Fr Peter's newsletter notes - September 2007

22nd Week of Ordinary Time - Sunday 2nd September 2007

The beginning of the school, year makes us once again, reflect on the meaning of education

As of writing it was not much of a summer this year, weather-wise, and before the sun appeared the thoughts of many families must have changed from holiday mode to ‘return to school’ mode, and all that entails. Perhaps a family member is beginning school for the first time, or transferring to a new secondary school or College. And whether for better or for worse, another school year is about to begin. The weeks preceding the start of term are normally filled with the chatter over the quality of national exams; are they too easy, have standards improved? For the outsider it looks and sounds a sterile debate, because in the heat of the argument something of value has been lost, the human qualities needed to continue the search for meaning which passes beyond the school gate or college campus. Exams only mark a particular stage of education, they are not the end result, whether it be Key Stage 1 or receiving a Doctorate from a University.

The search for meaning embraces the totality of the world, and therefore in the school environment includes all those science and art subjects. Both groups provide the necessary material for both understanding something of the world and about ourselves, not in terms of subject content alone, but in terms of method of learning. No one can be good at every subject at school or college. Most pupils find some subjects very uncongenial. However success in every subject is not necessary to understand oneself, but the struggle to learn is so. The ability to focus and to remain attentive in trying to understand a problem develops a skill that is vital for life. For the Christian, moreover, this is the foundation for prayer, and personal reflection. The Cure d’Ars, the saintly French parish priest of the 19th century, found it notoriously hard to grasp the Latin language whilst studying in the Diocesan seminary. These long years of struggle however bore fruit many years later, when he exhibited the incredible power of discernment whilst hearing confessions. He had learnt to be attentive, and so to be able to listen to others, in this case the thousands of penitents who flocked from all over France to seek his pastoral care.

The rush for tangible results in education, is similar to the hypnotic effects of instant communication, the email and the mobile phone. It attacks the foundation of true learning and real listening because it deprecates silence and reflection. Every answer has to be either instantaneous or provisional, and never considered. The demand for repeated testing at school blocks out those more sensitive communications of meaning that should animate the lives of every child and adult. This attacks at the every root of faith. God revealed His nature to Elijah through the soft breeze, and not through the mighty earthquake. That required the ability to listen on the part of Elijah, and to learn from that experience. These are the true fruits of education.

24th Week of Ordinary Time - Sunday 16th September 2007

The self-understanding of the elder son is a constant temptation, but it has no place in Christian faith.

The parable of the Prodigal Son must be one of the best known in the Bible. There is an immediate resonance between ourselves and the younger son. This emotive connection with the younger son can, however, blot out other meanings and associations that lie within the parable. Pope Benedict XVI in his book ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ highlights the context in which the parable was spoken by Jesus. He was in conversation with the scribes and Pharisees about His daily conduct, and particularly His table fellowship with sinners. The Pharisees by implication divided the world into the righteous and the sinner, and it is this classification that Jesus both questions and turns upside down.

This explains why the parable seems to end so abruptly, with the Father standing outside talking to the elder son pleading that the younger brother ‘was lost and is found’. It fits the exact description of Jesus speaking to the Pharisees, and contains an implicit understanding that Jesus of Nazareth, the historic figure, is the Father of the parable, and the image of the Father revealed in the Old Testament. Therefore the interpretation that the younger and elder sons represent the gentiles and the Jews is not quite accurate.

The distinction between the two is much more between one who did experiment with the boundless yet unfulfilling freedom of individual expression yet found it wanting, and the other who is yearning to sample this same form of freedom. This gnawing sense of lost opportunity and failure to grasp the conversion undergone by his younger brother made him fail to realise the advantage of living in the Father’s house. He has interpreted his relationship with his father in terms of duty and obligation. The difference between the brothers is not just a contrast between religions but between authentic and inauthentic forms of relationship with the Father. The parable stands in the Old Testament tradition of Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. God’s mysterious purposes are established through the interaction of two brothers, and the same is true here. God does not will anyone to wrong doing, but in the context of everyday life He takes every opportunity to stimulate the return journey back to Him, a journey that can only be undertaken in freedom.

