Christmas - 25 December, 2006

Should we Celebrate Christmas?

I have noticed lately with all the discussion in the media whether we should celebrate Christmas in a multi-cultural society. Some suggest that Christmas was originally the Roman Saturnalia and therefore ‘hi-jacked’ by the Christians. Some commentators given the impression that they believe it is some sort of devious plot by ‘the Church’ – whoever they may be.

Mid-Winter Festivals

For a start, Saturnalia was only one of a very, very long line of mid-winter solstice feasts celebrated through many ages and many cultures. The mid-winter festival reveals the deep human intuition that sought reassurance and hope in the depths of the winter struggle for physical survival. Human beings, being such meaning-making creatures then associated physical survival with survival of spirit. In the long, cold (probably damp) darkness of winter they reaffirmed the light – physical and spiritual. The intuition of the early Christian communities in celebrating the birth of Christ with such a festival is most appropriate.

The Birth of Christmas

Perhaps the story goes a little like this. As their pagan neighbours celebrated their mid-winter festivals, the Christians for whom Christ was the Risen Lord, ‘the Light who has come into the world’, began to celebrate the moment when that Light was born. In recalling Jesus’ birth, they also celebrated and looked to a time when that Light would be fulfilled in Eternity.

So, the feast of the Nativity spread to other cultures of the Roman empire where Christians lived and over time this celebration became a fixed feast. Remember, the earliest and most important Christian feast has always been the Resurrection, Christmas, as a feast of the universal church came relatively late.

Actual Date or Meaning?

Was it the actual date of Jesus’ birth? Who know, and it doesn’t matter. There is a deeper truth here, a truth that the human ability to find meaning in life’s and nature’s events honours. A truth that celebrates the ancient struggle of darkness and light; despair and hope.

This is reflected in the reading for Midnight Eucharist. Isaiah (9:1-7) proclaims that The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light; on those who live in a land a deep shadow a light has shone. The letter to Titus (2:11-14) joyfully cries out that God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race… Those early Christian communities saw in their sacred texts that Jesus was the light that shone in the darkness. The age-old mystery of the turning of the seasons became the symbol of the Light of God entering creation.

The Language of God

This is God ‘speaking’ in our human language, the language of symbol, meaning and hope, above all, the language of a human life.

John Duns Scotus (late 13^th century Franciscan theologian) proposed that Jesus’ birth was essential to God’s creation and intended from all eternity. Jesus, God incarnate is the crown and glory of creation and his birth brings God’s creating and revelatory love to fruition. For Scotus, something totally new has entered creation, affirming that this world and human life with all its ambiguity is embraced in God’s Trinitarian love. God has committed Godself to us, not just through creation but now through the Incarnation of the Word-made-flesh. In Christ, the Triune God is here in the pulsing heart of creation.

So, in the birth of Jesus we see creation, ourselves, in all our glory and possibility. He is God clothed in living, breathing human flesh. Jesus is the language God speaks.

Particularity

Such is the humility and the wonder of God that, in order to reveal the beauty of Divinity and the beauty of humanity, he chose particularity. This means a particular person, in an historical time and place. Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, a person - conceived, gestated, born, growing up, living and dying – just as each one of us does. He took the full human journey – no shortcuts, no easy escapes.

St. Clare of Assisi called Jesus the ‘mirror of eternity’. He is also the mirror of humanity. In his human life we believe he reveals the nature of God, but he also reveals the nature of us. He shows us how to be human.

Feast of Beginnings and Endings

In this feast we celebrate beginnings and endings. The beginning of Jesus’ journey to maturity, identity and self-understanding – all the sort of growing up we have to do.

We celebrate an ending. An ending to our self-deluding illusions that dominant power, ego-centric power is all that matters. If Jesus, God-with-us, is the crown of creation and the full revelation of the nature of God, then he reveals how creation ‘works’. It works through solidarity-in-love, through abiding commitment to all that brings creation to the fullness of peace.

We are, and always have been caught up in the dance of the Trinity.

The Crib

Today as you look at the crib and read the Gospel story, for a moment strip it of all the ‘miraculous’. It is a family, ordinary, pushed around by the Roman emperor, struggling to care for each other in the most crucial moment of their lives, knowing they are entrusted with something most precious and mysterious, in the disruption of their lives living in faith that God’s way will prevail – even if they don’t know how.

Then, add in the angels, the shepherds, the light, the star, the Magi and the Angels’ song. These tell us about the inner reality of what is happening at this birth. Than an overwhelming, joyous mystery is happening – for all of us – and is hidden in this glorious moment.

May the tenderness, joy and awe of God-with-us fill your hearts.

The ‘O Antiphons’ Part II - 22 December, 2006

The ‘O Antiphons’ Part Two

Well, Advent is drawing to a close and the feast of Christmas is only a few days away.

The more I though about the great Antiphons of my last posting, I though how they drew all the themes of Advent together. Most certainly they evoke the sense of longing for fulfilment and hope for a future where love and justice will reign. In this way they cry out for, what Christians call the Second Coming, or Parousia which is at the very heart of the Advent and Christmas liturgy.

These Antiphons also teach us about another advent of Christ – the coming of Christ into our lives each day. It is the petition part of the antiphons that call for God to act now. The petitions are:

Teach us the way of prudence

Redeem us

Save us

Deliver us from the chains of prison who sit in darkness and the shadow of death

Enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death

Save the poor one whom you fashion out of clay

Save us

Implicit in our very longing for Christ, is our deep sense of neediness, not just for each one of us individually, but particularly for us as the human race, in fact for all creation. We have a solidarity in incompleteness and neediness and it is from this sense of unity, that we call on God to act in our world now.

However, for all the pain and incompletion we see in our world, we do not call despairingly, we call with hope because God does teach, save, enlighten, redeem here and now. The sweep of the history of Israel taught this and for us we seen in the Incarnation God’s reaffirmation of that creative, redeeming love that evokes the great cry of the O Antiphons. The fulfilment of the Parousia will only come when we co-operate.

I call to mind an old movie, Oh God. George Burns played God and when he was asked why he didn’t do something about the suffering and evil in the world, he replied that he had given the world to us. I think this is a profound piece of theology. God takes our part in co-creating with God very, very seriously. Our loving and just deeds are the coming of God in Christ here and now, and while God takes our co-operation seriously, we are never abandoned to strive alone. God gives us the power choose, to work, to show compassion. We are co-creators with God.

The very fact that we have the insight to cry for redemption, deliverance, teaching and all those needs implies that somewhere in our hearts we know that destruction is not the norm for creation (no matter what the current world may appear to be) and that the wholeness sought will come. After all, “Would a father give his child a stone when he asks for bread”. God puts the cry into our hearts so we may know that through us God will do it.

However, the shocking thing is that it is precisely though our human agency that all God’s gifts will be given. We are given to each other to be the face of God for each other, so perhaps we can turn then to the titles of the great Antiphons and see our own faces mirrored in them – O Wisdom; O Lord and Ruler and so on so we become Emmanuel, God with us, to each other and to all creation.

