What would be the KPI's for Catholics?

What would be the KPI’s (Key performance indicators) for Catholics? This can seem to focus on what we are called to do rather than who we can become. As a sacramental people we are called to see the word made incarnate. This means that the celebration of sacraments is essential to the way we live. We are called to be a people who gather together and recognize that we travel with each other in our journey of faith. We listen to God’s word and allow it to speak to our hearts. We offer our lives in the Eucharist and thanksgiving for how Jesus becomes present to us. We are drawn into a communion with his Body and Blood, and then we are commissioned together to be a people to live as his disciples in our world. So it would appear that we are a people of God when we gather, when we listen, when we give thanks, when we are drawn into communion and when we go out on mission. At each Mass we celebrate what is fundamental to us as people on a journey of faith. We are people drawn into the mystery and the life of Jesus Christ.

What attitude defines our life

We become used to the great speeches which define what is central to a person's life. They have an immortal air to them not only because they speak to the people who first heard them but they speak across the ages. They have an ability to capture hearts and minds in a way which transforms the life of communities. This is especially true of the proclamation made by Jesus in the synagogue. He is not simply trying to capture people's attention but he is trying to say something by the person he is. He seeks to bring freedom to people who are captive to their circumstances, he seeks to bring Good News to people stricken by poverty, he seeks to help people see clearly what it that they need to do and he seeks to lift burdens off people who are trampled down in life. This is at the heart of the jubilee year. It is not simply about acts of charity but being a person who is charitable in the attitude to life; who is not a dispenser of mercy but a person who lives mercy, who does not simply inspire hope but is hope to others. This week we will honour many Australians who help us to discover these attitudes to life who bring the Gospel of this weekend to life within our communities.

Finding my way home

The silence after a death of someone you love can often be one of the hardest moments of grief. Their sudden departure no matter how well you have prepared yourself can shake the certainties of conversations you once had. The working through the practical events of preparing for the funeral, receiving phone calls, cards and messages can often help to carry you through days that seem to be lost in activity and preparations. I wanted to particularly thank the many message of support and prayer which I received on the death of my mother last December. I deeply appreciated the kindness and the support I received at this sad time. I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of my own struggles at this time which may resonate with some of your own.

The immediate impact is the loss of home. This is not just saying farewell to a physical place where Mum used to live but the spiritual connections which that place had for me. There is a sense of connection which resonates in the place where she lived and called home. I recognize that this disorientation can cause a sense of aimlessness and emptiness. There are many things that can remind me of Mum but which are not Mum. There is a feeling of being broken open to the wind and laid bare before the world. You look for things that can continue to guide your footsteps. In cleaning up the unit where she lived it is often hard to let go of things in a hurry for fear that you do it all too quickly and move on.

Then there is the sense of whether you are crying for yourself or for the person who has died. The rupture of that connection lays you open to many phantoms and memories of what is important to life. Am I doing this for myself, am I doing this for my mother or am I doing this for some other reason. There is a call not to manufacture grief but to recognize the ripples of sadness that can seem to overcome you and which lie at the heart of my prayer. There is a call to allow my prayer to become more real and not manufactured. The call is to be myself.

However, in the days following Mum’s death there have been consolations which remind me that in the midst of the tears that her spirit rests with God. These have been moments when rainbows appear at crucial moments. They seem ethereal and transitory but they hold the sense of wonder which lay at the heart of my Mother’s search for meaning. I also gain a stronger sense that I can be myself in the face of a world which would seek to redefine me. I think this is at the centre of the spiritual life. We are called to be the person that God calls us to be. We are called to be faithful to that calling which allows us to become more and more transparent to God’s grace. At the time of greatest trial, the words of Julian of Norwich ring true, “All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Do we remember when we were baptised?

How many of us can remember the date of our baptism? This may be difficult because it means hunting through our parents records and looking for an elusive certificate. The certificate can reveal to us something important. That our parents considered it important enough for us to be baptised into the person of Christ. We are called to be immersed in a relationship which not only allows to surrender to the wonder of God but live a life which is grace filled. We are born into being so that our lives may reflect God’s glory working ever creatively within us. It places us at the heart of God’s creative plan.

Baptism is not just an entry card into eternal life, it is a call to live that eternal life and to be transformed by God. We are created in God’s image and likeness. As such we can celebrate the life he has entrusted to us. It calls us to become coheirs with Christ in his creative and loving plan. No longer are we alone among the universe but are invited to participate with that creative life and love. We are called to be people transformed by God’s loving mercy. 

Why my faith is important to me (My mother's reflection)

I have two memories from my youth that have periodically recurred to me. The first was a comment from my history master, that the best test of friendship was the ability to be comfortable with one’s friend in complete silence for an hour. At 16 we all thought this was utter nonsense, but now? I wonder! The second was a comment from Tim, one of my science students, a committed Catholic, who shared that it seemed to him that we only begin to know what life was about when it is time to die. I should have given him a much different answer now than the one I gave then, but I then was only some 8 years older than he, and puzzling myself

As a young scientist I had no difficulty in believing in a transcendent Creator God. The excitement of the discoveries in atomic physics, the incredible systems in the human body, the balances in nature, such as the carbon and nitrogen cycles could not have been arrived at by pure chance. And the exciting expansion of space exploration opened our young minds to the miracles of the universe and it’s Creator. And there were many scientific theories, none of which denied a creator; big bang or steady state?

