The Parish, the Nation, the World

My experience of Diocesan newspapers is variable. Some of half-decent, but the ones I am most familiar with are mealy-mouthed, neo-pelagian and sychophantic. Now, what I have to say here is already widely known and praised by many.

The weekly newspaper (52 editions per year) of the Archdiocese of Perth in Western Australia, "The Record", stands out as a magnificent arm of the Catholic Media. Its style and format is very, very well presented. Its content is up-front and Catholic, informative and formative; it expresses the Church and her life. It is a source of comment and teaching which is supportive of the Church and her mission today, and it would represent an attractive invitation to any who are discerning the Christian life for themselves. The Editor, Peter Rosengren, and his staff are to be commended; they are genuinely taking part in the Mission of the Church today.

You can visit the paper's website at www.therecord.com.au

Light in the murk

In the wake of yesterday's feast of St Louis de Monfort, I would like to paste here one of the many hymns which he wrote. Actually, yesterday at Campion College we celebrated the other Memoria, that of St Peter Chanel, the martyr of Oceania whose mortal remains spent some time within our grounds, whilst beings translated from the island of Futuna to Rome for his Canonisation. The College and its grounds formally belonged to the Marist Fathers, of which St Peter Chanel was a member. A fine statue of St Peter in our grounds commemorates the fact that the mortal remians of this saint were once here.

I first encountered a part of St Louis de Monfort's Canticle to the Holy Spirit in 2001 whilst visiting a house of the Beatitudes Community in Normandy. I paste here the entire hymn. It is an extraordinary prayer and will do any who prays it more good than the whole media empire put together could begin to offer us. This is especially appropriate as we approach Pentecost. (The personal pronouns could be made into the plural.)

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1. Come, Father of light,

come God of love,

create in me my prayer.

Show me the truth,

send into my soul

an ember of your fire,

to penetrate it with flame

and fill it with God.

---

2. Come, Holy Spirit, who creates

martyrs, confessors,

apostles, prophets,

great heroes, valiant hearts.

It is your unique way

that my Saviour has trod;

so that I may imitate him,

lead me as you led him.

---

3. You who work miracles

through powerless mortals,

You who utter oracles

through poor ignorant humans.

By the power of your grace

strengthen my languor;

to melt my coldness,

speak to the depths of my heart.

---

4. Distance me from what is in vogue,

from the well-travelled road,

this spector, so convenient

and so full of evil.

Teach me that path,

unknown to almost everyone,

which leads without doubt

straight to Heaven and to You.

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5. I beg you, open my ears

to the words of faith,

to practice the marvels

of Your divine law;

to listen only to God himself

in every preacher;

and to cry anathema

against this deceitful world.

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6. Speak, Your words are

what I seek night and day.

Speak, destroy the idols

that attack your love.

Speak, to proclaim victory

over all my enemies.

Speak, to acheive the glory

of having submitted them to us.

---

7. Speak, Holy Spirit, to create

a wellspring in my heart,

whose pure, healthful water

saves the greatest sinner,

heals the most incurable

by opening his eyes,

and pardons the most guilty

by springing up to Heaven.

---

8. More than the Magdalen,

than Lazarus in the tomb

and than the Samaritan woman,

I beg you for this water;

I want to drink it, I beg you for it,

I know it is a precious gift;

the greater this favour is,

the more you will be glorified.

---

9. Support my weakness,

I am a fragile reed.

Steady my faltering

I change more than the wind.

Dissipate my darkness,

I am as one born blind.

Calm my concupiscence

or I am damned.

---

10. Without You my soul is barren,

it is empty of any good.

Without You I hasten to my doom

and fall for a trifle.

I can neither think nor speak,

nor do any good deed for God,

unless to accomplish it

You sustain me everywhere.

---

11. Give me Your wisdom,

this taste for truth,

this charity which impels

without forcing the will.

This grace so fruitful,

this attraction so ravishing,

this profound, blessed peace

and this all-powerful aid.

---

12. If you wish me to cry

and that my heart be touched,

let me see now

the loathsomeness of my sin.

Reveal Yourself to me

and then I will love you,

convert me, dear Master,

and I will be converted.

---

13. You do not wish to compel

my evil will.

That is why I have everything to fear

from my own liberty.

The lure of your grace

I have too often resisted;

I give in, take over

with full authority.

---

14. Great God, make Yourself the Master

of my whole heart to love,

of my mind to know,

of my tongue to delight,

of my senses and power

to suffer and to act.

Of my possessions, of my pains

and of everything, that I may serve You.

---

15. Make a temple of my heart,

of my tongue, an instrument

to speak to all by example,

to speak eloquently

through Jesus and Mary.

