Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
Deacon in Residence: Rev Steven Smith
Mob: 0411 522 630
steven.smith@aohtas.org.au
Seminarian in Residence: Kanishka Perera
Mob: 0499 035 199
kanish_biyanwila@yahoo.com
Seminarian in Residence: Kanishka Perera
Mob: 0499 035 199
kanish_biyanwila@yahoo.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
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,
DAILY AND SUNDAY MASS ONLINE: You will need to go to the following link and register: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gHY-gMZ7SZeGMDSJyTDeAQ
Monday 6 July No Mass
Tuesday 7 July Devonport 9:30am - ALSO LIVESTREAM
Wednesday 8 July Ulverstone 9:30am
Thursday 9 July Devonport 12noon - ALSO LIVESTREAM
Friday 10 July Ulverstone 9:30am
Saturday 11 July Ulverstone 6.00pm Mass …St Benedict
Sunday 12 July Ulverstone 10:00am
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:
Graeme Wilson, Kevin Hayes, Rex Evans, Athol Bryan, Jill Murphy, Roberto Escobar, Robert Luxton, Jane Fitzpatrick, Marlene Heazlewood, Mark Aylett, Barry Mulcahy & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Danny Sheehan, Max Last, Teresa Durkin, Carole Quinn, Shane Yates, Reg Hinkley, Veronica Murnane
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 1st – 7th July, 2020
Ellen Joyce, John Csoka, Frances Preston, Mary Woodcock, Pamela Withers, Kora Pembleton, Paul Mulcahy, Charles Desire, Laurance Gibbons, Maud Powell, John Cochrane, Ruby Desire, Marcella Rech, Marjorie Parsissons, Donald Barry, Lyell Willcox, Frank Post, Jean Dynan, Margaret McCormack, Geoffrey Jamieson, Judith Polga, Catherina Girdauskas. Also Hazel Gaffney.
May the souls of the
faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
But now, in prayer, I desire to call my mind to awareness of the present
moment.
God is eternally present in the here and now of my life.
This is where
God greets me, not in the past or future ... but now, in this very moment.
To
help my wandering mind, I gently call the focus of my attention to what I can
feel in my body, and see or hear around me.
I may softly focus on a candle, an
icon, the cross, or anything that speaks to me of the presence of God.
I rest and
linger in this presence for as long as I need, before turning to the Gospel.
I
read it reverently several times, until the passage becomes familiar to me.
I
may choose to imagine Jesus speaking these words.
Does the tone of his voice
change as he moves from talking with the Father to talking to the people?
As I
listen, what do I notice arising within me?
I am free to focus my prayer on a
part or the whole of this Gospel … or perhaps I see Jesus looking deep into my
being and saying, ’Come to me [my name], you who labour and are overburdened
...’
I let these words resonate within me, and share the depths of my feelings
and thoughts with Jesus.
I take time to listen … to be aware of my needs.
I
finish by praying ’Our Father ...’, together with Jesus.
Weekly Ramblings
Firstly, we are restarting our weekend Masses with the two Masses at OLOL Church – the vigil at 6pm and 10am Sunday morning. I know that this has been a long time coming – the last weekend Masses were on the weekend 14th/15th March – 15 weeks ago. Even though we have provided livestreaming each weekend we know it was not the same and nothing can replace the gathering around the altar of the Lord to celebrate the Eucharist.
As mentioned in the newsletter last weekend our Masses next weekend will be at the same time – vigil at 6pm and Sunday at 10am – but at Sacred Heart Church, Ulverstone. We will need to alternate week by week until an assistant priest is appointed later in the month. As always, details of our weekday and weekend Masses can be found in the newsletter as well as information about Masses which are being livestreamed.
Secondly, Steven Smith, our Deacon, heads off this weekend to commence his retreat in preparation for Ordination to the Priesthood. With Chathura Silva, our other Deacon, he will be guided by Fr Graeme Howard on this important (almost) final step in his preparation. I pray that this coming week will be a time of prayerful reflection and peace for both young men.
Finally, but not least, we welcome back Kanishka Perera who will be with us for the remainder of 2020 as he continues his journey to priesthood. A component of the Seminary program requires each student to spend 6 months working in a Parish as part of their pastoral formation and we have been chosen to host Kanishka for his placement. I know that he will fit in well with everyone – however, I don’t think we will be calling him by the nickname I gave him last year – Kanishka sounds ok to me.
You will notice that we have changed the role of the Greeter and included Ushers as you arrive for Mass this weekend – this is so that everyone is made to feel comfortable as we move back to our Mass with larger gatherings. Please take note of their guidance so that everyone remains safe.
After Mass there will be a group of people who will need to clean the Church – cleaning occurs after every Mass and is another part of our Covid-19 Response. We are looking for more volunteers to assist us with all three activities – Greeters, Ushers and Cleaners. If you would like to volunteer to assist with any of these roles, please contact the Parish Office.
Stay safe, stay sane and, if you can, stay at home
ORDINATION OF STEVEN SMITH:
Mersey Leven Catholic
Parish
would like to wish Jean Barber
a happy 85th birthday on Saturday 4th July.
SUPPORTING THE PARISH
FINANCIALLY:
· Drop your contribution into the Parish Office during our usual office hours (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
· Make an electronic transfer of funds directly into the CDF – Commonwealth Bank. Account Name: Mersey Leven; BSB: 067 000; Acc No: 1031 5724 and in the description simply add your name and/or envelope number.
Thank you for your ongoing support of the Parish.
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,
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.
Sunday 5 July Devonport 10:00am - ALSO LIVESTREAM
Monday 6 July No Mass
Tuesday 7 July Devonport 9:30am - ALSO LIVESTREAM
Wednesday 8 July Ulverstone 9:30am
Thursday 9 July Devonport 12noon - ALSO LIVESTREAM
Friday 10 July Ulverstone 9:30am
Saturday 11 July Ulverstone 6.00pm Mass …St Benedict
Sunday 12 July Ulverstone 10:00am
Monday 6 July No Mass
Tuesday 7 July Devonport 9:30am - ALSO LIVESTREAM
Wednesday 8 July Ulverstone 9:30am
Thursday 9 July Devonport 12noon - ALSO LIVESTREAM
Friday 10 July Ulverstone 9:30am
Saturday 11 July Ulverstone 6.00pm Mass …St Benedict
Sunday 12 July Ulverstone 10:00am
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:
Graeme Wilson, Kevin Hayes, Rex Evans, Athol Bryan, Jill Murphy, Roberto Escobar, Robert Luxton, Jane Fitzpatrick, Marlene Heazlewood, Mark Aylett, Barry Mulcahy & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Danny Sheehan, Max Last, Teresa Durkin, Carole Quinn, Shane Yates, Reg Hinkley, Veronica Murnane
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 1st – 7th July, 2020
Ellen Joyce, John Csoka, Frances Preston, Mary Woodcock, Pamela Withers, Kora Pembleton, Paul Mulcahy, Charles Desire, Laurance Gibbons, Maud Powell, John Cochrane, Ruby Desire, Marcella Rech, Marjorie Parsissons, Donald Barry, Lyell Willcox, Frank Post, Jean Dynan, Margaret McCormack, Geoffrey Jamieson, Judith Polga, Catherina Girdauskas. Also Hazel Gaffney.
Graeme Wilson, Kevin Hayes, Rex Evans, Athol Bryan, Jill Murphy, Roberto Escobar, Robert Luxton, Jane Fitzpatrick, Marlene Heazlewood, Mark Aylett, Barry Mulcahy & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Danny Sheehan, Max Last, Teresa Durkin, Carole Quinn, Shane Yates, Reg Hinkley, Veronica Murnane
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 1st – 7th July, 2020
Ellen Joyce, John Csoka, Frances Preston, Mary Woodcock, Pamela Withers, Kora Pembleton, Paul Mulcahy, Charles Desire, Laurance Gibbons, Maud Powell, John Cochrane, Ruby Desire, Marcella Rech, Marjorie Parsissons, Donald Barry, Lyell Willcox, Frank Post, Jean Dynan, Margaret McCormack, Geoffrey Jamieson, Judith Polga, Catherina Girdauskas. Also Hazel Gaffney.
May the souls of the
faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
My mind may be burdened with thoughts, regrets and loss
from the past, as well as worries and ruminations as to what the future may
hold.
But now, in prayer, I desire to call my mind to awareness of the present moment.
But now, in prayer, I desire to call my mind to awareness of the present moment.
God is eternally present in the here and now of my life.
This is where
God greets me, not in the past or future ... but now, in this very moment.
To
help my wandering mind, I gently call the focus of my attention to what I can
feel in my body, and see or hear around me.
I may softly focus on a candle, an
icon, the cross, or anything that speaks to me of the presence of God.
I rest and linger in this presence for as long as I need, before turning to the Gospel.
I read it reverently several times, until the passage becomes familiar to me.
I rest and linger in this presence for as long as I need, before turning to the Gospel.
I read it reverently several times, until the passage becomes familiar to me.
I
may choose to imagine Jesus speaking these words.
Does the tone of his voice
change as he moves from talking with the Father to talking to the people?
As I
listen, what do I notice arising within me?
I am free to focus my prayer on a part or the whole of this Gospel … or perhaps I see Jesus looking deep into my being and saying, ’Come to me [my name], you who labour and are overburdened ...’
I let these words resonate within me, and share the depths of my feelings and thoughts with Jesus.
I am free to focus my prayer on a part or the whole of this Gospel … or perhaps I see Jesus looking deep into my being and saying, ’Come to me [my name], you who labour and are overburdened ...’
I let these words resonate within me, and share the depths of my feelings and thoughts with Jesus.
I take time to listen … to be aware of my needs.
I
finish by praying ’Our Father ...’, together with Jesus.
Weekly Ramblings
This weekend is an important weekend for several reasons.
Firstly, we are restarting our weekend Masses with the two Masses at OLOL Church – the vigil at 6pm and 10am Sunday morning. I know that this has been a long time coming – the last weekend Masses were on the weekend 14th/15th March – 15 weeks ago. Even though we have provided livestreaming each weekend we know it was not the same and nothing can replace the gathering around the altar of the Lord to celebrate the Eucharist.
As mentioned in the newsletter last weekend our Masses next weekend will be at the same time – vigil at 6pm and Sunday at 10am – but at Sacred Heart Church, Ulverstone. We will need to alternate week by week until an assistant priest is appointed later in the month. As always, details of our weekday and weekend Masses can be found in the newsletter as well as information about Masses which are being livestreamed.
Secondly, Steven Smith, our Deacon, heads off this weekend to commence his retreat in preparation for Ordination to the Priesthood. With Chathura Silva, our other Deacon, he will be guided by Fr Graeme Howard on this important (almost) final step in his preparation. I pray that this coming week will be a time of prayerful reflection and peace for both young men.
Finally, but not least, we welcome back Kanishka Perera who will be with us for the remainder of 2020 as he continues his journey to priesthood. A component of the Seminary program requires each student to spend 6 months working in a Parish as part of their pastoral formation and we have been chosen to host Kanishka for his placement. I know that he will fit in well with everyone – however, I don’t think we will be calling him by the nickname I gave him last year – Kanishka sounds ok to me.
You will notice that we have changed the role of the Greeter and included Ushers as you arrive for Mass this weekend – this is so that everyone is made to feel comfortable as we move back to our Mass with larger gatherings. Please take note of their guidance so that everyone remains safe.
After Mass there will be a group of people who will need to clean the Church – cleaning occurs after every Mass and is another part of our Covid-19 Response. We are looking for more volunteers to assist us with all three activities – Greeters, Ushers and Cleaners. If you would like to volunteer to assist with any of these roles, please contact the Parish Office.
Stay safe, stay sane and, if you can, stay at home
Firstly, we are restarting our weekend Masses with the two Masses at OLOL Church – the vigil at 6pm and 10am Sunday morning. I know that this has been a long time coming – the last weekend Masses were on the weekend 14th/15th March – 15 weeks ago. Even though we have provided livestreaming each weekend we know it was not the same and nothing can replace the gathering around the altar of the Lord to celebrate the Eucharist.
As mentioned in the newsletter last weekend our Masses next weekend will be at the same time – vigil at 6pm and Sunday at 10am – but at Sacred Heart Church, Ulverstone. We will need to alternate week by week until an assistant priest is appointed later in the month. As always, details of our weekday and weekend Masses can be found in the newsletter as well as information about Masses which are being livestreamed.
Secondly, Steven Smith, our Deacon, heads off this weekend to commence his retreat in preparation for Ordination to the Priesthood. With Chathura Silva, our other Deacon, he will be guided by Fr Graeme Howard on this important (almost) final step in his preparation. I pray that this coming week will be a time of prayerful reflection and peace for both young men.
Finally, but not least, we welcome back Kanishka Perera who will be with us for the remainder of 2020 as he continues his journey to priesthood. A component of the Seminary program requires each student to spend 6 months working in a Parish as part of their pastoral formation and we have been chosen to host Kanishka for his placement. I know that he will fit in well with everyone – however, I don’t think we will be calling him by the nickname I gave him last year – Kanishka sounds ok to me.
You will notice that we have changed the role of the Greeter and included Ushers as you arrive for Mass this weekend – this is so that everyone is made to feel comfortable as we move back to our Mass with larger gatherings. Please take note of their guidance so that everyone remains safe.
After Mass there will be a group of people who will need to clean the Church – cleaning occurs after every Mass and is another part of our Covid-19 Response. We are looking for more volunteers to assist us with all three activities – Greeters, Ushers and Cleaners. If you would like to volunteer to assist with any of these roles, please contact the Parish Office.
Stay safe, stay sane and, if you can, stay at home
ORDINATION OF STEVEN SMITH:
With
Praise and Thanksgiving to Almighty God the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart, together
with the Smith family, will celebrate the ordination of Steven Paul Smith to
the Sacred Order of the Priesthood by His Grace Most Rev. Julian Porteous DD, Friday
24th July at 7pm St Mary’s Cathedral, Hobart. Due to Covid
restrictions you are invited to view the ordination ceremony via YouTube.com
- search ‘Archdiocese of Hobart’.
Mersey Leven Catholic
Parish
would like to wish Jean Barber
a happy 85th birthday on Saturday 4th July.
would like to wish Jean Barber
a happy 85th birthday on Saturday 4th July.
God bless you Jean and may
your day be filled with love, laughter and happiness!
SUPPORTING THE PARISH
FINANCIALLY:
To continue supporting the Parish you can ...
· Drop your contribution into the Parish Office during our usual office hours (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
· Make an electronic transfer of funds directly into the CDF – Commonwealth Bank. Account Name: Mersey Leven; BSB: 067 000; Acc No: 1031 5724 and in the description simply add your name and/or envelope number.
· Drop your contribution into the Parish Office during our usual office hours (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
· Make an electronic transfer of funds directly into the CDF – Commonwealth Bank. Account Name: Mersey Leven; BSB: 067 000; Acc No: 1031 5724 and in the description simply add your name and/or envelope number.
Thank you for your ongoing support of the Parish.
