes a warmth. Their farewell gift was the gift of peace.
In trying to understanding this, it is important to distinguish between being wanted and being needed. When I lost my parents at a young age, I still desperately wanted them (and believed that I still needed them), but I came to realize in the peace that eventually settled upon our family after their deaths that our pain was in still wanting them and not in any longer needing them. In their living and their dying they had already given us what we needed. There was nothing else we needed from them. Now we just missed them and, irrespective of the sadness of their departure, our relationship was complete. We were at peace.
The challenge for all of us now, of course, is on the other side of this equation, namely, the challenge to live in such a way that peace will be our final farewell gift to our families, our loved ones, our faith community, and our world. How do we do that? How do we leave the gift of peace to those we leave behind?
Peace, as we know, is a whole lot more than the simple absence of war and strife. Peace is constituted by two things: harmony and completeness. To be at peace something has to have an inner consistency so that all of its movements are in harmony with each other and it must also have a completeness so that it is not still aching for something it is missing. Peace is the opposite of internal discord or of longing for something we lack. When we are not at peace it is because we are experiencing chaos or sensing some unfinished business inside us.
Positively then, what constitutes peace? When Jesus promises peace as his farewell gift, he identifies it with the Holy Spirit; and, as we know, that is the spirit of charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, longsuffering, fidelity, mildness, and chastity.
How do we leave these behind when we leave? Well, death is no different than life. When some people leave anything, a job, a marriage, a family, or a community, they leave chaos behind, a legacy of disharmony, unfinished business, anger, bitterness, jealousy, and division. Their memory is felt always as a cold pain. They are not missed, even as their memory haunts. Some people on the other hand leave behind a legacy of harmony and completeness, a spirit of understanding, compassion, affirmation, and unity. These people are missed but the ache is a warm one, a nurturing one, one of happy memory.
Going away in death has exactly the same dynamic. By the way we live and die we will leave behind either a spirit that perennially haunts the peace of our loved ones, or we will leave behind a spirit that brings a warmth every time our memory is evoked.
What Would You Do Now If You Knew What Was Coming Next!
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
There was no way we could have known the impact COVID-19 would have on our parishes. But in hindsight, we can see clearly the path the virus took through our normal operating procedures, dismantling with ease the methods and processes we had relied on. Looking back, we can see the steps we might have taken months or years ago to avert the worst of this crisis.
As I write this, some diocese across our country are beginning to reopen churches for private prayer and, in some cases, public Mass. Some see this as a positive development that reflects the impact of our collective efforts to contain the virus. But while we might be tempted to assume that reopening will bring back all as it was, we might do better to take this opportunity to reflect on what the future might hold.
It seems increasingly likely that mitigation strategies will be with us for much longer than we initially expected. In my own state, reopening will occur in phases, with large gatherings, such as we experience for weekend Masses, permitted only in the final stage. The length of these phases will be dependent on measurable variables like hospitalizations and ICU capacity, meaning limits will likely be present for as long as the virus is with us. To think that things will go back to normal in a few weeks or even months would be a mistake. Besides government regulation, there are other, more practical, challenges that we will face:
Will there be limits on occupancy of our church buildings? Will we have to operate at some percentage of capacity for an extended period? How will that be enforced?
- Will it be safe for the elderly to return to campus? How will we replace the impact of lectors, ministers, and ushers who are at-risk?
- Will there be a second wave of quarantine in the fall or winter bringing renewed stay-at-home restrictions?
- Will larger parishes have to stay closed longer than those with smaller congregations?
And then we will have to reckon with how to create a contactless church experience for those who do return:
- Will interior and exterior doors have to remain open?
- Will choirs be able to sing together?
- Will we have to remove common touchpoints like hymnals?
- Will it be safe to have children’s ministry?
- Will we still be passing the collection basket?
- Will Holy Water Fonts and the Sign of Peace become things of the past?
- How will Communion be distributed?
I do not raise these questions to frighten or confuse. By asking now, when we have time to prepare, we can make sure the work of our mission is uninterrupted come what may. Until now, we’ve merely been reacting to the crisis. Now, we can look ahead and try, as best we can, to anticipate the steps we can take.
Reevaluate your content
“Content is king.” This golden rule of digital media means that your content is the defining factor to how people are paying attention to you online. Create systems and channels now where you can continue to publish creative and compelling digital content well into the future. For example, if you cannot gather children together safely on the weekend, consider turning your children’s ministry or Liturgy of the Word into a weekly resource for parents. At our parish, our children’s discipleship team collaborates on a weekly video lesson that is creative, funny, and compelling for kids. Distribution channels like a private Facebook group or weekly email carry this content to parents.
