Peter MALONE
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
May 6, 2018
Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.
We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land
on which we stand.
We pay our respects to them and for their care of the land.
May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.
or
I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,
the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,
and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.
or
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land where we are now gathered,
(the ……) and recognise that it continues to be sacred to them.
We hail them: as guardians of the earth and of all things that grow and breed in the soil; as trustees of the waters – [the seas, the streams and rivers, the ponds and the lakes] - and the rich variety of life in those waters.
We thank them for passing this heritage to every people since the Dreamtime.
We acknowledge the wrongs done to them by newcomers to this land and we seek to be partners with them in righting these wrongs and in living together in peace and harmony
or
We acknowledge the …………………….people the first inhabitants of this land.
We honour them for their care of the land
on which we gather today, and with them,
pray for justice and their constitutional recognition.
(This could be recited by all in the congregation)
Readings
First Reading: Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 98:1, 2-3, 3-4
Second Reading: 1 J0hn 4:7-10
Gospel Reading: John 15:9-17
Penitential Rite
q God’s Spirit has been poured out on all the peoples. Jesus, have mercy.
q God’s justice and peace have been revealed to all peoples. Christ, have mercy.
q God’s kindness and faithfulness is shown to all peoples. Jesus, have mercy.
Alternative Penitential Rite
· Jesus, you have loved us with God’s own love. Jesus, have mercy.
· Jesus, you showed your love for us by laying down your life for us. Christ, have mercy.
· Jesus, you showed us how to love those who are difficult to love. Jesus, have mercy.
Opening Prayer
Merciful God,
may we joyfully celebrate the resurrection of Jesus
and express in our lives the love you call us to.
Bring us together in spirit and action,
bearing one another’s burdens
and sharing each other’s gifts
so that we may more effectively
establish your presence in our world.
Prayer over the Gifts
Merciful God,
accept our prayers and offerings.
As Jesus gives himself to us
as the bread of life,
may we become
your sacraments of love
which bring healing to all.
Prayer after Communion
Merciful God,
the rising of Jesus from the dead
has restored us to life.
May we be strengthened and encouraged
to put away our fears
and remain open to your Spirit
so that we may seek to love one another
effectively in our daily life.
Prayers of the Faithful
Introduction: We pray to our Merciful God who shows no partiality and listens to the people of all nations. Let us pray that we look upon all people as filled with the Spirit of God and also friends of God. We pray in response: Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That the talks between North and South Korea will bring an end to the state of war and lead to a peace and reconciliation for the people of the Korean peninsula and we all have the courage of Pope Francis to continually call our leaders to seek the way of peace, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God
· That the people of Palestine whose stolen continues to be destroyed by violence and conflict will have their rights respected, their land restored and their dignity as a loudly acclaimed but all nations, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That all discrimination, especially discrimination and violence against women and girls, be brought to an end, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That people stripped of their rights and trafficked into abusive work situations in fields, market gardens, mines and factories be given the respect and support they deserve, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That Mother Earth may be respected and cared for as our home for the future of our children and children’s children, our children and children’s children, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God
· That the Christian churches continually engage in religious dialogue with peoples of other faiths in all places with true humility, respect and understanding, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That we remember people who live with violence, daily hunger, sickness, displacement and the pain of indifference from those in power and the means to make a difference, especially those in South Sudan, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That the people West Papua who continue suffer from foreign occupation may have their voices for freedom and peace amplified by nations such as Australia, the Netherlands and the United States, and that human rights abuses be condemned, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That we remember the people who suffer unnecessarily in our prison system that they may be acknowledged as persons who are loved and embraced by God and that their offenses do not define who they are, we pray, Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That the churches speak the truth in all places and times, knowing that it is the silence that kills, and may they place themselves on the side of justice and equity for all people, especially those who live in poverty and exclusion, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That all people who are victims of any form of terrorism will have justice and eventually find healing and comfort through the compassionate support of their community, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God.
· That we as a nation recognise the pain and anguish of the dispossession of land, language, culture and family kinship that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to live with: may we live in faith that all people will rise from the depths of despair and hopelessness, we pray: Give us the gift of love, O God.
Concluding Prayer: Merciful God, generously pour out your Spirit upon our world and our church. As we remain in your love, lead us forward in hope and help us to build a future that includes all your people.
Parish Notices
May 10 Inaugural Address of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa 1994
May 13 Mother’s Day originally called Mother’s Day for Peace
Advance notice for coming weeks
May 17 World Telecommunications Day
May 17 Death Fr Ted Kennedy 2005
May 20 Timor-Leste becomes fully independent 2002
May 21 World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
May 21 Murder of Sr Irene McCormack, Josephite Sister, in Peru, 1991
May 25 Release of the Bringing Them Home Report (1995)
May 26 National Sorry Day.
May 26-June 4, Prayer for Reconciliation & Christian Unity
May 27 June National Week of Reconciliation and Week of Prayer for Reconciliation.
May 27 Anniversary of the 1967 Referendum which allowed the Federal Government to grant citizenship rights to Indigenous Australians. Note that this Referendum saw the highest ‘yes’ vote ever recorded in a Federal Referendum, with 91% of the Australian people voting for change. This meant that Indigenous Australians were to be included in the Census, and responsibility for them would lie with the Federal Government rather than with the States.
Further Resources
Blessed Are You Peacemakers
Blessed are you peacemakers, who say no to war as a means to peace.
Blessed are you peacemakers, who are committed to disarm weapons of mass destruction.
Blessed are you peacemakers, who wage peace at heroic personal cost.
Blessed are you peacemakers, who challenge and confront judges, courts & prisons.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who help those who are hurting.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who befriend perfect strangers.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who open doors for acting justly,
loving tenderly and walking humbly with God and all people of good will.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who welcome, encourage and inspire.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who offer hope and healing.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who care and comfort.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who help find answers.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who provide stability not insanity.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who help restore faith and love.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who delight in creation, art & creativity.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who see the good in others.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who never give up.
Blessed are the peacemakers, who give and give and give.
Fr. Paul Milanowski Grand Rapids, Michigan
I don't know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits children to be destroyed.
Daniel Berrigan, Jesuit priest, peace activist
I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own -- and if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the ‘haves’ refuse to share with the ‘have-nots’ by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans.
General David M. Shoup, Commandant of the Marine Corps 1960-63, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honour.
He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.
St Thomas Aquinas
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
To arrive at the heart of the meaning of loving, we must spend time with Jesus, who makes explicit God’s love and loving action in the world. Jesus life defines what the Gospel means by love: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
To follow this commandment, we must embrace the whole of Jesus way of loving. Christian love is often reduced to sentimentality, niceness, politeness.
Loving as Jesus loves includes -
v challenging corruption and deceits,
v caring for the welfare of our enemies,
v lending without expecting to be repaid,
v forgiving seventy time seven those who hurt us,
v turning the other cheek,
v giving without wanting gratitude or praise,
v confronting with naked honesty the hypocrisies of religion,
v expressing anger when one’s fellows are being exploited,
v cleansing the temple,
v embracing outcastes and welcoming sinners,
v accepting that in some circumstances misunderstanding will be our lot;
v that rejection and suffering may be the only apparent result of our holiest efforts.
Centre of Concern
No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite
Eric Bibb, Black song writer and singer
They say that we are disturbing the peace,
but there is no peace.
What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war.
Howard Zinn
Every single member of my family on both sides was exterminated. Both of my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. And it is precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and my two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel commits its crimes against the Palestinians.
Norman Finkelstein - http://bit.ly/IQb7AE
There is only one-way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man.
Alan Paton
It is certainly dangerous for a state when its citizens have a conscience; what it needs is men without conscience, or, better still, men whose conscience is quite in conformity with reasons of state, men in whom the feeling of personal responsibility has been replaced by the automatic impulse to act in the interests of the state.
Michael E. Coughlan, 1978, Rocker, Culture and Nationalism, p.197
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.
Samuel Adams
Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.
Lewis H. Lapham
The death of a single human being is too heavy a price for the vindication of any principle, however sacred.
Daniel Berrigan sj
These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.
Samuel Johnson
As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.
Clarence Darrow
We've forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that's the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.
Cornel West, from The Impossible Will Take a Little While
Let us understand
The gravity of our situation.
Let us understand
That our only redemption
Is love.
Love for a small, endangered planet
On which we are utterly dependent.
Only love can transform us
From plunderers and savages
Into Earthkeepers and peacemakers.
Only love can show us
The integrity and rights
Of all other beings.
Only love can open our eyes
To the truth and beauty
That surround us.
Only love can teach us
The humility we need
To live on this Earth.
And only love can now save us
From extinction.
Mary de La Valette, Poet and activist, Gaia Institute, Massachusetts
We look with uncertainty
Beyond the old choices for
Clear-cut answers
to a softer, more permeable aliveness
Which is every moment
At the brink of death;
For something new is being born in us
If we but let it.
We stand at a new doorway,
Awaiting that which comes…..
Daring to be human creatures.
Vulnerable to the beauty of existence.
Learning to love.
Anne Hilman, Author and international lecturer, California
The world is dangerous not because of those who do harm
but because of those who look at it without doing anything
Robert Stewart
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent
Issac Asimov
The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of non-violence has been the organization of violence.
Joan Baez
Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only goal worth struggling for. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments - a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.
Albert Camus, On the bombing of Hiroshima - in the resistance newspaper Combat, August 8, 1945
There are causes worth dying for,
but none worth killing for.
Albert Camus
You can bomb the world into pieces,
but you can't bomb it into peace.
Michael Franti
But it was impossible to save the Great Republic. She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home; multitudes who had applauded the crushing of other people's liberties, lived to suffer for their mistake in their own persons. The government was irrevocably in the hands of the prodigiously rich and their hangers-on; the suffrage was become a mere machine, which they used as they chose. There was no principle but commercialism, no patriotism but of the pocket.
Mark Twain
Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort.
Marshall McLuhan (1951)
A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.
H.G. Wells
Don't ever let them pull you down so low as to hate them. (also cited as: I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.]
Booker T. Washington
I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
What is hateful...is not rebellion but the despotism which induces the rebellion;
what is hateful are not rebels but the men, who, having the enjoyment of power,
do not discharge the duties of power;
they are the men who, having the power to redress wrongs,
refuse to listen to the petitioners that are sent to them;
they are the men who, when they are asked for a loaf, give a stone.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier
At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being.
Friedrich Otto Hertz
This focus on money and power may do wonders in the marketplace, but it creates a tremendous crisis in our society. People who have spent all day learning how to sell themselves and to manipulate others are in no position to form lasting friendships or intimate relationships... Many Americans hunger for a different kind of society -- one based on principles of caring, ethical and spiritual sensitivity, and communal solidarity. Their need for meaning is just as intense as their need for economic security.
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Abide with us, Great God of relationship and love;
that we may abide in you–
bravely living each day open to new challenges;
fiercely loving those you have given us to care for;
and earnestly seeking in all we do
to seek justice, to love kindness,
and to walk humbly wherever you lead. Amen
Reflections on the readings…….
Today’s gospel contains Jesus’ final message to his disciples with the reminder that now, because of the resurrection, God is constantly enlarging the boundaries of love, and invites them and us to adapt our lives to ever inclusive patterns of love. The gospel also affirms us: ‘You are my friends!’ I call you friends, said Jesus. I chose you; I love you. Love one another, remain in me and bear good fruit. The readings are brimming with words of affirmation for us. Today’s gospel reading comes from Jesus’ farewell discourses at the Last Supper. Though we are still in Easter time, Jesus’ discourse is about farewell, assurances, final instructions and promises. He promises to remain with them and the church. He has not come for a set period of time to get things going and then go away and may be return to see how we went – pass or fail! He did not come to live a model human life for us to imitate and then leave us on our own to live up to his example.
A book I like to go back to, called The Help by Kathryn Stockett tells the story of 12 black women who worked as maids in wealthy families in 1960’s Mississippi. One of the books figures, Miss Eugenie ‘Skeeter’ Phelan, who has recently graduated from university, shares the stories of these domestic workers (or ‘the help’) in their own words. They are fearful and initially reluctant to tell of their struggles as they raise the children and attend to domestic duties of people where there were still racist laws and segregation.
One of ‘the help’, Aibileen, tells of her attempts to raise a child (Mae Mobley), whose mother ignored her as she was disappointed in her ordinary appearance and slow ways. Aibileen uses every opportunity to show affection to this child and encourage her each day with the word, ‘Mae Mobley, you is kind, you is smart, you is important.’
In the readings we are assured that no one is beyond God’s reach and concerns. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter reassures his hearers: ‘You are filled with the Holy Spirit!’ He uses an inclusive ‘you’ – Jews and gentiles. We see from this story that even the Roman soldier, Cornelius, was not beyond God’s concerns. The beauty of the story is how Peter slowly coming to understand the God’s open heart to all. It is heartening that we are in process. Never perfect.
Again, God’s love for the community is affirmed in 1 John: ‘You are loved!’ Jesus’ appearances since his rising from the dead, seem to be constant affirmations to his followers that they are loved and because of that love are encouraged to enlarge their hearts, break-down barriers, and enlarge our horizons in order to ‘incarnate’ or ‘enflesh’ God’s love for us into concrete expressions of love for others. Naomi Klein in Windows and Fences can offer us a challenge as we gather, to ask, ‘Who's missing? Who's not here who should be here?’
The powerful affirmations of regard and relationship with God in Christ cannot stop with us. We are called to give as we have received-unconditionally. We are also to affirm, encourage, raise up, love and do justice for others. They too are friends of Jesus. These affirmations make it possible for us to come together and share the ‘mercy’, the ‘compassion’ that flows from God passion for us.
Jesus is stretching us so that we might open places in our lives to love anyone who considered ‘other’ in our church or society. If we take our relationship with Jesus seriously – that of friend rather than servant – then our orientation towards the other takes on new meaning. We see this clearly in Peter’s response in the reading from Acts. Being regarded as friend by Jesus is more than a nice feeling of intimacy but empowers us to love our neighbour as he did.
We have all had some experience of meeting people different to us, sitting with them and listening to them, getting to know them and then finding that our position, our perspective and standpoint can and does shift. Peter realised that what God has made clean should not be considered profane or unclean. This explodes the ‘us and them’ mentality and promotes the ‘we and they.’
Peter’s encounters with gentile or non-Jewish people (originally considered beyond God’s concern) forced him to reexamine his own history, his training, and his prejudices. The risk for Peter and his companions prior to meeting with Cornelius was to make the Gospel more exclusive. Peter’s amazement that ‘even the Gentiles’ receive the Spirit follows the original difficulty to ‘get’ or ‘comprehend’ the radical inclusiveness of God’s reign that always encompasses the people we consider strangers, enemies, and the unclean. We see that exclusiveness again in many places in threats to gay and lesbian people in the church and in society. It is a painful reminder that we need to continue to work to understand and embrace the radical inclusiveness of God’s reign. Six years ago as Austrian priest, shortly before Communion, outrageously announced that only Catholics in the state of grace should come for Communion. This would have excluded divorced and remarried Catholics as well as those who did not attend weekly Mass. The powerful lesson coming from the people was, according to reports, that not one adult came forward to receive Communion. The congregation demonstratively remained seated.
The affirmations we heard in the readings challenge any attempts to reestablish boundaries to limit God’s loving action in our world. Was this not behind the re-wording in the words of consecration in the Eucharistic Prayer - “It will be shed for ‘you and for all’ changed to ‘given for many’”. Just who is included in the ‘many’? We know that any attempt to limit God’s presence and love in people different to us is to fundamentally treat them as ‘less then ourselves’. In its extremes we saw this in the Crusades, Apartheid, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, the Armenian genocide or the massacre of 100’s of Yazedis in Syria just this week, the killing fields in Cambodia and the Balkans, the Holocaust, Rwanda, the oppression of the Tamils in Sri Lanka that continues despite the end of the war, the indifference to people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa, and discrimination and equality attributed to women and homosexuals.
Peter realised, as we must, that God has no boundaries and the Spirit goes beyond the boundaries of our communities and blesses the ‘outsider’. We realise that our solidarity with others does not depend on a particular language because solidarity has many languages - as love has many languages. Peter saw that we cannot refuse to recognise what God is clearly doing – and that the Spirit has come upon all people. We need to invoke Peter’s simple reasoning. ‘Is there evidence that God’s Spirit is active among the people on the other side?’ If it is ‘yes’ then we need to pull down the barricades and welcome them. Recently, in a beautiful eulogy for one of our MSC Brothers, the former provincial said, ‘When we gather to say farewell and give thanks for someone in our Christian community we ask the question: where and how did the life of God shine forth in this person?’ No doubt this is what Peter also had in mind as he came to understand how wide and deep is God’s love for all. Peter like all of us had, and have, blind spots. This beautiful brother had later in his life troubled by what he called a serious “blind spot” in his views about gay people and was concerned that he may have said some things in mixed company and offended people he loved and cared about. He had discovered that he had worked with people on various committees who were in fact in committed gay relationships and even attended the same mass that he did. He resolved that he would write a letter to the Southern Highland News to apologise for any comments he had made that may have offended people. He received a very positive response from that. As the preachers said, ‘He was a man open to listening, learning and new understandings as he grew through his years. His life lived with integrity.’
The is some controversy in the church at the moment where some people seem to be complaining on the fact that much of our talk is about love, mercy and compassion. Pope Francis has taken many hits from those who want to have a more legalistic approach to people and their behaviour. They seek the stricter black and white demands and commands they remember from childhood. The teaching on love, mercy, and compassion is not a recent innovation or something trendy. This is Jesus’ teaching for us today when he speaks to us as friend. Servants, whose lives are dictated by the one in authority over them, follow rules. God’s love in Jesus is the foundation of our faith and life. God’s love is unconditional. We do not have to earn it. All that we are asked is to live out the consequences of that love. We are his friends, and we are called to ‘befriend’ others. Jesus knows the world will be rough on those who follow him and his teachings. He wants them/us to know that, no matter how difficult things get, they/we are beloved. ‘Success’ will not be based by the standards of achievement, stature, property acquired, popularity that we tend to use. They will not be measurable signs which people usually associate with a successful life. What they and we have are his words, ‘As the Father loves me, I also love you...remain in my love.’
The love Jesus speaks of is not the love for dearest one. It has nothing to do with liking someone. It means being willing to go out of the way for others; acting in the best interests of another; assisting when they need help. Jesus’ death on the cross is a perfect reflection of how God feels about us. God loved us, was willing to go out of the way to show us that love, and acted for our well-being.
Easter is coming to an end, and Pentecost is two weeks from catching fire. Love is the passion/energy of God's justice, and joy is its mark. This love and joy should mark our worship and witness. We are called to be reflections of God; to mirror God’s love. To arrive at the heart of the meaning of loving, we must spend time with Jesus, who makes explicit God’s love and loving action in the world. Let us be like the beloved disciple, John, who placed his ear close to the heart of Jesus, to be attuned to his love, whilst looking outwards to the world. Let us spend time with Jesus whose life defines what the Gospel means by love: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ In the words of today’s psalm, ‘Let us sing to the Lord a new song!’
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 29, 2018
Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.
We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land
on which we stand.
We pay our respects to them and for their care of the land.
May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.
or
I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,
the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,
and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.
or
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land where we are now gathered,
(the ……) and recognise that it continues to be sacred to them.
We hail them: as guardians of the earth and of all things that grow and breed in the soil; as trustees of the waters – [the seas, the streams and rivers, the ponds and the lakes] - and the rich variety of life in those waters.
We thank them for passing this heritage to every people since the Dreamtime.
We acknowledge the wrongs done to them by newcomers to this land and we seek to be partners with them in righting these wrongs and in living together in peace and harmony.
I am one voice and I am singing
I am one voice and I am singing
I am one voice and I am singing
I am not alone
We are two voices we are singing
We are two voices we are singing
We are two voices we are singing
We are not alone
We are a hundred voices singing
We are a hundred voices singing
We are a hundred voices singing
We are not alone
We are a thousand voices singing
We are a thousand voices singing
We are a thousand voices singing
We are not alone
We are a million voices singing
We are a million voices singing
We are a million voices singing
We are not alone
I am one voice and I'll keep singing
I am one voice and I'll keep singing
I am one voice and I'll keep singing
I am not alone
Don Eaton
“It is essential to draw near to new forms of poverty and vulnerability, in which we are called to recognize the suffering Christ, even if this appears to bring us no tangible and immediate benefits. I think of the homeless, the addicted, refugees, indigenous peoples, the elderly who are increasingly isolated and abandoned, and many others. Migrants present a particular challenge for me, since I am the pastor of a Church without frontiers, a Church which considers herself mother to all. For this reason, I exhort all countries to a generous openness which, rather than fearing the loss of local identity, will prove capable of creating new forms of cultural synthesis.”
Pope Francis Evangelii Gaudium Para 210
Readings
Reading 1 Acts 9:26-31
Responsorial Psalm Ps 22:26-27, 28, 30, 31-32
R. I will praise you, Lord, in the assembly of your people.
Reading II 1 Jn 3:18-24
Gospel Jn 15:1-8
Penitential Rite
1. Jesus, you are the vine and we are the branches; your life flows in us: Jesus, have mercy.
2. Jesus, your love overflows in us and through us: Christ, have mercy.
3. Jesus, your commitment to God and to the good of people overflows in us: Jesus, have mercy.
Opening Prayer
Living and loving God,
you have made yourself present to us in Jesus, your Son.
Through him we live the life you have given us,
by being generous and reaching out to others.
As Christ lives in us and we live in him,
may he bring people from all branches of humanity together
on the same vine so that the new wine of justice and love fills the earth.
Prayer of the Faithful
Introduction: Jesus’ rising from the dead provides the great alternative to the world of fear and death. We stand in the presence of the God who protests against death and is passionate for the life of all, as we pray in response: Listen to your people, O God.
· May the people who have experienced disaster and tragedy in recent times – Nepal, China, North India, Bangladesh, Vanuatu, Haiti and the Philippines – find in their connections with others a solidarity that makes healing and hope possible, as we pray in response: Listen to your people, O God.
· May we struggle against all that is life denying: inequality, poverty, marginalisation and violence, we pray: Listen to your people, O God.
· May the critical and liberating power of Easter allow us to realise that death does not only come at the end of life but is in our very midst: in the economic death of the person we allow to starve; the political death of the people who are oppressed; the social death of people with disabilities; the noisy death of bombs and torture; and the soundless death of the apathetic soul, we pray: Listen to your people, O God
· May our resurrection faith be proved through our courageous self-giving in the struggle for justice and peace in our neighbourhoods and our world and protest against all forms of oppression, we pray: Listen to your people, O God.
· May our Easter hope be strengthened as we witness the contribution of women in peacemaking and conflict resolution: may we all be heartened and strengthened by the encouragement they give though their care, nurturing, peacemaking and dissent, we pray: Listen to your people, O God.
· May the work of the church and those who serve in its many ministries for the community and the world be recognised for their service and seen as participation in the work of the One who is passionate for life in our midst, we pray: Listen to your people, O God.
· May people who are unemployed or underemployed, who work without just wages and whose work is unfulfilling or dangerous, we pray that they be concretely supported and their voices heard, we pray: Listen to your people, O God.
· May people who are bullied at home, school, work place or church community for their gender, sexual orientation, racial or social background, or any other challenges, be respected as loved and created in the image of God, we pray: Listen to your people, O God.
Concluding Prayer: May our Easter hope find expression in the lives of men and women who, filled with hope and trusting in God’s future, joyfully protest against death and resist all attempts that oppose the establishment of a new world of peace, compassion, sharing.
Prayer over the Gifts
Living and loving God,
you planted Jesus, your Son among people
as the true vine of faithful love.
May he be for us the bread of strength
and the wine of faithfulness,
so that we, living in him and he in us,
may bear the fruits of love and peace in our lives.
Prayer after Communion
Living and loving God,
you are greater than our heart.
We have celebrated the presence among us
of the Jesus, the true vine.
May we strive to remain united with him
and with one another,
so that in the midst of life’s uncertainties
we may go on believing, hoping and loving.
Parish Notices
May 1 St Joseph the Worker
May 5 Blessed Edmund Rice
May 6 Introduction of mandatory detention of asylum seekers in Australia in 1992
Further Resources
The death of a single human being is too heavy a price for the vindication of any principle, however sacred.
Daniel Berrigan sj, peace activist, poet
These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.
Samuel Johnson
As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.
Clarence Darrow
Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever.
Federico Garcia Lorca- Spanish Poet and Playwright
There is something perverse about more than enough. When we have more, it is never enough. It is always somewhere out there, just out of reach. The more we acquire, the more elusive enough becomes.
Unknown
Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.
Mark Twain
Much of our activity these days is nothing more than a cheap anaesthetic to deaden the pain of an empty life.
Unknown
We lift to you our Mother Earth. We lift to you our Mother Church. We lift to you, O God, your mother's heart; and although we cannot fully express our gratitude, help each one of us to be your blessing of love, a blessing straight from your heart. Amen.
Rev. Jane Sommers, Center for Worship Resourcing, The General Board of Discipleship
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man [or woman] is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Rudyard Kipling, (1865-1936)
They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. George Orwell
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. George Orwell
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
Stephen Vincent Benét
A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.
Karl Kraus (1874–1936)
The state has, in order to control us, introduced division into our thinking, so that we come to distrust others and look to the state for protection! But the roots of our individualism remind us that what we are is inseparable from the source from which all others derive; that coercive practices that threaten our neighbour also threaten us.
Butler Shaffer
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted;
the indifference of those who should have known better;
the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most;
that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
Haile Selassie, last emperor of Ethiopia
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy of life is when men [and women] are afraid of the light.
Plato
Selections from Dag Hammarskjöld’s Markings:
The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you,
the better you hear what is sounding outside.
And only he who listens can speak.’
Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top.
Then you will see how low it was.
Life yields only to the conqueror.
Never accept what can be gained by giving in.
You will be living off stolen goods,
and your muscles will atrophy.’
Life demands from you only the strength you posses.
One feat is possible -- not to have run away.
‘Goodness is something so simple: always to live for others,
never to seek one's own advantage’
Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step;
only he [she] who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.
Dag Hammarskjold Markings born July 29, 1905; killed 1961, whilst Secretary General of the UN.
Each time [one] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against an injustice, s/he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Robert Kennedy
To be holy does not require being a bishop, a priest or a religious. We are frequently tempted to think that holiness is only for those who can withdraw from ordinary affairs to spend much time in prayer. That is not the case. We are all called to be holy by living our lives with love and by bearing witness in everything we do, wherever we find ourselves. Are you called to the consecrated life? Be holy by living out your commitment with joy. Are you married? Be holy by loving and caring for your husband or wife, as Christ does for the Church. Do you work for a living? Be holy by labouring with integrity and skill in the service of your brothers and sisters. Are you a parent or grandparent? Be holy by patiently teaching the little ones how to follow Jesus. Are you in a position of authority? Be holy by working for the common good and renouncing personal gain.[Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et exsultate on the call to holiness in today’s world #14.
‘To truly heal this planet, we need the power of community, which is much more than simply a political coalition. Whenever people come together around a shared goal and practice solidarity, they connect with a power greater than the sum of their individual efforts. Thus, they’re unified and driven by meaning, trust and possibility, able to overcome any obstacle.’
Martin Winiecki , Tamera Peace Research and Education Center in Portugal
Reflections on the Readings
‘When you remove the risk, you remove the challenge. When you remove the challenge, you wither on the vine.’
Alex Lowe
This Sunday’s readings are a stark reminder of what being ‘in relationship’ means, and what is meant by being fully connected to the life-giving energy at the core of our lives. We see in the Acts the effects that a personal encounter with Christ had on Saul’s life. Known as a murderer, he becomes Jesus’ disciple much to the consternation of the other disciples. They knew he his background and continue to fear him until Barnabas shares Saul’s conversion story. It is only then that the accept Saul. He is now ‘in relationship’ with Christ, with God, Barnabas and the disciples – relationships struck through personal encounters and direct storytelling.
We are still in Easter and we reflect upon the truth: Jesus lives, and lives amongst us, and calls us to do life differently. The women’s witness strengthens that conviction that Jesus is alive as the encounters with the other disciples: the disciples walking to Emmaus, and Jesus breaking bread with them; the disciples on the seashore; the appearance to Thomas. And of course, Paul’s experience is one of encountering Jesus alive and present to him.
Paul’s message is powerful. The church must open up. Jesus lives not only in these Jewish disciples, but in the world. This caused tremendous difficulty as many refused to accept that Jesus would also be alive and present to non-Jews. But change came and the church evolved – becoming a different kind of church. Because Jesus is still alive, he is still present here now in our world, in our midst, in our community of disciples, he's still here to guide us and possibly trying to show us new ways to be the community of disciples. He is clearly present and active in all people as Pope Francis has beautifully reminded us in his Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et exsultate. Many women are called to priesthood. Many people are called to be married priests. And, even those religious women who have borne much service of the church in the world are distrusted and ultimately betrayed. Has Jesus not been present in and through the witness of married couples and single people in their witness in the world? Has Jesus not been present and active in so many non-ordained religious in poor communities and priestless parishes. All have lived out the words of Jesus in John’s Gospel: 'My one commandment is that you love one another, not just in word, but in action, in deed, in truth.' This is the love that went beyond the community to the world, especially to the women, men and children living in various kinds of poverty and oppression: 'When I was hungry, you gave me to eat. When I was thirsty, you gave me to drink. When I was naked, you clothed me. When I was homeless, you sheltered me.' Jesus lives in all these people and the living Jesus asks us to carry his love to all our brothers and sisters, wherever they are, and however they need the loving presence of Jesus. This is the fruit that all called to bring forth in our lives.
Dorothy Sayers, in The Greatest Drama Ever Staged wrote in exasperation: ‘We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him ‘meek and mild,’ and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.’ Many Christians’ have a penchant for a ‘Jesus,’ who is something of a wimp. ‘The ‘Beatitudes’ as commonly understood are preferred over Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. Jesus’ coming to children is preferred to his words, ‘I come not to bring peace, but a sword.’ These are consistent with the trends to inactivity, apathy [and obesity]. It can be more comfortable to sit than to be active. But all the words of Jesus are in fact directed towards activity and engagement. Jesus’ words ‘Remain in me’ might be comforting, and reassuring, but something more is expected of us. The vision of unity carries a responsibility to continually make this a reality.
Statements still abound by Christian people against Muslim people; support military involvement overseas against people who have done us no harm or even threatened us; past wars are still glorified without much reflection on why go to war in the first or the impact it has on people both ‘our’ soldiers and those they fought against and their families; people in our community such as the aged, people living with mental illness, Indigenous people, people in prison continue to be neglected and blamed for their situations.
‘Remain in me’ causes us to ask: how big is our ‘we’? According the gospel we are interconnected and interdependent. It requires mutuality and reciprocity. The church has always faced this challenging question and responsibility. As a nation we face this daily with the treatment of people who come to Australia by boat seeking asylum and refuge. How big is our ‘we’ as a nation and as a ‘church’? What approach will we take as individuals and communities? Do we respond by building more barriers (border protection) or changing words in our liturgy to make God seem more remote and make us look more ‘Catholic’? It seems sometimes that more and more people find the church community as not being helpful in remaining close to Christ. The reason for this may be the person himself or herself or the messages that the pastor/priest/minister and the people communicate.
John's gospel imagery is not new. The Old Testament used this image several times (Jeremiah 2:21; Ezekiel 15:6; Hosea 10:1) but the vine was the community. In the gospel today Jesus is the vine. God’s close relationship with Israel was not meant to be cosy or comfortable. Our relationship to God in Jesus implies the ‘other’ - our sisters and brothers. I wonder however, that the pruning must always be attributed to ourselves rather than the ‘other’.
We are quite happy to recommend the ‘pruning’ of others to make them acceptable to us: women, Muslim people, the stranger, and the gay and lesbian person. Our relationship certainly requires ‘pruning’ in ourselves of prejudices, grudges, unwillingness to forgive, failures to welcome diversity and difference in people and cultures, intolerance and arguments over dogma, looking at (not necessarily abandoning) our belief systems, our image of God, our political beliefs, behaviour that might be paternalistic, controlling or dominating are questioned or challenged. The church needs to continually relearn that nothing - not race or gender, not any human prejudice - should hinder the ‘one vine’ from forking and branching and growing until all the people of God are included. Paul’s life was at risk for wanting to break down barriers in the Jerusalem community. He did not want people jumping through difficult hoops in order to follow Jesus. And we have to keep on doing that in order to be faithful to Jesus. It continues the theme of last Sunday as Jesus the Good Shepherd where God has no borders. Being inclusive means more than bringing many diverse people together; it is about how we experience and engage each other. Our love and commitment betray who we are connected to. Loving those outside our circles of approval, acceptance, or understanding is difficult – can be life-threatening or life-enhancing.
War, violence and exclusiveness mock the Risen One who calls us to do life differently, the One who was passionate about life, peace and justice. The treatment of the religious women for their present ministry which some find threatened or past abuses where they were used as cheap labour mocks the one in whose name they have served for decades. Mother’s Day happens in two weeks. However, we continue to mock that day, which began as a Mother’s Day for Peace when women originally gave themselves to oppose war and its underlying patriarchy, becoming another day for commercialisation. This day has become like a monument rather than a challenge. These women remembered not only their sons and husbands who might die in war but also the sons and husbands of women around the world. They made the connection between the vine and the branches.
‘Remain in me’. That ‘me’ is big, it is reveals God’s big-heartedness. Today the stranger and marginalised asks: What will prevent ‘me’ being included? What does this Scripture passage mean as we continue to cover up the war crimes against the Iraqi and Afghan people? the crimes against the people of Syria and Yemen? the justification of torture and use of drones that target people from great distances? when people who seek our protection are detained indefinitely? when we detain unaccompanied children? when human trafficking or child labour is ignored? John asks us if our faith has a heart, hands and feet: ‘Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth…’ [I Jn 3:18]. Is our love unafraid to get its hands dirty? We are continually led back into the heart of God, a heart full of self-giving. What might we become in the world if we took our place at Jesus’ table and loved one another the very same way he showed his love? When Jesus: says remain in me he is saying that our connection to him makes us mindful of our connection to the world – people that cry out to us and an Earth that is groaning under so much abuse. That includes the people escaping violence and poverty crossing the Arizona desert and the Mediterranean; the first peoples of this land who are being told they have to leave their homelands and thus deny their culture and language; the people who have sought our protection but find their trauma deepened by harsh immigration policies; the millions of children, women and men who are trafficked in our world; the thousands of people who die in Palestine, Syria, in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan; the millions who go to bed hungry every night; the earth that is polluted by greed and selfishness; the children who are hurt by words, neglect and bullying; and the animal world that suffers at human hands. How big is our ‘we’?
We are an interconnected human community, part of a global family, responsible for one another. Our actions or lack of action has consequences. As branches grafted on Jesus we are called to reflect his heart and his work. To be true to him, we cannot separate our lives into little compartments where one part has nothing to do with the other.
Let us hear the call to adventurous growth and creativity. The gospel image reminds us that we are fruitful agents and companions of a fruitful and lively God. And faithfulness to God invites us to push beyond our comfort zones, claim our agency, and contribute to the fruitfulness of God’s mission. Living God’s mission emerges from our commitments to love boldly and adventurously as we embody the Love that abides in us.
Sister Patricia Fox - Australian Nun arrested in the Philippines to be deported
Sr Patricia Fox - Australian Nun arrested in the Philippines to be deported
Letter to the Minister od Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop. From Claude Mostowik MSC, Pax Christi.
Dear Minister Bishop,
The organisation I belong to is Pax Christi Australia. It is part of the international Christian peace movement Pax Christi International, based in Brussels, which has consultancy status at the UN.
I have met Sr. Patricia Fox in the Philippines and wish to condemn her illegal arrest and detention yesterday and now threatened with deportation. Sr. Patricia belongs to the religious congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion. She has a visa to work in the Philippines and currently works with the Union of Agricultural Workers (UMA) and the Alliance for Genuine Agrarian Reform (PATRIA). She has also served with the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines as National Coordinator.
No doubt her crime is having participated in a farmer-based international fact-finding mission in Mindanao, which was concerned with the impacts of Martial Law on the local people – both Indigenous and peasants.
Sr. Patricia who is 71 has given her lift to the work of justice and peace and protesting the abuse of human rights. Her basic rights to due process, to know the reason for her arrest, and the right to legal assistance, have been violated.
Pax Christi Australia, and affiliate groups, calls for her immediate release so that she can continue her excellent work within the Church and with Filipino farmers. She is not a threat. She has been and continues to advocate for peace with justice.
We urge you to make our views known through your various diplomatic channels. This treatment of an Australian citizen who has done nothing wrong but concern herself with the poor and disenfranchised cannot be tolerated.
With peace and good wishes
Yours sincerely,
(Father) Claude Mostowik msc
National President
Pax Christi Australia.
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 22, 2018
Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.
We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land
on which we stand.
We pay our respects to them and for their care of the land.
May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.
or
I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,
the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,
and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.
A story of disasters
Readings
Reading 1 Acts 4:8-12
Responsorial Psalm Ps 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29
R. (22) The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.
Reading II 1 Jn 3:1-2
Gospel Jn 10:11-18
Penitential Rite
- Jesus, the stone rejected by the builders, has become the cornerstone for a new humanity. Jesus, have mercy.
- Jesus shows us the love that makes us God’s own people. Christ, have mercy.
- Jesus, the Good Shepherd, lays down his life for all. Jesus, have mercy.
or
· Lord Jesus, you are the cornerstone: Jesus, have mercy.
· Christ Jesus, you are the good shepherd: Christ, have mercy.
· Lord Jesus, you lay down your life for us: Jesus, have mercy..
Opening Prayer
Shepherding God,
may we who in faith follow the call of Jesus,
attune our minds to the sounds of his voice,
and be lead in the way of courage
by caring for one another
and giving ourselves
by speaking truth to justice.
General Intercessions
Introduction: Let us pray to our loving God who has from the beginning of time called the human race to be one. The response is: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For the leaders of nations, that they promote the freedom and dignity of all people in their care and that justice and quality of life be placed above political expediency, wealth and power: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
- For a deeper sense of responsibility for the Earth and its environment as we celebrate Earth Day this week: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For the people of Syria who have endured years of civil war and now continue to suffer from attacks by foreign nations who justify their behaviour based on international law but failing to recognise that in alleging to protect people they kill more people: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For all parents, that guided by the light of the word, they may recognise the privilege and responsibility of working to build their families as part of the new and wider human family, we pray together: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For the people of Middle East and those who have involved themselves in the violence and conflict there, may strive for true security that comes with justice, peace and reconciliation: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For all young people who are bullied because of their social status, their gender or sexual orientation: may they continue to remain strong and aware of their dignity: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For trade unionists who raise their voices on behalf of the rights of workers and against exploitation and injustice: may they find courage and strength in their solidarity: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For the people West Papua and the Philippines: may they may encounter people dedicated to human rights who give hope, courage and leadership: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For our country that we may as a nation strive to fearlessly embrace people who come here as refugees from their countries where there is violence, starvation and suffering and receive them with open hearts: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For all teachers and educators, that through their generosity and service they might see their work as a means of building a new human society: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
· For all us here present, that we may be shepherds to one another, responsible for each other, so that no one will be neglected through our fault, we pray together: Shepherding God, guide us in the way of love and courage.
Concluding Prayer: Shepherding God, may your people be firmly convinced that all people are your beloved ones. May we work together so that this unity might be expressed in loving dialogue with peoples of all faiths.
Prayers of the Faithful for ANZAC Day
Introduction: Let us pray to God who desires to draw close to us in Jesus, as we in response: God of the living, fill us with courage and hope.
1. That leaders of nations promote the freedom and dignity of their people, and place justice and quality of life above wealth and power, we pray: God of the living, fill us with courage and hope.
2. That we may value all life on earth, seek greater understanding and solidarity among people and languages, and be at peace and friendship with all, we pray: God of the living, fill us with courage and hope.
3. That people in religious and political leadership continually proclaim the good news of peace and justice without fear or compromise, we pray: God of the living, fill us with courage and hope.
4. That the people of Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand on this ANZAC Day remember the those who have died in war, may we remember all who have died in all wars, and the people who continue to be affected by war, we pray: God of the living, fill us with courage and hope.
5. That the voices of those who speak out for peace and solidarity among people also be listened to, we pray: God of the living, fill us with courage and hope.
6. That parents, teachers and educators through their generosity and service see their work as a way of building a new human society, we pray: God of the living, fill us with courage and hope.
7. For the people living in places of war and conflict may see that vengeance produces more violence, trauma and greater insecurity, we pray: God of the living, fill us with courage and hope.
8. For all people, known and unknown, who witness for peace and reconciliation in conflict situations: may they not be disheartened when ridiculed by political leaders for their stand, we pray: God of the living, fill us with courage and hope.
Concluding Prayer: God of new life, listen to the prayer of your people. May your peace and joy be with us and be the source of our hope on our journey.
Prayer over the Gifts
Shepherding God,
as Jesus has given himself to us
in these signs of bread and wine,
may we recognise his voice
in the cry of our neighbor in need
and may the continuing work of Jesus in our lives
be a source of peace to others.
Prayer after Communion
Shepherding God,
watch over the people you have liberated
by the life and death of Jesus.
May your reign of justice and love,
of true humanity and peace grow
as we walk in Jesus' presence
and shepherd the vulnerable ones
in strength and courage.
Parish Notices
April 22 International Mother Earth Day Theme: Earth Day 2018: End Plastic Pollution
"I appeal to all people everywhere to raise their voices. Speak out on behalf of this planet, our only home. Let us care for Mother Earth so she can continue to care for us as she has done for millennia’
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
International Mother Earth Day is celebrated to remind each of us that the Earth and its ecosystems provide us with life and sustenance.
It also recognizes a collective responsibility, as called for in the 1992 Rio Declaration, to promote harmony with nature and the Earth to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations of humanity.
International Mother Earth Day provides an opportunity to raise public awareness around the world to the challenges regarding the well-being of the planet and all the life it supports.
April 25 ANZAC Day Resources available to download https://www.columban.org.au/our-work/peace-ecology-and-justice/just-peace/ prepared by the Columban Mission Institute’s Centre for Peace, Ecology and Justice The Way of Peace ANZAC Centenary Edition 1915-2015.
April 26 Death of the 1000’s of people following the nuclear plant accident at Chernobyl, Ukraine (1986) causing widespread contamination in Europe
April 26 Bishop Gerardi murdered in Guatemala in 1998
April 28 Martyrdom of St Peter Chanel, first (known) martyr from Oceania, in the New Hebrides (1841)
April 29 Day of Remembrance for All Victims of Chemical Warfare
Opening Prayer
God of peace, God of all peoples and all nations,
source and lover of the peace that the world cannot give,
feed the flame of peace in human hearts.
You have blessed our land
and given us the power through your Spirit
for our hidden self to grow strong.
May the fierce flood of your grace sweep away all barriers and soak deep into our hearts.
Kindly hear our prayer
for those who bore witness to your fidelity
by giving their lives for those they love.
Resurrect them in our true homeland
and perfect that peace for which they longed and died.
(from an ANZAC Day Service conducted on Christmas Island Detention Centre, 2011)
For reflection on ANZAC – remembering the dead and promoting unwar.
NEVER FORGET YOU
‘Your friends will never forget you’,
the fluttering leaflet said,
‘Your friends will never forget you’,
and then o’er the valley spread,
The wide sky cowed in sorrow,
and the eyes of the angels wept,
For a promise made by the soldiers
that their leaders never kept.
For the soldiers are there when you need ‘em,
they’re there to suffer and die,
And to make the eyes of the angels weep
in the depths of the tropical sky,
And the soldiers are there laugh it off,
and shoulder their blistering gun,
And fight anew, in the mud light glue,
and the sweat of the tropical sun.
And solders were there, and their mates were there,
their mates, the East Timorese,
Who fought and died beside them
in the night of the jungle trees,
Who fought and bled and suffered
so Australia might still be free,
And the Aussies cried, when their leaders lied,
and poisoned the Timor Sea.
‘Your friends will never forget you’,
the fluttering leaflet said,
Dropped from the biscuit bomber,
and then o’er the valley spread,
‘Your friends will never forget you’,
and the eyes of the angels wept,
For a promise made by the soldiers
that their leaders never kept.
