The race to the tomb

In the race to get to the tomb Peter was always going to lose. The other disciple, John, was young and fit. The middle-aged Peter must have struggled to even keep him in sight. It was good then that John waited and let Peter go inside the tomb first. It was Peter who saw that the tomb was tidy and the cloths folded up. Peter realised that he was not looking at a grave robbery but an event that was meant to be. Somehow all that Jesus had said must have dropped into place. Only then did John go in and they must have talked together and the reality of resurrection had broken into the male part of the community of disciples.

 When we meet setbacks one of the most frustrating things is that we all do it in different ways. Some need to see and touch the situation. Others need to throw themselves into activity like John, sprinting ahead. Others seem to draw into themselves and find a way forward in their own hearts. All these ways have their place in meeting change and the new life of resurrection. We all meet resurrection, new life, in different ways.

The trouble is that we tend to get through those ways at our own pace. Like John and Peter we need patience, to wait for people. We need to believe in the new life and light that follows setbacks and change. The way that Peter saw and believed was a gift he was given, so that he could strengthen the faith of the others. Most of us have to struggle for that light to grow strong inside, and respect the way that light is growing in those around us. Then perhaps we can wake up to the fact that the resurrection is all around us, the most quiet and indestructible energy at the heart of God.

Patience is needed with everyone, but first of all with ourselves

St Francis of Sales

Personal Reflection

How do I deal with setbacks and sadness?

Do I keep busy, go quiet, or need to talk things over again and again?
How do I deal with good news?

How do others around me deal with moving from sadness and loss towards light and hope?

Prayer

Lord, when things come to an end, it is not easy to see much good coming out of it. Sometimes, like Peter, we just need to see and believe and struggle. Let me use my struggle to hope as a doorway to deeper trust and faith in you. Help me to be patient with those who deal with the challenge of new beginnings in different ways from me. Help me wait for them, to recognise resurrection in their own lives with patience and faith.

Amen

Resurrection now

Our lives are stitched together with a series of small beginnings and endings. There are many first times and last times that mark our progress through life. Some of them seem to stand out as times for stopping, recognising the moment and perhaps giving thanks. 

The women who took perfume to anoint Jesus’ body and ourselves are not so different. We get caught up in the past, its unfairness and losses and that is right. Like us they needed to recognise an ending and reverence the loss and the change to slow down time and come to terms with what has happened. All that is essential if we are to grow in wisdom and let life teach us. These moments are times to gather up what the past has to offer, but they are not times to cling onto for very long. 

But the angels in the story remind the women not to look for too long at what is dead and what is done. Instead to look for life and God’s presence in what is happening, in the present moment.  It is in the present moment that we meet the risen Jesus. Whilst we believe that resurrection lies at the end of each human story it also lies in the "now " of each moment along the way, just as the cross does.That movement from death to life can be hard to make. It can be so easy to be trapped in our sadness and regret. All of us need to pause, and listen for the encouragement of angel voices to move us, forward into riesn  life now.

The cult of the Holy Sepulchre is Christian only in so far

As it is the cult of a place where Christ is no longer to be found.

But such a cult can only be valid on one condition:

That we are willing to move on,

To follow him to where we are not yet,

To seek him where he goes before us - to Galilee.

Thomas Merton

Personal Reflection

In what ways am I still trapped in the past?

Who and where are the angel voices that call me back to life?

Prayer

Lord, help me to face the past honestly and not be swallowed up by it. Help me to move out of the tombs of past failures and disappointments, so that I can meet you in the challenge of living in the present moment. Show me, this Easter. how to echo the words of the angels at the tomb, so that those around me will be able to meet you, their risen Lord, in the days that lie ahead.

Music as a stairway to heaven

Saint John Bosco recognised that a Salesian House without music was like a body without a soul. He made music with young people and encourage them to play and sing as part of the rhythm of the life of his houses. When he took the street children out of Turin into the countryside for walks it was a youth band that led them into fun and relaxation. Likewise, in chapel, it was the choir and enthusiastic singing that helped young people to touch the deeper spiritual values that moved their souls.

