Our Own Saint!

OUR OWN SAINT! ITHOUT DOUBT, the biggest onization there was much controversy, puzzle- event in 2010 for the Church in ment and worse about the Catholic belief in WAustralia was the canonization of miracles. Miracles, to some, seemed quite un- Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop. We are fair—how nice for those few who received still discovering the fuller significance of hav- cures and other blessings, while the rest of the ing our first Australian canonized saint, and human race is left to suffer. If God could do still discovering what a characteristically Aus- that for some at the request of Mary tralian saintly person she was. Even though MacKillop, what sort of God is it that leaves she lived more than a century ago she still in- the rest of us to our fate? spires us and gives us heart as we encounter The liturgies of Advent give a reply. John in present-day Australia very similar chal- the Baptist seems to have expected a more lenges to those she encountered. spectacular Messiah to erupt into human his- This issue of Compass can be read as a re- tory than Jesus turned out to be: Jesus was flection on Saint Mary and her way of living by healing a few people, but he was a little low- faith and our contemporary efforts to do like- key in John’s estimation. And so John sent his wise. Cardinal Pell’s homily during the thanks- disciples to ask Jesus if he really was the one giving Mass will suggest links with later articles. who was to come or should they wait for an- Mary’s well-documented concern for peo- other. Jesus’ reply was simply, ‘Go and tell ple who were missing out or suffering depri- John what you see’. In other words, he in- vation and neglect of any kind provides a link structed them, and through them John, to look with the theme of justice and peace: ‘There for the signs—what he was doing showed that can be no peace without justice’. the time of the Messiah had begun. Cardinal Pell recalls her capacity to for- And so in Advent the message is: with the give and even to love her enemies as we are birth of the Messiah we celebrate a massive instructed to do in Mth 5.44. Thus she can pro- leap forward in the realization of God’s plan vide an inspiration for us as, with the encour- to establish his kingdom on earth. The king- agement of the Australian Bishops’ statements dom of God is in our midst, and faith enables in recent times, we grapple with the reality of us to see the signs. But the kingdom grows violence in Australian society and the chal- like a mustard seed; it needs time to grow to lenge to cultivate a culture of peace. be a big tree. As yet it is largely in the future, But peace, as we are discovering, is a very something promised, and we are asked to be- big theme: peace is intimately personal yet glo- lieve in that promise: ‘Blessed is that person bal as well, encompassing peace with the en- who does not lose faith in me’. vironment, with the whole of creation. The miracles that are attributed to the in- The reason why we call Mary of the Cross tercession of Saint Mary of the Cross are to a saint rather than a philanthropist, as Cardinal be understood in that way. They are signs, the Pell reminds us, is the fact that her life was cen- beginnings of the realisation of God’s ultimate tred on God, and her work for others was her will for humankind. Saint Mary MacKillop is way of responding to God’s will. Her efforts in the action of promoting the kingdom. The for people were contemplation in action. Thus fact that only a few miracles occurred is what the articles in this issue that explore the con- we might expect, given that even Jesus him- templative tradition in Catholicism, marriage self cured only a few people, comparatively included, are able to find a niche in this issue. speaking. The kingdom of God is ‘now’ but is As I write we are in the season of Advent, also ‘not-yet’. and I am reminded that at the time of the can- —Barry Brundell MSC, Editor.

Compass #4 2010 text.indd 1 22/12/2010 2:52:17 PM COMPASS BOOKS ON SAINT MARY The beatification of Mary MacKillop in 1995 saw the release of many new and reissued publications, and this has also been the case with her 2010 canonisation. Following is a guide to MacKillop-related books.

BIOGRAPHIES CORRESPONDENCE Mary MacKillop: An extraordinary Aus- Mary MacKillop and Flora: Correspond- tralian: The authorised biography. Paul ence between Mary MacKillop and her Gardiner SJ; Sisters of St Joseph of the Sa- mother, Flora McDonald MacKillop. Sheila cred Heart; PB $29.95 [ISBN McCreanor RSJ (editor); Sisters of St Joseph 9780957900264]; 505pp; 2007. Author was of the Sacred Heart; PB $24.95 the ‘postulator’ of the cause of MacKillop; [9780957997622]; 205pp; 2004. book is adapted from the official positio for Mary MacKillop in Challenging Times: her beatification. First published 1993. 1883-1899: A collection of letters. Sheila Mary MacKillop Unveiled: Australia’s first McCreanor RSJ (editor); Sisters of St Joseph saint. Lesley O’Brien; John Garratt Publish- of the Sacred Heart, dist. by St Pauls; PB ing; PB $29.95 [9781920721626]; 279pp; $24.95 [9780957997691]; 419pp; 2006. 2008. Updated edition of a work commis- Mary MacKillop on Mission: To her last sioned by the Sisters of St Joseph as a popu- breath. Sheila McCreanor RSJ (editor); Sis- lar biography for a general readership. ters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, dist. by Mary MacKillop Unveiled: Australia’s first St Pauls; PB $32.95 [9780646522890]; saint. Lesley O’Brien; Jenny Seedsman 421pp; 2009. (reader); Bolinda Publishing; Audio CDs SPIRITUALITY $39.95 [9781742673912]; 2010. Unabridged The Little Brown Book: Mary MacKillop’s audiobook edition. spirituality in our everyday lives. Sue Kane Mary MacKillop: The ground of her lov- & Leo Kane; Helen Barnes RSJ (illustrator); ing. Margaret Paton; Darton, Longman and St Pauls; HB $17.95 [9781921472268]; Todd, UK, dist. by Rainbow Book Agencies; 176pp; 2009. PB $29.95 [9780232527995]; 164pp; 2010. Mary MacKillop: A spiritual model for all. Mary MacKillop. Osmund Thorpe CP; E. J. Cuskelly MSC; St Pauls Publications; PB Generalate of the Sisters of St Joseph; PB $4.95 [9781921472626]; 48pp; 2010. Essay $14.00 [9780959231694]; 251pp; 1994. Third first published as the final chapter in the au- edition; first published 1957. thor’s Walking the Way of Jesus (1999). Mary MacKillop: Touching our lives. Judith God Will Take Care of Us All: A spiritual- M. Steer RSJ; Dorothy Woodward RSJ (illus- ity of Mary MacKillop. Pauline Wicks RSJ; trator); St Pauls; PB $14.95 [9781921472046]; St Pauls; PB $24.95 [9781921472367]; 80pp; 2008. Updated edition; first published 142pp; 2009. 1997. Mary MacKillop: Made in Australia. Dan- Julian Tenison Woods: A life. Mother Mary iel Lyne CP; St Pauls; PB $14.95 of the Cross MacKillop; Margaret Press RSJ [9781921472596]; 96pp; 2010. First pub- (editor); St Pauls; PB $29.95 lished 1994. [9781921472442]; 262pp; 220x150mm; 2010. Mary MacKillop: Spirituality and charisms. MacKillop’s biography of Fr Woods (1832- Daniel Lyne CP; St Joseph’s Generalate; PB 89), co-founder of the Sisters of St Joseph. $15.00 [9780959231601]; 240pp; 1983. Kevin Mark manages the Australasian information in the Global Books in Print database and is former religious publisher for HarperCollins Publishers.

Compass #4 2010 text.indd 2 22/12/2010 2:52:17 PM SAINT MARY OF THE CROSS Homily During the Thanksgiving Mass for the Canonization of St. Mary of the Cross, Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, Rome, 18 Oct. 2010.

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL, ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY

ROTHERS AND SISTERS in Christ. dom uneasy. Although Macquarie laid the Fellow citizens of Australia. foundation stone for the first St. Mary’s Church BYesterday Mary MacKillop was can- in Sydney in 1821, for most of the colony’s onized at St. Peter’s Basilica here in Rome by first thirty years the public celebration of Mass Pope Benedict XVI as Saint Mary of the Cross, was forbidden. Indeed on becoming governor the first Australian-born saint in the two thou- Macquarie was obliged to swear on oath that sand year history of the Catholic Church. We he did not believe in the Catholic dogma of are delighted and grateful. transubstantiation! It was only in 1829 that The Australia of today which welcomes the Irish statesman Daniel O’Connell achieved this canonization is very different from the Catholic emancipation through the British par- separate British colonies where Mary spent liament after a long campaign of peaceful mass most of her life before the Commonwealth of protests. Australia was established in 1901. In most Macquarie was the first public champion ways Australia is now a better society, due to to the outside world of what he called Aus- the wisdom and hard work of our predeces- tralia, not New Holland or even New South sors, women and men like Sister Mary. The Wales. He was determined to change a con- Australia which was and is Protestant or irre- vict colony into a free society, the beginnings ligious has made room for Catholics and we of a nation and he built fine buildings, founded are grateful for this too. new towns, crossed the Blue Mountains, en- My second greeting this morning ‘Fellow couraged education for Europeans and for the citizens of Australia’ (and I apologize to those aborigines also. But most importantly he in- non-Australians present, who are certainly insisted that reformed convicts, the emancipists cluded in the ‘brothers and sisters in Christ’) should be accepted into society and he encour- is taken from the final address of another great aged their children and the children of the free and earlier Australian, described on his tomb- settlers, the ‘currency lads and lasses’, taller stone in Scotland as ‘The father of Australia’. than their parents, outspoken sometimes, regu- Major General Lachlan Macquarie came larly determined, confident and occasionally to the colony of New South Wales as gover- irreverent. Many Australians today still like nor 200 years ago in 1810 to restore order af- to think of themselves in these terms. ter the New South Wales Corps, the ‘Rum Mary MacKillop was born in the Mel- Corps’, had overthrown William Bligh the pre- bourne suburb of Fitzroy in 1842, the child of vious governor. It was then only twenty two free settlers, some decades after Macquarie, years since the First Fleet had arrived in 1788, and before the discovery of gold turned the comprising about 1000 convicts and soldiers. colony upside down, bringing hundreds of Many of the convicts were Irish Catholics, thousands of immigrants seeking their fortune. who were flogged if they did not attend the But we believe that she shared the best char- Protestant service on Sunday and had no free- acteristics of the currency lads and lasses as dom to practise their religion. Their numbers she exploited the openness of society which and sometimes their demeanour made official- Macquarie encouraged, struggled to spread

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education and battled quietly and effectively Cardinal George to combat the Catholic versus Protestant Pell, Catholic antagonisms, the sectarianism which waxed Archbishop of and waned until the middle of the twentieth Sydney. century. She, however, suffered more from her fellow Catholics than from outsiders. Saint Mary worked to give poor Catholics the capacity to exploit their opportunities, to avail themselves of the consequences of the widespread Australian conviction, which Mac- quarie favoured, that everyone had a right to a ‘fair go’. Many young Australians when she ‘generosity and humility, gentleness and pa- opened her first school in Penola in 1866 did tience’ to bring goodness and Godliness into not want to go to school and their parents were the empty spaces of our vast continent. not too disturbed by this. Mary wanted them Unlike some of Australia’s best known to know the three ‘rs’ of reading, (w)riting and humanitarians such as Fred Hollows or Weary (a)rithmetic but she also wanted them to know Dunlop, Mary’s life was centered on God. She of God’s love for them and for ‘the Word of realized that she was one of those ‘chosen of Christ, in all its richness, to find a home’ in God, the holy people whom he loves’ and she them. wrote ‘I want with all my heart to be what God Two quotations from her writings help ex- wants me to be’, to do only God’s will and plain her life’s work. Her sisters as St. Joseph’s never to stand in God’s way. Whatever she did, true children were to ‘seek first the poorest, she did in the name of the Lord Jesus and she most neglected parts of God’s vineyard’, while set her heart first of all on God’s kingdom and probably her most famous exhortation was that his saving justice. It was this faith which mo- the sisters were ‘never (to) see an evil without tivated her service and motivated the many trying to discover how they remedy it’. I hope women who joined her. ‘Faith’, she explained and pray that this injunction sinks into the sub- ‘is the first essential if we are to cope’ with conscious of all young Australians. life’s difficulties. Mary of course became a nun, the founder Today we find strange the name she chose of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, for her religious profession ‘Mary of the a religious, devoted explicitly to the evangeli- Cross’, which explains our preference for the cal counsels, to being and living in faith, hope title St. Mary MacKillop. We like to think of and love as an Australian. When presenting ourselves as positive and affirming and one her rule to Rome for approval, she explained temptation today in our materially comfortable in an accompanying letter that ‘It is an Aus- lives is to downplay the evil and spiritual an- tralian who writes this, one brought up in the guish around us, to soft pedal the costs of re- midst of many of the evils she tries to describe’. demption and ignore the flaws in our own She stressed to Rome that ‘what would seem hearts, the personal consequences of original much out of place in Europe is still the very sin. We are not born bad and depraved, but we reverse in Australia’. are born selfish and imperfect. Nineteenth cen- We thank God today for the contribution tury Catholicism understood all this better than of all the women religious to the Catholic story we do. ‘Down-under’, not merely the hundreds of Mary did not like suffering and did not go young Australian and Irish women who joined looking for trouble. Her title ‘Mary of the the sisters of St. Joseph, but all the religious Cross’ was for her a happy one, which ac- who have labored for our benefit, served with knowledged the afflictions of daily life. She

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claimed ruefully ‘the little crosses of every- beth I is alleged to have recommended bury- day life are harder to bear than the thumping ing the hatchet, but ‘don’t forget where you big ones’. But she was given a number of buried it’. thumping big crosses. Sister Mary of the Cross belonged to a dif- She was excommunicated by Bishop Sheil, ferent school. During the months of her ex- a foolish and arrogant man, who let himself communication, which she knew to be invalid, be misled by priestly lies. She was slandered, she wrote ‘I have, through God’s wise permis- saw her sisters divided, suffered unjustly in a sion at present enemies…but they are loved second enquiry and had to endure the estrange- enemies’. Nearly twenty years later she told ment, despite her best efforts, of the co-founder her sisters that ‘when you become hard, sus- Father Julian Tenison Woods. Not surprisingly picious and censorious, then goodbye to be- she turned to the Pope for help and protection ing children of St. Joseph’. Over the years she and Pope Pius IX did not disappoint her. practised what she preached. She felt the ‘force Pius IX was pope from 1846-1878, the of God’s immense love and patient mercy’ de- longest reign in history, surpassing even the spite her own ‘poor and cold spirit’ and told twenty-five years traditionally assigned to St. of her own return to equilibrium ‘a quiet and Peter. During this period the Church was of- slow healing process, rediscovering a calm ten under ferocious ideological attack and lost after the storm which had been (her) life for political control of the Papal States through the past few years’. She truly said good bye to military action. her old scores. The Pope was strict and not much given to St. Mary of the Cross was kind and conciliation, calling the First Vatican Council commonsensical. She told her sisters to ex- which defined Papal infallibility. But he pre- pect crosses and realize that ‘we also give sided over a period of remarkable expansion them’ and encouraged them to have patience and renewal in Catholic life and devotion, with their own failures, to bear with the faulty which occurred also in Australia. The Sisters ‘as you hope God will bear with you’. She of St. Joseph were only one of a number of regularly dispensed good Christian advice. new religious orders from the nineteenth cen- We thank God for the life, wisdom and tury which flourished. contribution of St. Mary of the Cross. We are Pope Pius IX recognized that the finger of grateful that she was not eccentric, not reli- God was upon the young, once excommuni- giously exotic. We warm to her advice, are cated Sister Mary of the Cross. He understood encouraged by her perseverance in sickness her faith, idealism and potential. He supported and adversity. Her faith and moral goodness her and we have benefited immensely. are heroic, but not in a way which is off putting In Australian terms we would now say that or surreal. She does not deter us from strug- in Mary MacKillop the Holy Father backed a gling to follow her. winner! From the earliest days of European settle- In these circumstances, we recognize her ment Christianity and its Catholic component most remarkable virtue which was the capac- has been one of the most important rivers wa- ity to forgive. She made her own Paul’s in- tering and nourishing Australian life. In yes- structions to the Colossians which we have terday’s Papal ceremony the universal Church heard today: ‘The Lord has forgiven you; now put its seal on the outstanding Catholic con- you must do the same’. tributor in Australian history. By its approval We are told that John Kennedy the Ameri- majority Australia now acknowledges that can president said ‘forgive your enemies but Godliness, Christian virtue and Catholic serv- never forget their names’, while much earlier ice have a well deserved place in the pantheon the great Protestant queen of England, Eliza- of Australian achievements.

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This canonization is an occasion for giveness, about resisting hardness of heart, Catholic rejoicing and an occasion too for and about working to overcome evil, refus- Australians to rejoice in a job well done. St. ing to be disheartened or defeated by it— Mary of the Cross is one of us, a child of the speak to women and men well beyond our free and open society that Macquarie created, shores and in all ages. Australia is not a per- who made use of all the opportunities that fect place, but the blessings God has be- such a society gives to bring God’s love and stowed upon us have been blessings in abun- help to others. Her voice is an Australian dance. Now he has raised up from among us voice, the voice of a great woman all Aus- St. Mary of the Cross as our first saint. May tralians can recognize as one of their own. we be blessed with many more to come and But her example and teachings—about for- many more like her

‘Remember who your teachers were—from these you can learn the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’. For many years countless young people throughout Australia have been blessed with teachers who were inspired by the courageous and saintly example of zeal, perseverance and prayer of Mother Mary MacKillop. She dedicated herself as a young woman to the education of the poor in the difficult and demanding terrain of rural Australia, inspiring other women to join her in the first women’s community of religious sisters of that country. She attended to the n‘eeds of each young person entrusted to her, without regard for station or wealth, providing both intellectual and spiritual formation. Despite many challenges, her prayers to St Joseph and her unflagging devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to whom she dedicated her new congregation, gave this holy woman the graces needed to remain faithful to God and to the Church. Through her intercession, may her followers today continue to serve God and the Church with faith and humility! [...] Dear brothers and sisters, let us thank the Lord for the gift of holiness that is resplendent in the Church and today shines out on the faces of these brothers and sisters of ours. Jesus also invites each one of us to follow him in order to inherit eternal life. Let us allow ourselves to be attracted by these luminous examples and to be guided by their teaching, so that our life may be a canticle of praise to God. May the Virgin Mary and the intercession of the six new Saints whom we joyfully venerate today obtain this for us. Amen. —From the Homily of Pope Benedict during the Mass of Canonization of Saint Mary of the Cross and five other saints.

