Friday 16 October 2020

29th Sunday In Ordinary Time (Year A)

 Mersey Leven Catholic Parish 

OUR VISION

To be a vibrant Catholic Community 
unified in its commitment 
to growing disciples for Christ
 

Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney 
Mob: 0417 279 437
Assistant Priest: Fr Steven Smith
Mob: 0411 522 630 
Priest in Residence:  Fr Phil McCormack  
Mob: 0437 521 257 
Seminarian in Residence: Kanishka Perera
Mob: 0499 035 199 
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310 
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783  Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au 
Secretary: Annie Davies Finance Officer: Anne Fisher


Mersey Leven Catholic Parish Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com 

Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.

         

PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER
Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia 
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another 
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other 
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future, 
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.   
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.


Parish Prayer


Heavenly Father,
We thank you for gathering us together 
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission
  of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.
Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will
 for the spiritual renewal of our parish.
Give us strength, courage, and clear vision 
as we use our gifts to serve you.
We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,
and ask for her intercession and guidance 
as we strive to bear witness
 to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.
Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.
Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program
Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests
Reconciliation:  Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am), Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm) 
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus 
Benediction with Adoration Devonport:  First Friday each month 
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Mondays 6pm Community Room Ulverstone 

SUNDAY MASS ONLINE: 
Please go to the following link on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MLCP1
Mon 19th Oct        NO MASS
Tues 20th Oct        NO MASS 
Wed 21st Oct        9:30am Ulverstone  
Thurs 22nd Oct     12 noon Devonport  ... St John Paul II
Fri 23rd Oct           9:30am Ulverstone   ... John of Capistrano
Sat 24th Oct          9.30am Devonport ... Athony Claret, also recording Sunday Mass
                              6:00pm Devonport  
      6:00pm Ulverstone
Sun 24th Oct       10:00am Devonport ... ALSO LIVESTREAM
     10:00am Ulverstone 
 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
                            

Your prayers are asked for the sick:

Jill Cotterill, Deb Edwards, Sydney Corbett, Merv Jaffray, Delma Pieri, & …

Let us pray for those who have died recently:

Fr Liam Floyd, Athol Brown, Brian Robertson, Jose, Cesar & Hermie Diaz, Fr Frank Gibson, Graham McKenna, Joyce Maxwell, Warren Carpenter, Uleen Castles, Helmut Berger

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 14th – 20th October, 2020

Peter McCormick, James Graham, Shirley Stafford, Valda Burford, Wayne Radford, Winifred Byrne, Russell Doodt, Bruce Beard, Freda Jackson, Vonda Bryan, Frances Roberts, Peter Horniblow, Fay Bugg, Kathleen Kelly, Fr. Chris Toms, Dorothy Newland.

May the souls of the faithful departed, 

through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

                                    

PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
As I prepare for this part of my prayer, I may find it helpful to become aware of my breathing. 
As I breathe in, I take in God’s love, and as I breathe out, I surrender any concerns or fears I may have to God.
When ready, I read the Gospel passage slowly and carefully, letting the words soak in. 
Perhaps I ponder the phrase ‘give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God’. 
I think of the gifts I have been given, and how I am using them.
As I read it through a second time, I may find it helpful to imagine myself in the scene: perhaps as a Herodian … or as a disciple of the Pharisees or of Jesus … or just as myself. 
What do I see and hear? 
What do I notice about Jesus? 
How he holds the coin ... the tone of his voice … the expression on his face ... 
Do his eyes catch mine? 
How do I feel about that? 
Is he saying something to me? 
How am I responding?
Perhaps I want to tell Jesus of any worries, fears or pressures ... anything that might be holding me back from ‘giving to God what belongs to God’. 
He is listening, though he already knows and understands. 
I can tell him my deepest longings too, just as I would a dear friend. 
I ask Jesus to give me the grace he feels I need at this time, so that I can follow better the life that he desires for me.
As I slowly make the sign of the cross, I thank the Lord for the time I have just spent with him, as well as the gifts I have received.
                                    

Weekly Ramblings

This past week has been challenging – at least since I prepared the Ramblings for the Newsletter last week.

Last evening we received news that Fr Liam Floyd, the last of the Irish Priests, had died. Fr Liam’s funeral will take place in Hobart on Tuesday 20th October, therefore due to Fr Steven, myself and Kanishka attending the funeral there will be no mass at Devonport on Tuesday.

The funeral for Fr Frank Gibson was a wonderful but sad celebration. It was great that there was a good gathering of people from the various Parishes Fr Frank worked in over the past 50 years.

Saturday saw me with 130+ others at the launch of Concerned Catholics Tasmania. Those of you who are on our email list would have received a copy of a talk that Francis Sullivan gave recently – I found out later it wasn’t a copy of the speech he gave us on Saturday – but it was still a paper worth reading.

This week we have two funerals – the late Graham McKenna and the late Brian Robertson and these have meant that we’ve had to make some changes to our timetable.

To have our Sunday Mass online we have had to pre-record the Mass so that the prayers could be edited into the recording. This week, because of the funerals, it needed to be celebrated on Thursday morning – hopefully, in weeks to come, it will recorded on Saturday mornings at 9.30am at OLOL Church – any parishioner is welcome to attend this Mass.

Again, I would encourage anyone who is still thinking about putting their foot into the water to try a different form of prayer. There are still several opportunities available over the next few weeks – see below for information.