Reign pwerfully in me

so that I may then glorify

God alone forever.

God alone!

---

16. O holy and faithful Virgin,

Spouse of the Holy Spirit,

change my rebellious heart

into a heart humble and contrite.

Give me a docile heart,

truly faithful to His voice,

to live the Gospel

in its counsels and its laws.

Amen.

Sawston Hall

I would be grateful if anyone could tell me about the current state of play with Sawston Hall near Cambridge. Has the Hall be sold yet? Is there a public campaign by Catholics to raise money and buy the Hall?

Images on location

Those familiar with Campion College will know how wonderful its campus is, but for those who are not familiar here are a few images, taken just after Easter. A lot of work has been put into developing and maintaining the campus grounds which provide a near-idyllic setting for the life and work of the College.

At the heart

A few weeks ago I promised to put some photos on the Blog of our chapel at Campion College. The whole campus at Campion is a leafy peaceful oasis in the vast suburban spread of western Sydney, and the heart of the campus is our beautiful chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved and where Mass is celebrated each day. It is not a large chapel, accomodating comfortably about seventy persons, so on some College occasions we have to set up an outdoor sanctuary. The chapel is particularly lovely for our weekly periods of Adoration and the beauitful organ at the rear of the chapel regularly accompanies the Campion Schola. The chapel is always open and you are very welcome to visit.

Over the misty mountains

A number of years ago when, year by year, I went to see the three parts of "The Lord of Rings" as they were released, if someone had said to me then that I would visit some of the places where the film was made, I would have said that they were dreaming. Well, I have been to the plain near Twizel which was the "Pelennor Fields", to the river at Arrowtown which was the "Ford of Bruinen", and I have flown over the "Misty Mountains"! I'm sure that if NZ were nearer Europe it would be the No.1 outdoor holiday location. The food is lovely as are the Chardonnays and Pinots. The whole terrain is life-enhancing to an extraordinary degree. But one of the highlights of our week was a light aircraft flight from Queenstown, north over the mountains and glaciers, then swinging south over the west coast and flying into Milford Sound - NZ's famous fjord, there to take a cruise to the entrance to the fjord and back, before flying back over NZ's alps to Queenstown. Unforgetable! If you can get there, go to NZ. I, for one, would like to return.

Te Wai Pounamu

... or the south island of New Zealand, as it is better known, was our destination for a post-Easter break. Four priest companions, three from Sydney and myself, none of us having been to NZ before, formed a fellowship and flew into Christchurch and motored round some of the island for a week, finally flying back from Queenstown.

The south island is wonderful. My impressions from the plane as we came into land at Christchurch was of how similar it looked to England: fields, hedgerows, woods and hills - it was indeed very like the UK, but with an evident Scottish flavour. Below, NZ's highest peak, Mt Cook, seen from the bottom end of shimmering Lake Pukaki.

I include here some holiday snaps here; sadly they are all views, but actually, the scenery is outstanding. (With the photo of the sign post - note the top indication.)

The incarnation of all that is anti-spiritual

As a child, every Saturday morning on the way back from family shopping in Leeds, the bus would go past the BBC building on Woodhouse Lane. On its facade was this imposing coat of arms. The building was replaced a few years ago and this heraldic emblem is no longer there. But I used to wonder, as a child and young person, what was being acheived in the world through that proud proclamation - "Nation shall speak peace unto nation" - the logo of the BBC. What a great intention the media, or this part of it, was founded on. And yet is the media responsible for bringing about a new era of genuine human communication and fraternity? (Let me say that by "media" I mean the television, radio, the press and the internet.)

No, those words on the BBC shield do not represent the media or what it does.

The public media, through its rejection of God and seeking an enlightenment without Him, carries out a conversation on our behalf, at the level of an inane and often false interpretation of humanity. It is devoted to the ephemeral and rejects any sense of a hierarchy of values. It serves no social function but is an end in itself, and has nothing in common with genuine humanity (excepting an occasional good drama, sport, natural history footage less their patronising and ideologically based commentaries, announcements, the date and time, and crosswords). Like the Roman Empire of old, it is a vast, useless burden on the back of human society, which is now coming apart under the increasing strain.

Who are they now who have a genuine vision of life which is not conditioned by that of the public media? How many are they who call for a reformed and renewed media - one that can contribute to the the recovery of the greatness of man's place in the world, in his identity and in his mission? They are few and they are in our midst - they who speak, live and breath peace. They are the true lights of humanity, its genuine media - fathers, mothers, priests and religious, men and women who live for God and communicate with other human beings with love and truth, according to their dignity.

The empire strikes back

The new empire of the secular media is presently unleasing its fury on the Church. Not surprising at all; the spirit of anti-Christ is always about looking for a worldly foothold which to use powerfully.