Compass #4 2010 text.indd 6 22/12/2010 2:52:18 PM THE CANONIZATION AND ROME PILGRIMAGE

JACK RENDLE

T IS PERHAPS a cliché, but to describe in delivering a Catholic education for all who the experience of attending the Canoniz- requested it in uniquely Australian conditions. ation of Blessed Mary MacKillop in Rome Since my devotion to Mary MacKillop I th on 17 October for me was the trip and expe- began in Kununurra two decades ago, my wife, rience of a lifetime! two sons and I have journeyed to some Aus- From early adolescence I have held a burn- tralian places of MacKillop pilgrimage, including passion to visit the heart of the Christian ing the western district trail to the first school world, the great cathedrals and galleries of in Penola and Fr Wood’s Parish Church, as Europe, and in particular England for ances- well as several visits to the Mount Street try reasons. I expect that everyone’s first visit Chapel in North Sydney to pray at the tomb of taking in the sights of Rome, including the Mary MacKillop. Both of these Australian sites sheer size of St Peter’s Basilica and Square I would like to visit again. The experience of makes a massive impact. Being there for the being in Rome and witnessing Pope Benedict occasion of the canonization of the first Aus- formally recognise Mary MacKillop as a saint tralian born saint made it an additionally sig- of the universal church, for me is the most sa- nificant and overwhelmingly exciting occasion cred of pilgrim experiences and in every way for me. was as overwhelming and special as I imag- Growing up in the Sandhurst Diocese, my ined. education and parish life was shaped by Irish The only vague comparison I can draw, in orders of Brigidine Sisters and Augustinian attempting to capture the emotion of witness- Priests. I had not heard of Mary MacKillop ing the canonization Mass, is that of attending until, as a graduate teacher, my first position several ANZAC dawn services at the St Kilda was teaching Year One at a Josephite school Road Shrine. Beginning in the still darkness, in far flung Kununurra in the remote East Kim- we cued from 6:30 a.m. and stood excitedly berley region of Western Australia. It was in and patiently as dawn broke over Rome and this year that I developed a deep respect and the cool light of day gently began to illumi- passion for the charism and spirit of Mary nate the massive dome of St Peter’s Basilica. MacKillop and the contribution of the Sisters After passing security and gaining access of St Joseph to Catholic education in Australia. to the public gallery, we were thrilled at the Most Wednesday evenings I attended a good fortune of not only having seating, but small gathering to celebrate Mass at the con- to be in the front row parallel to the large por- vent, where in the centre of the lounge room trait of MacKillop that hung on the façade of wall hung the well known portrait of a young the Basilica. Mary MacKillop before entering religious life, As the crowd grew, and skyline changed green dress, hair in plats rugged Australian from dramatically dark to cobalt blue, the pi- landscape as background. Nearly twenty years azza swelled to a sea of faces with many Aus- on this image has remained with me as the tralian and the odd Kiwi flag proudly waving Australian woman who so passionately battled throughout the crowd. It was moving to see the challenges and obstacles she encountered the various banners proudly depicting the

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names of parishes from around Australia, other Jack Rendle is pilgrims who had travelled so far to share in Education in Faith this momentous occasion in both the life of Leader at Our Lady the Church and history of Australia. Help of Christians What followed was a succession of goose School, Brunswick East bump moments as I attempted to comprehend VIC the historical significance and truly once in a lifetime of what I was experiencing. Seated amongst the dignitaries in the steps in front of us were Kevin Rudd and Julie Bishop, both of whom responded to our waving and chanting, returning smiles and waves! ing in the Vatican Museum and interior of St The two and a half hours of the Mass Peter’s Basilica, the world’s largest church. passed reasonably quickly as something of the A half day walking tour, following in the life and work of each of the six candidates for footsteps of Mary MacKillop in 1873; visit- canonisation was told in their mother tongue. ing various churches, chapels and gardens that There were joyous cheers and clapping as Sis- were places of personal significance to her and ters of St Joseph, wearing distinctive blue referred to in her journal were also highlights scarves, processed to the altar to undertake of my time in Rome. It was this day that by various roles during the Mass. chance we met Geraldine Doogue and an ABC This truly was a significant experience in film crew. She took the opportunity to inter- my life, and something that has become part view a handful of Australians who had trav- of me and I believe I will remember for my elled to Rome for the canonisation. Much to lifetime, certainly with the prompting of many my amazement, ten seconds of my interview photographs taken to capture the many high- was the first pilgrimage ‘grab’ aired on Com- lights and unique moments during this pilgrim- pass on the evening of the canonisation! age. In addition to Italy, I commenced my pil- Other highlights included a day trip to As- grimage in London where I attended a high sisi, the preserved medieval city and birth and Mass at Westminster Cathedral, mother church burial place of San Francesco and Santa of Catholicism in England and Wales and Chiara. Visiting the Catacombs, the place of ended with a brief visit to Paris where I at- early Christian burial outside the walls of the tended a morning Mass at Sacré Coeur Ba- old city of Rome during pagan rule, and tak- silica before returning to Melbourne.

Holy God, source of all goodness, who show us in Blessed Mary MacKillop a woman of faith living by the power of the cross, teach us, we pray, to embrace what she pioneered, that like her we may show to the world new ways of living the gospel that respect and defend the human dignity of all in our land. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. —From the Prayer of the Church.

Compass #4 2010 text.indd 8 22/12/2010 2:52:18 PM PEACE AND VIOLENCE IN AUSTRALIA Speech at the launch of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Social Justice Statement, Violence in Australia—A Message of Peace, Sept. 22nd, 2010.

CLAUDE MOSTOWIK MSC

ESUS’ WORDS, ‘Love your enemies and Peace quotes Archbishop Oscar Romero: pray for those who persecute you’ (Mat Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Jthew 5:44) set the tone for this Social Jus- Peace is not the silence of cemeteries tice Statement and the everyday challenge to Peace is not the silent result of violent re- us in our streets, schools, workplaces and in- pression. ternational relations to overcome violence and Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution make space for peace. of all to the good of all It is a very difficult challenge. It is easy to Peace s dynamism. be peaceful with people of peace but not easy Peace is generosity. when it comes to the so-called ‘enemy‘. We It is a right and it is duty. have often heard the statement especially from And The Earth Charter says: the USA and from Israel, ‘We do not talk to terrorists!!’ This statement by the Australian We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s his- Catholic Bishops calls us to enact a new script. tory, a time when humanity must choose its future. The difficulty and challenge of Jesus’ words notwithstanding we have some breath- And then: taking examples of forgiveness: the response The choice is ours: form a global partnership to of the mother of Gearoid Walsh, and Irish tour- care for Earth and one another or risk the de- ist who was killed in Sydney in October 2009 struction of ourselves and the diversity of life. after he was punched and fell hitting his head. We have lived and continue to live in a Despite calls for retribution and revenge, his world of holocausts, gulags, killing fields, sui- mother Teresa spoke of the heartbreak she felt cide bombings, and ethnic cleansings. But for the man who struck her son. She did not unless we are willing to embrace the ‘enemy’, want him to serve time in prison. (Sydney i.e., ‘the other’, atrocities will only increase Morning Herald, 30 October 2009, ‘Man as technological advances enable us to harm charged over Irish backpacker’s death’). others even more. There is the example this week of the fam- Miroslav Volf, the Protestant theologian ily of the young policeman who was killed by says: one of his colleagues whilst on duty. We have Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the marvelled at the embodied reconciliation and enemy from the community of humans even as forgiveness of Nelson Mandela in 1970 after I exclude myself from the community of 27 years of imprisonment on Robbin Island. sinners…[for] no one can be in the presence of The attempts to break his spirit and make him the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion—with- hate-filled failed. out transposing the enemy from the sphere of The Social Justice Sunday Statement 2004: monstrous inhumanity into the sphere of shared Peace Be With You: Cultivating a Culture of humanity and herself from the sphere of proud

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innocence into the sphere of common sinful- Claude Mostowik MSC ness. Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, is Director of the p. 124). Missionaries of the He goes on to say, ‘When God sets out to Sacred Heart Justice embrace the enemy, the result is the cross’ and Peace Centre, (Volf, op.cit. p.129). Our culture can regard President of Pax giving as losing and forgiving being for wimps. Christi Australia and It is difficult to give well and forgive well, but Convenor of Pax it is not about overlooking faults, injustice and Christi Australia hurts, but the choice to do things differently. [NSW]. Though love of our enemies is the only attitude that can end the cycle of violence that newly founded non-profit foundation dedi- plagues so many cultures, families and com- cated to ending youth violence—the Tariq munities, often for generations, the difficult Khamisa Foundation (TKF). Both have con- question arises as to how we can forgive when tinued to work to prevent youth violence we have been hurt or someone dear to us has through education on nonviolence by speak- been hurt. ing at schools and other venues with their This weekend in Sydney at a seminar to message. celebrate the achievements of the Decade to So we can be and are called to become Overcome Violence (World Council of channels of the giving and forgiving God. As Churches) one of the speakers, Azim Khamisa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu says in his book, tells how he came to find healing through for- ‘there is no future without forgiveness’. giveness when a fourteen-year-old youth, Tony There are a number of interdependent Hicks, murdered his only son in 1995. Tony threats to peace: was described as mad as hell, without a father • religious intolerance; and teenage mother with little parenting expe- • war, violence, and the arms trade; rience. He found community and solace by • environmental degradation; belonging to a neighbourhood gang. It gave • economic injustice; him pride and an outlet for his anger. Azim’s • patriarchy (cultures of domination, hier only son, Tariq, a college (university) student archy, and control); was delivering pizzas two days a week to make • and oppressive globalisation. some money and he was doing his last deliv- Peace is an irrepressible yearning present n the ery when he was shot for the pizzas and the heart of each person, regardless of his or her cash he had. particular cultural identity. The truth of peace Azim says that when the police came to calls upon everyone to cultivate productive and tell him of his son’s murder, it felt ‘as if a nu- sincere relationships; it encourages them to seek clear bomb had gone off in [my] heart.’ Going out and to follow the paths of forgiveness and into deep mourning and despite support from reconciliation. (Benedict XVI, In Truth, Peace, his mosque, he tried to find ways to accept his Message for the World Day of Peace, January son’s death. ‘Flickers of forgiveness’ came 1, 2006) enabling him to redirect the energy of anger, Desmond Tutu suggests that justice fails hurt and loss into finding ways to prevent this to be done if we only entertain the concept of from occurring again. He realised that there retributive justice. Whereas in restorative jus- were three victims in this tragedy: his son, tice the central concern is to heal breaches, to Tony Hicks, the killer, and the community at redress imbalances, to restore broken relation- large. He made contact with Tony’s grandfa- ships, to seek to rehabilitate both victim and ther, Ples Felix, and invited him to join the perpetrator, who should be given the opportu-

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nity to be reintegrated into the community he beyond just voting every three or four years; has injured. For religious people it comes • transforming values, attitudes and be- down to the belief that each of us is made in haviours that promote peace and strive to trans- God’s image. form situations of potential conflict and vio- Jim Douglass, the American writer and lence into peace. peace activist, says that ‘The first thing to be ‘Violence’ comes in many guises. This disrupted by our commitment to nonviolence Social Justice Statement: Violence in Aus- will not be the system but our own lives.’ I tralia: A message of Peace points to the per- know that my commitment to peace and non- sonal roots of violence in family and commu- violence is challenged many times a day. The nity and social structures. Though manifested fact that I am talking about this subject does at all levels of society, it is frequently experi- not mean that I have arrived. Violence does enced by those who are powerless, excluded not just occur ‘out there. It is very near. It oc- and marginalised such as the homeless, the In- curs when the weak are dominated and con- digenous Australians (systematic theft of chil- trolled - in families, the work place, schools, dren from their parents), assaults recently in our community, and the church; when we al- Sydney and Melbourne on Indian and African low our fears to fool us into making war against students, trafficking in persons for sex and la- innocent people; when we close our doors to bour. The statement also turns to our faith and the stranger; when we ignore the rights of how peace can and does triumph over violence Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. beginning with the vision of ‘Jesus the peace- Wherever our commitment to peace and maker’ leading on to those who follow Jesus nonviolence lies, peace begins with our eve- and work for peace. ryday relationships and involvements. It begins with each of us; and each of us together. Manifestations It begins when we respect the dignity of each person and the interdependence of humanity Few Australians admit to racial intolerance. and all of creation. But it does exist. The Cronulla riots in 2005 In 2004 the Australian Catholic Bishops showed how easy it to scratch racism’s itch. Conference issued a timely social justice state- Racism degrades the victim, perpetrator and ment Peace Be With You during UNESCO’s onlooker. It degrades integrity and human Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonvio- rights. ‘What else can you expect from one of lence for the Children of the World and the ‘them’? Be it a person who is Jewish, Mus- World Council of Churches’ Decade to Over- lim, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, Viet- come Violence. The word ‘culture’ suggested namese, Chinese, Lebanese, Sudanese, or a • an environment of peacebuilding; person from some other maligned group of • a spirituality of action; recent decades. From the outset there was fear • the interdependence of humanity and of the ‘other’—and the ‘other’s’ agenda. Rac- creation; ism has no homeland, no borders and no sci- • a space where the welfare of all is a entific basis. It can occur in the words and high priority; actions of parents at sports games. Gay and • where people are valued above con- lesbian people still come in for abuse—and sumerism, material accumulation, status and bullying in school. We make comments about comfort. people’s backgrounds when they do things we • It called for a respect for diversity and dislike—whether driving, not standing in a the welcoming (not mere tolerating) of differ- queue, or unawareness of other unwritten rules. ence, equality, empowerment, The Statement addresses politicians and • a participation in public life that goes shock-jocks who exploit our fear of the ‘other’

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in the outback, the Middle East, the Pacific We need to see that violence/injustice/ and Asia. The laws we have enacted against abuse of human rights are not abstractions but our worst tendencies to dabble in behaviour the real experiences of suffering and grief. that offends against people of colour, other Behind the statistics on poverty, malnutrition, race, nationality or creed (Racial Discrimina- exclusion, homelessness and destitution is a tion Act, Human Rights and Equal Opportu- suffering person. nity Act, Racial Hatred Act, Declaration on We might need to embrace a global citi- the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance zenship A definition of peace needs to go be- and Discrimination Based on Religion or Be- yond the shortsighted demands of national lief, International Convention on the Elimina- security to human security that includes a con- tion of All Forms of Racial Discrimination) cern for human life and dignity. If we ask a were cold comfort to Indian students attacked person from the first world about the meaning and robbed recently. And various attempts at of security we might hear responses such as explanation amounted to blaming the victim. more walls, locks, defenses, private security It is interesting that Alfred Deakin, the leg- companies, but a person from the third world islative architect of our Constitution (51, xxvi), might say that security lay in health and medi- reasoned: cine, education and housing. Archbishop Os- It is not the bad qualities, but the good qualities car Romero said, ‘the only peace that God of these alien races that make them so danger- wants is a peace based in justice.’ But: ous to us. It is their inexhaustible energy, their • is peace possible when people are made power of applying themselves to new tasks, their to work in dehumanising conditions? endurance and low standard of living that make • is peace possible when finance is avail- them such competitors. able for another prison rather than a school or Though violence exists in many situations hospital? and relationships; it is often disconnected from • is peace possible when millions are our thoughts, actions, attitudes and words: hungry? (racist language; put-downs disguised as jokes; • is peace possible when people doe not scapegoating; excluding people in both school have a living wage? and other places; refusing to listen or dialogue • is peace possible when we fail to think with homosexuals, women, youth, people of sustainable by living in harmony with the natu- other cultures; labeling people; domination and ral environment? control; bullying; social inequity; detaining • is peace possible when many do not asylum seekers and psychological torture; pro- have equal opportunity to access educational, motion of suspicion; punishment rather than cultural, and financial resources? rehabilitation; neglect of Indigenous people This calls for an engagement and partici- and people living with mental illness. pation in civil life through public dialogue and inclusive deliberation so that better systems No Peace Without Justice of living together can be built. It is a compassion coming from a commitment to struggle Peace is not possible without struggling for with and for others so that all may live digni- justice. It includes a just and equitable distri- fied lives. bution of the world’s resources. We know of Miroslav Volf says that we need to enlarge the inequalities where over half of the world’s our thinking, population lives on less than $2 a day. It is …by letting the voices and perspectives of oth- war on billions of people. Peace requires real ers, especially those with whom we may be in justice. (Robert Jensen, Beyond Peace, Me- conflict, resonate within ourselves, by allow- dia With Conscience, March 17, 2008) ing them to help us see them, as well as our-

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selves, from their perspective, and if needed, who is the peace between us. Jesus’ teaching readjust our perspectives as we take into account provides circuit breakers that reverse the cy- their perspectives. (Volf, p. 213) cles of hostility and violence. We can choose We cannot assume that we have a monopoly an alternative to the traditional ‘software pro- on the truth. It is a prerequisite to establishing grams’ on which our culture operates. It calls any lasting peace, because it is the only atti- us to take initiatives and to jar ourselves and tude that can prevent a group from taking out others loose from the ‘spell’ of violence, the their swords with dogmatic judgmental zeal. typical action/reaction cycle. Dialogue’ is an opportunity for mutual edu- Just as we can take these steps in our per- cation. We can create a space for peace to hap- sonal lives, we can also join with others to pen by listening to each other’s stories and confront patterns of violence and injustice at finding narratives that do justice to the ‘truths’ the social or cultural level in this way. Every in both. A failure to make peaceful changes successful nonviolent social movement has possible in our economy, politics, and moral- accomplished the task of exposing the offend- ity will make inevitable the conflicts that arise ing script of violence or domination it was from these and other unacceptable inequali- struggling against and then rewriting that ties. script, enacting a drama that forgoes the typi- We need to view global systems not from cal bad ending for one that is more human and the perspective of the dominant and those in just. Active nonviolence is this process of re- control, but from the perspective of society’s vision and re-enactment. Active nonviolence most downtrodden populations: the culturally challenges us to see and transform the deadly subjugated and the economically dispossessed. cultural and personal scripts that we blindly Dr Mark Peel, a social researcher at Monash rehearse and perform—and produce a drama University says that they have experiences and which is unexpectedly, creatively, and lovingly stories that many of us never know. They must human. be able to decide which forms of development We can do things differently. We can go are appropriate for their lives, and which forms against the tide. The scripts of violence can of materialism are not appropriate. be re-written and be transformed. It requires Despite witnessing distressing levels of the creation of a new script that interrupts the poverty, militarism, and consumption, there are violence played out in our own lives and in some exemplary scenes of human integrity. the world. This new script comes out of con- Peace and justice do not come by waiting to version. The gospel presents us with the script see if others will act. We can be more com- of love and the Bible continually reminds us passionate. We can be more humane. We can that this world is the theatre of God’s love. live in peace. Peace has become our most im- That love lives within each of us and is poured portant challenge. Peace cannot be grasped. It into the world in ever new and concrete acts. is fragile and easily broken. To communicate It rewrites the ‘old scripts’ of violence and peace requires a spirit of humility and recon- domination. The choice to play one of these ciliation. roles in the production of violent conflict— It is easy to point the finger but Jesus taught whether emotional, verbal or physical violence us to love our enemies. He taught us to be in our own homes, in our work places, in the peace in a world where it does not exist. If we streets, or on the national and international are not found in places of darkness, then how scene—means we remain on the way of suf- will the light of peace be seen in the world? fering and dehumanisation. True nonviolence enacts a new script. The Jesus was crucified because of how he ate. bishops’ statement tries to do this as it presents Radical inclusiveness evokes a sense of ac- to us the vision of the one who was peace and ceptance, warmth, love, healing and happi-

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ness. It takes on a different flavour in the Media strong line from the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Love your enemies’. Yes, they have to be Violence in the media affects us in many ways. embraced and included—even the most ob- We can be repelled but then become numb to noxious characters (Pilate, Herod, Judas). it in such a way that it does not affect us Not only to include but also to forgive. Love anymore. As with violence in the home, it can of enemies is empty rhetoric if these people become a way of life. The worst thing that can cannot be included. This is where we forge occur is that it stunts our conscience where it the link between the radical inclusiveness and is no longer seen as destructive and accepted the commitment to nonviolence. ‘Love your as inevitable. enemies’: this is where the rubber hits the Satish Kumar wanted to walk the world for road. The gospels take forgiveness to a new peace and so walked from Mahatma Gandhi’s level. The story of the Good Samaritan grave in Delhi to John F. Kennedy’s grave. At changes the concept of neighbour by offer- the India-Pakistan border, friends and relatives ing one without barriers or boundaries. The farewelled and warned them of the dangers of only landmark is unconditional love: every- Pakistan - an enemy and a Muslim country. one is your neighbour. Preferential treatment They were fearful that he refused to take is not for the good and holy but for those money or accept a ride from anyone. Coming considered nobodies, the rabble, and the re- through passport control and customs, Satish jected, by the prevailing culture. was amazed to find a young man waiting with garlands of marigold flowers. Having heard Church of these two Indians walking for peace to Moscow, he wanted to offer them hospitality. It seems difficult for the church to speak with This hospitality was replicated as they walked credibility about violence if it does not deal through Afghanistan, Persia, Iran, the Soviet with violence within its own walls. There are Union, and then Poland, Eastern Germany, alternative stories of subversion, resistance, Western Germany, Belgium, France, England human equality and radical community in the and the USA. They had passed through many scriptures that have been muted, dismissed or different cultures – Muslim, Jewish, Christian, spiritualised out of harm’s way. Theology has Hindu, Buddhist among the Russians, Asians, legitimised male dominance, confirmed by a Americans, Europeans, Socialists, and Com- masculine God. We see it in the continued use munists. They found that when we dig down of language that appears to collude with the deep and touch the humanity, people are the frames of violence that serve the powerful and same everywhere. Satish said: ‘If I went as an silence the weak and marginalised. This Bish- Indian with a flag, I would meet a Pakistani. If ops’ Statement must also be a call to our church I went as a Hindu proclaiming Hinduism’s communities to be places of courage that of- supremacy, I would meet a Christian or a fer hospitality, celebrate diversity and confront Muslim saying, ‘No, no, no! We have got the abuse with honesty, care and integrity. The best religion.’ If I go as a Socialist I’ll meet a vision and mandate for the Decade to Over- Capitalist. If I go as a brown man I’ll meet a come Violence calls on us to listen to the sto- black man or white man. But if I go as a hu- ries of those who are the victims of direct and man being I’ll meet only human beings. institutionalised violence in the church who might be kept quiet by exclusion, fear and Eucharist marginalisation. We cannot continue to claim For those who participate in the Eucharist two that the violence we do to others and upon important words emerge. These are: ‘remem- creation is sanctioned by God. bering’ and ‘forgetting’. We know that Christ’s

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sacrifice overcomes the distinction between on September 11 but on December 25 when friend and enemy by absorbing the violence the Word became incarnate in human history. of humanity. He shows how God overturns our Peacebuilding is not a passive activity but normal expectations of justice, and absorbs the an action-oriented endeavour that takes time, violence we ourselves do and that God over- integrity, ingenuity, commitment, determina- comes violence by becoming the victim of vio- tion, discipline, restraint and sacrifice. We need lence. The resurrection shows us a God who to adopt a vision of peace and enact it daily sides with the victim. We too are called to iden- with the deep conviction that we can make a tify with the victims of this; to overcome the difference, and be as Gandhi said: ‘…the opposition between ‘them’ and ‘us’. So at the change you wish to see.’ It is a radical depar- heart of injustice and violence consists a ‘lie’. ture from war and violence that assumes that The lie is that those we ignore, neglect, ac- force can effectively control people or situa- cuse, condemn, attack, or kill are ‘not like us’. tions. We are called to do something bold, They do not share our common humanity. This courageous and risky: let us seek answers and is the ‘forgetting’ or ‘amnesia’ that is opposite question the answers offered by anyone—po- to ‘remembering’ or ‘anamnesis’. The forget- litical leaders, clergy, teachers, family mem- ting that the anamnesis seeks to undo is the bers—who say the answer to violence is more forgetting that occurs when we justify violence. violence. To question their answers is to risk Anamnesis means that things are is not the way scorn, to be labeled naïve, or impractical. Each things have to be. To participate in this remem- of us is a leader. There is no one else. bering is to live inside God’s imagination The Franciscan priest, Father Mychal where not even the smallest creature is forgot- Judge, who died at the World Trade Center, ten (Luke 12:6-7). ‘To remember’ is to remem- preaching the day before 9/11 said, ‘No mat- ber that we are one flesh and our existence is ter how big the call, no matter how small, you bound up with one another. But we tolerate have no idea what God is calling you to do …. violence when the other is not like me and so But God needs you, He needs me, He needs able to be demonised. This thinking made pos- all of us…. Not just Christians or Jews, but sible gross acts of inhumanity [the Crusades, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, athe- the Inquisition, apartheid, colonisation and ists, the right, the left, everyone.’ We all have enslavement of the African people, the Holo- a role to play. None should be involved in in- caust, the Rwandan genocide, ethnic cleans- flaming hatred and prejudice or violating the ing in the Balkans, homophobia, Katrina, Cam- rights of others or considering oneself supe- bodia, etc}. rior. Another aspect of anamnesis is ‘re- In conclusion, I wish to once again express membering’ the body—knitting together, over- my delight that the Bishops of Australia have coming the distance between friend and en- offered another call to peace as they did in emy. If we live inside God’s imagination, we 2004. We need to hear this message day in and will see that even the people we most demonise day out because peace and nonviolence are a as enemies are made in God’s image. Further- daily call and challenge. In conclusion, I be- more, they have something to teach us about lieve that this Statement might have had more ourselves. Peace is not achieved by torturing strength as a message to the people of Aus- and bombing people. We have made terrorists tralia if it could also have dealt in some small faster than we can kill them. Only by address- way with violence within the church and how ing the underlying causes of terrorism honestly people can feel marginalised or actually be is peace possible. The world did not change marginalised.

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DENIS EDWARDS

HE TWENTIETH century has left us thumb, but then, he continues: ‘Then you re- some important legacies. One of the alize that on this beautiful, warm, blue and Tpositive legacies is a wonderfully en- white circle, is everything that means anything riched understanding of the universe of which to you,’ all of nature and history, birth and love, we are a part. Based originally on Albert Ein- and then you are changed forever.1 I am con- stein’s work on general relativity and the as- vinced that this vision of Earth as one inter- tronomical observations of Edwin Hubble, connected planetary community represents a twentieth century science took us from the idea precious new moment in cultural history. that we inhabit one galaxy, to the view that At the same time we are doing terrible, ir- our galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of billions retrievable damage to the forests, the rivers, of galaxies in the observable universe, and that the seas, the soil and the atmosphere of Earth. this universe is not static but expanding dy- Our use of fossil fuels is contributing to cli- namically. We now know that our universe mate change that accelerates the extinction of began from an unthinkably small, dense and many other species and will cause great suf- hot state 13.7 billion years ago, and that it has fering to human beings. We are destroying been expanding and cooling ever since. It is habitats all over our planet. If we continue on made up of something like a hundred billion this path, if we continue to destroy forests and galaxies, and our Milky Way Galaxy is esti- to exploit the land, the rivers and the seas ruth- mated to contain about two hundred billion lessly, we will pass on to coming generations stars. an impoverished planet. Many wonderful One of these stars is the Sun, with our beau- forms of life will be gone forever. These forms tiful home, Earth, set just at the right distance of life, I believe, have their own integrity, their from the Sun to nourish and sustain life. Part own right to exist. When we destroy them reck- of our legacy is the picture we now have of lessly, we do something that is terribly wrong Earth as a blue-green planet set against the in itself. But it is also wrong because it be- inter-stellar darkness of space. Unlike other trays our intergenerational obligations. We generations of human beings, unlike Moses, deprive our children and our grandchildren of Jesus, or Newton, we can see Earth as a whole. what has always nurtured humanity, its spir- We have a picture of what it is like to observe ituality, its art, its joy-in-life. We do them a Earth-rise from the moon. We have a new ap- very great wrong. preciation of Earth’s hospitality to life. We can see human beings as a global community. We Planetary Spirituality have an imaginative picture of the intercon- nections of human beings with all other spe- In this context, something is emerging that I cies on our planet and with the life-systems, think can be called a planetary spirituality. the seas, the atmosphere, the land, the forests People around the globe have begun to recog- and the rivers. Astronaut Rusty Schweigert nize that we are called to a new way of being says that, from the moon Earth appears so on Earth. There is a growing movement of small that you could block it out with your people who are connected in a common love

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of Earth and its creatures, a movement of farm- Fr Denis Edwards is ers, artists, school children, scientists, indus- senior lecturer in trialists, politicians and religious leaders, peo- theology at the Flinders ple living in villages as well as in great cities. University School of Many have undergone, and are still undergo- Theology and Adelaide ing, a process of conversion as they commit College of Divinity. He themselves to a life-style and a politics that has recently published involves respecting and protecting other spe- How God Acts: Creat- cies and enabling them to flourish, conserv- ion, Redemption, and ing the forests, the rivers, the seas and land, Special Divine Action with Fortress and ATF and handing on to future generations the Press. bounty of our planet I am convinced that this movement, for all always been available, even when we have its obvious human limitations and sinfulness, failed to attend to them. What is new is the can be understood as a new form of global sense that we form one global community of spirituality, in Christian terms as a work of the human beings beyond all barriers of race and Holy Spirit. The Spirit who breathed life into class and nation, that we need each other, and the whole creation from the beginning, the that we are deeply interconnected with all the Holy Spirit who is the very Breath of Life, now other creatures, with the Milky Way Galaxy, breathes through our human community call- with rain forests, with the marine life of the ing us to a new respect for life, for each and reefs, with this ancient tree, with the flower- every human being in all their unique dignity, ing plant before us. Planetary spirituality in- and for the other creatures who share this volves not only a real receptivity and respect planet, for great ancient trees in old-growth for the natural world, but a deep sense of glo- forests, for unknown insects in rain forests, for bal solidarity, and a radical, life-long commit- threatened species of birds and fish, for the ment to act for the good of the whole Earth great whales of the Southern Ocean. community. Many of us find a sense of mystery, won- At the heart of this planetary spirituality is der and transcendence in our experience of the the sense that all is given. Life in all its diver- natural world; looking up at the Milky Way sity and beauty is a most beautiful and pre- through clear skies and pondering the unthink- cious gift. It is not to be abused or squandered. able size and wonder of our galaxy and its part It is a gift given by a generous and bountiful in the universe; walking in a rain forest and God. The creatures we encounter are the ex- being caught up in amazement at the extrava- pressions of divine self-giving. This is not to gant exuberance of so many forms of life; qui- suggest a romantic or idealized view of the etly contemplating a great, old River Red Gum natural world, but a clear-eyed view of its evo- in dry creek bed; being overwhelmed by the lutionary dynamics, of the costs of evolution beauty and abundance of marine life on the as well as its fruitful outcomes, of predation Great Barrier Reef; simply attending to one and extinctions as well as mutual interdepend- flower before us and truly appreciating its fra- ence and cooperation. A planetary spirituality gility and its beauty. In these and many other will need to see the universe of creatures of experiences we are taken beyond ourselves which we are a part in all its finitude, well into mystery and awe. All of this, I think, is aware of the ‘groaning’ of creation (Rom. 8), part of an ecological and planetary spiritual- yet also rejoicing in its beauty, fecundity and ity. diversity and standing before it as most amaz- Human spirituality and human aesthetics ing gift. are nurtured by such experiences. They have In attempting to describe this new experi-

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ence of planetary spirituality, I am very con- human beings. We are called to do all we can scious that here in this land we have the pre- to ensure that the beauty and bounty of Earth cious heritage of a very ancient, indigenous can be the heritage of our children, grandchil- spirituality, with its sense of the land as a nur- dren and great grandchildren. turing mother, with the natural world under- We are part of the abundant and diverse stood as sacred, and with human beings un- history of life that has emerged on this blue- derstood as called to be custodians of the land. green planet over the last 3.7 billion years. We I think that a Christian spirituality for the now know that we are deeply connected to the twenty-first century has a great deal to learn emergence of the universe, that we are chil- from this indigenous spirituality. It also has dren of the universe. But along with this cos- much to learn from the spirituality of other mic sense we know that we are grounded here, religious traditions. One of the signs of the that Earth is our home, that we are deeply times in Australia, and in many other places, rooted in the life-systems of our planet, in the is not only the growing pluralism of religions, interconnected web of life. Alongside the sense but also the pluralism of spiritualities. There of the cosmic, we know that the local and the is a growing experience of meeting others be- particular matters, this place, this bioregion, yond the borders of traditions in forms of medi- this river, this species, this animal, this tree. tation and prayer, and the emergence of interfaith experiences of spirituality. There are Christian Spirituality also those no longer in contact with particular religious traditions, who still see themselves This transformation to an ecological con- as engaged in a spiritual quest. In recent times sciousness is already underway, but it needs researchers like David Tacey2 in Australia and the cooperation, the commitment and the best Ursula King3 in the United Kingdom have efforts of the whole human community. I be- pointed to the growing phenomenon of the lieve that the role of the religions of the world emergence of spirituality that is not closely is crucial. For many people, their faith tradi- linked to the great religious traditions. tion is at the centre of who they are. Whether What I am suggesting is that there is a new, they are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, emerging experience of ecological spiritual- Christian or belong to another tradition, it is ity, a planetary spirituality shared by people religious faith that can provide the deepest, of various religious traditions and by people strongest and most enduring ground for their not committed to any religion. We have a new commitment to Earth and its creatures. This sense of ourselves as a human community means, I believe, that those of us who belong within a global community of life, where every to such traditions have to do our best to bring form of life has its own intrinsic value. This out the ecological meaning of our spiritual tra- emerging spirituality involves a respect for the ditions. And we need to do this is such a way dignity of each human being and for the gift as to build a new consensus between us about and potential of the intellectual, artistic, ethi- care for the planet as central to spirituality. cal and spiritual life of the human community. Here I will point very briefly to some of It involves a sense of belonging with, and of the ways that Christian tradition can support interdependence with, the other creatures of an ecological spirituality for today. It is im- our planet, and a commitment to their well- portant to acknowledge that biblical faith can being. There is a new awareness of account- be, and has been, co-opted as a basis for ruth- ability to the future of life. We know that we less exploitation of Earth and it resources, and are responsible for the flourishing of life in all that it has often been presented in a damag- its abundance in the future. And we know that ing, other-worldly way. I am convinced that we are responsible to future generations of this is a fundamentally flawed reading of the

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Scriptures as a whole and of Christian faith.4 we, and all other creatures with us, ‘live and It is important to acknowledge, as well, that move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28). Eliza- many Christian communities have not been in beth Johnson writes: the forefront of the ecological movement. I see In our day we discover that the great, incom- this as all the more reason to point to the in- prehensible mystery of God, utterly transcend- terconnection between what is central to Chris- ent and beyond the world, is also the dynamic tianity and an ecological spirituality for our power at the heart of the natural world and its time. evolution. Groaning with the world, delighting What is specific to Christian spirituality in its advance, keeping faith with its failures, and to the Christian view of God is its concept energizing it graciously from within, the Crea- of God as Trinity. Christianity finds the deep- tor Spirit is with all creatures in their finitude and death, holding them in redemptive love and est truth about God, the God who embraces drawing them into an unforeseeable future in and enables the emergence and existence of the divine life of communion. Rather than be- every creature on our planet, in the conviction ing simply stages on the way to Homo sapiens, that God is Communion. God is a Trinity of the whole rich tapestry of the created order has endlessly dynamic mutual love. We find this its own intrinsic value, being the place where God revealed to us in Jesus, his preaching and God creatively dwells.5 practice of the kingdom, his death and resur- By the action of this same Creator Spirit, rection and in the Pentecostal outpouring of the Word through whom all things come into the Spirit. God gives God’s very self to us in being is made flesh and lived among us (John the Word made flesh and in the Spirit poured 1:14). What is at the heart of Christianity is out in grace. In what follows I will focus on the conviction that the God of creation, the three ways in which this Triune God is under- utterly transcendent God, gives God’s self to stood as acting for us, in creation, incarnation creatures out of love in the incarnation. In and in the resurrection of the crucified Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth, a living, breathing, frag- Creation is an absolutely free gift. In the ile creature of our planet, like us the product life of the Trinity there is an endless of 3.7 billion years of evolutionary history, generativity of the Word and a breathing forth God takes matter and biology to God’s very of the Spirit, in an eternal, dynamic commun- self. In the life, death and resurrection of Je- ion of love that involves radical equality and sus, God forgives human sin, restores the total mutuality. Creation occurs because this image of God in us, adopts us as God’s be- God freely chooses to give God’s self to a com- loved children, and deifies us, transforming munity of creatures. Creation springs forth us by grace so that we might participate in from within the divine life. God creates the trinitarian life of God. through the Word and in the Holy Spirit. The In Jesus of Nazareth, God has embraced universe and all its creatures exist out of noth- not just the human creatures of our planet, but ing, as God holds all things in being through the whole emergent world of biological life, the Word and in the Spirit, enabling them to rain forests and insects, wallabies and whales, exist, to interact and to evolve into what is new. and the land, the seas and the atmosphere that Every creature is a word that reflects the eter- support life. God has become an Earth crea- nal Word and Wisdom of God. A great rain ture, one of us, part of the interconnected web forest, a threatened species, this flower before of life, so that all of Earth’s creatures might me, is an icon of divine Wisdom. Each has its be transformed in God, each in its own dis- own integrity before God. tinctive way. This means that a Christian view In every creature, the Creator Spirit dwells, of creation, and a Christian ecological spiritu- closer to it that it is to itself, breathing it into ality, will be incarnational and christological. existence and life. It is in this triune God that It will also be grounded in the Christian con-

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viction of the bodily resurrection of the cruci- The Way of Wisdom fied Jesus. As Paul said long ago, it is Christ cruci- In the biblical book of Proverbs, we are told fied who is the true Wisdom and the Power that Wisdom is a cosmic principle, involved of God (1 Cor 1:24, 30). Because of the res- with God in the whole of creation, delighting urrection, divine Wisdom is forever the cru- in the creation of all things. Yet she comes to cified one, Jesus of Nazareth, the flesh and be with us: ‘Wisdom has built her house’ in blood member of the biological community our midst, she has set her table and invited all of Earth. God is forever human. God is for- to her feast (Prov 8:22-9:1). In the book of ever biological. God is forever matter. And Sirach, we hear how cosmic Wisdom has this constitutes an unbreakable divine prom- pitched her tent among us (Sir 24:8). In the ise not just to human beings but to the whole Wisdom of Solomon, we find that Wisdom is creation, a hope ‘that the creation itself will the ‘fashioner of all things’ (Wis 7:22) who be set free from its bondage to decay and will comes to those who love her: ‘She hastens to obtain the freedom of the glory of the chil- make herself known to those who desire her. dren of God’ (Rom 8:21). It is important to One who rises early to seek her will have no note that we have no good imaginative pic- difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the ture of God’s future for ourselves or for other gate…she goes about seeking those worthy of creatures. As Paul says, ‘we hope for what her, and she graciously appears to them in their we do not see’ (Rom 8:25). And we Chris- paths, and meets them in every thought’ (Wis tians need to admit that we have often made 6:12-16). this hope into something Platonic and Jesus was a Wisdom teacher, in the tradi- otherworldly. But the true biblical hope at the tion of the sages of Israel, who taught in para- heart of Christianity is a hope for this world, bles taken from nature and from human affairs. based on a divine promise that this world will He found God at work in the world around be transformed in Christ, when all things him. He is reported to have insisted on the reach their own fulfillment (Col 1:15-20). importance of seeing things properly: ‘The eye And in this process, our own participation, is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is our loving acts, our ecological commitments healthy, your whole body will be full of light; and actions, will have lasting significance. but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body Nothing will be lost. All will be transformed will be full of darkness’ (Matt 6: 22-23). Jesus in Christ and brought to its proper fulfillment himself must have keenly observed the world by the Spirit of God. around him, the birds of the air and the A Christian ecological spirituality will be wildflowers of Galilee, the way the tiniest shaped, I believe, by these central Christian seeds produce great shrubs in which birds can truths, of creation, incarnation and the resur- nest, the way a woman mixes a little yeast in rection of the crucified. These Christian doc- the dough and the result is the marvelous sight, trines cannot be separated one from the other. smell and taste of newly baked bread. Jesus They are deeply interconnected in what Chris- lived the way of Wisdom. He taught that ‘not tianity sees as the divine economy of self-be- one sparrow will fall to the ground without stowing love. All of them involve not just hu- your Father’ (Matt 10:29). man beings but, with them, the whole crea- For Christians, following Jesus means fol- tion. The Word in whom all things were cre- lowing the way of Wisdom, seeing all things ated is the Word made flesh, that all flesh, and as loved by God, and as revelatory of God. all creation, might be transformed by the Spirit Christians see Jesus as divine Wisdom, Wis- and brought to its fulfillment in the dynamic dom made flesh.6 Paul tells us that Christ cru- life of the Trinity. cified is the true Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24,

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30). In the light of his resurrection, Jesus was erations. Conversion to the Earth, to solidar- celebrated by the first Christians as the cos- ity with the creatures that make up our plan- mic Wisdom of God, the one in whom all etary community, must involve action. It is not things are created and all things are reconciled: only a radical reorientation of thought, and it ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the is not only the discovery of a new capacity for firstborn of all creation; for in him all things feeling for non-human creation. It is both of in heaven and earth were created…and through these issuing forth in personal, political and him God was pleased to reconcile all things to ecclesial action. himself’ (Col 1:15-20). The way of Wisdom involves both enlight- Following the way of Wisdom today in- enment and action together. To act wisely is volves a paschal experience of the cross and not only to act in accord with all the available resurrection, an experience of vulnerability empirical evidence, but also to act in a way and grace, of letting go of self and finding that is at one with the gift of the Spirit breath- abundance. To follow Jesus-Wisdom is to see ing through creation and breathing love in us. every sparrow as held and loved by God. It is Loving knowledge is the kind of knowing we also to see every sparrow and every great soar- have of a beloved friend. It is not a love that ing tree as created in the Wisdom of God that claims to comprehend or to control the other, is made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. To live in but recognizes the other, even in the intimacy wisdom, in the full Christian sense, means see- of deep friendship, as an abiding mystery. I ing the whole of creation as coming forth from think this kind of loving knowledge is an im- the dynamic abundance of the Trinity, as evolv- portant foundation for ecological practice. It ing within the dynamism of the life of the is a knowing that recognizes the limits of what Three, and as destined to find fulfillment in we can claim to know, that accepts the mys- this shared life. tery of the other in humility. But I think a spirituality of Wisdom is A sound eye, seeing things rightly, is of the shared in different ways by many religious tra- essence of the way of Wisdom. Sallie McFague ditions. Perhaps from all our different religious contrasts the ‘arrogant eye’ with the ‘loving backgrounds we can cooperate to build a wise eye.’ The arrogant eye is characteristic of the way of living on our planet, a Wisdom way of typical Western attitude to the natural world. life for a global community. Such a way of It objectifies, manipulates, uses and exploits. Wisdom would involve us all in an ongoing The loving eye does not come automatically conversion to a new, ecological way of feel- to us. It requires training and discipline to see ing, thinking, and acting in our world. It clearly things with a loving eye. McFague points out would demand a new life-style and politics. that the loving eye requires detachment in or- The way of Wisdom is the way of loving der to see the difference, distinctiveness and knowledge, knowledge through love. If it is to the uniqueness of the other. Too often we im- be an authentic ecological spirituality I think agine we know who or what the other is, in- it will involve a rediscovery of asceticism and stead of taking the trouble to find out. true mysticism. It will be a mysticism that finds McFague writes: the incomprehensible mystery of God in the This is the eye trained in detachment in order boundless beauty of the natural world as well that its attachment will be objective, based on as in its strangeness and otherness. It will be a the reality of the other and not on its own wishes or fantasies. This is the eye bound to the other mysticism that involves an enduring, life-long, as is an apprentice to a skilled worker, listening indeed eternal, commitment to the good of to the other as does a foreigner in a new coun- Earth. It will respect and love Earth and all its try. This is the eye that pays attention to the diverse forms of life and act to preserve Earth’s other so that the connections between knower bounty and beauty for present and future gen- and known, like the bond of friendship, will be

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on the real subject in its real world.7 conversion to the side of the poor. Ecological What is required is that we learn to love conversion, like conversion to the side of the others, human and non-human, with a love that poor, will need to involve both the political involves both distance and intimacy. This in- and the mystical, and the discovery of the volves cultivating a loving eye that respects mystical precisely in the political. difference. This is the way of Wisdom, a way What then would a mysticism of ecologi- of seeing each creature in relation to God, in cal praxis, the way of Wisdom, look like? I Christian terms as a unique manifestation of would suggest that it might embrace some of divine Wisdom, as embraced by God in the these kinds of experiences: incarnation and destined to share in the re- • The experience of being caught up in the demption of all things in Christ. Wisdom finds utter beauty of the natural world, when expression in us in conversion from the model this leads to a wonder and a joy that seem of individualism and consumption to the sim- boundless. plicity of what McFague calls ‘life abundant’: • The experience of learning to see what is where what matters are the basic necessities before us with a loving eye. of food, clothes and shelter, medical care, edu- • The experience that all is gift. cational opportunities, loving relationships, • The experience of seeing ourselves as born meaningful work, an enriching imaginative and of and dependent upon the 13.7 billion spiritual life, time with friends, and time spent year history of the evolving and expand- with the natural world around us.8 ing universe, and the product of the 3.7 What I think we need for the twenty-first billion year history of the evolution of century is what might be called a mysticism of life on Earth. ecological praxis. Liberation and political theo- • The experience of the natural world as logians have recognized that those committed to other, of being overwhelmed by natural the cause of liberation need to be both political forces, by the size and age of the uni- and mystical, and the same is true of those com- verse, and of being taken far beyond mitted to the good of the community of life on human comfort zones into a mystery that Earth. The mystical can enable us to hope against is beyond us. hope, to act with integrity and love in the politi- • The experience of being called to ecological and the personal spheres in times of adver- cal conversion, of coming to know other sity and failure, up to and including death. creatures of Earth as kin, of coming to Edward Schillebeeckx says that the mystical know that each has its own value and its seems in modern times ‘to be nurtured above all own integrity. in and through the praxis of liberation.’ Those • The experience of being overwhelmed by committed to a new way of being on Earth dis- the complexity of the ecological crisis, cover the same need for repentance and conver- of perhaps being near despair, but still sion, the same asceticism, the same dark nights, living and acting in hope. as is the case in contemplative mysticism. He • The experience of conversion from the says: ‘Without prayer or mysticism politics soon model of individualism and consumption becomes cruel and barbaric. Without political to the simplicity ‘life abundant’ and love, prayer or mysticism soon becomes senti- knowing in this the truth of God. mental or uncommitted interiority.’9 • The experience of commitment to the good Commitment to the poor and commitment of the whole Earth community, and to to the well-being of life on this planet must go the conserving of the natural world for together as two interrelated dimensions of the future generations, that has the charac- one Christian vocation. Ecological conversion ter of a life-long commitment, which we is not opposed to, but intimately involved with can recognize as sheer grace.

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NOTES 1 In Elizabeth A. Johnson, Quest for the Living Ecological Hermeneutics (Atlanta: Society of God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God Biblical Literature, 2008). For another perspec- (New York: Continuum, 2007), 181. tive, see David Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, Christopher 2. David Tacey, The Spirituality Revolution: The Southgate and Francesca Stavrakopoula (eds.), Emergence of Contemporary Spirituality (Hove, Ecological Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical U.K.: Brunner-Routledge, 2004) and Theological Perspectives (London: T & T 3. Ursula King, The Search for Spirituality: Our Clark, 2010). See also Ernst Conradie, Christi- Global Quest for a Spiritual Life (New York: anity and Ecological Theology: Resources for BlueBridge, 2008). Further Research (Stellenbosch: Sun Press, 4. On this, see the volumes of the Earth Bible 2006). Project: N.C. Habel (ed.), Readings from the Per- 5. Johnson, Quest for the Living God, 198. spective of Earth: The Earth Bible (Sheffield/ 6. On this see my Jesus the Wisdom of God: An Cleveland: Sheffield Academic Press/Pilgrim Ecological Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995) Press, 2000); N.C. Habel and S. Wurst (eds.), The and Ecology at the Heart of Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Earth Story in Genesis: The Earth Bible 2 (Shef- Orbis, 2006). See also Celia Deane-Drummond, field/Cleveland: Sheffield Academic Press/Pil- Eco-Theology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, grim Press, 2000); N.C. Habel and S. Wurst (eds.), 2008) and Christ and Evolution: Wonder and Wis- The Earth Story in Wisdom Traditions: The Earth dom (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009). Bible 3 (Sheffield/Cleveland: Sheffield Academic 7. Sallie McFague, Super, Natural Christians: Press/Pilgrim Press, 2001); N.C. Habel (ed.), The How We Should Love Nature (Minneapolis: For- Earth Story in Psalms and Prophets: The Earth tress Press, 1997), 116. Bible 4 (Sheffield/Cleveland: Sheffield Academic 8. Sallie McFague, Life Abundant: Rethinking Press/Pilgrim Press, 2001); N.C. Habel and V. Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril Balabanski (eds.), The Earth Story in the New Tes- (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 209-210. tament: The Earth Bible 5 (Sheffield/Cleveland: 9. Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus in Our Western Sheffield Academic Press/Pilgrim Press, 2002); Culture: Mysticism, Ethics and Politics (London: N.C. Habel and P. Trudinger (eds.), Exploring SCM, 1987), 75.

Alongside the ecology of nature, there exists what can be called a ‘human’ ecology, which in turn demands a ‘social’ ecology. All this means that humanity, if it truly desires peace, must be increasingly conscious of the links between natural ecology, or respect for nature, and human ecology. Experience shows that disregard for the environment always harms human coexistence, and vice versa. It becomes more and more evident that there is an inseparable link between peace with creation and peace among men. Both of these presuppose peace with God. The poem-prayer of Saint Francis, known as ‘the Canticle of Brother Sun’, is a wonderful and ever timely example of this multifaceted ecology of peace. —Pope Benedict XVI, Message for the World Day of Peace, 2007.

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DENIS TOOHEY

Part One: Towards a Better Understanding of the Doctrine of the Trinity

HE RE-VITALISATION of the doc- to participate actively in this trinitarian life. trine of the Trinity over the past cen- Two very significant insights which have Ttury has allowed better understanding aided better understanding of the trinitarian not only of this great mystery in itself but also mystery have been a reversion to the economy of the practical implications for how we can of salvation—God’s saving work in the live in the image of the triune God. These prac- world—as the focus and a re-definition of ‘per- tical aspects can apply especially in the mari- son’. Walter Kasper regards the Trinity as the tal relationship and to marriage as vocation. mystery of the Christian faith. In this one mys- In this, the first of three linked articles, the tery, the self-communicating love of God can changed approach to understanding the doc- be seen from three perspectives, each its own trine of the Trinity is explored through the mystery: in itself, as the triune being of God; work of two Catholic theologians, Walter in Jesus Christ through the incarnation of God; Kasper and Catherine LaCugna, both of whom and in all the redeemed through humanity’s have developed their own perceptions from the salvation in the Holy Spirit (Kasper 1984, earlier work of others. The formulation of the 270). doctrine of the Trinity by both theologians is With a more specific and a narrower per- outlined and then practical implications are spective, Catherine LaCugna considers the noted. doctrine of the Trinity as ‘the mystery of God The second article will identify twelve par- who saves through Christ by the power of the ticular attributes from this re-vitalised under- Holy Spirit’. God’s work of salvation enacted standing of Trinity and consider them from the through Jesus Christ and the Spirit is no less perspective of their likeness to the marital re- than a full expression of what God actually is. lationship. Through these twelve attributes, it Even though we humans cannot penetrate the will be shown that, in their marital relation- mystery of God, we can be confident that God ship, a man and a woman can together image is not different from the God who acts in the the Trinity, albeit in a limited human way. This history of salvation (LaCugna 1991, 210-11). awareness then leads in the third article to a deeper contemplation of marriage as vocation, Re-focus on the Economy of Salvation God’s call to married couples to use their individual and couple gifts as followers of Christ For many centuries, theologians had used im- in the work of salvation. Various perspectives ages and concepts from the natural world to of marriage as vocation will be developed into probe more deeply into the mystery of the Trin- an understanding of how this vocation can be ity. Along with most contemporary theolo- lived in the life and image of the Trinity. As gians, Kasper sides with Karl Barth’s radical well as imaging Trinity, the married couple not (at the time) insistence that theological under- only can follow this perfect example of unity standing must come from faith itself. ‘A real and community as a model but also is called understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity

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from within is gained only in the light of the Denis Toohey’s M.Theol. economy of salvation’ (Kasper 1984, 272-3). Studies focused on the Even more firmly, LaCugna also ap- theology and spirituality proaches the doctrine of the Trinity from the of marriage. He and his economy of salvation. The true God is revealed wife Margaret have been active in marriage en- to us through God’s actions in the encounter richment ministry dur- with human persons (LaCugna 1991, 211). It ing their forty-year is God’s very self which is bestowed ‘freely, union and are presently utterly and completely’ even though God re- involved in Adelaide in mains ineffable because we cannot fully re- growing Ministry to the ceive or understand this act of bestowal Newly Married. (LaCugna 1991, 231). 1984, 289). Kasper re-interprets Karl Rahner’s identi- LaCugna sees parallels between the fication of the immanent Trinity (the indwell- Cappadocians’ insights in proclaiming ing within Godself) with the economic Trinity personhood rather than substance as the ulti- (the action of the Triune God in the world) to mate principle of being, and the breakthrough mean that the latter is the ‘intra-trinitarian self- in modern Western thought from person as a communication present in the world in a new ‘self’, ‘an individual centre of consciousness way, namely, under the veil of historical words, and a free intentional subject’, to a view (es- signs and actions, and ultimately in the figure poused by John Macmurray) of ‘self’ as a per- of the man Jesus of Nazareth’ (Kasper 1984, son with ‘personal existence…constituted by 276). relationship with other persons’ (LaCugna LaCugna understands Rahner’s ‘rule’ to 1991, 250 & 256). Because the character of a mean ‘God’s way of being in relationship person is revealed by his or her actions and with us—which is God’s personhood—is a behaviour in relation to other persons, then perfect expression of God’s being as God. LaCugna sees that the personal character of In God alone is there full correspondence God is revealed by God’s acts in the economy between personhood and being’ (LaCugna (LaCugna 1991, 259). 1991, 304-5). From her wide considerations of contemporary thinking, LaCugna derives eight ‘notes’ The meaning of ‘Person’ of personhood. Because a person is someone who in essence relates to other persons, any The terminology of fatherhood, sonship and reference to ‘an isolated person’ is self-con- passive spiration has been coined to describe tradictory. Each person is an unexplainable, the three mutually-opposed relations in God real and unique product of creation having el- referred to as ‘the three divine persons’ ements that of necessity include dimensions (Kasper 1984, 280-1). However, Kasper points of reaching out to others; such elements in- out that the idea of three persons in one nature clude sexuality, purposeful intelligence and became ontologically and psychologically love, hopes and dreams, and freedom in will. impossible when, in the modern period, per- Each person is the basis of a nature, so that son came to be defined as ‘a self-conscious ‘natural’ in this sense is that which leads each free centre of action and as individual person- person to self-fulfilment as well as to commun- ality’ (Kasper 1984, 285). Later, modern per- ion with others. In each person there is a ten- sonalism made it ‘entirely clear that person sion between self-love and self-gift which ena- exists only in relation; that in the concrete, bles a freedom for and towards others, with- personality exists only as interpersonality, sub- out that ‘freedom for’ over-riding the person’s jectivity only as intersubjectivity’ (Kasper other need, the need for self-interest. There

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are two ways in which persons are catholic; of God is chosen as the starting point since they are an inclusive part of all creation and love itself can only be thought of as personal each human is a unique example of what it and relational. In contrast, the theistic notion means to be ‘human’, just as each divine per- of a unipersonal God would require a coun- son is a unique example of what it means to terpart for God and the obvious counterpart be ‘divine.’ To achieve personhood requires would be humanity, thus precluding the tran- the exercise of discipline to rise above those scendence of God and God’s freedom in love aspects which of themselves would mean a (Kasper 1984, 299). person’s life was no more than mere biologi- Kasper sees the high-priestly prayer in John cal existence. Each person is a rapidly devel- 17 as the clearest New Testament basis for a oping entity in that each new relationship of doctrine of the Trinity because it summarises itself adds to one’s personhood so that each the saving work of Jesus in trinitarian form person is a continually new and evolving en- (Kasper 1984, 303). Within it, knowing and tity. To live in right relationship in commun- acknowledging the God of Jesus Christ as ‘the ion with other persons is what ‘salvation’ only true God’ results in the glorification of means and is the ideal of Christian faith God and of the life of the world. While Jesus’ (LaCugna 1991, 288-92). prayer specifically defines the oneness of God LaCugna notes that if we use the term ‘per- as a communion of Father and Son, it indi- son’ of God, whether we are referring to the rectly implies also a communion of Father, Son three persons or one of them, we are not de- and Spirit—as a unity in love. God’s oneness scribing the essence of God as it is in itself, is in the love that exists only in the giving of but using an expression that points beyond it- itself, the communion of love occurring within self to God’s ineffability (LaCugna 1991, 305). a single nature (Kasper 1984, 305-6). Kasper agrees that referring to the Trinity Kasper adapts the reflections of Richard in terms of ‘persons’, while helpful to some of St Victor to offer a plausible consideration extent, also has its limitations because ‘every of the mystery of the Trinity: similarity is accompanied by an even greater Each of the three modes in which the one love dissimilarity’ (Kasper 1984, 289). Kasper goes of God subsists is conceivable only in relation on to point out: to the other two. The Father as pure self-giving Since in God not only the unity but also the cannot exist without the Son who receives. differentiation is always greater than in human …[The Son] exists only in and through the giv- interpersonal relationships, there is an infinitely ing and receiving… But this reciprocal love also greater inter-relationality and interpersonality presses beyond itself… [and] incorporates a in God and among the divine persons because third who therefore exists only insofar as he of, not despite, their infinitely greater unity. The receives his being from the mutual love between divine persons are not only in dialogue, they Father and Son. The three persons of the Trin- are dialogue (Kasper 1984, 290). ity are thus pure relationality; they are relations in which the one nature of God exists in three distinct and non-interchangeable ways. They are Formulation of the Doctrine of the Trinity subsistent relations (Kasper 1984, 309). For Kasper, the doctrine of the Trinity must In contrast to Kasper, LaCugna does not start ‘with the Father as the groundless Ground see ‘immanent Trinity’ as synonymous with the of a self-communicating love which brings the ‘inner life of God’ because that would suggest Son and the Spirit into being and at the same that the life of God is something that belongs time unites itself with them in one love.’ Be- to God alone. Rather than seeing two levels to ginning with the freedom in love of the Fa- the life of the Trinity, LaCugna points out that ther, who possesses the being of God, avoids there is only one trinitarian life into which God many of the difficulties that arise if the nature has graciously chosen to include us as part-

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ners. Thus, the doctrine of the Trinity is ‘a shape of our experience of that life and our teaching about God’s life with us and our life reflection on that experience. Led by the Spirit with each other. It is the life of communion more deeply into the life of Christ, we see the and indwelling—God is in us, we in God, all unveiled face of the living God’ (LaCugna of us in each other’ (LaCugna 1991, 228). 1991, 378). So, instead of focussing on the persons or relations ‘in’ God, we should have a sense of Practical Implications God existing in the reality of human history, as persons in communion with other persons For Kasper, the development of the doctrine (LaCugna 1991, 225). The divine essence re- of the Trinity represents a changed understand- vealed in Christ is the ‘highest, most perfect ing of reality from one which is focussed on realisation of personhood and communion: subject and nature to one in which persons and being-for-another and from-another, or, love relation have priority—‘the meaning of being itself’ (LaCugna 1991, 246). is the selflessness of love.’ Kasper sees this Important for LaCugna’s (and Kasper’s) confession leading to an inspiring model for understanding of Trinity, perichoresis means Christian spirituality in which ‘trinitarian per- being-in-one-another, permeation without con- sons are characterised by their selflessness, fusion. Without losing the individuality of each pure surrender, self-emptying’ (Kasper 1984, person, there is also no disconnection as each 310). Taking a Roman Catholic doctrinal per- takes meaning from the relationship with the spective, Kasper also sees the trinitarian con- other persons. ‘Perichoresis provides a dy- fession as the ‘grammar’ for all other dogmatic namic model of persons in communion based statements and as the answer to modern athe- on mutuality and interdependence’ (LaCugna ism (Kasper 1984, 313-5). 1991, 270). More so than Kasper, LaCugna develops Of all the images used to depict the practical implications for the lives of Chris- perichoresis, LaCugna favours ‘the divine tians and sees the doctrine of the Trinity as dance’ which conveys ‘the dynamic and crea- derived from the ongoing life of God with us tive energy, the eternal and perpetual move- (LaCugna 1991, 381). The doctrine of the ment, the mutual and reciprocal permeation Trinity pronounces that the true living God of each person with and in and through and by comes to us and saves us in Christ and remains the other persons’ (LaCugna 1991, 270). with us as Spirit (LaCugna 1991, 380). It also Through the grace of God from all eternity, demands that all understandings of God be humanity has been included in the divine dance scrutinised against what God has revealed in through the incarnation and life of Jesus the economy of creation and salvation where (LaCugna 1991, 274). However, this is not to there is the experience of ‘God’s very life, lived imply that humans are in any way necessary out by persons who love and exist together in for God’s life of communion. Without contra- communion’ (LaCugna 1991, 380, 382). dicting her assertion that there is but one LaCugna sees that for Christians to live as trinitarian life, LaCugna explains that the pri- persons in communion in the image of the re- mary relationships of the divine community lational God is what is meant by salvation and of persons are equally and mutually within it- is the ideal of our faith. As we humans are self, to itself, and the relationships with hu- gradually perfected in that image, the commun- manity are secondary (LaCugna 1991, 275). ion of all creatures with one another becomes For LaCugna, the essential practical aspect more real (LaCugna 1991, 292). If we cannot of the doctrine of the Trinity is about the shared enter into a life of love and communion with life between God and humanity. ‘The form of others, then we cannot enter into divine life God’s life in the economy dictates both the (LaCugna 1991, 382).

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We are to relate to others in ‘words, actions others…as Jesus Christ lived…according to and attitudes that serve the reign of God … the power and presence of the Holy Spirit… where God’s life rules’ (LaCugna 1991, 383). together in harmony and communion with Entering into divine life will depend on our re- every other creature [and free] from sin and lationship to others, ‘which is inseparable from fractured relationship’ (LaCugna 1991, 401). our relationship to Jesus Christ’ (LaCugna 1991, In the past, some have viewed trinitarian 384). Our lives have significance only to the theology as inherently sexist and patriarchal, extent that they follow the life and teachings of largely because of its ‘Father-Son’ language. Jesus in service to others, especially on the part However, when properly understood, of leaders (LaCugna 1991, 385). The charac- ‘trinitarian doctrine articulates a vision of God teristic feature of the reign of the God of Jesus in which there is neither hierarchy nor inequal- Christ is the trinitarian model of communion ity, only relationships based on love, mutual- among equals rather than a pattern of superior- ity, self-giving and self-receiving, freedom and ity of one over another (LaCugna 1991, 391). communion’ (LaCugna 1992, 183). Forms of subordination such as sexism, racism, Part Two of the series will identify twelve political exploitation and patriarchy are unnatu- particular attributes from this re-vitalised un- ral because they go against both the nature of derstanding of Trinity and consider them from God and the nature of persons who have been the perspective of their likeness to the marital created in the image of God’ (LaCugna 1991, relationship. Through these twelve attributes, 398-9). it will be shown that, in their marital relation- For LaCugna, living trinitarian faith means ship, a man and a woman can together image living ‘from and for God…from and for the Trinity, albeit in a limited human way. REFERENCES 1 Kasper, W 1984, The God of Jesus Christ, 3 LaCugna, CM 1992, ‘The Trinitarian Mys- Crossroad, New York. tery of God’, in FS Fiorenza and JP Galvin 2 LaCugna, CM 1991, God for Us: The Trinity (eds.), Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic and Christian Life, HarperSanFrancisco, San Perspectives, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, Francisco. pp.149-192.

Marriage and Communion Between God and People The communion of love between God and people, a fundamental part of the Revelation and faith experience of Israel, finds a meaningful expression in the marriage covenant which is established between a man and a woman. For this reason the central word of Revelation, ‘God loves His people,’ is likewise proclaimed through the living and concrete word whereby a man and a woman express their conjugal love. Their bond of love becomes the image and the symbol of the covenant which unites God and His people.

—Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio. 1981.

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ANY YEARS AGO, when I was pre- tion, such inward repetition is called a mantra, paring for a thirty day retreat, The and is used as a mind emptying device. MSpiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, The argument of this essay is that the west- I was told that the word ‘meditation’ comes ern mystical tradition has a meditation com- from the Latin ‘me ditare’, speaking to my- ponent arrived at by following practitioners self. It meant an inner monologue. For exam- who had written about it. By ‘meditation’ is ple, it might mean interrogating oneself about meant the elimination of mental states, fol- one`s conduct. That is one meaning, but more lowed by introversion. And that is yoga. It in- often it just means thinking. One may be medi- volves primarily stilling the thought stream. tating about a parable of Jesus, attempting to The great Hindu writer, S.N Dasgupta, expands define the point of it. usefully: ‘yoga concentration …aims solely to Today, thousands of Australians attend stop the movement of the mind and to prevent meditation classes every week, but they are its natural tendency towards comparison, clas- not being coached in Ignatian meditation or sification, association, assimilation and the silent thinking. They are doing yoga. The aim like.’1 As thousands of people are now re- is physical and mental relaxation. To this end, minded every week in yoga classes, the point they do physical and mental exercises. The of meditation is to still the monkey mind. latter involves a gradual process of mind emp- If the yoga practitioner persists, something tying until the empty mind contemplates itself. else may happen: This results in a feeling of peace. ‘[he] steadily proceeds towards that ultimate There are two routes to meditation in this stage in which his mind will be disintegrated sense in the Christian spiritual tradition. In mon- and his self will shine forth in its own light and asteries and other religious houses it is custom- he himself will be absolutely free in bondless, ary to keep the Grand Silence, that is no speak- companionless, loneliness of self illumination.’2 ing, from about 5.00 pm till after breakfast. ‘His mind will be disintegrated.’ Can Some generous people went a step further. Why Dasgupta, the author of a famous five volume not keep an inner silence to correspond with the history of Indian philosophy, really mean that? external silence? This question was asked by a What does he mean? He means that the dis- twelfth century Cistercian, Guerric of Igny, who cursive, thinking mind will be disintegrated. had been a monk of St Bernard‘s at Clairvaux. However, he doesn`t mean that it`s destroyed Guerric did not know it, but he was practicing forever. He means that continual practice at yoga meditation. If we do that, he wrote, we meditation enables the practitioner to lay it may find the all powerful Word flowing into us aside temporarily, which may permit some- from the Father‘s Throne. thing else to come to light. On the next page: Another route to yogic meditation in the …as a result of the gradual weakening of the Christian tradition, more characteristic of East- constitution of the mind, the latter ceases to live ern than Western Christianity, is the constant and work and is dissociated forever from spirit inward repetition of the Jesus prayer. This was or the self. It is then that the spirit shows forth originally repetition of the word ‘Jesus’, and in its own lonely splendor…3 was later lengthened to ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son And the spirit is revealed as having splendor. of God, have mercy on me.’ In the yoga tradi- It has a ‘self- shining which is unique.’ And

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that is enlightenment. Reg Naulty, formerly of Zen Buddhism is in fundamental agree- Charles Sturt Univer- ment. Thus a Zen master, Rosen Takashina in sity, Riverina, has been 1954, advises us to be without thoughts. That writing about Spirit- is the secret of meditation: uality for over thirty It means to cut off at the root and source, all our years. He is also a discriminating fancies. If we really cut them off published poet. He now at the root, then of itself the freedom of thought lives in Canberra. will come, which means that our own true nature appears, and this is called enlightenment… the radiance of the Buddha heart breaks forth from in becoming a Christian, but was impeded by ourselves. We come to know that the majesty of two intellectual difficulties, one of which was Buddha is our own majesty also.4 that he could form no idea of a spiritual, as How meditation got into the western mys- opposed to a material, object. Their books tical tradition is a curious story. The key fig- solved that problem for him: ure is the philosopher Plotinus [205-270 A.D.], These books served to remind me to return to a Greek speaking Egyptian who taught the Ro- my own self…I entered the depths of my soul man elite. He was interested in Indian thought, [and]…and saw the light that never changes so he decided to go to India to find out more casting its rays …over my mind. It was not the about it. To that end, he joined the military common light of day that is seen by the eye of expedition of the emperor Gordianus against every living thing of flesh and blood, nor was it the Persians, but it was defeated in what is now some more spacious light of the same sort, as if Iraq, and Plotinus returned, with great diffi- the light of day were to shine far, far brighter than it does and fill all space with its brilliance. culty, to Rome. What I saw was something quite different from Recognizably Indian practices, especially any light we know on earth.7 deliberate mind emptying, figure importantly As St. Augustine was by far the most in- in his philosophy. In his great work, The fluential of the Fathers of the Western Church, Enneads, he advises his reader to ‘sever the and as The Confessions are among the most agent [the self] from the instrument, the body’, accessible of his books, this passage ensured which it does by eliminating ‘the desires that that meditation was transmitted to the western come by its too intimate commerce with the mystical tradition. body, emancipated from all the passions, And it keeps on turning up. Thus in Eng- purged of all that embodiment has thrust upon land, St Edmund Rich [1180-1240], an Arch- it , withdrawn, a solitary, to itself again.’5 bishop of Canterbury, is instructing the soul When you are ‘self gathered in the purity on the third step of contemplation which is to of your own being,’ you may notice a light not strive to see two things ‘its Creator and His of a spatial nature: own nature’: When you find yourself wholly true to your es- But the soul can never attain to this until it has sential nature, wholly that only veritable Light learned to subdue every image, corporeal, which is not measured by space, not narrowed earthly and celestial, to reject whatever may to any circumscribed form nor again diffused come to it through sight or sound or hearing or as a thing void of term, but ever unmeasurable touch or taste or any other bodily sensation, and as something greater than all measure and more to tread it down, so that the soul may see what 6 than all quantity… it itself is outside of its body.8 And there it is, all the way back to Hindu- Plotinus lives in mediaeval England! And ism. Plotinus was a ‘pagan’ i.e., he was not a there are traces of him in Eckhart. In the twen- Christian. His school was read by another pa- tieth century, Meister Eckhart [1260-1329], gan, Augustine of Hippo, who was interested known to his contemporaries as ‘the man from

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whom God hid nothing’ , attracted two stud- the breathless and motionless trance [Sabilka ies comparing him to eastern mystics: Rudolph Samadhi], without which no man can attain God Otto`s Mysticism East and West, and Suzuki`s perception…Among Christian mystics who have Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist. Otto been observed in Sabilka Samadhi may be men- points to a position shared by Eckhart and the tioned St Teresa of Avila, whose body would become so immovably fixed that the astonished nuns Indian mystic Sankara: in her convent were unable to alter her position Thus withdrawn inwards, free from inclinations or to arouse her to outward consciousness.11 and attachments, stripped of all sense impressions and thoughts…the atman [inner self] shines forth I conclude that meditation has been fre- in its own light as pure consciousness.9 quently used by western mystics. But for all When writing about Plotinus and Eckhart, that, it remains a side stream in western mys- it is customary to mention that they were neo- ticism, the mainstream of which, is a mysti- Platonists, as indeed they were. Both adopt the cism of prayer. And the mystical experience neo–Platonic metaphysical scheme of emana- attendant on that is an experience of God‘s tion from the One and return to it. Both use neo- love. As a result of this experience, the mys- Platonic concepts. But there is no special neo- tics love God and the things of God, the world Platonic experience. Insofar as neo-Platonism and the people in it, and want to do them 12 is experiential, it derives from meditation. good. Hence the experience inspires social Finally, there is St. Teresa of Avila[1515- action, which, it seems, the meditation expe- 1582].In some ways she is the most interest- rience identified by Dasgupta does not. How- ing of all western mystics, since she has the ever, it is possible to be both kinds of mystic, greatest variety of experiences. Here is the as St. Teresa was. Its lack of social import does meditation component of her preparation: not mean that meditation is without value, for The words of the Lord are like acts wrought in us, it is capable of disclosing a spiritual reality, and so they must have produced some effect in and that is of perennial value, especially in a those who were already prepared to put away from materialistic society like ours. them everything corporeal and to leave the soul in It is noteworthy that meditation, as with a state of pure spirituality, so that it might be joined the mysticism which depends on prayer, has, with Uncreated Spirit in this celestial union.10 as a pre-requisite, careful attention to virtue, One of St.Teresa‘s experiences, a trance or, as we would now say, good character for- experience in which the body grows cold, has mation. Meditation can help prayerful mysti- Western commentators scratching their heads. cism in two ways. Firstly, the mental discipline They recognize it in India. Thus Paramhansa which meditation develops can help in ridding Yogananda, in that challenging book, Autobi- prayer of that old bug-bear, distractions, and ography of a Yogi: secondly, the inwardness which it fosters can [some] Christian saints have been able to enter help make prayer less superficial. NOTES 1.S.N.Dasgupta. Hindu Mysticism. Frederick England.1961.p.146 Ungar Publishing Company, New York. 1973.p.71 8.Elmer O‘Brien. Varieties of Mystic Experience. 2.Iibid.p.80 Mentor Omega. New York. 1965.p.114 3.Ibid p.81 9.Rudolph Otto. Mysticism East and West. 4.Edward Conze[trans] Buddhist Scriptures. Pen- Macmillan. New York. 1972.p.100 guin Books. Harmondsworth.England.1971.p.139. 10.St.Teresa of Avila. The Interior Castle. Double 5.Plotinus.The Enneads. Stephen Mackenna [trans] Day Image Edition. 1961.p.216 Faber and Faber, London. 1956. [Fourth Edition]. 11.Paramhansa Yogananda. Autobiography of a 1.6.5. Yogi. Rider and Company. London. 1974.p.200 6.Ibid. 1.6.8 12. A developed account of this may be found in 7.Saint Augustine. Confessions. R.S. Pine- Cof- my paper ‘Mysticism and the Kingdom of God’, fin [trans] The Penguin Classics. Harmonsworth. this journal, 2010 No.2.

Compass #4 2010 text.indd 31 22/12/2010 2:52:22 PM COMPASS QUIET LOVING The Prayer of Quiet in Teresa of Jesus KERRIE HIDE ‘I sat in the silence and prayed; … then a veil lifted and I could see’ (Ps 73)1

RAY. BE PRESENT to the presence of The Book of Her Life4 Teresa describes prayer divine love. ‘Pray’ is a cry of the yearn- as‘an intimate sharing between friends… Ping heart. It is an expression of our deep- taking time frequently to be alone with Him est reality. We are human beings created in the who we know loves us’ (L 8.5). This cherished ecstatic and tranquil embrace of the Trinitarian friendship becomes more intimate as we are love that gives and receives love in an eternal faithful to entering into our heart, into the in- making one. Created from the prayer of the ner rooms of our soul.5 In her Interior Cas- Trinity, for prayer, we long to return to this tle,6 Teresa envisages the inner depths of our source of infinite peace. This longing for the heart or soul as like a glorious, many roomed quiet of the Godhead is at the source of who castle. She shows us how, through prayer, we we are. As our sacred scriptures identify, Je- enter the castle (C2.1.11), learn to turn our eyes sus longed to go to a quiet place to rest a while towards the centre (C1.2.8) and take the great with his God, (Mk 6:31). His followers begged pilgrimage into the centre of the castle where ‘Lord teach us to pray’ (Lk11:1). Grounded in Jesus, the majestic king of the castle dwells this same source, we are restless until we learn with the Trinity.7 Teresa stresses that all we to ‘pray without ceasing’ (1Thes5:17). We need to do is ‘go into solitude and look at Him yearn to be who we really are in ‘sighs too within oneself, and not turn away from so good deep for words’ (Rom 8:26). ‘Pray’ is an evo- a guest’ (P28.2). ‘I’m not asking you to do any- cation, a demand to be true, to fulfill the de- thing more than look at Him’ (P 26.3). In the sire of Jesus that we be ‘consecrated in truth’ measure you desire him you will find him (Jn17:19), one (Jn17:21) in him as he is one (P28.3). in the infinite silence that spoke him into crea- Teresa speaks to us in conversational style tion. ‘To pray’ is to surrender in love into a as she describes the castle as like ‘a diamond quiet that makes all things one. In this article or very clear crystal’ (C1.1.1). It is ‘brilliantly we will reflect on how Teresa of Avila teaches shining and beautiful…a pearl from the orient, us to pray. 2 a tree of life planted in the very living waters of life—that is—in God’ (C1.2.1). Although in- When You Pray Go to Your Room side the castle are many dwelling places, Teresa focuses on seven, a symbol for perfection. We The foundational teaching about prayer uttered journey through each dwelling place through by Jesus ‘when you pray go to your room’ contemplation in the prayer of quiet, until we (Mt6:6) takes on a wonderful nuance in Teresa reach the seventh dwelling place of the castle, of Jesus, a doctor of the Church and one of or the centre of our soul, our home. This inner the most celebrated guides for the spiritual centre is full of light and love, as it is the dwell- journey. She blends together this invitation of ing place of the Trinity. In this silent centre of Jesus for us to go into our heart and encounter absolute love we commune with God in quiet him in the centre of the heart,3 and Jesus’ in the secret silent language of love. words: ‘in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places’ (Jn14:2). In her first book, * * *

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The Interior Castle Dr Kerrie Hide has a background in mystical Before we focus on the prayer of quiet that theology. Her book prepares us to dwell in our deep inner centre, Gifted Origins to one in the quiet waters of Trinitarian love, it is Graced Fulfilment won helpful to have an overview of the seven dwell- first prize in the ing places of The Interior Castle that Teresa Catholic Press awards. illustrates and the prayer that accompanies She is a spiritual each dwelling place. In the first three dwell- director at St Mary’s ing places of our soul that is like a many Towers, Douglas Park. roomed castle, Teresa expounds on the early phases of meditation that prepare us for the Teresa explains, because we are closer to prayer of quiet. She vividly describes how, where Jesus in the Trinity dwells in the centre. though we choose time for prayer, the outer These beautiful fourth dwelling places are world has an alluring attraction. Because the filled with things to see and understand, but courtyards are dark and confusing, creeping they are delicate, so gracious, that the intel- with the vermin of poisonous distractions, it lect cannot find a way to explain them. We can look safer for us not to take this journey begin to sense a loving presence far beyond to the centre and so remain busy with many the limits of sensual knowing and intellectual things. If we step into the second dwelling comprehension. Our desire to be one with the place, however, there are chambers set apart centre becomes stronger than external desires. for prayer. As we learn how to stay in these We seek solitude and our capacity for recol- quiet places within, we hear the voice of Jesus lecting matures. Recollection, Teresa explains, inviting us to come. Desire increases. Prayer is the turning within to the presence of Christ becomes more silent. in our soul’s depths, gathering together all dis- Teresa then outlines how once we begin to cursive thought, gently drawing inward. ‘I have have a routine of prayer, and open the door read where it is compared to a hedgehog curl- into the third dwelling places, we cross a ing up or a turtle drawing into its shell,’ threshold. Though we may expect prayer to (C4.3.3) she says. Recollection gradually become more peaceful, because we must de- deepens into the prayer of quiet that is like centre in order to re-centre in Jesus, prayer water gently flowing into our heart through a feels dry. An inner disquiet undermines cer- spring rising from our depths. tainties. Destabilized, there is a great tempta- The extravagance of the treasures and de- tion to seek consolations of the past, but no lights of divine love saturate us in love in the matter what we do, prayer no longer satisfies. fifth dwelling place, as we experience more In the confusion between a barren ache to have absorption and union with God. We come to our thirst quenched in waters of love, and the know irrevocably that God is in the depths of pull to remain active in the world, Teresa ad- our soul and our soul is in God. There is a vises compassion (C3:2.2). If, then, we com- certitude remaining in the soul that only God passionately surrender ourselves for the sake can place there. Teresa uses the captivating of our God, into the unknown way to the cen- image of the life cycle of a silk worm to de- tre, faithful to prayer no matter how searing, scribe the metamorphosis we experience as we and risk entering the unfamiliar fourth dwell- prepare for union. She outlines how the little ing place, we begin a new phase of contem- seed like eggs of the silk worm lie on the leaves plation. of the mulberry tree. When warm weather Midway to the centre of our soul, the fourth comes: ‘they go about spinning the silk and cycle of dwelling places, marks a major tran- making some very thick little cocoons in which sition into contemplative prayer. This occurs, they enclose themselves. The silkworm which

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is fat and ugly, then dies and a little white but- Christ, then takes us to the centre into the terfly, which is very pretty, comes forth from seventh dwelling places, where the Holy Spirit the cocoon.’ (C5.2.2) This transformation from enkindles us in the union of the spiritual mar- a silk worm to a butterfly encapsulates for riage. In this oneness of all in all we become Teresa how, in order to reach the centre we awakened to our capacity to live in the eternal must draw opposites together, integrate our now. We see irrevocably that the Trinity dwells memories, weaving and cocoon. The cocoon within us in our deepest centre. There is no then transforms into Christ. ‘Once this silk- need to enter any more doors. We simply abide, worm is grown …it begins to spin the silk and surrendering into our beloved. Drawn into an build the house wherein it will die. I would infinite becoming one we experience the sub- like to point out that this house is Christ… our lime secret of love and know we are one in the life is hidden in Christ or in God…, or…our Trinity as the Trinity is one in us. With all our life is Christ’ (C5.2.5). This being hidden in faculties now absorbed in intimate union in Christ, dying in Christ, makes us Christ-like. Christ, we come to see how in our centre we When the butterfly emerges we are ready to are infused in the Trinitarian pattern of giving enter the sixth dwelling place, until the butter- and receiving love. We long to live perma- fly dies again as we reach the centre. Prayer nently grounded in this centre of love. Teresa unfolds into a silent and still transforming un- invites us to realize a real living presence of ion. Christ in the Trinity in our soul and to live Knowing that ultimately our life is in from this presence in the enkindling depths of Christ, in God we become betrothed to Christ Trinitarian union. as we enter the more silent atmosphere of sixth With this overview of Christ in the Trin- dwelling places that are very close to the cen- ity as the centre of our soul and the dwelling tre. Intoxicated by the love of Christ our places that surround this centre, we will now spouse, we now strive for more opportunities concentrate on what Teresa teaches about how to be alone. We seek to rid ourselves of every- we may turn towards this presence and make thing that is an obstacle to solitude. In Teresa’s our home there through the prayer of recol- words, ‘the beloved makes us desire vehe- lection, the prayer of quiet and the prayer of mently by certain delicate means the soul it- union that stabilizes our gaze in this centre. self doesn’t understand…These are impulses First, we will enter into the garden of our own so delicate and refined, for they proceed from soul and draw on our deep inner wisdom of the very depth within the interior part of the our experience of the prayer of quiet. Then, soul.’(C6.2.1). Teresa continues: ‘This action we will focus on the waters of love that of love is so powerful that the soul dissolves quench our thirst in the prayer of recollec- with desire’ (C6.2.4). Teresa likens this to be- tion and see how recollection unfolds into the ing enkindled in a brazier of God where a spark over-flowing love of the prayer of quiet. Sub- sets the soul aflame. Nevertheless, although sequently, we will concentrate on the tran- this enflaming is delightful, because we are quil union we experience in contemplation not yet totally enflamed, we feel the pain of when we come home to the centre of our soul the wound, for the purifying work of love is one in the Trinity by looking at a person’s not complete. Teresa describes how ‘just as reflection on an experience of prayer. Finally the soul is about to start, the spark goes out we will draw out implications for living life and the soul is left with the desire to suffer from this centre of quiet love. We do this from again the loving desire the spark a place of humility and gaze with Teresa causes.’(C6.2.4). The intensity of pain and joy through the mirror of humility. She warns: magnifies, nourishes and inspires. Now es- ‘Without it (humility) everything goes wrong’ poused, we are ready for the spiritual marriage. (CI.2.8).8

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Teresa’s Way of Prayer: Bathing the waters of divine love through contempla- in Waters of Love tion, where all words become absorbed into the quiet waters of Trinitarian love. In order to awaken the eye of the heart of her Within this awareness of the waters of con- readers, so that we, her readers, may identify templation that flow through our soul draw- with the felt sense of what Teresa teaches about ing us to quiet, we will now focus more in- prayer, Teresa uses her much loved simile of tently on what Teresa teaches us about the water (C4:2.2), to signify the flowing love of Prayer of Quiet and the phases of recollec- God within our soul. Vividly, she evokes our tion, quiet and union. imagination to expand and hold together the array of biblical allusions to water such as a 1. Being Quenched in Quiet Waters—The deer thirsting for running streams (Ps62), come Prayer of Recollection to the water (Is55.1), the dark waters of Christ’s baptism (Mk1:9-11), the living water Teresa’s way of prayer is one of presence, of being fully present to God in our prayer, just of the I am (Jn4:10), the healing waters of 9 Bethzatha (Jn5:2), the river of life flowing as God is fully present to us. She teaches us from the throne of God (Rev22:1) and the how to be present within, to gaze upon Christ beauty of fountains, streams, gardens and pools who dwells in our heart. Her teaching about of the Spanish landscape. In the Way of Per- recollection gives us a way of silencing our fection she describes the journey into the Trin- body, our mind, our soul, beginning with the ity as the spiritual road we take ‘until God outer world and moving within, from body to engulfs the soul and gives it to drink abun- spirit to the inner depths of our soul. For dantly of the fount of living water’ (P42.5). Teresa, recollection is a collecting together or We see how these waters of contemplation knitting all our senses into a single thread, to focus the gaze of our heart on Christ who give life and bring us to union in her first book, 10 Life, where Teresa describes the soul as a gar- dwells in our centre. At the beginning of den with Christ the gardener. She outlines four this journey to the centre, recollection feels ways in which the garden of our soul is wa- like carrying water with a bucket. Teresa ex- tered: ‘by taking the water from a well (See plains how this involves a lot of work on our L11-13); or by a water-wheel and aquaducts part, and we tire easily. It takes patience and (See L14-15), or by a stream or a brook (L16- time to ‘get accustomed to caring nothing 17), or by heavy rain, when the Lord waters it about seeing or hearing, to practicing hours of with no labor of ours’ (L18-19). Teresa de- prayer and thus to solitude and withdrawl’ lights in these sweet life giving waters as she (L11.9), she says. Act like a wise bee and en- sings in her Soliloquies: ter the beehive to make honey and leave the intellect to wander aimlessly alone,(L15.6) she O compassionate and loving Lord of my soul! advises. As we have seen, in her Interior Cas- You likewise say: Come to me all who thirst, tle, Teresa also likens recollection to a hedge- for I will give you drink….(S9.1) hog curling up or a turtle drawing into its shell O life who gives life to all! (C4.3.3). In the Way of Perfection, Teresa ex- Do not deny me this sweetest water plains how in recollection, ‘the soul collects That you promise to those who want it. its faculties together and enters within itself I want it Lord and I beg for it, to be with its God’ (P 28.4).11 She qualifies and I come to you. how this: ‘is not a silence of the faculties; it is Don’t hide yourself Lord, from me, since you know my need an enclosure of the faculties in the soul’ (P and that this water is the true medicine 29.4) It is a closing and enclosing. This clos- for the soul wounded in love for you (S9.2). ing and enclosing awakens the spiritual sight Teresa awakens our desire to be quenched with of the eye of our soul, (See P 28) as in

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Ephesians (1:18) ‘may the eyes of your soul 2. Over-flowing Love—The Prayer of be enlightened’. Through recollecting we come Quiet to be comfortable and at home within our soul. The waters of love overflowing and infusing As time passes, the prayer of recollection our soul in love through commitment to the feels more like Teresa’s second water of prayer, prayer of recollection, soften the soil in the where we now turn the crank of a water wheel garden of our heart and prepare us to allow with our arms to draw water up from the well. Jesus the gardener to take full charge of our The water then flows through aqueducts into soul. This prepares the way for the third way our heart. Earlier in her Life, Teresa likens this of collecting water that Teresa portrays in Life, phase of the prayer of quiet to water being where our soul is watered by a river or spring. driven by a waterwheel, emphasizing how the Here the waters of grace rise up to the throat prayer of quiet is a gift of infused grace and of our soul because we are no longer moving cannot be attained by our efforts alone. In this (L16.1). She then mixes her images and says prayer: how this deeper more all encompassing quiet the water is higher and so labour is much less is like ‘a person holding a candle and for whom than that required in pulling it up from the well. little is left before dying the death that is de- I mean that the water is closer because grace is sired’ (L16.1). The quiet is so quiet that we more clearly manifest to the soul. In this prayer feel dead to anything that would disturb us. In the faculties are gathered within so as to enjoy her Interior Castle, Teresa likens the quality the satisfaction with greater delight. But they of this quiet to being like a cistern being filled are not lost, nor do they sleep. Only the will is occupied, in such a way that, without knowing noiselessly by a spring rising from its depths. it, it becomes captive; it merely consents to God The trough fills and overflows with water un- allowing him to imprison it as one who well til it forms a large stream (C4.2.3). Prayer feels knows how to be the captive of its lover. Oh like being quietly filled with waters of love Jesus and my Lord! How valuable is your love from the infinite source of the grace within us, to us here! It holds our love so bound that it without any effort on our behalf. This filling doesn’t allow it the freedom during that time to to overflowing occurs when our senses and love anything else but You (L14.2 ). spirit are recollected over the divine dwelling The water flows gently with very little work place within us. Teresa explains: on our part. And we obtain more water. It is as The water comes from its own source which is if our senses are acting like channels, where God… And since his Majesty desires to do so grace can flow gently and freely enabling the ...he produces this delight with the greatest water of contemplation to saturate the soul. peace and quiet and sweetness in the very inte- As recollection becomes more organic, with rior part of ourselves. …the delight fills every- silence and stillness naturally flowing through thing; this water overflows through all the our sensual faculties of seeing, smelling, touch- dwelling places and faculties until reaching the ing, tasting and listening, into the spiritual body. (C4.2.4) senses of our soul, we become centered in This inflow of divine love imbues us in quiet. Christ and filled with his love. We are bound Soaked in these quiet waters of love we expe- and captivated by his love. Once recollection rience peace, calm, and sweetness penetrat- becomes natural and we gather together our ing within and without . These rising waters faculties and enclose them in our soul as a of encircling presence imbue us in quiet, as matter of course, very subtle changes begin to their love captures our desire for God in such take place, until our mind and heart become a way that we long to be imprisoned in soli- more and more silent and still, infused in lov- tude with the one we love. As the quiet of infi- ing presence. The prayer of recollection un- nite silence, stillness and rest of the Creative folds into the prayer of quiet.12 One intoxicates our will and breathes life,

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beauty and connection into the chaos of of our own soul. depthless abyss, we seek more time for prayer. In her Meditations on the Song of Songs In the quiet the soothing stirrings of the wa- Teresa extols the silent music of this quiet: ‘I ters of divine love, whose ecstatic loving cul- call this prayer ‘quiet’ she says, because ‘of minates in rest, makes us tranquil and serene. the calm caused in all the faculties…it’s as These still waters fill and expand as they di- though there were poured into the marrow of late our being and make us one with God. one’s bones a sweet ointment with a powerful Teresa gives a more formal definition of fragrance…God enters the soul and does so the prayer of quiet in the Way of Perfection:13 with the most wonderful sweetness. God …the soul enters into peace or, better, the Lord pleases it and makes it happy (MSg4.2). The puts it at peace by his presence…all the facul- quiet seeps into the marrow of our bones and ties are calmed. The soul understands in another transform us. Teresa continues to describe how way, very foreign to the way of the exterior we feel left suspended in the divine arms, lean- senses, that it is now close to its God and that ing on that sacred side of those divine breasts. not much more would be required for it to be- (MSg4.4). We feel ‘completely drenched in the come one with him in union. This is not be- countless grandeurs of God’ (MSg4.4).Calm, cause it sees him with the eyes either of the body intoxicated by divine fragrance, drenched or of the soul… the soul fails to understand how through and through in quiet, our Beloved is it understands, but it sees that it is in the kingdom at least near the King who will give the preparing us for union. kingdom to the soul…The state resembles an Teresa speaks of her third water of prayer interior and exterior swoon (P 31.2). which identifies later phases of the prayer of Notice how both descriptions stress that this quiet as like flowing water from a river or inflow of the grace of quiet contemplation is a stream whereby: gift, bestowed by the presence of Christ. This the garden is irrigated, with much less labour, presence floods us in waters of contemplation although some labour is required to direct the and we experience peace, a peace the world flow of the water. The Lord so desires to help the gardener that he himself practically becomes cannot give. Teresa explains: ‘The faculties are the gardener and the one who does everything. still. They wouldn’t want to be busy. …The This prayer is a sleep of the faculties: the facul- will is the one who is captive here…. The in- ties neither fail entirely to function nor under- tellect wouldn’t want to understand more than stand how they function. The consolation, the one thing, nor would the memory want to be sweetness, and the delight are incomparably occupied with anything else’ (P31.3). When greater than that experienced in the previous we are quiet for a long time our will i s united prayer. The water of grace rises up to the throat with God. Our desire and the divine desire of this soul since such a soul can no longer move become fused, as one (P31.4). Very close to forward; nor does it know how, nor can it move God in quiet we are as we are. And this fusion backward. It would desire to enjoy the greatest of desire joins our active and contemplative glory (L16.1). dimensions, the Martha and Mary of ourselves This is a deep, wide all-encompassing quiet into harmony (P31.5). The quiet overflows into where we are content to allow Christ to be the our life in all that we are and all that we do. gardener and to respond to his intimate pres- The one thing necessary for us is simply to be ence as he tends our soul. In her Interior Cas- present, as we surrender into the quiet waters tle Teresa quotes: Dilatasti cor meum ‘You of love. Our detachment from all that disturbs, have expanded my heart’ (C4.2.5)14 to explain. scatters and separates as we surrender into These boundless waters of grace originate from love, begins to blind the eye of our soul. We the deepest inner centre of our heart, expand become intuitively aware in our spirit that this our heart and flood us in joy. Teresa empha- infinite source of quiet really is in the depths sizes how this spring is not outside our self