The emphasis on music and its connection with spirituality was an intuitive insight of Don Bosco. He would have been aware of St Augustine’s observation that “he who sings well prays twice!” He would have been more consciously aware of what happens to young people when they make music; how their spirit lifts, how they get into the present moment, how their breathing synchronises and how reconciliation is achieved with few words because music creates harmony at many levels. So music was an essential aspect of learning, of relaxation, spirituality and relationships for Don Bosco. It was home, school, playground and church all in one.

The ability of music to harmonise life is something that anyone who has been to any kind of concert can witness to. Whether it is classical or rock, a professional event or a school production, live music arches into a bridge that connects people in the present moment. That experience can offer meaning and healing without any words, energising and uniting people into more harmonious living. The rippling applause in a classical concert is not so different from the rippling of dancing bodies in a rock concert. The ability to feel and appreciate the music may be expressed in different ways but the core experience of being moved by music is probably common to both events.

Academics studying religious experience were surprised to find that music was the key pathway into spiritual awareness, even more so than prayer.[i] It was the pathway to

• ·        A sense of warmth
• ·        A loss of a sense of self
• ·        A sense of timelessness in the present moment
• ·        A solidarity in sharing something with others
• ·        An energy, joy and elation released as a community

These are the effects of good music, shared in a kind of community that is rooted in a sense of humanity that transcends all other divisions of race, personality and creed. Good music therefore can become a pathway to the present in the infinite and to timelessness in time. It takes a community into a sacred space where reality can be grasped beyond the womb of words.

That is wonderful stuff, but there is more. When visiting an older Salesian with dementia I found it very difficult to communicate. His memory had gone, he was having trouble framing sentences and looked isolated and uncomfortable especially in a one to one situation- until I started to sing some of the songs he knew. Then, all of a sudden he broke into song and into life. He sang without faltering, began to move with rhythm and grace and smiled with joy. The isolation had gone and we were singing together, using music to bridge into his loneliness. Afterwards his mood and his confidence were both strengthened and I left him more relaxed and at peace.

Music and rhythm operate from a different part of the brain than words and rational thinking. Music can trigger emotional states that can change the chemistry of the brain and initiate healing and health in the brain. So it is possible to sing yourself out of sadness and ease aggression through adagios. But science also suggests that more benefits of music come when a real effort is made to make music, especially with others. The commitment to learn an instrument or to sing in a choir lead to real effects on the neural pathways of the brain. The effort to coordinate voice, hands, eyes and to put in the hours of practice creates a healthier, more adaptable, mind.

For young people, stressed as they often are in western society, music is something of a saviour. It helps them to escape into the present moment and to share wordlessly with others. It is a spiritual pathway to reflection and meditation. Learning a musical instrument is linked to better reading, to an ability to multi-task and in older age prevents the early onset of age related decline. That is why schools and families need to encourage music and the making of music. It opens up a pathway to a healthier mind, a more relaxed body and, above all, it opens up a spiritual dimension to life that might help to save a young person’s soul.

So, get out your bongos, head off to the karaoke, sing in the bath and you might open up a spiritual stairway to heaven!

Don Bosco with his band 1860s

---

[i] Greeley 1975  

Are you a pharisee? I am!

Most of us have an inner pharisee ready to write rules and organise even God. How many of these six signs are present in your life and attitudes right now?

1. Disdain for those at the back of the line- they should have tried harder

2. A spirit of exclusivity that excludes some and includes others

3. Focus on rules and expectations before loving kindness

4. A pattern of idolising the past leading to resistance to change

5. A quest for clone-like uniformity that suppresses the variety of gifts in people

6. My way or the highway attitude- an over-confidence in ones own judgements

We don't mean to get into this pattern of living and thinking but it is all around us. It permeates our schools, health service and consumer culture. Yo might have caught it accidentally.

