Tenison Woods and MacKillop Centre News: The kingdom of God is very near you

Stay in the same house, taking what food and drink they have to offer, for the labourer deserves his wages; do not move from house to house. Whenever you go into a town where they make you welcome, eat what is set before you. Cure those in it who are sick, and say,

“The kingdom of God is very near to you.”

Luke 10:7 - 9

The days when no one locked the back door, or front door for that matter and left their keys in the car, are well and truly gone. Having visitors turn up at any time was somewhat serendipitous, but providing drink and something to eat was essential. Not offering hospitality was considered ill- mannered and poor form. It still exists in some places, but turning up unannounced in the 21^st century is generally met with surprise and occasionally indignation – because our favourite programs are on the box, because we all have routines that we must keep to.

It is less surprising that when Luke is looking for images of the Kingdom of God, that he uses hospitality in the form of banquets, meals, invitations and welcomings. Indeed when those who preach the Gospel are welcomed into a new community, Jesus assures them that the kingdom is close at hand.

This is a real challenge to us in our busy lives – making ourselves available not only to friends and relatives, but remarkably to our own families – let alone to perfect strangers. We’ve all overheard or even used excuses for not visiting or to avoid having visitors as if opening our homes and offering hospitality is an invasion of privacy not an invitation to intimacy and deeper relationships.

Our words hospital, hospice, host and hospitality are derived from the Latin hospes meaning both host and guest or stranger. This gives us an idea of what hospitality is, how it is an act of reciprocity – we are givers of hospitality and recipients of hospitality.

Luke is keenly aware that fellowship at the table, the sharing of meals is a particular moment of grace. It is in the making of companions (companion means one who breaks bread with another) that grows out of eating together, sharing stories, dreams and visions that unveils hospitality’s deeper purpose: remembering and reliving. It is something we do each day around the family table, ordering our responses according a rubric that scaffolds our love and friendship in our stories which draw concern, approval and advice, and we in turn listen and give of ourselves in return. This is holy, sacred time. It is here just as in our churches that God is truly present, he is indeed near.

Bringing our friends and perfect strangers to our table, into our homes, to begin new memories and to link with ever deeper common stories is the very reason we must break out of the chains of our 21^st century culture and be nothing less than hospitable.

Peter Douglas

HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH

NCEC Conference

I believe a good time was had by all. The venue, speakers, food, dinner and music (including dancing) were incredible. Here is Matt Jones' reporting:

The moral conundrum of casting a vote on 2 July

Frank Brennan in Eureka Street

According to the latest Newspoll, 15 per cent of voters are planning to vote for the minor parties or for an independent candidate. Support for the Greens is running at ten per cent. The leaders of the major parties are worried.

Raised hands with hearts on palms Malcolm Turnbull is warning, 'A vote for the Greens, independents, risks the chaos and instability that we saw in the years of the Julia Gillard government. The only way to be sure that there will be a stable federal government commitment to a national economic plan that will deliver stronger economic growth and more and better jobs is to vote for the Coalition.'

The changes to the Senate voting system made just before the election and the double dissolution of the Parliament have been aimed at reducing the political influence of independents and the minor parties. Understandably, the government is arguing that the difficult economic times ahead will require government to make and implement difficult decisions, and this in turn will require the Senate not to be dysfunctional or unduly obstructionist.

But our government ministers are not just economic managers, and our parliament does not concern itself only with taxation and economic development.

Sadly, the major political parties have forfeited any claim to govern in their own right because they have caused such disillusionment among so many voters about other policy issues with strong moral overtones. Justifiably many voters think they could not trust the Coalition or the Labor Party to implement a fair and coherent asylum and refugee policy or to address the challenge of climate change with the required urgency.

Any voter impressed with Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si' or inspired by his visits to asylum seekers on the islands of Lampedusa and Lesbos could not blithely vote for either of the major parties, without first determining how to place some continuing political and moral pressure on them.

Consider the voter of good conscience who is committed to equity, jobs and growth for all Australians, but who is also concerned about the situation of the asylum seekers and proven refugees being held on Nauru and Manus Island.