But, it’s also important to recognize that not all content transfers well to digital media. It would be a mistake to simply digitize what you used to do in-person. The 30-minute lecture that works for your Wednesday night Bible study crowd will probably not capture the attention of someone casually checking Facebook. But, a 5-minute summary, complete with visual cues and reflection questions, might.
Reevaluate how you use technology
Technology enables you to do more with less. Many parishes have noticed that online livestreams of services have attracted, in some cases, more people that would have stepped foot in their church on a given weekend. And they did it all with less effort, expense, and stress than a whole weekend of in-person gatherings.
Although some view it as a stop-gap measure, consider continuing or even investing more into your livestreaming operation. When churches are reopened for services, there will still be a large part of your congregation that cannot attend. The elderly, the immunocompromised, and the sick will continue to stay at home. Livestreaming also has a large role to play in evangelization, which I have discussed in detail here and here.
Technology has a large role to play in creating contactless church experiences when we do open. Online giving can, and must, replace passing the basket. Music lyrics and responses projected onto a screen can replace physical hymnals and missalettes.
Reevaluate the way you hire and develop staff
The pandemic will likely have severe impacts on parish finances meaning furloughs, layoffs, and pay cuts for lay parish staff – and I don’t want to make light of that. Each of those impacts real people with real families. But, over time, we will recover. We’ll be able to take stock of our finances and how our hiring decisions reveal our priorities in ministry.
When hiring for the future, we should value certain skills that like digital communication and aptitude with technology. We should also value certain character traits such as adaptability, flexibility, and grit. For existing parish staff and those who will be retained from furlough, we should provide ample opportunities for development of their existing skills with an emphasis on using technology in their current roles.
My friend Pastor Carey Nieuwhof writes, “Because crisis is an accelerator, it reveals and amplifies the weaknesses that were already there, and also accelerates trends that were emerging anyway. Crisis doesn’t create failure, it accelerates it. Crisis doesn’t create momentum, it accelerates the momentum that was already there.” (link)
COVID-19 didn’t create many of the changes we are seeing in the Church and culture. It only accelerated what was already happening. By preparing now, we can set ourselves up for success moving forward.
Beyond The Pandemic: Believe Everything or Deny Everything?
It falls on all of us to ask how the extreme situation that we are living through can change us, individually and collectively, says Mauricio López Oropeza. Through this pandemic we are invited to a conversion in which we learn to embrace our fragility, interconnection and mystery, ‘just as in these Easter days the meaning of Jesus’s death and passion is a passage to the promised new life of the resurrection.’
Mauricio López Oropeza is Executive Secretary of REPAM.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here
In his iconic work, The Plague, Albert Camus addresses the depth and ambivalence of the human condition. His story is set in the context of an extreme experience in which existential questions come to the fore, just as is happening today. Science will reveal more to us about the reasons for the Covid-19 pandemic in due course, but it is left to all of us to ask now about our own existence in the midst of this crisis and the way in which we decide to act in it, as individuals and as a society.
What I consider to be the central proposal of Camus’ existential reflection, even though it was written in 1947, can still shake all of us in 2020 as it prompts us to ask how we stand before this pandemic and if we are capable of looking beyond it.
Yes, they had suffered together, in body no less than in soul, from a cruel leisure, exile without redress, thirst that was never slaked. Among the heaps of corpses, the clanging bells of ambulances, the warnings of what goes by the name of fate, among unremitting waves of fear and agonized revolt, the horror that such things could be, always a great voice had been ringing in the ears of these forlorn, panicked people, a voice calling them back to the land of their desire, a homeland. It lay outside the walls of the stifled, strangled town, in the fragrant brushwood of the hills, in the waves of the sea, under free skies, and in the custody of love. And it was to this, their lost home, toward happiness, they longed to return, turning their backs disgustedly on all else.
In a world where everything seemed to be within the grasp of our own human capabilities, developments and intelligence, with our technology that supports increasingly individualistic and alienating ways of life. In dominant societies that function under the premises of quasi-autonomy, self-determination and nationalisms. There, where apparently everything was under our control and superficial relations were enough to sustain our entire existence, in that precise moment of history, in the heart of that reality, a microscopic viral presence bursts in to transform everything, to disrupt everything, to question everything ... at least momentarily. This virus shows us our smallness. And it comes at a time when we have reached the limits of our planet's carrying capacity (ecological limits) and the obscenest levels of inequality.
We have no idea of the real implications that this pandemic will have, of how much it will redefine our lives. Each of our views is limited by our reduced understanding of the world according to our own definition of a more-or-less stable normality that will not return, at least in the short term. When it is so difficult to predict a material future with certainty, we find ourselves turning to more existential questioning of our deep identity. As we face these months and years to come, on which internal and external forces will we draw? How must we conduct ourselves as sons and daughters of this time with regards to ourselves and others? And in what sense can a mystery that transcends us sustain us on our journey?
Camus’ essential question on being is voiced by the character of a Jesuit priest, Paneloux. This priest, and his relationship with the plague of the novel’s title and those affected by it, shows us two pathways to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his first sermon, Fr Paneloux speaks to his congregation without associating himself with them. He begins by saying: ‘Calamity has come on you, my brethren, and, my brethren, you deserved it’. He experiences this situation as something apart from himself and as something that he is called to interpret without being transformed by it; he must dictate the course of action from a privileged, distant position, even one of power or superiority.
In this time of the Covid-19 pandemic we see political, religious and social leaders who, regardless of their ideology, have lost empathy with the pain in front of them and are acting from interests so fleeting or particular that their words fade along with their legitimacy as the pandemic advances. Unfortunately, we have too many examples of leaders who, out of incapacity, attachment to particular interests, fear or an inner void, dissociate themselves from the cries of the others.
‘If today the plague is in your midst, that is because the hour has struck for taking thought. The just man need have no fear, but the evildoer has good cause to tremble’. This notion of a divine punishment that Paneloux expresses finds echoes in the words of those who today try to make us forget the enormous structural inequalities, the prevailing untenable situation of poverty and injustice, and the predominance of the god of money. In order to seize and justify power for themselves, they turn a blind eye to these and instead manipulate the needs and beliefs of those they wish to control, placing the burden of guilt and failure on them. Paneloux again: ‘For a long while God gazed down on this town with eyes of compassion; but He grew weary of waiting, His eternal hope was too long deferred, and now He has turned His face away from us.’
In this pandemic, whose expansion is rapid and difficult to stop, this notion of blame and punishment must be definitively silenced. This global crisis is affecting everyone, and at the same time it is revealing the profound situation of inequality in which the virus most affects those whom God loves the most, those whom Christ himself called as the most beloved, the blessed.
After this crisis, each and every one of these leaders must be called to give an account of their failures when the world needed leaders who would be touched by the cries of the poor and the earth, and act accordingly.
The same character, Father Paneloux, experiences an inner rupture and a deep transformation as he witnesses the pain and senselessness of the death of the most vulnerable as a consequence of the plague. As a result of that personal experience of suffering, he presents us with a second way of responding.
In the face of the death of a child, of an innocent, everything changes. The story narrates the profound pain that this little boy suffers from the plague, stating that it was a true ‘scandal’ because,
… they had never had to witness over so long a period the death-throes of an innocent child … From between the inflamed eyelids big tears welled up and trickled down the sunken, leaden-hued cheeks. When the spasm had passed, utterly exhausted, tensing his thin legs and arms, on which, within forty-eight hours, the flesh had wasted to the bone, the child lay flat, racked on the tumbled bed, in a grotesque parody of crucifixion.
Like Paneloux in the face of this pandemic, we are called to look into the eyes of the most vulnerable, the many innocent people who are losing their lives. Taking refuge in a bubble will not change the fact that those dying will eventually challenge us asking, as this child asked Paneloux: what did we do in this situation?
It is true that today it is essential to take care of ourselves (to stay at home for those who have that privilege) in order to take care of others, but this stretch of our human history is a real watershed. Here a line is marked between before and after, and the grotesque, crucified victims of the pandemic invite us to embrace life in such a way that we will stand up and offer ourselves to the service of others when the time comes. A life of genuine alterity will be born, just as in these Easter days the meaning of Jesus’s death and passion is a passage to the promised new life of the Resurrection. Will it be possible for us to participate in a true Easter for our whole humanity, in which a new world could be born as the fruit of a great conversion?
Paneloux, before that innocent child about to die, experiences the same conversion to which we are being invited: ‘Paneloux gazed down at the small mouth, fouled with the sores of the plague and pouring out the angry death-cry that has sounded through the ages of mankind. He sank on his knees, and all present found it natural to hear him say in a voice hoarse but clearly audible across that nameless, never ending wail: My God, spare this child!’ Helplessness will continue to be a part of our lives, but if we are able to recognise the cry of all life in the unjust deaths of so many, we will be able to understand that our cry to God is for him to change us radically through this undesirable pandemic that is not a punishment, but a sign of the times, along with so many others that involve the death of the most vulnerable.
After this experience of conversion, Paneloux, ‘spoke in a gentler, more thoughtful tone than on the previous occasion, and several times was noticed to be stumbling over his words. A yet more noteworthy change was that instead of saying you, he now said we’. He himself had moved from the place of the judge or interpreter, to the very place of those who suffered from the pain of the plague.
In this second sermon he encouraged his hearers to discern the meaning within even their horrendous situation: ‘we might try to explain the phenomenon of the plague, but, above all, should learn what it had to teach us … there were some things we could grasp as touching God, and others we could not’. How much good it does us to see ourselves vulnerable and without all the answers, since in this way all the supposed absolute truths about God held tightly in the hands of some, excluding others, fail as they slip through the fingers, opening some space for mystery.
So what does all this teach us about the profound changes that our world needs to embrace in order to face the uncertain tomorrow with hopeful eyes? There are attitudes that we must eradicate completely in our personal, communal and societal structures, because they are inequitable, self-centred and individualising, destructive, false and unsustainable; and we can also identify new pathways that will lead to a new humanity: a more incarnated humanity, in communion with pain and hope, in a process of permanent conversion, and in a transcendental search above the material.
Paneloux, redeemed by the encounter with the concrete pain of his neighbours, which he lived as his own pain, says: ‘My brothers, a time of testing has come for us all. We must believe everything or deny everything. And who among you, I ask, would dare to deny everything?’ This pandemic calls for a capacity for transcendence necessarily anchored in a sense of mystery and in the embrace of otherness. Otherwise, we will commit the same mistake of pretending to be in control of everything, until a new pandemic, or the imminent climate catastrophe, reaches us.
Pope Francis, too, recently expressed this desire for change:
Today I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption (Laudato Si’, §191) and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. We need to reconnect with our real surroundings. This is the opportunity for conversion... What we are living now is a place of metanoia (conversion), and we have the chance to begin. So let’s not let it slip from us, and let’s move ahead.[i]
The path to the new, already blossoming in the midst of this crisis, will be held up on three legs of a tripod:
1. Awareness of our own fragility and finiteness as a starting point, so that we create and recreate the new from our limited being. Many cultures and traditions can show us how to turn our backs on societies centered on consumption and unlimited accumulation, on market economies that swallow up human beings, and on a vision of an unlimited planet that we must destroy. We must end the ‘throw-away culture’ in order to weave a culture of sobriety and solidarity, which will arise from the awareness of our own fragility.
2. Awareness of our undeniable interconnection. Never before has society realised that we are absolutely intertwined. A tiny virus has shaken us from the illusion that each one of us is enough for him- or herself, or that I can remain isolated without taking responsibility for the consequences of my acts (or omissions) with respect to the lives of others. Nature has always cried at us, trying to communicate this interrelationship and the fragile balance in ecosystems. The potential new post-Covid-19 society will have to be sustained by existential ties that allow us to rethink all relationships, institutions and structures, otherwise we will again be at the mercy of the next pandemic, even more fragile in our capacity for resilience.
3. Awareness of mystery as the energy that sustains everything. No one can save him- or herself, and in the darkness of these days the most essential search of many is for a profound encounter. Beyond the particular religions, embracing all of what is positive and valuable in each one of them, we are called to create new conditions for a planetary spirituality rooted in communion, co-responsibility, otherness and the capacity of contemplation of God´s presence in all.
Towards the end of his work Camus offers us a final lesson: ‘Yes, the plague had ended with the terror, and those passionately straining arms told what it had meant: exile and deprivation in the profoundest meaning of the words’. If we are to learn such a lesson, we must let the new understandings of these words that we have gained as a result of this pandemic shape the new world that we must create.
Read Gemma Simmonds CJ's reflection on The Plague
[i] Austen Ivereigh, 'Pope Francis says pandemic can be a "place of conversion"', The Tablet (8 April 2020): https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/17845/pope-francis-says-pandemic-can-be-a-place-of-conversion-
No comments:
Post a Comment