Fortunately there is an antidote- The Gospel!

To avoid pharisaism take this Gospel attitude three times a day "Do not be afraid I am with you always"

The inner pharisee and the new liturgical translation

Many religious people have an “inner Pharisee” which needs to be kept under control. There is a part of most human beings that, like the Pharisees, tries to make life into a competition. That could be the result of a belief that love and affection has to be earned somehow: that in order to be loveable I must be better, try harder, and earn more brownie points from God. In following the path of such beliefs we slip away from the freedom of the gospel and slip into the grip of an inner Pharisee. In that deadly inner embrace fear grows, confidence evaporates and people are pushed into an unholy competition for God’s love.

To see the truth of this inner fault line we need look no further than an average family. There, in the rivalry between brothers and sisters, the same battle is being fought for the attention of parents and for the reassurance of being loved. There is a desperate hunger in many of us, young and old, to know that we are loved and that need can drive us into competitive, jealous and hard hearted living. This attitude is not good news and above all it is not the Gospel. The Gospel is a proclamation of the unconditional love of God consistently offered as a gift to every human being. It cannot be earned, controlled or dispensed as a commodity. The good news is that each of us is a child of God and that we are loved, as we are right now, by our creator.

Time and time again Jesus is seen in the Gospel reassuring people of The Father’s love: that we are worth more than many sparrows, that we should not be afraid, that we may all be one. The expression of the lavishness of God’s love scandalised the Pharisees. The good news was seen as a threat to the importance of rules for purification, the treatment of sinners and the use of punishments. When Jesus tells the Pharisees that there were prostitutes that were closer to God than many of them they found it impossible to accept. The Pharisees were on a collision course with the Gospel because they did not believe in the unconditional love of a Father God.

It is within this background that I believe we can understand how the new translation of the liturgy has emerged and the reaction it has received. It seems that in the process of translation that mercy has been eclipsed by merit and the implication that God’s love has to be somehow earned is stressed far more than the utter goodness and lavishness of God’s love and grace. Somehow the Pharisee that lies beneath the surface of many of us has emerged and asserted its grip. The result is that the prayers in particular do not express a warmth and a trusting relationship such as Jesus encouraged by his use of the name “Abba” daddy. Instead God is portrayed as someone who is disappointed with us and our imperfections leading to a sense of fear rather than trust in God.

It is not surprising that the Pharisaic part of us has taken the opportunity to reassert itself in the new translation. The shape of the Catholic Church, its sureness of identity and its authority, have all been challenged in the last few decades. The pressures for change in sacramental discipline, the impact of child abuse allegations and the ongoing erosion of attendance in some parts of the world have all contributed to an insecurity in traditional leadership. In this struggling situation we are told that the final instinct of a struggling institution is to rewrite the rule book and return to old certainties. The new translation with its return to a more controlling language is an example of that tendency to want to turn the clock back to old certainties. It tries to return to a situation where the church is seen as a dispenser of grace rather than as a revealer of God’s grace. 

To be in control and to be coherent is of course important and the pharisaic part of us wants to have things managed and accounted for. Pharisees can be forgiven for letting rules dominate the spirit because, like all people, they are dominated by fear and judgement. However, these are not times for clarity but for exploration, times for new searching and not for old answers. That is why the Pharisee aspect of each of us must be forgiven readily but not allowed too loud a voice about the future. As a church we need to let the Pharisee be eclipsed by a searching and creative laity. That sleeping giant in our church needs space to grow, learn from experience and re-negotiate its relationship to a clerical church. Later we will need the pharisaic mode of thinking when a more creative period has opened up new reasons for living and hoping.