Letter From Rome
Trump, Gingrich And Other 'Blankedy-Blanks' Need Our Prayers
Letter From Rome
Trump, Gingrich And Other 'Blankedy-Blanks' Need Our Prayers
Trump, Gingrich And Other 'Blankedy-Blanks' Need Our Prayers
Pope Francis reminds Christians of their duty to pray for government leaders, even "those who did not think as we do" or "slam the door in our face" - Robert Mickens, Rome, July 3, 2020.
This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete full access is via paid subscription
"It is pointless, even tedious, for Christians to waste their time complaining about the world, about society, about everything that is not right. Complaints change nothing."
That was just one of the choice lines in an extraordinary homily Pope Francis delivered on June 29 for the liturgical feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the "founders" of the Church in Rome.
"Let us remember that complaining is the second door that closes us off from the Holy Spirit, as I said on Pentecost Sunday. The first is narcissism, the second discouragement, the third pessimism," the pope continued.
"Narcissism makes you look at yourself constantly in a mirror; discouragement leads to complaining and pessimism to thinking everything is dark and bleak. These three attitudes close the door to the Holy Spirit," he explained.
Francis then went on to address matters concerning division within the Church. And it would not be a waste of time for all of us to read what he said and meditate more carefully on his words.
Praying for those who govern
But he also had something to say, at least briefly, that's pertinent to the current socio-political mess many countries around the world are currently experiencing.
"Saint Paul urged Christians to pray for everyone, especially those who govern," the 83-year-old Jesuit pope said.
"'But this governor is…', and there are many adjectives. I will not mention them, because this is neither the time nor the place to mention adjectives that we hear directed against those who govern," he said.
"Let God judge them; let us pray for those who govern! Let us pray: for they need prayer," the pope repeated.
"God expects that when we pray we will also be mindful of those who do not think as we do, those who have slammed the door in our face, those whom we find it hard to forgive," he insisted.
When it comes to those who govern, we can all think of presidents and prime ministers – and those who represent them, do their bidding and give them backing – who have done far worse than merely slam the door in our face; those who have done (or said) things that are seemingly unforgiveable.
On this 244th anniversary of the independence of the United States of America, many of us – and not just US citizens – may find it difficult to pray for a president who has turned a nation that was once a beacon of hope and freedom into a more narcissistic, discouraging and pessimistic place.
Vatican summons US and Israeli ambassadors over West Bank expansion plans
Certainly, we must pray for all leaders and even Donald Trump. But we must also act concretely and do whatever we can to stop them from doing things we believe are unjust, unlawful and potential catalysts for more social unrest and conflict.
And that's why not even 24 hours after Francis preached that remarkable homily, his Secretary of State – Cardinal Pietro Parolin – summoned the ambassadors of the United States and Israel to the Vatican to protest US-sponsored plans to extend Israeli sovereignty over the Palestine territory in the West Bank that is being occupied by Jewish settlers.
The Italian cardinal could have merely prayed for Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. And he surely does. But he also has a job to do.
So he called Callista Gingrich and Oren David, the two presidents' respective envoys, to the Vatican for separate meetings.
One could feel pity for these two ambassadors for having to represent such divisive world leaders and publicly support their racist, nationalist policies. But pity would be misplaced, especially for Mrs. Gingrich.
While Ambassador David is a career civil servant and diplomat, she is not. She is merely the wife of Newt Gingrich, the man who paved the way for the divisive and ugly political landscape that is now run erratically and brutally by Donald Trump.
Of course, the platinum blond ambassador is only an impeccably coiffed fig leaf that Trump is using to try make his grotesque administration somewhat respectable before the Vatican.
Newt Gingrich: Trump's real ambassador to the Holy See
But with zero political or diplomatic qualifications, she is ambassador in name and ceremonial function only. Donald Trump's real, de facto eyes and ears at the Vatican is her husband Newt, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives.
This was all laid out in this column nearly three years ago.
And Mr. Gingrich relishes being the power behind the throne. In fact, he is not only the power behind Callista, but he is also the architect of the divisive, denigrating and scorch-and-burn politics that Trump used to win the White House.
Trump sent the Gingriches to Rome and the former House Speaker is using this perch – on American taxpayers' money – to further the division. He does so on regularly scheduled podcasts and interviews on Fox News, staged from the ambassador's residence.
He spews his conspiracy theories and continues to tear down Trump's political rivals with words that are just as insulting or even worse than the president's.
Newt promoting his wacko worldview on the US taxpayer's dime
Recently, Newt presented a cockamamie theory on how democrats were scheming to steal the 2020 presidential election, throwing out "facts" so dubious they made Trump's most outrageous whoppers seem like little white lies.
And he did all he could to outdo the president in coming up with pejorative adjectives for Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leaders in the US congress.
That was in an interview with Sebastian Gorka, a British-born Hungarian alt-right nationalist with dubious academic credentials, who served briefly as a military and intelligence advisor to Trump.
In the world of New Gingrich and Donald Trump it's never not the time nor place for this kind of nastiness.
After all, Newt introduced this strategy into contemporary US politics almost 40 years ago and The Donald has been implementing it with a tenacity and bloodlust never before seen in a US president.
So we will pray. But Lady Liberty weeps.
The Cloud Of Unknowing
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
God, it seems, cannot really be known, but only related to. Or, as the mystics would assert, we know God by loving God, by trusting God, by placing our hope in God. It is a non-possessive, non-objectified way of knowing. It is always I-Thou and never I-It, to use Martin Buber’s wonderfully insightful phrases. God allows us to know God only by loving God. God, in that sense, cannot be “thought” at all. [1]
The anonymous, 14th-century author of The Cloud of Unknowing conveys the fathomless mystery of God and that God can only be known by loving presence—contemplation. The Cloud of Unknowing is the inspiration for practices such as Centering Prayer and Christian meditation. Today I will share some of my favorite excerpts from Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s translation of this Middle English text. The italicized words in brackets are my own.
Lift up your heart to God with a gentle stirring of love. . . .
The first time you practice contemplation, you’ll only experience a darkness, like a cloud of unknowing [which now happily envelops you]. You won’t know what this is [and will have to learn how to live there by “forgetting” your previous methods of knowing]. You’ll only know that in your will you feel a simple reaching out to God. You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God, whatever you do. They will always keep you from seeing God clearly by the light of understanding in your intellect and will block you from feeling God fully in the sweetness of love in your emotions. So, be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to God over and over again, because you love God. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. Work at this diligently, as I’ve asked you to, and I know God’s mercy will lead you there. . . .
God is incomprehensible to the intellect. . . . Nobody’s mind is powerful enough to grasp who God is. We can only know God by experiencing God’s love. . . .
God can be loved, but not thought. [John of the Cross (1542–1591) and many other mystics say the same thing. Christians could have saved ourselves so much fighting and division if we had just taught this one truth!]
By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking. . . .
No matter how sacred, no thought can ever promise to help you in the work of contemplative prayer, because only love—not knowledge—can help us reach God. . . .
When we reach the end of what we know, that’s where we find God. That’s why St. Dionysius said that the best, most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by not-knowing.
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2015), 103.
The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel, trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Shambhala: 2009), 11, 12, 14, 21, 28-29, 156. In place of masculine pronouns used in the original, I simply use “God.”
Praying When We Don't Know How
He taught us how to pray while not knowing how to pray. That’s a comment sometimes made about Henri Nouwen.
It seems almost contradictory to say that. How can someone teach us to pray when he himself doesn’t know how? Well, two complexities conspired together here. Henri Nouwen was a unique mixture of weakness, honesty, complexity, and faith. That also describes prayer, this side of eternity. Nouwen simply shared, humbly and honestly, his own struggles with prayer and in seeing his struggles, the rest of us learned a lot about how prayer is precisely this strange mixture of weakness, honesty, complexity, and faith.