The ‘O Antiphons’ 17 December, 2006

The ‘O Antiphons’

The Liturgy

Today, 17^th December the liturgy begins a new phase of Advent, known as the Octave before Christmas. This period is characterised by the seven great ‘O Antiphons’ that derive their name from the first invocation of the Latin text.These antiphons will be sung or recited in the divine office of the Roman breviary over the next seven evenings at the singing of the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). They are also used at the gospel acclamation during the Eucharist for each of these days.

History

We are not sure when these texts were first introduced into the liturgy, however there is reference to them by Boethius (ca. 480-524) and they were well established in the liturgy by the Middle Ages. Over the centuries there have been variations in the text and number of the antiphons, but these seven seen to have been constant. The Benedictine monasteries, in particular kept alive the tradition of reciting these texts.

Literature

These short verses are gems of literature and have been the source of some of our most beautiful music and art. The texts of these antiphons are a distillation of seven images and titles from the Old Testament which were interpreted by the early Christian community as prefiguring Christ.

An echo of the antiphons is found in the eighteenth century hymn, Come, O Come Emmanuel.

Scripture

Those first followers of Jesus of Nazareth used their familiar heritage, i.e. the Jewish Scriptures and Apocrypha to understand who Jesus was, so they came to see him as the fulfilment of all the longings and hopes of their own Jewish ancestors. Over centuries of meditation on the mystery of Jesus, the Church, the believing community at prayer, distilled their belief in the Incarnation and Redemption into these seven texts. In doing this, they also expressed their longing for the fulfilment of God’s promises.

The individual Biblical origins of each text are too numerous to list here, however, they are steeped in the texts of Isaiah.

Advent Longing

These texts increase the sense in the Advent liturgy of longing for the coming of the Messiah, a longing that will bring about the final fulfilment of the Parousia. It is as if, in the words of St. Paul that ‘All creation is groaning in the act of giving birth..’. The whole sweep of creation and history is given voice.

The sequence of the titles of Christ in these antiphons is important because they begin with the very heart of the Trinity before creation in invoking O Wisdom, to God’s covenant at Sinai with the chosen people (O Adonai), to God’s promising a just ruler (O Root of Jesse; O Key of David) to God’s promise to all people.

So, the antiphons follow the sweep of salvation history and keep alive our hope for God’s action now in our world, our lives. They evoke that painful, joyful, hopeful longing of lovers for each other.

The Structure

The antiphons follow the traditional liturgical structure of an invocation which highlights one of the titles of the Messiah, followed by praise and then a petition.

It has been suggested by Professor Robert Greenberg of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music that the Benedictines deliberately arranged the order of the antiphons so that, reading the first letter of each from the last to the first gave the Latin, ero cras which means Tomorrow, I will come.

The Antiphons

The following are the antiphons with some biblical references for each text. They are by no means exhaustive.

O Sapientia (17 December)
O Wisdom, you come for the from the mouth of the Most High. You fill the universe and hold all things together in a strong yet gentle manner. O come to teach us the way of truth.

Over time, Wisdom became another name for God as well as a human attribute. Divine Wisdom (a feminine noun in both Hebrew and Greek) was God’s creating force and creation is not a once and for all event, God’s creating power never ends. Read the Book of Wisdom, a late text that, in many ways is a highly developed theology of Divine Wisdom.

Proverbs 8:22f Wisdom speaks: The Lord begot me, the firstborn of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago; From of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth….When he established the heavens I was there, when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep….Then I was beside him as his child and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the children of men.

Cf. Eccl 24:5; Sirach 24:30; Isaiah 11:2-3; 28:29; 40:14

O Adonai (18 December)
O Adonai and leader of Israel, you appeared to Moses in a burning bush and you gave him the Law on Sinai. O come and save us with your mighty power.

Adonai is a Hebrew title for God. It means The Lord. The Jewish people still do no use the name of God. Adonai suggests the Lawgiver. (cf. Exodus 3; 6:13; 20) We must not see the Law in our western terms as a set of rules. The Law for the Jewish people is about God’s relationship with them, it is the way to walk in this world, not some punishable set of rules. The Law is God’s great gift of self revelation to Israel and in turn, Israel’s response to God.

But He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the afflicted of the land….Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness the belt upon his hips (Is 11:4-5)

And he shall rule over the House of Israel (Matt 2:6)

Cf. Jer 32:21; Isaiah 33:22)

O Radix Jesse (19 December)
O Stock of Jesse, you stand as a signal for the nations; kings fall silent before you whom the peoples acclaim. O come to deliver us, and do not delay.

You only have to look at the great stained glass windows of the medieval cathedrals such as Chartres to understand how this image fell into Christian consciousness. It is the family tree of Jesus that echoes in the genealogies of Luke and Matthew. The genealogies of Jesus establish his human and divine credentials – and there are some interesting women in those lists.

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom (Isaiah 11:1)

Cf. Isaiah 11:4-5; 33:22; 52:15; Habakkuk 2:3; Micah 5:1; Luke 3:23-38; Matt: 1:1017

O Clavis David (20 December)
O Key of David and sceptre of Israel, what you open no one else can close again; what you close no one can open. O come to lead the captive from prison; free those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

David came to epitomise the good ruler for Israel, particularly when they looked back over a history of kings who ranged from wise to wicked. David, for all his human frailty, or perhaps because of it, remained faithful to God. He committed appalling deeds, including murder, yet he profoundly repented; he brought the Arc of the Covenant (the ‘dwelling place’ of God) to Jerusalem and against all kingly dignity, danced before it; he lived his call to kingship with passion and through it all, tried to rule with justice for the people. Through all his human complexity, he knew himself to be chosen by God. He epitomised the faithful, just ruler and God promised the perfect leader would come through his descendants.

I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one will shut, when he shuts, no one will open (Isaiah 22:22)

His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over his kingdom, which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever (Isaiah 9:1)

Cf. Revelation 3:7; Psalm 107:10

O Oriens (21 December)
O rising Sun, you are the splendour of Eternal Light and sun of justice. O come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

For a traditional society such as Israel, imagine how the darkness of night could be full of danger from preying animals to preying humans. This applied whether people lived in villages or in the towns. Dawn brought safety. Also, lamplight was not all that clear, so dawn and light came to symbolise safety, enlightenment, a new beginning.

Think of nights you have spent sleepless because of some anxiety, and remember how it felt when the night gave way to the dawn. The problem may not have gone away, but there is usually a sense relief or hope.

‘Dayspring’; ‘Light’ became a title for God who will visit his people ‘like the dawn’

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone (Isaiah 9:1)

Cf. Malachi 3:20; Habakkuk 3:4; Psalm 107; Luke 1:78

O Rex Gentium (22 December)
O King whom all the peoples desire, you are the cornerstone which makes all one, O come and save us whom you made from clay.

The history of Israel is also the history of the evolution of its self-understanding and its mission. At first the Gentiles (or the Nations) were seen as hostile. God’s habitation was in Israel. God did not inhabit among the gentiles. It took centuries of living through prosperity and adversity; political power and exile for Israel to understand that it was called, not to be some holy enclave where God dwelt, but to be the place where all would see God. A sacrament of God’s presence, if you wish. It was during exile from their homeland that the Israelites came to know that God was beyond a particular place, God was indeed God of all peoples. That God desires the love of all people, not just Israel.

This was a momentous shift in theology. Read the Book of Job who is a holy gentile who God calls his friend; read the Book of Jonah, that great comedy. Jonah, a good Jew is sent by God to warn the people of Nineveh (gentiles) to repent. Much to Jonah’s annoyance they do and God blesses them. Jonah finds this very difficult and remonstrates with God for saving these gentiles. God replies, ‘And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons, who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?’

He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on the nations. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. Isaiah 2:4

For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. His name is Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty God, Father Forever, Prince of Peace Isaiah9:5

Cf. Haggai 2:8; Gen 2:7; Ephesians 2:20

O Emmanuel
O Emmanuel, you are our king and judge, the One whom the peoples await and their Saviour. O come and save us, Lord, our God.

Of all the titles, this is probably the most familiar. In Israel, names have meaning. Names signify who a person is and often names change when that person’s mission or reality changes, for example Abram became Abraham and Jesus called Simon bar Jonah Peter, the rock.

Emmanuel is a symbolic name. It signifies who God is and who we are - God-with-us. This is the profound theological insight into God’s relationship with Israel, that through all its history – the good and the bad – God is with Israel and Israel is with God.

This Old Testament title takes on a deeper meaning as the early Christian community sought to understand who Jesus was. In his birth, life, death and resurrection, he is God-with-us. They came to see that in Jesus God has deepened that relationship so profoundly that they could now say that in Jesus they saw God incarnate, God enfleshed.

The Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel. Isaiah 7:14

Cf. Isaiah 8:8; Gen 49:10; Isaiah 33:2.

So, as the expectation of Advent increases, may each of you find the deepest desires of your hearts awakened and nourished by Emmanuel – God-with-us; God irrevocably committed to us. In the great liturgical cry of the very early church -Maranatha – Come, Lord Jesus.

On Christmas Trees and Carols - 16 December, 2006.

On Christmas Trees and Carols

The Christmas Tree

I have a Christmas tree. After many years without one, I now have a Christmas tree - not a plastic one, not a chopped down one, but a real, living tree.

My childhood memories of Christmas include the Christmas tree. We always had an Australian native tree and I can still smell its fragrance, so typical of the Australian bush, and see the exquisite glass tree decorations. I also remember that it seemed to attract mosquitoes in their hoards. But that’s part of a tropical Christmas anyway.

Over the years I went through my ‘intellectually liberated’ phase and denigrated the Christmas tree as commercialisation and after all, just a pagan import and a left-over from the Victorian era. Also it was a product of northern hemisphere celebrations, so what did it have to say for us in Australia. What a sour, desiccated and one dimensional view I had.

The Christmas tree is all that but there is another side that it celebrates. All good things are open to exploitation but that does not discount their power and goodness. I still feel strongly that we need to find Australian symbols (and validate those we already have) to enrich our celebration of these great feasts, that is why I went out and bought myself a Christmas tree.

The wonder of it is that it is a Daintree Pine. To quote the nursery tag, it is ‘a rare native pine from World Heritage forests of Far North Queensland. Fossil records show the Daintree Pine dates back to the Gondwana period’. For me, it symbolises this very ancient land that is now Australia. As Gondwana travelled the globe and eventually broke up into the land masses we now know, this pine was growing. It survived climate changes of cataclysmic proportions, geological upheavals and the arrival of human beings.

For me, it is a fitting symbol of what we celebrate during this liturgical season – enduring hope.

It is fitting that our Christian symbols are symbols that are found across many cultures and religions, because that’s the nature of symbols. Symbols are a language that speaks to the deepest longings, hopes and aspirations of humans. Because of this, they have the power to speak in different times and places. They break open new meanings as our consciousness changes. They have the power to synthesise many facets of meaning. (Symbol comes from the Greek sym – ballon which means to throw/bring together.)

So my evergreen Daintree Christmas tree links this celebration of Christmas – God’s commitment to all creation through Incarnation – with earth’s earliest times of creation; with cultures where the tree meant survival (literally) and symbolised the link between heaven and earth; life and hope.

As a Christian symbol it draws all that together in Jesus, the Branch of the tree of Jesse – the One who brings new life and hope always renewed. The evergreen tree (a deciduous tree has another meaning) says that life continues even in the harshest to times, just as God’s creating, loving presence abides even in our harsh times, that when we keep grounded in the soil of our deep purpose in God, we remain green and flourishing.

On Christmas Carols

This week I attended the Festival of Carols and Readings at the Cathedral. It was a feast of contemporary and traditional carols and Scripture readings. We in the congregation, got to sing the familiar carols which we did with great gusto.

I was reminded of one parish I attended some years ago in which the music co-ordinator decided to abolish all traditional Christmas carols because they were ‘theologically incorrect’. I have to tell you that midnight Mass was far from festive.

As we sang, listened, prayed and remembered, I began thinking about how important repetition and the familiar are for us human beings. We live in a society that idolises that which is new – as soon as you buy a new computer it seems to be out of date. This is not necessarily bad. Our ability to change is absolutely integral to maturity, both individually and as a species. However, we also need the familiar, and repetition is part of that familiarity. It is an important part of a spiritual discipline.

On a psychological level, we are constantly telling ourselves about ourselves. It’s called self-talk. That may be positive or negative given the situation or our background.

The spiritual discipline of repetition may be learning texts from the Scripture, learning prayers, learning short phrases or traditions like the Rosary or the Jesus Prayer. Its aim is to change our consciousness, to give us resources of mind and heart upon which to draw in daily life in order to uplift our spirits, be patient with annoyances, focus on what is important and so on.

However, it has another function. The familiar had the ability to open us to newness. Boredom has the power to bring insight. I remember reading in G.K. Chesterton’s Napoleon of Notting Hill to the effect that if you see something ninety-nine times, on the hundredth time you are in danger of seeing it for the first time. That’s what happens when that which is familiar has gone through the process of being learned to the extent that we don’t ‘see’ it anymore; through the boredom threshold; to a moment of ‘Ah!’ Seeing it filled with new meaning.

So, as we sang our familiar carols – words we sing every year, with images that have accrued to this festival over two millennia – I saw that what was seen as just another baby being born was, in truth shattering Mystery enveloped in the Ordinary, that always the Ordinary is pregnant with God - and that is why angels do sing on high and wise people follow a star.

Second Sunday of Advent

Second Sunday of Advent

Some of the words that keep returning during Advent: Arise! Come! Prepare! Repent! Rejoice! They return like a refrain evoking a sense of urgency, longing, active waiting. For me, they give the ‘flavour’ of Advent.

In our Eucharistic celebrations we don’t use the antiphons for the day these days as we usually sing a hymn. However, the antiphons for both the Eucharist and the Divine Office are worth looking at as they capture the sense of the celebration. Today’s entrance antiphon is, People of Zion, the Lord will come to save all nations, and your hearts will exult to hear his majestic voice; and the communion antiphon – Rise up, Jerusalem, stand on the heights, and see the joy that is coming to you from God. They give exultant voice to the scripture readings for today.