Denis Kevans©
Prayer for Peace
Loving God, you inspire us with love for all persons
and concern for the well-being of all creation.
Give us today the strength and courage
to transform the compassion of our hearts
into acts of peace, mercy, and justice.
Forgive us for the arrogance that leads to moral blindness,
for desires for vengeance and retaliation,
and for willingness to sacrifice others for our own security and avarice.
Help us to renounce all forms of violence:
prejudice, unfair allegations, intolerance, and injury.
Give us the courage to resist threatening postures,
calls to arms, mobilization of troops and weapons, and
all actions that threaten the lives and livelihoods of innocent people.
Empower us to live out the caring presence
of the merciful and generous persons we claim to be.
Make us channels of your peace, bearers of healing,
women and men who hear and respond with alacrity
to pleas for justice in our world.
We ask all this in the name of Jesus
Who came among us to show us the way.
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.
Light in the darkest places
Further resources
Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.
Pedro Arrupe, SJ, former superior-general of the Society of Jesus
The Lord’s Prayer: An Adaptation
Our God who is in heaven
and in all of us here on earth;
the hungry, the oppressed, the excluded.
Holy is your name.
May your reign come and your
will be done;
in our choice to struggle with the complexities
of this world and to confront greed and
the desire for power in ourselves,
in our nation and in the global community.
Give us this day our daily bread;
bread that we are called to share,
bread that you have given us abundantly
and that we must distribute fairly,
ensuring security for all.
Forgive us our trespasses;
times we have turned away from
the struggles of other people and countries,
times we have thought only of our own security.
Lead us not into temptation;
the temptation to close our minds, ears, and eyes
to the unfair global systems that create
larger and larger gaps between
the rich and the poor; the temptation to think
it is too difficult to bring about more just alternatives.
Deliver us from evil;
the evil of a world where violence happens
in your name, where wealth for a few
is more important than economic rights for all,
where gates and barriers between people
are so hard to bring down.
May your reign come, for yours is the kingdom,
the power and the glory forever and ever.
Amen!
Center of Concern www.coc.org
How generous you are, Earth,
and how strong is your yearning for your children
lost between that which they have attained and that which they could not obtain.
We clamor and you smile; we flit but you stay!
We extract your elements to make cannons and bombs,
but out of our elements you create lilies and roses.
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931,Lebanese Poet and Philosopher
It is too easy to find an excuse for inaction by pleading the decadence of civilization, or even the imminent end of the world. This defeatism, whether it be innate or acquired or a mere affection, seems to me the besetting temptation of our time. Defeatism is invariably unhealthy and impotent; can we also prove that it is unjustified? I think so.
Teilhard de Chardin, from Building the Earth
If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness. . . . The whole show has been on fire from the word go.
Annie Dillard
Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighbouring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?
Kahlil Gibran
If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.
Noam Chomsky
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home’
James Madison: US fourth president’ 1751-1836
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and under nourishment.
Robert M. Hutchins
The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
Plato
By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction
William Osler (Canadian Physician, 1849-1919)
Philosophy should always know that indifference is a militant thing. It batters down the walls of cities and murders the women and children amid the flames and the purloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery.
Stephen Crane
Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie, but rather mourn the apathetic, throng the coward and the meek who see the world's great anguish and its wrong, and dare not speak.
Ralph Chaplin
I live each day to kill death;
I die each day to beget life,
and in this dying unto death,
I die a thousand times and
am reborn another thousand
through that love.
Julia Esquivel
The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately,
and do not intend to change the status quo;
are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement;
rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever
and wherever they decide that their ‘vital interests’ are menaced,
and think nothing of torturing a man to death:
these people are not to be taken seriously
when they speak of the ‘sanctity’ of human life,
or the ‘conscience’ of the civilized world.
James Baldwin, Collected Essays (1998), from chapter one of ‘The Devil Finds Work (orig. pub. 1976) page 489
Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear ... Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent and labour power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its’ citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen.
[…] There is none that disperses its’ control more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media – none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States,1981
To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.
Arundhati Roy
Religion often involves goals: I am confirmed in the church; I am a Zen master; I am a rabbi. Spirituality regards life as a journey, and thus one thing becomes another, and one never arrives at an endpoint.
Religion provides comfort, but spirituality often leaves us vulnerable.
Religion may help us stay out of hell, but spirituality often evolves from having been through hell, and seeking healing.
Religion can comfort us by assuming God is responsible for us. Spirituality reminds us that we are an integral part of the universe, and therefore we must behave responsibly.
Where religion prays, ‘Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil,’ spirituality prays, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
George Vaillant
God has no other hands than ours.
Dorothee Sölle, German theologian and writer, Suffering (1973).
The first principle of nonviolent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating César Chávez
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is a daily admission of one's weakness . . . And so, it is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
Gandhi
Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand;
it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.
Wendell Berry
The human side of religion, its creeds, rituals and instructions is a way rather than a goal. The goal is to do justice, to love mercy and walk humbly with God. When the human side of religion becomes the goal, injustice becomes the way.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Biblical scholar
Charity consoles but does not question. ‘When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint,’ said Brazilian Bishop Helder Camara. ‘And when I ask why they have no food, they call me a communist…. Unlike solidarity, which is horizontal and takes place between equals, charity is top-down, humiliating those who receive it and never challenging the implicit power relations. In the best of cases, there will be justice someday, high in heaven. Here on earth, charity doesn’t worry injustice, it just tries to hide it.
Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World.
One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.
Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964)
When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.
Dresden James.
The propaganda system allows the U.S. leadership to commit crimes without limit and with no suggestion of misbehavior or criminality; in fact, major war criminals like Henry Kissinger appear regularly on TV to comment on the crimes of the derivative butchers.
Edward S. Herman, political economist and author
If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.
Howard Zinn, historian and author
Understand that all battles are waged on an unconscious level before they are begun on the conscious one, and this battle is no different. The power structure wishes us to believe that the only options available are those which they present to us, we know this is simply not true, and therefore we must redefine the terrain of this conflict, and clearly, it is a conflict of worldviews and agendas.
Teresa Stover
They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening.
George Orwell
Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side.
Goethe
People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
The truth that makes (men) free is for the most part the truth which (men) prefer not to hear.
Herbert Sebastien Agar
Because of globalisation the distance between decision-makers and those who endure the effects of those decisions has never been so great…. I believe that the only hope and the only worth globalising is dissent.
Arundhati Roy
To be sure, Christians do not openly support, ‘Blessed are the greedy.’ Nonetheless, that is the way most of us live. Why? Quite simply, because we are members of a society, now a world-wide one, that accepts, almost without question, an economic theory that supports insatiable greed on the part of individuals.
Sallie McFague
I am for a globalisation of spirit with regard to the one important question: The need to create a new bottom line of love and caring, and to replace the old bottom line of money and power. We can fight the globalisation of capital with the globalisation of the spirit. The globalisation of capital can best be understood as the globalisation of selfishness. It encourages people to think that everyone’s out for themselves and that everybody wants to accumulate as much money and power as possible
Rabbi Michael Lerner.
May the Lord bless you and keep you;
May the Lord's face shine upon you and be gracious unto you;
May God give you grace never to sell yourself short;
Grace to risk something big for something good;
Grace to remember that the world is now
too dangerous for anything but truth and
too small for anything but love;
So may God take your minds and think through them;
May God take your lips and speak through them;
May God take your hearts and set them on fire.
Through the power of God who created us,
who is redeeming us, and
whose holy presence refuses to leave us unchanged. Amen
William Sloane Coffin
Shepherding God,
Whatever we might ask for ourselves,
may we also ask for the world.
When we look at the world,
may we also see ourselves,
And may we come to know that
you reside in both us and the world, equally,
and are drawing us to a place where we may live without fear.
Amen.
Reflections on the Readings…
The theme of the Good Shepherd today receives strong emphasis in the link that Pope Francis makes between mercy and evangelization. We have seen the risen Jesus repeatedly returning to gather his scattered disciples and offering them his peace – forgiveness for their fear and cowardly flight in his time of need. With beautiful care, he calls each by name and draws them near to him. For Pope Francis, the image of lost sheep seems to describe many people today: people who have left the church or felt abandoned by it when they were struggling or have been scandalised by it. When Francis tells the leaders today to take on the smell of the sheep, he has in mind also that they should be searching for lost people, binding up their wounds and bringing them to safety. This contrasts with the impression that those who walk away or leave for whatever reason should crawl back if they want care – and then only after being reprimanded and seeking forgiveness. On this Earth Day, it is clear that our planet is also in great danger due to the human impacts on climate change, greed, putting profit above sustainability and the lives the vulnerable people from low lying atolls and islands, and seeking short term gains without care for future generations.
The image of Jesus with his disciples is one that bears wounds in his hands, feet and side. The point to risk love. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that only a suffering God can help as Thomas discovered in the upper room after the resurrection. It was only the God that mattered. Bonhoeffer said that our sacrifices bring life to the world and help us to connect with God. We cannot claim to be mature Christians and true followers of Jesus if we see suffering, pain, violence, destruction (our Earth) and do not respond.
For Pope Francis mercy comes first. After that, the need for justice or accountability. As the longing in the heart of the father in the story of the prodigal son made it possible for his son to return, so too the longing in the heart of ‘Shepherd God’ for us to return to intimacy endures and thus sends the Son to draw us in.
Today’s gospel celebrates God’s all-embracing care. It challenges us to love God and neighbour with new energy. We need to listen to the message of the good shepherd and become shepherds of the earth ourselves. The gospel contrasts the true leaders, like Jesus, who stands among us offering God’s ‘shalom’ (peace) as gift and challenge as to what are we doing to make the world look more like God’s world. The other leaders are those who are incapable of recognising or responding to the ‘wounds’ in people because they tend to be ones who drive more spikes and nails into the hands and feet of our sisters and brothers. Jesus speaks in terms of nurturing and protection; of giving one’s life for the other which must include ‘mother’ earth. The call to care and love and show compassion cannot be spiritualised. These are always concrete and needs to take flesh. Its public face is justice. Jesus’ suffering transforms the world and models our own relationships as sacrificial and interdependent. Yet, we need to take into consideration the suffering of the non-human as well as human world if we are to be faithful to the gospel in our time. God surely cares for the baby humans and generations to come, but God also cares for the baby right whales, on the verge of extinction, and the flora and fauna endangered by human activities.
Such love always has been and continues to be controversial. We see it in Jesus’ ministry, the hospitality of the earthy church, and the reconciling love in people such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu or Bishop Juan José Gerardi who was bludgeoned to death in 1998 (April 26). He was a strong voice against the atrocities committed during the internal armed conflict. As a consequence of his outspoken opposition to innumerable human rights abuses and murders, he was forced to live in exile for a time due to many death threats. As Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Guatemala in 1984 and in 1989 he oversaw the creation of the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala (ODHAG) and was committed to exposing the truth of what happened during the armed conflict. He presented his findings in a report entitled “Nunca Más” (Never Again) which was particularly damning of the military. Two days after the release of the report, Bishop Gerardi was bludgeoned to death in his home in Guatemala City.
In each instance, and in so many other examples, we witness care and protection and putting themselves on the line for others. These people might be considered heroes. These people are like shepherds who might be even considered unwise – as unwise as the shepherd chasing after a lost sheep or lamb and recklessly leaving the others.
The Good Shepherd and those who follow do not give up on anyone – not a single sheep. There is no talk of collateral damage, of ‘cutting his losses’ or of ‘tough love’ that can be applied to a rebellious child. God’s unconditional love leaps into action at the first sign of repentance. As Pope Francis has said, ‘We tire of asking for God’s forgiveness, but God never tires of offering it.’ God’s name is Mercy. God cannot do otherwise, for it is God’s very nature to love and forgive. The good shepherd’s love embraces the stranger, the lost, the lonely, the outcast, and persons of other faiths. Being one of God’s own inspires us to welcome God’s other sheep. There is no room for parochialism in God’s pasture. Other sheep are also recipients of God’s saving grace. As we listen to God’s voices coming to us through the groans of our sisters and brothers, the non-human world and that of the earth, will we respond by expanding our circle of compassion to include “strangers,” not only human strangers from other cultures and faiths; but strangers from other species, different yet intimately connected with us?
Most of us have some responsibility for others. So this gospel for all of us: parents, teachers, priests and bishops. It is for anyone who is entrusted with vulnerable people. A true shepherd goes among the sheep with humility and gentleness until he or she, in Pope Francis’ words, ‘smells like the sheep.’ When trouble comes, the shepherd does not flee or look to his own interests like the hireling. The Good Shepherd is responsible for protecting the flock from harm. How powerfully this addresses the scandal of child sexual abuse by priests or the enabling by bishops who looked the other way. How much this challenges all Christians to care for society’s neglected poor and outcast members. How powerful this address the neglect of our ‘mother’ Earth.
Jesus reveals a God without borders. This gospel is a parable of radical inclusion. This contrasts with the way we treat all that is vulnerable among us. Fear, hatred, greed are never far below the surfaced when injustice and inequality exist. , and we easily find ways to take out our anger and fear and racist attitudes on those who are not like us and cannot defend themselves.
In Jesus' time, shepherds were on the lowest rung of society. For many, to hear of a good shepherd or good Samaritan was as much a contradiction as good Muslim, good homeless person, or good Protestant or good homosexual’. Jesus’ words have great power. They call us to recover the insight that God’s gifts required no scapegoats; that community is at the heart of true resurrection.
We are invited to think about what is really important in human relationships. We must look first into the eyes of those we hate or despise, reject or condemn. We might find that there is nothing to hate or despise or reject or condemn. We might then embrace them as creatures of God, and equal partners in life's endeavors. This was Jesus’ dream – something he challenged his followers to live out as he placed himself amongst those whom contemporary society rejected: the tax collectors and sinners, prostitutes, Samaritans and shepherds. It is a contemporary message. We have a terrible teaching about women in our church that persists to the present. For some God has made a ‘deliberate’ mistake in creating gay people. The gospels calls us to reflect how much we exclude people rather than drawing them in - thus obscuring Jesus’ message. Jesus teaches us that everyone should be included amongst his own [flock]. He teaches us that God has no borders. This is the way to peace.
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
Second Sunday of Easter Year
April 8, 2018
Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
on which we stand.
We pay our respects to them and for their care of the land.
May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.
or
I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,
the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,
and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.
Caravaggio’s ‘The Incredulity of Saint Thomas’ (1601-02)
Go on …. Touch me.
The resurrection does not solve our problems about dying and death. It is not the happy ending to our life’s struggle, nor is it the big surprise that God has kept in store for us.
No, the resurrection is the expression of God’s faithfulness….
The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste.
What belongs to God will never get lost.
Henri Nouwen, Our Greatest Gift
Readings
Acts 4: 32-35 Those who believed were together and had all things in common.
Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, his love is everlasting or: Alleluia.
1 Jn 5:1-6 The Spirit is the one that testifies, and the Spirit is truth.
John 20:19-31 Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed.
Penitential Rite
· Jesus, you say to us: ‘Peace be with you’ as you are present among us with your Word and your body: Jesus, have mercy.
· Jesus, you say to us: Peace be with you,’ as you forgive us our sins. Christ, have mercy.
· Jesus, you say to us: ‘Peace be with you’ as you send us to bring your peace to all: Jesus, have mercy.
Opening Prayer
God of Peace,
as we celebrate Christ's resurrection,
may we be mindful of the new life
you give us through the Spirit.
As we encounter Jesus daily and live in his peace
may we not look for him among the dead
but open our eyes to see his wounds
and touch them in the people who suffer in our world.
Prayers of the Faithful
Introduction: With hearts open to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit let us direct our prayers to God. The response is: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
· That all who exercise leadership in the Church bear witness to Jesus’ first gift of the resurrection – the gift of peace – by lowering walls and barriers to people who seek to fully participate in the church community. We pray: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
· That all Christian Churches together with people of other faiths and people of good continue to develop ways toward peace and unity by mutual respect for the diversity and expression of culture and religion. We pray: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
· That peace will come to the peoples of Syria, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and efforts be made resolve differences between North Korea and their brothers and sisters in the south. We pray: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
· That there may be forgiveness where there has been hurt, reconciliation where there is division, peace where there is conflict; respect where there is intolerance in our national community. We pray: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
· That the people of Iraq, and Afghanistan will in their own ways find ways toward national reconciliation where they will discover in the other not a stranger to be feared but a friend to be embraced. We pray: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
· That all those who profess faith in the risen Jesus may open doors that have been locked for fear of the other, especially those who are of a different culture, racial background, or sexual minority. We pray: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
· That the international community may not remain indifferent to the immense humanitarian tragedy that is unfolding in those nations where violence has unfolded and resulted in the great tragedy – especially at this time the people of Palestine and the Rohingya peoples. We pray: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
· That the culture of encounter may grow between Israelis and Palestinians so that a genuine peace with justice can be achieved. We pray: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
· That the people in Yemen as they continue to undergo foreign aggression and interference may finally find peace and well being. We pray: Fill us with your Peace, O God.
Concluding Prayer: Loving God, the Risen Jesus is present among us with his scars. As we look upon the scars and wounds in brothers and sisters and on our earth, may we recognise your presence with them in solidarity and strive to people of healing and reconciliation.
Prayer over the Gifts
God of Peace,
we have become a new creation
through the resurrection of Jesus.
Accept our offerings in our gathering today
and may our words and actions in the world reveal that
we share the gift of peace the resurrection offers to all.
Deliver Us
Deliver us, God of Peace, from the darkness of sin and evil
and grant us the peace that comes from justice and friendship.
Set us free from the prisons we have made
for ourselves and for others by blindness and selfishness,
and let the light of Jesus, your Son, shine on us
as we prepare for the full coming
of Christ Jesus, our Saviour. R/ For the kingdom...
Prayer after Communion
God of Peace,
we have been nourished by Jesus’ word of peace
and the bread and wine we have shared.
Help us to be risen people who grow in faith and love
as we rise above our doubts, fears and indifference
to build together a community and a world
where joy and truth, love and justice,
peace and freedom become more and more a reality.
Further Resources
….and thus the risen Christ receive
These things did Thomas count as real:
the warmth of blood, the chill of steel,
the grain of wood, the heft of stone,
the last frail twitch of flesh and bone.
The vision of his skeptic mind
was keen enough to make him blind
to any unexpected act
too large for his small world of fact.
His reasoned certainties denied
that one could live when one had died,
until his fingers read like Braille
the markings of the spear and nail.
May we, O God, by grace believe
And thus the risen Christ receive,
whose raw, imprinted palms reach out -
and beckoned Thomas from his doubt.
Thomas Troeger, © 1994 Oxford University Press
My soul finds its place in the Name, and my soul finds its ease in the embrace of the Name. I struggled with shapes and with numbers, and I carved with blade and brain to make a place, but I could not find a shelter for my soul. Blessed is the Name which is the safety of the soul, the spine and the shield of the innermost man, and the health of the innermost breath. I search the words that attend your mercy. You lift me out of destruction, and you win me my soul. You gather it out of the unreal by the power of your name. Blessed is the Name that unifies demand, and changes the seeking into praise. Out of the panic, out of the useless plan, I awaken to your name, and solitude to solitude all your creatures speak, and through the inaccessible intention all things fall gracefully. Blessed in the shelter of my soul, blessed is the form of mercy, blessed is the Name.
Leonard Cohen Book of Mercy, # 47
… be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Resolve to be always beginning - to be a beginner!
Rainer Maria Rilke Letters on Love
The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918- ) Russian writer, Soviet dissident, imprisoned for 8 years for criticising Stalin in a personal letter, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1970
The solidarity which binds all people together as members of a common family makes it impossible for wealthy nations to look with indifference upon the hunger, misery and poverty of other nations whose citizens are unable to enjoy even elementary human rights. The nations of the world are becoming more and more dependent on one another and it will not be possible to preserve a lasting peace so long as glaring economic and social imbalances persist.
Pope John XXIII, Mater et Magistra, #157
The fundamental sin is exploitation, whether it be expressed in the domination of male over female, white over black, rich over poor, strong over weak, armed military over unarmed civilians, human beings over nature. These analogously abusive patterns interlock because they reset on the same base: a structure where an elite insists on its superiority and claims the right to exercise dominative power over all others considered subordinate, for its own benefit.
Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, She Who Is, page 27
As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.
Benjamin Franklin
Gene Stoltzfus (1940-2010), peacemaker, founder of Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Real criticism begins in the capacity to grieve because that is the most visceral announcement that things are not right. Only in the empire are we pressed and urged and invited to pretend that things are all right - either in the dean's office or in our marriage or in the hospital [or in the church]. And as long as the empire can keep the pretense alive that things are all right, there will be no real grieving and no serious criticism.
Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination
Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi, (1828-1910) Russian writer.
Nothing is so important to the church as human life, as the human person, above all, the person of the poor and the oppressed, who, besides being human beings, are also divine beings, since Jesus said that whatever is done to them he takes as done to him. That bloodshed, those deaths, are beyond all politics. They touch the very heart of God.
Archbishop Oscar Romero
And though tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism p.128
If a (man) is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinise it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.
Bertrand Russell, Roads to Freedom
The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being.
Emma Goldman
Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life.-
Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Injustice is rooted in a spiritual problem, and its solution requires a spiritual conversion of each one's heart and a cultural conversion of our global society so that humankind, with all the powerful means at its disposal, might exercise the will to change the sinful structures afflicting our world.
Hans Peter Kolvenbach, SJ, former superior-general of the Society of Jesus
Come Holy Spirit,
whose justice outwits international conspiracy,
whose light outshines spiritual bigotry,
whose peace can overcome the destructive potential of warfare,
whose promise invigorates our every effort
to create a new heaven and a new earth now and forever.
Amen.
Diarmuid O’Murchu MSC
Looking in the wrong places
(Lord) Jesus,
we are always looking for you
in the wrong places;
among the good and respectable people,
when we should know you are to be
found with the poor and disreputable and outcast.
(Lord) Jesus,
we are always looking for you
in the wrong places,
at a safe distance,
but you come so close to us,
nearer to us than breathing.
We look for you in churchy things,
but we are more likely to find you
among the pots and pans,
or around the kitchen table….
We look for you in buildings,
but you walked crowed streets,
and shorelines
and mountains….
Even now, even after Easter,
still we insist on trying to find you
among the tombstones;
among long-dead dogmas,
in old, decaying fears and hurts,
in the guilts and resentments
we inhabit like a coffin.
But the angel said:
Why do you look for him among the dead?
He is not here!
Lord Jesus,
help us to lay down the grave clothes,
roll away the stone and come out into life,
here and now.
We will find you, among the living,
ahead of us, going to the Galilee we seek.
You have wrestled death to the ground,
and now there is nowhere we can go,
no darkness we can enter,
which is not God-encompassed.
Kathy Galloway, Talking to the Bones,SPCK, London, 1996
Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ's love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.
Frederick Buechner, American theologian and writer
The movement had a way of reaching inside me and bringing out things that I never knew were there. Like courage, and love for people. It was a real experience to be seeing a group of people who would put their bodies between you and danger. And to love people that you work with enough that you would put your body between them and danger.
Diane Nash, organizer for the Freedom Rides during the civil rights movement, quoted in Eyes on the Prize by Juan Williams
For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was both protest and prayer. Legs are not lips, and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, American rabbi, theologian, and philosopher
Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.
Archbishop Oscar Romero, an advocate for the poor and marginalized, was assassinated thirty years ago (March 24, 1970) while celebrating Mass in El Salvador.
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop
The difference between social service and social justice is that social service ‘works to alleviate hardship’ while social justice ‘aims to eradicate the root causes of that hardship.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery.
Lawana Blackwell,
Aldous Huxley
I thank God that at this hour I am dangerous to the war profiteers of this country who rob the people on the one hand, and rob and debase the government on the other; and then with their pockets and wallets stuffed with the filthy, bloodstained profits of war, wrap the sacred folds of the Stars and Stripes about them and [about] their blatant hypocrisy to the world.
Kate Richards O'Hare's Address To the Court Proceedings on the Sentencing of Mrs. Kate Richards O'Hare by Hon Martin J. Wade, 1 P. M., Friday, Dec 14, 1917.
http://omaymen.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/the-sentencing-of-mrs-kate-richards/
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing -- resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.
Joanna Macy
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
James Baldwin
Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. ln those transparent moments we know other people's joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own.
Fritz Williams
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
Robert Frost, poet, b., March 26, 1874
Power consists in deciding which story shall be told.
Carolyn Heilbrun,
Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rather than pushed by our memories.
Jesse Jackson,
[The one] who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
M. Scott Peck
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Simone Weil
We are all meant to be mothers of God.
Meister Eckart, 14th century mystic
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
The Boat
The Guest is inside you, and also inside me;
you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.
We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.
The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.
I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken;
inside ‘love’ there is more joy than we know of;
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds;
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.
How hard it is to feel that joy in all our four bodies!
Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.
With the word ‘reason’ you already feel miles away.
How lucky Kabir is, that surrounded by all this joy
he sings inside his own little boat.
His poems amount to one soul meeting another.
These songs are about forgetting dying and loss.
They rise above both coming in and going out.
Kabir
What’s In the Temple?
In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring.
It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.
The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.
The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.
The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.
The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.
If she stands still it will catch up with her.
Pause with us here a while.
Put your ear to the wall of your heart.
Listen for the whisper of knowing there.
Love will touch you if you are very still.
If I say the word God, people run away.
They’ve been frightened--sat on ‘till the spirit cried ‘uncle.’
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can’t name.
They know he’s out there looking for them, and they want to be found,
But there is all this stuff in the way.
I can’t talk about God and make any sense,
And I can’t not talk about God and make any sense.
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.
I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God.
Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur,
And sense the whole tragedy of life and death.
You see there the consequences of carelessness,
And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived.
The only things lacking are the frankincense and myrrh.
We don’t build many temples anymore.
Maybe we learned that the sacred can’t be contained.
Or maybe it can’t be sustained inside a building.
Buildings crumble.
It’s the spirit that lives on.
If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,
What would you worship there?
What would you bring to sacrifice?
What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?
Go there now.
Tom Barrett
It is also in the interests of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion.
Aristotle in Politics, J. Sinclair translation, pg. 226, 1962
Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like.
Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice.
How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every police operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive? If during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever was at hand? The organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and, not withstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war.
The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell.
The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose-especially their lives.
Eugene Debs, 16 June 1918: The speech was given to about 1,200 people and was later used against Debs to make the case that he had violated the espionage Act. The judge sentenced Debs to ten years in prison:
Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by ‘a world of enemies’, ‘one against all’, that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism p.227
Americans cannot escape a certain responsibility for what is done in our name around the world. In a democracy, even one as corrupted as ours, ultimate authority rests with the people. We empower the government with our votes, finance it with our taxes, and bolster it with our silent acquiescence. If we are passive in the face of America's official actions overseas, we in effect endorse them.
Mark Hertzgaard
Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.
Albert Einstein
To be a follower of Jesus means in the first place to enter by compassion into his experience, with all that it expresses of the divine and of the human. And it means in the second place to enter with him into the suffering and the hope of all human persons, making common cause with them as he does, and seeking out as he does the places of his predilection among the poor and despised and oppressed.
Monika K. Hellwig, Jesus: The Compassion of God
When shall we have the courage to outgrow the charity mentality and see that at the bottom of all relations between rich and poor there is a problem of justice?
Dom Helder Camara, former archbishop of Recife, Brazil
Do you believe that God is present in the smile of a child, in the tears of a parent's grief over a suffering adolescent, in the sudden breakthrough of understanding between quarrelling spouses? Eternal truths can be learned by observing the most common elements of life: nursing an infant may be a window into God's nurturing care for each of us; bandaging a cut can help us know the healing desire of God; playing games may speak of the divine playfulness that knows our need for recreation; tending a garden may teach us the dynamics of growth. Families learn that they are sacred communities when they begin to name and claim the many forms of God's grace in their daily life.
Marjorie J. Thompson, Family: The Forming Center
Peace demands the most heroic labour and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.
Thomas Merton
It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.
Frederic D. Huntington
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism, are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
What God requires of those who call on God's name is responsive servanthood. God wishes to act in and through us, so Christian hope does not relieve men and women of responsibility. We are not primarily responsible for shrewd analysis of problems, for strategic selection of means, for maximizing the chances of success. We are primarily responsible for turning to God, for attempting to know and do God's will. That well may lead us into actions which are not shrewd, strategic, or successful, as the life of Jesus suggests. But as Jesus' life demonstrates, human action which is faithful to God's will can have transforming effect.
Parker Palmer, The Company of Strangers
Reverence is a gentle virtue; it is also strong.
Reverence is a tender virtue; it is also tough.
Reverence is a patient virtue; it is also persistent.
Reverence bears no ill will toward others;
it is able to bear the ill will of others when necessary.
Reverence is a virtue that prepares us well to belong to one another;
it reaches out to those who have been given messages of not wishing to belong.
When we approach others with gentle reverence, we bring gifts and share theirs with us.
Paula Ripple, Growing Strong at Broken Places
From ancient times storytellers, poets and dramatists have presented the world in all its fullness; plants, animals, men and women, changing shape, speaking multiple languages, inter-marrying, travelling to the sky and under the Earth. The great myths and folktales of human magic and nature's power were our school for ten thousand years. Whether they know it or not, even modern writers draw strength from the wild side.
How can artists and writers manage to join in the defence of the planet and wild nature?
Gary Snyders
‘Jesus invites each one of us, through Thomas,
to touch not only his wounds,
but those wounds in others and in ourselves,
wounds that can make us hate others and ourselves
and can be a sign of separation and division.
These wounds will be transformed...’
Jean Vanier
‘There are only two feelings.
Love and fear.
There are only two languages.
Love and fear.
There are only two activities.
Love and fear.
There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results.
Love and fear. Love and fear’
Michael Leunig
Reflections on the readings
It is a week since the resurrection and we still find the disciples in the same place, in the same room behind locked doors. Why are they still stuck in the same place, if the resurrection is meant to be such a life changing event? The empty tomb has made no difference and it seems they do not see themselves or their world differently.
Mary Magdalene’s announcement ‘I have seen the Lord’ made no impression on the disciples. Despite Jesus’ earlier appearance, they remained locked in fear in the same house, with the same closed doors, and the same locks. Despite just having celebrated Jesus’ resurrection it can seem easier and safer to avoid realities and people before us by locking the doors of the house or nation which amounts to locking the entrance into our hearts. Nothing has changed a week later when Thomas is present. Jesus has left the tomb but the disciples have created their own. Jesus’ resurrection: constant invitation to do life differently but fear can prevent us from seeing that life can be different. Thomas’ doubts at least left him open by his questioning. Let’s not forget his confession, ‘My Lord and my God!’ where he recognised and named a new relationship, a new way of seeing and a new way of being in the world. His doubts were the starting point for his life. It is intriguing that we seem to make more of Thomas’ doubt than the fear of the disciples. Doubting at least leaves one open to the new, whereas fear closes one off. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. It is fear which closes one off to the reality of the world and other people. Despite his doubts, Thomas did not give in to the fear that kept the disciples closed up in the room. He had been out and had the courage to return to a group of people which had had an experience he did not share. Thomas is a symbol not of faithlessness, but of courage.
Not having seen Jesus the previous week, Thomas demands to see his wounds. It is difficult to believe in the resurrection when those who say Jesus is risen do not look want to look at the wounds in themselves and others around them. It is difficult to believe in the resurrection if people are still locked up in fear. Was this not Thomas’ difficulty? Being in a locked room is not a good place for a follower of Jesus to be. It can seem easier and safer for us to avoid the circumstances of people before us not only by locking the doors of the house or nation but locking the entrance into our hearts. Jesus’ appearance in the upper room is not dissimilar to his appearance at the tomb of Lazarus. As Jesus said to Lazarus and to the disciples, ‘Come out!’ He is breathing the Spirit of life, mercy, compassion, courage and peace upon us for us to not only go beyond closed doors but also closed and barricaded hearts so that we can take that peace to others – so that they too will not make the tomb their natural habitat. For Thomas, however, faith is something that walks, touches, responds, learns.
Vincent Long, Bishop of Parramatta, along with Pope Francis, have been challenging the church about being a ghettoed, closeted and closed community: fearful of change, fearful of women’s’ rights; fearful of Muslims; fearful of progressive people; fearful of gay and lesbian; fearful of vulnerable people seeking a better life and protection; and so on. We see it also on the national level with the extraordinary priority placed on security and national interest and its impact on asylum seekers. The challenge for us Christians is to move from ‘kleiso’ (closeted) to ‘ecclesia’ (being open and free, especially from dominance and control). The disciples closeted behind ‘kleisoed’ doors, a closed community: fearful, ghettoed like many today: fearful of women’s’ rights; Muslims; new ideas; people of colour; gay and lesbian people, etc. We see what fear can do to people: the emphasis on security and national interest and its impact on asylum seekers. We are challenged to move from ‘kleiso’ to ‘ecclesia’ (Greek for church). The risen Jesus still breathes on us and is not be stopped by closed doors. The greatest challenge is not closed doors but closed minds and hearts controlled by fear and that prevent us from opening the doors and removing the stones from the tombs of others.
Thomas has to see with his own eyes and make his unique response to the Jesus who always coming to us – and gives us peace and the Holy Spirit. Not only peace but be peacemakers. Jesus was sent to transform this world into a reign of justice, peace, love and joy. That is now our task. But how often is betrayed when the trust of innocents is betrayed; when we rely on power or violence. But Jesus still calls to be reconciling, forgiving, loving, seeking to draw people back without condemnation whether in our homes, neighbourhoods, communities, or wherever we are. We must be people who insist that the way to bring peace is through forgiveness, reconciliation and love, not by violence, war and death. This means also resisting violence and war, hunger and sickness, homelessness. We might doubt that what we do makes a difference, but it is important that we hold on to the confidence that we do make a difference and might unknowingly inspire others to also act justly, be peacemakers and serve others. But we cannot do that in a locked room, ghetto, church building. ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’
The tomb could not hold Jesus and his message of transformation and freedom did not end there. He is still active in the world and undercuts the strongholds of exploitation, degradation and injustice.
When narrow-minded and opportunistic politicians rant against asylum seekers; greedily lust for power; engage in indiscriminate killing in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and now Yemen in the name of ‘peace’ - Jesus liberating love continues. It continues when we say ‘no’ to this; no to detention of innocent people; no to people trafficking; no to indigenous people forced off their ancestral lands to make way for mines or beef cattle stations; no to people being imprisoned, tortured and murdered for their beliefs; no to money meant for the poor being used to make more weapons.
Thomas, unlike many others, was not locked away in safety. He knew death when he saw it. Despite talk of a sensational rising from the dead, he knew it had something to do with wounds and scars. The only God that matters is one with wounds. It is the only one that can be in solidarity with crucified peoples of the earth.
We have seen many wounds in our lifetime: our own, those of loved ones, the wounds of our world and also the earth. They are before us daily if we care to look. Today’s gospel passage is super-imposed over each image of a wounded adult or child or the earth. And Jesus points to these wounds – for they are his too. He says to each of us ‘put your finger here’ – to touch, to put our minds and voices there. Will we remain in that room locked in fear and hopelessness and avoid the confrontation that may come when we raise our voices? Will we do life differently? Will we believe that we are held together by the one who speaks of peace, wholeness, connectedness, and inclusiveness?
Thomas does not want an idea for Jesus but a flesh and blood Jesus. Our faith needs to have hands and feet; it needs voices and a heart capable of crossing walls as Jesus does - real walls that have divided people.
The risen Christ comes to us with scars. It witnesses to his oneness with us and all people who bear scars of any kind. The gospel writer is not concerned with houses, locks and doors but with the heart that can lock houses and doors. Jesus constantly enters the locked places of our lives – the fears, the blindness, the sorrow and scars to open us up to new ideas, new possibilities and change.
The great tragedy will be if the disciples refuse to unlock the doors, refuse to open the doors, and refuse to get out the house. What are the doors that are locked in our lives? Our families? Our church communities? Our nation? What things kept us stuck in the same place? The great thing is that this is the starting point. We can find hope that Jesus cannot be kept out of our locked places, minds and hearts. He breathes peace and hope into us. He breathes peace and courage into us. He breathes peace and strength into us. Let that breath of peace be the key that unlocks the door.
The wounds are a reminder that Jesus was crucified by the powerful to maintain the religious and political status quo. As we approach Earth Day, we are reminded that the earth is being crucified by us. Those wounds include countless species extinctions, collapse of fisheries, rampant deforestation, demise of coral reefs, rising sea levels, acidified oceans, and rising global temperatures, caused by the unprecedented rise in greenhouse gases from industrial nations. Those wounds include and appear in the mounting human toll: famine and drought that bring starvation and death in increasing numbers and frequency, more and more people fleeing their drought-stricken lands or sinking coasts, a rise in mental health issues for those who have suffered repeated flooding and storms. We cannot look away. As people of faith, we must recognise that the root causes of climate change which affects the poor and underdeveloped nations most are due to human greed, narrow vision, indifference to the plight of others, and the fear of lifestyle changes.
These wounds cannot be ignored. They must be seen and felt and believed as in the case of Jesus. Can we touch the deepening wounds of the earth, encounter flesh and blood victims of polluted water and rising sea levels, meet with people whose lives are disrupted by drought, flooding, and storm.
Do we remain in that symbolic upper room in fear and hopelessness and avoid the confrontation that may come when we raise our voices about these wounds? Do we do life differently? Do we live differently? Will we let the god of individualism and capitalism continue to dominate our lives and ignore the wounds of the earth and of all beings? Do we believe that we are held together by the presence of one who speaks words of peace, wholeness, connectedness, and inclusiveness?
Today’s gospel is less concerned with houses, locks and doors but with the heart and how Jesus can and does enter the locked places of our lives – the fears, the blindness, the sorrow and scars to open us up to new ideas, new possibilities and change. He steps into our closed lives, hearts and minds offering us peace and new life. He does it for us and invites us to do that for one another; to open our doors to a new life, a new creation, a new way of being.
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE 5th SUNDAY OF LENT, 2018
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE 5TH SUNDAY OF LENT, 2018
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Marc
Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.
We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land
on which we stand.
We pay our respects to them and for their care of the land.
May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.
or
I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,
the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,
and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.
‘The beauty that will save the world is the love that shares the pain.’
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini former Archbishop of Milan
‘My vengeance is that I forgive you.’
Peace remains possible. And if peace is possible, it is also a duty!
Pope Benedict XVI, Message for World Day of Prayer for Peace 2004
What we do not love, we will not save.
Wendell Berry, poet, ecologist
Readings
Reading I Jer 31:31-34
Responsorial Psalm Ps 51:3-4, 12-13, 14-15 R. (12a) Create a clean heart in me, O God.
Reading II Heb 5:7-9
Gospel Jn 12:20-33
Penitential Rite:
1. You have made an unending covenant with all your people, Jesus, have mercy.
2. You have drawn all people to yourself as you were lifted up on the cross, Christ, have mercy.
3. You have brought life-giving light into our lives, Jesus, have mercy.
Opening Prayer
Self-Giving God,
the love of your Son for the world,
led him to accept the suffering of the cross
that his brothers and sisters might receive new life.
Change our selfishness into self-giving.
Help us to embrace the world you have given us,
so that we may transform the darkness of its pain
into the life and joy of Easter.
Prayer over the Gifts
Self-Giving God,
may our celebration strengthen us in our self-giving
to be faithful followers of Jesus whose love is
inscribed in our hearts and woven into all our actions.
Prayer after Communion
Self-Giving God,
by this sacrifice
may we always remain one with Jesus, your Son,
whose body and blood we have shared.
With Jesus' love inscribed in our hearts
and woven into our actions,
by our sacrificial love
may we be a source of blessing
to one another and all people.
Prayers of the Faithful
Introduction: Let us pray to our Self-giving God, who is present and calls us to hope in difficult times. The response to each prayer is: God of new life, hear our prayer.
· For the people of Iraq who will remember this week the invasion of their country in 2003 this week and the devastation that it has brought to their country, we pray: God of new life, hear our prayer.
· For the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, the Ukraine, that there will be an end to violence and injustice and healing for the victims, and a change of heart for those involved in violence, corruption and impunity, we pray: God of new life, hear our prayer.
· For the suffering people of Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and places less known to us, that their burdens may soon end, and may the dignity of all affected by conflict, pain, and injustice be respected, we pray: God of new life, hear our prayer.
· For all who die to themselves through the sacrifices they make on behalf of others, may they experience the daily wonder of new life, we pray: God of new life, hear our prayer.
· For women and children who are victims of human trafficking and sold into slavery, may we speak out against these crimes that prey on the hopes of innocent people, we pray: God of new life, hear our prayer.
· For the innocent people -children, women and men - who continue to languish on Manus Island and Nauru on our watch, may they soon have their dignity respected and find freedom, we pray: God of new life, hear our prayer.
· For the people around the country who are preparing to rally and march on Palm Sunday for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers that they know their actions matter even if they see free results, we pray: God of new life, hear our prayer.
· For the people who, through peace protests, oppose the injustices endured by the Palestinian people and those who build bridges between Israeli and Palestinian people, may they be living signs of Christ’s peace, we pray: God of new life, hear our prayer.
· For the many people who are uprooted today: victims of war and oppression, prisoners, migrants and the homeless, that they may find hope in our actions for justice, we pray: God of new life, hear our prayer.
Concluding Prayer: Self-giving God, increase our faith, love, and hope. As we die to ourselves, may we hasten the coming of the Reign of justice, peace, and solidarity.
Notices
March 19 Feast of St Joseph, husband of Mary
March 19 National Close the Gap Day
March 19 Arrival of the Sisters of St Joseph at Penola, South Australia in 1866
March 19 Invasion of Iraq by the USA, Australia and allies in 2003
March 21 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
March 21 World Down Syndrome Day
March 22: World Water Day
March 24: 38th anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero's assassination 1980
For the following week
March 25: Palm Sunday
March 25: Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
March 25: Death of Caroline Chisholm 1877
March 25: International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
March 26: Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio (‘On the Progress of Peoples’)
March 31: Cesar Chavez Day
Further Resources
‘Before all else, the Gospel invites us to respond to the God of love who saves us, to see God in others and to go forth from ourselves to seek the good of others. Under no circumstance can this invitation be obscured! All of the virtues are at the service of this response of love. If this invitation does not radiate forcefully and attractively, the edifice of the Church’s moral teaching risks becoming a house of cards, and this is our greatest risk. It would mean that it is not the Gospel which is being preached, but certain doctrinal or moral points based on specific ideological options. The message will run the risk of losing its freshness and will cease to have ‘the fragrance of the Gospel’ (39).
Pope Francis, ‘The Joy of the Gospel’ Evangelii Gaudium
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work,
but neither are you free to abandon it.
The Talmud
Use every letter you write, every conversation you have, every meeting you attend, to express your fundamental beliefs and dreams. Affirm to others the vision of the world you want. You are a free, immensely powerful source of life and goodness. Affirm it. Spread it. Radiate it. Think day and night about it and you will see a miracle happen: the greatness of your own life.
Dr. Robert Muller, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Now the alternative to despair is courage. And human life can be viewed as a continuous struggle between these two options. Courage is the capacity to affirm one's life in spite of the elements which threaten it. The fact that courage usually predominates over despair in itself tells us something important about life. It tells you that the forces that affirm life are stronger than those that negate it.
Paul E. Pfuetze, American Philosopher and Professor
Life may not be the party we hoped for,
but while we are here we might as well dance.
God is in the sadness and the laughter,
in the bitter and the sweet.
There is a divine purpose behind everything
and therefore a divine presence in everything.
Author Unknown
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862, American Author, Poet and Naturalist
Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny - he or she has something to fulfill, some message that has to be delivered, some work that has to be completed. You are not here accidentally - you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.
Osho, 1931-1990,Indian Spiritual Teacher
This Holy Earth
In the name of every muscle in our bodies, we beseech you
In the name of the feather, the sun, the mountain, the river, the otter, the salmon, the pine and the stone
In the name of babies, now and forever more, and of lovers, and of sex.
In the name of the breathing, pushing, spreading, decaying, pulsing earth beneath our gills, our roots, our talons, our hooves and our bare skinned feet:
Help us.
Help us easily distracted, heartbreakingly self-centered, brilliant and beautiful big-brained creatures,
Us business-as-usual, new-on-the-planet, slow-moving, deep loving creatures
Help us to remember that this wondrously intelligent orb has generated living art beyond anything we will ever hope to approximate
24 hours a day
For six billion years –
Help us to remember that we can seize the power
That we can raise our voices
That we can flood the courtrooms, the schoolrooms, the boardrooms,
the email, voice mail, letters to the editor, the streets, the banks, the churches and the temples
That we can rise up in power on behalf of all those who live in tree, cave, hive, village, dam, river, ocean, and suburb.
That we can rise up on behalf of all we love and all that keeps us alive.
We beseech you: visible and invisible,
wild and tame, past, present and future.
Have mercy on us human beings.
Help us give birth to the human race.
© 2000 Libby Roderick, Singer and Composer, Turtle Island Records, Anchorage, Alaska
Sheltering God,
You were born in flight,
Your parents anxious and given no rest.
The manner of your birth calls us to
Open-heartedness and sensitivity to the strangers in our midst.
Help us not to flee your challenge.
The violence of the present time teaches us fear of the stranger,
Reluctant to reach out to those who are different.
Grace us this day as we seek
To see you in the faces of those uprooted,
Weary, as they seek refuge and peace. Amen.
Blessed are the wanderers and those adrift.
Blessed are the strangers at our door.
Blessed are the unfed, the homeless on the road.
Blessed is the child crying in pain.
Blessed is the mother working to provide for her children, left behind in her native country.
Blessed are those who welcome Christ to be born again when they welcome these ones.
Blessed are we who struggle to make a place in our hearts for all of our brothers and sisters. Amen.
O God,
You welcome all your children,
And embrace the prodigal ones,
Help us open our hearts
And welcome all who come, searching
As our ancestors did,
For asylum and the promise of a new land, a new life.
Root out fear from our souls;
Help us form the words
'Sister' and 'Brother'
As we greet those who seek refuge in our land.
Let us remember that,
With your grace,
There are enough loaves and fishes
To go around
If we come together
As your family.
Give us the courage
And the compassion
To respect the rights of all
In this country of abundance,
To embrace all in
The name of your love. Amen.
[Source unknown]
Prayer for peace in Iraq and the Middle East
We come to you, Creator God, you are the source of life and beauty and power.
Your son Jesus is the way of faith and hope and love.
Your Spirit is the fire of love, the fount of wisdom, the bond of unity.
You call us at all times to be people of the beatitudes,
Witnesses to the Gospel of peace and love and forgiveness.
You call us at this time, when war and rumours of war, weigh heavily on the peoples of Iraq and the Middle East.
Their lives are already broken by suffering and violence.
We renew our acceptance of your call.
We promise to work:
To bring the light of the Gospel to those living in darkness,
To bring the hope of the Gospel to those living in despair,
To bring the healing of the Gospel to the lonely, the disadvantaged, the marginalised
And to bring the peace of the Gospel to a divided world.
(CAFOD and Pax Christi)
Peace for the Children of God
O God, all holy one,
you are our Mother and our Father,
and we are your children.
Open our eyes and our hearts
so that we may be able to discern
your work in the universe.
And be able to see Your features
in every one of Your children.
May we learn that there are many paths
but all lead to You.
Help us to know that you have created us
for family, for togetherness,
for peace, for gentleness,
for compassion, for caring, for sharing.
May we know that You want us
to care for one another
as those who know
that they are sisters and brothers,
members of the same family,
Your family,
the human family.
Help us to beat our swords into plowshares
and our spears into pruning hooks,
so that we may be able to live
in peace and harmony,
wiping away the tears
from the eyes of those
who are less fortunate than ourselves.
And may we know war no more,
as we strive to be
what You want us to be:
Your children.
Amen.
Desmond M. Tutu, Former Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa
Respect for nature by everyone,
a policy of openness to immigrants,
the cancellation or significant reduction of the debt of poorer nations,
the promotion of peace through dialogue and negotiation,
the primacy of the rule of law:
these are the priorities which the leaders of the developed nations cannot disregard.
A global world is essentially a world of solidarity!
John Paul II, Address to George W. Bush, July 23, 2001
We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious
is the first duty of intelligent men.
George Orwell
They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality,
because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them,
and were not sufficiently interested in public events
to notice what was happening
George Orwell
Political language
is designed to make lies sound truthful
and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity
to pure wind.
George Orwell
Political correctness is really a subjective list put together by the few to rule the many: a list of things one must think, say, or do. It affronts the right of the individual to establish his or her own beliefs.
Mark Berley - Source: Argos, Spring 1998
In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
Mark Twain
The fact is that every war suffers a kind of progressive degradation with every month that it continues, because such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not compatible with military efficiency.
George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia
All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.
Isaiah Berlin
‘We are not on earth to guard a museum,
but to cultivate a flowering garden of life.’
Pope John XXIII
Courage to me is doing something daring, no matter how afraid, insecure, intimidated, alone, unworthy, incapable, ridiculed or whatever other paralyzing emotion you might feel. Courage is taking action.....no matter what. So you're afraid? Be afraid. Be scared silly to the point you're trembling and nauseous, but do it anyway!
Richelle E. Goodrich
The single clenched fist
lifted and ready,
Or the open asking hand
held out and waiting.
Choose: For we meet
by one or the other.
Carl Sandburg, ‘Choose’, from Chicago Poems
We are afraid of religion because it interprets rather than just observes. Religion does not confirm that there are hungry people in the world; it interprets the hungry to be our brethren whom we allow to starve.
Dorothee Sölle, German theologian and writer, Death by Bread Alone (1975).
When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.
Langston Hughes, from ‘Last Whipping’
One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
Agatha Christie, Autobiography (1977)
You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.
Marian Wright Edelman
We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war.
Albert Einstein
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate
Love is an act of sedition, a revolt against reason, an uprising in the body politic, a private mutiny.
Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of Love
To the true servant of God every place is the right place and every time is the right time.
Catherine of Siena, St. Catherine of Siena as Seen in Her
There remains an experience of incomparable value ... to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled -- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer ... to look with new eyes on matters great and small.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?
Justice William O. Douglas, (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Each day a few more lies eat into the seed with which we are born, little institutional lies from the print of newspapers, the shock waves of television, and the sentimental cheats of the movie screen.
Norman Mailer (b. 1923), U.S. author.
If Big Brother (of Orwell's 1984) comes to America, he will not be a fearsome, foreboding figure with a heart-chilling, omnipresent glare as in 1984. He will come with a smile on his face, a quip on his lips, a wave to the crowd, and a press that (a) dutifully reports the suppressive measures he is taking to save the nation from internal chaos and foreign threat; and (b) gingerly questions whether he will be able to succeed.
Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality (1986)
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Rudyard Kipling - (1865-1936)
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), US civil rights leader
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.
Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915)
Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthralment to those in power.
Leo Toystoy, Demanding the Impossible: a History of Anarchism by Peter Marshall (fontana press 1992) p374
The vested interests - if we explain the situation by their influence - can only get the public to act as they wish by manipulating public opinion, by playing either upon the public's indifference, confusions, prejudices, pugnacities or fears. And the only way in which the power of the interests can be undermined and their maneuvers defeated is by bringing home to the public the danger of its indifference, the absurdity of its prejudices, or the hollowness of its fears; by showing that it is indifferent to danger where real danger exists; frightened by dangers which are nonexistent.
Sir Norman Angell 1872 - 1967
Manu 1200 bc
The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill.
Albert Camus: The Plague,
When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe; he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
Thomas Paine The Age of Reason 1793
The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918- ) Russian writer, Soviet dissident, imprisoned for 8 years for criticising Stalin in a personal letter, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1970
War creates peace like hate creates love.
David L. Wilson
During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.
Howard Thurman
By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self-satisfaction.
William Osler (Canadian Physician, 1849-1919)
My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whinning about for years.
Kurt Cobain (American Musician and Singer of the grunge rock band Nirvana. 1967-1994)
Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand.
Bodie Thoene
People have not been horrified by war to a sufficient extent ... War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service.
I have seen men march to the wars, and then I have watched their homeward tread, and they brought back bodies of living men, but their eyes were cold and dead
Edmund Vance Cooke
When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to
explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee
My notion of democracy
is that under it
the weakest shall have the same opportunities
as the strongest...
no country in the world today shows any
but patronising regard for the weak...
Western democracy, as it functions today,
is diluted fascism...
true democracy cannot be worked
by twenty men sitting at the centre.
It has to be worked from below,
by the people of every village.
Gandhi
When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.
Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their 'vital interests' are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the 'sanctity' of human life, or the 'conscience' of the civilized world.
James Baldwin
If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law
Henry David Thoreau, 1849
Holy One,
Your grace abounds in our lives
as you make new covenants with us
and create new spirits and new hearts for us.
We are grateful for the faithful ways that you walk with us daily
in our sufferings, fears, vulnerabilities
and as we take up our crosses.
Continue your work of grace in us,
for your grace is greater than any of our human deaths.
In your holy names we pray, Amen
Reflections on the readings
We might ask today what is God up to? The readings suggest that God is up to nothing short of making all things new. And we have a part to play in this. According to Jeremiah, religion is getting a complete makeover from something formal, external and calcified to a reality alive to God and capable of having real consequences on the lives of others. God is establishing a new covenant that will not be written on stone tablets but upon the heart. It is gut-located, heart-centered, and mind-penetrated. At baptism we were/are marked as beloved children of God with the sign of the cross. We are forever changed where God etches into the fertile ground of our very hearts a covenantal instinct. And so, out of the mess we can get into, Jeremiah expresses a confidence that God will initiate a new covenant relationship – a relationship accessible to all.
This means that God is forever creating a community of people who know they are forgiven and who have a calling in the world. This new covenant is manifest in the arrival of Jesus, God with us. Christ's ministry was a ministry of extravagant love - a reckless, scandalous expenditure of his life for the sake of the world. This religion challenges but does not terrorise; it is inclusive not partisan; it welcomes the stranger rather than scorns the other for being different whether in culture, race, gender or sexual orientation. This reckless giving was truly inclusive: no one was shunned - not adulterers, not tax gatherers, not neurotics and psychotics, not alcoholics, not poor people, not beggars, not lepers, not even his detractors, betrayers or enemies. We could add today – not asylum seekers, not people of other cultures, not people of diverse sexual orientations. But, these can be recipes for a ministry described by sorrow, poverty, rejection, radical unpopularity and loss. Despite the fact that solidarity and humanity can seem to take a backward step at times, we must recognise that there is a growth in nonconformity where voices are saying ‘Another world is possible’. It is made possible by people giving of themselves, sometimes their lives, for others to create a radically different world order. We still read how in some cities in the USA, under new anti-homeless laws, people are being arrested for feeding the homeless. In some case they have faced a couple of months in jail as well as a fine. This is even being threatened in some Australian cities.
Yet, there are people who know that that Christians are called to feed the hungry, they resist laws that outlaw compassion. We saw this in recent times where the Australian Federal Police investigated people for reporting gross human rights abuses on Manus Island and Nauru. Acts of compassion become criminal offenses. This week a family was taken by Border Force from their home to be deported. God is doing a new thing. People have rallied and demanded that the family be returned to the city.
So God is doing a new thing. People are waking up and also acting on what they see and hear. People are finding the courage to resist outrageous laws. The scriptures and Jesus’ teaching call us to act in solidarity with those who are vulnerable among us.
As we approach Holy Week, Hebrews reveals a very human Jesus who struggled to be obedient to God and his mission. In that struggle we see a God who does not tire of the heartbroken or those who fail and offers us a second and third chance. This is what God is up to. I have a copy of Brené Brown’s essay ‘The Power of Vulnerability’ which was also given as a TED talk in 2010. It seems odd to put power and vulnerability together. Vulnerability is usually associated with people who suffer without power. People who are directly in harm’s way such as children in poverty, refugees and asylum seekers in crowded camps, civilians in war zones. Vulnerability is something many try to avoid. It is about our weak places and the points where we are least protected and most easily hurt. In human relationships, and our relationship with God, it seeks that it is at this point that it is possible to have the most successful relationship. Brown has found that people who were most in touch with the fact that they could be hurt-could lose, could fail, could get it wrong-but went ahead seeking connection anyway were more likely to be happier, to have more satisfying relationships and a higher sense of self-worth. It is by engaging in methods of self-protection—guarding against pain, choosing safer paths, seeking certainty, choosing acceptance over authenticity-we isolate ourselves. Brown’s conclusion is that if vulnerability leaves us open to pain, shame, and rejection, it also leaves us open to love, acceptance, and belonging. This the vulnerability of God too. We don’t always associate God with vulnerability. At Christmas, God comes as a helpless baby, and vulnerable to the physical conditions around him as well as threats from rulers and laws. At this time of year, we see Jesus struggling, distressed, wishing he could take another road, knowing what he needs to do. He sees the risks of death and failure, feels them—and yet goes ahead anyway, letting things unfold as they will. Joanna Macy says that we should not be afraid to let our heart be broken open, because this how the world gets in. This is vulnerability. This is the spirituality of the heart. This how a vulnerable God can love us. A God who through Jesus first says to us, ‘I love you’, who weeps over us, who walks towards death knowing it’s the only way to the risen life. As we have seen, God chooses vulnerability: relationship with people, forgiveness, and love. God is not only offering us love but shows us how it is done… or reminds over and over again how it is done. So when John gives us hints as to what God is up to, God is constantly drawing us to come and know that we are loved without forcing us, or bribing us or dazzling us.
In the gospel, some Greek pilgrims approach Philip with a request, ‘We want to see Jesus.’ They saw something hidden in this man who had the power of attraction. It was his incredible love for all. But it is invisible except in the actions and signs of people who love. We come to see Jesus in bread and wine…..in the faces of our sisters and brothers……..in the stranger, the poor, the marginalised, the imprisoned, and the outcast. Our culture promotes a gospel of consumerism, of fragmentation and dissolution. Globally we face challenges more daunting than ever before with poverty, famine, climate change, economic injustice, and warfare. And yet God is faithful. God does not abandon us. God has already written in our hearts the language of love that we so desperately need.
Remember last Sunday’s words from John: ‘God so loved the world that God sent God's only Son, and the Son so loved us that he gave himself for us.’ This is the logic of God’s reign. Even today, even in this age, God is doing a new thing. We are God’s people. We are forgiven and loved. This is the good news we share: life-giving and life-changing words of hope, grace, forgiveness, and love. The gift of faith is an incredible thing to tend and care for, as well as to share. Perhaps they could look for ‘God sightings’ in their daily life. What about committing to somehow share the good news with one person in word or deed? What kinds of seeds of hope, justice, and love can we sow? What parts of ourselves might have to die in the process (wants, desires, expectations, assumptions, etc.)? We are partners with Christ in this restoration kingdom work. Discuss how we can be partners. What is the cost? What are the risks? The dangers? The joys? The rewards?
To explain this love and the power of his death, Jesus speaks of a simple image: ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.’ If the grain dies, it sprouts and brings forth life, but if it shuts itself up in its little husk and keeps its vital energy to itself, it remains sterile. This is the dynamic that makes the life of a person who suffers motivated by love something fertile and life giving. It cannot be imposed. Whoever clings selfishly to his life, will lose it; whoever knows how to surrender it generously, will generate more life. Whoever lives exclusively for one’s own well-being, money, success or security, will live a mediocre and empty life because life for others does not become more humane, more justice, more peaceful. Others are helped to live when we dare to live lives of generosity and service.
God is still writing on people’s hearts – people from every race, religion and nation. We know or have heard of people who have dedicated themselves to helping others. Think of the doctors and nurses who have travelled to the world’s trouble spots to provide medical assistance to people and are risking their lives at the same time. It is not always seem to be done out of religious conviction, but what conviction stirs them to make such sacrifices and take such risks? Is it the God who writes on our hearts and transforms them?
Next Saturday (March 24, 1980) we commemorate the murder of a man who was a quiet and conservative parish priest. On becoming archbishop of San Salvador, his perspective changed when he saw that the poor and the priests and church workers who stood with them were being murdered by people who valued wealth and power over justice, humanity and compassion. Oscar Romero was transformed as his eyes were opened to the impoverishment of his people, the murder of priests and lay people who challenged injustice. In his short term as archbishop, he made a powerful impact on people and movements around the world encouraging them to risk their lives for others. Like many before him, Romero saw the great sin of remaining silent and uninvolved in what was occurring around him. Not remaining silent meant denouncing a political and economic system that enriched a few and impoverished many. Above all, he called the church to be in solidarity with those on the margins. This has been the challenge to the church by Pope Francis as well. What a terrible thing to have lived quite comfortably, with no suffering, not getting involved in problems, quite tranquil, quite settled, with good connections politically, economically, socially – lacking nothing, having everything! To what good? Is this not the burden of wasted opportunity? ‘Unless the grain of wheat dies....’ Before he was killed, he said, ‘If I am killed, I shall rise again in the Salvadoran people’
Last month (February 12, 2004) Sr. Dorothy Stang was remembered when she was murdered for having advocated for 30 years on behalf of Brazil’s poor when ruthless land owners stripped the Amazon rainforest and displaced the peasants and indigenous people in the region. When she was shot by assassins on a lonely road, she was reading the words ‘Unless the grain of wheat dies….’ From today’s gospel passage.
People still want to see Jesus but do they see him in our flesh, in our following and witnessing? Through our loving words and compassionate actions that people will come to ‘see’ Jesus. Hebrews tells us that Jesus ‘learned obedience by the things that he suffered.’ He learned by what he suffered. He listened to the voice of God speaking in his suffering and he learned to respond from his suffering heart. Jesus listened for God's voice in his suffering heart, in the fisherfolk, the farmers and labourers around him concerned about loss, failure and terror, in the women who were marginalised in society by poverty and powerlessness, and in some religious people about hypocrisy, and in all of this he knew that the crucifixion was coming. The time had come to plant the seed of his witness, it must fall into the earth and die before it brings forth much fruit.
Jesus’ suffering is a concrete sign of his solidarity, and God’s suffering, with us [Hebrews]. It is how God approaches us and everyone else. Last Sunday, you may remember a verse from John’s gospel: ‘God so loved the world that God sent God's only Son, and the Son so loved us that he gave himself for us.’ Today’s gospel presents a fundamental lesson: the love that gives itself is the love that gives life. We are characterised by our ability to love, to give our lives and ourselves in love. Becoming more human involves a ‘de-centring’ ourselves and centring more on others. This humanisation is embodied in today's parable and the commandment: ‘This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ It is the essence of the gospel and true meaning of religion: love, solidarity, ‘de-centring’ self.
The challenge is to learn to speak this language, to hear it, to read it, to chew on the words and drink deeply of their meaning. God is with us always, and we are created to be God’s beloved. Even today, even in this age, God is doing a new thing through us.
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT, 2018
Fourth Sunday of Lent
March 11th 2018
Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land where we are now gathered, (the Gadigal people of the great Eora nation,) and recognise that it continues to be sacred to them.
We hail them: as guardians of the earth and of all things that grow and breed in the soil; as trustees of the waters – [the seas, the streams and rivers, the ponds and the lakes] - and the rich variety of life in those waters.
We thank them for passing this heritage to every people since the Dreamtime.
We acknowledge the wrongs done to them by newcomers to this land and we seek to be partners with them in righting these wrongs and in living together in peace and harmony.
We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land
on which we stand.
We pay our respects to them and for their care of the land.
May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.
or
I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,
the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,
and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.
The beauty that will save the world is the love that shares the pain.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini former Archbishop of Milan
‘My vengeance is that I forgive you.’
Peace remains possible. And if peace is possible, it is also a duty! Pope Benedict XVI, Message for World Day of Prayer for Peace 2004
What we do not love, we will not save.
Wendell Berry – poet, ecologist
Readings
First Reading: 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23 The story of the exile of the chosen people
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 137:1-6 How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?
Second Reading: Ephesians 2:4-10 By grace you have been saved.
Gospel: John 3:14-21 Light came into the world.
Penitential Rite
q God of Light, you sent your Son into our world, not to condemn but to save: Jesus, have mercy.
q God of Light, you are rich in mercy and your love is unbounded: Christ, have mercy.
q God of Light, you sent your Son into a hostile world so that we might come to know your light: Jesus, have mercy.
Opening Prayer
Good and gracious God,
out of love for the world
you gave us your only Son, Jesus the Christ.
Through him you spoke peace to our world
and by his suffering, death and resurrection
you brought us the gift of reconciliation.
May we work to turn hatred into love,
conflict into peace
and death to fullness of life.
Prayer over the Gifts
Good and gracious God,
may the gifts we offer bring us peace and joy.
May we, by celebrating this Eucharist,
be strengthened to
bring your light into the world.
Prayer after Communion
Good and gracious God,
your presence enlightens our world.
Fill our hearts with the light of your gospel
so that we may instruments of your peace.
Prayers of the Faithful
Introduction: Let us pray with hope and confidence to God, who loved us so much as to give us Jesus the Christ.
1. For the people of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and our own country: may human rights abuses and burdens they continue to suffer soon end and their dignity be respected, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
2. For the people of West Papua: may they be supported by courageous governments in their struggle for independence and have their human rights observed and justice for people killed and violated be secured, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
3. For the people of Timor Leste who have lived with injustice and bullying at the hands of the Australian government finally have a semblance of justice given them as their government and the Australian government sign a maritime boundary treaty at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
4. For peace in our world: may those with power and in power use dialogue, understanding and respect as nations talk up war against Iran, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
5. For the peoples of Africa who continue to face starvation due to foreign speculation and drought: may the rich nations take up the challenge to address the issues of poverty, debt and conflict so that the people may live lives of dignity and health in peace, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
6. For the many people who continue to be uprooted today - victims of war and oppression, prisoners, migrants and the homeless, and especially the Rohingha at this time: may they find hope in our concern for justice and experience the strength of your love, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
7. For women, men and children who are victims of human trafficking: may we open our eyes to the reality of this evil and the causes of trafficking and exploitation be addressed, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
8. For all people continue to face uncertainty in their lives because they are refugees and seek security: may politicians and legislators show compassion by overturning the harsh decisions that affect these people, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
9. For all people who commemorate Lent: may their hearts be illuminated by the light of the gospel and their eyes opened to the depth of true suffering, structured injustice and global poverty in our world, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
10. For all who are sick or who live with chronic pain: may they find comfort in the love and care of those who love them, care for them and must witness their suffering, we pray: Good and gracious God, hear our prayer.