Prayer, as we know, has classically been defined as “the lifting of mind and heart to God”, and given that our minds and hearts are pathologically complex, so too will be our prayer. It will give voice not just to our faith but also to our doubt. Moreover, in the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul tells us that when we do not know how to pray, God’s Spirit, in groans too deep for words, prays through us. I suspect that we don’t always recognize all the forms that takes, how God sometimes prays through our groans and our weaknesses.
The renowned preacher Frederick Buechner, speaks of something he calls “crippled prayers that are hidden inside our minor blasphemes” and are uttered through clenched teeth: “God help us!” “Jesus Christ!” “For God’s sake!” These are prayers? Why not? If prayer is lifting mind and heart to God, isn’t this what’s in our mind and heart at that moment? Isn’t there a brutal honesty in this? Jacques Loew, one of the founders of the Worker-Priest movement in France, shares how, while working in a factory, he would sometimes be working with a group men loading heavy bags onto a truck. Occasionally one of the men would accidently drop one of the bags which would split open leaving a mess and a mini-blaspheme would spring forth from the man’s lips. Loew, partly seriously and partly in jest, points out that while the man was not exactly saying the Lord’s Prayer, he was invoking the name of God in real honesty.
So, is this in fact a genuine modality of prayer or is this taking the Lord’s name in vain? Is this something we should be confessing as a sin rather than claiming as a prayer?
The commandment to not take the name of God in vain has little to do with those mini- blasphemes that slip out between clenched teeth when we drop a bag of groceries, jam a finger painfully, or get caught in a frustrating traffic jam. What we utter then may well be aesthetically offensive, in bad taste, and disrespectful enough of others so that some sin lies within it, but that’s not taking the name of God in vain. Indeed, there’s nothing false about it at all. In some ways it’s the opposite of what the commandment has in mind.
We tend to think of prayer far too piously. It is rarely unadulterated altruistic praise issuing forth from a focused attention that’s grounded in gratitude and in an awareness of God. Most of the time our prayer is a very adulterated reality – and all the more honest and powerful because of that.
For instance, one of our great struggles with prayer is that it’s not easy to trust that prayer makes a difference. We watch the evening newscasts, see the entrenched polarization, bitterness, hatred, self-interest, and hardness of heart that are seemingly everywhere, and we lose heart. How do we find the heart to pray in the face of this? What, inside of our prayer, is going to change any of this?
While it is normal to feel this way, we need this important reminder: prayer is most important and most powerful precisely when we feel it is most hopeless – and we are most helpless.
Why is this true? It’s true because it’s only when we are finally empty of ourselves, empty of our own plans and our own strength that we’re in fact ready to let God’s vision and strength flow into the world through us. Prior to feeling this helplessness and hopelessness, we are still identifying God’s power too much with the power of health, politics, and economics that we see in our world; and are identifying hope with the optimism we feel when the news looks a little better on a given night. If the news looks good, we have hope; if not, why pray? But we need to pray because we trust in God’s strength and promise, not because the newscasts on a given night offer a bit more promise.
Indeed, the less promise our newscasts offer and the more they make us aware of our personal helplessness, the more urgent and honest is our prayer. We need to pray precisely because we are helpless and precisely because it does seem hopeless. Inside of that we can pray with honesty, perhaps even through clenched teeth.
Miriamic Presence In Pandemic Times
Are you familiar with the story of Miriam in Numbers 12? An episode that reads as a heated and traumatic encounter with Moses, Aaron and God might well lead us towards something entirely more hopeful, suggests Karen Eliasen. ‘How could such an experience of crisis, emotional upheaval, disease and isolation set Miriam on a path towards a sabbath-like consolation?’
Karen Eliasen works in spirituality at St Beuno’s Jesuit Spirituality Centre, North Wales.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here
A threesome of great characters dominates the second (Exodus) and fourth (Numbers) books of the Hebrew Scriptures: Moses, Aaron and Miriam – although some might not immediately appreciate Miriam’s place up there alongside Moses and Aaron. We have heard of Mosaic law and Aaronic priesthood, but who has ever heard of Miriamic anything? Even if such a thing is out there, is it scripturally kosher? And even if kosher, how is that at all relevant to us scripture readers today, caught up as we are in a 21st century pandemic?
Well, I have heard of something called ‘Miriamic presence’, and I am convinced that such a concept is scripturally kosher … and I want to make a case for its relevance to us here and now. Like Miriam and her people, we too find ourselves a-wandering in a wilderness.
The most obvious scriptural text to turn to if we want to explore what Miriamic presence might encompass is Numbers 12, the story of Miriam’s wilderness bout of leprosy, or more modernly put, her bout of ‘a harmful skin disease’.[1] In Numbers 12 we find a gripping story about Moses, Aaron and Miriam all hotly engaging with each other, and with God, in a complex mix of power struggle, emotional outbursts, disease, isolation – and even spitting. Add to this already compelling mix the timeless ur-issues of gender and prayer, and the juicy ingredients are all there to be squeezed for contemporary pandemic relevance.
So where have I heard of Miriamic presence? In the writings of one of the earliest and most influential feminist voices in Hebrew Scripture scholarship, Phyllis Trible.[2] There is a double-edged take on the word ‘presence’ in Trible’s usage, as on the one hand Miriam’s textual presence within all of the Scriptures themselves, and on the other hand Miriam’s character’s presence to her people within the wilderness story. There is far more to both these edges than first meets the eye, something that did not escape rabbinic readers through the centuries. They creatively engaged in developing a number of traditions about Miriam, the heftiest of which involved a special well. Miriam’s well was imagined to be like a portable rock with holes that acted like a spring when the people needed water. When Miriam died, the rabbis duly noted, the people promptly, very promptly, ran out of water (Numbers 20:1-2): Miriam’s living presence had been a source of water for the people in the direst of waterless conditions. For me the question now looms, what does such a sense of a Miriamic presence have to do with what happens to Miriam in Numbers 12? What does it have to with her bout of ‘a harmful skin disease’ and her seven-day isolation outside the camp? The events of Numbers 12 take place at the very beginning of the wilderness wanderings, so Miriam and her people are facing an almost 40-year-long haul ahead. Perhaps there is some aspect of Miriam’s experience of disease and isolation that prepares her for what is still to come. In surmising such a link, I am going to indulge in some old-fashioned intertextuality.
A reference to Miriam in Deuteronomy is the first text to visit intertextually, and it is a reference by virtue of which the relevance of Numbers 12 soars to a whole new level. The reference is one of a handful of exhortations from God to ‘remember’ (translating that theologically important Hebrew word, zakar) a particular event. So, in Deuteronomy 24:9 we read: ‘Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on your way out of Egypt.’ This verse appears right on the heels of a warning to be careful when someone has ‘a harmful skin disease’, so it may seem an obvious assumption to make that what God did to Miriam was punish her with this disease. Such an assumption on God’s behalf about direct cause and effect rankled wildly down the rabbinic centuries: of course God punished Miriam, because in God’s eyes she deserved to be punished. And it is still rankling away in feminist writings: of course God punished Miriam, because it is men telling a story about an outspoken woman – and for that reason she didn’t deserve it. The Numbers 12 text itself makes no ‘punishment’ claims about what God did to Miriam. What God did, as things heated up in Numbers 12, was speak, get angry and depart. Then, the cloud lifted, and the Hebrew text in its minimalist way simply notes: hinei (meaning ‘behold’) … ‘Miriam had a harmful skin disease’. The relationship between cause and effect is left fully to the reader’s imagination, and that makes me as a reader consider moving away from any ‘punishment’ assumptions.