Repentance For The Forgiveness Of Sins

John the Baptist calls us to repentance for the forgiveness of sins and the text is reinforced with Isaiah’s call to listen to the voice in the wilderness – prepare the way for the Lord.

So often we think of repentance as a hard, painful, dare I say grim act and it is such a big word that perhaps we think that only big sinners need do it. The truth is, we all need repentance – for things we have done and things we have not done. We all need a change of heart to allow ourselves to mature and leave behind those acts and attitudes that give us false security and false ego strengths.

Repentance is very different from our contemporary idea of ‘guilt feelings’. Guilt may be appropriate or inappropriate, for example I may feel a vague sense of guilt because I tramp garden through the house because when I was a child my parents told me to wipe my feet before I came into the house. As I am the only person who cleans my house, that is rather childish and I need to deal with it. However, if I were living with others whose living space was littered with my garden-encrusted shoes, I would need to look at my lack of care for other people’s comfort and change my ways, that is, repent and perhaps look at deeper issues of lack of responsibility and care for others. A bit like what we are doing to our environment, really. Genuine repentance breaks the cycle of self-absorption and opens us to change and communion.

In genuine repentance for our misdeeds there will be pain and even at times, tears for the harm we have caused to ourselves and others. However, to stop there is not Christian. Repentance and forgiveness go hand in hand. Therefore while we will suffer when we recognise the harm and pain we have caused, that suffering is at its very heart, a deep sense of joy, hope and renewal.

God’s Integrity; God’s Salvation.

John the Baptist calls his hearers to repentance for forgiveness and it is this act that makes the pathways straight for God to come rushing in. It is as the communion antiphon proclaims - Rise up… and see the joy that is coming to you from God. It is as if God is always waiting for us to clear the rubble from the pathway. God so loves our freedom that God will not force – inspire, urge, hover but never compel.

Yet, it is God’s gift. If we cry out ‘Come’ to God, it is God who also cries out to us ‘Come’ because God’s desire is for us - People of Zion, the Lord will come to save all nations, and your hearts will exult to hear his majestic voice. God’s desire and longing is to save us, draw us and delight us.

The first reading from Baruch 5:1-9 today asks, shouts, proclaims, excitedly urges us to: take off your dress of sorrow and distress, put on the beauty of the glory of God for ever, wrap the cloak of the integrity of God around you……since God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven….. This is God’s will and longing for us.

Grandiose? Intemperate metaphor? Well, only look around, it hasn’t happened yet? No, it is we who cannot see; we who underrate our own dignity and God’s abounding longing for us.

A New Name

In the Scriptures when someone is given a new name, it signifies a new reality for that person. Names have profound significance. So, now God calls Jerusalem ‘Peace through integrity, and honour through devotedness’. God’s integrity and devotedness or our integrity and devotedness? Who knows? Probably both as one without the other is incomplete. And there’s the rub – the beauty and the glory that God has bestowed on us asks us to live our lives with the same integrity and devotedness as God lives for us.

Is it hard? Too right it is, at times it will be anything from mildly uncomfortable (e.g. what we buy and where we shop) to giving up all we think we hold dear (security, reputation, a pet perception).

Is it joyful? Too right it is, after all, the new name is ‘Peace through integrity, and honour through devotedness’

So, I wish for you that you arise, come, prepare, repent and rejoice!

First Sunday of Advent

Advent:

Advent is my favourite liturgical season. I know Easter is THE season, but Advent encourages me in a way Lent is never able to. Liturgical heresy! I love the Scripture readings, the antiphons and many of the hymns. They create a sense of joyful hope.

Expectation:
If the feasts of November remind us about endings, Advent contemplates beginnings. It is a time of waiting – not passive and powerless – but waiting with expectation. Rather like parents awaiting the birth of their child. There is joyful expectation, active preparation and a modicum of terror at the responsibility of nurturing the child.

It is the nature of Christian faith that we live in the ‘in between time’. God is revealed in Christ, yet is to be fully revealed; redemption has been given, yet is to be fully apprehended; Christ is risen, yet the full body of Christ, the church, is yet to rise; the promises are fulfilled, but are yet to be fulfilled. We live in this time where the Spirit is given yet we still ‘wait in joyful hope for the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ’. It is precisely this ‘in between-ness’ that draws us towards the fulfilment of the End – the Parousia - and draws us into Christ and matures us into Christ.

In this ‘in between time’ it is our God inspired actions that will bring about the final fulfilment. St. Francis of Assisi wrote that we are mothers of Christ when we bring him to birth in our lives through our good works. So, like parents awaiting the birth of their child, Advent is a metaphor for our whole lives. We await the birth, we give birth and like every desired and loved birth, it is an act of hope in the goodness of the future.

The Two-Fold Coming Of Christ:
So the two images of birth and the fulfilment of the End, come together in the liturgy of this season. Advent-Christmas-Epiphany celebrates the birth of Jesus and celebrates his second coming.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem wrote, ‘We preach not one coming only of Christ, but a second also, far more glorious than the first. The first revealed the meaning of his patient endurance; the second brings with it the crown of the divine kingdom….. In his first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger. In his second coming he is clothed with light as with a garment…..It is not enough for us, then, to be content with his first coming; we must wait in hope for his second coming; we must wait in hope of his second coming. What we said at his first coming, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”, we shall repeat at his last coming. Running out with the angels to meet the Master we shall cry out with adoration, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”’

As we prepare to celebrate Jesus born into our human condition, born one of us we do so with the knowledge that already we share in his resurrection condition and that one day, at the End, all creation will fully share in that resurrection. That the hope that is part of human birth will be fulfilled when all creation’s destiny is revealed.

However, Advent also reminds us that like good parents, we must nurture and protect the life entrusted to our care. This life is nothing more nor less than the mystery of Christ – Emmanuel, God-with-us. We are the mothers of Christ…..

Many Comings:
While the liturgy of Advent focuses of the great two-fold coming of Christ, in our daily lives we can celebrate many times Christ comes to us as we are attentive to those graced moments when he is offering us his love. Those moments may be heavily disguised with hassles, anguish or nuisances or they may be moments of friendship, insight, goodness. Grace means gift. They are moments of grace in which Christ ‘grows’ in us and we in him. They also ask us to prepare the way of the Lord through our compassion, justice, attentiveness and graceful giving and receiving.

So, for us, the waiting of Advent is that of the parent awaiting the birth. We wait in joy and hope; responsibility and courage and above all, we wait in love.

I wish you a blessed Advent. May each of you ‘wait in joyful hope’.

November

November.

For me, the months of each year almost have colour and texture, marked by the seasons, the anniversaries and events. As each month comes along I savour its ‘texture’ created by its meaning and feel.

So, here we are almost at the end of November. For me, November is a month of endings and the hint, the suggestion of beginnings. Our academic year ends, the calendar year is drawing to a close, we are on the brink of the holiday season, the cooler weather of late winter and spring is passing into the heat of summer and it is the end of the Church’s liturgical year.

So, I always have a sense of stories ending and new ones not yet begun - in happy times, almost a nostalgia for the year that is passing so quickly and in difficult times the hope that next year will be better.

The November Liturgy
All Saints and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed

The Liturgy for November echoes these feelings for me. We begin with the feast of All Saints and its sister feast the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed. And of course, not to be outdone, Franciscans have their own celebration of All Saints of the Franciscan Order and the Commemoration of all Deceased Franciscans and their Benefactors.

These are such joyous feasts. They tell us of our own ending and who we are in our deepest truth. All Saints reminds us that our destiny is to rejoice with the community of all creation in the dance of the Trinity. The fulfilment of creation is not destruction, but life abundantly.

This is not escapism from the sometimes grim reality of human existence. We are here and now in the Communion of Saints. Whatever we do now, how we live now, how we allow ourselves, in our secret, hidden hearts to become more and more the face of Christ here and now, changes the whole network of creation in which we live. Heaven begins here. All Saints begins here.

That is why All Souls is inseparable from All Saints. We pray for those who have died. We pray that they will be drawn into the full glory of their destiny. Purgatory seems to be a fairly unpopular subject these days. However, I think Purgatory is an important theological intuition. I don’t see it as a place, as inflicted punishment, as somehow peeking around the door into heaven but not allowed in like some family pet shut out from family festivities.

Purgatory is about growing up. It is about continuing to ‘put on Christ’ which we have not completed before our death. In that moment after death when we see and experience the unveiled love with which God loves us, and has always loved us, we know ourselves. For most of us, that encounter will carry the pain of knowing how distracted our own love has been, how we have compromised our loving, how much forgiving we need to do. That’s the pain of Purgatory – the pain of knowing in our newly recognised soul that we have not yet grown up, we have not yet matured into that steadfast reciprocal love that is Christ’s love in us, for us and always given to us.

In that moment of recognition, I thing there is also joy because God never gives up on us. We now have the chance to learn to love as we were created to love – honestly, tenderly, fiercely, actively, reverently.

So, perhaps the beloved dead are more deeply involved in our lives here and now than we could imagine. In the Communion of Saints they are continuing to mature into Christ by their prayer and influence for us. And somehow, in that hopeful mystery of God, our prayer for them helps them heal and grow.

If there is one thing these two feasts shout out to me, it is that we live in a web of life with all creation in God. This means everything we do and are influences the whole and God has given us to each other and to creation in that web.

Perhaps we need to think of heaven, not as a static place of sugary sweet happiness out there somewhere, rather, just as we grow in our capacity to love as we become mature and less self-centered, so heaven is that unveiled existence where we transform into greater, larger, deeper, richer capacity to love and be in truth because that blindness which has stood in the way has been healed and the greater our capacity the deeper our entry into the mystery of the loving God who holds all things in being.

The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Two other feasts in November have something to say about all this. The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is like the overture to an opera. Here in this small girl-child we have the hint of the great drama we will abide in during December.

For each us, like Mary, from our conception we are chosen and called. Once born into this web of life, we will never, ever cease to be. We will leave our mark upon reality whether we are conscious of this or not.

Christ the King

Finally at the end of November (this year, at any rate) we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. The readings for the feast teach us what Christ’s kingship is. Before Pilate, the powerful secular authority of the Roman occupying force, the gospel has Jesus affirming the heart of who he is. Before his crucifixion he affirms “Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.” (Jn. 18:37) Love and truth cost. If it is so for Jesus, why should it be different for us?

Let Endings End

So, with the few days that are left, let us stay with the endings. Perhaps we may find moments to make endings of things that clutter our hearts. We are fortunate that God allows us to constantly “begin again”. If we are able to stay with our own endings and with the endings of the November liturgy, Advent (whether a personal or liturgical Advent) will come upon us with its promise of hope.

Thee God I come from To Thee go. All day long I like a fountain flow, From Thy hand out, Swayed about Motelike In Thy mighty glow.
(G.M. Hopkins)

Stigmata of St. Francis - 17 September, 2006

St Bonaventure in Legenda Minor XIII, 1-4 described this event:
"Two years before his death, Francis, faithful servant of Christ, was led by divine providence to a high mountain called La Verna, where he could be alone. ....
The fervour of his seraphic longing raised Francis up to God and in an ecstasy of compassion made him like Christ who allowed himself to be crucified in the excess of his love. Then one morning about the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, while he was praying on the mountainside, Francis saw a seraph with six fiery wings coming down from the highest point in the heavens. The vision descended swiftly and came to rest in the air near him. Then he saw the image of a man crucified in the midst of the wings, with his hands and feet outstretched and nailed to a cross..... He (Francis) was overjoyed at the way Christ regarded him so graciously under the appearance of the seraph, but the fact that he was nailed to a cross pierced his soul with a sword of compassionate sorrow.
As the vision disappeared, it left his heart ablaze with eagerness and impressed upon his body a miraculous likeness. There and then, the marks jof the nails began to appear in his hands and feet, just as he had seen them in the vision of the man nailed to a cross....
True love of Christ had now transformed his lover into his image...."

Today is the Franciscan family celebrates the feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis even though it will be replaced by the Sunday celebration in churches today.

However we view this moment in Francis' life - as a supernatural event or psychological, I don't think it matters. God works through the human. It can be discounted that the event was some sort of hysteria, given the overall psychological and spiritual make up of Francis he was no unrestrained hysteric.

This feast reminds me that "We become what we contemplate". Francis' whole life was spent in reaching beyond himself - from master of the revels, to dreams of rising above his merchant class to knighthood. After his conversion this reaching beyond was always the following of Christ "poor and crucified"; "the Lord of Glory who became our brother". His whole life was spent if growing and deepening his love for "Friar Jesus", and that love implied imitation. Francis wanted to imitate as closely as possible in his own age, the self-giving, the actions and the love of Jesus, and this imitation was very practical, to be lived practically and tangibly at every moment and in all things.

It is therefore not surprising that this singleness of life direction, call it "purity of heart" or "the one thing necessary" should manifest itself in him physically. For Francis, the God-Human Jesus crucified showed the extent of God's love so it is no surprise that this moment was the yard-stick for all love. Living this singleness of direction was not a once and for all thing, Francis, like all of us made mistakes, gained new insights - it was a lifetime, lived day by day of conversion of heart and mind and deed drawn by love.

So, Francis truly became what he contemplated. This is the way of humans. Our heart's deepest desiring will always be manifest in our bodies, our deeds, our thoughts - manifest in who we are. For example, I think of my parents who, after fifty years of marriage unconsciously developed similar speech patterns and mannerisms but at the same time did not infringe the individuality. However at a deeper level, there was often the unguarded look of love that was mirrored in each of their faces.

So we see in faces and deeds the manifestation of the heart and its longings. Whether it be from a heart filled with greed, fear, uncertainty or a heart filled with compassion, forgiveness love. Whether a heart of greed or a heart of love, it is the work of a lifetime because all of us are in some way or another broken people in need of healing. The milieu in which we live, the events of life, the choices and responses we make all support a heart's direction. There is never a moment that God is not loving and inviting us, but sometimes our life situation makes it too difficult to know this. We are given to each other to be the face of God. This is one reason why Francis wanted so passionately to imitate his beloved Jesus - not only to return love for love, but to be that face of love - he grieved that "Love is not loved".

So, on this feast I look again at my own heart's direction; renew the singleness of purpose that will draw together all the disparate threads of my life to see them in the light of the "one thing necessary".

Twenth-Second Sunday - 3 September, 2006

The Gospel for today (Mark 7:1-8; 14-15; 21-23) has Jesus contending with the Pharisees and scribes and the lack of insight by his disciples, although the latter is left out of this reading. The whole of Mark 7:1-23 is worth reading. Jesus criticises the Pharisees, who have already criticised the disciples for not carrying out the ritual washing, for meticulously observing the rituals of their faith but ignoring or avoiding the deep heart that is the wellspring of faith.

Because this gospel text is so familiar, I find it all too easy to gloss over it and think - oh yes, outward show is not as important as attitudes of heart and mind. A timely warning. Of course, I would be on Jesus' side against those Pharisees who loved empty display.

Well, Jesus was a good Jew and according to some exegetes, probably belonged to the Pharisee tradition. So he is criticising from within the tradition, so to speak, rather than from outside - a 'them and us'. He was steeped in his tradition and the Law, the Torah. For the Jewish people the Law, the Torah was, and remains God's great gift of life. It is the Way, it 'delights the soul'. The Rabbis had a tradition of 'the hedge around the Torah'. These were observances which were meant to actually help the Jewish people observe the heart of the Law. However, like all things that are meant for good they are open to manipulation, misuse, overuse and becoming empty of their deep meaning.

Because Jesus (or the evangelist) quotes from Isaiah in this 'conversation' indicates that it is not a new problem. It is as old as the Jewish people themselves, as old as humanity. We have the gift of greatness and we also have the burden of darkness. It is so easy for us to turn the best of things to manipulative, selfish ends. We only have to listen to the manipulative words of some politicians, activists, spin doctors to hear this happening today.

Jesus takes us back to the heart of faith, our deep beliefs which are the direction of our hearts. It is interesting that the attitudes Jesus condemns are also outward manifestations - 'fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, ....These things come from within and make one unclean.' So it is indeed about the inward and the outward because who we are in the depths of our being will of necessity manifest itself. If the heart is hard, closed, fearful so will one's actions manifest that. If the heart is striving to love, tender, forgiving then so will one's actions manifest that.

I think the reality is we all sit somewhere between the ritualistic Pharisees the confused disciples and Jesus' passion for the deep meaning of God's commandments. In our human journey we move, we change, but the direction of our heart, the desire of our heart to daily be converted is what is important.

So, what do I learn from looking again at this familiar text? First of all - that I need to constantly question what I assume to be right or wrong, not to sit back and think that I have arrived. Habits of mind are even more potent than the externally ritualistic washings Jesus condemned. The habits of mind that enable me to put people into categories of 'good'; 'not so good'; 'indifferent'. The habit of mind that allows me to justify as accaptable actions that stem from avarice, malice etc. that Jesus condemned. To judge by some unexamined yardstick rather than to take whatever I do, think, say, believe and allow it to be bathed in the light of the Gospel. I may return to what I believe, I may shed it, I may modify it, but whatever happens it will be closer to the heart of God.

Secondly - outward signs are important. Lovers have rituals between them that may seem trite or even difficult to an outsider. These rituals are a 'hedge' By lovers I mean whoever loves deeply be it spouses, parents and children or friends. The longer those lovers are together, the more those rituals are put to the test. Where love grows too habitual or even indifferent those signs become empty - just as Jesus condemned. However, when lovers have been together for a long time and are steeped in their love, those rituals preserve, deepen and renew that love. Love must be nurtured. So must faith be nurtured so that heart and action are congruent.

As hmans we are the face of God. We manifest the God in whom we believe with every breath we take. It is unavoidable. So, let the outward signs, the daily signs of love between lovers, become a potent expression of the God of Jesus.

Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time - 20 August, 2006

The readings for today celebrate the bread of life discourse (John 6:51-58). The Jesus in John's gospel reminds us that without the Eucharist we have no life now or eternally. He promises eternal life.

The reading from the book of Proverbs (Prov. 9:1-6), meant to throw light onto the Gospel, has Wisdom building her house, preparing the food, setting the table and sending out her maidservants to proclaim from the city heights. Now exegetes may argue that Wisdom is a feminine noun in Hebrew and therefore the use of the pronoun, but I personally find great delight in reading this very female text - Lady Wisdom, the builder, the cook and the hostess and her maidservants the evangelists, publicly proclaiming the invitation.

And who are invited? The ignorant and the foolish. Now, let's be honest with ourselves here, that's all of us. The trouble is, admitting to being ignorant and foolish is not really the thing to do unless it is humorous self-deprecation. I don't think human nature has changed much since the writer of Proverbs proclaimed this invitation - we much prefer to be seen as wise, intelligent, running our lives, up with everything, revered and respected. There is nothing wrong with any of this, but by inviting the ignorant and foolish, Lady Wisdom (and by association with the Gospel) Jesus, is inviting us precisely as mixed up, vulnerable people - broken people who desire to be whole.

Not only does Wisdom promise nourishment, but she gives a banquet, a wide, lavish feast, and she builds her home into which she invites us so that we, foolish and ignorant, struggling and desiring may walk in her ways and have life. There is no payment, there are no conditions.

As I reflect on today's celebration, the glory is that the Eucharist and its promise of life now and forever, its promise of abundant nourishment and a home now and for eternity is for us who try with all the desire with which we are capable, to love God now - just as we are. We are not asked to "get our act together" (whatever that means) and then come, we are invited as we are. We are not asked to have some esoteric secret knowledge. We are simply asked to come wholly - just as we are.

At the celebration of the Eucharist last night I looked around. We were such a mixed lot but the one thing we shared was that we were all "home" in the deepest sense of the word, even if our minds were wandering or bored or attentive. It is a characteristic of Jesus in the Gospels that so often he simply says, "Come" and it is in following that people change.

The Eucharist is central to Church in that it celebrates the great moment of Jesus' death and resurrection, that moment when the doors of Lady Wisdom's house were opened to us, never be shut to us. While we are still "on the way", Eucharist celebrates this and reminds us that even now no matter how dark our faith may feel at times, God is our home and feeds and loves us with the same exuberance and lavishness as will be for all eternity. The Eucharist allows us to hear Wisdom's maidservants calling to us in the streets to come for the doors are open and the table laid.

If in Eucharist we touch God who is our home, it should not be thought of in some exclusive sense. Sacraments show forth a greater Reality. We are reminded that home, bread, wine, food - ordinary, essential and treasured things of our every day creation are suffused with the presence of God. We need the sacred moment of Eucharist to remind us that we live in a sacred world.

The collect for today in the translation used in the Divine Office sums it all up for me:
Lord God,
You have prepared for those who love you
what no eye has seen, no ear has heard.
Fill our hearts with your love,
so that loving you above all and in all,
we may attain your promises
which the human heart has not conceived.
We make our prayer.....