Concluding Prayer: Good and gracious God, in Jesus you have set before us many signs or your presence. Protect us in our struggle against the darkness of our lives, assist us in our efforts to do good and encourage us as we strive to be people of the light. During this Lenten season may hear your voice and know your presence among us and be signs of your peace and light in our world.
Dates
March 11 Death of 18,500 people and widespread contamination following the earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima, Japan (2011)
March 15 National Close the Gap Day
March 17 Feast of St Patrick
Further Resources
Our task must be to widen our circle of compassion,
to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein
If I sit silently, I have sinned.
Mohammad Mossadegh (16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967), Prime Minister of Iran (1951 to 1953) overthrown in a coup d'état on 19 August 1953 organised and carried out by the CIA at the request of the British MI6 because of social reform he introduced most notably the nationalisation of the Iranian oil industry, which the British had controlled since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later British Petroleum or BP).
God of Compassion,
You let your rain fall on the just and the unjust.
Expand and deepen our hearts so that we may love as You love,
even those among us who have caused the greatest pain by taking life.
For there is in our land a great cry for vengeance
as we fill up death rows and kill the killers in the name of justice, in the name of peace.
Jesus, our brother, You suffered execution at the hands of the state
but you did no let hatred overcome you.
Help us to reach out to victims of violence
so that our enduring love may help them heal.
Holy Spirit of God, You strengthen us in the struggle for justice.
Help us to work tirelessly for the abolition of stat-sanctioned death
and to renew our society in its very heart so that violence will be no more.
Amen.
Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ
O loving God, help us to be masters of the weapons that threaten to master us. Help us to use science for peace and plenty, not for war and destruction. …Save us from the compulsion to follow our adversaries in all that we most hate, confirming them in their hatred and suspicion of us. Resolve our inner contradictions, which now grow beyond belief and beyond bearing… Grant light, grant strength and patience to all who work for peace; grant us prudence in proportion to our power, wisdom in proportion to our science, humanness in proportion to our wealth and might. And bless our earnest will to help all races and peoples to travel, in friendship with us, along the road to justice, liberty and lasting peace.
Thomas Merton, Non Violent Alternative
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain
There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
Howard Zinn
I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.
Malcolm X
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
Albert Einstein
We must join with the tens of millions all over the world who see in peace our most sacred responsibility.
Paul Robeson
The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd. And it's the responsible men who have to make decisions and to protect society from the trampling and rage of the bewildered herd. Now since it's a democracy they - the herd, that is - are permitted occasionally to lend their weight to one or another member of the responsible class. That's called an election.
Noam Chomsky
Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.
Alan Corenk
Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen, or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?
Kurt Vonnegut
Today television news is watched more often than people read newspapers, than people listen to the radio, than people read or gather any other form of communication. The reason: People are lazy. With television you just sit - watch - listen. The thinking is done for you.
Roger Ailes (president of Fox News Channel) while working for the Nixon administration
Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighbouring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.
The XIVth Dalai Lama
Goodness without wisdom always accomplished evil.
Robert A. Heinlein - (1907-1988) Stranger in a Strange Land
In the name of peace
They waged the wars
Ain't they got no shame
Nikki Giovanni
Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for war.
John Andrew Holmes, Wisdom in Small Doses
I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war
And there's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs
On the radio talk shows and the t.v.
You hear one thing again and again
How the u.s.a. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends-
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
There's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even say the names
They sell us the president the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
Jackson Browne, Lives In The Balance
All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
[Man] can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.
Albert Einstein
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
Anne Frank
Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
Kahlil Gibran
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms - of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
Frederick Douglass
I don't want them to believe me, I just want them to think.
Marshall McLuhan
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.
Henry David Thoreau
Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization.
Eugene V. Debs
The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded. It is a doctrine of the oldest and of the newest philosophy, that man is one, and that you cannot injure any member, without a sympathetic injury to all members.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop.
Rachel Corrie
To protest in the name of morality against 'excesses' or 'abuses' is an error which hints at active complicity. There are no 'abuses' or 'excesses' here, simply an all-pervasive system.
Simone de Beauvoir
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.
Blaise Pascal
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire
The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
Milan Kundera
Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges; hence the conclusion of such a narration is apt to be less finished than an architectural finial.
Herman Melville
Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.
Arthur Miller
Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.
Michel de Montaigne
Fascism itself can only be turned away if all those who are outraged by it show a commitment to social justice that equals the intensity of their indignation.
Arundhati Roy
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
John Steinbeck
The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
Aldous Huxley
With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence? How could they be the sponsors of something objective whose objective inauguration called forth their existence as oppressed? There would be no oppressed had there been no prior of violence to establish their subjugation.
Paulo Freire
Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.
Bertrand Russell
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
Desmond Tutu
Every empire...tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.
Edward Said
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
Dante Alighieri
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
General Smedley Butler
Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk.
John Milton
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Max Planck
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
Robert M. Hutchins
I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring.
Erich Maria Remarque
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men.
Edward R. Murrow, US broadcaster during the McCarthy era.
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
Emma Goldman
Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.
Lewis H. Lapham
We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
Gloria Steinem
Activism is my rent for living on this planet.
Alice Walker
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
Vladimir Nabokov
Display a heart of boundless love for all the world, in all its height and depth and broad extent, love unrestrained, without hate or enmity. Then as you stand or walk, sit or lie, until overcome with drowsiness, devote our mind entire to this. This is known as living here a life divine.
Sean McDonagh, To Care for the Earth, London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1986, p. 145
The light which shines in the eye
is really the light of the heart.
The light which fills the heart
is the light of God.
Rumi
What we do not love, we will not save.
Wendell Berry, poet, ecologist
Religion is not 'what one does with one's solitariness.'
Religion is what one does with the presence of God.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, I Asked for Wonder, Crossroads, New York, 1987
In Remembrance
In remembrance of those
throughout time, all over the world,
who have died in war,
we pray urgently today
that children, women and men
may become makers of peace.
We pray for children growing up
in violent surroundings,
or thinking, talking or playing in warlike ways.
God, give to your people a new challenge
new ways in which to test their strength -
in sharing power and risking non-violence.
O God, we pray for:
a new awareness of the battlefield within us;
new ways of channelling aggressive instincts;
new thought-patterns, language and ideas;
a new appreciation of the world as one community;
new methods of dialogue and negotiation;
new attempts to befriend those different from ourselves;
new readiness to forgive and reconciles;
new visions, new love, new hope….
and a new faith, that the peace that passes all understanding
can reach out from within us to embrace the world.
Kate Compston, England. Seeing Christ in Others,
Geoffrey Duncan [ed.], Canterbury Press, Norwich, 2003
People with vision….
carry within themselves
a holy irritation
Sr. Joan Chittister osb
Watch the words of others, God often speaks to us through sister and brothers.
Watch for conformity between words and deeds, and when the two are the same, watch only their deeds.
Watch for heroic women and men who give their lives tending victims - the bombed, staved, raped, tortured - and to exposing the victimizers from within prison and without. Watch the hope that they give you by their speech of their lives, and then dare to extend hope to others.
Watch the world through nonviolence and study systemic evil.
Watch nuclearism and the blind, venal paranoia of the nuclear club.
Watch tens of tens of wars going on worldwide and the arms sales feeding these wars.
Watch refugees in Yugoslavia, central Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan.
Watch the transnational money system that undergirds corporations.
Watch corporations as they declare themselves 'stateless', as they automate, downsize, fire workers, pay less and less taxes, and punish the environment.
….Only one weapon remains against such massive greed, luxury and exploitation: direct nonviolent action……
when official deceit and betrayal become intolerable,
when national life becomes more ugly and despairing,
perhaps we will regain our faith in God and say 'No!' to political charlatans, nuclear warriors and corporate parasites.
Our 'No!' will take us to the streets and the official hellholes to expose and withstand the legality of terrorism and tyranny.
Watch. Learn. Act.
adapted from the words of Philip Berrigan
Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighbourhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs.
Arundhati Roy, ‘Tide? Or Ivory Snow? Public Power in the Age of Empire,’
Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If a country develops an economic system that is based on how to pay for the war, and if the amounts of fixed capital investment that are apparent are tied up in armaments, and if that country is a major exporter of arms, and its industrial fabric is dependent on them, then it would be in that country's interests to ensure that it always had a market. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is clearly in the interests of the world's leading arms exporters to make sure that there is always a war going on somewhere.
Marilyn Waring, from 'Who's Counting', based on her book Counting for Nothing
The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.
James Madison
The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells.
John Flynn, 1944
A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts.
James Anthony Froude (1818-1894) Author and historian, from Short Studies on Great Subjects
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
James Bovard, Lost Rights. The Destruction of American Liberty
Nonviolence is a direction, not a separating line. It has no boundaries. The essence of nonviolence is understanding and compassion, so when you cultivate understanding and compassion, you are practicing nonviolence. You cannot be absolutely nonviolent -- but the more you can understand, the more you can be compassionate, the more you can be nonviolent. … Nonviolence is not a principle. It is a flower that blooms on the ground of understanding and love. Nonviolence is something to cultivate.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.
Frederick Douglass, from his speech celebrating West India Emancipation Day, August 1857.
To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives; it is the only way we can leave the future open.
Lillian Smith, writer and civil rights proponent, The Journey (1954).
Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.
T.S. Eliot, from ‘Ash Wednesday, VI’
Humility is what gives us the vision to look upon our world with fresh eyes. Humility enables us to respect others enough to put down our spurious images of ourselves and open our arms, as individuals and as a nation.
Joan Chittister
The bread that you possess belongs to the hungry.
The clothes that you store in boxes, belong to the naked.
The shoes rotting by you, belong to the bare-foot.
The money that you hide belongs to anyone in need.
Saint Basil, fourth century theologian and monastic
Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe? Expediency asks the question: Is it politic? Vanity asks the question: Is it popular? But conscience asks the question: Is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular - but he must take it simply because conscience tells him it is right.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Lenten Prayer
The darkness asks us questions.
You are out there and we do not see.
You invite us into the night,
the stillness, the loneliness, the desert place.
We cannot see our shadow;
the cold damp of unknowing rises up from beneath our feet.
We tread cautiously, tentatively.
We are afraid,
afraid of ghosts
haunting us with spectres of guilt
and shame.
We would like to run back,
reach the river bank,
swim the Jordan,
sit in the sun by the sea,
mending our nets.
But you have brought us here
- with no bread.
When we look we can see only ourselves,
our darkness.
When we read,
it is invisible words which cannot be grasped,
thoughts we cannot clutch,
hope we cannot capture.
Yet the wild honey remains a taste in our mouth,
a memory for a new day.
Why have you brought us here?
What miracle will you perform for us?
The darkness sighs around us,
dense with your unseen presence,
close to our breathing,
close to our breathing.
O darkness, enlighten us,
embrace us with your invisible love.
Let us see your glory in the ashes.
Take us by the hand that we may trust the darkness.
Minister to us by your Spirit that we may not be afraid.
Jesus, keep the beasts away.
Amen
William Loader, 15 February 1999
I believe war is a weapon of persons without personal power, that is to say, the power to reason, the power to persuade, from a position of morality and integrity; and that to go to war with an enemy who is weaker than you is to admit you possess no resources within yourself to bring to bear on your fate.
Alice Walker
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his [or her] own heart?
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Rowan Williams, Ethics, Economics and Global Justice
There remains an experience of incomparable value ... to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled - in short, from the perspective of those who suffer ... to look with new eyes on matters great and small.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, After Ten Years
Principles of Nonviolence
Martin Luther King, Jr
1) Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.
· It is active nonviolent resistance to evil.
· It is assertive spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
· It is always persuading the opponent of the justice of your cause.
2) Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.
· The end result of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation.
· The purpose of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community.
3) Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.
· Nonviolence holds that evildoers are also victims.
4) Nonviolence holds that voluntary suffering can educate and transform.
· Nonviolence willingly accepts the consequences of its acts.
· Nonviolence accepts suffering without retaliation.
· Nonviolence accepts violence if necessary, but will never inflict it.
· Unearned suffering is redemptive and has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities.
· Suffering can have the power to convert the enemy when reason fails.
5) Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.
· Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well as of the body.
· Nonviolent love gives willingly, knowing that the return might be hostility.
· Nonviolent love is active, not passive.
· Nonviolent love does not sink to the level of the hater.
· Love for the enemy is how we demonstrate love for ourselves.
· Love restores community and resists injustice.
· Nonviolence recognizes the fact that all life is interrelated.
6) Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.
· The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win.
The call for human beings to ‘love your enemies’ means wanting wholeness and well-being and life for those who may be broken and sick and deadly. It was meant to be the cornerstone of an entirely new process of disarming evil; one which decreases evil instead of feeding it as violence does.
Angie O’Gorman
We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence.
Mohandas Gandhi
May God bless us with anger at
injustice, oppression, and
exploitation of people and the earth
so that we will work for justice,
equity, and peace.
May God bless us with
the foolishness that think that we
can make a difference in the world,
so we will do the things which
others say cannot be done
(unknown source)
You will find that charity
is a heavy burden to carry,
heavier than the kettle of soup
and the basket of bread.
But you must your gentleness
and your smile keep.
Give soup and bread
isn’t all that you can do.
The poor are your masters-
terribly sensitive and exacting
as you will see.
But the more demanding they seem
the more unjust and bitter
the more you must give them your love.
It is only because of your love
only your love
that the poor will forgive you
the bread you give them.
St Vincent de Paul
The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his [or her] conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The poor tell us who we are.
The prophets tell us who we could be.
So we hide the poor and kill the prophets.
Philip Berrigan
Reflections on the readings
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.’ The readings clearly present an image of God who is relentless in reaching out to people. I like to think that this is part of a love song that God is singing to us beginning with the first breath of God at the beginning of creation and then into humanity and repeated throughout history and ultimately in the birth of Jesus. Whatever others have tried to do with this passage, it has nothing to do with justice or judgement but reveals that God is fundamentally a God of love. Love is the logic by which God’s reign runs and we see that God’s love revealed in Jesus trumps everything else, even justice, in the end. We cannot get away from this truth. We are important and so everything we do is important – when we forgive, the universe changes; when we reach out and touch another’s heart, the world changes; whenever we offer kindness and service, God’s purposes are being accomplished and nothing is ever the same. God’s loving presence is waiting to be revealed in all of creation and in the people we encounter every day. We need to open our eyes to see it. God insists that our world is lovable, so lovable that he gave his only Son for our world and all of us who belong to it. Garry Willis, and American writer, makes the point in his book What Jesus Meant that without love there is no life. there is really no life without love. Willis tells a beautiful story about his son who woke up during a violent nightmare. He asked he son what was troubling him:
The son said that the nun in his school had told the children that they would end up in hell if they sinned. He wanted to know if he was going to hell. Willis admits that there is not an ounce of heroism in his nature, but instantly answered: ‘All I can say is that if you’re going there, I’m going with you.’
Willis concluded that if he felt that way about his son, then God obviously loves him even more. He goes on to say, that perhaps that the Incarnation is God’s way of saying that no matter what horrors we face or hells we descend to, God is coming with us. Is this not the meaning of :’he descended into hell’ as we say in the Creed?
John’s Gospel suggests that God is more attuned to verbs [doing] than nouns [names]: to repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing running, dancing and singing rather than dead nouns or principles that reek of rules and condemnation.
The deep and abiding truth is that God loves us as we are and extends into our bruised and hurting world, not some ideal or perfect world. It is a world where the waters are polluted, where rain forests cut down, where the soil is poisoned and where people are hurting. This last week many thousands of people gathered for the 40th Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney. Many who participated over these 40 years have been badly hurt, bruised, exiled and even died after being told they are/were ‘not good enough, ‘not acceptable’ because of who they are. So many have abandoned any belief in a loving God because of people who imaged a God of judgment rather than a God who loves this world and all that is in it. We are reminded also that the poor and oppressed have a special place in the heart of God – and because God loves them in a special way, we, as God's followers are called to do so as well. Until we are able to say truthfully that we love those who are different from us in terms of gender, ethnicity, nationality, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation or religion, we cannot say that we love the world the way God does. God’s attitude towards us is positive. Yes there is much that is dangerous, sinful, and corrupting as we see war, hunger, greed, deceit, betrayal, life denying activity, human trafficking, infidelity, broken families, murder, accident and sickness, but we need to have eyes for what is good, beautiful, and sacrificial in the world.
How might our belief in this love translate into our everyday living? Could a God who first loved us ever want us to be vindictive, to take revenge, to destroy someone who has committed a crime? As God reaches out to us in love and loves us first, we have to bring ourselves to the point where we can forgive and love even our enemies. Jesus loved and forgave his executioners. That same spirit needs to be brought by US into our society that is capable of being vindictive, hateful and wants to get even. The way of Jesus is different. If we’ve absorbed this truth about how God loves us, we can’t help but carry out works of love in the same way. We are God’s work of art. We are invited to community by building networks of relationships that bring healing, reconciliation and abundant life and dislocate ourselves from networks of relationships that perpetuate injustice, death and alienation.
When John speaks of being born from above he also means thinking and living differently. It is about living in the light which means accepting God’s gracious love. Darkness exists when we live outside that relationship – when we are silent in the face of injustice, violence, greed, selfishness, viciousness, insensitivity, hypocrisy. As intimated earlier, there are forces that do not want us to work together. Where Christ said 'Love one another', those in power talk about making a better world by destroying it; they talk about peace by going to war; they talk about liberating people by killing them. The African American writer and comedian Nikki Giovanni says: ‘In the name of peace, they waged the wars. Ain't they got no shame?’
The Chronicles’ reading tells how God's messengers were mocked. Not every message is welcome. Today, some of these messengers are regarded as fools or bleeding hearts with unrealistic ideals and unattainable goals and dismissed; or they are called ‘out of touch’ and unrealistic. We saw this in recent years when the Human Rights Commissioner, Professor Gillian Triggs, was publicly ridiculed when she stood out on behalf of the asylum seekers on offshore detention centres. Attempts were made to render her message irrelevant. Journalists who expose injustice and atrocity often face violence and death; ’whistleblowers’ who reveal corruption in government face criminal charges; peace activists who call us to nonviolent living are dismissed and even threatened with arrest, tortured, imprisoned and even killed; and scientists who tell us of the threat of climate change are dismissed.
So, the people in the Chronicles ignored the words of the prophets and laughed at them. This also occurred when many opposed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. It was an invasion based on lies and greed. Millions of people throughout the world were laughed at, dismissed and rejected, labeled fools or rabble by our political leaders who chose the path of war and violence. What will we do with Lent, as we hear Jesus and who showed the way to peace through love, who loved people and all living things and rejected violence, who accepted suffering rather than inflict it; who was willing to be killed rather than kill? Again this Lent, as 15 years ago with Iraq, there is a strong clamour to go to war again whether it be again Iran or North Korea.
If we really understood the way of Jesus, the way of God, the way of love, would we have fallen for the deceit that we can bring peace out of war, or love out of hate, or goodness out of evil? We have to try to transform what is going on in our world and follow the way of God, which is the way of love. The way of Jesus is very demanding – but it is the only way. As we continue our Lenten journey, we need to ask ourselves if we embrace God's inclusive vision of the world, or is the world divided into ‘us vs. them’? Will we seek to find ways to challenge our religious and political leaders about their prejudices that hurt and divide people? Do we have the view that God loves Catholics more than non-Catholics? or Christians more than Muslims, Hindus or even non-believers? or the ‘digger’ (Australian solider) more than the Afghan defender of his or her country? or that God is closer to the Israeli than to the Palestinian person? or that God loves those in the First World more than those who live in the Third World or in Third World conditions in our country? Overcoming our prejudices and preconceived notions about people is difficult, but possible.
Jesus was sent into the world by a big-hearted and loving God who speaks through him to a sinful world, not about condemnation but about believing. This is the most eloquent affirmation of God’s love. Jesus calls us to set aside the blunders of sin and live in the light of this truth. This is a daily challenge not just during Lent but every day of our lives. It was the challenge Jesus extended to Nicodemus who came to Jesus in the dark. May our prayer ever be, ‘God, teach us to love the world like you do! May that love turn night into day?’ We are God’s work of art and created in the image of the One whose breath, language and voice is given to us, despite the discordant movements in our lives towards injustice, violence, domination, greed and abuse of power. God’s word of love was repeated in the birth of a new born baby where God came to us in the most vulnerable and fragile way possible. May it help us to ignore what others consider important in the form of social, status, beauty and wealth. Let us rejoice in this.
For God so loved the world that God gave God’s self to us as Jesus so that all who hear what God has to say to us of what is real, true and everlasting. No alternate anthems can compete with this truth.
T
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT
Third Sunday of Lent
March 4th, 2018
Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land where we are now gathered, (the Gadigal people of the great Eora nation,) and recognise that it continues to be sacred to them.
We hail them: as guardians of the earth and of all things that grow and breed in the soil; as trustees of the waters – [the seas, the streams and rivers, the ponds and the lakes] - and the rich variety of life in those waters.
We thank them for passing this heritage to every people since the Dreamtime.
We acknowledge the wrongs done to them by newcomers to this land and we seek to be partners with them in righting these wrongs and in living together in peace and harmony.
or
We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land
on which we stand.
We pay our respects to them and for their care of the land.
May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.
or
I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,
the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,
and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.
‘For if every [man] were to regard the persons of others as [his] own person, who would inflict pain and injury on others? If they regarded the homes of others as their own homes, who would rob the homes of others? Thus in that case there would be no brigands and robbers. If the princes regarded other countries as their own, who would wage war on other countries? This in that case there would be no more war.’
Hillel, first century A.D. rabbi
One important aspect of justice, …. involves the restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice - restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly.
Robert McAfee Brown
Readings
Reading I Ex 20:1-17 or 20:1-3, 7-8, 12-17
Responsorial Psalm Ps 19:8, 9, 10, 11 R. (Jn 6:68c) Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
Reading II …… 1 Cor 1:22-25
Gospel Jn 2:13-25
Penitential Rite
q You bring your people from slavery to freedom. Jesus, have mercy.
q You overturn the tables of those who exploit the poor. Christ, have mercy.
q You call us to freedom by living according to your covenant. Jesus, have mercy.
Opening Prayer
God of freedom, your compassion and goodness,
heal the wounds of sinfulness and division.
May our fasting and prayer lead us
to share our lives and resources
with our sisters and brothers.
May your compassion fill us with hope
and make us living stones of communities
where Jesus lives and reigns.
For the Prayer of the Faithful
Introduction: Let us pray to the God of the covenant that we may worship with our lives by helping one another to be free. Let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· That young people will find courage and agency through their solidarity with one another and raise their voices against greed and injustice , and teach their leaders that silence in the face of injustice is complicity. Let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· That the leaders of the Churches, and all the people of God, may have the courage to speak and act when God's laws of justice and love are breached, let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· That the heads of government and the United Nations may work unceasingly to defend human rights, not by force of weapons but by respecting treaties and agreements, through dialogue and mutual understanding, let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· That world leaders, especially in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Myanmar, will hear the cries of their people for freedom and strive to overcome the violence against them, let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· That politicians not use law and order to gain political advantage but consider human frailty and the need for healing through social and community programmes, let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· That during this Lent, people will respond more and more to God in love and service rather than be overwhelmed by a sense of guilt, let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· That people in business avoid every form of worker exploitation, and adhere to the church's teachings about social justice in the workplace, let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· That governments will uphold the importance of people in the workplace, and those in business respect their needs and talents especially in times of economic difficulties, let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· That all women and men who offer themselves as peacemakers in places of conflict and war continue to speak out for truth and justice, may their actions encourage others to overcome their fears, let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
· For the people of Iraq on the third anniversary of the invasion of their country become united in their differences and find peace and freedom, let us pray: Form a new heart within us, O God.
Concluding Prayer: God of freedom, as we make these prayers may we see that your commandment to love involves worshipping in spirit and truth and building a worldwide community of sisters and brothers who are able to look beyond religious and cultural differences.
Prayer over the Gifts
God of freedom,
by the grace of this offering
of the bread of life
and the wine of joy,
Jesus your Son will renew your covenant with us.
May we have the will and love
to be faithful to its demands
even when it means the cross.
Deliver Us
Deliver us, God of freedom, from the evil of sin
and from all that prevents us from listening to you
and those you have given us as our guides.
Help us and our brothers and sisters
to be free from the hunger for power and wealth
and from all oppressive structures
that keep us from living as your people.
Help us to prepare in hope and freedom
for the final coming in glory
of Christ Jesus, our Saviour. R/ For the kingdom...
Prayer after Communion
God of freedom,
You form a new heart within us.
May Jesus be fully alive in us,
so that our communities may become
a temple in which he lives
and that gathers together
all as his brothers and sisters in unity and peace.
Further Resources
The walls are the publishers of the poor.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano
Lenten reflection [The following comes from the Puebla (Mexico) Document of 1979 where the Latin American bishops painted word pictures of the faces of the poor to make the crisis of poverty graphic and concrete].
The poor include the faces of young children, struck down by poverty in the womb that afflicts them with mental and physical deficiencies;
the faces of vagrant children in the cities, often sexually exploited, sometimes murdered;
the faces of young people, frustrated by lack of opportunity to build a future and robbed of hope in their own existence;
the faces of indigenous peoples disrespected and marginalised into situations where they can barely exist;
the faces of peasants deprived of their land;
the faces of ill-paid labourers and unemployed person who have no options;
the faces of women, old before their time in the struggle to feed their families, discriminated against because of their gender, or trafficked and prostituted;
the faces of African Americans, descendants of slavers scored because of their race;
the faces of overcrowded dwellers in city slums whose lack of material goods is cruelly contrasted with the ostentatious wealth flaunted by others in the city;
the face of old people, cast off as no longer productive.
Multiply by millions: an outrage that cries to heaven
Elizabeth Johnson, Quest for the Living God (Hardcover), p. 72
‘Don't be defeatist, dear; it's very middle-class.’
Downton Abbey
If those who support aggressive war had seen a fraction of what I've seen, if they'd watched children fry to death from Napalm and bleed to death from a cluster bomb, they might not utter the claptrap they do.
John Pilger
The Pain
I was in the temple courtyard
and walked around among the stalls
at first with shoulders squared
like a centurion on inspection
but the more he saw the more
his shoulders sagged
like one dismayed and overwhelmed
by some gross indecency
institutionalised and on display
without apology
or even hint of reticence.
I watched him move near a door
and as the common pilgrims looked on
he took some cord and plaited a whip
before squaring his shoulders once more
and storming among the stalls
he upended tables and money boxes
while the traders looked on with shock
to see their silver and golden gods
go rolling across the pavement floor
and all the while his whip whirled around
as he drove them with the sheep and cattle
from that holy ground.
The thing I remember most sharply
were the eyes of that young man
not so much glinting with anger
but filled with enormous pain
such as I have never seen before
nor ever have again.
© B D Prewer 2002
My Dream 2000
I Dream...
That on 1 January 2000
The whole world will stand still
In prayer, awe and gratitude
For our beautiful, heavenly Earth
And for the miracle of human life.
I Dream...
That young and old, rich and poor,
Black and white,
Peoples from North and South,
From all beliefs and cultures
Will join hands, minds and hearts
In an unprecendented, universal
Bi-millennium Celebration of Life.
I Dream...
That the year 2000
Will be declared World Year of Thanksgiving
By the the United Nations.
I Dream...
That during the year 2000
Innumerable celebrations and events
Will take place all over the globe
To gauge the long hard road covered by humanity
To study our mistakes
And to plan the feats
Still to be accomplished
For the full flowering of the human race
In peace, justice and happiness.
I Dream...
That the few remaining years
To the Bi-millennium
Be devoted by all humans, nations and institutions
To unparalleled thinking, action,
Inspiration, elevation,
Determination and love
To solve our remaining problems
And to achieve
A peaceful, united human family on Earth.
I Dream...
That the third millennium
Will be declared
And made
Humanity's First Millennium of Peace.
Robert Muller (Chancellor of the University for Peace and Former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations)
[The one] who thinks that loving one’s enemies is impractical doesn’t take into account the practical consequences of hating one’s enemies.
Erich Fried
The Church says: the body is a sin.
Science says: the body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The Body says: I am a fiesta.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano
I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano
Utopia lies at the horizon.
When I draw nearer by two steps,
it retreats two steps.
If I proceed ten steps forward, it
swiftly slips ten steps ahead.
No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.
What, then, is the purpose of utopia?
It is to cause us to advance.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano
The Nobodies
Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty:
that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on them-will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn't rain down yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever.
Good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.
The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing.
The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who are not, but could be.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police
blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
Our defeat was always implicit in the victory of others; our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others - the empires and their native overseers. In the colonial and neocolonial alchemy, gold changes into scrap metal and food into poison.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
Celebration of the Human Voice
Some prisoners spent more than ten years buried in solitary cells the size of coffins, hearing nothing but clanging bars or footsteps in the corridors. . .[they] survived because they could talk to each other by tapping on the wall. In that way they told of dreams and memories, fallings in and out of love; they discussed, embraced, fought; they shared beliefs and beauties, doubts and guilts, and those questions that have no answers.
When it is genuine, when it is born of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice. When denied a mouth, it speaks with the hands or the eyes, or the pores, or anything at all. Because every single one of us has something to say to the others, something that deserves to be celebrated or forgiven by others.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano
I am not particularly interested in saving time; I prefer to enjoy it.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano
Human rights pale beside the rights of machines. In more and more cities, especially in the great metropolises of the South, people have been banned. Automobiles usurp human space, poison the air, and frequently murder the interlopers who invade their conquered territory -and no one lifts a finger to stop them. Is there a difference between violence that kills by car and that which kills by knife or bullet?
Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World
The big bankers of the world, who practise the terrorism of money, are more powerful than kings and field marshals, even more than the Pope of Rome himself. They never dirty their hands. They kill no-one: they limit themselves to applauding the show.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano
When I was growing up, it was 'Communists'. Now it's 'Terrorists'. So you always have to have somebody to fight and be afraid of, so the war machine can build more bombs, guns, and bullets.
Cindy Sheehan
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
Dalai Lama XIV
The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food.
John Pilger
We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Robert F. Kennedy
We have come out of the time when obedience, the acceptance of discipline, intelligent courage and resolution, were most important, into that more difficult time when it is a person's duty to understand the world rather than simply fight for it.
Ernest Hemingway
It's important to realize that whenever you give power to politicians or bureaucrats, it will be used for what they want, not for what you want.
Harry Browne
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.
Pericles, 430 B.C.
True patriotism is not worship of our nation but rather, in the light of our worship of the God of justice, to conform our nation's ways of justice.
Robert McAfee Brown
How does one keep from ‘growing old inside’? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people…. Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion that we are dispensable.
Robert McAfee Brown
The Church cannot be content to live in its stained-glass house and throw stones through the picture window of modern culture.
Robert McAfee Brown
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
President Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 17, 1961
H.L. Mencken
Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by ‘a world of enemies’, ‘one against all’, that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism p.227
God of Grace and God of Glory,
we yearn for commandments which bring life.
Deepen our longing, fire our questions, order our desires.
Deepen our longing to be a journeying people,
known for abiding commitments-
not childish obedience.
Fire our questions about commandments of old,
Knowing they bring life-
And sometimes death.
Order our desires as the poet orders your world,
in awe traversing the vast creation-
and our depths too.
Fire us with zeal that opens doors,
questioning perverse traditions
and ego's house.
Deepen our longings for true Glory:
Presence, Love, Wisdom
Unashamed – Foolish Grace.
Amen
Reflections on the readings….
One foggy, stormy night at sea, a ship's captain caught sight of what looked like the lights of another ship heading straight towards him. He ordered a message to be relayed to the oncoming ship: ‘Change your course ten degrees to the south.’
The immediate reply was, ‘Change your course ten degrees to the north.’ The lights were getting closer, so the captain responded firmly, ‘I'm a captain. Change your course south.’
But the reply was equally firm, ‘I'm a seaman first class. Change your course north.’
Outraged by this insolence as the lights loomed nearer and nearer, the captain fired back the message, ‘You idiot! I'm giving you one last chance to change your course south. I'm on a battleship!’ To which he received the cool reply, ‘I'm giving you one last chance to change your course north. I'm in a lighthouse.’
We can easily ignore or misunderstand the 'lighthouses' in our lives.
I recently published a statement on Australia’s intention to be among the top ten arms manufacturers in the world. Whether it is realistic or even possible, it still exhibits a mind-set that we seem to be unable to let go of. ‘At the heart of this is the old question: is it about people or about profits? The arms trade does not work to bring about peace but destruction of people, destruction of sentient life, infrastructure and the environment. It does not contribute to the well-being of people. It does not build schools and hospitals. It is does not build roads and railways that serve ordinary people. It is not just another form of trade like the car industry or other manufacturing industry.’ (Claude Mostowik msc, Statement on Trade in Arms by Australia, January 31, 2018). At the same time, I was made aware of a contemporary and very powerful painting by Louis Duffy called Christ driving out the money changers in the National Gallery of Victoria. It depicts sixteen men dressed in business suits and gathered in tense confrontation. It retells today’s gospel story but takes place in a graveyard rather than a temple and the money changers have morphed into arms dealers trading munitions on the graves of the dead: the ultimate profit-and-loss indicators of their grim transactions. And the Christ character stripped to his undershirt wields a truncheon.
It has been suggested that Jesus’ overturning the tables in the temple could be seen as his ‘mission statement.’ (Wes Howard-Brook, ‘John’s Gospel’s Call to Be Reborn of God,’ 85, in The New Testament–Introducing the Way of Discipleship (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2002), eds. Wes Howard-Brook and Sharon H. Ringe.)
The business of selling sacrificial animals and the money changers in the temple precincts was made possible through corrupt arrangements made between the temple authorities and the Roman authorities. The aim was to maximise profits and accommodate bribes- an arrangement that took an unfair advantage of the people, especially the poor who have no option, no choice. For, living without option, without choice, is what being poor means. But Jesus presented options where none existed; he made a path where there was no path. He turned things upside down and sent a message that something new and different might be possible. He was seen by the poor as one who would not accept the unjust status quo without putting up a struggle. Those in power were put on notice that their exploitation of the poor, bribery and fraud was being exposed. Returning my statement, it seems that our country is being prostituted by being willing to join what Pope Francis calls the ‘merchants of death’. Let us remember that the one purpose of arms is to kill and destroy – to kill people who are created in the image and likeness of God
The provocative incident in today’s gospel is recorded in all the gospels. But Jesus’ disruption of the activity in the temple was not the first time that attention was called to such behaviour. Jeremiah (7:11) had warned the priests of his day that the temple had become a den of thieves. Zechariah (14:21) had promised that on the Day of the Lord, no merchant would be found in the temple. Malachi (8:1) castigated the clergy for their abuses in the temple liturgy. Isaiah (15:7) prophesied that the Temple would become a house of prayer that would attract all the nations of the earth.
The Filipino artist, Lino Pontebon painted a picture which he called, The Angry Christ. It depicts the injustice and cruelty suffered by the people on the island of Negros at the hands of government and military. In 1983 nine people were imprisoned and charged with murder [among them an Australian and Irish priest], but their real crime was their social justice work amongst the sugar industry workers and formation of basic Christian communities on the island. The Angry Christ expresses the experience of the people's painful screams coming from Jesus' mouth.
John here is trying to show us who Jesus is: ‘Who are you to do this?’ and he responds, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’ We recognise that Jesus is God present in our midst - not in the temple. The temple of God is Jesus. This is God in our midst, showing us how to live according to the new covenant given to us. We are being told that this ‘building’ will not bring us closer to God. It is not what makes one holy and human. What is needed is to act justly: ‘do not abuse the stranger, the orphan or the widow. And then I will stay with you in the land I gave your ancestors in times past. Is this house on which rests my name a den of thieves? I have seen this myself, but it is God who speaks.’
Examples of this marketplace mentality are all around us, we see moneymaking schemes in the name of Jesus. Just as Jesus was angry and acted radically to eliminate injustice and greed, so also must the church guard against practices that shut out or even discriminate against the poor. When we plan our programs and community celebrations, do we assume that everyone has the means to participate? One very shameful action that often occurs has been the removal of homeless people from public view when a world leader, or the Pope, or an event such as the Olympics takes place. The care of the poor is to be the primary responsibility of those who belong to Jesus rather than an afterthought.
When Jesus appeared in the temple area, his words and his presence were transformative. He used that moment to speak of another temple, the temple of his body. ‘Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up. As one in whom the very presence of God dwelled, Jesus could readily call himself a temple. Earlier in his Gospel, the evangelist told his readers that Jesus, the Word of God, became flesh and pitched his tent among us (1:14). In Jesus, this God became present to us in flesh and blood, in time and space. Jesus’ words also remind each of us that we, too, are temples, holy places where God has chosen to take up residence. Just as the Jerusalem temple was cleansed of a marketplace mentality, so do we as living temples have to focus not on the transient but on the transcendent, not on ourselves but on God and on those God puts on our way to love and serve.
Though God has many names compassionate lover of justice and liberator of the poor must be among them. As compassionate lover of justice, God is on the side of the oppressed; and to oppress the poor or sin against the poor is to sin against God, to deface God (cf. Proverbs 14:31), or to ‘spit in the face of God’. Jesus did not lose it because the cheating occurred on holy ground but because people were being extorted in the name of religion. It is wrong in any place or time.
Today, Jesus forcefully expresses what was in his heart and what he felt all the time. Jesus is not out of control but makes a deliberate action. His passion fires his words and actions. Some people like to make a lot of the fact that Jesus expressed anger in scene.
The cleansing of the temple is an action parable. It sets the stage for what is to come, and helps us understand his Jesus' identity - and mission. They are intertwined. As the psalmist says, ‘God hears the cry of the poor’. Jesus is God’s presence on earth. God is in solidarity with men, women and children who suffer any kind of injustice. ‘I will live among you. I will be a living temple.’
A new time has come: the sacred place of encounter with God is Jesus’ body, and by extension our relationships with one another – which the temple was meant to do but failed to do. Animals and money-changers are no longer needed. We encounter God through Jesus, and the Jesus in each other and in the world. Matthew 25 highlights this for us: when you did it for one of the lest of these then you did it for me. I am present in them… and God in me.
Each Church community is a ‘house of prayer’ but we cannot close our eyes in prayer in order to overlook injustice. We break the commandment of taking God's name in vain when it is used to justify war, or claim that we make peace by going to war, or use God to justify our prejudices, e.g., ‘God hates………’; ‘God says……’ I would have had a problem with Jesus had he not expressed anger and had remained silent as do so many leaders in the face of injustice, oppression and other acts of violence.
The ‘new temple’ is made of human beings - open to all and for all. God's people do not need to rely on acts of sacred violence to remain bonded together - the community will be bonded together through service rather than scapegoating violence. The privileged place of God's presence is no longer a building but in Jesus' and our humanity and the humanity of the other. The building serves as a place to symbolise our unity and challenge us in our mission.
Let's be clear that Jesus' anger is not directed only at those who commit injustice but at those who do not see, will not see, refuse to see, stay silent, are not scandalized, saddened, lacking in passion. This anger is directed at those who remain unchanged by their worship. This Gospel shows Jesus in opposition to any person or group that colludes with the idols and powers of the world and hides God’s presence by neglecting the practice of justice. The gospel confronts religion that is mixed up with power, money and authority. Worship that ignores the destruction of life seeks to avoid responsibility for nonviolently standing up against evil is not worship.
The lighthouses are there before us. We must pray for ourselves that we too as individuals and as a nation will deeply understand what Jesus is teaching us through this action. That we will deeply understand it and that we will carry out our lives in the way of Jesus crucified. The way that will bring peace to our hearts and peace to our world. We can close our eyes and ears but we will crash - we lose our humanity.
From our 2018 Lenten Reflection Guide: Embracing Jesus' Practice of Nonviolence
At this the Jews answered and said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’
JOHN 2:18-19
Let us defeat injustice rather than each other
In this week’s Gospel reading we hear about Jesus’ reaction when he enters the temple in Jerusalem and finds the people have turned God’s house into a marketplace. The temple is bustling with the buying and selling of animals used as sacrifices and services by money changers who help people make their purchases.
Known as the cleansing of the temple, Jesus ‘made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, ‘Take these out of here, and stop making my Father's house a marketplace.’
The people, naturally, are appalled by Jesus’ action because buying and selling in the temple had become the norm. They ask Jesus ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus replies that he will destroy the temple and raise it up again.
The Gospel of John concludes, ‘But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.’
Let’s look at the third principle in Dr. King’s six principles of nonviolence: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice not people. Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also victims and are not evil people.
‘Nonviolence liberates the oppressed and the oppressors,’ John Dear wrote in Living Peace: A Spirituality of Contemplation and Action. Jesus took a stand against immoral action in the temple without hate for the people and went on to call for love for everyone. ‘Jesus offered the ultimate teaching on nonviolence: Instead of killing your enemies, love your enemies,’ Dear said.
‘Life continuously reveals to us how deep our own violence lies within us. We will never become perfectly nonviolent because we have been thoroughly socialized into a culture of violence. But we can turn away from violence, seek peace, practice heartfelt compassion toward others, and publicly participate in the world’s nonviolent transformation.’
‘As we make peace with ourselves and welcome the God of peace who lives within us, we will learn to make peace with those around us and with others throughout the world. The challenge is to do both: to pursue peace within and to pursue peace with the whole human race.’
Prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
– Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
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LITURGY NOTES FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT
LITURGY NOTES FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT
Second Sunday of Lent
March 4th 2018
Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we stand.
We pay our respects to them and for their care of the land.
May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.
or
I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,
the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,
and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.
‘Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides
and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love,
and then, for a second time in the history of the world,
man will have discovered fire.’
Teilhard de Chardin
Readings
First Reading Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18
Responsorial Psalm Ps 116:10, 15, 16-17, 18-19
R. (116:9) I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.
Second Reading Romans 8:31b-34
Gospel Mark 9:2-10
Penitential Rite
v You have shown us God's reign and given us a new vision. Jesus, have mercy.
v You have revealed to us the covenant of peace that God has made with us. Christ, have mercy.
v You show us the God of Peace who transforms our minds and hearts to work for peace in the world. Jesus, have mercy.
Opening Prayer
Transforming God,
you are always faithful.
Transform us, give us light and strength
to take up our task in life
and to lighten the burden
of our brothers and sisters.
Prayer over the Gifts
Transforming God,
make us holy as you are holy
and compassionate as you are compassionate.
We now bring bread and wine before you.
May this Eucharist help us
to see beyond appearances
and see him who is our strength and joy
and our way to one another.
Prayer after Communion
Transforming God,
that we have celebrated.
May it lead us out of the darkness of fear
and to commit ourselves more courageously
so that we may respond to you with love
and generous service to all our sisters and brothers
Prayer of the Faithful
Introduction: In the midst of a world filled with fear and anguish, let us pray that we, the Church, will be a sign of hope capable of transforming human existence. The response is: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
or
Brothers and sisters, let us pray for all whose faith or trust is challenged by the demands of daily living, and especially for those whose challenges seem insurmountable.
