PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER
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
DAILY AND SUNDAY MASS ONLINE: Please go to the following link on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MLCP1Mon 7th Sept No Mass Tues 8th Sept Devonport 9:30am Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary ... ALSO LIVESTREAMWed 9th Sept Ulverstone 9:30am Thurs 10th Sept Devonport 12noon ... ALSO LIVESTREAMFri 11th Sept Ulverstone 9:30am Sat 12th Sept Devonport 6.00pm ... The Most Holy Name of Mary Ulverstone 6:00pmSun 13th Sept Devonport 10:00am ... ALSO LIVESTREAM 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:Merv Jaffray, Delma Pieri, Allan McIntyre, Marlene Clarke, Val Laycock, Lauren Lloyd, Vinco Muriyadan, & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:Piet Kappelhof, Joy Carter, Sr Julianne Tapping, Fr Michael Wheeler, Geoffrey McCall
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 2nd – 8th September, 2020Ronald Finch, Geoffrey Matthews, Ken Gillard, Maria Jakimow, Jean Mochrie, Brian Astell, Len Bramich, Jack McLaren, Margaret Wesley, Gwen Jessup, Robert Adkins, Terrence Doody, Mary Davey, Fransicka Bondy, Edward McCarthy, John Smith, Joan Scully, Jenny Richards. Also deceased relatives and friends of the Sheridan, Bourke and Knight families.
May the souls of the faithful departed,through the mercy of God, rest
in peace. Amen
God our Father,
In your wisdom and love you made all
things.
Bless all fathers who have accepted the
responsibility of parenting.
Bless those who have lost a spouse to
death, separation or divorce,
and who are parenting their children alone.
Strengthen all fathers by your
love,
that they may be and become the loving,
caring people they are meant to be.
May God bless all our Dads!
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
As I prepare for my time of prayer with the Lord, I become aware of what lies in my heart and mind today.
I pray for God’s gift of inner attention to him alone.
I surrender myself to the power of the Holy Spirit through this prayer time and beyond, into my day.
Knowing there is no need to rush, I read the Gospel slowly, receptively.
Perhaps I imagine Jesus is speaking to me personally.
I pay attention … relishing and drinking in the words I am hearing.
I ask God to guide my heart, allowing his words to resonate within my being.
I am silent, receptive...
Reading the passage again, I notice what stirs within me.
Do I have a sense of being part of a Christian community …?
A sense of belonging to Christ when I pray with and for others...?
Or maybe it has been difficult at this time to feel a sense of belonging to church?
I take care not to judge.
I speak from the depth of my experience to the God who speaks to me.
In expectant stillness I listen for God, noticing how my heart or body are responding.
Perhaps God is inviting me to help with the work of building community in some way ... whether in church or elsewhere?
I ask for any grace I need.
In time, I end my prayer slowly, praying for the gift of a deepening sense of belonging to the Body of Christ.
Glory be...
Weekly Ramblings
In my Tuesday Update email this week I mentioned that we
will be encouraging all parishioners to be part of our October Month of Prayer
and Fasting. We started this initiative a few years back as we were beginning
the journey towards Plenary 2020 and have continued the process in some form
over the past two years.
This year we are beginning with the Rosary Crusade which
will be held on Sunday, 4th October – details are in OLOL and Sacred
Heart Churches and will be in the newsletter in the coming weeks.
Other extra events will include an introduction to Ignatian
Imagining using the Sunday Gospel reading, Praying the Psalms and the Prayer of
Silence. There are already other activities which take place regularly
including Adoration at OLOL on Friday mornings, the Rosary Group which meets
weekly, and The Lion of Judah Prayer which meets at Ulverstone on Monday
evenings.
Some other possibilities have been received including a
prayerful walk in nature with a number of options, further discussion on the
Plenary Documents and slightly longer (8 week) journey through The Universal
Christ, book by Fr Richard Rohr OFM.
If there are other suggestions then I am more than happy to
hear from you but as we have less than 4 weeks before we begin then receiving
them sooner rather than later would be helpful.
In the Mass times for next week you will notice that there
have been some changes. As we continue to move forward we will be celebrating
Masses at OLOL Church and Sacred Heart each week – there will be Vigil Masses
in both Centres at 6pm and Sunday morning Masses at 10am. Last weekend we
almost reached 100 people at the Sunday Mass at OLOL so this next step forward
should make life a little easier for more people to get to Mass. When
appropriate and safe we will look to further options.
PLEASE NOTE: This means that you will no longer need to
book to come to Mass. We will use the list of names of people who have been
attending the various Masses as a template to continue to record details for
Contacting Tracing if it is required – new names will be added as appropriate.
Again, please stay safe, stay sane and, if you can, stay
warm, 
The Spiritual Rosary Pilgrimage is an online activity that
runs between September 8th (Birthday of Our Lady), –October 7th (Feast of the Holy Rosary).
Please go to the website https://www.parousiamedia.com/the-spiritual-rosary-pilgrimage/
and sign up.
SICK AND AGED PRIEST FUND APPEAL: The Sick and Aged Priest Fund was established to ensure that all diocesan priests incardinated into the Archdiocese of Hobart would receive adequate accommodation, health care and support needed in their retirement, or should they become ill. The Sick and Aged Priest Fund helps to meet the following needs of our diocesan priests: A modest monthly allowance, Nursing home and hostel care for frail priests, Assistance in transitioning to retirement, assistance with out of pocket medical and dental expenses, assistance with board and lodging expenses, motor vehicle costs.
Please support our diocesan priests through the Sick and Aged Priest Fund Appeal during September. Your donation can be placed in an envelope which will be available from Mass Centres.
CONCERNED CATHOLICS TASMANIA INC (CCT)You are invited to join the launch of Concerned Catholics Tasmania Inc (CCT). We share a vision for an inclusive Catholic Church that is welcoming of all in the spirit of the Gospels. Members seek to find mutual support, opportunities for spiritual growth, and an effective role and voice in responding to Christ’s mission in today’s world. Date: Saturday 10 October 2020 10.00am for 10:30am to 12:30pm Where: The Tailrace Centre, 1 Waterfront Drive, Launceston. COVID restrictions prevent us serving refreshments, but the Centre's Coffee Shop will be open before and after for breakfast/coffee/lunch.Guest Speaker: Francis Sullivan AO (by Zoom) former Chief Executive Officer of the Catholic Church in Australia's Truth, Justice and Healing Council (2012-2018) Registration is necessary to meet COVID safety requirements - please register by email to Donna McWilliam donna_mcwilliam@yahoo.com.au by Wednesday 7th October. Donations welcome at the door.
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
God our Father,
In your wisdom and love you made all
things.
Bless all fathers who have accepted the
responsibility of parenting.