Take care, stay safe and stay sane

                                    


CENTERING PRAYER 
Just a reminder this Sunday 18th October there will an introductory session at 11:15am at Sacred Heart, Ulverstone on the practice of Centering Prayer. Many of us are familiar with the term Contemplative Prayer, some of us use this form of prayer regularly. Centering Prayer is a method that helps a person better prepare to enter into Contemplative Prayer. 

Other Prayer forms that will be explored during the Month of October The Divine Office – 11am on 25th October at Devonport; and Ignatian Imagining – 11am on 1st November at Ulverstone.

MORNING PRAYER
As part of our Month of Prayer, Morning Prayer (Lauds), will be recited each Monday in October from 9.30am to 10.00am at St Joseph’s Mass Centre Port Sorell. Dates are Monday 19 & 26 October. We will use the Prayer of the Church (Divine Office) for the day. Participants will be introduced to the ‘Prayer of the Church’ and provided with the prayers for communal recitation.
If you have questions, require further information or hope to attend contact Giuseppe Gigliotti on 0419 684 134 or gigli@comcen.com.au Covid protocols will be observed.


PARISH MOVIE NIGHT
We would like to invite you to attend the inaugural Parish Movie night.
What: Paul, Apostle of Christ
When: 7pm - Friday 23rd October
Where: Sacred Heart Ulverstone Community Room
Tea and Coffee Provided, A plate of food to share is encouraged.  
If you would like to see the trailer first, it can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyOqQZUDdO4 
                                    

NOVEMBER REMEMBRANCE BOOKS
November is the month we remember in a special way all those who have died. Should you wish anyone to be remembered, write the names of those to be prayed for on the outside of an envelope and place the clearly marked envelope in the collection basket at Mass or deliver to the Parish Office by Thursday 22nd October.

VOCATION REFLECTION DAY
A Vocations Reflection day is to be held at St Michael’s, Campbell Town on Saturday 24 October  10:00am - 3:00pm. The program will include prayer and reflection, discussion and several talks including a testimony and a video on seminary life.
Any young man who is interested in attending is invited to contact Fr Brian Nichols: briannichols@bigpond.com

THE KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS
NATIONAL PRAYER CRUSADE for vocations 6th September to 28th November.  During this time Catholic organisations and individuals are invited to join the Knights in praying for an increase in the number of Catholics willing to serve the Church in the priesthood, diaconate and religious life, including service as Catholic Chaplains in the Australian Military Services. The Mersey-Leven Branch of the Knights will participate in this prayer crusade as part of our Month of Prayer from 18th – 24th October. We are each invited to join the Knights in this endeavour, by reciting the following prayer:

Heavenly Father,
You know the faith, courage and generosity of you people throughout Australia 
including the men and women serving at home and overseas with the Australian Military Services.
Please provide your people in Australia with sufficient Priests, Deacons and Religious 
to meet their need and be with them always as they endeavour to meet the challenges of their daily lives. We ask this through Jesus Christ, Your Son.
Amen. 

OUR LADY OF MERCY COLLEGE REUNION LUNCH
Furner's Hotel (Chelsea Room) Friday 27th November for interested past pupils of Our Lady Of Mercy College Deloraine at 12 noon. Please phone Mary Owen 0429 354 406 to book a seat as numbers are limited to 20 people.
                                    


Letter From Rome 

Pope Francis Is Seeing Red ... In More Ways Than One


Pope adds a new member to Council of Cardinals and looks set to announce a consistory

-  Robert Mickens, Rome, October 16, 2020. 

This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete full access is via paid subscription


As soon has Jorge Mario Bergoglio SJ was elected Bishop of Rome in March 2013 it was clear that his was never going to be anything near a normal pontificate.

The very name he chose, Francis, was proof of that.

And almost every early decision he made afterwards – from his place of residence, style of clothing, mode of transportation, informal way of communicating even the most important institutional decisions, etc. – more than confirmed it.

One of the first novelties the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires introduced to the Vatican's power structure was the Council of Cardinals.

This small group of red-hatted pastors from around the globe was given the task to advise the pope in his governance of the Universal Church and, more specifically, help him re-form and restructure the Church's central bureaucracy, the Roman Curia.

Francis originally named eight men to this "privy council" and, shortly afterwards, added his Secretary of State. The group immediately became known as the C-9.

It has been working these past seven or so years on a draft constitution to codify the curial reform. It was believed to have been completed two years ago when a couple of its members told reporters that the document's publication was imminent.

But so far there has been nothing.

From C-9 to C-6...
Except that, for a number of reasons (not all felicitous), the pope has removed three of the council's original members – Cardinals George Pell (Australia), Francisco Errazuriz (Chile) and Laurent Monsengwo (DR-Congo).

For the past two years, the C-9 has actually been the C-6.

But this past week Francis named Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Monsengwo's Capuchin successor in Kinshasa, as the seventh member.

At the same time the pope re-confirmed the remaining six original members – Cardinals Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga SDB (Honduras), Giuseppe Bertello (Vatican), Oswald Gracias (India), Reinhard Marx (Germany), Sean O'Malley OFM Cap. (USA) and Pietro Parolin (Vatican).

Perhaps the new group should be called the "Seven C's". After all, the reform of the curia, once it actually happens, is bound to cause some waves.