The elder son represents much better than the younger son the modern dilemma in the understanding of freedom. Perhaps it might be described as the dilemma of middle age: the freedoms of youth are now a distant dream and the burdens of family duty weigh heavily. Yet this is an impoverished sense of freedom; the greater freedom is to be found in the Father’s house, sharing in His life and generosity, and where the duties and burdens of daily existence become the means of participating in His goodness.

25th Week of Ordinary Time - Sunday 23rd September 2007

The taking and acceptance of risk is necessary both for faith and daily life.

This Friday is the feats day of St Matthew, and the Gospel chosen for the day is the account of his calling by Jesus. Matthew is sitting at the customs house, and while passing Jesus calls, and Matthew gets up, downs tools and follows. No further details are given, but the context of this incident can help illuminate our understanding of this call. Previously Jesus had healed a man with a withered hand in the Synagogue on a Sabbath, an action condemned by the Pharisees. His subsequent action to calling Matthew was to eat at (Peter’s?) house with sinners and tax collectors. This table fellowship again aroused the ire of the Pharisees. The call of Matthew is sandwiched between this obvious concern Jesus shows for those who need healing, and those who know they need His grace. In all three situations Jesus acts first. Matthew, though, responds with generosity. He takes a risk, and gets up to follow Jesus. There is no blueprint for him to examine, no set of guidelines other than of Jesus Christ Himself. The guidelines will only be discovered over time and through being in close proximity with Jesus. Matthew steps into the unknown but there is a quality about the divine call which makes answering it a matter of necessity.

It would have been much easier for Matthew to have let Christ pass by without following Him. Christ wishes to take us out of our ‘comfort-zone’, and our limited vision of the morally possible, and into His own. The aversion to moral and spiritual risk typifies contemporary culture, both institutionally and personally. The plethora of ‘Heath and Safety’ instructions, and now this risk aversion is entering the financial field. Within the realm of the personal this aversion to moral risk it takes on many forms. Countless couples live together for years, offering the excuse that modern weddings are too expensive, when the real reason is that the risk of marriage is too great. The acceptance of risk, the unknown future, is part of the virtue of courage, the ability to respond to difficult situations with a steady purpose. Marriage requires the cultivation of this virtue because each couple is going to be confronted with situations often not of their own making such as unemployment, family bereavement, disappointment, difficult teenagers. A steady purpose is needed so that these difficulties do not destroy the fabric of the marriage itself.

This culture has had a stultifying effect on other personal relationships especially for the single life. Every relationship entails some risk, even at the very basic level of speaking to a stranger or asking someone out. The rejection of ‘risk’, or the seeking of instant perfection will never lead to either friendship or marriage. A more penetrating insight is required to perceive beneath the surface to something spiritual within the soul. The analysis might be misguided, but the presence of a gut feeling, and the inner voice do offer re-assurance.

The implication of the call of Matthew has much to say about the human condition. Jesus could see beyond Matthew’s present circumstances and the generosity of response were rewarded. He was taken out of the shadow of sin and mediocrity, and into the light of the Gospel.

26th Week of Ordinary Time - Sunday 30th September 2007

Human authority derives from God, and conscience marks its acceptable limits.

Over the last two weeks the Barbican playhouse has hosted a play entitled, ‘Burial at Thebes’, Seamus Heaney’s translation of Sophocles’ Antigone. The original ancient Greek play was the third in a trilogy concerning Oedipus’s family. The play revolves around Creon, the new leader of Thebes, refusing to allow the burial rites of the dead son, Polyneices, who had rebelled against the city, and for which his other son, Eteocles, had paid the ultimate price. Contrary to the newly decreed law of the state, their sister performs the burial rites, rites demanded by the Gods and part of the immemorial customs of man. Kind Creon, who in the previous two plays had been in the shadows, seemingly uninterested in his family’s political power struggles, now gradually becomes a vindictive tyrant.

