Peace I
bequeath to you,
my own peace
I give you,
a peace the
world cannot give, this is my gift to you.
Do not let
your hearts be troubled or afraid.
You heard me
say:
I am going
away, and shall return.
If you loved
me you would have been glad to know that I am going to the Father,
for the
Father is greater than I.
John 14:27 -
28
When you have young children filling your
days it is easy to imagine the peace and quiet that would occur if only they
would go to sleep, stay asleep or play quietly.
John Lennon’s 1969 Give peace a chance was a top tenner in my youth, an anthem for
those who sought withdrawal of allied troops from Vietnam. Vietnam had, of
course, invaded our homes via television. Our desire for peace was as much a
thrust towards honesty and trust (in government) as much as it was in ending
that unwinnable war.
Peace is a value that lies at the root of
both our spiritual and fundamentally human well-being as well as the highest
achievement in relations between nations. Moreover, peace is at the centre of
right relationship with God himself.
This understanding comes down to us from
the ancient scriptures of the Old/First Testament. This right relationship with
God was dependent on right relationship within our communities and between
communities. It has a strong sense of completeness and well-being. Church
thinkers, like Thomas Aquinas (died 1274) firmly believed that peace brought a
tranquility both within and between persons. Since the beginning of the 20th
Century the Church’s social teaching has seen a growth in the understanding of
the ethical dimensions of peace – for while peace is the fruit of right
relationship, it is to be grounded in justice and directed by charity.
The search for peace is interminable –
whether we are driven to travel the vast inner worlds of our minds or the outer
extensions of the know universe, the human quest, the personal quest is to find
peace.
Jesus declares to his disciples just prior
to his ascension (in John 14:23 – 29): Peace
I bequeath to you, my own peace I give to you; a peace the world cannot give,
this is my gift to you. This is spoken to every single human being, to
every family, community and nation. The peace that Jesus offers is that
overwhelming sense of fulfillment, of enrichment, of being at-one with one
another. But it comes at a cost, for even though it is always pure gift, it
requires the establishment of a covenant, an agreement. It is what is completed
between nations to ensure lasting peace, and for true peace to endure the
signatories must remain faithful.
The covenants arranged between you and
your God, between you and your spouse, between you and your workmates will
probably only ever be known to you. Yet these right relationships will ensure
that peace will grow, that our spiritual and physical well-being will be
assured, and ultimately – our children will grow up in a world committed to
non-violence, justice and equity.
As Lennon so aptly sang: All we are saying is give peace a chance. But
let that peace be Christ’s.
Peter Douglas
HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH
Fr Terry died peacefully on Saturday 23 April at Mt Esk Aged Care Facility, St Leonards. Terry was born on 11 August 1938 to Eileen and Berg Southerwood and was a priest of the Archdiocese of Hobart for 54 years. Fr Terry was the author of a number of books on the history of the church in Tasmania. In 2009 he published his autobiography The child won't live: A joyous priest's life story. Fr Terry received the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2014. He will be greatly missed.
Blinded by
privilege
by Richard Rohr
You never really understand a person until
you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and
walk around in it.
--Harper Lee (1926-2016), To Kill a Mockingbird
Once
in a place of power, after the 4th century, the Church began to interpret
Scripture in a very different way. Once Pharaoh is your benefactor and
protector, there are many questions you can no longer ask. You can't ask about
liberation of slaves in Pharaoh's house, nor do questions of justice or
equality make it to the cocktail party. And if you do ask such questions, you
will not be answered, but quietly--or savagely--eliminated. That was made very
clear in Exodus.
Once
Christianity was protected by the emperors, once we moved from the catacombs to
the basilicas ("palaces"), we could no longer feel the rejection that
Jesus experienced by being born poor in an occupied country. We changed sides,
and therefore we changed our point of view: not from the bottom up, but from
the top down.
The
top was where most clergy henceforth resided or set their sights. That has been
the perspective from which much of our preaching and Scripture interpretation
came: white, European, uniquely educated, mostly comfortable, usually celibate
males. I am one myself, and we are not all bad. But we are not all. When
history and religion are exclusively taught from the vantage point of the
people in power--which is almost always the case--we can't see the reality
right in front of our noses. We live out of a bias that is unrecognized:
privilege and easy access to privilege. This is what St. Francis, for example,
was trying to reform.
In
country after country that I've spoken in over the years, the laity have come
to accept that the bishops and priests look out at reality from the side of
management and seldom from the side of the laboring class, where Jesus
unquestionably resided. When and where we did have servant leadership, the
church flourished; where they didn't, we often experience, to this day and with
good reason, a virulent anti-clericalism.
Let's
turn to another example of how privilege prevents us from seeing reality. I had
naively thought racism was behind us when I was educated in the 1960s. Those of
us who are white have a very hard time seeing that we constantly receive
special treatment just because of the color of our skin. This is called
"white privilege," and it is invisible to us because it's part of our
culture's very structure. Since we do not consciously have racist attitudes or
overt racist behavior, we kindly judge ourselves to be open minded,
egalitarian, and therefore surely not racist. Because we have never been on the
other side, we largely do not recognize the structural access we enjoy, the trust
we think we deserve, the assumption that we always belong and do not have to
earn our belonging. All this we take for granted and normal. Only the outsider
can spot these attitudes in us.
"States
of sin" are always incapable of critiquing themselves, which is largely
why they are sin to begin with. Evil depends upon disguise and tries to look
like virtue to survive. We would be smart to hear Mary's "Magnificat"
in which she subversively says that God "brings down the mighty from their
thrones and exalts the lowly" (see Luke 1:52). No wonder this courageous
woman was chosen to be the mother of the one who told the truth. Jesus must
have learned some of it from her.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
FROM STAR OF THE SEA - GEORGE TOWN:
FROM ST ANTHONY'S - RIVERSIDE:
FROM OUR LADY OF MERCY:
FROM SACRED HEART - ULVERSTONE:
FROM SACRED HEART - LAUNCESTON:
FROM ST JOSEPH'S - QUEENSTOWN:
FROM ST BRIGID'S - WYNYARD:
FROM LARMENIER - ST LEONARDS:
FROM ST THOMAS MORE'S - NEWSTEAD:
FROM ST PATRICK'S - LATROBE:
FROM ST PETER CHANEL - SMITHTON:
FROM ST PATRICK'S COLLEGE - PROSPECT:
FROM ST JOSEPH'S - ROSEBERY:
FROM STELLA MARIS - BURNIE:
FROM ST BRENDAN SHAW COLLEGE - BURNIE:
FROM MARIST REGIONAL COLLEGE - BURNIE:
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