Neither the Labor Party nor the Coalition during this election campaign is prepared to suggest any realistic solution. They are not prepared to welcome, accept or even discuss New Zealand's offer to take up to 150 refugees a year from these places. The major parties have made a judgment about the majority of voters. They think most voters are so indifferent to these voiceless and faceless victims of Australia's tough border protection policy that it is best to offer no solution whatever to their plight.

The voter of good conscience could decide that no party deserves to govern in their own right if they are not prepared to offer any solution to this problem which Australia created and which remains in part our responsibility. Malcolm Turnbull says we can't afford to be misty-eyed about these people being held on Nauru and Manus Island. Being misty eyed can be a problem for the clear sighted, but it's better than being willfully blind as both Turnbull and Bill Shorten are being on this issue.

The Australian Catholic Bishops have urged voters to consider 'a vote for the voiceless'. They say they have issued their very modest election manifesto 'not in order to push an ideological line or simply to defend the Church's interests but to give a voice to the voiceless and make their faces seen'. The first of the voiceless and faceless groups commended for our attention by the bishops are 'refugees and asylum seekers who are often seen as a problem to be solved rather than as human beings in need of our help'.

Returning to work after his five-month absence due to illness, Archbishop Anthony Fisher was interviewed by Tess Livingstone, Cardinal Pell's erstwhile biographer. She reported in The Australian that Fisher 'was uncomfortable with aspects of the major parties' asylum seeker policies, especially offshore detention'. He did not endorse the approach of any particular party or politician. He did take 'aim at the Greens' support for the removal of religious "exemptions" to anti-discrimination laws'.

But Fisher did not go anywhere near as far as his predecessor Pell who urged voters in 2010 'to examine the policies of the Greens on their website and judge for themselves how thoroughly anti-Christian they are'. Some of the Greens' policies are far more Christian than those of the major parties. But then again, they can afford to be, because they are not seeking to form government in our increasingly secular pluralist democracy.

A voter wanting one of the major parties to form government while being mistrustful of their capacity to make a moral decision about the plight of asylum seekers would be very sensible to cast a vote in such a way as to ensure that the new government does not govern in its own right by being assured automatic passage of all its legislation through both houses of parliament once the legislation has been approved by the party room. The party rooms of the major parties are now prejudiced closed chambers when it comes to the interests of the voiceless.

Exposing legislation to open scrutiny in a parliament not controlled by the government and requiring the government to barter economic gains for the moral entitlements of the voiceless will be the only way to obtain morally sound laws and policies. Parliamentary pressure needs to be placed on any new government wanting to provide equity, jobs and growth, so that it will also do more to resolve the plight of asylum seekers and to be more attentive to the urgent requirements of the environment subject to the depredations of climate change.

None of the parties likely to form government after the election has an asylum policy which is acceptable. I urge people of goodwill when casting their vote to consider the desirability of a parliament which is not readily controlled by the government of the day, and which therefore might make the new government enact a more humane policy. I encourage people to cast a vote for a member or senators (whether members of the major parties or not) who have a commitment to reviewing the existing government policy, providing a more humane outcome both for those presently being held on Nauru and Manus Island as well as for those waiting in the Australian community without adequate work and welfare rights.

I would hope that we could all then start the long term cooperative work needed to increase our humanitarian migration quota and to develop a regional solution with neighbouring countries assisted by the good offices of UNHCR, while accepting even with a heavy heart and conscientious reservation that the boats will be stopped. We need to negotiate the ethical dividend for stopping the boats. I am not opposed to equity, jobs and growth for all Australians. But I think that is only part the story, and I want my vote to count in relation to the whole story of Australia's place in the world.

For starters, I want any new Australian government to empty the camps on Nauru and Manus Island in a timely and dignified manner. And I know a vote straight down the ticket for Turnbull or Shorten won't do that.

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=49511#.V2M8fbt96pA

Frank Brennan SJ is professor of law at Australian Catholic University and adjunct professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. He was recently interviewed, alongside Amanda Vanstone, on the question of whether 'Australia's asylum seeker policy too harsh too soft or have we got it right', by the ABC's Emma Alberici.

Peter's Whereabouts: