In times of great suffering Christ appears to us

Dear Cursillistas in the Risen Lord,

I am writing this message to you from the Mt Schoenstatt Shrine in Mulgoa, New South Wales at the end of a Life's Healing Journey for our 1st-year seminarians. Like many of you, we have been deeply saddened by the news of the deaths, injury and trauma besetting the Church in Sri Lanka. It seems appropriate that I write to you from this place as it draws many pilgrims from the Sri Lankan community in Sydney and other places from many faith traditions to offer their prayers to our Blessed Mother to guide and intercede with us.

Overnight Marg Morris, the president of the Asia Pacific Group of Cursillos in Christianity and myself have been in contact with Fr. Tony Martyn, the spiritual advisor and Suzanne De Silva, the interdiocesan president for the Cursillo Movement in Sri Lanka. Our immediate consideration was to let them know that while many miles separate us we are with them in prayer. The importance of being in solidarity with other Christians at this time is an important element of our faith. Just as when the first disciples gathered with Mary in the upper room deeply traumatised by his death and feared persecution they encountered the risen Lord for the first time. He came and stood in their midst and said, "Do not be afraid and peace be with you, my own peace I give you." This is especially important at this time because often at times of great trauma we can lock the door of our hearts to keep great evil at bay. Yet in the midst of the need for spiritual and psychological healing, we discover that Christ stands with us not apart from us. He shares our grief and our sorrow. He also recognises that when we are deeply affronted by great evil, our hearts can be infected by the same parasite weakening our selves to believe that in the midst of all the goodness of creation that evil and suffering is all to present to our lives. The Good News, however, is like Mary we are called to ponder how in the midst of living through times of great suffering we can respond in a way which does not payback like for like but seeks the forgiveness which only Christ can give. This is not a cheap grace which we can dispense at will it is a heart-rending cry to be at one with God and one with each other. It calls us to also ensure that in the forgiveness we remember the pain and anguish people suffer through actions which seek not to minimise their pain. We cannot just wish this away through pious acts or good intentions. When one person suffers we suffer with them. In that forgiveness, we also recognise that the people who have committed these evil acts need to be held to account and face justice, not of retribution but of atonement for the deep suffering they have caused. In all things, we seek both mercy and justice.

Please join with me in offering three days of prayer  for those who have died, those who have been injured, those families who are deeply traumatised and the heart of the Church in Sri Lanka and the heart of the nation. This is a loss which cannot just be told in words but only in our heartfelt response which covers the distance between us. Trust always in the Lord that he is with us even to the end of time. Go gently in the days ahead.

De Colores,

Fr. John

The incredible shrinking God?

There can be key moments which touch us deeply and we find it hard to explain why. This week we woke to news on Tuesday morning of the fire which consumed the nave of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Having visited this Cathedral on a number of occasions this news held me transfixed in watching the flames consume the building. Several things sprung to mind but the lasting impression I had was of deep sadness for what was lost and how such a building represented our hope for a lasting relationship with God. Yet in the midst of deeply secular culture, it is hard to see how people are called to respond with faith and hope. The idea of God is at the heart of all human relationships seemed to be being consumed along with the flames. The desire to touch the divine presence seemed to be awakened in a way which is hard to explain.

The fact that this event happens in Holy Week seems particularly poignant as we seek to understand the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. We stand transfixed by the same event which seems to be the destruction of human life to transform us into a mystery we don't fully understand. Too often we try to contain God in a way which is understandable, acceptable and explainable to others. Yet the difficulty is that we cannot explain the mystery of Christ crucified we can only bear witness to how it stands at the heart of our Christian faith. Trying to limit its power or explain it on our terms makes light of the intense longing that God has for each of us. As one of the responses in the Office of Reading says during the week, "When you were estranged from God, your minds alienated him by a life of sin, he used Christ's natural body to win you back through his death so that he might bring you into his presence holy, pure and blameless." 

It is when we hold ourselves at arm's length from God that something shocks into the true worth of our lives. This is the resurrection story where God touches us in our deepest fears and draws us closer. This is a befriending which is often outside our grasp but God brings it closer through transforming our relationships. God seeks us out and expands our life at the very moment that we want to shrink God to our own reality. This expansion draws us into a cosmic reality which transcends us in its intimacy and immediacy. It transforms us in grace to live not solely for our own wants and needs. It moves us to make choices which enable us to listen to that which calls us to be truly our selves by responding to God's loving call to be our best self.

Whom do we welcome? Whom do we follow?

Our lives are shaped by who we are attentive to and how we welcome them into our lives. They allow us to discover what is important to us and what is that moves us to be present to them. This is truly the story of how Jesus attracts people to Himself. There is a struggle to discover a person who can speak authoritatively and with knowledge about what is important to our hearts. This is not just about seeing and believing that what someone says is true but listening and appropriation of what we are called to live with our lives. The meeting with Jesus does not happen by chance but rather meets us where we need to be met.

As we journey of with Jesus on the way of the Cross we start to realise how we tend to hold on to our lives too tightly rather than surrendering it to His loving relationship with the Father. I think part of our reluctance comes from the scandal of the Cross as we try to make sense of how that surrender seems to lead to death rather than to life, to despair rather than hope and sadness rather than joy. Yet the reality is that Jesus recognises that he cannot walk away from himself and what he truly seeks to live: that God loves Him as a beloved Son. It is that recognition that sees as the source of his whole life where he cannot divide himself in two between the human and the divine. In a similar way, we cannot walk away from Christ without dividing ourselves in two. We discover that when we are truly who what God wants us to be that all suffering is transformed by His loving action which draws us to the Cross. It helps us to see that our solidarity and our communion does not destroy us but free us to be present to His life.

Over this next week, I believe the main intention is not to take on a greater suffering or greater guilt but walking with Jesus even in our darkest night and knowing that His light enflames our own. He never walks away from us when we can walk with Him.

Neither do I condemn you

During Lent, we can become very conscious of the things that prevent us from having life-giving relationships with others. Our self-centeredness and concern only with our own salvation can concentrate on freeing us from sin while picking apart the faults of others. At the heart of Lent is the reality that we are called to encounter the person of Christ as ourselves. As St Paul says, "Nothing outweighs the advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." This is not about just a knowing about Jesus but an actual desire to meet him with our whole life. We do not achieve this by seeking perfection on our own terms but rather a faith in the person of Christ. It is this encounter which changes not only the life of the women caught in adultery but also those who would have stoned her to death. This is what is primary that our lives emerge out of a living relationship with the person of Jesus which transforms how we relate to others. When we concentrate solely on our sins rather than on the person who can free us from sinful behaviour we are on the road to destruction. 

Lent calls us to be people who are transformed through our penance, fasting and almsgiving to view our world differently. This is out of a life-giving and sustaining relationship with the person of Christ. It allows us the opportunity to centre ourselves on a relationship which sustains all other relationships. It calls us to seek out ways in which we can sustain that relationship and also the times when we can be subsumed by our own fears that we do not deserve it. In seeking the way ahead we are called to be open to entering more deeply into that relationship with others by becoming that God desires us to be. To be free of the things that bind us and addict us to forms of behaviour which prevent us from allowing our whole life being founded on the person of Christ.