Tenison Woods and MacKillop Centre News

Monday, June 13, 2016

Who do you say I am?

‘But you,’ he said, ‘who do you say I am?’ It was Peter who spoke up. ‘The Christ of God’ he said. But he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone anything about this.

Luke 9:20

Sometimes we are so busy discovering who we are, we stop living real lives. It’s probably a 21^st Century phenomenon. Other generations didn’t have the luxury – putting food on the table, a roof over their heads, learning to read and write. One of the most valued possessions provided by my high school was the headmaster’s personal reference – valued, because employers, the teachers’ colleges and the university also valued the opinion the headmaster’s summation of who you were. Our patience with other’s opinions about us runs out somewhat quickly, we get prickly.

On the other hand, in a social setting, we enjoy the self-revelation that goes with a glass of wine or beer. We revel in discussions about our work, children, footy teams, politics. We hope that the person we present in these situations is likeable, interesting, companionable – even enchanting or attractive. But is this who you are? Are there many yous? Is there a parent-you, a work-you, an exercise-you, a child-you or are you a ‘whole person’ where all these facets are integrated into the one you?

In Exodus we see Moses ask of the Lord, ‘Who shall I say sent me?’ The Lord replies, ‘Tell them that ‘I am sent’ you’. This is the ultimate revelation, for this is both the revealer’s name, and it is also about his/her being. In Luke’s Jesus asks his disciples, ‘Who do I say I am?’ Peter speaks up, ‘God’s anointed one’ (or alternatively, ‘The Christ of God’). Is this Jesus? Is this who he is?

In the two thousand years since Jesus lived and breathed in Palestine, Christians from every century and every decade have sought to answer this same question asked by Jesus, ‘Who do you say I am?’ The results of these searches is, not surprisingly, inconclusive. While the Church has maintained an ‘orthodox’ stance, many, like the Albigensians, Gnostics, Arianists, Docetists have come to alternative conclusions. Today’s ‘isms’ include humanism, anthropomorphism, deism, dualism, indifferentism, pantheism, but there are many more – which, when overlaid with the search for Jesus, can often result in disharmony with the magisterium of the Church. More words have been written about this search than any other topic in humanity.

In the end, the search for Jesus, like the search for who you really are, is about truth. In the same way I need to be truthful, open and honest about my upbringing, my life experiences, my fidelity to those I love, my capacity to grow, my desire to do good for others, compassion, generosity, warmth and kindness. If these rank highly in your life then you need not be surprised by being the delightful and wonderful person you have become. If I know this truth, then undoubtedly, finding the person of Jesus will be a much easier task. Will this truth reveal an ‘orthodox’ Jesus? Maybe, maybe not. There are guides, there is the collected and collective wisdom of the elders, there are people of faith and people of hope. Inasmuch as you will reflect on the words people say about who you are, do Jesus the honour of reflecting on the words others have to say about him. This is really living.

The corollary of knowing Jesus, according to Luke (9:23 - 24), is follow him, to take up your cross, and to lose your life for his sake. That really is discipleship.

Peter Douglas

HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH

The great floods of 2016

Last week brought great challenges to schools across the north of the state. While many schools had leaks here and there, St Patrick's Latrobe, St Anthony's, St Finn Barr's and Larmenier were closed for safety reasons. School closures require clear lines of communication to TCEO, staff, parents/guardians, students and the broader community. While there are always learnings in these situations, there were vivid displays of excellence in leadership, consultative decision-making and generous pastoral care.

Reflections by Rebecca Ruiz

http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/23747/de-caussade-chance-encounter-divine-intervention

Many years ago, when I was a junior in college, I struck up a correspondence with a sister at Chigwell Convent in England. Actually, she struck up a correspondence with me; I just asked a question. I had asked if I could join the sisters in their missionary work after college for a couple of years. I learned that while I could join them, my student loans could not be deferred for this type of service. I was disappointed to receive the news.

Instead of that notification being the end of the story though, this sister kept writing to me. For over a year, she sent me books by Teresa of Ávila, Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Thomas Merton. I learned so much from her letters and the materials she sent. Although she knew very little about me, the topics she would talk about in her letters and the books she would send would, each time, address a significant question I was grappling with in my spiritual life.

It was a very enriching chance exchange—or so it seemed to me at the time.

Two decades later, my spiritual advisor re-introduced me to one of the same works that the English sister had sent me years earlier, The Sacrament of the Present Moment. The author, an 18th-century Jesuit priest by the name of Jean-Pierre de Caussade, taught the Ignatian concepts of surrender of the will and finding God in all things to nuns in his French province. He advised that each moment of our lives requires us to do our duty, the duty of the moment, and that each moment is precious and holds some divinely appointed purpose. The way to perfection that he offers is simple: offer God our heart and our will, do our duties faithfully, let go of outcomes, and let God surprise us.

De Caussade wrote words that are still so relevant that they seem alive:

You are seeking God, dear sister, and he is everywhere. Everything proclaims him to you, everything reveals him to you, everything brings him to you. He is by your side, over you, around and in you. Here is his dwelling and yet you still seek him. Ah! You are searching for God, the idea of God in his essential being. You seek perfection and it lies in everything that happens to you—your suffering, your actions, your impulses are the mysteries under which God reveals himself to you (The Sacrament of the Present Moment, 18).

He speaks joy to the mundane and purpose amidst chaos. De Caussade urges us to open our hearts and trust that in each plan that doesn’t go according to our hopes, God has something even better in store. He asks us to trust that God uses each moment throughout every day—each encounter, each delay, each meeting, each chore—for a purpose. All that is required of us is that we do each task to the best of our abilities and then trust God to do the rest.

Those who have abandoned themselves to God always lead mysterious lives and receive from him exceptional and miraculous gifts by means of the most ordinary, natural, and chance experiences in which there appears to be nothing unusual…They exist in a state of total impartiality, neglecting nothing, respecting and making use of everything…They never grumble about not having the means to do what they think will advance them because they are supplied in full by their maker (80).

In hindsight, I see that my chance exchange with the English sister may not have been such a chance happening after all. She answered questions I had never penned, and that time of learning became one of the milestones of my spiritual journey. Out of a time of disappointment, God surprised me and provided what I needed at that time. In fact, those moments were exactly as De Caussade had said they would be: each encounter, each moment, was abundant in possibilities and laden with gifts bestowed by the Creator.

Rebecca Ruiz

Blogs at Walk Along with Me

Rebecca Ruiz holds a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross and an M.A. from Tufts University. She has worked as an ethnomusicologist, composer, and writer, in academia, and, for the past 14 years, in domestic refugee resettlement in the Diocese of Arlington, VA. She and her husband have two children and live in the Washington, DC metro area. She strives, as St. Ignatius taught, to see God in all things and do “all things for the greater glory of God.”

Peter's Whereabouts:

NB: I will be Perth from Sunday 19 June to Thursday 23 June.

Upcoming Meetings:

From Our Lady of Mercy - Deloraine:

From Sacred Heart - Launceston:

From St Finn Barr's - Invermay:

From St Thomas More's - Newstead:

From St Joseph's - Rosebery:

From Star of the Sea College - George Town:

From Marist Regional College - Burnie:

From Larmenier - St Leonards:

From St Brendan Shaw College - Devonport:

From St Patrick's - Latrobe:

From St Joseph's - Queenstown:

From Sacred Heart - Ulverstone:

From Stella Maris - Burnie:

From St Anthony's - Riverside:

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Who will love him more?

One of the Pharisees invited Jesus to a meal. When he arrived at the Pharisee’s house and took his place at table, a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town. She had heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is that is touching him and what a bad name she has.’

Luke 7:36 - 39

When we live long enough and have met enough people, we often develop of sense of who people are – whether they are trustworthy, honest, worth knowing, kind, generous or not. It’s our ability to judge people for want of better words. We might use our judgment when choose to befriend a newcomer or even withhold judgment to allow someone to prove themselves. Our judgment of others is ultimately to ensure we are safe and surrounded by those whom we can trust – who will share our values. None of us wants to be seen as judgmental. But we do want to be seen as good judges – of character, of companions, of partners.

How often have we changed our minds about people we meet or work with? How often are we delighted or surprised by an acquaintance’s loyalty, support or encouragement that we didn’t expect?

Only the most hardened among us would not admit that our sense of judgment isn’t perfect. Well, let’s face it, it isn’t. We make mistakes. We use all of our experience and knowledge and we make the call. Whether or not we admit to ourselves or to others that our choices haven’t met the test of good or right judgment is moot.

In this story from Luke, Jesus forgives the sins of a woman who kisses his feet. Simon the Pharisee is shocked that Jesus doesn’t know that the woman is disreputable. Jesus picks up that Simon is scandalized, and tells him a parable where two debtors are forgiven by their creditor, one who owes 50 denarii and other who owes 500 denarii: Which of them will love him more?’ [asked Jesus]. ‘The one who was pardoned more, I suppose,’ answered Simon. Jesus said, ‘You are right.’ (Luke 7:42 – 43).