Bless those who have lost a spouse to
death, separation or divorce,
and who are parenting their children alone.
Strengthen all fathers by your
love,
that they may be and become the loving,
caring people they are meant to be.
May God bless all our Dads!
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
As I prepare for my time of prayer with the Lord, I become aware of what lies in my heart and mind today.
I pray for God’s gift of inner attention to him alone.
I surrender myself to the power of the Holy Spirit through this prayer time and beyond, into my day.
Knowing there is no need to rush, I read the Gospel slowly, receptively.
Perhaps I imagine Jesus is speaking to me personally.
I pay attention … relishing and drinking in the words I am hearing.
I ask God to guide my heart, allowing his words to resonate within my being.
I am silent, receptive...
Reading the passage again, I notice what stirs within me.
Do I have a sense of being part of a Christian community …?
A sense of belonging to Christ when I pray with and for others...?
Or maybe it has been difficult at this time to feel a sense of belonging to church?
I take care not to judge.
I speak from the depth of my experience to the God who speaks to me.
In expectant stillness I listen for God, noticing how my heart or body are responding.
Perhaps God is inviting me to help with the work of building community in some way ... whether in church or elsewhere?
I ask for any grace I need.
In time, I end my prayer slowly, praying for the gift of a deepening sense of belonging to the Body of Christ.
Glory be...
Weekly Ramblings
This year we are beginning with the Rosary Crusade which will be held on Sunday, 4th October – details are in OLOL and Sacred Heart Churches and will be in the newsletter in the coming weeks.
Other extra events will include an introduction to Ignatian Imagining using the Sunday Gospel reading, Praying the Psalms and the Prayer of Silence. There are already other activities which take place regularly including Adoration at OLOL on Friday mornings, the Rosary Group which meets weekly, and The Lion of Judah Prayer which meets at Ulverstone on Monday evenings.
Some other possibilities have been received including a prayerful walk in nature with a number of options, further discussion on the Plenary Documents and slightly longer (8 week) journey through The Universal Christ, book by Fr Richard Rohr OFM.
If there are other suggestions then I am more than happy to hear from you but as we have less than 4 weeks before we begin then receiving them sooner rather than later would be helpful.
In the Mass times for next week you will notice that there have been some changes. As we continue to move forward we will be celebrating Masses at OLOL Church and Sacred Heart each week – there will be Vigil Masses in both Centres at 6pm and Sunday morning Masses at 10am. Last weekend we almost reached 100 people at the Sunday Mass at OLOL so this next step forward should make life a little easier for more people to get to Mass. When appropriate and safe we will look to further options.
PLEASE NOTE: This means that you will no longer need to book to come to Mass. We will use the list of names of people who have been attending the various Masses as a template to continue to record details for Contacting Tracing if it is required – new names will be added as appropriate.
Again, please stay safe, stay sane and, if you can, stay
warm, 
The Spiritual Rosary Pilgrimage is an online activity that
runs between September 8th (Birthday of Our Lady), –October 7th (Feast of the Holy Rosary).
Please go to the website https://www.parousiamedia.com/the-spiritual-rosary-pilgrimage/
and sign up.
Letter From Rome A Sneak Preview Of The Pope's Upcoming Encyclical On Human Fraternity
Someone has been leaking excerpts of the new papal document
- Robert Mickens, Rome, September 4, 2020.
This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete full access is via paid subscription
During a late summer press conference on upcoming celebration to the 800th anniversary of the Rule of Saint Francis, an Italian bishop quite casually mentioned in passing that Pope Francis will "soon be issuing an encyclical on human fraternity".
The bishop was Domenico Pompili. He heads the Diocese of Rieti, a suffragan see of Rome.
He gave no further clues or information about the alleged new encyclical when he made that brief comment on August 26.
But unless he had a lapsus and was actually referring to some other type of papal document, it's likely that an encyclical dealing with human fraternity – even if that is not the name or principle theme – is imminent.
The 57-year-old Pompili is considered somewhat of a rising star in the Italian Church.
Francis appointed him to Rieti in 2015 while the Rome-educated moral theologian (Gregorian University) was serving as priest-undersecretary of the Italian Bishops' Conference and head of its national office for social communications.
The pope apparently keeps in regular contact with him, especially after a devastating earthquake struck Rieti in August 2016. Francis visited the diocese several weeks after the quake and returned again last December. He and Pompili seem to have a good rapport.
Since the bishop dropped the news about the upcoming encyclical, there has been lots of speculation the last week or so about the actual date of its releases and what it is likely to say.
Many commentators are betting on the October 4 feast day of Francis of Assisi, the saint whose name Jorge Mario Bergoglio adopted when he was elected Bishop of Rome in March 2013.
Whether that's when the pope signs the text or actually releases it to the public, the encyclical will be closely linked to the spirit and legacy of the world's most beloved saint.
Whoever has ears, let them listen"It will be a social and economic encyclical for the post-COVID world, a text of reason and heart with which the pontiff will speak to the world about the necessary changes in social and productive organization, the need to safeguard creation, the need to take responsibility for one another and of the increasing need for human fraternity," opined Maria Antonietta Calabrò in the Italian edition of the Huffington Post.
Indeed, Francis has already begun spelling that out in a new series of teachings called, "To heal the world."
He started the series at the beginning of August when he resumed his Wednesday general audiences following a month-long break.
"In the next few weeks…" he said on August 5. "We will explore together how our Catholic social tradition can help the human family heal this world that suffers from serious illnesses."
In the introductory installment Francis made it clear that the Church does not make decisions that are more proper to political and social leaders.
"Nevertheless, over the centuries, and by the light of the Gospel, the Church has developed several social principles which are fundamental principles that can help us move forward in preparing the future that we need," he said, pointing to Catholic social doctrine.
We must take care of each otherThe following Wednesday the theme of the catechesis was "faith and human dignity". The pope began by noting that "the pandemic has highlighted how vulnerable and interconnected everyone is".
"If we do not take care of one another, starting with the least, with those who are most impacted, including creation, we cannot heal the world," he insisted.
Francis said it is a question of living in communion or "harmony" with one another, rather than living as "individualists" who are "indifferent" to the needs of others.
"The harmony created by God asks that we look at others, the needs of others, the problems of others, in communion", recognizing "the human dignity in every person, whatever his or her race, language or condition might be", the pope continued.
"The pandemic has exposed the plight of the poor and the great inequality that reigns in the world," he began a week later at the August 19 general audience, which was focused on the "preferential option for the poor".
"This is not a political option; nor is it an ideological option, a party option… no. The preferential option for the poor is at the center of the Gospel!" the Jesuit pope exclaimed.
A vaccine cannot be the property of the richHe then decried our current system of social and economic injustices that hurt the poor and the environment.
"The pandemic is a crisis, and we do not emerge from a crisis the same as before: either we come out of it better, or we come out of it worse," Francis argued.
"It would be sad if, for the vaccine for COVID-19, priority were to be given to the richest! It would be sad if this vaccine were to become the property of this nation or another, rather than universal and for all. And what a scandal it would be if all the economic assistance we are observing - most of it with public money - were to focus on rescuing those industries that do not contribute to the inclusion of the excluded, the promotion of the least, the common good or the care of creation," he hammered on.
He reiterated forcefully that only those companies and business "that contribute to the inclusion of the excluded, to the promotion of the last, to the common good and the care of creation" should be given financial assistance. Period.
An injustice that cries out to heaven!The past two Wednesdays the pope has spoken more specifically of "the universal destination of goods" (including fairer distribution of wealth) and the principle of "solidarity".
He linked the first issue to the virtue of hope and the second to the virtue of faith.
At the August 26th audience he railed against economic and social inequality.
"We must say it simply: the economy is sick," he lamented.
"In today's world, a few wealthy people possess more than all the rest of humanity," he went on.
"I will repeat this," he said, "so that it makes us think: a few wealthy people, a small group, possess more than all the rest of humanity. This is pure statistics. This is an injustice that cries out to heaven!
"Then, last week – his first audience before a large crowd of people since the COVID lockdown – Pope Francis said now more than ever is the time for enacting solidarity.
But he said it's a concept that is often understood as merely making sporadic acts of charity. No, he said, it is something much more.
Taking Catholic social teaching to a new level"It presumes the creation of a new mindset which thinks in terms of community and the priority of the life of all over the appropriation of goods by a few," he said, quoting his first major document, Evangelii gaudium.
In fact, there is likely to be a number of quotes from this 2013 apostolic exhortation in his forthcoming encyclical on human fraternity. And there are sure to be many references the 2015 encyclical Laudato si', as well.
This is not to say that encyclical will be simply a re-statement, "highlights" or "the best of" these earlier documents. No, whatever comes next will build on these texts and other reflections Francis, his aides and many others have produced on these issues the past several years.
Like any good teacher, Pope Francis knows it is important to keep returning in different and more probing ways to the subject matter. Expect the next encyclical to take the Church social teaching to a whole new level.
The Universal Christ
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
Grace had already been granted to us in Christ Jesus before
the beginning of time, and now it has been revealed to us in the appearing of
our Savior Christ Jesus. —2 Timothy 1:9-10
It seems we only give attention to that which we are told to
give attention. The Franciscan alternative orthodoxy has given me the
intellectual and spiritual freedom to quietly but firmly pay attention to
different things. For the most part, Christianity has ignored the fact that
Christ existed from all eternity, but Franciscan teaching emphasizes the
significance of the universal Christ.
The word Christ means “anointed one.” The divine anointing
began with the first incarnation when God decided to show God’s self, almost
13.8 billion years ago. We now call it the Big Bang. Franciscan philosopher
John Duns Scotus basically taught that the first idea in the mind of God was
Christ. Christ was the Alpha point. Good biblical theology calls creation
itself the birth of the Christ, the materialization of God. Whenever matter and
spirit coinhere, coincide, you have the Christ Mystery, which is a phrase the
Apostle Paul introduces. Paul has a deep intuition of this, which leads to his
understanding of the Eucharistic Body of Christ. Paul intuits that this
incarnation of Christ is spread throughout creation, human nature, and even the
elements of bread and wine. It’s everywhere.
Francis himself was not a theologian, he was not an
academic, he was not highly educated. He was just a sincere spiritual genius
who intuited these things. When the next generation of Franciscans, including
St. Bonaventure (1221–1274) and John Duns Scotus, came along, they created a
philosophy and theology to substantiate Francis’ intuitive vision. They homed
in on the first chapters of Colossians, Ephesians, John’s Gospel, Hebrews, and
the Letter of 1 John which say the Christ existed from all eternity. The
universal Christ is a totally biblical notion.
The universal Christ is one of the crown jewels of early
Franciscan theology and part of our alternative orthodoxy. It was there from
the beginning, but it’s only now becoming widely known, as the study of
cosmology itself says that the very shape of the universe is dynamic and
relational. It is all about relationship! The mystery of the universe reveals
the mystery of a Trinitarian Creator God. So once cosmology becomes the
framework for theology, we suddenly recognize the need to name what
Christianity has always had—a cosmic notion of Jesus, which is the Christ.
[1]
If we don’t balance out Jesus with Christ, I think our
theology is going to become a more and more limited worldview that will end up
being in competition with the other world religions. Balancing Jesus with
Christ gives us a vision that is so big, so universal that it includes every
thing and everybody. You don’t even have to use the words Jesus or Christ to
contemplate this Mystery.
The Last Temptation
This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
T.S. Eliot wrote those words to describe how difficult it is to purge our motivation of selfish concerns, to do things for reasons that are not ultimately about ourselves. In Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, his main character is Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is martyred for his faith. From every outward appearance, Becket is a saint, unselfish, motivated by faith and love. But as Eliot teases out in Murder in the Cathedral, the outward narrative doesn’t tell the deeper story, doesn’t show what’s more radically at issue. It’s not that Thomas Becket wasn’t a saint or wasn’t honest in his motivation for doing good works; rather there’s still a “last temptation” that he needed to overcome on the road to becoming a full saint. Beneath the surface narrative there’s always a deeper, more-subtle, invisible, moral battle going on, a “last temptation” that must be overcome. What’s that temptation?
It’s a temptation that comes disguised as a grace and tempts us in this way: be unselfish, be faithful, do good things, never compromise the truth, be about others, carry your solitude at a high level, be above the mediocrity of the crowd, be that exceptional moral person, accept martyrdom if it is asked of you. But why? For what reason?
There are many motives for why we want to be good, but the one that disguises itself as a grace and is really a negative temptation is this one: be good because of the respect, admiration, and permanent good name it will win you, for the genuine glory that this brings. This is the temptation faced by a good person. Wanting a good name is not a bad thing, but in the end it’s still about ourselves.
In my more reflective moments, I’m haunted by this and left with self-doubts. Am I really doing what I am doing for Jesus, for others, for the world, or am I doing it for my own good name and how I can then feel good about that? Am I doing it so that others might lead fuller, less fearful, lives or am I doing it for the respect it garners for me? When I’m teaching is my real motivation to make others fall in love with Jesus or to have them admire me for my insights? When I write books and articles, am I really trying to dispense wisdom or am I trying to show how wise I am? It this about God or about me?
Perhaps we can never really answer these questions since our motivation is always mixed and it’s impossible to sort this out exactly. But still, we owe it to others and to ourselves to scrutinize ourselves over this in prayer, in conscience, in spiritual direction, and in discussion with others. How do we overcome that “last temptation”, to do the right things and not make it about ourselves?