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but rises from somewhere, deeper than the sion and become womb-like as they enable heart, ‘from another part still more interior, as transforming union. The quiet is more all con- from something deep. I think this must be the suming, until it feels like our heart is awake centre of the soul’ (C4.2.5), she says. Notice but we are asleep. Teresa explains in this un- how the placement of the spring is deep within ion our faculties: us not outside us. The sleeping of our facul- … are asleep… - truly asleep - fast asleep, to ties creates a stillness that opens and leaves the things of the world and to ourselves. As a the spring free to flow. The centre is begin- matter of fact, during the time that the union ning to be firmly established in us. lasts the soul is left as though without its senses, This dilation occurs, Teresa explains: ‘be- for it has no power to think even if it wants to. cause the heavenly water begins to rise from In loving, if it does love, it doesn’t understand the spring…that is deep within us, it swells how or what it loves or what it would want. In and expands our whole interior being, produc- sum it is one who in every respect has died to the world so as to live more completely in God. ing ineffable blessings.’(C4.2.6). We do not Thus the death is a delightful one (C5.1.3). understand how or why, but we experience a fragrance ‘as though there were in our interior This quiet of sleep, this delicious death, this a brazier giving off sweet smelling perfumes. absorption in God is so all encompassing that No light is seen, nor is the place seen where it is as if we are not breathing. All our facul- the brazier is; but the warmth and the fragrant ties are suspended feeling nothing but an in- fumes spread through the entire soul…and fusion in God. Our seeing becomes naked, even… the body shares in them’ (C4.2.6). dark, blind spirit seeing. Dead in Christ we Waters of grace flow in, and then out of our belong entirely to God. This is the death of soul, intoxicating us in the divine fragrance. the silkworm dying to old ways of relating in Dark, fragrant, warm, love quietens. Teresa is order to form a cocoon. This death marks a speaking metaphorically, of course, to impart turning point in shifting our vision and energy to us the spiritual delight that we experience into the centre. when our will is completely absorbed in the spring of divine love. 3. Tranquil Waters—Union in the Trinity This quiet affects our whole being and The gradual surrendering of all that we are flows to the outer courtyards of our whole into the total love of the gardener of our soul bodily demeanor. As our will becomes more unfolds into the mystical marriage.15 In Life captivated by Christ our memory and mind Teresa elucidates: ‘It’s like the experience of also are inebriated until recollection infuses two persons here on earth who love each other all that is scattered in us into union and we deeply and understand each other well; even passively allow the gardener of our soul to care without signs, just by a glance, it seems, they for the garden. If our mind becomes distracted understand each other’ (L27.10). Notice how like doves flitting around a fountain we gently this is a mutual glance between two lovers, recollect and draw it to the source of the foun- not a one way glance. Well beyond the eyes of tain. Teresa observes how the soul no longer our body, or soul, this glance unites and melts. desires to ‘undertake any labour, but only to It soaks through us to the core of who we are. take its delight in the first fragrance of the flow- It is like Teresa’s fourth water of prayer where ers. In any one of these visits, brief as its du- we are saturated in rain from heaven: ration may be, the Gardener, being, as He is, This water from heaven often comes when the the Creator of the water, gives the soul water gardener is least expecting it. True, in the be- without limit’ (P27). All we are invited to do ginning it almost always occurs after a long is receive the gift and dwell in the quiet. period of mental prayer. The Lord comes to take The limitless waters of the ever loving this tiny bird from one degree to another and to Creator transform, unite and expand our vi- replace it in the nest so it may have repose. Since

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he has seen it flying about for a long time, striv- lightened and see the truth of who we are. Our ing with the intellect and the will and all its vision is now lost in the vision of Holy Spirit, strength to see God and please Him, He desires the one who enflames and enkindles love be- to reward it even in this life. And what a tre- tween the Father and the Son. Teresa identi- mendous reward; one moment it is enough to fies the magnificent splendor of this vision of repay all the trials that can be suffered in life! oneness as an intellectual vision. An intellec- (L18.9). tual vision is not so much knowing, but the It is God’s pleasure to rain grace on us, to wisdom of unknowing. It is an experience of saturate us in divine love. In response, we be- transcendence beyond the limits of the mind come God’s pleasure, God’s delight, God’s joy. that imparts oneness. It is seeing with an ‘en- The beauty and delight of this rain that cre- kindled spirit’ light beyond light. Her fourfold ates union ‘removes the scale from the soul’s repetition of ‘one’ is significant. It echoes of eyes and lets it see and understand, although the great prayer of Jesus ‘Father, may they be in a strange way’ (C7.2.6), Teresa says. This one as I am in you and you are in me’ way of seeing seems strange because it is be- (Jn17:17). ‘One’ in this gracious enkindling, yond images, beyond thought. It is being illu- we realize we participate in this living flame minated in divine loving in a light, lighter than of one love. The fruit of this oneness is an ir- 16 sunlight, in an enlightenment. We receive the revocable sense of being one in Christ, in a gift of this way of seeing when our spirit is way that we can never be separated, in enkindled, set fire to by the living flame of the Trinitarian love. Holy Spirit This way of soul seeing with an Hauntingly, Teresa illustrates how in the enkindled spirit frees us to see the indwelling spiritual marriage, in the secret centre of the of the Trinity at home in the centre of our soul. soul, Christ appears, delicately without enter- Teresa’s words are eloquent: ing any doors. With echoes of the resurrected First there comes an enkindling of the spirit in Christ appearing to the disciples through the manner of a cloud of magnificent splendor; locked doors in John’s gospel, it is if he says and these persons are distinct, and through an ‘peace be with you’. In Teresa’s words: admirable knowledge the soul understands as a most profound truth that all three persons are What God communicates here to the soul in an one substance and one power and one knowl- instant is a secret so great and a favor so sub- edge and one God alone. It knows in such a lime—and the delight the soul experiences so way that what we know by faith, it understands, extreme—that I don’t know what to compare it we can say, through sight – although the sight to. I can say only that the Lord wishes to reveal is not with the bodily eyes nor with the eyes of for that moment in a more sublime manner than the soul, because we are not dealing with an through any spiritual vision or taste, the glory imaginative vision. Here all three persons com- of heaven. One can say no more—in so far as it municate themselves to it, speak to it, and ex- can be understood—than that the soul, I mean plain these words of the Lord in the Gospel: the spirit, is made one with God’ (C7.2.3). that Christ and God and the Holy Spirit will This dark, secret love imparts oneness in the come to dwell with the soul that loves and keeps quiet centre of our soul where no disturbances the commandments (7.1.6). can reach. She further elaborates in some of Notice the enkindling of our spirit that is si- the later writing of her Spiritual Testimonies lent, still and quiet and yet dynamic. Once our about this enkindling union: faculties know how to sleep, the Holy Spirit My soul began to enkindle, and it seemed to sets fire to our spirit, enkindling our vision. In me I knew clearly in an intellectual vision that our spirit we know we are being ‘consecrated the entire Blessed Trinity was present. In this in truth’. This seeing Teresa qualifies is not state my soul understood by a certain kind of with our bodily eyes, nor the eyes of our soul, representation (like an illustration of the truth), but with enkindled spiritual eyes. We are en- in such a way that my dullness could perceive,

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how God is three and one (ST13.1). love, one in the Trinity. We belong in them Teresa’s enkindled soul knows that she is par- and yet are truly ourselves. She mentions the ticipating in Trinitarian presence. She contin- rain again: ‘In the spiritual marriage the union ues: is like what we have when the rain falls from And so it seemed to me that all three Persons the sky into the river or fount; all is water, for were represented distinctly in my soul and that the rain that fell from heaven cannot be di- they spoke to me, telling me that from this day vided or separated from the water of the river. I would see an improvement in myself in re- Or it is like what we have when a little stream spect to three things and that each one of these enters the sea, there is no means of separating Persons would grant me a favor: one, the favor the two’(C7.2.4). This Trinitarian life is like of charity; another, the favor of being able to water fusing into water. Furthermore, it is ‘like suffer gladly; and the third, the favor of experi- a bright light entering a room through differ- encing this charity with an enkindling in the ent windows; although the streams of light are soul (ST13.1). separate when entering the room (C7.2.4 ). In Enkindled in Trinitarian oneness, Teresa hears her Testimony she adds: ‘I have experienced silent words in one love giving her the gift of this presence of the three Persons…They are love, a capacity to suffer, and to experience very habitually present in my soul.…It seemed all things with an enkindling in her soul. These to me there came the thought of how a sponge are not fleeting gifts but lasting patterns of absorbs and is saturated with water; so, I Trinitarian loving fixed, engraved, imprinted thought, was my soul which was overflowing in her soul. Now she knows that we can never with that divinity and in a certain way rejoic- be separated from this quiet and yet dynamic ing within itself and possessing the three Per- inter-relationship of love. Teresa affirms this sons’ (ST 14). Each colourful metaphor im- ongoing presence: ‘Each day this soul becomes parts a maturing sense, of fusion and infusion, more amazed, for these persons never seem to in one relational Trinitarian union. On in this leave it anymore, but it clearly beholds ‘that mystical marriage, everything now takes place they are within it. In the extreme interior, in with such quiet and so noiselessly that prayer some place very deep within itself, the nature seems as if we are building the temple of Solo- of which it doesn’t know how to explain’ mon without a sound. We rejoice in the deep- (IC7.1.8). Teresa is conclusive. The Trinity est silence (C7.3.11), Teresa affirms. dwells within the inner depths of our soul. Trinitarian oneness creates the deepest of deep The Trinity at home in the centre of our silence. This pure quiet is cause for rejoicing. soul is no passing vision, but the gift of an Teresa emphasizes the habitual presence habitual awareness of this loving Trinitarian of the Trinity, when in the past she was usu- presence. Once we return to our quiet one ally accustomed only to the presence of Jesus. source of love, the enkindling of the spiritual Wondering about the obstacles in her that pre- marriage imparts a new and distinctly vented her living from this Trinitarian aware- Trinitarian appreciation of God, humanity and ness, Teresa hears silent words of love re- creation. Teresa uses a whole array of glori- sounding in her soul, ‘Don’t try to hold Me ous metaphors to describe this one presence: within yourself, but try to hold yourself within Let me say this union is like the joining of two Me’ (T14). Teresa is identifying an important wax candles to such an extent that the flame transition time where mutual reciprocal love coming from them is one, or that the wick, the comes into our awareness. This shifts our vi- flame, and the wax are all one. But after that one candle can be easily separated from the sion. We hold and behold ourselves held in other and there are two candles; the same holds the being of the Godhead, we no longer have for the wick (IC7.2.4). the vision of the ego, the butterfly dies in Christ Not two flames but one enkindled flame of and Christ holds us in the Trinity. Held in the

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Trinity our vision is one of alling, of union of cry of love. Ultimately when we bring the gaze communion of all things in the Trinity. Teresa of our spirit to rest on the point of oneness in says: ‘It seemed to me that from within my our centre we encounter intimately silent, soul—where I saw these three Persons unitive love. We awaken to the presence of present—these persons were communicating the infinitely silent divine as the source of our themselves to all creation without fail, nor did soul, that floods us in quiet waters of love. they fail to be with me’ (ST 14). Teresa now Contemplative prayer prepares, softens, opens realizes the mutuality of indwelling presence. and frees us to receive this contemplative gift. Her great pilgrimage to the centre of her soul • Taking the Journey to the Centre. Teresa into the dwelling place of the Trinity imparts enlightens us. She sparks our imagination and an awareness of her soul in the Trinity. Sig- enables us to envisage the journey to the cen- nificantly the infusing waters of divine love tre of our soul as a glorious frolic through a are intimately part of her life and at the same mysteriously dark, and illuminatingly light, time are communicating with all creation many roomed crystal like palace. She takes us ceaselessly. This infusing, quiet, all embrac- on this journey step by step and shows us how ing enkindling love holds us personally and to recollect and become focused in our desire, communally and cosmically eternally. our gaze, and our actions to contemplate and be infused in the living waters of contempla- Living from the Centre of Quiet tion. She shows us how to follow the stirrings of love, to take the way of the cross, and like a Teresa’s teaching about union with God, silk worm who dies only to be reborn as a deli- through her ever revealing image of water has cate white moth, to die to all that blinds and so much to offer our world today, especially scatters so we may be permanently at home in when we are so aware of the precious com- our centre where our Beloved dwells. In this modity of water. Although there are many centre all is one. All is infused and fused in wonderful implications for her way of prayer love. Time and eternity, dark and light, male that can quench the thirst of our contempo- and female become one. All that scatters and rary culture to learn how to meditate and con- conflicts is unified in a harmonious oneness. template, I wish to highlight four: the impli- We are one in a love that is pure, strong and cations of living a prayer of quiet, of taking serene. The centre then, by its very nature is the journey to the centre, of living with an en- perfectly silent, still, quiet and at the same time kindled soul and sharing in the fullness of un- has a centrifugal force that enables us to re- ion with God. turn to the edges of life and be a point of quiet • Living a Prayer of Quiet. Silence, seren- in lonely, disturbed and wounded humanity. ity, calm, quiet are the gifts we receive as the Only one who has journeyed to the centre and mystery of our intimacy with Christ who dwells dwelt in the embrace of the Beloved in quiet, in the centre of our heart unfolds. A quiet that can truly be ‘active’ and activate awareness of is the quiet of God. And as we enter into this the indwelling presence in human lives. quiet through our daily practice of prayer what • Living with an Enkindled Soul. Teresa we discover is that human beings are intrinsi- shows us how, through our union in Christ who cally quiet and peaceful. We all have our exis- dwells in our centre, our soul is enkindled and tential scream, the scream that has its source transformed to see from the perspective of the in our personal communal and cosmic roots one enkindled vision of the Trinity. Teresa and so often we resist coming to quiet for fear shows us how to enkindle the eye of our soul of what this scream may mean. Contempla- through the prayer of recollection and quiet tion takes us beyond the scream. It soothes and that organically imparts union in our bodily quietens the scream and transforms it into a eyes, the eyes of our soul, the eyes of our spirit.

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This enkindled vision is bound to the love of present, we experience this presence in con- the Spirit that unites the three persons of the templation. Teresa emphasizes how the Trin- Trinity. This vision sees unity and oneness. It ity is ‘habitually’ present, reliably and consist- always looks with eyes of love. An enkindled ently present. And this presence feels like her soul lives in harmony with the loving of the heart is a sponge absorbed and saturated with Trinity. Our lives carry the perfume of the di- water, so much so that she feels her soul over- vine breath, our words flow from the centre of flowing with divinity. This great overflow of quiet, our actions are in rhythm with the gen- divine love infusing her transforms her. It im- tle inter-relating of divine loving. We do not bibes her in eternal joy. take breath to try to salvage our stressed ego, Teresa gives us permission to be infused but rather enhance the life of each other. We in these same saturating waters of love and to live full to overflowing with waters of grace, become an expression of the overflow of di- intoxicated in love, quiet in demeanor, impart- vine grace in our world. Our soul must be ing peace wherever we are. flooded in living water full and overflowing • Sharing in the Fullness of Union with from the waters of contemplation of the Trin- God. Teresa shows us how we experience be- ity. Only a full heart can share the truth of who ing in the presence of the living God who trans- we are in God. We organically participate in a forms us into union. Every person has exist- loving relationship that is one and three. To ence within this divine life and reality. She be one and at the same time relational is in- draws us into the centre of our heart to en- trinsic to what it means to be human. Aware- counter the presence of Christ who in the inti- ness of oneness in being as the ground that macy of mystical union awakens our inner eye hold us and the energy that gives life to us has to the presence of the Trinity. Then she awak- enormous implications for the ecological cri- ens us to the birth of an even more unifying sis and world peace. May we become a water- breaking through awareness that we are held fall of divine peace. And in Teresa’s words: in the divine life. We come to realize that God Let nothing disturb you, not only dwells within us but we dwell within Let nothing affright you, the ever tranquil and ever dynamic life of the for everything passes Trinity. We are held in that life and receive And God is unchanging breath from the intimacy of their loving. Held Through Patience all things are obtained, in this oneness, it becomes violent to flip back who holds fast to God into an ego centre. Held and beheld in love finds nothing is lacking. we are quiet, stable and serene. We discover God solely suffices.17 that God is a Trinity of relating, so intimately

1. Psalm 73, translation Merrill, Nan C. Psalms of Mount Carmel, which dated back to the 12th for Praying. An Invitation to Wholeness. New York: century. Her reform emphasized a return to sim- Continuum, 2007, 140. plicity, with time for contemplative prayer. The first 2. Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in 1515 new house, dedicated to St Joseph, was established and died in 1582. She was canonized in 1622 and in Avila in 1562. By the time of Teresa’s death in made the first woman Doctor of the Church in October 1582, she had founded fourteen more 1970. Teresa was a Christian of Jewish descent houses. through her grandfather, who was a converso, a 3. Teresa mainly uses the word ‘soul’ rather than Jewish convert to Catholicism. She joined the ‘heart’. ‘Heart’ in this context is our soul place Carmelite convent of the Incarnation at Avila and where we are one with God. after 27 years when she was 47 began a reform, 4. All translations are from The Collected Works returning to the Primitive Rule of the Carmelites, of St. Teresa of Avila, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and the observances of the ancient Order of Our Lady Otilio Rodriguez, 3 vols. (Washington, DC: Insti-

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tute of Carmelite Studies, 1976-1985), with the Osuna, a Spanish Franciscan, who gives one of following abbreviations in the text: The Book of the fullest treatment of recollection in his Spir- Her Life (hereafter, L), Spiritual Testimonies (ST), itual Alphabet, influenced Teresa in her devel- The Way of Perfection (P), Meditations on the Song opment of recollection. He describes recollec- of Songs (MSg), Soliloquies (S), Poetry (P), The tion as the calming needed in our intellect, Interior Castle (C). Chapter number followed by memory and will if we are to attend to the image paragraph number, are given. of Christ within. Teresa acknowledges her in- 5. Teresa uses the word ‘soul’ in many different debtedness to de Osuna, (cf. L4). The Way of contexts. It can mean person, or the self, or the Perfection, Chapters 28 and 29 deal mainly with whole person, or the subject of religious experi- recollection. ence, or Teresa herself, or the reader. Technically, 11. In the tradition of Augustine the higher facul- she refers to the soul as our inner depths which is ties of the soul are memory, understanding and will God’s dwelling place. She distinguishes the dif- where the image of the Trinity dwells in the soul ference between our soul and our spirit. Our spirit Cf. De Trinitate XIV. is the animating life of our soul, where we inhale 12. This invitation does not mean, however, that and exhale with the breath of the Holy Spirit. we give up meditating and reading scripture at other 6. It is noteworthy that Teresa did not begin to write times in the day. Teresa would always have kept until she was 47 years old, when she had spent saying the Liturgy of the Hours for example. many years praying. She wrote: The Book of Her 13. Chapters 31 and 32 of the Way of Perfection Life (1562-65), at the request of one of her spir- give the most detailed description of the prayer of itual advisors. Spiritual Testimonies (1560-1581) quiet. complements The Book of Her Life. She composed 14. This is a reference to Confessions of St Augus- The Way of Perfection (1566-69?) as a book about tine, X. contemplation, for her sisters. Two of these manu- 15. Teresa acknowledges the influence of scripts are in Teresa’s own hand. ‘Escorial’ MS is Bernardino de Laredo, the author of The Ascent of very intimate and conversational, written for her Mount Zion, for her development of the prayer of sisters. ‘Valladolid’ MS is revised after being union, (cf. L23). In Pt.111 ChXIX he speaks of checked by the Dominican censor. The Book of up-lifting our mind and remaining in pure love Her Foundations (1573-4) records the first years without any thought, raised on the wings of love of the reform of Carmel. Meditations on the Song united with God. He encourages sleep in quiet con- of Songs (1566-75?) tells of the love between Christ templation in quiet silence. and the soul. She writes Interior Castle (1577), 16. Teresa follows Augustine De Genesi ad her last and her most celebrated work, when she is Litteram who distinguishes three kinds of visions: 62. intellectual, imaginative and corporeal. Cf. L27.3 7. In the Way of Perfection Teresa gives weight to for a summary of corporeal, seen with bodily eyes, her emphasis on Christ’s presence within, by quot- imaginative, seen with the eyes of the soul, and ing Augustine: ’Remember how Saint Augustine intellectual visions. She says of an intellectual tells us he sought Him (God) in many places, but vision: ‘I see with the eyes of neither the body nor found Him ultimately within himself’ (P28.2). the soul…. It is not like those who are blind or in 8. Teresa explains that ‘humility. . . is an important dark… the vision is represented through knowl- aspect of prayer and indispensable for all person edge given to the soul that is clearer than sunlight. who practice it’ (P 17.1). She stresses: ‘This is true I don’t mean that you see the sun or brightness,… humility: to know what you can do and what I but that the light without your seeing light, illumes [God] can do’ (ST 24). the intellect so that the soul may enjoy such a great 9. Collected Works, vol 2, 32. good. The vision bears with it wonderful bless- 10. Recollection has a long tradition described ings’ (L27.3). in The Life of Anthony, Augustine’s Confession 17. Flame of Love. Poems of the Spanish Mys- and Gregory the Great’s Homilies on Ezekiel, tics. San Juan De La Cruz Santa Teresa De Je- where he identified recollection as the first stage sus. Translated by Loren G. Smith. New York: of the contemplative ascent to God. Francisco Paulist Press, 93.