The programme notes make the secularist’s mistake of thinking the subject matter is solely King Creon and his abuse of human power and subsequent descent into madness. Indeed the writer then goes on to speak of the ‘Creon test’ in judging the actions of present political leaders who needless to say do not come out very well from this analysis. Yet this has little to do with the play. No account is given as to why Antigone must bury her brother, which is the heart of the play. The immutable laws of the gods, what a Christian would call the natural law, may never be purposefully broken or denied. To deny anyone a burial is to act contrary to the gods since they control both the living and the dead in Greek mythology. A similar situation arises for the Christian because as Jesus says, ‘all men are indeed alive to God’, whether they are alive or not to mankind. The way one respects the dead speaks volumes of how one treats the living. The desecration of human bodies is always a deeply repulsive action. King Creon wants to show that by denying a proper burial to his rebellious son he is not placing family emotions above the law of the state. However, this is a law that he himself had promulgated along with the consent of his counsel. The mistake made by Creon is to place human law on par with the law of the gods, something all too common today. All law as with all authority ultimately derives from God and is a participation, for the good of humanity, in the divine governance of the world. The complexity of modern law and the deluge of legislation that emanates from Westminster and Brussels make it easy to lose sight of this essential insight.

The tragedy of King Creon is that once he has denied the immutable law of the gods in this matter then he has to punish his own daughter for transgressing the human law, which in turn leads to the death of his possible successor who commits suicide. The ‘Creon test’ is not about a visionary revolutionary who becomes a tyrant once in power, but of whether power is seen as a participation in something greater, that of God or the natural law, or as of right. Creon’s conscience torments him but, within his own framework of political understanding, as of the state being the final arbiter in matters of the law, he is unable to change. In contrast, the Christian should see divine government, and human political power, as standing under the Cross. This will forever be the public voice of conscience as to the limits of political power. To act contrary to God’s law will always lead to violence and death, as can be seen throughout the world.

The Sacrament of Marriage (Part 3) (CCC 1625-)

The essence of the sacrament of marriage is the consent given by the spouses to each other. There must be no legal impediment, and the consent must be freely given. This consent forms an indissoluble bond, and so ‘the two become one flesh’.

The priest receives this consent on behalf of the Church in front of two witnesses. This gives the sacrament a public face because Christian marriage has a rightful place in the visible society which is the Church. The married state confers responsibilities, such as the bringing up and educating of children, and they to have a rightful place in the Church. The public nature of the celebration of marriage ensures certainty as to their commitment and encourages the couple o remain steadfast.

The Church emphasises the need for preparation prior to taking this step. This is a life-long process of formation which begins at home. The example of parents remains the key influence on their children. This example should have been formed by the Church in which they are an integral part, and the ‘family of the Church’ can supply where the marriage of parents has failed. The Church now tries to foster a much greater sense of personal commitment amongst its members, so that marriage can look like the natural outcome of a life of faith. The giving of oneself to Christ finds its expression in the giving of oneself to another in marriage.

The Catechism includes under the section of preparation the question of ‘mixed marriages’, those between a Catholic and a non-Catholic Christian, and the question of marriages between Catholics and a non-baptised person, a so-called ‘disparity of cult’. Both cases bring with them their own special difficulties. The first can, unfortunately, bring the pain of Christian religious division right into the heart of the family, even though the couple do share a common Christian background. In such cases the couple need to establish the faith in which the children of the marriage are to be brought up. In the second case the Church expects the non baptised person not to actively oppose the Catholic understanding of marriage, nor of the need to baptise all children as Catholics.

Sacramentals and Funeral Liturgies (CCC 1667-1690)

The final section on the sacraments concludes with a description of sacramentals and Christian funerals. This is the title given by the Church for all those blessings given by clergy and laity that do not confer the Holy Spirit but, through the Church’s life of prayer, disposes the recipient to receive grace. Such daily blessings would include such actions as a family blessing food at the beginning of a meal and making the sign of the Cross with holy water when entering the Church. The power of these blessings derive from the common priesthood shared by all the baptised. Other blessings require a priest or bishop such as consecration of religious sisters, or of a Church The Church does in particular circumstances ask for specific protection from the evil one. This is over and above the simple form which takes place in the rite of Baptism. Permission is always needed from a Bishop for such exorcisms, and through the power given to the Church by Jesus Christ. Prior to such blessings the Church needs to discern that there is no confusion with regard to mental illness for which this blessing is not appropriate.