So, for now, let us quietly put aside the new translation, and with great respect, consign it to the fire of God’s love. Then, instead of letting mercy be eclipsed by merit we might instead allow the merit of God’s unconditional love speak for itself.

new networks and new wineskins

The web of meaning, by which ordinary adults makes sense of their life journey, has changed immeasurably over a single life time. The dimensions of our world have expanded so fast that the horizon of knowledge curves away into mysteries that threaten to overwhelm both heart and mind. The breadth of our universe, once restricted to a few light years around our world, is now so vast that mathematical figures become almost meaningless. The depth of our experience as human beings, opened up by psychological studies, means that we are probably still in the foothills of the journey to understanding people and relationships.

In the face of such mysteries the language of our traditional faith can seem naïve and medieval. The prayers we make to build God’s kingdom and to gain salvation seem, at times, quaint and childish in the light of such powerful revelations of science and psychology. The inner and outer spaces of our world may have been remapped in the last fifty years. But the map of meaning, the inner landscape of the Spirit, is being surveyed again as Christian faith seeks understanding for a new age.

One of the reasons that our parish churches are emptying is that they can no longer fill the emptiness of those who seek meaning. The spiritual hunger that fills the lives of many Christians is not satisfied by the economy of salvation being proposed in church. We do not respond to the language of merit which seems to be built into the new translation of the missal. Most of us struggle with the idea of atonement in which Jesus had to die in order to pay the debt of our sins. That kind of logic does not sit well alongside the compassionate and fatherly image of God proposed by Jesus.

The old thinking has a beautiful symmetry about it but it can no longer contain the experience of life as it is lived by the majority of people in western culture today. The only way to embrace the traditional way of thinking is to reject present reality- to act irrationally. To deny one’s own experience. Our dilemma as Christians is to find new containers for the faith we profess in Jesus. The old wine-skins have burst and we need to embrace the language of psychology and science in order to catch both faith and meaning in a new net of words from which we can feed our hungry souls.

St Francis of Assisi was told in a vision to "re-build my church" that is our task again today

Ninian Smart identified seven major aspects of religion through which our spiritual hungers are fed. here they are:

1. Ritual:   Liturgy that makes sense of life
2. Mythic: Stories that connect
3. Experience/ emotion: Opportunity to express joy and sadness
4. Social/ community; Faith relationships that mean something in life
5. Ethical and legal: Commitment to shared values
6. Doctrine: Belief in core truths that make sense
7. Material: Objects and focal points that connect to the spiritual dimension of life

Some questions........

• These are the seven ways that religion feeds spiritual hunger. How do you think we are doing as a catholic church in this culture in 2015?
• How can we change?
• Where would you start to make a change?

Eucharist video reflection revised

A Eucharistic reflection and video

Click here for video

The eucharist is bigger than the mass. Not attending mass does not exclude people from living eucharistically. The eucharist is a way of living in the presence of the risen Jesus as he helps us to carry our own crosses, face our own demons and live a life of balanced faith.

The text....

The bread that we have shared has now become

Part of each of our own bodies

Our bodies and the bread have merged into one

That is how close God is to each of us- all the time

The bread that is now part of my own body

Is also part of each person’s body here in this chapel

There is something in everyone else’s life

That is part of my life

We are mysteriously and deeply connected.

The bread that we have eaten was filled with the presence of Jesus

And there is a closeness right now that needs no words

Because Jesus is with us and in us

And loving each of us right now - inviting us to rest in His presence

Pause………..

The bread that we have eaten goes with us from this place

As a hidden part of our lives

As a presence that knows us from the inside

As a guide and strength for the rest of this day

The bread that we have eaten needs to be shared with others

Through loving kindness with family and friends

Shared in compassion with those in need

And lived out in justice and forgiveness with others

The bread that we have shared holds us together for the week ahead

It tells us that we are all loved even when things go wrong

It reminds us not to hurt others and helps us to respect other lives

And allows us to become bread fro one another.

The bread that you have eaten is not fast food,

To be gobbled down and then forgotten

The bread you have eaten is another touch

In a slowly building relationship with Jesus

That will last for ever.

Follow the path of the bread you have eaten

Into the mystery of who you are

As a son or daughter of God

And as bread for the world