Queen Elizabeth 60 years

I met the Queen in 1977 in her silver jubilee tour of NZ. A group of four of us scouts had been chosen to stand at a camp fire cooking sausages on Caroline Bay Timaru. Several hundred scouts stood about ten metres behind us. 

The Queen came along and stopped at our fire. She greeted us and spoke with us. One of our group asked if she would like a sausage. She held out her white-gloved hands, and declined.

Five minutes later, Prince Philip came along. We offered him a sausage as well. He looked around to see where the Queen was, and (looking as though he really wanted one), also declined.

The Queen was 50 years old in that February - March 1977 NZ tour. When I met her in Timaru that day, she was exactly the age (to the week) that I am today.  (Being snow-stranded in Cheviot today I have the time to work these things out!)

Today I watched the Diamond Jubilee Service at St. Paul's Cathedral.  There are many positive comments I could make about that appropriate and dignified service, but I will save them for a later blog entry.

A highlight was Archbishop Rowan Williams' sermon. He spoke powerfully about dedication. This is worth reading a couple of times.

The Archbishop's sermon text is available at this link

Revised order of the Mass

Over the past couple of years, the revised texts of the prayers of the Mass has taken our time and effort. In communities where the effort has been made, the fruits are evident.


We often slip up and respond with the more familiar 'and also with you' instead of 'and with your spirit'. It is inevitable that we struggle with the change in texts, but this rediscovery of the gift of the Mass invites us to a much broader project. These months of renewal are an opportunity for us to appreciate anew the beauty of the Mass.

In every Mass, our human senses are re-activated and re-oriented towards God. The Mass, when celebrated well, engages our physical senses, so enabling the senses of the soul to become more sensitive to the activity of God with us.

In the Mass we listen and we speak. We see. We touch. Even our sense of smell is engaged as the incense rises. Our bodies are active in worship of God as we kneel and stand. We bow and beat our breasts. We process. We listen and look.

The Mass is not simply a ‘spiritual’ event. It is also a physical action.  When Jesus enters bread and wine, transforming them into his body and blood, this is much more than a spiritual experience. It is a tangible event. It is a corporeal reality.


We are reminded of this when encouraged to embrace renewed postures of standing and kneeling, beating our breast in repentance, bowing before receiving communion...

And so our 'spiritual life’ is a profoundly ‘physical’ existence. The fullness of God has become fully present in earthly elements. The bread and wine now have a new reality. They are God-with-us.  We consume this reality and every cell of our bodies becomes a new creation.

We too easily make the mistake of thinking of God as only ‘spiritual’ and dwelling only in the human ‘soul’. Yes, God is Spirit, and God does live in the soul. But the process of human growth invites God to transform every emotion, every experience, every encounter. The full presence of God, in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is a physical reality among us.

Now that this divine reality has been communicated to us, we have become the vehicles of the divine word to the world. Our awakened bodies become the voice through which we tell of God: through our words, and work, the way we look and listen. Every aspect of our presence in the world becomes the vehicle of our inner life with God to our family, friends, neighbours and to all people.

The liturgy of the Church seeks to engage our hearts, minds AND bodies, in worship of God.

One of the most universal and popular prayers highlights this. When we make the Sign of the Cross we use movement to accompany our invocation of the Trinity.

The Sign of the Cross is not simply a convenient way to begin and end prayer. The Sign of the Cross IS prayer.  We have prayed this prayer often and habitually. We rejoice when we see a sportsman or stranger quickly make this sign in a moment of need or thanksgiving. 

The Sign of the Cross, even without the conscious use of words, is a powerful prayer.

On this Trinity Sunday, let us rediscover this short, simple and beautiful prayer; the prayer that engages our bodies in participation in the full life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

community: the fruit of communion

If someone were to ask you to say something about the Trinity in a sentence or two, what would you say? I have spent many hours sitting in classes studying the Trinity, and I’m not even sure how I would begin.

Some people think that the doctrines of the Church, celebrated in the major feasts of the Church, are ‘optional extras’.  These people might say that it is not essential to know what is meant by the doctrine of the Trinity (or the Ascension or Assumption etc).

Here is an analogy that you might find useful.

One of our parishioners was telling me last week about the assistant priest at Hawarden (many years ago), who was instructed to take the car and go to Cheviot to celebrate Mass. The assistant was not prepared to admit that he had never driven a car before, so he boldly went out, got into the car, started it, and drove to Cheviot for Mass. 

After Mass he was telling the Cheviot parishioners how difficult and slow the journey was, and how much noise the engine made. It became obvious to all that he had driven all the way in first gear.

To drive a distance in first gear is possible. You may even reach your destination.  But how much more helpful to learn from someone who knows, about the advantages of second gear, reverse gear, and about the benefits of using the clutch!

A baptised Catholic is the heir to the fullness of Christian life. Much of this life is conveyed in the revelation of faith communicated by doctrines and teachings of the Church.  If we listen to the Tradition of faith that explains the Trinity, we are feeding from the source of revelation; we are also drinking from the reservoir of the wisdom of holy men and women who have known God intimately.

To refer back to the analogy for a moment. It is possible to discover the reality of the Trinity in my own relationship with God (since the doctrine is not simply a human creation). But why not move out of first gear right now and receive as a fact of faith, the Church doctrine of the reality of the inner life of God that is the Trinity.