Meeting online in the time of pandemic
The pope had a video meeting with Council of Cardinals on the afternoon of October 13.

A Vatican communiqué said the members had worked on an updated draft of the curia's new constitution over the summer and the various Vatican offices are now reviewing it. Again.

This already happened numerous times.

The statement noted that the advisory council used part of the recent online meeting to "study how to support the implementation of the new constitution, once promulgated".

And it said the group would do a similar virtual session in December.

But there is no indication when that promulgation of the much-awaited, or much dreaded reform (depending on who one is) will finally happen.

It could actually be rather soon, considering that two days after the virtual meeting Francis named the Council of Cardinal's secretary, Bishop Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

With one cardinal out, are new ones coming in?
Up until just three weeks ago that was Cardinal Angelo Becciu's job. The pope forced the 72-year-old Sardinian to hand in his resignation and voluntarily relinquish his rights as a cardinal on September 24th.

The Vatican, to this day, has never said why Francis sacked Becciu, once one of his most trusted aides. But the cardinal said the pope had accused him of embezzlement and had lost confidence in him. Becciu has denied any wrongdoing.

There is little doubt that Bishop Semeraro will also be made a cardinal. And that may happen sooner than almost anyone expects – like next month.

During the summer there were unconfirmed rumors that, despite the coronavirus pandemic, the pope was making plans to hold a consistory to put several more people into the College of Cardinals.

If true, he's obviously decided to go beyond the ceiling of 120 electors (men under the age of 80) that Paul VI set for participation in a conclave. We'll have to wait and see if Francis will set a new permanent limit or if he intends to only extend it temporarily, as he has done in the past.

As already noted, this is not your normal pontificate.

Announcing a new consistory
Currently there are exactly 120 cardinal-electors, if one excludes Cardinal Becciu – although he has the right to vote in a conclave as long has the pope does not remove him from the college, which Francis has not done.

In any case, if the summer rumors are true, it is very possible that this Sunday the pope will announce a consistory for November 21 – the day before the Feast of Christ the King and the last Sunday before Advent.

There have been five consistories for the creation of new cardinals on Christ the King weekend since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). John Paul II held the first one in 1994.

Benedict XVI, however, held three of his five consistories on this occasion, including the final one in 2012, just a few months before he announced his resignation as Bishop of Rome.

Francis has also held five consistories so far, but only once on Christ the King weekend. That was in 2016.

Red hats in Covid time
The current norms in place to stop the spread of COVID-19 should not be a deterrent if the pope should decide to hold a ceremony.

First of all, he has already been holding group audiences and in-person meetings for nearly two months now. And he has begun to venture out of the Vatican, even going recently to Assisi on October 3 to sign his new encyclical, Fratelli tutti.

The Vatican has confirmed that on October 20 he will go to Rome's Capitoline Hill for a Sant'Egidio-sponsored international "religions for peace" gathering.

Secondly, those who are named cardinals do not have to be physically present to get their red hats or officially made members of the college, although most would probably make the trip to Rome.

All that is required is that the Roman Pontiff publishes their names in a decree in the presence of the College of Cardinals.

There are numerous cases of men who received their red hats and cardinal rings at a later ceremony via a papal legate.

If Francis announces a consistory this Sunday expect that Bishop Semeraro's name will be on the list.

A close collaborator from many years ago
The two men got to know each other well back in the autumn of 2001 when Semeraro, then the bishop of a mid-size diocese in his native Apulia in southern Italy, served as special secretary to the Synod of Bishops assembly on – the episcopal ministry.

Cardinal Bergoglio, at the last minute, was named the assembly's general relator (rapporteur) to replace Cardinal Edward Egan of New York who had to return home after the 9/11 attacks on the city's Twin Towers.

Semeraro and Bergoglio spent an entire month working intensely together. And, obviously, the Argentine Jesuit got to know the younger bishop's views, work methods and personality.

Just a month after being elected pope, Francis picked Semeraro to be the secretary of the Council of Cardinals.

It looks like the bishop, who will be 73 on Dec. 22nd, may be celebrating Christmas this year with his own red hat.

                                    

Grandmother God

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 

Since first working at Acoma Pueblo as a deacon in 1969 and making my permanent home in New Mexico in 1986, I have learned much from our Native American pueblos and tribes. I encourage you to learn about the history surrounding your home. [1] Settler colonial—and primarily Christian—countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa tried to destroy or at least seriously marginalize indigenous cultures. This now seems undeniable. Yet indigenous people and their practices persist, opening body and heart to deep wisdom. Today’s meditation introduces Steven Charleston, an elder of the Choctaw Nation and a retired Episcopal bishop. His way of knowing God and the Gospel reflect both his Christian and Choctaw heritage and his contemplative practice.

The irony is I did find what I was looking for, but not in the place I expected. In my romantic imagination, I believed I would find my answer in a religious ritual or ceremony, either Christian or Traditional. I thought the answer might come to me high on a hill doing a vision quest, in the womb-like darkness of a Sweat Lodge, or in a camp meeting out on the prairie. The vision I had from God had been a little like that; it had surprised me during my ritual of morning prayers in Cambridge. But in the end, the answer found me sitting in a chair. I had been reading the gospel according to Matthew, letting the familiar words of his story slip through my mind like a gentle stream, when suddenly the holy voice I had first heard on the rooftop returned and shook me awake in my spirit. [2]

“You have just read the first vision quest of Jesus.”

I smile now because I can remember scrambling to come awake when those words caught me off guard. I consider this voice to be from God because it appears from some place other than my own consciousness. It announces itself. It speaks in a clear, simple, uncomplicated way.

When I have attempted to explain this experience to others I have often laughed at myself because the voice I hear sounds as if it is speaking to a small child. I do not receive long and elaborate messages from God, probably because God is not sure I could understand them. Instead, I get the brief, direct words needed by a prophet with a short attention span. One of my images of God is that of Grandmother, the wise old Native woman with gray hair and eyes as ancient as the Earth. She takes my face gently in her hands and holds me in Her gaze as She tells me what She thinks I need to know, forming the words slowly so I can remember them and let them sink in.

I embrace this feminine image in the same way Hebrew tradition refers to the voice of God as the bat kol, the daughter of the voice. It is that mysterious presence that comes from some source beyond, a communication that defies our ability to categorize. Therefore, like the theologians of ancient Israel, I give the voice a female personification because I experience it in that way.

                                    

Pope Francis' New Encyclical

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

On October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis released a new encyclical entitled, Fratelli Tutti – On Fraternity and Social Friendship. It can appear a rather depressing read because of its searing realism, except it plays the long game of Christian hope.

Fratelli Tutti lays out reasons why there’s so much injustice, inequality, and community breakdown in our world and how in faith and love these might be addressed. The intent here is not to give a synopsis of the encyclical, other than to say it’s courageous and speaks truth to power. Rather the intent is to highlight a number of special challenges within the encyclical.

First, it challenges us to see the poor and to see what our present political, economic, and social systems are doing to them. Looking at our world, the encyclical submits that in many ways it is a broken world and it names some reasons for this: the globalization of self-interest, the globalization of superficiality, and the abuse of social media, among other things. This has made for the survival of the fittest. And while the situation is broken for everyone, the poor are ending up suffering the most. The rich are getting richer, the powerful are getting more powerful, and the poor are growing poorer and losing what little power they had. There’s an ever-increasing inequality of wealth and power between the rich and the poor and our world is become ever more calloused vis-à-vis the situation of the poor. Inequality is now accepted as normal and as moral and indeed is often justified in the name of God and religion. The poor are becoming disposable: “Some parts of our human family, it appears, can be readily sacrificed for the sake of others. Wealth has increased, but together with inequality.” In speaking of inequality, the encyclical twice highlights that this inequality is true of women worldwide: It is unacceptable that some have fewer rights by virtue of being women.”

The encyclical employs the parable of the Good Samaritan as its ground metaphor. It compares us today, individually and collectively, to the priest and the scribe in that parable who for religious, social, and political reasons walk past the one who is poor, beaten, bleeding and in need of help. Our indifference and our religious failure, like that of the priest and the scribe in the parable, is rooted both in a personal moral blindness as well as in the social and religious ethos of our society that helps spawn that blindness.

The encyclical goes on to warn that in the face of globalization we must resist becoming nationalistic and tribal, taking care of our own and demonizing what’s foreign. It goes on to say that in a time of bitterness, hatred, and animosity, we must be tender and gracious, always speaking out of love and not out of hatred: “Kindness ought to be cultivated; it is no superficial bourgeois virtue.”

The encyclical acknowledges how difficult and counter-cultural it is today to sacrifice our own agenda, comfort, and freedom for community, but invites us to make that sacrifice: “I would like especially to mention solidarity which is a moral virtue and social attitude born of personal conversion.”

At one point, the encyclical gives a very explicit (and far-reaching) challenge. It states unequivocally (with full ecclesial weight) that Christians must oppose and reject capital punishment and take a stand against war: “Saint John Paul II stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice. There can be no stepping back from this position. Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the Church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide. All Christians and people of good will are today called to work not only for the abolition of the death penalty, legal or illegal, in all its forms, but also to work for the improvement of prison conditions.”

As for war: “We can no longer think of war as a solution, because its risks will probably always be greater than its supposed benefits. In view of this, it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war’

The encyclical has drawn strong criticism from some women’s groups who label it “sexist”, though this criticism is based almost exclusively on the encyclical’s title and on the fact that it never makes reference to any women authors. There’s some fairness, I submit, in the criticism regarding the choice of title. The title, while beautiful in an old classical language, is in the end masculine. That should be forgivable; except I lived long enough in Rome to know that its frequent insensitivity to inclusive language is not an inculpable oversight.  But the lapse here is a mosquito bite, a small thing, which shouldn’t detract from a big thing, namely, a very prophetic encyclical which has justice and the poor at its heart.
                                    

Christmas Comes To You


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 here

This year we’ve reimagined just about everything our church does, from the way we worship to the way we work. The disruption has created many problems, but our team has been there with creative solutions, many of which will become permanent even after Covid fades away. But the most daunting challenge of reinvention comes now, as we start preparations for our very favorite event of the year, Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve has also been our biggest night of the year every year, and every year it gets bigger. In 2019 we had upwards of 11,000 people, probably the largest Christmas Eve Mass in the country. Besides the sheer numbers, Christmas Eve at the ‘Cow Palace’ has become a true Christmastime tradition for many families in our community, marking the Nativity of the Lord with joy.

When it came to making plans for this year, the two main questions we needed to answer were where and when.

As for the where, you will probably not be surprised to learn that gathering in the kinds of numbers we have in the past will be impractical if not impossible, so we will not be going back to the Fairgrounds this year. Hopefully that is a tradition we can revive for Christmas 2021.

We will be offering Masses on Christmas Day here at church that you can attend in person but, we have made the further decision that Christmas Eve Mass will be online only.

This was a difficult decision, but we’re sure it’s the right one. We can probably safely assume that in December we will still be restricted in our seating capacity, currently at 33%. And we’re certain that would not even begin to accommodate the demand, potentially shutting out thousands of parishioners. And that would not feel right on Christmas Eve.

We will be broadcasting what is shaping up to be a spectacular Christmas Eve Mass at 4 pm, complete with all the beautiful music and decorations and Christmas traditions you’ve come to expect. In addition, we will be rebroadcasting the Mass throughout the evening if that time doesn’t work for your family, creating flexibility for the when.

And we will be encouraging you to start thinking now about hosting a “watch party” for the evening. What’s that? It’s simple really. It’s about inviting unchurched family and friends to join you for Mass in your living room or whereever you’re going to be that evening.

Who can you invite?

Maybe you already plan to be with family or friends and you can start your evening with our Mass.
Maybe you know a neighbor who will be alone.
Maybe you just gather your household members to celebrate all in one place.
Together we could create the “Ultimate Watch Party” with thousands worshiping together, at the same time, all over the community as well as far afield.

If you think about it, this Christmas Eve could be our biggest ever.

                                    

The Prayer of Faith Seeks Understanding:
Simple Prayer And The Ignatian Exercises

Are you familiar with The Way, another journal published by the Jesuits in Britain? Since 1961, The Way has been publishing articles about Christian spirituality, such as this piece by Tom Shufflebotham SJ on the place of the prayer of faith in the Ignatian tradition. Thinking Faith will be offering you one article from each future issue of The Way - why not explore the journal further?
Tom Shufflebotham SJ is a Jesuit of the British Province. After teaching in Africa and Britain he worked at Loyola Hall, Liverpool, and more recently was for 21 years on the staff of St Beuno’s Ignatian Spirituality Centre. He now lives in Preston.
This article was published in The Way, 57/1 (January 2018).  To find out more about and subscribe to The Way, please visit theway.org.uk.
This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here  
 

When I was 27, my Provincial inflicted me as a teacher – untrained – on schoolboys in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. I say ‘untrained’ because a degree in history was no substitute for teacher training; moreover my pupils did not have the sort of speculative interest in pedagogy which might have caused them to observe patiently how the apprentice would handle his empty toolkit. I was unused to the heat and the altitude and, as just at that time the school was badly understaffed, I was quickly exhausted. In the mad round of chores there was no time for conscious prayer except for ten or fifteen minutes before throwing myself into bed. Flopping on a kneeler in the chapel I would immediately nod off. Thinking that this would not do, as God needed me awake, I would retreat to the lawn under the stars and walk up and down. I thought that if I could not manage first-class prayer, I had better take out my rosary, foolishly seeing this as third-class prayer. I was so tired that the beads felt like lumps of lead sliding through my weary fingers.

Quite literally, I now regard that as the best prayer I have ever prayed. It forced me to face the dilemma: either this is not prayer at all – or I have to take St Paul seriously: ‘the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words’ (Romans 8:26). Since I want to pray, the Holy Spirit is praying within me. Why demand more?

Returning after three years to Heythrop College to study theology, I clung to this conclusion but without much reflecting on it. After the theology in my Jesuit training came our year of tertianship and an experience of making the full Spiritual Exercises (for the second time – I had already made them as a novice): this for various reasons left me dissatisfied and, so to speak, none the wiser.

What to Make of the Experience?
In the following years I returned to schoolmastering, but also directed retreats during some of the vacation time. Now, at last, my African experience fell into place – and, incidentally, showed me why the word ‘director’ is less satisfactory than St Ignatius’ ‘the one who gives the Exercises’. Ignatius precisely did not want to be too ‘directive’: for him it was vital to ‘allow the Creator to deal immediately with the creature and the creature with its Creator and Lord’ (Exx 15).

My growing convictions were confirmed for me when I had on retreat a 73-year-old woman who was patently a good and sensible person, generous in the service of others, and who, over all the years, had been persevering doggedly in prayer. She did not seem depressed, but a little sad and resigned. Here she was, making her umpteenth annual retreat, but both now and throughout the year prayer was always ‘dry’, ‘empty’ and – despite persistent effort – ‘getting nowhere’: it felt as if she was somehow ‘doing it wrong’ or God was not on her wavelength. She was a bit of an artist and fond of gardens. I advised that she feel free to make lots of use of the outdoors and let God speak to her through nature. I suggested two or three texts, but with the advice to loiter wherever a verse spoke to her. A week later she looked transformed. Instead of trying to marshal thoughts on which to base what she remembered of an Ignatian structure, she had – as it were – gently and slowly sucked one verse from the psalms like a lozenge while handing over the controls to the Holy Spirit.

A fortnight later I received a package. It contained a dozen notelets that she had made with drawings of a flower and a butterfly, and the text ‘you give breath, fresh life begins, you keep renewing the world’ (from Psalm 104, which many of us would know from the Missal as ‘Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth’). This was the verse that had so held her.

Towards Expressing the Inexpressible
I began to realise that there was nothing unusual in this: it fitted well with the simplicity of the gospel references to prayer; and that passage from St Paul (Romans 8); and the constant insistence of St Augustine that ‘it is your heart’s desire that is your prayer’; and the traditional ‘if you cannot desire, then desire to desire’. And I would reflect on the way that so many of the deepest things in life, so much of human relationships, grow by simplification rather than complexity. There was encouragement, too, in many authors of that time. One book that was important to me was The Prayer of Faith by Leonard Boase: others, of course, had already used the expression, but here was Boase entitling a book thus in 1950, and reworking it after Vatican II in 1976, at just the time when I was doing my own modest pondering.[1]

Referring to the title, The Prayer of Faith, Dermot Mansfield remarks,

It is a good description, conveying the positive meaning of the condition and experience of many people who pray, who find themselves unable to concentrate in prayer, who try to accept as best they can their helplessness and offer the time to God in faith. Once it may not have been so for them, but was good and satisfying. Then gradually it changed, and the earlier sense of satisfaction began to evaporate. And usually now it is a matter of giving time, making space, being faithful. For periods, perhaps, this can be relatively easy, but it can also be very difficult and almost dreaded in anticipation.[2]
Mansfield’s 1980s article ‘The Prayer of Faith, Spiritual Direction, and the Exercises’ was the best of all, I think. Within a few pages he encapsulates the experience of so many and gives wise advice to retreat directors in the Ignatian tradition. The British Jesuit Jack Gillick puts it this way:

The significant thing is the wanting to pray – then finding it impossible when one goes to pray: it won’t work. So one looks for other ‘techniques’ …. Nothing seems to work …. So prayer is our biggest and most constant act of faith—and it is by faith that we grow.[3]
So far I have been recalling experiences and writings from the later decades of the last century. Since that time I have had the impression that writing or talking about the ‘prayer of faith’ has become markedly more rare, especially in Ignatian retreat circles, and have often wondered why this should be so. Actually, I doubt if the praying as such has altered (people still speak of it in private), but open discussion seems to have subsided and I am reflecting on possible reasons for this.[4]

Earthing Spirituality
Praying in any particular way, or style, or ‘school’ will always be open to the suspicion that it is esoteric, a fad, ‘out of this world’, for people who have nothing better to do and who are inclined to prefer such fads and hobbies to the real Christian business of loving God in your neighbour.

‘Like Goering whenever he heard the word “culture”, I find myself reaching for my revolver when I hear the word “spirituality”. Nowadays that means that my hand is rarely off the holster.’ So wrote Eamon Duffy twenty years ago.[5] Although I have spent 26 years of my Jesuit life in one centre of Ignatian spirituality or another, I take no offence at what Duffy has to say; his writings (particularly his university sermons) have helped nourish my own spirit. I take it that he values what you and I would understand by ‘spirituality’, but is put off by such faddism and escapism as may shelter behind the word. Even the word ‘retreat’ may sometimes be unfortunate and do a disservice to ‘real’ spirituality.

Maisie Ward put her finger on the problem in her introduction to the collected letters of the spiritual writer Caryll Houselander:

Reading recently a French collection of spiritual letters, I wondered why I found them so spiritless. Presently I realized that they were written as though from and to someone living in a vacuum. Other people, daily events and surroundings were ignored: one bodiless spirit was trying to lead another to the God who had created them bodiless. There is nothing to show that God had set this man and woman, priest and nun, in a world of people—people to be thought about, to be helped, to be made helpful, whose hands could be clasped in a fellowship intended by Him to lead men to Him as what St Thomas More might have called a merry company.[6]
Houselander’s letters, by contrast, strikingly pass the test implied in Ward’s final sentence: they are spiritual, but they are grounded in humanity. When prayer becomes the subject of writing and discussion we need to beware of making it sound esoteric, out of touch with real human life, or abstract or (perish the thought!) snobbish. But, generally speaking, Ignatian spirituality has avoided such criticism. Herein perhaps lies a partial answer to the question about the relative eclipse of the prayer of faith.

There has been a tendency to speak as if Ignatian prayer were coterminous with what is variously called ‘Gospel Contemplation’ or ‘Ignatian Contemplation’, and this latter way of praying has flourished, especially when introduced in retreat centres or in parish weeks of accompanied prayer. It can engage the mind and heart, develop a sense of the closeness of God and provide material for a fruitful meeting with a person’s accompanier or ‘director’; and it sits easily with reflection on daily life, and on larger issues, too. When it comes to writing or talking about the experience of prayer, the prayer of faith can seem colourless by comparison, impossible to pin down – even ‘un-Ignatian’.