The struggle to overcome selfishness and motivate ourselves by a clear, honest altruism can be an impossible battle to win. Classically, the churches have told us there are seven deadly sins (pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth) that are tied to our very nature and with which we will struggle our whole lives. And the problem is that the more we seem to overcome them, the more they manage to simply disguise themselves in more subtle forms in our lives. For example, take Jesus’ counsel to not be proud and take the most prestigious place at table and then be embarrassed by being asked to move to a lower place, but rather humbly taking the lowest seat so as to be invited to move higher. That’s sound practical advice, no doubt, but it can also be a recipe for a pride we can really be proud of. Once we have displayed our humility and been publicly recognized for it, then we can feel a truly superior pride in how humble we’ve been! It’s the same for all of the deadly sins. As we succeed in not giving in to crasser temptations, they re-root themselves in subtler forms within us.
Our faults display themselves publicly and crassly when we’re immature, but the hard fact is that they generally don’t disappear when we are mature. They simply take on more subtle forms. For instance, when I’m immature and wrapped up in my own life and ambitions, I might not give much thought to helping the poor. Then, when I’m older, more mature and more theologically schooled, I will write articles publicly confessing that we all should be doing more for the poor. Well, challenging myself and others to be more attentive to the poor is in fact a good thing … and while that might not help the poor very much, it will certainly help me to feel better about myself.
How do we ever get beyond this, this last temptation, to do the right thing for the wrong reason?
Growing Healthy Churches (In A Pandemic)
This article is taken from the weekly Blog of Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timoneum, Baltimore. You can read his blog hereIn a crisis, the easiest response is to go with what you know. But the problem with the COVID-19 crisis is that some of the very things we were most comfortable with in parish life are the very things that we are now restricted from doing. COVID-19 is like a big reset button on everything we do as a parish. At first, that seemed like a problem. But we’ve come to understand the benefits of a re-evaluation of priorities, practices, programs, and services that the reset provides, in order to grow stronger. Three examples:
1) Online Church
When we first started broadcasting Mass online a few years ago, we were very unclear what our objective was, very uneasy we could be “cannibalizing” our in-pew attendance, and very uncertain we should be doing it at all. Since then, the audience has steadily grown, allowing homebound and sick members of our parish to participate in Mass, providing a “front door” for visitors and potential parishioners, as well as the place traveling parishioners, could stay connected. Since COVID our online community has exploded in growth. Now, we consider our online parishioners and our in-person congregation as one church, two ways we are helping people in-person and on-line grow as disciples.
2) Online Giving
For many parishes, not being able to pass the basket would be an impossible challenge. But, truthfully, it’s been a practice we have grown less and less fond of. Pre-COVID we only had one offering in Mass: to support the parish and its mission. We had no second collections, hosted no bake sales by the front door, and didn’t ask for a stewardship commitment more than once per year. These are practices we developed over the course of many years.
COVID has narrowed our fundraising focus even further. We are now almost completely dependent upon online giving for our weekly offertory. We do still collect checks by mail and in no-touch drop-boxes in the back of church. But we now believe that online giving can grow people in their discipleship better than old-fashion checks by making it easier to be a consistent and planned giver.
3) Online Team Work
One of our six staff values is ‘adaptable.’ In normal times, adaptable generally means being open to occasional changes in procedures or plans. In COVID times, it has meant a total re-deployment of our staff resources, staff time, staff efforts. Some of our staff, especially those who are dependent on in-person gatherings like children, students, and missions, have seen their jobs change completely. Others, like our tech and video people, have seen a multiplication of responsibilities and opportunities.
To their credit, they have all responded with total professionalism and adaptability. Rather than retreating to silos and departments, our staff has shown an increased willingness to help out wherever things need to be done. Those with technical expertise have helped those trying out video for the first time. Some of our staff have even dropped what they were doing before and picked up entirely new roles to help one another out. In this way, staff unity and morale has never been higher, even though it’s mostly all online.
It is obviously most important to stay healthy during the pandemic. But it is also possible to grow healthier through this period as well. We call it “COVID-ing” our way to a stronger parish.
Belief In Hopkins Turns
The poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, who was born on 28 July 1844, have been a source of inspiration and comfort to countless people over the years, not least because of the way in which they capture the power and dynamics of belief in God. Brian McClorry SJ looks at how Hopkins uses a poetic device to illustrate the tensions and discoveries of faith in three of his sonnets.
Brian B McClorry SJ is a member of the Corpus Christi Jesuit Community in Boscombe.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here
In a sonnet, that ‘little song’ of some fourteen lines, there is a ‘turn’ – a shift in the poem’s subject, argument, movement, momentum, atmosphere, sense and feeling. In a Shakespearean sonnet the ‘turn’ happens in the last two lines. A Petrarchan sonnet is more expansive: the ‘turn’ happens after the first eight lines, the octet, and occupies the next six, the sestet. What follows is about the ‘turn’ in three (Petrachan) sonnets by the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). The hope is that the ‘turn’ in these sonnets may well say something of what it might be to have faith or to believe. What kind of shifts are afoot? This question does not suppose that there will be final ‘conclusions’. A poem should ‘get somewhere’, but where it gets to is not a complete hard and fast result but some holding together, with altered tensions and a fresh sense of discovery.
The three sonnets are ‘The Windhover, ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’, both written at St Beuno’s in 1877, and ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection’ written in Dublin in 1888.[1]
‘The Windhover’
Before joining the Jesuit novitiate in 1868, Hopkins burnt copies of his poems on the grounds that being a poet was incompatible with being a Jesuit. In 1875 at St Beuno’s, the Jesuit theological college in North Wales, he was given a somewhat en passant encouragement by the rector and began to write ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’. By the time he was ordained in September 1877, Hopkins had written some fourteen poems, including ‘The Windhover’.
The sonnet begins with chivalric imagery (‘minion’, ‘kingdom’, ‘dauphin’) which culminates in seeing, really seeing, a kestrel, or windhover – indeed a ‘Falcon’ who is ‘morning’s minion’ or messenger. It is a wondrous seeing, not simply a sighting. The bird rides ‘the rolling level underneath him steady air’ and its sweeping flight ‘Rebuffed the big wind.’ Then, exultantly, Hopkins finds, ‘My heart in hiding / Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!’ Then comes the sonnet’s turn, where everything (‘brute beauty’, ‘valour’, ‘act’, ‘air’, ‘pride’ and ‘plume’) is told ‘here’ – in this experience – ‘Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion / Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!’
