Sentire Cum Ecclesia

My local parish is making use of the talent in the pews to put on a short (FREE!!) three night course on the Nicene Creed for the Year of Faith. Here are the details:

CREDO – I believe
A Year of Faith Lecture Series

This three-part series will discuss the meaning and history of the Creed. Come and learn how the faith that we profess every Sun-day applies to daily Christian living.

7:00- 7:45pm Talk
7:45 – 8.30pm Questions
Tuesdays 6, 13 & 20 August 2013

August 6 – I believe in God – Owen Vyner (lecturer at the John Paul II Institute)
August 13 – I believe in Jesus Christ – Dr Conor Sweeney (lecturer at the John Paul II Institute)
August 20 – I believe in the Holy Spirit – David Schütz (Anima Education teacher)

The lecture series will be held in St Philip’s Parish Hall,
60 Junction Road, Blackburn North

Cost: No charge. Donations towards expenses gratefully received.

St Philips Catholic Parish www.stphilipsblackburnnorth.weebly.com

Download a flyer here.

Chris Shea, of the Caroline Chisholm Library committee, asked me to give their CCL Fundraising Dinner in Melbourne a bit of a plug. I am happy to do so. He writes:

The Caroline Chisholm Library, located in the Melbourne CDB, is a theological lending and reference library with approximately 30, 000 volumes of Catholic and Christian literature, specialising in Church History, Hibernica, patristics, hagiography, spirituality and mysticism. There are substantial volumes of works by John Henry Newman, Thomas Aquinas, G.K.Chesterton, Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson, among others. The library regularly hosts lectures, a book club and discussion groups. All members of the public are welcome to browse the library, use it for reference purposes or attend lectures. Library membership is available for a low fee and grants borrowing rights.

Melbourne is one of the few cities in the English speaking world with an extensive Catholic library primarily devoted to helping aid the intellectual faith development of the Catholic laity.

The library is run by Catholic lay volunteers and receives no financial assistance from the Church – it is reliant on membership fees and fundraising for financial support. Hence, this upcoming dinner.

Details of the Dinner:

On Thursday 8th August 2013, the Caroline Chisholm Library will celebrate 20 Years of Life and Service. The evening will begin with 6 p.m. Mass of Thanksgiving at the Chapel of the Academy of Mary Immaculate (88 Nicholson Street, Fitzroy).

The Fundraising and Celebration Dinner will be at 7 p.m. for 7.30 at the Pumphouse Hotel (128 Nicholson Street, Fitzroy, opposite Exhibition Gardens). The guest speaker will be Julian McMahon, Barrister, on the topic: “Catholic Faith in the Public Arena”

Cost: Meal $80 per head; $150 per double; Drinks at bar prices.
For Bookings or information please call 03 9670 1815 or 0411 483 494
Or Email: cclibrary@bigpond.com
Please pay by cash, cheque or transfer to the library’s account:-
ANZ Bank, BSB 013040 Account 254936888
Tax Deductible Donations for the Library Most Welcome!!!

Sydney Carter wrote this song in 1974. This paper suggests that he was thinking of Jesus as a kind of ‘pied piper’ – although I have always found it a song that makes me think of the effect of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel. Carter, whose most famous song is probably “Lord of the Dance”, is often associated with a kind of leftie, liberal, progressive Christianity. While his songs are not, I think, suitable for the Divine Liturgy, I wonder if they are as opposed to the Gospel of Jesus as some might think?

Come, Holy Harlequin

Come holy harlequin!
Shake the world and shock the hypocrite
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.

Let the feast of love begin,
Let the hungry all come in,
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.

Come holy harlequin!
Show the world your slapstick liberty
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.

Show the crooked how to live,
Be forgiven and forgive,
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.

Come holy harlequin!
Shake your rags and shine like a diamond.
Rock, roll, carry it away, turn it upside down.

Caper with your Columbine,
Turn the water into wine,
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.

Teach the crippled how to leap,
Throw their crutches on a heap,
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.

Rock, love, carry it away,
Lift the world up by your levity,
Rock, love, carry it away,
turn it upside down

Why am I thinking of this song? Because I think our new pope is a kind of “holy harlequin”. He seems to have the Gospel in his bones, and he is living and showing it in a way that many are finding refreshing. Others are finding it decidedly threatening. Many “magisterial Catholics” – and I would include myself among their number – are struggling to make sense of what he is doing. We were challenged by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, but in a way that we could understand. Pope Francis – who has made it perfectly clear that he isn’t going remove one jot or tittle from the law – nevertheless is rocking, loving, carrying away and turning everything upside down. Just when we thought that all was over for his Apostolic Journey to Brazil bar the shouting, he gave his two most significant talks on the whole trip: the address to the CELAM bishops and the 80 minute interview on the plane to the journalists.

I am not in anyway surprised that his advisors have been said to have advised him against giving the latter. Interviews with popes on planes often turn out for the worse, no matter how well intentioned. But Francis seems to have handled it all with a candour and an honesty that, as the , few bishops are even capable of, let alone popes. Nothing he said contradicts Church teaching, but it sure as hell hasn’t ever been put this way by a pope before.

What’s he doing? Why is everything he is doing and saying so unsettling on the one hand and so beguilingly attractive on the other? What pipe is this harlequin playing and where is he leading us? I suspect that the tune he is playing might just possibly be the Gospel of the coming Kingdom of God. And where this Gospel is proclaimed, God’s holy Church will surely be established – but perhaps not quite as we expected it would be. Certainly not in a way with which any of us are going to be comfortable…

In the mean time, is this blasphemous? Because it seems to fit…

I was delighted to be invited to provide the text for the Catholic Adult Education Centre/Mustard Seed Bookshop INFORM pamphlet on Pope Francis’ encyclical “Lumen Fidei”.

You can order it by clicking this link: https://www.mustardseed.org.au/catalog/inform-light-faith-pope-francis-p-3511.html

There is an interesting article in First Things about Pope Francis’ first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, by Nathaniel Peters “Where’s the sin?”.

He notes that the word “sin” does not appear anywhere in the entire encyclical – at least, not in the English translation. However, he does note that Francis talks about “idolatry” quite extensively. Like talk of “the devil” (which has been popping up regularly in the papal discourse of late), talk of “idolatry” is surely significant. It is, after all, the primordial sin, the sin against the first commandment “you shall have no other gods”.

So, where’s the sin? It’s there, but not by name. And this reminds me of something I have been meaning to write about for some time. Sandro Magister (while not spreading rumours about the director of the Vatican’s IOR), has written that “It cannot be an accident that after 120 days of pontificate Pope Francis has not yet spoken the words abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage.”

Although William Donio Jr in First Things has taken him to task on this, Magister is certainly correct. It isn’t that he hasn’t addressed the issues – it is simply that he hasn’t used these words. He has avoided all the “short-hand” terms that we use day by day to speak of the killing of the unborn, the killing of the terminally ill, and marriage which does not conform to the paradigm of one man, one woman, exclusive of all others, for life, for love and for children.

Which causes me to stop and think: is there not some tactical advantage in adopting such a “positive” rhetoric? Just to take abortion for example. If we were never to use the word again, but instead proclaim positively the value of all human life from the moment of conception, if we were to preach against the killing of unborn babies – who could argue with that? Who want’s to say “I’m pro killing babies”? Abortion is a slippery word, because there is disagreement about what it actually is (although one would think it is blindingly obvious). Preaching against same-sex marriage sounds homophobic – speaking of the beauty of sexual differentiation in marriage (as Francis does in his encyclical) is simply that: beautiful.

Francis is not a cafeteria catholic (in fact, he actually speaks against such a “pick and choose” approach to faith in Lumen Fidei). He is not “avoiding hard questions”. He is simply finding a new way of addressing the world. That’s important right now, because right now the world is listening to him.

To return to Peter’s observation that the Pope does not mention “sin” by name in the Encyclical, perhaps this is part of the same tactic. “Sin” itself has come to be one of those cypher words: we pack it full of meaning and never unpack it. By focusing instead on idolatry, Francis actually gets to the heart of what “sin” is. In one passage he speaks about people who are focused on themselves “going around in circles” rather than travelling the path to the goal of communion with God. That’s a pretty good definition of sin itself, especially if you think of the classical term for the effect of sin “incurvatus in se” (roughly translated “belly-gazing”).

Let’s pay close attention to what Francis is doing, because I think there is something we may be able to learn here.

John L. Allen Jnr recently had a piece on the current season of “hype” in the media covering the Vatican.

Here is another classic example from CNN.

You have to ask: is this a good thing or a bad thing?

And is complaining about the hype just sour grapes, or even looking a gift horse in the mouth?

After all when did the Pope last have such positive press? (Answer, probably in the hey day of Blessed John Paul II’s pontificate in the early eighties, and before that, Blessed John XXIII.)

In any case, just to expose one bit of hype. The comment about the larger crowds at Francis’ weekly audiences is not necessarily linked to the person of Francis. Benedict also attracted markedly greater numbers to his public occasions than John Paul II. And he attracted more than Paul VI etc.

I think this is only an indicator of the increasing celebratory status of the Papacy, whomever is in the seat.

Still on the topic of television, I have received a couple of tweets notifying me about the fact that Channel Nine (does anyone still watch that channel?) is airing the first program of “The Bible” series tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 9pm.

You can actually find most of these episodes already on YouTube.

I am always a bit edgy about dramatisations of the Bible, especially since “The Passion of the Christ”. Having recently had discussion with some Jewish friends on St Paul, I decided to have a look at the “St Paul” episode. It felt like a deja vu of watching the new Fr Brown series. I could recognise the characters, but the story didn’t feel genuine. The Italians have a saying (which works in Italian better than in English): “The translator is the betrayer”. That goes a double dose when the translation is into a screenplay.

Having spent a bit of time with St Paul (well, with his letters, in any case, and with St Luke’s version of him in Acts – which makes a nice counterpoint), I didn’t feel that I recognised the character portrayed in this program. And, as always, the Jewish priests come off looking bad. Why is it that only the priests opposed to Jesus look “Jewish”, ie. prayer shawl etc., while all the others are just dressed in standard “bible epic” wear? And Saul himself, although obviously skeptical of the new sect of Christians, is portrayed as an all round nice bloke that you would like to sit down with to share a gourd of wine. In reality, from what I know of Saul/Paul, he and St Jerome would had much in common. Prickly, if you know what I mean.

Tomorrow, I will be spending the first of two days with N.T. Wright while he is in town. I am really looking forward to this. I know that many people question his take on Paul, but it seems a whole lot closer to historical reality than the fellow portrayed in The Bible series.

I am sure that there will be many who will enjoy The Bible series. It has been a long time since this sort of thing has appeared on Australian television (I remember a series when I was a kid). Hopefully it will do some good. I hope my “niggles” are just that, and that it doesn’t antagonise any serious ill feeling with the Jewish community.

The Catholic Herald reports:

Pope Francis revealed that it pains him when he sees a nun or priest driving an expensive car, and he praised the beauty of the bicycle, noting his 54-year-old personal secretary, Msgr Alfred Xuereb, gets around on a bike.

May I suggest:

However, he admitted that with work to be done and distances to be covered, cars are a necessity. Just “get a humbler one,” he said, before adding that if the flashier model still looks tempting, “think about how many children are dying of hunger”.

Again, may I suggest:

I was very struck by Friday’s ceremony in the Vatican Gardens, when Pope Francis, in the present of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, consecrated a new sculpture of St Michael in the gardens of Vatican City.

What really struck me was that, together with St Michael, he also consecrated the Vatican State to the guardianship of St Joseph.

When I was confirmed as a Catholic a little over 10 years ago, I chose two patrons (rather than one). I was baptised David Michael, so I chose St Michel as my first patron, but at the same time I was aware that in my new lay role my identity as a father was being reaffirmed. So I took the name of Joseph as well.

Taking Pope Francis’ address at the recent ceremony, I decided to compose a prayer of consecration to St Michael and St Joseph. Here it is:

St Michael the Archangel,
you are named “Who is like unto God?”.
You are the champion of God’s primacy,
of His transcendence and power.
Fight to re-establish divine justice;
and defend the People of God from its enemies,
especially our enemy, the devil.
In consecrating ourselves to you, Saint Michael the Archangel,
we ask you to defend us from the Evil One and to cast him outside.
Saint Michael, you triumph because it is God who acts in you.
Remind us that evil has been vanquished,
the accuser unmasked,
his head crushed,
because salvation was accomplished
once and for all in the Blood of Christ.
Even if the devil always tries to scratch your face and man’s face,
God is stronger;
the victory is his and his salvation is offered to every person.
May we be ever mindful
that we are not alone in life’s journey and trials;
Accompany and sustain us, Angel of God,
and offer your wings to help us surmount so many dangers,
to be able to fly high in regard to those realities
that can weigh down our life or drag us down.

We consecrate ourselves also to Saint Joseph,
the custodian of Jesus,
the custodian of the Holy Family.
St Joseph, may your presence make us stronger and more courageous
in making space for God in our life to overcome evil always with good.
We ask you to guard us, to take care of us,
so that the life of grace will grow every day more in each of us.

We make our prayer through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Since receiving an internet-capable “smart TV” for Christmas, our household has hardly used the video recorder, and have relied instead on catching programs on the ABC’s excellent iView. Cathy and I just finished watching tonight the third episode of the Bletchly Circle, which, while gruesome, was quite good telly.

Someone somewhere commented that the BBC seems stuck in the 1950’s at the moment, and so, while perusing iView’s other offerings, when I noticed “Fr Brown episode one” on offer, I was not surprised to find that the BBC had translated Fr Brown (as if by TARDIS) into the 1950s.

Mark Williams – aka Mr Weasley – plays G.K. Chesterton’s famous priest-detective, and does a very believable job of it. This first episode was “Hammer of God”, which is loosely based on Chesterton’s own story of that title. I do mean “loosely”. There are things in this episode that Chesterton would never have written in a blue fit.

There are other slip ups. Fr Brown is being very ecumenical. While Chesterton’s original includes Catholics, Anglicans and puritanical Presbyterians, the TV episode has Fr B going to an Anglican vicar’s garden party and attending an Anglican funeral. Neither would have happened in pre-Unitatis Redintegratio days.

Something else that was entirely wrong was Fr B’s church. At the end of the first episode, our hero is depicted outside his “old English country church” welcoming mass goers. Only that would never have been the case, would it? I haven’t been to England, so I haven’t seen for myself, but I rather suspect that very few of the ancient churches of England would have been in the hands of the Catholic Church either at the end of the 19th Century, in the 1950s, or now. In fact, Chesterton’s original story on which this episode is based, makes reference to just this:

The shaken [Rev.] Wilfred was led away by Father Brown, who had an easy and friendly way with him. ‘Let us get out of this horrid place, Mr. Bohun,’ he said. ‘May I look inside your church? I hear it’s one of the oldest in England. We take some interest, you know,’ he added with a comical grimace, ‘in old English churches.’