A brother priest recently said that he has "lost all trust in the veracity and objectivity of the media and I no longer refer to it for information of any kind. I will not allow its anti-Catholic bias to be the cause of a weakening of my faith in, or respect for, our Lord's 'one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church'".

I embrace these words totally. The secular media has gone rogue, but there are plenty of excellent places on the internet in which we can still find real information. More importantly, since the Church cannot be destroyed what is at stake here is evangelisation; the way in which the Church is now called to evangelise. It may seem that she has lost credibility, and yet it is the conversion of the new empire, the empire of the secular media which is at stake. It took the Church three hundred years of terrible persecution to bring about the conversion of the Roman Empire, how are we to apporach the conversion of the new empire?

Easter under the Southern Cross

I took part in the Holy Week ceremonies at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney for the second time. Cardinal Pell celebrated the Liturgies which were beautiful. The Cathedral in Sydney is quite simply one of the finest Gothic Cathedrals that I know, and the Liturgy is celebrated so wonderfully here that I would describe it as one of the great centres of Christendom today. I attach photos here of the sanctuary taken just after the Vigil and first Mass of Easter which has just been celebrated. The beauty of the altar and sanctuary is a tribute to the Sacristan of the Cathedral.

While concelebrating the Mass I reflected on how great yet mysterious is the Providence of God which has brought me to the other side of the world and inserted me into the Church in Sydney, and how warmly I have been welcomed here. The celebration of the Paschal Mystery, these past days, with the Cardinal and many of his priests has been a tremendous experience and grace for me. A very happy Easter to you all.

A 1000 hours later

At the end of the "40 Days for Life" Vigil, and after almost a thousand hours of continual prayer outside Sydney's down-town Abortion Clinic, a get-together was held for the participants in one of Sydney's more convivial venues. After food and drink there were a number of speeches and presentations, including live performances of the two songs which were written for the Vigil, and which can be found on YouTube. Many priests had taken part in the Vigil, but as the only priest present at this celebartion I spoke about the strong bond which exists between Pro-life and the New Evangelisation, both embracing an openness to God's plan.

I also paid tribute to the students of Campion College who had taken part in the whole course of the Vigil, and who argueably had made such a great effort to do so because of the distance between Campion and the Clinic. Indeed, it is a great characteristic of the student body of Campion College that they are so Pro-life and so open to take part actively in pro-life initiatives in Sydney.

What would Mary wear?

Recently I joined the new Facebook group "What would Mary wear" and I support the new blog www.wwmaryw.blogspot.com becuase they are addressing a foundational element of civilisation - the garb of women. Today, there is an urgent need to take ground from the secular vision which is the current basis for women's clothes, a culture and its accompanying vision for education which has failed women so badly. When I was studying in Valencia, Spain, ten years ago, I was aware that just about all young women from about 13 to 25 years dressed as though clones of a most inappropriate model. The need for a whole new sense of women's garb is much overdue but, I suspect that it will be a renaissance of Christian life rather than a new genre of designers, who will enable women to regain their dignity and femininity through clothing - this is a real need today. It is the spiritual which needs to be given form.

Staying up late

I'm surprised that no one has commented ever on the time which my postings are made; some of them seem to have been posted in the middle of the night. Actually, I keep my laptop registered on UK time so that I have a UK clock close at hand. My blog postings, made on my laptop and uploaded in Oz, are not then given local time, but UK time.

Another mystery solved.

The full version

What did Christ most criticise? False religion. An example of this was when one of the scribes revealed that he couldn't honour his parents because the money he had was corban - in some way contaminated. Jesus immediately reveals the inadequacy of this scribe's religion. A deformed view of humanity means an impoverished relationship with God. Honouring God begins with honouring humanity.

The Church has embraced a full and truthful vision of humanity since Pentecost becuase she knows that God intends a totally complete and free humanity for every person. The secular vision of human life is somewhat different, based upon a partial vision of the person and changing social trends. It is this vision which has become particularly strong in this era, so strong that it actively challenges and attacks the Christian vision fo humanity. The sexual revolution, which was well underway in the 1950's, lies at the heart of the secular vision today and has been so deformative of humanity for at least half a century.

Why is it so unacceptable that this deformed humanity has entered into the Church? Becuase so many children have been abused, yes, and because it is the Church and not secularism which is the hinge of humanity's real development. How keen then was the request for renewal which entered into the Church at the Second Vatican Council, and how profound is the Church's need for renewal at a human level. Priests, religious and all baptsied people are called to be fully human - to know their humanity, to know who they are and to be free.

With hindsight we can see how inadequate was the veneer of Catholicism of so many in the past. And today, how inadequate is the response of liberal Catholics who offer nothing more than bare-faced Pelagianism, or the response of those Catholics who promote an empty orthodoxy - orthodoxy for orthodoxy's sake without it helping anyone. No, today's signs shout out that the renewal we have been asked to engage in must start with the renewal of Christians as human beings. The Church is called to form her members in their humanity. It is only as human beings that we can really engage with the Gospel, making it a living reality in our lives and then in the life of the world.

Without God we are nothing

Earlier this month, 11th March, a public debate took place at Macquarie University in Sydney upon the statement "Without God we are nothing". Cardinal Pell spoke for the affirmative and Dan Barker for the negative. The debate was the first of its kind, theist versus atheist, that I have ever heard.

Cardinal Pell defended the clause speaking about the reasonableness of Faith; how the Universe does not find meaning in itself, and how spiritual values, found in the human person, cannot be reduced to matter but point to a source, who is God, a loving Creator. His defence was rational and non-aggressive.

Dan Barker used epistemology and logic to try to undermine the theist position, attempting to defend a negative hypothesis with clever answers. His proposal involved some thinly-veiled vitreol against the Catholic Church, an unusual claim that Hitler was a Catholic throughout his life (albeit a bad Catholic during some of it), and a scathing personal attack on Mother Teresa.

Now, although I am biased towards Cardinal Pell and what he said, I do think that this public debate was a good thing precisely because it brings both the discussion and reason to the fore. It shows us something of where this argument is today and the need we have to inform (and form) ourselves. I would be interested to know what happened in Dan Barker's life that changed him from being an evangelical preacher to become an outspoken defender of atheism.

The audio files of the debate can be downloaded from www.xt3.com and the video can be downloaded from the Macquarie University website.

Incidentally, rather like myself, http://www.xt3.com/ is no longer operating out of West Yorkshire, but out of Sydney. It is now owned by the Archdiocese.

Scene II, Act II.

Plans for The Sydney Congress of the New Evangelisation 2010 (Scene 2) are underway. Last year saw the first Scene, and the first Congress of its kind in the Church - a city-based Congress of the New Evangelisation. The second will take place in the heart of Sydney's CBD, 12th - 16th July 2010. The Church in Sydney is on the move.

Visit the website at www.scene.org.au

Images from the heart of the Church

The Forty Days for Life team in Sydney have produced this very evocative video which expresses something of the spiritual power which so many are investing in the defence of human life at this time. The Vigil continues now for just one more week. Please support it with your prayer.

The Benedictine altar at Campion

On the feast of St Joseph we inaugurated the Benedictine altar arrangement at Campion College with a new altar crucifix and candlesticks. The Mass began with the rite of blessing for these furnishings which were bought through our Sydney suppliers, Sarks, from Luis Molina Acedo of Madrid.

The crucifix placed in the centre of the altar means that when the priest approaches the altar he is definitely approaching an altar and not merely a table. The Holy Father has asked every parish church in the world to place a crucifix on the altar - a part of the "reform of the reform" which he is helping to engender within the Church. And here at Campion we are trying to respond.

One could ask: why was the crucifix ever taken off the altar? I imagine that it was because of the over emphasis, in recent decades, on the Mass as a meal. And indeed there is a meal in the Mass, but it is a meal which flows out of the sacrifice. Without the sacrifice there would be no Mass at all.

I think that the "new" arrangement indicated by Pope Benedict isn't best termed a Bendictine altar, but simply a Catholic altar.

Free and faithful

The recent Campion College Retreat was a true high-point in the College year; a way of asking God to fill us with grace as we begin our academic studies. We expressed in our demeanour during the retreat and by our happiness, what it is to be free and faithful in Christ. What it means to be Christian men and women today, open to God and open to one another. This retreat was just the beginning of a process of human and Christian maturity - that it is in seeking to live the Christian life at the heart of the Church that we are building the Catholic identity of Campion College.

During Sydney World Youth Day the Holy Father said that "the grace of the Spirit is not something we can merit or achieve, but only receive as a pure gift. God's love can only unleash its power when it is allowed to change us from within. We have to let it break through the hard crust of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age. Only then can we let it ignite our imagination and shape our deepest desires."

As chaplain to the College, I do believe that the Holy Father's words took real shape for us during the retreat, and that Christ's company during those days has lead us all to know that building our relationship with Him is our greatest and truest challenge. A challenge that will lead us to make Campion College a seed-bed of the life of the Church, and for each one of us to desire to make a truly human contribution to the world in which we live. But we ask for that gift of the Spirit to continue to make our lives and our studies bear fruit for God. That "power", the Holy Father said, "which the Holy Spirit is even now prepared to release within [us]."