‘Un-Ignatian’? It is time to confront the objection that the very words of Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises imply that the emptiness and monotony experienced in the prayer of faith make it unsuitable for anyone intending to pray in the Ignatian way, and particularly for anyone making the Exercises:

When the one giving the Exercises notices that the exercitant is not experiencing any spiritual motions in his or her soul, such as consolations or desolations, or is not being moved one way or another by different spirits, the director should question the retreatant much about the Exercises: Whether he or she is making them at the appointed times, how they are being made, and whether the Additional Directives are being diligently observed. The director should ask about each of these items in particular. (Exx 6)
Dermot Mansfield’s article cited above confronts this objection and, in my view, responds to it satisfactorily:

… it might be good to mention why I consider that such an approach is in keeping with the intentions of Ignatius. For it could be felt that an insistence on the prayer of faith, based especially on the teaching of John of the Cross regarding our growth in grace, seems to deny the richness of a more active and imaginative prayer and is out of place in Ignatian apostolic spirituality.[7] But I do not believe that this is the case. Rather, it is a question of noticing what is being opened up in the Exercises about prayer, and of appreciating the subsequent ways of God’s leading, as really occur even in people whose lives are very active ….
In this way, the Exercises are being fulfilled in their deepest meaning, and there is no need to fear that some other path is being followed apart from that intended by Ignatius, who desired that those called to an active life would be truly contemplative.
Hence, he concludes: ‘The director must beware especially of mistaken expectations which would force the retreatant to pray and report on the prayer in the more accepted manner’.[8]

St Ignatius is said by his friend and associate Pedro de Ribadeneira to have held that it is a great mistake to try to force others along one’s own spiritual path. Often quoted is his advice to Francis Borgia in a letter dated 20 September 1548:

… what is best for each individual is that in which God Our Lord imparts Himself more fully, displaying His holiest of gifts and His spiritual graces. It is God who sees and knows what is better for a person, and God, knowing everything, shows the person the way forward.[9]
As Joseph Veale remarked, ‘people pray in a thousand different ways’.[10]

I believe that Mansfield has given convincing reasons for holding both to Ignatius and to the prayer of faith without contradiction, though obviously retreat directors and (ongoing) spiritual directors will need sensitivity to avoid leading a person down one path if it is to another that he or she is being drawn. The compatibility of Ignatian spirituality with the prayer of faith is thrown into clearer relief if we take the historical background into account.

St Ignatius in His Time, We in Ours
Ignatius’ retreatants (those whom he was primarily targeting) would on average be much younger than ours. Obviously his fellow students at Paris University to whom he gave the Exercises were junior to himself; and some of the doctors and dons whom he would badger until they embarked on the Exercises would be no older than he was. In the years when Ignatius was the Jesuit General nearly half of those who entered the Society were under the age of 21 at their admission (and more than half under his successor Diego Laínez).[11] They would normally make the full Spiritual Exercises during their first year.

Compared with those making the full Exercises nowadays Ignatius’ retreatants would include relatively more people making a full Election of a state of life rather than aiming ‘to improve and reform’ (Exx 189) a state of life already chosen. Moreover they would normally not have made a retreat, short or long, before; most of ours have, some of them twenty, thirty or forty times. Ignatius’ retreatants would be more familiar with the outline of the life of Christ than most people today, but less familiar with scripture than our average retreatant (St Francis Borgia needed permission from Rome for even the Spanish Princess Regent to read the scriptures in the vernacular.)[12]

We know that Ignatius spent a very long time preparing his fellow student Francis Xavier to make the Spiritual Exercises, but clearly many of the retreatants that he and the early companions directed were jumping in at the deep end: they had not made a retreat before; probably vocal prayers and attendance at Mass were what had shaped them in so far as they were shaped, and Ignatius had to provide for them accordingly.

Such things are hard to judge, but I would argue that it is tricky to extrapolate from Ignatius’ instructions in the Exercises about the movement of spirits to our own situation. His advocacy of review and reflection, and of repetition – ‘I should notice and dwell on those points where I felt greater consolation or desolation, or had a greater spiritual experience’ (Exx 62) – surely applies always. But we need to reflect before drawing conclusions about people whose prayer sounds empty rather than lively, or suspiciously bland.

Is it not the case that the fundamental task of our life – even if few people on the planet advert to it – is the deepening, the expansion, the development of our faith-relationship with God? Paul Edwards used to speak of the ‘bright young clerics’ whom Ignatius had mostly in mind when he was looking for his next retreatants in Paris.[13] As Paul would also say, these had their foot on the first rung of the clerical ladder. Within a few years their baccalaureates or higher degrees and their family influence would bring them a lucrative benefice. The expansion of their faith-relationship with God was far from their minds; certainly its implications were far from their minds.

Imagine what would happen if such clerics succumbed to Ignatius’ insistence and embarked on the Exercises. The effect on the best of them would most likely be dramatic, even shattering, as it was on Francis Xavier. As one of Xavier’s biographers, James Brodrick, remarks, ‘Never did the Spiritual Exercises prove more effectually their power to transform a man than during that September of 1534 when Francis wrestled in solitude with angels of light and darkness’.[14] No wonder Ignatius looked for marked movements of the spirits. No wonder he told the director that if these did not surface, then discreet but careful enquiry should be made. Are they ‘doing it right’? Are they giving the Holy Spirit a chance?

Suppose, for example, one of those ‘bright young clerics’ in the sixteenth century was really being drawn by God on retreat to offer himself for lifelong missionary work in South America or Japan. One could fairly imagine that he would be thrilled, exhilarated by the ideal of imitating Christ and living Christ’s values in this way – and the next day (even the next hour) shaken at the thought of the practical implications of such a choice. His soul would become the battleground of the ‘diverse spirits’; in this case ultra-calm reflection would be surprising, and Ignatius would want some investigation.

But with most of our retreatants the case is different. The corresponding dramatic effect on them may well come in instalments, so to speak, over many years. Some of them will have made many, perhaps very many, retreats (my first one came at the age of thirteen, and it was in some real sense a serious retreat). Is not the same principle of gradualness true of human relationships and many other aspects of life? It is hardly surprising that Jules Toner, in his Commentary on Saint Ignatius’ Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, remarks:

At other times than the Spiritual Exercises, [Ignatius] is not in the least uneasy with those who do not experience many consolations, so long as they are praying as best they can, doing their work with a pure intention, seeking only God’s will in everything, and growing in ‘solid virtues’.[15]
There is no incompatibility between the prayer of faith and Ignatian spirituality. And with Toner’s last phrase the great majority of witnesses would agree: the test of our prayer lies in how we live our lives and how we treat other people outside the times of prayer, putting ourselves at the service of God who, in Christ, ‘was reconciling the world to himself’ (2 Corinthians 5:19).

 
[1] Leonard Boase, The Prayer of Faith (Wimbledon: Apostleship of Prayer, 1950) and (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1976).

[2] Dermot Mansfield, ‘The Prayer of Faith, Spiritual Direction, and the Exercises’, The Way, 25/4 (October 1985), 315–324, here 316. Joseph Veale, himself highly regarded as a writer and speaker on Ignatian spirituality, rated the Mansfield article ‘the best treatment of the question I know of’ (‘Manifold Gifts’, in Manifold Gifts [Oxford: Way Books, 2006], 24 n.6). The literature, of course, is enormous, but I would particularly recommend Thomas H. Green, When the Well Runs Dry (Notre Dame, In: Ave Maria, 1979) and Drinking from a Dry Well (Notre Dame, In: Ave Maria, 1991). Green’s esteem for the Carmelite classics along with St Ignatius comes through to advantage.

[3]John Gillick, in private correspondence. In similar vein Alban Goodier wrote: ‘Every soul comes to prayer wanting something; it may not know what that “something” is, it may not “know what it asks for when it prays”, but it longs and desires nevertheless; and often, for very many indeed, the whole of prayer consists in the expression of that desire and longing—“My God, I want”—“What do you want?”—“I know not what I want, but I want”—In how many is this the prayer of their whole lives! Beautiful and powerful prayer, truly contemplative prayer, though such souls, because they seem to get no farther, think they do not pray at all.’ (St Ignatius Loyola and Prayer: As Seen in the Book of the Spiritual Exercises [London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1940], 165.) Goodier’s writings sprang from a profound wisdom and spirituality, which could easily be overlooked because of his rather quaint style and because his works on the life of Christ antedated Pius XII’s unshackling of Catholic scriptural scholarship (Goodier died in 1939).

[4]There are two very recent exceptions. Finbarr Lynch has followed up his book When You Pray (Dublin: Messenger, 2012) with When You Can’t Pray (Dublin: Messenger, 2016), which has a very helpful section for directors. Lynch mentions the important possibility that the praying person may be best helped by pondering scripture (for example) before praying, but not worrying if in the actual prayer it seems to have evaporated. Michael Paul Gallagher’s posthumous work Into Extra Time (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2016) is particularly poignant and the more noteworthy because of his great insights into the cultures of non-belief and of youth. He writes, ‘As life goes on many people experience more fog than clarity in their sense of God. But this fragility may be not only normal but fruitful, and the gateway to a different kind of prayer.’ (51)

[5]Eamon Duffy, ‘Postscript: An Excess of Spirituality?’ Priests and People (November 1997).

[6]Maisie Ward, ‘Introduction’, in The Letters of Caryll Houselander: Her Spiritual Legacy (London: Sheed and Ward, 1965).

[7]Conversely St John of the Cross instructed his novices on the Ignatian ‘method’ of gospel contemplation.

[8] Mansfield, ‘Prayer of Faith, Spiritual Direction, and the Exercises’, 321–322. The late Michael Kyne used to remark that ‘there seems to be a marked correlation between the expectations of the director and the reporting back of the directee’.

[9] Ignatius to Francis Borgia, 20 September 1548, in Saint Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings, edited and translated by Philip Endean and Joseph A. Munitiz (London: Penguin, 1996), 206.

[10]Note also Exx 238–260, the ‘Three Ways of Praying’, especially the third linking simple prayer with rhythmic breathing.

[11]See The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, edited by George Ganss (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), 130 n.2.

[12]Princess Juana’s request to make vows as a Jesuit was officially, but secretly, granted by Ignatius.

[13] Paul Edwards served as Master of Campion Hall in Oxford, and later was a member of the team at St Beuno’s Ignatian Spirituality Centre.

[14]James Brodrick, St Francis Xavier, 1506–1552 (London: Burns and Oates, 1952), 48. And another biographer, the indefatigable Georg Schurhammer, wrote: ‘What Master Francis saw and experienced during these holy Exercises he was never again to forget. When he returned again to his companions after thirty days he was another man. Though he was the same cheerful and lovable companion as before, a holy fire illuminated his countenance. His heart was burning with an earnest longing and a holy love for the crucified Christ, his King and Lord’ (Francis Xavier, His Life, His Times [Rome: Jesuit Historical Insttute, 1973–1980], volume 1, 233). The first of Schurhammer’s four volumes covers over 700 pages, by which time the Apostle of the Indies has not yet left Europe!

[15]Jules Toner Commentary on Saint Ignatius’ Rules for the Discernment of Spirits (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 185. This has implications for discernment among other things; but that is another story.




















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