Dissent and Affirmation - The Prophet's Word

Dissent and Affirmation - the Prophet's Word
16 August, 2006

Last night I watched a current affairs programme on street gangs in Australia. It was a forum style discussion with representatives from various street gangs, social workers, community workers, government, academics and police. the discussion revealed many very painful situations that young men (men only) of teenage and in particular of ethnic backgrounds found themselves. there were very vocal and often acrimonious complaints about the government and in particular the police who were seen as racist, heavy handed and having no political will to understand their situation.

This programme brought to my mind the role of the prophets in Scripture - and here I include Jesus. The prophets denounced the injustices they saw in their society. They stood in the market place and according to their personalities, personal histories and the times railed against, cajoled or acted out the fact that God is offended, angered, grieved and weeps for the plight of people who are on the receiving end of greed, indifference and all those aspects of dominating power. They also proclaimed the consequences of such behaviour. The prophets neither sentimentalise those who are poor and broken nor do they polarise. They recognised that all human beings were in need of conversion - perhaps around different issues, but all in need of God's grace.

They also proclaimed the consequences of conversion, of what happens when people change their hearts, when they act with integrity. We may interpret the promise of people's lives flourishing and the desert blooming as symbolic, but for the prophet the promises of God are real and concrete and manifest in peace - shalom.

The prophets never just denounced. Nor did they denounce with hatred in their words to cause division. The word of the prophet is the word of God, always spoken with compassion and laden with forgiveness. The word of the prophet is the word of God who is compassionate, suffering with, longing for conversion of heart. I love the fact that Jesus could annoy his countrymen by praising the faith of a centurion, one of the occupying forces; could praise a gentile woman for her cheeky persistent faith when she wanted a cure for her daughter and could perplex his own disciples by paying taxes to Caesar. The prophet does not discriminate along stereotypical lines.

This brings me to my point of reflection. While it is important to speak out the confronting word, it is important to speak it in a way that shows forth compassion for all, including the perceived oppressor. That we don't scapegoat, blame, foster hatred and division.

In our country we are fortunate to have the freedom to denounce, complain, rage against social structures we perceive to be unjust. We have the power to influence government and society. The danger of only denouncing is to forget that we have such freedoms. If we forget this we are in danger of making scapegoats and laying blame then there is no way out. there is only despair, depression, violence and that tragic biblical sin, 'hardening the heart'. We are in danger of never seeing the 'other' with the eyes of compassion. It is too easy to take sides in a way that polarises. This only reinforces real and imagined wrongs. Dialogue and respect die.

As the world is today, we need the prophetic word in its fullest sense - confrontation, compassion and 'softening the heart'. All members of society no matter what social group they belong to need it. Not just the left wing or the right wing, socialist or conservative, ethnic or white - whatever group we identify with. We need to treasure more than every the freedoms we have gained over the centuries - the freedom of speech, the rights of all people, law that protects, work that does not exploit and many, many more.

Our society may not be perfect - and thank goodness for that because it means there will always be the full and tug of debate, but we do have a society that allows us to speak the prophetic words. We have a responsibility to nurture and celebrate the gifts we have in our society otherwise we are in danger of forgetting them and closing ourselves into our mental and physical ghettos.

The true prophetic work comforts and afflicts; encourages and empathises and ultimately celebrates God the source, foundation and wellspring of the blessings we have - a God who desires with great passion to bestow even greater blessing if only we allow it.

Feast of the Assumption

15 August, 2006.
Celebration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

This is one of my favourite feast days in the liturgical calendar. Some ecumenically minded theologians consider this to be a divisive belief – that Mary, after death entered the glory of heaven in both body and spirit.

I think it is not just a celebration of Mary, nor is it exalting her beyond her humanity. It is, in a profound way a celebration of humanity and creation. It can only say something about Mary if it also has something to say about being a Christian. It is about our End.

Body:
A common criticism of Christianity is that it denigrates the human body and there have been times in our history that this is so. However, to hold matter in distain is to be unfaithful to the Scriptures. Creation, Incarnation and Resurrection are about matter, and in particular an exuberance of matter. God pouring out creation; God celebrating humanity in Flesh and a new outpouring of life in Jesus’ Rising. St. Bonaventure wrote of creation as the footprints of God. The Sacraments, and in particular the Eucharist celebrate and exist because we are embodied beings.

Without spirit the body is dead and in some way we yet don’t understand, without body the spirit is incomplete. The Christian belief in the resurrection of the body affirms that matter, which to our eyes seems finite and passing is of eternal significance and delight. How the New Creation will be when all is drawn together at the End, is a mystery even St. Paul could only suggest we wait and see.

However, in the Assumption we see a glimpse, a promise of our future. This woman, as human and finite as any of us grew, aged and died and because she lived in unshakable faith, faith that became enfleshed in her Son, she has been gifted as the first fruit of the Resurrection. In a very real sense, she is what we will be – alive in the fullness of God as a whole being, that is body, mind and spirit – all that makes her, and us the unique person she and each of us is.

The End:
Eschatology is not that esoteric field of theology that has little relevance for us in our daily lives nor is it just about heaven or hell. The End has happened in Jesus because his Resurrection shows the ultimate end of Creation and the human and in him the final, joyous wholeness has already happened.

It is timeless.

Therefore the power of the End, the fulfilment touches us at every moment and when we live with faith, love and hope and make choices as did Mary the power of the Risen life, the End-times grows in us and in all creation. The End that draws us to fulfilment is at the very heart of the human being who is open to the new, to something larger that themselves. Mary’s faithful agreement with God in the Annunciation finds its ending in God’s faithful agreement with Mary in giving her fully the fullness of Life.

Ephesians - Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

14 August, 2006.
Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Readings for today are taken from First book of Kings, Ephesians and Gospel according to John. The Gospel continues the focus on the bread of life discourse in John’s gospel.

However, today the letter to the Ephesians 4:30-5:2 has caught my eye. It both comforts and afflicts.

Whatever the context of the letter – to the Christians of Ephesus or a circular letter to several churches, the communities to whom it was written would be a mixed lot – different classes, races and backgrounds.

First of all Paul tells those who have been baptized and thereby gifted with the Holy spirit:
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God who has marked you with his seal for you to be set free when the day comes. Never have grudges against others, or lose your temper, or raise your voice to anybody, or call each other names, or allow any sort of spitefulness. Be friends with one another, and kind, forgiving each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ.

This is what it means to grieve the Holy Spirit – to keep those very enjoyable pastimes of holding grudges, temper outbursts, the deliciously spiteful remarks that can be so clever and witty. All those behaviours that exalt ourselves to the cost of others; that put an unassailable wall to defend our poor egos.

Sadly, much of our public humour falls into these categories. The television show that has canned laughter after a put-down; the political wit that denigrates.

Does that mean that Paul is asking the Christians of Ephesus to be dour and humourless? Not at all. After all, joy is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Does it also mean that we must be always be ‘nice’ and never say the confronting word. No.

The context is friendship. Friendship with God and with each other that is the gift of the Spirit in Baptism. It is friendship because God has first called us his children and his friends. Friendship forgives, holds the other in esteem, delights and rejoices in the other and friendship will ask of us at times to say confronting words to our friend. Even if that friend is the enemy – after all Jesus demanded we love our enemy, do good to those who persecute….