But something was missing. How did humanity, including myself, fit into God’s plan? In the Christian community to which my family belonged much emphasis was placed on the Fall, and it was implicit that as a consequence we had to work and pray hard to earn again the love of the Creator God. An image of God developed, an anthropomorphic inversion of the original  Genesis story ,we ‘created God in OUR own image’ and God appeared as judgemental, punitive , loving us when we were ‘Good’ and removing that love when we were ‘Bad’ A frightening model!.  I pondered also at the past and present cruelties injustices and divisions among people who professed to be Christian. Humanity in the 40’s was struggling with the horrors of the Holocaust and Hiroshima. It seemed the Church had no answers to my many questions. I drifted from the Church and lived for many years following “the Golden Rule” (“do to others as you would have them do to you”) (Mat.7:12) and the prohibitions of the Decalogue (Ex 20.7-17). While a sense of God, though distant, was behind this moral code, still something was missing for me.

          A busy life, concerned mainly with family and scientific and teaching employment, moved on. Parents died, children grew up and employment opportunities brought us to Australia. Two of the children had already found comfort in the post-conciliar Catholic Church, and my work included teaching in Catholic schools both in England & here. In the gap of silence that followed our ‘desert experience’ as if by an invisible magnet, both Bob & I were drawn to the post Vat II Catholic church. Much reading and discussion followed; particularly we talked of the work of some of the Christian Mystics, such as Julian of Norwich, Therese of Avila and from modern times Evelyn Underhill.  The ideas of spiritual journey from blind faith to searching faith recurred and the need for contemplative silence was new to us. Above all we learned of the unconditional love of God and that in the Pascal mystery of Jesus’ death, Resurrection and Ascension, we learned we’d already been saved; so different from my early experiences and instruction.   The mystery of the transcendence and immanence of God came alive as in Luke 17. 21 “The Kingdom of God is within you”        Many experiences of God’s love began to dawn; one which I’ll share was especially powerful. When our 6 year old granddaughter drowned we were numbed beyond words and even emotions; as we farewelled her I felt invisible hands on my head and a profound peace came over me. We were being comforted by God’s love, and this came through our silent closeness to him at that time. This experience was reinforced as we reflected on Rabbi Kushner’s experiences described in “When Bad Things happen to Good People” as he shared his loss of his eldest son and drew benefit from the compassion of God, and he added the thoughts, shared with his communities, that our tragedies are not punishments from God

 Of the seven life-journey sacraments of the Catholic Church, the most powerful for me is the Eucharist. There is experience of Christ’s spirit being present among the community, the awareness that, though not perfect, we are forgiven and loved by God. Spoken and sung prayers of adoration and petition give a sense of both the transcendence & immanence of God; There is the prayer of listening to Scripture, from both Hebrew & Christian Testaments,  refreshed with fresh insights from scripture studies  in the light of modern scholarship. Many of the modern hymns are based on scripture, such as yesterdays from Isaiah 55 “Come to the Water” The newly revived prayer of silence which follows the touch of Jesus in the receipt of the Host gives a chance to experience deeply an awareness of God’s presence. And this Eucharist thanksgiving is celebrated every day in every country in the world. One of the Eucharistic prayers summarised my longing; “May we live in the joy of life in your presence”

One other reflection developed for me , reflecting on Jesus’ promise “ In my Father’s house are many dwelling places” (John 14;2) and this linked with my reading of the Vatican II documents, particularly “Nostra Aetate”, which urged unity between Christians, a deeper understanding of our own faith and an acknowledgement of the beauty and truth in other faiths. When Pope John Paul II invited world religious leaders to meet in 1986 & 1999, in Assisi and Rome to pray for peace together, he finished with the exhortation “Individually and together we must show how religious belief inspires peace, encourages solidarity, promotes justice and upholds liberty” 

  So I have learned that Faith is not static, but searching; experiential not merely intellectual, that there seems to be evidence of God’s spirit moving through and between the various world faiths as we begin to dialogue, and this brings Hope, and sometimes Love; but of the three gifts, Faith, Hope & Love  the greatest is that of Love.

So where I started, with Tim’s statement , I’d found that spiritual life is a journey , unending and that friendship with God can be experienced in the silence of Contemplative prayer as well as in more traditional prayer forms.

     I am 85 earth years old, but probably only half that in hope-of -heaven years, and still learning. Intellectual understanding has been part of the quest, but it is the spiritual longing for a deeper relationship with God is my goal.

A translated poem from the 14^th century Turkish mystic, Rumi perhaps summarises better than I can

                   The intellectual quest is exquisite, like pearls and coral

                   But it is not the same as the spiritual quest

                   The spiritual quest is on another level altogether            

                   Spiritual wine has a subtler taste

                   The intellect and the senses investigate cause and effect

                   The spiritual seeker surrenders to wonder.

                             (Rumi Wisdom; trans. Timothy Freke)