‘Buckle’ can mean to buckle on, gird yourself. Buckling on a sword fits the chivalric imagery well. Hopkins had to struggle long and hard to find that being a Jesuit and a poet could genuinely come together; eventually everything buckled on – he loved Wales where he felt at home. And (AND!) he was writing poetry once more. But Hopkins also had to get through three years studying theology in a training that today seems ‘almost unimaginably barren and unenlightened’.[2] ‘Buckle’ can also mean to collapse or crumple. What collapsed was perhaps a particular understanding of his vocation, which led to the burning of his poetry. Both senses of ‘buckle’ hover over the turn.
As for the continuing grind of nineteenth century theology: ‘No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion/ Shine’. ‘Sillion’ refers to a ploughed furrow which, given some clay in the earth and the right light, will shine. Indeed a whole ploughed field may shine. And ‘blue-bleak embers’, say in the grate of a coal or wood fire in Hopkins’ small room, can go slack, shift and glow – and ‘gold-vermilion’ attends the space where the writing is done. What seemed to get nowhere works towards a surprised and exultant relief. There has been a huge struggle with theological training and vocational compatibility. Hopkins has indeed come through.
Christ is perhaps present in the metaphors ‘Falcon’ and ‘chevalier’. Still, the poem’s title has a precise colon which makes the late ‘dedication’ part of the title: ‘The Windhover: to Christ our Lord’. Christ was present in the long struggles with vocational clarity and a dispiriting theological training. These have been a workroom for faith and belief, for expectancy and hope. And Hopkins – eventually – begins to write again.
To oversimplify, Hopkins’ struggle looks like a wrestle with ‘bad religion’ in which human creativity has a precarious place, and where theology was overly propositional, relatively innocent of mystery and full of answers to preset questions. Jesus’s remark that the sabbath was for people not people for the sabbath (Mark 2:27) is not irrelevant to theology or religion. However, a Falcon flew and was truly seen!
‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’
This is very different from ‘The Windhover’. What is heard or seen is not a single falcon but many creatures: kingfishers, dragonflies, stones falling into wells, bells. Here everything ’Selves – goes itself; myself it speaks and spells’. There is a complete and fully expressed identity: ‘What I do is me: for that I came’. Here the italics do considered and careful duty for the flamboyant exclamation marks of ‘The Windhover’. This evocation of an ‘I’ might fit some traditions of Romantic poetry, say Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’, the 1881 title Whitman gave to a poem first published in 1855, which begins: ‘I celebrate myself and sing myself’. To be able to ‘sing myself’ and do what I came to do might well attract the ‘heart in hiding’ which, in ‘The Windhover’, ‘stirred for a bird’. But Hopkins will have none of it.
The ‘turn’ of this sonnet has found a tone that is open, clear and relaxed: ‘I say more: the just man justices’. The delighted encounter with dragonflies and kingfishers, wells and bells, is a delighted prelude to enlargement and discovery. There is no ‘AND’, certainly no ‘but’: the struggle and ambiguity of ‘The Windhover’ are gone. The exigent isolated ‘I’ finds a wonderful and connected action – a gift, a ‘grace: that keeps all his goings graces’ – the alliteration is also gracious. To justice – it is good to find justice as a verb – is to act what in God’s eye we are: Christ. And here in Christ there is no isolation: ‘for Christ plays in ten thousand places’.
I remember years ago quoting this part of the sonnet in a homily and, full of concern for inclusive language altered the last line (I think apologising for the impertinence) to sound: ‘To the Father through the features of our faces.’ I even liked the way the vowels of ‘our’ riffed off nearby vowels. It is, however, difficult to be inclusive – ‘our’ can be part of a divisive ‘us’ and ‘them’. Hopkins’ intent, however, is not only stunningly universal. Christ connects us together: ‘for Christ plays in ten thousand places, / Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his / To the Father through the features of men’s faces.’ Hopkins’ ‘more’ finds a vision that rules out all forms of discrimination and seeks out a new community.
After ‘I say more’ there is clearly a discovery, a finding that is new, of both Christ and humankind. The working of faith and belief leads to a depth and to a range which lies beyond any easy prediction or imagination. Discovery and surprise attend the calm beginning of the sonnet’s turn: ‘I say more’. More indeed. Faith and belief have room for ‘more’ and rejoice when a new horizon dawns.
‘That Nature is as Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection’
Is this a sonnet? Well, everyone says so – including Hopkins – although there are additions to the fourteen line rule. Well, ‘rules’ are to be well considered but not idolised. This sonnet that Hopkins wrote in Dublin in 1888, the year before he died, is not about a single bird as in ‘The Windhover’, or many creatures like ‘As Kingfishers…’, but ‘nature’ as a whole. Hopkins finds that his own sense of the impermanence and transience of nature is shocking. So Heraclitus (c. 535-475 BCE) for whom all is change or flux, and only change is permanent, becomes an evocative figurehead[3] for this vertigo.
There is much delightful language: ‘heaven roysterers’ and a ‘bright wind’. But of ‘Man’ we’re told, ‘how fast his fire-dint, | his mark on mind is gone!’ And of humankind and nature, we hear: ‘Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark / Drowned.’ It’s a very different mood from the earlier ‘God’s Grandeur’, where ‘for all this, nature is never spent; / There lives the dearest freshness deep down things’. But now, ‘vastness blurs and time / beats level.’ An extraordinary line. There is no ‘more’ that can be said.
Then comes the turn: ‘Enough! the Resurrection, / A heart’s clarion!’ This exclamation and its exclamation marks are not from nowhere. ‘Enough!’ is not running away, but rather a memory or recognition of a past mood, long-lived and not to be re-lived. Hopkins has been here before – in what are often called the ‘Sonnets of Desolation’, also written in Dublin probably two or three years before ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire…’. For example, ‘No worst’ begins with: ‘No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief’ and ends: ‘Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.’ So ‘Enough!’ means Hopkins will not follow a real, debilitating and persistent mood which he had experienced and about which he had already written some six sonnets – wrestling, as in ‘Carrion Comfort’, ‘with (my God!) my God.’
The ‘heart’s clarion!’ is the Resurrection of Jesus and so the resurrection of both humankind and nature. ‘Flesh’ will ‘fade’ and ‘fall’, nature will leave only ‘ash’. Then, ‘at a trumpet crash, / I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am’. So indeed we find ‘the just man justices’ as in ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’. However, ‘justices’ is what Christ does and his justicing has the transformed and transforming aspect and impetus of resurrection. Resurrection is not to be reduced to restoration, resuscitation or immortality but is a transformation, another kind of ‘glory’ (1 Corinthians 15:35-49). So this ‘Jack, joke, poor potsherd’ – Hopkins, anyone and everyone – or ‘immortal diamond’, is truly ‘immortal diamond’. The diamond, itself a product of transformation and an old image of perpetuity, ‘remains itself but the splendor its [sic] gives comes from another light that utterly fills it.’[4] It is pleasing to imagine Heraclitus full of light…
It is extraordinary that although resurrection was indeed a requirement in European theology, in the past that theology often did little more than try to demonstrate that the theologians’ understanding of Jesus’s death were correct. The salvific reality of Jesus’s resurrection was minimised.[5] Hopkins’ poetry points to a much fuller reality. Faith and belief need this wholeness of death and resurrection.