· For our Church, that leaders and members together may be credible to the world of today by sacrificing power and opportunism for a genuine transformation of persons and structures. In this time of listening. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For people facing the death penalty: may the families of all people who face the death penalty around the world, and especially the families of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran know that the prayers and thoughts are with them to sustain them in this distressing time. In this time of listening. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For the young people in our world who continue to be victims of ‘sacrifice’ at the hands of the merchants of death, greed and abuse of power: may those with authority use their power to prevent these violent action that continue ever so frequently. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For world leaders that they will cease using bellicose language against other nations, especially Iran and North Korea, and work to build greater understanding and harmony through listening to one another and acknowledging legitimate grievances. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For those who live in circumstances that challenge trust in others or in God: those living in war, violence, poverty or any kind of injustice. In this time of listening. In this time of listening. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For those who are cynical, doubtful, despairing; for all whose faith is tentative or shaken. In this time of listening. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For Christian people, that they may discover a vision of the world according to God's plan and have the strength to make the sacrifices to bring this to reality. In this time of listening. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For our world, with all its potential for peace and equity, that people may share the goods of the earth, and that we may give and grant others the right and the opportunity to have a better quality of life. In this time of listening. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For those who suffer the pain of racial discrimination, especially people of the Islamic faith at this time, that our society become more accepting of difference. In this time of listening. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For parents whose children have been sacrificed in the name of war, slavery, greed and prostitution, that they may be consoled by the vision of the transfigured One who is our hope and resurrection. In this time of listening. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
· For the women and men who are imprisoned because they dared speak out for truth and justice, that their actions may encourage others to overcome their fears. In this time of listening. We pray: Let us walk together in the land of the living.
Concluding Prayer: Transforming God, we have listened to your Son, Jesus Christ. Open our hearts so that we might continue to receive your word with tenderness and trust, and cooperate with you in transforming the world. We make this prayer in Jesus' name.
or
Gracious God, you call us to be people of deep faith, especially in the most difficult situations of our lives. Hear the concerns we lay before you, and empower us to place our trust in you, who handed over your only Son on our behalf.
Alternative Prayers of the Faithful adapted from ‘Assisi Pledge for Peace’
- May we proclaim our firm conviction that violence and terrorism are incompatible with the authentic spirit of religion and to doing everything possible to eliminate the root causes of terrorism.
- May we strive to educate people to mutual respect and esteem, in order to help bring about a peaceful coexistence between people of different ethnic groups, cultures, and religions.
- May we commit to fostering the culture of dialogue so that there be an increased understanding and mutual trust between individuals and among peoples.
- May we strive to defend the right of everyone to live a decent life in accordance with their own cultural identity and to form freely a family of their own.
- May we work towards frank and patient dialogue by refusing to consider our differences as an insurmountable barrier but as an opportunity for greater understanding.
- May we commit to forgiving one another for past and present prejudices, and to support one another in a common effort to overcome selfishness, arrogance, hatred and violence, and learn that peace without justice is no true peace.
- May we opt to taking the side of the poor and the helpless, speak out for those who have no voice, and work effectively to change these situations.
- May we take up the cry of those who refuse to be resigned to violence and evil and make every effort to offer the people of our time real hope for justice and peace.
- May encourage every effort to promote friendship between peoples in conviction that it is in the through solidarity and understanding between people that greater harmony is created.
- May we commit to urging our political and religious to make every effort to create and consolidate an environment of solidarity and peace based on justice.
(Adapted from the ‘Assisi Pledge for Peace’ sent by Pope John Paul II to world leaders in February 2002)
Parish Notices
March 1 International Death Penalty Abolition day
March 1 Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day
March 1 International Treaty to Ban landmines comes into force in 1999
March 1 Clean Up Australia Day
March 5 International Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
Further Resources
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Plato (428-348);
Stay where you are. Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right there where you are - in your own homes and in your own families, in your workplaces and in your schools. You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have the eyes to see. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people who are unwanted, unloved, uncared for, just rejected by society - completely forgotten, completely left alone.
Mother Teresa (1910-1997); Founder of the Missionaries Of Charity
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
‘We speak of a situation of extreme poverty in our countries. We must remember, however, that this poverty has a very concrete face:
* the faces of the Indigenous peoples and the Afro-Americans who live in inhuman situations, the poorest of the poor;
* the faces of the campesinos who, in our continent, have no land of their own and are exploited by landowners;
* the faces of the factory workers who are badly paid and face difficulties to organize their unions;
* the faces of the outcasts in our large urban centers. They live in the midst of wealth and have nothing of their own;
* the faces of the unemployed who have lost their jobs because of repeated economic crises and unjust models of economic development;
* the faces of our youth who are frustrated and lost for lack of training and orientation;
* the faces of our children, weakened by poverty even before they are born, suffering from physical and mental deficiencies;
* the faces of the aged, more and more numerous, abandoned by a society that only values those who produce wealth.’
These faces of the poor in the Americas call out for a Transfiguration of our unjust economic and social structures.
Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, retired archbishop of Sao Paulo, Brazil, referring to final document of the Latin American Bishops' Conference Meeting in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979.
We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
Buddha
I count myself as a spiritual sister to those the US government has murdered, and I am angry at my powerlessness.
Karen Kwiatkowski
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
Albert Einstein
It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Albert Einstein
Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.
Anne Louise Germaine de Stael
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
Albert Einstein
What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise.
Barbara Jordan
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
Albert Einstein
If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.
Joanna Macy (1929-)
Frequently people think compassion and love are merely sentimental. No! They are very demanding. If you are going to be compassionate, be prepared for action.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-);
It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.
John Adams
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Leo Tolstoy
If we simply repeat the formulas of the past, our words may have the character of doctrine and dogma but they will not have the character of good news. We may be preaching perfectly orthodox doctrine but it is not the gospel for us today. We must take the idea of good news seriously. If our message does not take the form of good news, it is simply not the Christian gospel.’
Albert Nolan, O.P. in, God in South Africa.
As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness.
Justice William O. Douglas
It matters not
who you love,
where you love,
why you love,
when you love,
or how you love,
It matters only
that You love.
John Lennon
A Prayer for Peace
Blessed are the PEACEMAKERS,
for they shall be known as
the Children of God.
But I say to you that hear,
love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you.
To those who strike you on the cheek,
offer the other also,
and from those who take away your cloak,
do not withhold your coat as well.
Give to everyone who begs from you,
and of those who take away your goods,
do not ask them again.
And as you wish that others would do to you,
so do to them.
From http://www.angelfire.com/md/elanmichaels/christianpeace.html
There is in this world both beauty and the humiliated…and we must strive to be unfaithful neither to the one nor to the other.
Albert Camus
Our goal should not be the benefit of a privileged few, but rather the improvement of the living conditions of all.
Pope John Paul II, Message of Lent 2003
The fundamental starting point for all of Catholic social teaching is the defense of human life and dignity: every human person is created in the image and likeness of God and has an inviolable dignity, value, and worth, regardless of race, gender, class, or other human characteristics.
Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice, A Statement of the Catholic Bishops of the United States
Thomas Merton Peace Prayer
Almighty and merciful God, Creator and ruler of the universe, whose designs are without blemish, whose compassion for the errors of [humans] is inexhaustible, in your will is our peace.
Mercifully hear this prayer which rises to you from the tumult and desperation of a world in which you are forgotten, in which your name is not invoked, your laws are derided and your presence is ignored. Because we do not know you, we have no peace.
From the heart of an eternal silence, you have watched the rise of empires and have seen the smoke of their downfall. You have witnessed the impious fury of ten thousand fratricidal wars, in which great powers have torn whole continents to shreds in the name of peace and justice.
A day of ominous decision has now dawned on this free nation. Save us then from our obsessions! Open our eyes, dissipate our confusions, teach us to understand ourselves and our adversary. Let us never forget that sins against the law of love are punishable by loss of faith, and those without faith stop at no crime to achieve their ends!
Help us to be masters of the weapons that threaten to master us. Help us to use our science for peace and plenty, not for war and destruction. Save us from the compulsion to follow our adversaries in all that we most hate, confirming them in their hatred and suspicion of us. Resolve our inner contradictions, which now grow beyond belief and beyond bearing. They are at once a torment and a blessing: for if you had not left us the light of conscience, we would not have to endure them. Teach us to wait and trust.
Grant light, grant strength and patience to all who work for peace. But grant us above all to see that our ways are not necessarily your ways, that we cannot fully penetrate the mystery of your designs and that the very storm of power now raging on this earth reveals your hidden will and your inscrutable decision.
Grant us to see your face in the lightning of this cosmic storm, O God of holiness, merciful to [all]. Grant us to seek peace where it is truly found. In your will, O God, is our peace.
Amen.
A human person is of more value than the entire world.
Saint John Eudes
There is a growing awareness of the sublime dignity of human persons, who stand above all things and whose rights and duties are universal and inviolable. They ought, therefore, to have ready access to all that is necessary for living a genuinely human life: for example, food, clothing, housing, . . . the right to education, and work . . . ‘ Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, #26
The true child of God has the strength to use the sword, but will not use it, knowing every human is the Image of God.
Gandhi
After the Transfiguration
Grinding up the steep incline,
our calves throbbing,
we talked of problems
and slapped at flies.
Then you touched my shoulder,
said, ‘turn around.’
Behind us floated
surprise mountains
blue on lavender,
water-colored ranges:
a glimpse from God's eyes.
Descending, how could we chat
mundanely of the weather, like deejays?
We wondered if, returning,
James and John had squabbled:
whose turn to fetch the water,
after the waterfall of grace?
After he imagined the shining tents,
did Peter's walls seem narrow,
smell of rancid fish?
Did feet that poised on Tabor
cross the cluttered porch?
After the bleached light,
could eyes adjust to ebbing
grey and shifting shade?
Cradling the secret in their sleep
did they awaken cautiously,
wondering if the mountaintop
would gild again-bringing
that voice, that face?
Kathy Coffey teaches English at the University of Colorado, Denver, and Regis College.
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human can fight, and never stop fighting.
e.e. cummings
When we yield to discouragement it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future.
St Therese of Lisieux
Some things you must always be unable to bear.
Some things you must never stop refusing to bear.
Injustice and outrage and dishonour and shame.
No matter how young you are
or how old you have got.
Not for kudos and not for cash,
your picture in the paper
nor money in the bank, neither.
Just refuse to bear them.
William Faulkner
The challenge is to recognize that the world is about two things: differentiation and communion. The challenge is to seek a unity that celebrates diversity, to unite the particular with the universal, to recognize the need for roots while insisting that the point of roots is to put forth branches. What is intolerable is for differences to become idolatrous. No human being's identity is exhausted by his or her gender, race, ethnic origin, national loyalty, or sexual orientation. All human beings have more in common than they have in conflict, and it is precisely when what they have in conflict seems overriding that what they have in common needs most to be affirmed. James Baldwin described us well: 'Each of us, helplessly and forever, contains the other — male in female, female in male, white in black and black in white. We are part of each other.
William Coffin Sloane, The Heart Is a Little to The Left: Essays on Public Morality
Christians should never think they honor the greater truth they find in Christianity, by ignoring truths found elsewhere.
William Coffin Sloane, A Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches
Too many Christians use the Bible as a drunk does a lamppost — for support rather than for illumination.
William Coffin Sloane, A Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches
Credo — I believe — best translates 'I have given my heart to.' However imperfectly, I have given my heart to the teaching and example of Christ, which, among many other things, informs my understanding of faiths other than Christianity…. To love God by loving my neighbor is an impulse equally at the heart of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It therefore makes eminent sense in today's fractured world for religious people to move from truth-claiming to the function truth plays.
William Coffin Sloane, Credo
Moreover, when we consider how, on a whole range of questions — from the number of sacraments to the ordination of women, pacifism, abortion, and homosexuality — Christians cannot arrive at universal agreement, then we have to be impressed by a divine incomprehensibility so vast that no human being can speak for the Almighty. As St. Paul asks, ‘For who has known the mind of God?’ To learn from one another and to work together towards common goals of justice and peace — this surely is what suffering humanity has every right to expect of believers of all faiths.
William Coffin Sloane, Credo
Globalization of the economy, it is claimed will 'lift all boats.' Today it's becoming clear that it will 'lift all yachts.' It's not doing much for those on their leaking lift rafts.
William Coffin Sloane, Credo
What we and other nuclear powers are practicing is really nuclear apartheid. A handful of nations have arrogated to themselves the right to build, deploy, and threaten to use nuclear weapons while policing the rest of the world against their production. . . . Nuclear apartheid is utopian and arrogant. It is a recipe for proliferation, a policy of disaster. That is why Kofi Annan repeatedly says, 'Global nuclear disarmament must remain at the top of the UN agenda.' Shouldn't nuclear disarmament also be at the top of the churches' agenda?’
William Coffin Sloane, Credo
I love to see Christians enter the fray on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged, to fight for housing for low-income families, for decent health care for the aging, for fair treatment for minorities, for peace for everyone — provided that they always remember that there are many causes and more than one solution to problems of injustice and war. Most of all, in these times that are neither safe nor sane, I love to see Christians risk maximum fidelity to Jesus Christ when they can expect minimal support from the prevailing culture.
William Coffin Sloane, Credo
God of Names,
old and new.
God of Peoples,
old and new.
God of Promises,
old and new.
We turn away this season:
from all pride that would own you,
from all lies that would fear you,
from all burdens that would blame you.
We turn for you this season:
from our isolation we turn toward others,
from our chaos we turn to inward calm,
from our crosses of shame we turn toward not glory but solidarity.
We hope against hope...
promising, peopling, naming!
Amen.
From Out In Scripture
Reflection on the readings
All the readings today tell is that Jesus reveals to us what God wants. But what will you do with Jesus’ various epiphanies or revelations as we going into Lent? What will you do with them once we realise where they lead? What will we do with the words ‘this is my beloved child’ when we realise they are meant for us? These words that define Lent mean we share, along with Jesus, his chosenness and glory but also rejection and abuse, injustice and death. These words are not just a baptism affirmation but propels us into a way of life that makes God’s Reign visible for others. Some will perceive this as a threat. It is fine to be up on the mountain but going down from the mountain is not for the faint of heart. Perhaps Jesus should have stayed there. Yet he comes back down into the mundane nature of everyday life of misunderstanding, squabbling, disbelieving disciples. He comes down into the religious and political quarrels of the day. He comes down into the jealousy and rivalry that can colour our relationships. He came down into the poverty, injustice and suffering that make up our lives. This is the Jesus who came down the mountain but also was God coming down among us in the incarnation. Jesus came to embrace us out of love. Today’s gospel is another story of Jesus coming down into our brokenness, fear, disappointment, and loss and enter the dark places of the world and the dark places of our lives.
Paul asks: How can we be afraid? ‘If God is for us, who can be against us?’ God came among us through Jesus – became one of us, entered the world we live in - a world that is filled with hatred and violence; a world where people are willing to kill other people, respond to hate with hate, and violence with violence. Jesus was not spared the vilification, abuse, torture and death as many other people are, but we observe how he responded. We need to learn over and over again that he did not respond to that hatred with hatred or violence with violence. He returned love for hate and nonviolence for violence – praying for those who put him to death. This was his way. We have to listen and follow.How can we be afraid of this God? The saintly former archbishop of Recife, Brazil, Helder Camara, once said: ‘Be careful of the way you live, it is the only gospel most people will ever read!’
The gospel story of the transfiguration is about seeing in a new way. Seeing things as they are and how they could be. The Transfiguration is a narrative of hope, because the one who was rich in divinity, made himself poor to be with us. We are called to step outside of our normal boundaries and listen to Jesus….. who speaks to us through suffering men, women and children. What if we would listen more? In the midst of war and violence, we are called to see the presence of God and the invitation to peace. Abraham learned that God was a God of peace and not of sacrifice. Yet we see young people sacrificed over and over again in places in many places of the world as they are forced to fight battles they have nothing to do. Over and over again we see young people die in schools and shopping centres at the hands of deranged gunmen who have been enabled by ever crazier merchants in weapons. How much we wish that people would come to this conclusion as the crazy call to war against Iran or Russia or Syria or Iraq or North Korea is being ramped up again. In all these places, people just want to live in peace and security. There are more peace-mongers than war-mongers! The vision of Abraham, the standing with Jesus on the mountain could be a way of learning that war and injustice, poverty and hunger are not inevitable.
The Genesis story is about the end of human sacrifice – anything that diminishes the image of God in another. Killing [‘human sacrifice’], whether in war or in refugee detention centres or capital punishment, has no sanction and no place in our religion. This connects with the covenant of peace God made with all creation in the Noah story. It has broad implications for our peace and justice making. God wants us to dedicate ourselves towards life – all life and wellbeing. Abraham saw that violence is not God’s way, but the blood of many young people continues to be offered to God in war by people who have never served in conflict or are merely obsessed with greed and power, or drunk on patriotism. That ’human sacrifice’ continues to be offered in the use of sex slaves, human trafficking, child labour, sweat shops and detention of asylum seekers.
Like the story in Genesis today, it is the male who makes the decision for human sacrifice. Where was Isaac’s mother, Sarah? Was Isaac not her son, too? We can imagine what she felt? How many women have had their eyes opened to the lies, deceit, waste, the evil sacrifice of humanity to war in the form of their children, husbands, fathers and brothers. When God’s angel stayed Abraham’s hand, it said ‘Enough!’ Abraham's experience was transfiguration - a new way of understanding God. This is a story for all Christians, Jews, Muslims, and people of all other faiths. ‘Enough!’ After 12 years in Iraq, 100’s of billions of dollars that belongs to the poor and 100’s of 1000s of innocent men, women and children dead. Some places like Fallujah were so contaminated by depleted uranium that makes it virtually impossible to give birth to a baby without serious defects if it survives childbirth. Fallujah has come into the news again with the senate appointment of former General Jim Molan, who served there. An ecological crisis has been left in the country. A refugee crisis has been left there and in Syria and Libya. The voice of God today rings out: ‘listen to him’. ‘Put away the sword’. ‘Don't return evil for evil. Return good for evil’.
The Transfiguration is a sign of hope. We have transfiguration moments in our lives. It is possible to see things differently and thus act differently. Jesus saw things that others were unaware of. He noticed the people like the poor widow who gave all she had in the giving all she had; noticed Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree and called him to come down; he felt the woman’s touch who reached out to him in a great crowd hoping to be healed. Jesus seemed to see things from an upside-down world. He dissuaded his disciples from dismissing little children, considered unimportant, who climbed all over him. Jesus noticed. He paid attention to things and to nature. In all this he was able to see the presence of God. As he was able to see with the eyes of love, we are called to follow as we come down the mountain. It is possible to see God in others, to recognise their sacredness and dignity. It means making the effort to connect with them. It is possible that we can live together in our diversity: let go of racism; let go of hatred for homosexuals; let go of greed, power and the need to be in control; to let go of violence in word and action; to let go of fear that leads to paralysis and inaction; to let go of the mistrust that prevent conflict and problem resolution – all this because we have been to the ‘mountain’ and come down again knowing that God is in all things, all people, that we are sisters and brothers.
Jesus will not and cannot reject us. His coming down the mountain is to remind us that we do not have to hide the hard and difficult parts of our lives from God. The hope is that Lent will be a time of trusting in God’s mercy revealed through the one who came down the mountain, who became flesh for us, who entered the dark places of our world and seeks out the dark places in our lives to bring them to light, which makes trust and courage possible. For no other reason was Jesus born, lived, died and was raised again, except that we might know that God is unrelentingly and indefatigably for us!
The Gospel today is not just retelling what happened to Jesus but shows us what is involved and demanded whenever and wherever we recognize that Jesus is the Messiah. As Jesus gradually opened the eyes of the blind man at Bethsaida, he also reveals to us the nature and implications of his ‘messiahship.’ What we need to keep in mind, is that which makes it do-able - the realisation that we are not alone in this.
As mentioned earlier, I mentioned earlier Paul tells us, ‘though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness’ (Phil. 2:6-7). Jesus could also have stayed on the mountain too but came down into the mundane nature of everyday life where we find the nitty-gritty details of misunderstanding, squabbles, disbelief, self-centredness, religious and political quarrels of the day, jealousies and rivalry that colour our relationships, down into the poverty and pain that make up our world.
We have been exhorted to listen to Jesus. The message remains the same: love one another, i.e., take care of one another, especially the downtrodden. Whenever we give our time for the benefit of another, we are laying down our life. Whenever we take the time to write on behalf of a person who is being oppressed or ill-treated, even though we are unlikely to ever meet that person, we are laying down our life. Whenever we rally or support a living wage or seek to ensure humane treatment of migrants and refugees, we are laying down our life. Abraham learned to hear God’s desires in a new way and saw that God did not want the death of his son. May we come to understand the social implications of the gospel and learn to speak up for justice for all those who are oppressed in any way. Maybe we have come to see that war and injustice, poverty and hunger, do not have to be.
Again, the Transfiguration is a sign of great hope. It is possible to see the presence of God in Jesus. It is possible to see things in a new way and see God in others. It is possible to let go of racism, to let go of an addiction to money, to let go of power and control, to let go of violence, to let go of inaction, to let go of our blindness and selfishness. It is possible to solve international problems without war. It is even possible to let go of the religious experience on the mountain and come down and find God in all things – the whole of creation. It is possible to see the world as a global community and to see all people as our brothers and sisters. These are moments of transfiguration. They are not just about Jesus but about us: listening, seeing, feeling and responding to bring light, love and compassion to others.
A beautiful little girl with Down syndrome, got up from her seat during a papal audience and went toward the Pope. The girl then sat down near him and the Holy Father continued to speak while holding hands with the little girl.
BRINGING THEM HOME: AUSTRALIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
BRINGING THEM HOME: AUSTRALIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
Claude Mostowik MSC, Director MSC Justice and Peace writes:
Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the Australian Government’s apology to the Stolen Generations, when the nation said sorry to make amends and to right past wrongs. The apology was one of 54 recommendations made in the landmark Bringing them Home report, into the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.
Last year, the Australian Human Rights Commission launched a new website to continue educating Australian teachers, students, and the public, about the Bringing them Home report and the Stolen Generations. In addition to a series of curriculum mapped teaching resources, the website features information about the Bringing them Home report and personal stories from members of the Stolen Generations and their families.
In launching the website last year, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar said: “As we know, teaching Indigenous content in schools is particularly important, not just for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who need to see their culture respected and valued in the classroom; but equally for all children to learn the true history of this country.” She continued by paying tribute to members of the Stolen Generations and thanking them for their ongoing strength, including in telling their stories: “It is through telling these stories that our families might begin to heal, and that all Australians might begin to understand how our past is so intimately connected to our future.”
The Bringing them Home website and teaching resources were produced in partnership with Aboriginal Child, Family and Community Care State Secretariat (NSW) or AbSec and guided by a reference group of experts in education, history and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice.
The new website is at https://bth.humanrights.gov.au/