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PREPARING TO CELEBRATE THE LITURGY OF THE WORD

January—April 2011

From the Feast of the Epiphany to Easter Sunday

Prepared by Michael Trainor

PART ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE READINGS

The following is a brief overview of the Lit- In the following Sundays of OT (OT 3-9) urgy of the Word for major celebrations pro- leading to Lent we follow the opening Chap- claimed from the readings for Sundays be- ters of Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus calls his tween January and April, from the Feast of the disciples (OT 3) and teaches them (OT 4-9). Epiphany to Easter Sunday. Please feel free to The themes of the gospel over these Sundays use or adapt these reflections, with the cus- echo and continue in their unique way the call tomary acknowledgement of source. to discipleship celebrated through baptism. The second readings over these Sundays are Before Lent from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Our selection in this period opens with the feast Paul’s struggle with the divided Corinthian fol- of Epiphany of Jesus, the ‘manifestation’ lowers of Jesus reveals his passion to have (epiphania in Greek) of Jesus to the world. them come to unity, guided by the spirit and Rather than focussing on the historical or lit- wisdom of Jesus. Similar tensions exist in our eral event of a star and its guidance of foreign churches today. Paul’s insights continue to magi to Jesus, in the early centuries this feast speak into our world. was so important that it outshone even Christ- mas. The Epiphany is the celebration of the Lent universality of Jesus for a world in need of 1. The First readings over the Sundays of direction and spiritual nourishment. Epiphany Lent are important opportunities to celebrate is eternally relevant. the sacred story of Israel’s relationship with After the celebration of the Epiphany of God as witnessed through its Scriptures. There Jesus (Jan 2) and with the beginning of Lent is no need to ‘Christianise’ them. They were in early March and therefore later than other the Bible readings which Jesus himself would years, we are able to celebrate the first nine have listened to. The First Testament readings Sundays of Ordinary Time (OT). OT 1 is al- in March and April during Lent are chosen to ways the feast of the Baptism of Jesus (Jan 9). illustrate and reflect upon some of the most This feast provides an opportunity to celebrate important religious stories and moments that the gift of baptism and renew its call to a lead- formed God’s people: The mythological story ership of the baptised in our Church. The re- that deals with the cause of evil (Lent 1), the newal of baptismal vows and recommitment call of Abram (Lent 2), Israel’s wandering in to ground all ministry in baptism is important the desert (Lent 3), the anointment of King in faith communities looking to renew leader- David (Lent 4) and God’s promise to bring ship and ministry. All ecclesial ministry, in- Israel back from Exile (Lent 5). cluding presbyteral and episcopal, is grounded in baptism. 2. The Second Reading over Lent allows us

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to celebrate essential truths about our relation- John’s Gospel. These help us reflect on ship with Jesus (Lent 1 and 2), God (Lent 3 the journey of faith. They raise the key and 4), and the Spirit (Lent 5) taken from the themes and questions of our Christian Pauline literature. Lent 1, 3 and 5 come from lives: For what do we thirst? (Lent 3— Paul’s important letter to the Romans. The The woman at the well) What drives and other Lent Sundays are letters written by Paul’s enlightens us? (Lent 4— he man born disciples (2 Tim, Eph). Each of the selections blind) What gives us life? (Lent 5 —The is relevant for the respective Lenten theme story of Lazarus). These gospel themes celebrated. are particularly pertinent to those candidates journeying through Lent and pre- 3. The Gospel readings during the Lenten paring themselves for full initiation into period are either from Matthew or John (a the Christian community in the Easter gospel composed in the late first and early sec- vigil. ond centuries to an ethnically and theologi- A final word about the Easter Gospel (April cally diverse community with a rich religious 23 and 24), the final gospel of this present se- history). lection. This is the most important gospel proc- • Lent 1 and 2 conventionally look at the lamation of the whole liturgical year. Matthew stories of Jesus’ temptation and trans- portrays the resurrection of Jesus as an event figuration. In both stories in Mt, Jesus is of victory in the face of evil and human machi- portrayed as a faithful Jew, committed nations. Political power and military might, to God in the midst of temptation and symbolised by the presence of the guards struggle. The highlight of Mt’s gospel posted at the entrance of the tomb, are unable proclamation comes on Passion Sunday to prevent God’s action. This is an important and Easter, with the story of Jesus pas- and necessary truth we need to hear today, in sion, death and resurrection. Jesus dies a world and church entrapped by political as king, and God raises him to life. power and might. God is the heart of every- • Lent 3-5 focus on important stories from thing and Matthew’s risen Jesus is testament to this fundamental truth.

PART TWO: NOTES ON THE READINGS

Jan 2, 2011— Epiphany of Jesus: Is 60:1-6. to Cornelius’ Roman household that Jesus is God’s light shines on creation and humanity. This God’s baptised and anointed one. All people, no makes a difference to how our world is perceived. matter their social or ethnic background, belong Eph 3:2-3.5-6. The mystery of God’s universal to God. Mt 3:13-17. Jesus is baptised and de- and hospitable love means that we share in God’s clared ‘beloved’. TTheme—Being Beloved. In a life. Mt 2:1-12. The wise follow the stars; their world of turmoil, this celebration offers an op- eyes are on the heavens, their ear to the Scrip- portunity for the baptised community to remem- tures and their desire on Jesus. Theme—Being ber and celebrate its ‘belovedness.’ God delights Enlightened. At the core of every person is the in us. This is an important moment to name who inner light of God. We affirm our search for God God is for us, and we for God, especially when and the way we draw close to God through Jesus. contrary voices seem to dominate. Epiphany is a continuous feast (however unrec- Jan 16—Ordinary Time (OT) 2: Is 49:3, 5-6. The ognised) in the heart of every human being. Can mission of God’s Servant chosen one is to restore we identify its manifestation today in the lives of a broken and dispersed people. 1 Cor 1:1-3. This those we know? is the beginning of a famous letter, in which the Jan 9— Baptism of Jesus: Is 42:1-4, 6-7 God Corinthian Christians are reminded of their call to delights in the Servant who brings liberation to sainthood, and their relationship to God and Je- the disconsolate. Acts 10:34-38. Peter acclaims sus. Jn 1:29-34. John the Baptist recognises Jesus

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as the chosen one and possessor of God’s Spirit. Jesus’ teaching as antithetic to the OT, Mt empha- Theme—Spirit Possessed: Our communion with sises Jesus in harmony with the OT and Torah Jesus through baptism and Eucharist reminds us teaching. The ‘but’ in the translation is neither accu- that we, like Jesus, possess the Spirit of God. We rate nor helpful. Theme—Wisdom. We all desire are called, like the Servant, to proclaim restora- wisdom to live rightly, happily, in harmony with tion and hope to people. others and our world. All today’s readings celebrate Jan 23—OT 3: Is 9:1-4. A beautiful poem of God’s this search and locate true wisdom in God (Sirach) overwhelming vision for humanity: light, peace and and Jesus.(1 Cor, Mt). What are signs of wisdom freedom in the midst of oppression. 1 Cor 1:10- acting in our world? Who can we celebrate among 13.17-18. Paul addresses the problem at Corinth us that reveal true wisdom to us? of division. The true source of unity is Jesus, the February 20—OT 7: Lv 19:1-2.17-18. The Isra- Good News. Mt 4:12-23. Jesus’ presence and min- elites are reminded that they are called to holiness. istry echoes the Is reading of liberation. Jesus calls This spills over into community friendliness. 1 Cor his first community of disciples. Theme—Libera- 3:16-23. Paul teaches the Corinthian followers of tion and Hope: The hope expressed in the vision Jesus that they are God’s temples, revealers of of Isaiah in the first reading touches our deepest God’s holiness and possessors of God’s spirit. They desires. Mt’s Jesus expresses this as he calls his belong to God. Mt 5:38-48. Generosity and enemy first disciples. How is our local faith community forgiveness are essential qualities of discipleship. an expression of that hope and liberty, of Isaiah’s Theme—The call to holiness: We are all called to vision? holiness, affirmed in the Second Vatican Council. Jan 30—OT 4: Zeph 2:3; 3:12-13. The humble are This call finds its origins in the story of Israel, Je- invited to seek God. They are God’s true people. 1 sus and his disciples. It is expressed through the Cor 1:26-31. Society’s rejected and foolish ones way we live, act graciously and forgive. reveal the power of God evident in Jesus, God’s February 27—OT 8: Is 49:14-15. God seeks to wisdom. Mt 5:1-12. Jesus speaks the essential quali- remember, console and celebrate. 1 Cor 4:1-5. ties (‘Beatitudes’) at the heart of discipleship. Paul’s relationship with God lies at the heart of Theme—Humility. Humility is not about putting our- everything he does. He will be judged simply by selves down or allowing others to walk over us. It is his fidelity to this relationship. Mt 6:24-34. Jesus the truthful realisation of who are before God: we teaches his disciples to trust in God and let go of are people of the earth (‘humilis’ Latin, ‘earth’) in unnecessary worries. Theme—Trust in God. Em- communion with all people and creatures. Living phasis on material wealth and status can distract by such an attitude opens us up to the power and from true wealth and riches: one’s relationship and action of God, which makes us ‘blessed.’ intimacy with Isaiah’s God, who wants to console February 6—OT 5:. Is 58:7-10. The prophet re- and celebrate us. God is in love with us. minds his people of the essentials of religious prac- March 6—OT 9: Dt 11: 18. 26-28. 32. Moses tice: justice and alleviation of poverty. 1 Cor 2:1- teaches the heart of religion: a total focus on God. 5. Paul preaches not from an elitist position, but This is the heart of Judaism. Rom 3: 21-25. 28. with sensitivity to God’s Spirit. Mt 5:13-16. Dis- Paul also teaches the heart of religion: Focus on ciples are salt and light to the world. Theme—Com- God through Jesus. This is called ‘righteousness.’ mitment to the World: God’s presence to the world Mt 7: 21- 27. Jesus teaches the heart of disciple- is revealed through committed disciples who are ship: A focus on Jesus and his words. Theme— people of justice, peace, light and truth. Several Focus on God. Living each day with an explicit examples of such commitment abound in our faith consciousness of God is at the heart of Judaism, communities. the faith life of Jesus and Mt’s community. How February 13—OT 6: Sir 15:15-20. In this First can this awareness be encouraged and celebrated Testament wisdom book the writer reveals how in our local Sunday Assembly? God’s wisdom is given to enable faithful people to March 13—Lent 1: Gen 2:7f. An ancient story live with freedom. 1 Cor 2:6-10. Paul celebrates seeking to explain the presence of evil and human’s the wisdom of God, once hidden, now revealed in cooperation with it. Everyone gets blamed! Rom Jesus. Mt 5:17-37. Jesus affirms the teachings and 5:12-19. The role of Jesus as God’s obedient and wisdom of the OT and deepens their meaning for righteous one in the plan of salvation. Mt 4:1-11 Matthew’s Jewish audience. Rather than showing Jesus is tempted by the devil and remains faithful

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to God. Theme—Evil & Fidelity. The great human Easter—our resurrection and life. What brings us experiences that cause suffering and misery are the to life? Are there any local and relevant examples focus for this first Sun of Lent. The call to repent- where life is happening? ance and fidelity to God might typify the message April 17—Passion: Mt 21:1-11 Jesus enters Jeru- to the local community. salem as its legitimate and recognised leader. Is March 20—Lent 2: Gen 12:1-4. God calls Abram 50:4-7. The song of the humble and attentive serv- and the story of Israel begins. 2 Tim 1:8-10. The ant of God, ever alert and schooled in God’s ways. writer invites us to bring our struggles into com- Phil 2:6-11. The famous hymn of Jesus’ embraced munion with Jesus. Mt 17:1-9. Jesus is transfig- service that leads to his exaltation. Mt 26:14-27:66. ured. Theme—Change: Abram and Jesus are both The passion and death of Jesus, Israel’s exalted theological models of sacred change….open to God and humbled Leader. Theme—The Suffering One. and God’s call. Local renewal relies on the ability Jesus reveals God’s solidarity with the suffering, to be open to change. struggling and rejected. March 27—Lent 3: Ex 17:3-7. The people com- April 21—Holy Thursday. Ex 12:1-8,11-14. The plain about their thirst in the desert. Rom 5:1-2,5- Passover meal of deliverance. 1 Cor 11:23-26 Paul 8. Paul affirms God’s love for us. This becomes remembers Jesus’ last meal with his friends before the cause of hope. Jn 4:5-42. This is the great story death. Jn 13:1-15. Jesus’ act of foot-washing is a of the woman at the well who meets the source of symbol of service and solidarity Theme—Leader- living water, Jesus. Theme—Thirst Quenching: For ship: Jesus is the one who leads us to God. Lead- what do we thirst? What is our deepest desire? ership is the cry of our Church, world, commu- Today’s gospel invites us to renew our relation- nity. Who reveals to us the most authentic values ship with the source of Living Water, who satisfies of human existence? us deeply. April 22—Good Friday. Is 52:13-53:12. Another April 3—Lent 4: A 1 Sam 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13 The servant song reflecting in length on his innocent anointing of David, the unexpected and unrecog- suffering for others. Heb 4:14-16;5:7-9. Jesus is nised one, as king. Eph 5:8-14. Living in the light compassionate with us who suffered. Jn 18:1-19:42 of God. Jn 9. Another great story: the gradual in- Jesus, the exalted one, suffers, and dies as inno- sight into Jesus of the man born blind. Theme— cent lamb and acclaimed as king. The moment of Light & seeing: This Sunday can help us name the death is also exaltation and victory. Theme—Vic- ways that we deeply see, interpret and know our tory. God’s solidarity revealed through Jesus with lives and world. Today’s gospel invites us to come the cries of suffering emitted by creation and hu- to the source of light, Jesus. man beings. God is victorious over death. April 10—Lent 5: Ez 37:12-14. God promises to April 23 & 24—Easter: Mt 28:1-10. The Risen open the graves of the dead, lead Israel back from Jesus brings joy to the women who come to the exile with a new spirit. Rom 8:8-11. God’s spirit tomb Theme—Joy. In a world and among people possesses us. Jn 11. Jesus raises Lazarus from the that seem so sad and preoccupied with survival, dead. Theme—Life & resurrection: This Sunday the Easter message is central, offering a renewed climaxes great themes of Lent in preparation for vision: He is Risen! —Michael Trainor, School of Theology, Flinders University at the Adelaide College of Divinity.

ASH WEDNESDAY In the Roman Rite, the beginning of the forty days of penance is marked with the austere symbol of ashes which are used in the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday. The use of ashes is a survival from an ancient rite according to which converted sinners submit- ted themselves to canonical penance. The act of putting on ashes symbolizes fragility and mortality, and the need to be redeemed by the mercy of God. Far from being a

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merely external act, the Church has retained the use of ashes to symbolize that attitude of internal penance to which all the baptized are called during Lent. The faithful who come to receive ashes should be assisted in perceiving the implicit internal significance of this act, which disposes them towards conversion and renewed Easter commitment. Notwithstanding the secularisation of contemporary society, the Christian faithful, during Lent, are clearly conscious of the need to turn the mind towards those realities which really count, which require Gospel commitment and integrity of life which, through self denial of those things which are superfluous, are translated into good works and solidarity with the poor and needy. Those of the faithful who infrequently attend the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist should be aware of the long ecclesial tradition associating the precept of confessing grave sins and receiving Holy Communion at least once during the lenten season, or preferably during Eastertide.

THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS The Via Crucis is a particularly apt pious exercise for Lent. The following may prove useful suggestions for a fruitful celebration of the Via Crucis: • the traditional form of the Via Crucis, with its fourteen stations, is to be retained as the typical form of this pious exercise; from time to time, however, as the occasion warrants, one or other of the traditional stations might possibly be substituted with a reflection on some other aspects of the Gospel account of the journey to Calvary which are traditionally included in the Stations of the Cross; • alternative forms of the Via Crucis have been approved by Apostolic See(138) or publicly used by the Roman Pontiff(139): these can be regarded as genuine forms of the devotion and may be used as occasion might warrant; • the Via Crucis is a pious devotion connected with the Passion of Christ; it should conclude, however, in such fashion as to leave the faithful with a sense of expec- tation of the resurrection in faith and hope; following the example of the Via Crucis in Jerusalem which ends with a station at the Anastasis, the celebration could end with a commemoration of the Lord’s resurrection. Innumerable texts exist for the celebration of the Via Crucis. Many of them were compiled by pastors who were sincerely interested in this pious exercise and convinced of its spiritual effectiveness. Texts have also been provided by lay authors who were known for their exemplary piety, holiness of life, doctrine and literary qualities. Bearing in mind whatever instructions might have been established by the bishops in the matter, the choice of texts for the Via Crucis should take a count of the condition of those participating in its celebration and the wise pastoral principle of integrating renewal and continuity. It is always preferable to choose texts resonant with the biblical narrative and written in a clear simple style. The Via Crucis in which hymns, silence, procession and reflective pauses are wisely integrated in a balanced manner, contribute significantly to obtaining the spiritual fruits of the pious exercise. —Congregation for Divine Worship, Directory on Popular Piety and the Lit- urgy, December 2001

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