The inner life of God, the three persons of the Trinity, is not simply a ‘community’ of divine persons. The inner life of God is a communion. This distinction has wonderful implications for us. In every earthly situation, people try to create community. This is both a healthy desire, and (more often than not) very hard work. We either fail, or manage only a temporary sense of togetherness.

It is not the primary task of a Catholic parish to create community among parishioners. While this is a well-intentioned goal, we will always struggle and fail. We will never achieve any more than can be found in any ‘secular community’ group.

The goal of a parish community is to settle for nothing less than a personal and communal life of communion with God.


When we live every moment ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’, we open ourselves to participation in the divine life of the Trinity which is a communion of persons.

This divine communion, is the answer to every heart-felt human desire. This communion with the fullness of the reality of God, a communion of persons, has the immediate fruit of creating human community at a deeper and more satisfying level than any human attempt could every achieve.

May the life of our growing parish community be the fruit of the communion that is the Trinity. 

to be human

A front-page Press story today told of two Christchurch people who found almost $60.000 in coins on a Christchurch street.

What would you do?

The writer almost seemed a bit surprised that the finders had no hesitation in immediately calling the police. It seems they did not even think for a moment of running off with a few coins.

The hint in the article was that their honesty was a rare and unusual thing; that it would have perhaps been more 'human' to experience and submit to a temptation to steal in this situation.

In fact the two who found the coins simply did what was human. Their behaviour was not super-human. To do anything less than report their find would have been 'sub-human'.

I am grateful to Jaime and Tane for their witness to the beauty of ordinary human behaviour, and to the Press for sharing the story.

Dona Nobis Pacem

Earlier this month, on the Holy Land pilgrimage, 20 pilgrims from Christchurch, New Zealand prayed our way around the Holy Land.   

We travelled not as tourists, but as pilgrims. We were a diverse group, but united in our desire to seek God together.

Every day of the pilgrimage we prayed for friends and family, for those who had asked for our prayer, for the Catholic Diocese of Christchurch, and for the world.  Our most frequent prayer was the canon "Dona Nobis Pacem".


This little canon is sung in three parts. Each part has it's own melody that, when sung alone, sounds like a completely different tune bearing little resemblance to the other two parts.  This is symbolic of our diversity. 


When the three parts are sung together, a harmony and unity exists that is much more beautiful than any of the three parts alone.  A reminder that together we are much more than any of us has the power to be alone.


This was the great gift of travelling together as pilgrims. While we were 20 diverse individuals, together we were ONE community.


This was most evident each day when we celebrated the Mass.

This morning our guide, Adrian, uploaded his recording of our group praying this hymn in the 12th century Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem, a church known for it's fine acoustic.

You can visit Adrian's site on Facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/adrian.weisberg

or on my page at:

https://www.facebook.com/johnchchnz

(if someone knows how to get the video from the Facebook Timeline onto this blog entry let me know.)

Pentecost, Orvieto, light, alabaster

A couple of years ago I spent a few days in the Umbrian hill town of Orvieto.  The town's cathedral is a remarkable building.  There are so many 'bloggable' reflections that this Duomo inspires. But I will leave these for future blog entries.

For today, just one aspect.

The nave of the Cathedral is constructed in strips of 'black' and 'white' marble. The windows from the outside are a bit distracting. It seems as though the spaces for the glass have been filled with plywood, as if the glass had broken and the glazier hadn't got around to the repair yet. Perhaps the plywood  is a temporary measure to stop the weather getting in?

And then I went inside.

The interior of this magnificent building is flooded with light. There is no plywood. The windows are a most natural colour and design.  Clearly an artist has been at work. No plywood, but the most exquisite glass work.

After my visit, which was the first of many visits, I sat at a little cafe reading a brochure about the Cathedral.

I had presumed that the 'plywood' windows, were in fact glass. But I was wrong. These windows are alabaster. This stone is sliced paper-thin to create the windows that flood the dark interior with light.


And it is this Orvieto memory that comes to mind as I celebrate Pentecost.  Let me share the reason.


The disciples of Jesus were gathered together, probably out of fear. They had good reason to be fearful. The Romans were on the warpath. They had crucified Jesus. Perhaps their little group would be next?


But within moments, at the arrival of the Holy Spirit, they realised that because the Spirit of Jesus was with them, they had no reason to be afraid.  They then boldly left the room and lovingly confronted the powers they previously feared.  


Because of Pentecost, things are rarely what they seem. What appeared to be plywood, then I presumed was glass, was in fact stone.


What seems to be a cause for fear, in the light of the presence of the Spirit of Jesus with us, is in fact an opportunity for greater intimacy with Jesus who dissolves all fear.


And now, this Pentecost vigil, I remember the Holy Spirit window in St. Peter's basilica in Rome. The window appears to be the most exquisite work of a glass-crafter.


But it is in fact... alabaster.

Catholicism

Tonight in my Pentecost Homily at Hanmer Springs I mentioned the eight-episode "Catholicism" series produced by Fr. Robert Barron.  I will also refer to the series tomorrow at the Amberley, Culverden and Cheviot Masses.

If you are interested in finding out more about the series:

Promotional youtube clips

• Reviews at this link

• How to buy the series, at this link

I purchased my copy a few months ago - and missed out on the two for the price of one deal that is being offered at the moment.

If you purchase and watch the series, let me know what you think.