Hopkins’ poetry was not published in his lifetime.[6] Perhaps this is one hinterland to this sonnet on Christ’s ‘resurrection’. Another Dublin sonnet, ‘To seem the stranger’ speaks of ‘dark heaven’s baffling ban’ which is ‘to hoard unheard’. What came to nothing can have an unforecasted and transformed future.
For Seamus Heaney, good poetry is ‘travelworthy’ in that it can cross space-time, move between cultures and enliven different circumstances.[7] So ‘The Windhover’ might relate to ‘bad religion’ (perhaps not ‘relativism’ so much as reductionism) and the ambiguity of ‘plod’ (change or keep going?). ‘As Kingfishers…’ stands as an encouragement to discovery and a seal of wonder on what may be given – an enlargement of Christ’s mystery. And ‘That Nature…’ finds that we (nature looking at nature) and the universe are part of a scarcely recognisable ‘future’ which can enliven us now. For this we need to ‘read’ both the poetry and ourselves.
It seems we only give attention to that which we are told to
give attention. The Franciscan alternative orthodoxy has given me the
intellectual and spiritual freedom to quietly but firmly pay attention to
different things. For the most part, Christianity has ignored the fact that
Christ existed from all eternity, but Franciscan teaching emphasizes the
significance of the universal Christ.
The word Christ means “anointed one.” The divine anointing
began with the first incarnation when God decided to show God’s self, almost
13.8 billion years ago. We now call it the Big Bang. Franciscan philosopher
John Duns Scotus basically taught that the first idea in the mind of God was
Christ. Christ was the Alpha point. Good biblical theology calls creation
itself the birth of the Christ, the materialization of God. Whenever matter and
spirit coinhere, coincide, you have the Christ Mystery, which is a phrase the
Apostle Paul introduces. Paul has a deep intuition of this, which leads to his
understanding of the Eucharistic Body of Christ. Paul intuits that this
incarnation of Christ is spread throughout creation, human nature, and even the
elements of bread and wine. It’s everywhere.
Francis himself was not a theologian, he was not an
academic, he was not highly educated. He was just a sincere spiritual genius
who intuited these things. When the next generation of Franciscans, including
St. Bonaventure (1221–1274) and John Duns Scotus, came along, they created a
philosophy and theology to substantiate Francis’ intuitive vision. They homed
in on the first chapters of Colossians, Ephesians, John’s Gospel, Hebrews, and
the Letter of 1 John which say the Christ existed from all eternity. The
universal Christ is a totally biblical notion.
The universal Christ is one of the crown jewels of early
Franciscan theology and part of our alternative orthodoxy. It was there from
the beginning, but it’s only now becoming widely known, as the study of
cosmology itself says that the very shape of the universe is dynamic and
relational. It is all about relationship! The mystery of the universe reveals
the mystery of a Trinitarian Creator God. So once cosmology becomes the
framework for theology, we suddenly recognize the need to name what
Christianity has always had—a cosmic notion of Jesus, which is the Christ.
[1]
If we don’t balance out Jesus with Christ, I think our
theology is going to become a more and more limited worldview that will end up
being in competition with the other world religions. Balancing Jesus with
Christ gives us a vision that is so big, so universal that it includes every
thing and everybody. You don’t even have to use the words Jesus or Christ to
contemplate this Mystery.
The Last Temptation
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
T.S. Eliot wrote those words to describe how difficult it is to purge our motivation of selfish concerns, to do things for reasons that are not ultimately about ourselves. In Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, his main character is Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is martyred for his faith. From every outward appearance, Becket is a saint, unselfish, motivated by faith and love. But as Eliot teases out in Murder in the Cathedral, the outward narrative doesn’t tell the deeper story, doesn’t show what’s more radically at issue. It’s not that Thomas Becket wasn’t a saint or wasn’t honest in his motivation for doing good works; rather there’s still a “last temptation” that he needed to overcome on the road to becoming a full saint. Beneath the surface narrative there’s always a deeper, more-subtle, invisible, moral battle going on, a “last temptation” that must be overcome. What’s that temptation?
It’s a temptation that comes disguised as a grace and tempts us in this way: be unselfish, be faithful, do good things, never compromise the truth, be about others, carry your solitude at a high level, be above the mediocrity of the crowd, be that exceptional moral person, accept martyrdom if it is asked of you. But why? For what reason?
There are many motives for why we want to be good, but the one that disguises itself as a grace and is really a negative temptation is this one: be good because of the respect, admiration, and permanent good name it will win you, for the genuine glory that this brings. This is the temptation faced by a good person. Wanting a good name is not a bad thing, but in the end it’s still about ourselves.
In my more reflective moments, I’m haunted by this and left with self-doubts. Am I really doing what I am doing for Jesus, for others, for the world, or am I doing it for my own good name and how I can then feel good about that? Am I doing it so that others might lead fuller, less fearful, lives or am I doing it for the respect it garners for me? When I’m teaching is my real motivation to make others fall in love with Jesus or to have them admire me for my insights? When I write books and articles, am I really trying to dispense wisdom or am I trying to show how wise I am? It this about God or about me?
Perhaps we can never really answer these questions since our motivation is always mixed and it’s impossible to sort this out exactly. But still, we owe it to others and to ourselves to scrutinize ourselves over this in prayer, in conscience, in spiritual direction, and in discussion with others. How do we overcome that “last temptation”, to do the right things and not make it about ourselves?
The struggle to overcome selfishness and motivate ourselves by a clear, honest altruism can be an impossible battle to win. Classically, the churches have told us there are seven deadly sins (pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth) that are tied to our very nature and with which we will struggle our whole lives. And the problem is that the more we seem to overcome them, the more they manage to simply disguise themselves in more subtle forms in our lives. For example, take Jesus’ counsel to not be proud and take the most prestigious place at table and then be embarrassed by being asked to move to a lower place, but rather humbly taking the lowest seat so as to be invited to move higher. That’s sound practical advice, no doubt, but it can also be a recipe for a pride we can really be proud of. Once we have displayed our humility and been publicly recognized for it, then we can feel a truly superior pride in how humble we’ve been! It’s the same for all of the deadly sins. As we succeed in not giving in to crasser temptations, they re-root themselves in subtler forms within us.
Our faults display themselves publicly and crassly when we’re immature, but the hard fact is that they generally don’t disappear when we are mature. They simply take on more subtle forms. For instance, when I’m immature and wrapped up in my own life and ambitions, I might not give much thought to helping the poor. Then, when I’m older, more mature and more theologically schooled, I will write articles publicly confessing that we all should be doing more for the poor. Well, challenging myself and others to be more attentive to the poor is in fact a good thing … and while that might not help the poor very much, it will certainly help me to feel better about myself.