So this texts afflicts in that it holds a mirror up to our defences and asks us to dismantle them. We won’t easily do it completely – there is too much fear and pleasure in the cynical word. So the comfort is that God who has first befriended us forgives us hurting ourselves and his other friends and because we are God’s children, always learning God picks us up and helps us start again like a child learning to walk. I would like to think that like a loving parent God grins at our failures when we keep trying and loves us all the more for giving it a go.

Finally, the reading for today says:
Try, then, to imitate God, as children of his that he loves, and follow Christ by loving as he loved you, giving himself up in our place as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.

Transfiguration

6 August 2006
Transfiguration
Today we celebrate the feast of The Transfiguration. The Gospel reading is Mark's account (Mk 9.:2-10) that has a sense of stark, pared-down intensity. In Mark's Gospel the story is set between Jesus telling his listeners that they must take up their cross in order to follow him and a prediction of the Passion. This gives the account of Jesus' transfiguration a play of light and dark. It is no mere flash of glory, but transforming glory set amidst the dark reality of the price that must be paid for fidelity to one's beliefs.

For all of us who faithfully try to walk the path of the Gospel in our daily lives there will always be the "cost" of that fidelity - whether it is just the inconvenience of buying one product and not another for ethical reasons, to asserting oneself when it may be more socially acceptable not to, to being ridiculed or excluded because of a stance taken. Sometimes the "cost" can seem too much or just too constant.

The Transfiguration flashes out in a moment of glory the reality that is greater than all, the reality that lies hidden at the heart of the everyday. Some scholars may dismiss this event in Jesus' life as an invention of the early Church or may explain it as a foretaste of the Resurrection or Jesus' Divinity revealed. Perhaps it is all that, but it is too constant in the Gospels simply dismiss. If we take the humanness of Jesus as seriously as we take his Divinity we must look to the Transfiguration for what it says about him and what it says about us.

There is enough evidence of the Extraordinary in mystical experience to affirm this even as some privileged glimpse into the inner truth of Jesus. It is a human experience of a heart open in love to God that thereby allows God to reveal Divinity.
On one level it is a profound lesson on prayer. When we pray we come to know ourselves as we most truly are - as loved, graced, affirmed and missioned. We also come to know God. God who abides and whose glory fills us even when we would pass up the cup of suffering. And in that abiding God suffers with us and mysteriously, and against all human reason makes the suffering of love the point of transformation for all reality.

Moses and Elijah are there. Jesus' ancestors of faith. When we come to prayer, we never come alone. We are surrounded by all who have gone before us on this journey into God - the Communion of Saints. Peter, James and John were there. We are also accompanied by all creation, giving voice to its longing.

If Jesus' presence was transfigured, so is ours. The "dazzling whiteness" may be reserved for our ultimate transformation, but all relationships we have transfigure us whether it be for good or ill. Prayer, pouring one's life into the abiding presence of God will transfigure us in ways that may surprise and even shock and delight us.

Our Lady of the Angels

6 August 2006
In the Christian tradition we have many images of how important small things are - the mustard seed; the woman looking for the lost coin. The tiny church of Our Lady of the Angels aka Portiuncula, the Little Portion stands in this tradition. This ancient building, while sheltered by the large, ornate church gives it its meaning, its feeling and is its heart.

The Portiuncula is a symbol of our own inner depth. That core within us that gives us meaning and purpose, beauty and strength. It is the very heart-beat of spirit. It is more ancient than we are because it is the Spirit of God.

We need to give this inner core attention, shelter and nurture; repair and renovation if it is to continue to flourish and give life to the whole structure of our lives. No matter whether we see our lives as beautiful or ornate or in disrepair, the inner core remains. Sometimes, however, this Little Portion may seem lost and overlaid. We forget it is there. Sometimes we have never known it is there. We need to uncover the stones and rediscover what has always been there - God's life and love, waiting, longing and desiring our response.

So just as the large church shelters this Little Portion within it's structure to preserve and nurture it so it may continue to radiate it's power, so the little church transforms and gives meaning to the large church.

Similarly the core of our being, the Spirit living in us, is nurtured when we daily live in attentive love to our sisters and brothers whoever and whereever they may be; and the Spirit within us radiates into our lives and gives us strength, meaning, joy and the courage to care for our world, to make evident that which is real - that because of Creation and Incarnation we are sisters and brothers to all creation.

Our Lady of the Angels

2 August 2006: Feast of Our Lady of the Angels - the Portiuncula

Today, 2 August is the Feast of Our Lady of the Angels. This celebration is now special to the Franciscan tradition. While it is a Marian feast, it celebrates the place which perhaps above all others is the cradle of the Franciscan movement. It was this tiny church, affectionately called the Portiuncula (the little portion) that the young Francis of Assisi rebuilt, it was there that Francis eventually lived with his brothers and the place to which he returned when he was close to death in order to die within its beloved boundaries. Here too, Clare of Assisi came when she secretly left her family to begin the great adventure that was to become "the Poor Ladies".
So, it is a place redolent in history and deep in the affections of those who today follow the way of the Gospel inspired by Francis to "follow in the footsteps of Jesus our brother".

Three of the many strands that colour this feast for me are poverty, gift and place.

It always amazes me that Francis, the Poverello, who sought to own nothing had no hesitation in accepting gifts of places such as Mt. Alvernia and the Portiuncula. (He 'rented' the church from the Benedictines for a basket of fish.) He told his brothers that this was a holy place and should they be thrown out one door they were to re-enter by another. Is this poverty?

The thing is, poverty was not an end in itself for Francis. Nor were these gifts for his own self-aggrandizement and power. They were always, in a sense, on loan. To accept such gifts with gratitude was the way of supporting that path, the way of contemplation, prayer and community. They were places where the community and Francis could find the grounding to move back into the 'marketplace' of the world where they preached and worked.

Poverty and gift are closely linked. For Francis, poverty had nothing at all to do with legalism or more significantly with any meanness of spirit or mind. Poverty was his generous-hearted response to God who gifted all creation with life and gifted us with redemption and above all gifted us with Jesus our Brother. He wrote,"Keep nothing for yourself, so that He who gave himself to you wholly, may receive you wholly."

As for place, the Portiuncula as it stands today is enshrined in the larger church built over it. It is this tiny gem at the heart of a great historical and spiritual movement. It always reminds me that we need sacred places as sacraments. A sacred place reminds us that all places are sacred, that all creation is sacred, that life is infused with the presence of God and the giftedness that is God and that God would bestow. Each of us, like this little church is a 'sacred place', a gift to the wider world.

So, today the feast questions us: how do I live my everyday as a gift, as gifted, as sacrament of something much larger than I am but that abides in me as the ancient church of Mary of the Angels abides in the larger church.

About this Blog Site

I have set up this site as a way of sharing and reflecting on a variety of issues from a broadly theological perspective. I write from the Catholic, and in particular the Franciscan theological and spiritual tradition.
"Old Queenslander" has significance for two reasons, I was born in and returned to Queensland, Australia after many years absence interstate and overseas; and my "Urban Hermitage" is the style known as "Old Queensland worker's cottage". Both are significant because they signify for me identity, history and a new return to origins.