The various forms of piety in the Church display the continuing wisdom of the praying faithful in combining the divine and human aspects of faith as in the relationship between Christ and Mary. Personal pious practices should be oriented to the public liturgy of the Church and are never its substitute. Pious practices are regulated by the Church to achieve such ends. The recent growth in the number of Churches with perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is witness to the continuing vitality of popular piety.

The Christian funeral marks the end of the sacraments for the deceased. Death is the gateway into the new life begun at Baptism and anticipated in the Eucharist. The Church has born the believer in her ‘womb’ throughout their life and now delivers, through Christ, the Christian into the hands of the Father with the hope that the seed of the body will rise in glory.

Life in Christ: Introduction (CCC 1691-1698)

The Catechism now begins a new section on Christian morality, entitled ‘The Moral Life’. This section follows naturally from the previous ones on the Creed and the Sacraments. The believer who has faith in Jesus Christ, and who has received the sacraments of re-birth (Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist) is now invited to share in the life of Christ. Through faith there should be a growing self-awareness of the destiny to which the believer has been called, and to humble need of grace to reach towards this supernatural end. Therefore Catholic morality has never been one of command alone, but of a co-operation between God and man. The call to perfection and to live a ‘life worthy of the Gospel’ is made possible through the gift of grace which ‘justifies’ the believer, and sanctifies his or her actions. The Holy Spirit gradually effects, in those receptive to grace, a spiritual transformation. The believer through faith is shown very clearly the two paths, the one that leads to life, and the other that leads to damnation.

This brief synopsis of faith given by the Catechism helps understanding the structure of Church moral teaching. This structure will include an explanation of divine action, through the Holy Spirit, of the forgiveness of sins and the gift of grace. These internal concerns will be complemented by external commands and counsels. The Church does focus on the objective quality of moral actions, because it takes seriously those who act, whether for better or worse. This seriousness of human action is due to its effect on the soul, and with that the possibility of salvation.

The Catechism finishes this introductory part by emphasising that Jesus Christ remains the source, example and end of all Christian moral life because He is the revelation of God, the source of all that exists. Hence Christian morality is based on revelation, the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes which in no way contradicts the natural law, the moral code written into creation. As Christ is the head of the Church Catholic morality has an ecclesial dimension as the Church makes possible the living of the Christian life, through the celebration of the sacraments.

Life in Christ: The dignity of the human person (CCC 1699-1715)

The Catechism begins by presenting a framework through which it will explain the drama of moral action in relation to God and ultimate salvation. This framework may be seen explicitly in Jesus Christ in whose humanity the perfect image of God is found. The dignity of each human person is rooted in creation, and each man and woman is made in the image and likeness of God. This image has been severely tarnished by original sin but, through the merits of Christ’s dying on the Cross, still finds its fulfilment in the lifelong vocation to divine beatitude, the search for peace with God and his creation. Everyone has an active role in this search which is not restricted to the ‘religious’ but forms part of the universal human quest for meaning. Christians should have a clear notion that this entails both human effort and divine grace. Together both lead to a growth in virtue, the ability to do ‘right’ actions at the right times. The path is neither risk free nor inevitable. The weakness of the will and the reality of sin make this a fitful journey. Like the Prodigal son the sinner needs to seek the mercy of the Father in order to return to his original relationship.

The first article of this section on morality emphasises the grandeur of the Church’s vision of humanity. The reality of sin is not downplayed but should not obstruct the sense that men and women are the only creatures God willed to share His life. They each possess a soul and with it the capacities to think and to will, so that each person, through his or her own intellect and volition, can direct themselves to God.

These powers allow men and women to recognise, through their consciences, the voice of God to ‘do good and avoid evil’. This law should always be followed. The dignity of the person resides in their conscience, and the free choice to live the moral life. The Christian accepts that this freedom can be abused and, though still desiring the good, the believer finds it both a struggle to discern and to fulfil the right action. The new life of the Holy Spirit that each believer receives at Baptism restores what had been lost through the fall. The pursuit of holiness is a real possibility.