How do we ever get beyond this, this last temptation, to do the right thing for the wrong reason?
In a crisis, the easiest response is to go with what you know. But the problem with the COVID-19 crisis is that some of the very things we were most comfortable with in parish life are the very things that we are now restricted from doing. COVID-19 is like a big reset button on everything we do as a parish. At first, that seemed like a problem. But we’ve come to understand the benefits of a re-evaluation of priorities, practices, programs, and services that the reset provides, in order to grow stronger. Three examples:
1) Online Church
When we first started broadcasting Mass online a few years ago, we were very unclear what our objective was, very uneasy we could be “cannibalizing” our in-pew attendance, and very uncertain we should be doing it at all. Since then, the audience has steadily grown, allowing homebound and sick members of our parish to participate in Mass, providing a “front door” for visitors and potential parishioners, as well as the place traveling parishioners, could stay connected. Since COVID our online community has exploded in growth. Now, we consider our online parishioners and our in-person congregation as one church, two ways we are helping people in-person and on-line grow as disciples.
2) Online Giving
For many parishes, not being able to pass the basket would be an impossible challenge. But, truthfully, it’s been a practice we have grown less and less fond of. Pre-COVID we only had one offering in Mass: to support the parish and its mission. We had no second collections, hosted no bake sales by the front door, and didn’t ask for a stewardship commitment more than once per year. These are practices we developed over the course of many years.
COVID has narrowed our fundraising focus even further. We are now almost completely dependent upon online giving for our weekly offertory. We do still collect checks by mail and in no-touch drop-boxes in the back of church. But we now believe that online giving can grow people in their discipleship better than old-fashion checks by making it easier to be a consistent and planned giver.
3) Online Team Work
One of our six staff values is ‘adaptable.’ In normal times, adaptable generally means being open to occasional changes in procedures or plans. In COVID times, it has meant a total re-deployment of our staff resources, staff time, staff efforts. Some of our staff, especially those who are dependent on in-person gatherings like children, students, and missions, have seen their jobs change completely. Others, like our tech and video people, have seen a multiplication of responsibilities and opportunities.
To their credit, they have all responded with total professionalism and adaptability. Rather than retreating to silos and departments, our staff has shown an increased willingness to help out wherever things need to be done. Those with technical expertise have helped those trying out video for the first time. Some of our staff have even dropped what they were doing before and picked up entirely new roles to help one another out. In this way, staff unity and morale has never been higher, even though it’s mostly all online.
It is obviously most important to stay healthy during the pandemic. But it is also possible to grow healthier through this period as well. We call it “COVID-ing” our way to a stronger parish.
Belief In Hopkins Turns
The poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, who was born on 28 July 1844, have been a source of inspiration and comfort to countless people over the years, not least because of the way in which they capture the power and dynamics of belief in God. Brian McClorry SJ looks at how Hopkins uses a poetic device to illustrate the tensions and discoveries of faith in three of his sonnets.
Brian B McClorry SJ is a member of the Corpus Christi Jesuit Community in Boscombe.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here
In a sonnet, that ‘little song’ of some fourteen lines, there is a ‘turn’ – a shift in the poem’s subject, argument, movement, momentum, atmosphere, sense and feeling. In a Shakespearean sonnet the ‘turn’ happens in the last two lines. A Petrarchan sonnet is more expansive: the ‘turn’ happens after the first eight lines, the octet, and occupies the next six, the sestet. What follows is about the ‘turn’ in three (Petrachan) sonnets by the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). The hope is that the ‘turn’ in these sonnets may well say something of what it might be to have faith or to believe. What kind of shifts are afoot? This question does not suppose that there will be final ‘conclusions’. A poem should ‘get somewhere’, but where it gets to is not a complete hard and fast result but some holding together, with altered tensions and a fresh sense of discovery.
The three sonnets are ‘The Windhover, ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’, both written at St Beuno’s in 1877, and ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection’ written in Dublin in 1888.[1]
‘The Windhover’
Before joining the Jesuit novitiate in 1868, Hopkins burnt copies of his poems on the grounds that being a poet was incompatible with being a Jesuit. In 1875 at St Beuno’s, the Jesuit theological college in North Wales, he was given a somewhat en passant encouragement by the rector and began to write ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’. By the time he was ordained in September 1877, Hopkins had written some fourteen poems, including ‘The Windhover’.
The sonnet begins with chivalric imagery (‘minion’, ‘kingdom’, ‘dauphin’) which culminates in seeing, really seeing, a kestrel, or windhover – indeed a ‘Falcon’ who is ‘morning’s minion’ or messenger. It is a wondrous seeing, not simply a sighting. The bird rides ‘the rolling level underneath him steady air’ and its sweeping flight ‘Rebuffed the big wind.’ Then, exultantly, Hopkins finds, ‘My heart in hiding / Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!’ Then comes the sonnet’s turn, where everything (‘brute beauty’, ‘valour’, ‘act’, ‘air’, ‘pride’ and ‘plume’) is told ‘here’ – in this experience – ‘Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion / Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!’
‘Buckle’ can mean to buckle on, gird yourself. Buckling on a sword fits the chivalric imagery well. Hopkins had to struggle long and hard to find that being a Jesuit and a poet could genuinely come together; eventually everything buckled on – he loved Wales where he felt at home. And (AND!) he was writing poetry once more. But Hopkins also had to get through three years studying theology in a training that today seems ‘almost unimaginably barren and unenlightened’.[2] ‘Buckle’ can also mean to collapse or crumple. What collapsed was perhaps a particular understanding of his vocation, which led to the burning of his poetry. Both senses of ‘buckle’ hover over the turn.
As for the continuing grind of nineteenth century theology: ‘No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion/ Shine’. ‘Sillion’ refers to a ploughed furrow which, given some clay in the earth and the right light, will shine. Indeed a whole ploughed field may shine. And ‘blue-bleak embers’, say in the grate of a coal or wood fire in Hopkins’ small room, can go slack, shift and glow – and ‘gold-vermilion’ attends the space where the writing is done. What seemed to get nowhere works towards a surprised and exultant relief. There has been a huge struggle with theological training and vocational compatibility. Hopkins has indeed come through.
Christ is perhaps present in the metaphors ‘Falcon’ and ‘chevalier’. Still, the poem’s title has a precise colon which makes the late ‘dedication’ part of the title: ‘The Windhover: to Christ our Lord’. Christ was present in the long struggles with vocational clarity and a dispiriting theological training. These have been a workroom for faith and belief, for expectancy and hope. And Hopkins – eventually – begins to write again.
To oversimplify, Hopkins’ struggle looks like a wrestle with ‘bad religion’ in which human creativity has a precarious place, and where theology was overly propositional, relatively innocent of mystery and full of answers to preset questions. Jesus’s remark that the sabbath was for people not people for the sabbath (Mark 2:27) is not irrelevant to theology or religion. However, a Falcon flew and was truly seen!
‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’
This is very different from ‘The Windhover’. What is heard or seen is not a single falcon but many creatures: kingfishers, dragonflies, stones falling into wells, bells. Here everything ’Selves – goes itself; myself it speaks and spells’. There is a complete and fully expressed identity: ‘What I do is me: for that I came’. Here the italics do considered and careful duty for the flamboyant exclamation marks of ‘The Windhover’. This evocation of an ‘I’ might fit some traditions of Romantic poetry, say Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’, the 1881 title Whitman gave to a poem first published in 1855, which begins: ‘I celebrate myself and sing myself’. To be able to ‘sing myself’ and do what I came to do might well attract the ‘heart in hiding’ which, in ‘The Windhover’, ‘stirred for a bird’. But Hopkins will have none of it.
The ‘turn’ of this sonnet has found a tone that is open, clear and relaxed: ‘I say more: the just man justices’. The delighted encounter with dragonflies and kingfishers, wells and bells, is a delighted prelude to enlargement and discovery. There is no ‘AND’, certainly no ‘but’: the struggle and ambiguity of ‘The Windhover’ are gone. The exigent isolated ‘I’ finds a wonderful and connected action – a gift, a ‘grace: that keeps all his goings graces’ – the alliteration is also gracious. To justice – it is good to find justice as a verb – is to act what in God’s eye we are: Christ. And here in Christ there is no isolation: ‘for Christ plays in ten thousand places’.
I remember years ago quoting this part of the sonnet in a homily and, full of concern for inclusive language altered the last line (I think apologising for the impertinence) to sound: ‘To the Father through the features of our faces.’ I even liked the way the vowels of ‘our’ riffed off nearby vowels. It is, however, difficult to be inclusive – ‘our’ can be part of a divisive ‘us’ and ‘them’. Hopkins’ intent, however, is not only stunningly universal. Christ connects us together: ‘for Christ plays in ten thousand places, / Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his / To the Father through the features of men’s faces.’ Hopkins’ ‘more’ finds a vision that rules out all forms of discrimination and seeks out a new community.
After ‘I say more’ there is clearly a discovery, a finding that is new, of both Christ and humankind. The working of faith and belief leads to a depth and to a range which lies beyond any easy prediction or imagination. Discovery and surprise attend the calm beginning of the sonnet’s turn: ‘I say more’. More indeed. Faith and belief have room for ‘more’ and rejoice when a new horizon dawns.
‘That Nature is as Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection’
Is this a sonnet? Well, everyone says so – including Hopkins – although there are additions to the fourteen line rule. Well, ‘rules’ are to be well considered but not idolised. This sonnet that Hopkins wrote in Dublin in 1888, the year before he died, is not about a single bird as in ‘The Windhover’, or many creatures like ‘As Kingfishers…’, but ‘nature’ as a whole. Hopkins finds that his own sense of the impermanence and transience of nature is shocking. So Heraclitus (c. 535-475 BCE) for whom all is change or flux, and only change is permanent, becomes an evocative figurehead[3] for this vertigo.
There is much delightful language: ‘heaven roysterers’ and a ‘bright wind’. But of ‘Man’ we’re told, ‘how fast his fire-dint, | his mark on mind is gone!’ And of humankind and nature, we hear: ‘Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark / Drowned.’ It’s a very different mood from the earlier ‘God’s Grandeur’, where ‘for all this, nature is never spent; / There lives the dearest freshness deep down things’. But now, ‘vastness blurs and time / beats level.’ An extraordinary line. There is no ‘more’ that can be said.
Then comes the turn: ‘Enough! the Resurrection, / A heart’s clarion!’ This exclamation and its exclamation marks are not from nowhere. ‘Enough!’ is not running away, but rather a memory or recognition of a past mood, long-lived and not to be re-lived. Hopkins has been here before – in what are often called the ‘Sonnets of Desolation’, also written in Dublin probably two or three years before ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire…’. For example, ‘No worst’ begins with: ‘No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief’ and ends: ‘Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.’ So ‘Enough!’ means Hopkins will not follow a real, debilitating and persistent mood which he had experienced and about which he had already written some six sonnets – wrestling, as in ‘Carrion Comfort’, ‘with (my God!) my God.’
The ‘heart’s clarion!’ is the Resurrection of Jesus and so the resurrection of both humankind and nature. ‘Flesh’ will ‘fade’ and ‘fall’, nature will leave only ‘ash’. Then, ‘at a trumpet crash, / I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am’. So indeed we find ‘the just man justices’ as in ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’. However, ‘justices’ is what Christ does and his justicing has the transformed and transforming aspect and impetus of resurrection. Resurrection is not to be reduced to restoration, resuscitation or immortality but is a transformation, another kind of ‘glory’ (1 Corinthians 15:35-49). So this ‘Jack, joke, poor potsherd’ – Hopkins, anyone and everyone – or ‘immortal diamond’, is truly ‘immortal diamond’. The diamond, itself a product of transformation and an old image of perpetuity, ‘remains itself but the splendor its [sic] gives comes from another light that utterly fills it.’[4] It is pleasing to imagine Heraclitus full of light…
It is extraordinary that although resurrection was indeed a requirement in European theology, in the past that theology often did little more than try to demonstrate that the theologians’ understanding of Jesus’s death were correct. The salvific reality of Jesus’s resurrection was minimised.[5] Hopkins’ poetry points to a much fuller reality. Faith and belief need this wholeness of death and resurrection.
Hopkins’ poetry was not published in his lifetime.[6] Perhaps this is one hinterland to this sonnet on Christ’s ‘resurrection’. Another Dublin sonnet, ‘To seem the stranger’ speaks of ‘dark heaven’s baffling ban’ which is ‘to hoard unheard’. What came to nothing can have an unforecasted and transformed future.
For Seamus Heaney, good poetry is ‘travelworthy’ in that it can cross space-time, move between cultures and enliven different circumstances.[7] So ‘The Windhover’ might relate to ‘bad religion’ (perhaps not ‘relativism’ so much as reductionism) and the ambiguity of ‘plod’ (change or keep going?). ‘As Kingfishers…’ stands as an encouragement to discovery and a seal of wonder on what may be given – an enlargement of Christ’s mystery. And ‘That Nature…’ finds that we (nature looking at nature) and the universe are part of a scarcely recognisable ‘future’ which can enliven us now. For this we need to ‘read’ both the poetry and ourselves.
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