In questioning the understanding that whatever God ‘did to Miriam on her way out of Egypt’ was punishment, it is worth taking note of the overall events-company the Miriam-event keeps. Here is briefly what those other events, the ones God asks his people to remember, look like: The first comes in Exodus 20:8, that Israel is to remember the Sabbath; the next one is in Deuteronomy 5:15, where Israel is to remember that God brought them out of slavery in Egypt; next comes Deuteronomy 8:2, in which Israel is to remember the way God led them for forty years in the wilderness; then our Deuteronomy verse on remembering what God did to Miriam; next in Deuteronomy 32:7, Moses the man of God exhorts Israel to remember their past, chequered as it has been, all the way back to creation; and lastly, in Esther 9:28, the Jews are asked to remember to keep two days of Purim every year, in celebration of how Esther and Mordecai saved the Jews from the Persians. These texts all suggest an events-company of consolation and cause for celebration: how God was there with his people throughout everything, doing great deeds when needed. It is this kind of event that God insists his people remember – not angry punishments, but joyful sabbaths.
Miriam’s inclusion in such company should jog a serious rethink about what happened to her in Numbers 12, and about the meaning of her seven-day isolation outside the camp in the wake of her disease. Can we even begin to imagine how on earth such an experience of crisis, emotional upheaval, disease and isolation could set Miriam on a path towards a sabbath-like consolation? Taking the rabbis’ tales of Miriam’s well to heart can prod us a long way towards such a radical rethink. It is as if something happened to Miriam in Numbers 12, something that helped her get in deep touch with that ‘presence’ the future would require of her. A ‘Miriamic presence’ sent by God to his people in need, just as was the Mosaic law and the Aaronic priesthood.
Another intertextual example relating to Miriam’s disease further supports such a move away from any ‘punishment’ mode of understanding her experience. Miriam’s disease turns her ‘white as snow’, a metaphoric coupling found in two other places in the Hebrew Scriptures. The first is part of the story of Naaman’s disease in 2 Kings 5, at the end of which the prophet Elisha curses his thieving servant Gehazi, leaving the man diseased and ‘white as snow’. This is a case of explicit punishment, but it does not involve God, only an angry prophet and a thief. The second story does involve God, but not punishment. In Exodus 4:6, God makes Moses’ hand diseased, turning it ‘white as snow’, and then proceeds to heal it. Moses is subjected to this brief experience of disease as he is trying to gear himself into returning to Egypt, and God presents it as ‘proof’ of what is possible. But Moses remains sceptical and anxious, making God angry. When God brings disease that is ‘white as snow’ on his servants – be it Moses or Miriam – tempers flare all round because the huge challenge ahead is a matter of life and death for God’s people.
There are legitimate reasons for why Miriam properly belongs with Moses and Aaron, not as a peripheral tag-on but as equally a servant of God. However those reasons were understood, they did not escape the final redactors of the Hebrew Scriptures. So memorable was this threesome in the ancient Hebrew imagination that it survived intact in two surprising places elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures: Micah and First Chronicles. In Micah 6:4, God reminds his people (whom he accuses of having tired of him): ‘I brought you from the land of Egypt. I freed you from slavery. I sent Moses, Aaron and Miriam to you.’[3] Next to no women from Israel’s past found their way into the prophetic collection as a whole. There is Sarah as mother in Isaiah 51:2; there is Rachel weeping for her children in Jeremiah 31:15; and then there is Miriam in Micah. Extraordinarily, refreshingly, the scriptural Miriam is not a mother – she is not even a wife.[4] She comes to us as a woman complete unto herself in her relationship with God and with her people, her communal life-sustaining function not to birth sons but to do something else. To be something else, maybe – a Miriamic presence? This aspect of Miriam as someone who is not a mother nor a wife, but as someone sent by God along with Moses and Aaron, is reiterated in First Chronicles 6:3. Here the chronicler includes Miriam under the Hebrew benei (sons) somewhat oddly, because in genealogies female children are usually separated out as daughters: ‘Amram’s benei were Aaron, Moses and Miriam.’ Amram is of course the grandson of one of the original twelve, Levi, and Miriam is the only female listed here in the whole of Levi’s genealogy (in contrast to the chronicler’s Judah-genealogy, where a good number of women are listed, although always as either mother or wife).
All of these background observations suggest that whatever it was about Miriam that made her so essential and therefore memorable to her people, she stood out in a way that she can stand out for us today. Imagine this outstanding Miriam still alive to us, imagine her not being punished for past behaviour or being side-lined in a power struggle; imagine her instead being prepared for what lies ahead. This Miriam knows a thing or two about speaking out truly in a crisis; knows a thing or two about disease and isolation; she knows a thing or two about drawing on God-given consolation in dire times; and she also knows that whatever lies ahead, it cannot be a return to Egypt. Knowing these things helps make her a life-sustaining presence for wilderness people, in possession of a portable well. We are now a wilderness people, and we need a ‘Miriamic presence’ to survive. Do we have a prayer for Miriam as she prepares for what lies ahead, as she prepares to become that presence? Moses had a terrific prayer for Miriam in Numbers 12:13, a prayer that is as short and simple and powerful as prayers come. It could be our prayer: ‘God, please heal her!’[5]
[1] All Scriptural texts are taken from wonderfully clear 2002 translation, The International Children’s Bible.
Numbers 12 Miriam and Aaron Speak Against Moses’ Wife
12 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses, who had married a Cushite. 2 They said to themselves, “Is Moses the only one the Lord speaks through? Doesn’t he speak through us?” And the Lord heard this.
3 (Now Moses was very humble. He was the least proud person on earth.)
4 So the Lord suddenly spoke to Moses, Aaron and Miriam. He said, “All three of you come to the Meeting Tent now.” So they went. 5 The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud. He stood at the entrance to the Tent. He called to Aaron and Miriam, and they both came near. 6 He said, “Listen to my words:
When a prophet is among you, I, the Lord, will show myself to him in visions. I will speak to him in dreams.7 But this is not true with my servant Moses. I trust him to lead all my people.8 I speak face to face with him. I speak clearly, not with hidden meanings. He has even seen the form of the Lord.You should be afraid to speak against my servant Moses.”
9 The Lord was very angry with them, but he left.
10 The cloud lifted from the Tent. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam. She was as white as snow. She had a harmful skin disease. 11 Aaron said to Moses, “Please, my master, forgive us for our foolish sin. 12 Don’t let her be like a baby who is born dead. (Sometimes a baby is born with half of its flesh eaten away.)”
13 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “God, please heal her!”
14 The Lord answered Moses, “If her father had spit in her face, she would have been shamed for seven days. So put her outside the camp for seven days. After that, she may come back.” 15 So Miriam was shut outside of the camp for seven days. And the people did not move on until she came back.
16 After that, the people left Hazeroth. And they camped in the Desert of Paran.
[2] Phyllis Trible, “Bringing Miriam out of the Shadows” in A Feminist Companion to Exodus to Deuteronomy, First Series, edited by Athalya Brenner (Sheffield Academic Press, 1994). This book, and the second series, has many other interesting essays about Miriam.
[3] Another rabbinic appreciation of Miriam from midrash was the conviction that Miriam, like Moses and Aaron, was in death kissed by God.
[4] An unbearable situation for all those rabbis commenting on Miriam down the centuries. They married her off to Caleb, he of spies fame (Numbers 13).