Jesus, it appears, was unfussed about how people judged him and those whose company he kept. He had an integrity that was immovable. He had a preference for the poor, the hungry, and those excluded because they believe in him (Luke 6:20 – 22) – and this included tax collectors and prostitutes. They were not the ‘right kind’ of people. Many indeed required greater forgiveness, because as Jesus acknowledges – Who will love him more? And let him be the judge of that.

Peter Douglas

HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF MERCY

by Ron Rolheiser

Among the Ten Commandments, one begins with the word “remember”: Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day”. It reminds us to recall something we already know. There are commandments of mercy written into our very DNA. We already know them, but we need to remember them more explicitly. What are they?

The Ten Commandments of Mercy:

Remember that mercy lies deepest in God’s heart.

Few things so much approximate the essence of God as does mercy. Mercy is God’s essence. Scripture uses words such as loving-kindness and compassion to try to define what constitutes God’s mercy, but the central biblical concept, captured in the Hebrew concept of hesed, connotes a relationship that loves, embraces, and forgives even when, and especially when, we cannot measure up or deserve what’s given us.

Remember that mercy is the essence of all true religion.

Inside religion and spirituality, within all faiths, three things try to lay claim to what’s central: proper religious practice, outreach to the poor, and compassion. Ultimately they are not in opposition, but complementary pieces of one religious whole. But for religious practice and outreach to the poor to be an extension of God’s love and not of human ego, they need to be predicated upon compassion, mercy. Deepest inside of every religion is the invitation: Be compassionate, merciful, as God is compassionate.

Remember that we all stand forever in need of mercy.

There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who converts than over ninety-nine righteous persons. Does God love sinners more than the righteous? There are no righteous persons. It’s rather that we feel God’s love more when we admit that we’re sinners. None of us ever measure up. But, as St. Paul so consolingly teaches, the whole point is that we don’t have to measure up. That’s what mercy means. It’s undeserved, by definition.

Remember that, having received mercy, we must show mercy to others.

We only receive and appropriate God’s mercy and the mercy of others when we extend that same mercy to others. Mercy has to flow through us. If we don’t extend it to others we become self-indulgent and too harsh on others.

Remember that only the practice of mercy sets us free.

Receiving and giving mercy is the only thing that frees from our congenital propensity to self-seek, self-justify, and judge others. Nothing frees us more from the tyranny of ego than does the practice of mercy.

Remember that mercy is not opposed to justice, but is its fulfillment.

Mercy, as Walter Kasper so aptly puts it, is not “a kind of fabric softener that undermines the dogmas and commandments and abrogates the central and fundamental meaning of truth.” That’s the accusation the Pharisees made against Jesus. Mercy is where justice is meant to terminate.

Remember that only the practice of mercy will make God’s Kingdom come.

Jesus promised us that someday the meek will inherit the earth, the poor will eat plentiful, rich food, and all tears will be wiped away. That can only happen when mercy replaces self-interest.

Remember that mercy needs too to be practiced collectively.

It is not enough for us to be merciful in our own lives. Mercy is marginalized in a society that doesn’t sufficiently attend to those who are weak or needy, just as it is marginalized in a church that is judgmental. We must create a society that is merciful and a church that is merciful. Mercy, alone, enables the survival of the weakest.

Remember that mercy calls us to do works both spiritual and physical.

Our Christian faith challenges us to perform mercy in a double way, corporeally and spiritually. The classic corporal works of mercy are: Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, cloth the naked, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. The classic spiritual works of mercy are: instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, comfort the afflicted, admonish the sinner, forgive offenses, bear wrongs patiently, and pray for the living and the dead. God has given us different gifts and all of us are better at some of these than at others, but mercy is manifest in all of them.

Remember that our lives are a dialogue between God’s mercy and our weaknesses.

The only thing at which we are adequate is being inadequate. We are forever falling short at something, no matter the strength of our sincerity, good intention, and willpower. Only mercy, receiving it and giving it, can lead us out of the choppy waters of our own anxieties, worry, and joylessness. Only in knowing mercy do we know gratitude.

This year, 2016, Pope Francis has asked us all to live a year of mercy, to contemplate the mystery of mercy “as a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace.” Mercy, he believes, is the secret to putting a credible face to God, to putting a credible face to our churches, and to walking with steadiness inside our own lives.