[5] It seems relevant that the God who heals announces himself as such in Exodus 15:26, where in the immediate aftermath of the Red Sea the lack of water or its bitterness both threaten the people’s survival. Some suggest that Miriam’s name may derive from the Hebrew root for bitter. Then again, it may derive from an Egyptian word meaning beloved. Both are worth appropriating, I think.
This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete full access is via paid subscription
"It is pointless, even tedious, for Christians to waste their time complaining about the world, about society, about everything that is not right. Complaints change nothing."
That was just one of the choice lines in an extraordinary homily Pope Francis delivered on June 29 for the liturgical feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the "founders" of the Church in Rome.
"Let us remember that complaining is the second door that closes us off from the Holy Spirit, as I said on Pentecost Sunday. The first is narcissism, the second discouragement, the third pessimism," the pope continued.
"Narcissism makes you look at yourself constantly in a mirror; discouragement leads to complaining and pessimism to thinking everything is dark and bleak. These three attitudes close the door to the Holy Spirit," he explained.
Francis then went on to address matters concerning division within the Church. And it would not be a waste of time for all of us to read what he said and meditate more carefully on his words.
Praying for those who govern
But he also had something to say, at least briefly, that's pertinent to the current socio-political mess many countries around the world are currently experiencing.
"Saint Paul urged Christians to pray for everyone, especially those who govern," the 83-year-old Jesuit pope said.
"'But this governor is…', and there are many adjectives. I will not mention them, because this is neither the time nor the place to mention adjectives that we hear directed against those who govern," he said.
"Let God judge them; let us pray for those who govern! Let us pray: for they need prayer," the pope repeated.
"God expects that when we pray we will also be mindful of those who do not think as we do, those who have slammed the door in our face, those whom we find it hard to forgive," he insisted.
When it comes to those who govern, we can all think of presidents and prime ministers – and those who represent them, do their bidding and give them backing – who have done far worse than merely slam the door in our face; those who have done (or said) things that are seemingly unforgiveable.
On this 244th anniversary of the independence of the United States of America, many of us – and not just US citizens – may find it difficult to pray for a president who has turned a nation that was once a beacon of hope and freedom into a more narcissistic, discouraging and pessimistic place.
Vatican summons US and Israeli ambassadors over West Bank expansion plans
Certainly, we must pray for all leaders and even Donald Trump. But we must also act concretely and do whatever we can to stop them from doing things we believe are unjust, unlawful and potential catalysts for more social unrest and conflict.
And that's why not even 24 hours after Francis preached that remarkable homily, his Secretary of State – Cardinal Pietro Parolin – summoned the ambassadors of the United States and Israel to the Vatican to protest US-sponsored plans to extend Israeli sovereignty over the Palestine territory in the West Bank that is being occupied by Jewish settlers.
The Italian cardinal could have merely prayed for Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. And he surely does. But he also has a job to do.
So he called Callista Gingrich and Oren David, the two presidents' respective envoys, to the Vatican for separate meetings.
One could feel pity for these two ambassadors for having to represent such divisive world leaders and publicly support their racist, nationalist policies. But pity would be misplaced, especially for Mrs. Gingrich.
While Ambassador David is a career civil servant and diplomat, she is not. She is merely the wife of Newt Gingrich, the man who paved the way for the divisive and ugly political landscape that is now run erratically and brutally by Donald Trump.
Of course, the platinum blond ambassador is only an impeccably coiffed fig leaf that Trump is using to try make his grotesque administration somewhat respectable before the Vatican.
Newt Gingrich: Trump's real ambassador to the Holy See
But with zero political or diplomatic qualifications, she is ambassador in name and ceremonial function only. Donald Trump's real, de facto eyes and ears at the Vatican is her husband Newt, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives.
This was all laid out in this column nearly three years ago.
And Mr. Gingrich relishes being the power behind the throne. In fact, he is not only the power behind Callista, but he is also the architect of the divisive, denigrating and scorch-and-burn politics that Trump used to win the White House.
Trump sent the Gingriches to Rome and the former House Speaker is using this perch – on American taxpayers' money – to further the division. He does so on regularly scheduled podcasts and interviews on Fox News, staged from the ambassador's residence.
He spews his conspiracy theories and continues to tear down Trump's political rivals with words that are just as insulting or even worse than the president's.
Newt promoting his wacko worldview on the US taxpayer's dime
Recently, Newt presented a cockamamie theory on how democrats were scheming to steal the 2020 presidential election, throwing out "facts" so dubious they made Trump's most outrageous whoppers seem like little white lies.
And he did all he could to outdo the president in coming up with pejorative adjectives for Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leaders in the US congress.
That was in an interview with Sebastian Gorka, a British-born Hungarian alt-right nationalist with dubious academic credentials, who served briefly as a military and intelligence advisor to Trump.
In the world of New Gingrich and Donald Trump it's never not the time nor place for this kind of nastiness.
After all, Newt introduced this strategy into contemporary US politics almost 40 years ago and The Donald has been implementing it with a tenacity and bloodlust never before seen in a US president.
So we will pray. But Lady Liberty weeps.
The Cloud Of Unknowing
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
God, it seems, cannot really be known, but only related to. Or, as the mystics would assert, we know God by loving God, by trusting God, by placing our hope in God. It is a non-possessive, non-objectified way of knowing. It is always I-Thou and never I-It, to use Martin Buber’s wonderfully insightful phrases. God allows us to know God only by loving God. God, in that sense, cannot be “thought” at all. [1]
The anonymous, 14th-century author of The Cloud of Unknowing conveys the fathomless mystery of God and that God can only be known by loving presence—contemplation. The Cloud of Unknowing is the inspiration for practices such as Centering Prayer and Christian meditation. Today I will share some of my favorite excerpts from Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s translation of this Middle English text. The italicized words in brackets are my own.
Lift up your heart to God with a gentle stirring of love. . . .
The first time you practice contemplation, you’ll only experience a darkness, like a cloud of unknowing [which now happily envelops you]. You won’t know what this is [and will have to learn how to live there by “forgetting” your previous methods of knowing]. You’ll only know that in your will you feel a simple reaching out to God. You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God, whatever you do. They will always keep you from seeing God clearly by the light of understanding in your intellect and will block you from feeling God fully in the sweetness of love in your emotions. So, be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to God over and over again, because you love God. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. Work at this diligently, as I’ve asked you to, and I know God’s mercy will lead you there. . . .
God is incomprehensible to the intellect. . . . Nobody’s mind is powerful enough to grasp who God is. We can only know God by experiencing God’s love. . . .
God can be loved, but not thought. [John of the Cross (1542–1591) and many other mystics say the same thing. Christians could have saved ourselves so much fighting and division if we had just taught this one truth!]
By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking. . . .
No matter how sacred, no thought can ever promise to help you in the work of contemplative prayer, because only love—not knowledge—can help us reach God. . . .
When we reach the end of what we know, that’s where we find God. That’s why St. Dionysius said that the best, most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by not-knowing.
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2015), 103.
The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel, trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Shambhala: 2009), 11, 12, 14, 21, 28-29, 156. In place of masculine pronouns used in the original, I simply use “God.”
Praying When We Don't Know How
He taught us how to pray while not knowing how to pray. That’s a comment sometimes made about Henri Nouwen.
It seems almost contradictory to say that. How can someone teach us to pray when he himself doesn’t know how? Well, two complexities conspired together here. Henri Nouwen was a unique mixture of weakness, honesty, complexity, and faith. That also describes prayer, this side of eternity. Nouwen simply shared, humbly and honestly, his own struggles with prayer and in seeing his struggles, the rest of us learned a lot about how prayer is precisely this strange mixture of weakness, honesty, complexity, and faith.
Prayer, as we know, has classically been defined as “the lifting of mind and heart to God”, and given that our minds and hearts are pathologically complex, so too will be our prayer. It will give voice not just to our faith but also to our doubt. Moreover, in the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul tells us that when we do not know how to pray, God’s Spirit, in groans too deep for words, prays through us. I suspect that we don’t always recognize all the forms that takes, how God sometimes prays through our groans and our weaknesses.
The renowned preacher Frederick Buechner, speaks of something he calls “crippled prayers that are hidden inside our minor blasphemes” and are uttered through clenched teeth: “God help us!” “Jesus Christ!” “For God’s sake!” These are prayers? Why not? If prayer is lifting mind and heart to God, isn’t this what’s in our mind and heart at that moment? Isn’t there a brutal honesty in this? Jacques Loew, one of the founders of the Worker-Priest movement in France, shares how, while working in a factory, he would sometimes be working with a group men loading heavy bags onto a truck. Occasionally one of the men would accidently drop one of the bags which would split open leaving a mess and a mini-blaspheme would spring forth from the man’s lips. Loew, partly seriously and partly in jest, points out that while the man was not exactly saying the Lord’s Prayer, he was invoking the name of God in real honesty.
So, is this in fact a genuine modality of prayer or is this taking the Lord’s name in vain? Is this something we should be confessing as a sin rather than claiming as a prayer?
The commandment to not take the name of God in vain has little to do with those mini- blasphemes that slip out between clenched teeth when we drop a bag of groceries, jam a finger painfully, or get caught in a frustrating traffic jam. What we utter then may well be aesthetically offensive, in bad taste, and disrespectful enough of others so that some sin lies within it, but that’s not taking the name of God in vain. Indeed, there’s nothing false about it at all. In some ways it’s the opposite of what the commandment has in mind.
We tend to think of prayer far too piously. It is rarely unadulterated altruistic praise issuing forth from a focused attention that’s grounded in gratitude and in an awareness of God. Most of the time our prayer is a very adulterated reality – and all the more honest and powerful because of that.
For instance, one of our great struggles with prayer is that it’s not easy to trust that prayer makes a difference. We watch the evening newscasts, see the entrenched polarization, bitterness, hatred, self-interest, and hardness of heart that are seemingly everywhere, and we lose heart. How do we find the heart to pray in the face of this? What, inside of our prayer, is going to change any of this?
While it is normal to feel this way, we need this important reminder: prayer is most important and most powerful precisely when we feel it is most hopeless – and we are most helpless.
Why is this true? It’s true because it’s only when we are finally empty of ourselves, empty of our own plans and our own strength that we’re in fact ready to let God’s vision and strength flow into the world through us. Prior to feeling this helplessness and hopelessness, we are still identifying God’s power too much with the power of health, politics, and economics that we see in our world; and are identifying hope with the optimism we feel when the news looks a little better on a given night. If the news looks good, we have hope; if not, why pray? But we need to pray because we trust in God’s strength and promise, not because the newscasts on a given night offer a bit more promise.
Indeed, the less promise our newscasts offer and the more they make us aware of our personal helplessness, the more urgent and honest is our prayer. We need to pray precisely because we are helpless and precisely because it does seem hopeless. Inside of that we can pray with honesty, perhaps even through clenched teeth.
Miriamic Presence In Pandemic Times
Are you familiar with the story of Miriam in Numbers 12? An episode that reads as a heated and traumatic encounter with Moses, Aaron and God might well lead us towards something entirely more hopeful, suggests Karen Eliasen. ‘How could such an experience of crisis, emotional upheaval, disease and isolation set Miriam on a path towards a sabbath-like consolation?’
Karen Eliasen works in spirituality at St Beuno’s Jesuit Spirituality Centre, North Wales.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here
A threesome of great characters dominates the second (Exodus) and fourth (Numbers) books of the Hebrew Scriptures: Moses, Aaron and Miriam – although some might not immediately appreciate Miriam’s place up there alongside Moses and Aaron. We have heard of Mosaic law and Aaronic priesthood, but who has ever heard of Miriamic anything? Even if such a thing is out there, is it scripturally kosher? And even if kosher, how is that at all relevant to us scripture readers today, caught up as we are in a 21st century pandemic?
Well, I have heard of something called ‘Miriamic presence’, and I am convinced that such a concept is scripturally kosher … and I want to make a case for its relevance to us here and now. Like Miriam and her people, we too find ourselves a-wandering in a wilderness.
The most obvious scriptural text to turn to if we want to explore what Miriamic presence might encompass is Numbers 12, the story of Miriam’s wilderness bout of leprosy, or more modernly put, her bout of ‘a harmful skin disease’.[1] In Numbers 12 we find a gripping story about Moses, Aaron and Miriam all hotly engaging with each other, and with God, in a complex mix of power struggle, emotional outbursts, disease, isolation – and even spitting. Add to this already compelling mix the timeless ur-issues of gender and prayer, and the juicy ingredients are all there to be squeezed for contemporary pandemic relevance.
So where have I heard of Miriamic presence? In the writings of one of the earliest and most influential feminist voices in Hebrew Scripture scholarship, Phyllis Trible.[2] There is a double-edged take on the word ‘presence’ in Trible’s usage, as on the one hand Miriam’s textual presence within all of the Scriptures themselves, and on the other hand Miriam’s character’s presence to her people within the wilderness story. There is far more to both these edges than first meets the eye, something that did not escape rabbinic readers through the centuries. They creatively engaged in developing a number of traditions about Miriam, the heftiest of which involved a special well. Miriam’s well was imagined to be like a portable rock with holes that acted like a spring when the people needed water. When Miriam died, the rabbis duly noted, the people promptly, very promptly, ran out of water (Numbers 20:1-2): Miriam’s living presence had been a source of water for the people in the direst of waterless conditions. For me the question now looms, what does such a sense of a Miriamic presence have to do with what happens to Miriam in Numbers 12? What does it have to with her bout of ‘a harmful skin disease’ and her seven-day isolation outside the camp? The events of Numbers 12 take place at the very beginning of the wilderness wanderings, so Miriam and her people are facing an almost 40-year-long haul ahead. Perhaps there is some aspect of Miriam’s experience of disease and isolation that prepares her for what is still to come. In surmising such a link, I am going to indulge in some old-fashioned intertextuality.
A reference to Miriam in Deuteronomy is the first text to visit intertextually, and it is a reference by virtue of which the relevance of Numbers 12 soars to a whole new level. The reference is one of a handful of exhortations from God to ‘remember’ (translating that theologically important Hebrew word, zakar) a particular event. So, in Deuteronomy 24:9 we read: ‘Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on your way out of Egypt.’ This verse appears right on the heels of a warning to be careful when someone has ‘a harmful skin disease’, so it may seem an obvious assumption to make that what God did to Miriam was punish her with this disease. Such an assumption on God’s behalf about direct cause and effect rankled wildly down the rabbinic centuries: of course God punished Miriam, because in God’s eyes she deserved to be punished. And it is still rankling away in feminist writings: of course God punished Miriam, because it is men telling a story about an outspoken woman – and for that reason she didn’t deserve it. The Numbers 12 text itself makes no ‘punishment’ claims about what God did to Miriam. What God did, as things heated up in Numbers 12, was speak, get angry and depart. Then, the cloud lifted, and the Hebrew text in its minimalist way simply notes: hinei (meaning ‘behold’) … ‘Miriam had a harmful skin disease’. The relationship between cause and effect is left fully to the reader’s imagination, and that makes me as a reader consider moving away from any ‘punishment’ assumptions.
In questioning the understanding that whatever God ‘did to Miriam on her way out of Egypt’ was punishment, it is worth taking note of the overall events-company the Miriam-event keeps. Here is briefly what those other events, the ones God asks his people to remember, look like: The first comes in Exodus 20:8, that Israel is to remember the Sabbath; the next one is in Deuteronomy 5:15, where Israel is to remember that God brought them out of slavery in Egypt; next comes Deuteronomy 8:2, in which Israel is to remember the way God led them for forty years in the wilderness; then our Deuteronomy verse on remembering what God did to Miriam; next in Deuteronomy 32:7, Moses the man of God exhorts Israel to remember their past, chequered as it has been, all the way back to creation; and lastly, in Esther 9:28, the Jews are asked to remember to keep two days of Purim every year, in celebration of how Esther and Mordecai saved the Jews from the Persians. These texts all suggest an events-company of consolation and cause for celebration: how God was there with his people throughout everything, doing great deeds when needed. It is this kind of event that God insists his people remember – not angry punishments, but joyful sabbaths.
Miriam’s inclusion in such company should jog a serious rethink about what happened to her in Numbers 12, and about the meaning of her seven-day isolation outside the camp in the wake of her disease. Can we even begin to imagine how on earth such an experience of crisis, emotional upheaval, disease and isolation could set Miriam on a path towards a sabbath-like consolation? Taking the rabbis’ tales of Miriam’s well to heart can prod us a long way towards such a radical rethink. It is as if something happened to Miriam in Numbers 12, something that helped her get in deep touch with that ‘presence’ the future would require of her. A ‘Miriamic presence’ sent by God to his people in need, just as was the Mosaic law and the Aaronic priesthood.
Another intertextual example relating to Miriam’s disease further supports such a move away from any ‘punishment’ mode of understanding her experience. Miriam’s disease turns her ‘white as snow’, a metaphoric coupling found in two other places in the Hebrew Scriptures. The first is part of the story of Naaman’s disease in 2 Kings 5, at the end of which the prophet Elisha curses his thieving servant Gehazi, leaving the man diseased and ‘white as snow’. This is a case of explicit punishment, but it does not involve God, only an angry prophet and a thief. The second story does involve God, but not punishment. In Exodus 4:6, God makes Moses’ hand diseased, turning it ‘white as snow’, and then proceeds to heal it. Moses is subjected to this brief experience of disease as he is trying to gear himself into returning to Egypt, and God presents it as ‘proof’ of what is possible. But Moses remains sceptical and anxious, making God angry. When God brings disease that is ‘white as snow’ on his servants – be it Moses or Miriam – tempers flare all round because the huge challenge ahead is a matter of life and death for God’s people.
There are legitimate reasons for why Miriam properly belongs with Moses and Aaron, not as a peripheral tag-on but as equally a servant of God. However those reasons were understood, they did not escape the final redactors of the Hebrew Scriptures. So memorable was this threesome in the ancient Hebrew imagination that it survived intact in two surprising places elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures: Micah and First Chronicles. In Micah 6:4, God reminds his people (whom he accuses of having tired of him): ‘I brought you from the land of Egypt. I freed you from slavery. I sent Moses, Aaron and Miriam to you.’[3] Next to no women from Israel’s past found their way into the prophetic collection as a whole. There is Sarah as mother in Isaiah 51:2; there is Rachel weeping for her children in Jeremiah 31:15; and then there is Miriam in Micah. Extraordinarily, refreshingly, the scriptural Miriam is not a mother – she is not even a wife.[4] She comes to us as a woman complete unto herself in her relationship with God and with her people, her communal life-sustaining function not to birth sons but to do something else. To be something else, maybe – a Miriamic presence? This aspect of Miriam as someone who is not a mother nor a wife, but as someone sent by God along with Moses and Aaron, is reiterated in First Chronicles 6:3. Here the chronicler includes Miriam under the Hebrew benei (sons) somewhat oddly, because in genealogies female children are usually separated out as daughters: ‘Amram’s benei were Aaron, Moses and Miriam.’ Amram is of course the grandson of one of the original twelve, Levi, and Miriam is the only female listed here in the whole of Levi’s genealogy (in contrast to the chronicler’s Judah-genealogy, where a good number of women are listed, although always as either mother or wife).
All of these background observations suggest that whatever it was about Miriam that made her so essential and therefore memorable to her people, she stood out in a way that she can stand out for us today. Imagine this outstanding Miriam still alive to us, imagine her not being punished for past behaviour or being side-lined in a power struggle; imagine her instead being prepared for what lies ahead. This Miriam knows a thing or two about speaking out truly in a crisis; knows a thing or two about disease and isolation; she knows a thing or two about drawing on God-given consolation in dire times; and she also knows that whatever lies ahead, it cannot be a return to Egypt. Knowing these things helps make her a life-sustaining presence for wilderness people, in possession of a portable well. We are now a wilderness people, and we need a ‘Miriamic presence’ to survive. Do we have a prayer for Miriam as she prepares for what lies ahead, as she prepares to become that presence? Moses had a terrific prayer for Miriam in Numbers 12:13, a prayer that is as short and simple and powerful as prayers come. It could be our prayer: ‘God, please heal her!’[5]
[1] All Scriptural texts are taken from wonderfully clear 2002 translation, The International Children’s Bible.
Numbers 12 Miriam and Aaron Speak Against Moses’ Wife
12 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses, who had married a Cushite. 2 They said to themselves, “Is Moses the only one the Lord speaks through? Doesn’t he speak through us?” And the Lord heard this.
3 (Now Moses was very humble. He was the least proud person on earth.)
4 So the Lord suddenly spoke to Moses, Aaron and Miriam. He said, “All three of you come to the Meeting Tent now.” So they went. 5 The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud. He stood at the entrance to the Tent. He called to Aaron and Miriam, and they both came near. 6 He said, “Listen to my words:
When a prophet is among you, I, the Lord, will show myself to him in visions. I will speak to him in dreams.7 But this is not true with my servant Moses. I trust him to lead all my people.8 I speak face to face with him. I speak clearly, not with hidden meanings. He has even seen the form of the Lord.You should be afraid to speak against my servant Moses.”
9 The Lord was very angry with them, but he left.
10 The cloud lifted from the Tent. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam. She was as white as snow. She had a harmful skin disease. 11 Aaron said to Moses, “Please, my master, forgive us for our foolish sin. 12 Don’t let her be like a baby who is born dead. (Sometimes a baby is born with half of its flesh eaten away.)”
13 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “God, please heal her!”
14 The Lord answered Moses, “If her father had spit in her face, she would have been shamed for seven days. So put her outside the camp for seven days. After that, she may come back.” 15 So Miriam was shut outside of the camp for seven days. And the people did not move on until she came back.
16 After that, the people left Hazeroth. And they camped in the Desert of Paran.
[2] Phyllis Trible, “Bringing Miriam out of the Shadows” in A Feminist Companion to Exodus to Deuteronomy, First Series, edited by Athalya Brenner (Sheffield Academic Press, 1994). This book, and the second series, has many other interesting essays about Miriam.
[3] Another rabbinic appreciation of Miriam from midrash was the conviction that Miriam, like Moses and Aaron, was in death kissed by God.
[4] An unbearable situation for all those rabbis commenting on Miriam down the centuries. They married her off to Caleb, he of spies fame (Numbers 13).
[5] It seems relevant that the God who heals announces himself as such in Exodus 15:26, where in the immediate aftermath of the Red Sea the lack of water or its bitterness both threaten the people’s survival. Some suggest that Miriam’s name may derive from the Hebrew root for bitter. Then again, it may derive from an Egyptian word meaning beloved. Both are worth appropriating, I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment