MAKE DISCIPLES T - compassreview.orgcompassreview.org/pdf/winter08.pdf · told us to ‘make disciples of all the nations’. ... also moral health. ... value of the human person

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THIS ISSUE OF Compass is mainlyabout the challenge of communicatingthe Good News, the opportunities that

we have and the means that we devise for do-ing it. We open on a high note with GeraldO’Collins’ reflection on Pope Benedict’sEaster proclamation in St Peter’s Square to thefaithful there assembled and to the many mil-lions throughout the world who see it on tel-evision. Tony Doherty writes of the task ofproclaiming the Good News in everyday con-texts and reminds us that there are many waysof telling the story of Jesus. Geoffrey Plantexplores the possibility of effective story-tell-ing using contemporary means of communi-cation, including evangelization in cyberspace.Leslee Sniatynskyj clarifies the theme of dis-cipleship-as-a-journey in Luke’s Gospel andActs of the Apostles. Chris Fleming and JohnO’Carroll provide a context for all the preced-ing with their essay on meaning: in the mod-ern desacralised, ‘disenchanted’ world we riskliving with a sense of meaninglessness…theantithesis of the pope’s ecstatic Easter procla-mation in the first article.

It is significant that Jesus did not tell us togo out and make instant converts…rather, hetold us to ‘make disciples of all the nations’.Discipleship is a process, a journey, a verysubtle journey with many twists and turns, ajourney that is very personal and particular toeach individual. Making disciples, likewise,is a very subtle and relational task, more likeeducation as contrasted with teaching pure andsimple.

On the twenty-first of January last PopeBenedict addressed a letter to the faithful ofthe diocese of Rome concerning the urgent taskof educating young people. The letter is a gem,and I recommend that readers download it forthemselves from the Vatican website. To dothis, go to http://www.vatican.va then click on

The Holy See English, then click on BenedictXVI, then click on Letters, then click on 2008,then click on Letter to the Faithful of the Dio-cese of the City of Rome…January 21, 2008.

Benedict writes in this letter of ‘the prob-lem of education’. We have at heart, he notes,the good of the people we love, especially ourchildren, adolescents and young people. Weare concerned about their formation, ‘abouttheir ability to give their lives a direction andto discern good from evil’. We are concernedabout their health, not only physical health butalso moral health.

The task of education, Benedict writes,seems to be becoming more difficult. Somespeak of an ‘educational emergency’. He cau-tions against laying blame on any group, noton the young, nor on the adults—though adultsare strongly tempted to give up. Adults andyoung people have responsibilities that needto be recognized.

The pope rather lays the blame on a pre-vailing atmosphere in the culture, a ‘mind-set’which is potentially corrosive of faith in thevalue of the human person and the meaning oftruth and goodness. This ‘atmosphere’ makesit difficult to pass on ‘something that is validand certain, rules of conduct, credible objec-tives around which to build life itself’.

Benedict invites his brothers and sisters ofRome not to be afraid—none of these diffi-culties, he assures them, is insurmountable.The difficulties, actually, are the other side ofthe coin of the gift of freedom. With freedomcomes responsibilities. Every person is free,every person must make their own options:

Not even the greatest values of the past can besimply inherited; they must be claimed by usand renewed through an often anguishing per-sonal option.Today, Benedict goes on, ‘the foundations

are shaken’, and as the challenges from the

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surrounding culture make themselves felt, thecall for a good education is coming from par-ents, teachers and society as a whole, whilechildren and young people are ‘asking for itin their inmost being’.

We are blessed because we have our faithin God and Christ to support us and reassureus—‘his love reaches us wherever we are andjust as we are, in our wretchedness and weak-ness, in order to offer us a new possibility ofgood’.

The pope then goes on to list several re-quirements for an authentic education:

• closeness and trust born of love, first ofparents, then of teachers;

• truth that can be a guide in life;• experience of suffering;• and, most delicate of all, finding the right

balance between freedom and discipline.

In striving for this balance teachers must notabdicate their authority in educating the youngto accept the risk of freedom, while being con-stantly attentive in order to help them correctwrong ideas and choices.

Possibly the one requirement in the list thatmight surprise us is ‘the experience of suffer-ing’. Do educators need to burden the youngwith awareness of suffering in our world?

Benedict explains himself:Suffering is alsoM part of the truth of our life.So, by seeking to shield the youngest from everydifficulty and experience of suffering, we riskraising brittle and ungenerous people, despiteour good intentions: indeed, the capacity forloving corresponds to the capacity for suffer-ing and for suffering together. Pope Benedict returns to make further re-

flections on how a sense of responsibility iscrucial in education—responsibility of educa-tors and of those being educated. It is a per-sonal and shared responsibility. Society is notan abstraction, he writes, we are all in it andmust contribute.

The pope concludes his letter with a para-graph from his recent encyclical Spe Salvi, onChristian hope:

The soul of education, as of the whole of life,can only be a dependable hope. Today, our hopeis threatened on many sides and we even riskbecoming, like the ancient pagans, people ‘hav-ing no hope and without God in the world’, asthe Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians ofEphesus (Eph. 2:12). What may be the deepestdifficulty for a true educational endeavour con-sists precisely in this: the fact that at the root ofthe crisis of education lies a crisis of trust inlife.

—Barry Brundell MSC, Editor

My dear young friends!I always remember with great joy the various occasions we spent together inCologne in August 2005. At the end of that unforgettable manifestation of faith andenthusiasm that remains engraved on my spirit and on my heart, I made an appoint-ment with you for the next gathering that will be held in Sydney in 2008. This willbe the XXIII World Youth Day and the theme will be: ‘You will receive powerwhen the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses’ (Acts 1:8).The underlying theme of the spiritual preparation for our meeting in Sydney is theHoly Spirit and mission. In 2006 we focussed our attention on the Holy Spirit asthe Spirit of Truth. Now in 2007 we are seeking a deeper understanding of theSpirit of Love. We will continue our journey towards World Youth Day 2008 byreflecting on the Spirit of Fortitude and Witness that gives us the courage to liveaccording to the Gospel and to proclaim it boldly.

—Message of Benedict XVI to the young people of the world on the occasionof the XXIII World Youth Day, 2008.


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ON EASTER SUNDAY millions ofpeople see on television or hear onthe radio Pope Benedict XVI’s broad-

cast and blessing. In many languages he an-nounces to the city of Rome and to the worldthe glorious news that lies at the heart of Chris-tianity: ‘Jesus is risen from the dead. Alleluia.’

We should recognize, of course, the greatdifferences between our cultural and historicalsetting and that in which, nearly 2,000 yearsago, Peter, the first of the apostles, carried outhis ministry. Yet in what the pope does on EasterSunday there are profound echoes of what hap-pened at the first Pentecost, when Peter an-nounced in Jerusalem the resurrection of Jesusto ‘Parthians, Medes, Elamites; inhabitants ofMesopotomia, Judaea, Cappadocia, Pontus,Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and the dis-tricts of Libya around Cyrene; visitors fromRome, both Jews and proselytes; Cretans andArabs’ (Acts 2:9-11).

On Easter Sunday the television camerascatch the faces of those who have come to Romefrom all over the world to stand in St. Peter’sSquare and hear from Peter’s successor the goodnews that has changed the world: ‘God hasraised up Jesus and of that all of us are wit-nesses’ (Acts 2:32). St. Peter’s witness to theresurrection lives on in a striking way in theEaster proclamation of Pope Benedict XVI.

To be sure, the church was founded on allthe apostles. Together they formed the primarywitnesses to Jesus Christ. They proclaimed theresurrection of the crucified Savior, admittedmembers of all nations into the new commu-nity and guided the early church with apos-tolic authority. But within this college of origi-nal witnesses, Peter had a special role as wit-ness and foundation. To Peter alone were ad-

dressed the words ‘On this rock I will buildmy church’ (Mt 16:18).

Peter would suffer martyrdom in Rome infidelity to his crucified and risen master. Thechurch of Rome in time came to be recognizedas the seat of distinctive authority and respon-sibility among all the Christian churches. Thebishop of Rome was acknowledged to becalled in a special way to do two things: toproclaim the saving truth revealed by Christ,and to maintain the communion of all the lo-cal churches in their common faith.

The distinctive role of leadership assignedto Peter did not isolate him from the otherapostles. Paul, James, John, Barnabas and therest also witnessed authoritatively to the goodnews and maintained unity among thechurches. In the centuries that followed, thespecial responsibility of the bishop of Rometo uphold the truth about Christ and lovinglypreserve Christian unity has always been ex-ercised in collaboration with the college ofbishops.

Other Witnesses

We should also remember the contributions ofall the ‘founding fathers’ and ‘founding moth-ers’ at the origins of Christianity. MaryMagdalene and her companions were key wit-nesses to the resurrection. The appearance ofthe risen Christ to Mary Magdalene (Jn 20:11-18) led early Christian writers to call her ‘theApostle to the Apostles’ and ‘another Eve whoannounced not death but life to the men.’

All four Gospels report how on that firstEaster Sunday faithful women followers ofJesus discovered the tomb of Jesus to be openand empty. In three of the Gospels, one angel

POPE BENEDICT AND PETER’SPROCLAMATION

GERALD O’COLLINS SJ


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(Matthew and Mark) or two (Luke) explain tothem why the body of Jesus is missing: ‘Hehas been raised’ (Matthew and Mark); ‘Whydo you seek the living among the dead?’(Luke). We must never lose sight of the defin-ing role played by all those individuals recalledby name in the Gospels. They were witnessesto the life, death and resurrection of Jesus(Mary Magdalene, Susanna, Joanna and otherwomen) or at least to part of that story(Bartimaeus, Zacchaeus, Simon of Cyrene andother men).

Similarly, today all the baptized bear theresponsibility of sharing with others the goodnews about their crucified and risen Lord andkeeping Christians united in their commonfaith. Luke’s Gospel expresses this missiongiven to all the faithful by recounting not onlythe sending of the Twelve (Lk 9:1-6) but alsothe sending of a much larger group of 70 dis-ciples (Lk 10:1-12). A wider mission for alldisciples surrounds a core mission of Chris-tian leaders.

Peter’s Position and Ministry

As for Peter and his role at the birth of Chris-tianity, the Acts of the Apostles portrays hisdistinctive ministry as the official witness toChrist’s resurrection from the dead. Beyondquestion, he had other responsibilities. Heplayed a decisive role in admitting Gentilesinto the Christian community (Acts 10:1-11:18). Later Paul, Barnabas and James joinedhim at the Council of Jerusalem to decide au-thoritatively against imposing on Gentile con-verts the obligation to observe the whole ofthe Jewish law (Acts 15:1-29). Peter and Johnlaid hands on believers to bring them the giftof the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17). Peter workedmiracles by healing the sick (Acts 3:1-11; 5:15-16) and even bringing a dead woman back tolife (Acts 9:32-43). The first half of Actspresents various dimensions of the leadershiprole that Peter exercised in the life of the earlychurch. Central was his pre-eminence amongall the official witnesses to the resurrection of

Jesus.Of course, the position and ministry of

Simon Peter in the emerging church did notrest only on the risen Lord’s appearance to him.As normally happens in God’s dealings withhuman beings, other factors were involved. Weshould not isolate the encounter with the risenJesus from earlier aspects of Peter’s historyand vocation. Even before Jesus’ death andresurrection, Peter was already being preparedfor his mission.

Peter is always mentioned first among theTwelve (e.g., Mk 3:16) and among the smallercircle of three (Peter, James and John). Jesustakes those three with him on such special oc-casions as the transfiguration and the agonyin the garden. The Gospels also tell us thatJesus gave Simon the new name Cephas orPeter (‘rock’). Matthew associates this nam-ing with an episode at Caesarea Philippi, wherePeter spoke for the others in confessing Jesusto be the long-awaited Messiah, or delivererof his people. Jesus reacted by promising tomake Simon Peter the foundation on which thenew community of God would be built (Mt16:13-19). The promise Jesus made inCaesarea Philippi was matched by the risenChrist’s commission to Peter: ‘Feed my lambsand sheep’ (Jn 21:15-17). That charge to shep-herd the Lord’s flock fulfilled the promise ofan authoritative leadership role made duringhis ministry.

Undoubtedly, there is much relevant datato recall about Peter, his training and his min-istry. But the heart of the matter is the tradi-tion about his having seen the Lord after the

Gerald O’Collins,S.J., an Australiantheologian, formerlyProfessor ofSystematic Theologyat the GregorianUniversity, Rome, isresearch professor atSt. Mary’s UniversityCollege, Twickenham,England.


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resurrection and his major role in announcingto the world the good news of Easter.

Among the various roles exercised by thebishop of Rome, the most fundamental is toproclaim the Lord’s resurrection. This procla-mation shapes and flows into the pope’s wholecommission to teach the church and the world.This mission involves applying the Eastermessage to issues of current life. Seen in theseterms, the pope’s central vocation is to preachthe risen Lord and to explain the implicationsof the resurrection not only for the church butfor all human beings. That vocation is beauti-fully expressed, year by year, in the Easterbroadcast from St. Peter’s Square.

The Faith of Christians

In recent years ecumenical contacts betweenCatholics and other Christians have under-scored the realization that authentic unity canbe realized only in confessing the truth of faith.How best can we express that unity and truth?The essential truth of Christian faith could beformulated by saying, ‘The crucified Son ofGod is risen from the dead to give us his HolySpirit.’ The paschal mystery says it all. It isthe basic truth to be maintained and passed onby all Christians. They have been baptized intoChrist’s death and resurrection (Rom 6:3-4)to live together through the power of the HolySpirit as the new Easter people of God.

What more could we expect from thebishop of Rome than that, like Peter, hestrengthen the whole church’s faith in Christ’sresurrection? How could he better serve theunity of an Easter people than by proclaiminginsistently the event that brought the churchinto being: the resurrection of the crucifiedJesus? The pope must also lead the church withthe loving authority of a chief pastor and be amodel for all worshipers in celebrating thesacraments. But his great task for all the worldis to announce that Christ is risen. Nothing canor should ever count against the power and

joyfulness of that unique message.One picture of St. Peter has fixed itself

forever in my mind: a huge 17th-century paint-ing of Peter’s martyrdom. The painting hadbeen taken down from a church and broughtfor restoration to the studio of an Italian friendof mine. It shows two soldiers using ropes topull Peter upside down onto a cross. The saintlooks stiff and old, but his face is calm andpeaceful. Two cheerful little angels watch thescene as Peter faces death and prepares to meethis master in glory.

Classical painters aimed to express the fi-nal character and significance of those theyportrayed. They wanted to lead us to the real-ity and identity of the persons they had cho-sen to represent. That old painting of Peter inmy friend’s studio in Rome catches the apos-tle’s courage in the face of death. Originallymartyr (a Greek word) meant ‘witness.’ Peterthe great witness became Peter the martyr. Hecould face martyrdom with such serenity be-cause he had faithfully witnessed to his mas-ter’s victory over death. He knew that Jesushad died but was now alive forever. In thatresurrection Peter found his destiny and finalidentity.

When he was elected pope, Benedict XVIfound his own final destiny and identity. A se-rene figure in white, he faithfully preaches theEaster faith that holds us all together. When Isee him proclaiming the resurrection, he re-minds me of another figure also dressed in awhite robe: the angelic messenger sitting inthe empty tomb of Jesus and announcing toMary Magdalene and her companions: ‘He hasbeen raised’ (Mk 16:5-6).

In a few weeks Pope Benedict XVI will ar-rive in Australia. May he continue to fulfill fruit-fully his vocation as Peter’s successor by an-nouncing to the whole world the unique goodnews that is Christ’s resurrection from the dead.We could desire nothing greater for BenedictXVI than that he continue to show himself tobe an Easter pope for an Easter people.

Adapted with permission from the article originally published inAmerica 2008, 198, 10, 11-14.

POPE BENEDICT AND PETER’S PROCLAMATION


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ENGLISH WRITER and social com-mentator Clifford Longley claims thatin the United Kingdom today it can no

longer be assumed that the average personunder thirty-five can put three facts togetherabout the Christian story. If young Australianadults were questioned would the same state-ment be true? Probably not. But it would makean interesting study for some budding socialscientist.

Perhaps it is an age thing. When figures ofthe world’s present population who call them-selves Christian are totalled, the number wouldapproach two billion. The question ‘Who isJesus?’ is alive and well. Simply ask MelGibson or Dan Brown. They have the figuresto prove it.

Whatever about the present, it is beyondargument that many millions throughout thecenturies have venerated the name of Jesus.‘But few have understood him and fewer stillhave tried to put into practice what he wantedto see done,’ Albert Nolan asserts in his fa-mous book Jesus Before Christianity. Nolanadds by way of further explanation:

His words have been twisted and turned to meaneverything, anything and nothing. His name hasbeen used and abused to justify crimes, tofrighten children and to inspire men and womento heroic foolishness.The story of Jesus has been told and retold

over a vast number of generations. And thereare as many ways to tell the story as there arepeople and cultures. Does it matter how it istold? Many believe that it does. The mannerof the telling is crucial.

For a start, the particular significance ofJesus is expressed in many ways in the gos-pels themselves. Just think of some of the ti-

tles popularly given him in the early church:the Son of God, Messiah and Lord, the Wordmade flesh, the Light of the World, the Lambof God, the Bread of Life, and other rich termsof great consequence. Each of the gospel writ-ers themselves displays interesting variationson the answer to this intriguing question.

And then there are the creeds. In the Apos-tles Creed the believing community expressesfaith in ‘Jesus Christ, his only Son, Our Lord,who was conceived by the power of the HolySpirit and born of the Virgin Mary’ and goeson to describe Jesus as the decisive revelationof God. Marcus Borg, a contemporary scrip-ture scholar, expresses it in these terms:

Jesus reveals, discloses, what can be seen ofGod in human life and what a life filled withGod looks like.How we see God, in other words, is deter-

mined in great part by how we see Jesus. Andhow we see Jesus is more often than not shapedby the manner in which we tell his story. Itmight be a useful exercise for the reader toreflect upon (as far as this is possible) thosefirst memories of being introduced to this fun-damental story of Christian faith.

It is not an easy exercise. Fleeting wispsof memory of childhood prayers, perhaps col-oured prints in books or framed pictures, earlyexperience of entering places of worship. Forthose in the Roman Catholic tradition, thememory of rote learning of questions and an-swers, may still linger in the sub-conscious.But these were different days. It is not goingtoo far to say it was an entirely different cul-ture only a few short generations ago—a verydifferent population from that to whichClifford Longley referred.

Today, those who take on the responsibil-

THE MANY WAYS OF TELLINGTHE STORY OF JESUS

TONY DOHERTY


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ity of bringing the gospel to others—parents,teachers, ministers of the gospel—face an en-tirely different challenge.

To state the blindingly obvious, the quietmessage of the gospel makes a claim on ourattention in an entirely different context today.The context of the information explosion isso pervasive that we can scarcely understandits impact upon us. Unlimited information iscalled up at the stroke of a computer key—whether the person lives in outback Australiaor works in a glass pyramid in down-townManhattan. Advertising budgets that would dojustice as the GNP of a small country competefor our attention just to have us buy their par-ticular brand of soft drink. Satellite televisionflashes through space in order to place us com-fortably in the grandstands of sporting eventsfeaturing our favourite team competing on theopposite side of the globe. Global entertain-ment events command audiences of countlessmillions for glitzy, Rock concerts. Somehowin this frantic stream of flashy messages, thegentle words ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’may require some different treatment.

And yet there are those who risk swimmingin these turbulent waters. Actor and filmmakerMel Gibson provides a dramatic example ofre-telling the story today. Gibson’s film ThePassion of the Christ presented a vivid andviolent account of Jesus’ death on the cross.Interestingly it opens with a verse from theJewish prophet Isaiah: ‘He was wounded forour transgressions, crushed for our iniquities:by his wounds we are healed.’ (Is 53.5)

These words set the scene for the movie.Gibson’s intention is to tell the story of thedying saviour who died for our sins—employ-ing all the immensely powerful tools of themodern filmmaker.

There are those who applaud the efforts oftelling the story of the passion. What betterway is there to reach a world-wide audiencethan using all of the power and drama of con-temporary cinema. The gloomy figures citedby Clifford Longley provide sufficient reason.

Other critics are not so sure. They express

serious disquiet about a presentation markedby the naked violence and seemingly endlessscourging which marked its telling. Next to theblatant gore and scenes of torture of the film,the gospel accounts appear almost modest. Ifwe believe that the way we see God is deter-mined in great part by how we see Jesus, suchcritics argue, then by implication the merci-lessly violent depiction of the death of Jesusimplies a God who is demanding some formof retribution ‘for our sins’. Yes, it might leaveus sinners more contrite, but at the risk of dis-torting a more fundamental and crucial imageof a God who has gifted us all with life andinto whose embrace we will one day return.Recall the myriad of other rich biblical im-ages such as the tender story of the ProdigalSon, or a mother hen guarding her chicks. Arethese revelations of a gentle God consistentwith one who would demand this form ofbloody justice?

Another contemporary example of tellingthe story of Jesus was attempted by best-sell-ing author Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code.Drawing upon a wide range of comparativelyrecent and fascinating research into accountsof Jesus’ life uncovered in documents called‘pseudo gospels’ (those outside the canon ofsacred scripture), Brown stumbled upon astory which touched the imagination of read-ers of every age and seems to have brokenevery publishing record for fiction in the mod-ern age.

Brown suggests a Jesus whose humanity hasbeen concealed by Catholic Church authoritieswho for their own devious reasons of power

Fr Tony Doherty is aformer Director of AdultEducation in theArchdiocese of Sydney,and is currently ParishPriest of Rose Bay -Dover Heights.

MANY WAYS OF TELLING THE STORY


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wanted to emphasise his divinity. The immensepopularity of the tale caught everyone by sur-prise, not excluding the author himself.

If Gibson placed his story-telling empha-sis on Jesus dying for our sins, Brown puts hisweight on the humanity of Jesus—in a reac-tion to the Catholic Church’s intent on guard-ing his divinity. Brown, perhaps unwittingly,becomes caught up in the debates of the firstthree centuries of church history—a debate thatcame to some sort of resolution in the Councilof Nicea. Bishops and theologians had beensearching for the acceptable balance betweenthe divinity and the humanity of Christ in themidst of opinions held with passion and oftenviolence.

This tradition of the great Christian creedsreduces this mystery of mysteries, at least inthe popular mind, to a simple equation—trueGod and true man. Or to use the exact lan-guage of the 5th century Council of Chalcedon,‘perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity’.

But perhaps the human imagination, grap-pling with faith, requires more. Such mysterycalls for all the skills of the poet, the story-teller, the evangelist ‘if language is not to bedenied its indissoluble link with apprehension’.

‘The words are easy to say’, remarksCistercian writer Michael Casey, ‘yet they con-tain great mystery. The humanity and divinitydo not subsist side by side and independent

like chalk and cheese’. This fundamental prin-ciple he refers to as ‘an inconceivable con-junction’ which in turn baffles and enchantsthose who search to humbly depth its mystery.

This belief of ours is a belief about divineand human love. The mystery behind the ques-tion ‘Who is Jesus’ explores how these twoare interwoven, how the human mediates thedivine and how the divine suffuses the human.Each is not what it at first seems—each is morethan it seems.

This article is about the importance of sto-ries. Not simply the one single story that canlure us into a sense of false certainty and closeoff the search. Our tradition is an endless re-source of many stories which are designed tofeed our imagination and nourish our faith.Remember there are four gospels, not simplyone—each containing many images of God forthose who wish to contemplate them. The Jew-ish scriptures which fed the imagination andthe faith of Jesus are the wellspring of manymore.

This article wishes to make the point thatcontemporary life stories interact with inher-ited stories; and that the hearing of inheritedstories uncovers the depth of present experi-ence of the gracious mystery we call our God.Most of all it is about the story of Jesus andthe many ways the ancient tradition of our faithhas found of telling it.

Fr Tony Doherty has recently published a series of books entitled Friendly guidesto the Catholic Tradition designed for three groups of readers:

• So, You’re Working for the Catholic Church—for staff in Catholic institu-tions such as Hospitals, Schools and Social Welfare organisations;• So, You’re Sending your Child to a Catholic School—for parents ofschool children; (to be published in August 2008), and• So, You’re Searching to Refresh Your Faith—as a parish resource for pre-marriage couples, candidates in RCIA programmes and general adult faitheducation.

The Publisher is John Garratt Publications, Melbourne 32 Glenvale Crescent,Mulgrave 3170


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THE FOLLOWING letter was written in1970 to the editor of The Times by MrsValerie Eliot on the occasion of the

death of Bertrand Russell at the age of 97. MrsEliot’s husband, the famous Anglo-Americanpoet, had died some five years earlier in 1965.

Sir, My husband, T.S. Eliot, loved to recounthow late one evening he stopped a taxi. As hegot in, the driver said: ‘You’re T.S. Eliot’. Whenasked how he knew, he replied: ‘Ah, I’ve gotan eye for a celebrity. Only the other evening Ipicked up Bertrand Russell, and I said to him:‘Well, Lord Russell, what’s it all about’, and,do you know, he couldn’t tell me.’

Yours faithfully,Valerie Eliot1

Do we find ourselves smiling at the pre-dicament of one of the great philosophers andmathematicians of the twentieth century, seem-ingly perplexed and floundering when askedthe most simple yet profound question a hu-man being can pose? Or are we more amusedat the casual impudence of a taxi driver whoexpected a brief and concise answer while dis-pensing the change? In as few words as possi-ble, he seems to be saying, give me a capsuleanswer to the meaning of life!

‘What’s it all about’ is a question thatrefuses to go away. As Stephen Hawking ob-serves in A Brief History of Time, ‘We findourselves in a bewildering world. We want tomake sense of what we see around us and toask: What is the nature of the universe? Whatis our place in it and where did it and we comefrom? Why is it the way it is?’2 The first wordsthat Jesus speaks in the Gospel of St John areaddressed to two of John the Baptist’s disci-ples: ‘What do you seek?’

Questions such as these have been the tra-ditional provenance of religion, but the mate-

rialist worldview espoused by the so-called‘new atheists’—people such as RichardDawkins, Christopher Hitchens, DanielDennett and Sam Harris—asserts that the‘modern scientific method is the only way forreasonable, truth-seeking people to gainknowledge of the real world.’ Ironically, sucha claim itself demands an act of faith. To thenew atheists we could put this question: ‘Whatare the scientific experiments that lead you toconclude that science alone can be trusted tolead you to truth?’ We could also ask a furtherquestion, ‘Can you deny that there are avenuesother than scientific method by which you ex-perience, understand and know the world youinhabit?’3 As human beings we have ideas andexperiences that we cannot explainrationally.4 The 17th century physicist, math-ematician and theologian Blaise Pascal onceobserved, ‘The heart has its reasons which areunknown to reason.’5

Problem and Mystery: Logos and Mythos

The French philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) makes a useful distinction between‘problem’ and ‘mystery’. ‘Whenever a prob-lem is found,’ Marcel wrote, ‘I am workingupon data placed before me...’.6 Problems canbe subjected to empirical verification and sci-entific testing. A mechanic repairing an engine,a computer programmer tracking down an er-ror in the system, a student grappling with amathematical equation, a scientist studying theAIDS virus, a person challenged by a cross-word puzzle, or someone absorbed in a who-dunit, are all immersed in a ‘problem’. Timeand experience will eventually yield an answerto these kinds of problems. They may totally

EVANGELIZATION 2008Telling the Story in Cyberspace

GEOFFREY PLANT


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absorb us, at least for a while, but we are ca-pable of divorcing ourselves from them andgetting on with something else.7 The ancientGreeks called this kind of logical, pragmaticand scientific mode of thought logos.8

‘Mystery’, as Marcel defines the term, de-scribes those problems that engage us at a moreprofound level of our being. A mystery is aproblem that encroaches upon and invades itsown data.9 It involves those questions in whichwe ourselves are immersed, questions that wecannot put to one side. Mystery includes whatDarryl Reanney calls ‘the bruising questionsthat trouble this generation as they have trou-bled all that went before it: ‘Who am I? Wheredid I come from? What happens when I die?Is there a God?’’10 We are actors, not detachedspectators, in the theatre of mystery. The an-swers to ‘mystery’ are not ‘in the back of thebook.’ They may be rationally explained, butunlike ‘problem’ they are not amenable to sci-entific proof or empirical verification.

If we are to communicate the Good Newsto our contemporaries we must discover howto navigate our way through the realm of mys-tery. Traditionally, we have done it throughmyth—mythos in Greek—a word that has thesame etymological root as ‘mystery’. Sadly,we use the word ‘myth’ today in a pejorativesense; it is a story that may sound plausible atfirst hearing, but it doesn’t stand up to closerscrutiny. Prior to the last federal election, forexample, the Howard Government ran anumber of advertisements about the workplacerelations system. It is a ‘myth’, the advertise-ment told us, that ‘nowadays, employers cando practically anything they like.’ The ‘fact’of the matter is ‘No, they can’t.’11 Myth in thissense is synonymous with ‘misinformation’ or‘falsehood’.

Bill Moyers describes mythology as ‘aninterior road map of experience, drawn bypeople who have traveled it.’12 It ‘points be-yond history to what is timeless in human ex-istence, helping us to get beyond the chaoticflux of random events, and glimpse the coreof reality.’13 Myths may or may not be based

on historical events. The truth of these epicstories, however, lies beneath the narrativelevel and we will be unduly distracted if webecome overly preoccupied with their histo-ricity. Being children of the Enlightenment wehave developed a scientific view of history;‘we are concerned with what actually hap-pened’ rather than what an event had meant.

The Journey of the Hero. Our Own StoryWrit Large!

The American writer Joseph Campbell haswritten extensively on the subject of myth. Oneof his most popular works is entitled The HeroWith a Thousand Faces. The significance ofthe title is the realisation that the heroic figurein all the great stories of humanity embarksupon what is essentially the same journey ofdiscovery. Whether the story be Homer’s Illiador Odyssey, or the story of King Arthur inCamelot, Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest,Wyatt Earp in the American West, Tarzan inthe jungles of Africa, Luke Skywalker inworlds yet to be discovered, or even Bilbo theHobbit deep in the Lonely Mountain—we areessentially hearing the same story. Only the‘face’ of the hero and the setting of the storychange. And ultimately, the story of the herois our own story writ large! The great storiesof humanity ‘carry the keys that open the wholerealm of the desired and feared adventure ofthe discovery of the self.’14

Story and myth give us our identity. ‘Whena nation is in trouble, it often returns to its tra-ditional stories to look for direction and heal-

Geoffrey Plant is pastorof St Luke’s Parish,Revesby, NSW. He maybe contacted [email protected]


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ing, to regain a sense of what made it great inthe past and what will nurture it into thefuture…Individuals, families, and communi-ties also have their identifying stories that linkthem to who they are, to their culture…A re-gion or a nation has its story concretized inshrine, statue, museum. A person without astory is a person with amnesia. A country with-out its story has ceased to exist. A humanitywithout its story has lost its soul.’15

All of us, consciously or otherwise, adopta narrative framework (or story) to make senseof the world around us. As M. Scott Peck ob-serves, we all have ‘an explicit or implicit setof ideas and beliefs as to the essential natureof the world.16 Our view of reality ‘is like amap with which to negotiate the terrain of life.If the map is true and accurate, we will gener-ally know where we are…If the map is falseand inaccurate, we generally will be lost.’17

Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of theUnited Hebrew Congregations of the Com-monwealth, tells of an interesting phenomenonhe read about in James Surowiecki’s The Wis-dom of Crowds. The American naturalistWilliam Beebe came across a strange sight inthe jungle of Guyana. ‘A group of army antswas moving in a huge circle. The ants wentround and round in the same circle for twodays until most of them dropped dead. Thereason is that when a group of army ants isseparated from its colony, it obeys a simplerule: follow the ant in front of you. The trou-ble is that if the ant in front of you is lost, sowill you be.’ By contrast Rabbi Sacks reflectedupon a wonderful tutor he has recently ac-quired—a satellite navigation system. ‘Whathappens is this. Once the machine has workedout the route, a polite lady’s voice tells yousomething along the lines of: ‘Keep straightfor 300 yards, then turn right.’ Normally, thiswould suffice. But as anyone who has shareda journey with a Jewish driver knows, the re-sponse is likely to be: ‘What does she know?I’ve been driving this car for 20 years. I knowthe neighbourhood like I know my own mother.Anyone knows that in 300 yards, you turn left.’

What happens then? Well, ‘it goes silent for afew moments…It then sends up a signal: ‘Re-calculating the route.’ Seconds later it providesyou with a new set of instructions, based onwherever you have landed up as a result ofgoing left when you should have gone right.’18

Not a bad metaphor for evangelization!Evangelization is about telling the story,

about sharing the narrative framework thatgives our lives a sense of meaning and pur-pose. As Christopher Booker observes, ‘At anygiven moment, all over the world, hundredsof millions of people will be engaged in whatis one of the most familiar of all forms of hu-man activity. In one way or another they willhave their attention focused on one of thosestrange sequences of mental images which wecall a story.’ Stories are far and away one ofthe most important features of our everydayexistence. ‘We spend a phenomenal amountof our lives following stories: telling them; lis-tening to them; reading them; watching thembeing acted out on the television screen or infilms or on a stage.’19

Evangelists must therefore be effective sto-rytellers. Patrick Dodson, an Australian Abo-riginal leader who had been thoroughly trainedin European thought patterns tells this storyagainst himself. He was once addressing anAboriginal community and one of the elderssat on the ground beside him. After a whilethe elder became agitated and started con-stantly interrupting him with the advice, ‘Talkin pictures, talk in pictures.’ Bishop GeoffreyRobinson makes the observation that muchChristian preaching on Sundays would vastlyimprove if preachers paid heed to the adviceof this Aboriginal elder rather than speak inabstract ideas. 20

Telecommunications Revolution: A NewSet of Challenges

Talking in pictures has been a perennial chal-lenge for preachers. The telecommunicationsrevolution now offers evangelists a totally newset of challenges but also a bewildering range

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of opportunities. According to a survey re-leased on 18 March, 2008, by Nielsen Online,Australians now spend more time online thanwatching television. We spend 13.3 hours perweek watching television, and 13.7 hoursonline. On average, Australians are spending84.4 hours per week across a range of mediaand leisure activities, up from 71.4 hours inthe previous 12 months. This is a significantportion of our spare time considering that theaverage Australian is only awake for around112 hours per week. The internet participa-tion rate in Australia now stands at 80 per cent,well above the global participation rate of 20per cent.21 More Australians than ever beforeare accessing the internet, but fewer Catholicsare attending Mass regularly. Last year theAustralian Catholic Bishops Conference re-leased the results of a research project onCatholics who have stopped attending Mass.Weekly Mass attendance has fallen from anestimated 864,000 in 1996 to 765,000, or 15.3per cent of the Australian Catholic population,in 2001.22

What implications do those figures havefor evangelization? How can the church par-ticipate in the media marketplace and how canthe media be used as a means of reaching outto the large percentage of Australian Catho-lics who no longer attend Mass regularly? Therecently-released pastoral plan for the Arch-diocese of Sydney lists Evangelization andSpiritual Renewal as its first priority, and itcommissions the ‘Office for Evangelization,in partnership with Catholic Communicationsand the chancery, to develop a website pro-viding information relating to evangelizationby June 2009.’ Catholic Communications isalso charged with the responsibility of devel-oping ‘a programme for the utilisation of newcommunication technologies to enhance thedissemination of Catholic teaching by Decem-ber 2008.’23 The Archdiocese also plans to usethe internet as a means of tapping into the en-thusiasm generated by World Youth Day inSydney next July.

Roy Greenslade, professor of journalism at

London’s City University, believes that news-papers are dying in the United States, and thedeath knell is also sounding for newsprint inBritain and across the rest of Europe. Sales ofbig city regional papers in the US and Britainare in freefall. As a journalist he is saddened,but as an ‘unashamed digital revolutionary’ hecan see that we are now ‘in the process of mov-ing from one news platform to another. Thestagecoach is giving way to the train.’24 Thistrend away from print media should lead to anexamination of the effectiveness of diocesannewspapers, particularly in light of the successof internet services such as CathNews, launchedin 1997. CathNews is a daily news service withprayer, meditation and Catholic website re-views. It is the most visited Catholic website inAustralia, providing a mix of news and prayerupdated daily, which is also available free ofcharge by email. As of February 2008, therewere more than 15,000 email subscribers andalmost 9000 visits to the site eachday.25 Religious periodicals such as The Tablet,America, National Catholic Reporter, andCompass are available online at a fraction ofthe cost of hardcopy subscriptions.

Evangelization in Cyberspace

The Church has already launched intocyberspace to proclaim the gospel. Most dio-ceses, religious orders, church agencies,Catholic education offices and a growingnumber of parishes have already harnessed theinternet for the task of evangelization, andmany of them have impressive websites. TheArchdiocese of Brisbane, for example, has justsubstantially remodeled its website, and it isan impressive introduction to all sorts ofChurch activities including evangelisation,education, information, everyday prayer andspiritual growth, communication and organi-sation.26 And then there are blogs. Check out,for example, Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s blog -a professional but personal sharing of the Arch-bishop of Boston’s reflections and experi-ences.27 On the local scene, a number of priests


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have a Facebook profile. See, for example,Bishop Julian Porteous’s profile (althoughyou’ll have to sign up with Facebook to con-nect with the bishop through this medium).28

Bishop Peter Ingham of Wollongong presentedhis Lenten Pastoral Message on YouTube,29

and the Australian Catholic Bishops recentlyissued a Pastoral Letter on Internet Safety,accompanied for the first time by an introduc-tory video, presented by Bishop Ingham andposted on YouTube.30 This Pastoral Letter ac-knowledges that the newest phenomenon tosweep the Internet is known as social network-ing. ‘Young people, in particular have flockedto these sites, such as Facebook and MySpace,which are seen as being the electronic equiva-lent to hanging out with your friends. Simplyby creating a profile on one of these sites, youcan share all manner of information with thosepeople who you nominate as one of your so-cial networking ‘friends’. This can includephotos, profiles of your likes and dislikes, aswell as messages, music etc. The Church inAustralia is helping young people to engagein faith-based social networking with the emer-gence of a number of such sites.’31

In the musical comedy My Fair Lady, ElizaDoolittle is fed up with elocution lessons andsings, ‘Words! Words! Words! I’m so sick ofwords!’ Well, Eliza, will you settle for a pic-ture, an image, a video clip? Technology nowoffers us new platforms and opportunities toproclaim the Word and reach out to people who

no longer attend church regularly. As pastorof a Sydney parish I have been experimentingover the past four years with Powerpoint (andnow, after a conversion to Apple, Keynote) asan aid in preaching. The use of images andvideo clips offer new opportunities to breakopen the Word. I also make copies of my homi-lies available electronically (and also in hardcopy), and a growing number of people re-ceive a weekly copy via email.

A four-year-old child awoke one nightfrightened, convinced that in the darknessaround there were all kinds of spooks andmonsters. Absolutely terrified, she ran into herparents’ bedroom. Her mother calmed herdown and, taking her by the hand, led her backto her own room where she put on a light,tucked her back into bed, and gently reassuredthe child with these words: ‘You needn’t beafraid, you are not alone here. God is in theroom with you.’ The child replied: ‘I know thatGod is here, but I need someone in this roomwho has some skin!’32 Jesus is the eternal Wordof God become flesh, and in our day we mustwe put electronic ‘skin’ on our proclamationof the Gospel, to incarnate its truth in picture,image and story, and proclaim it throughoutcyberspace with an ever-increasing range ofplatforms, such as websites, podcasts,videocasts, blogs, MySpace, and Facebook.Never before has the church been confrontedwith such opportunities and challenges forevangelization.

1 Kenneth Gregory (ed), The First Cuckoo,(Unwin Paperbacks, 1978), 309.2 Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, (Ban-tam Books, 1988), 181.3 John F. Haught, ‘True Believers: Have the newatheists adopted a faith of their own?’, in America,May 5, 2008, 17.4 Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth,(Canongate, 2005), 2.5 Martin Turnell, (Tr & Ed), Pascal’s Pensées,(Harper & Row, 1962), 95.

6 Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having, (Collins:Fontana Library, 1965), 185.7 cf. Kenneth T. Gallagher, The Philosophy ofGabriel Marcel, (Fordham University Press, 1962),31-2.8 Karen Armstrong, 31.9 Gabriel Marcel, 186.10 Darryl Reanney, Music of the Mind, (Hill ofContent, 1994), vii, viii11 This full page advertisement appeared, for ex-ample, in Melbourne’s Herald Sun, on Friday Au-

REFERENCES

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gust 3, 2007.12 Quoted in Joseph Campbell (with Bill Moyers),The Power of Myth, (Doubleday, 1988), xvi.13 Karen Armstrong, 7.14 Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a ThousandFaces, (Fontana Press, 1993), 8.15 William J. Bausch, Storytelling: Imaginationand Faith, (Twenty-Third Publications, 1984), 33.16 M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled, (Ar-row Books, Reprinted 1999), 200.17 Ibid, 45.18 Jonathan Sacks, ‘The prophets are ourunflappable sat-nav, not the lost car in front,’ TheTimes, February 4, 2006.19 Christopher Booker, The Seven Basic Plots,(Continuum, 2004), 220 Geoffrey Robinson, Confronting Power andSex in the Catholic Church, (John Garratt Publish-ing, 2007), 52.21 http://slicemedia.blogspot.com/2008/04/australians-spend-more-time-online-than.html22 The Research Project can be downloaded as aPDF file from http://www.ppo.catholic.org.au/

researcharts/researcharts.shtml#NatCount23 The Sydney Archdiocesan Pastoral Plan can bedownloaded as a PDF file from the Archdiocesanwebsite: http://www.sydney.catholic.org.au/home.shtml24 Roy Greenslade, ‘Move over: journalists willhave to share their space’, The Sydney MorningHerald, Thursday, May 1, 2008, 13.25 http://www.cathnews.com/26 http://www.bne.catholic.net.au/asp/index.asp27 http://www.cardinalseansblog.org/28 http://www.facebook.com/people/Bishop JulianPorteous/6827734562 9 9 h t t p : / / w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m /results?search_query=Bishop+Peter+Ingham&search_type=3 0 h t t p : / / a u . y o u t u b e . c o m /watch?v=CC7kZbM2WbU31 The Pastoral Letter on Internet Safety can bedownloaded as a PDF file from http://www.acbc.catholic.org.au/bishops/confpres/200804271910.htm32 Slightly adapted from Ronald Rolheiser, Seek-ing Spirituality, (Hodder & Stoughton, 1998), 72.

When the foundations are shaken, however, and essentialcertainties are lacking, the impelling need for those valuesonce again makes itself felt: thus today, the request for aneducation which is truly such is in fact increasing. Parents,anxious and often anguished about the future of their children,are asking for it; a great many teachers going through thesorrowful experience of their schools’ deterioration are askingfor it; society overall, seeing doubts cast on the very founda-tions of coexistence, is asking for it; children and young peo-ple themselves who do not want to be left to face life’s chal-lenges on their own are also asking for it in their inmost be-ing. Those who believe in Jesus Christ, moreover, have afurther and stronger reason for not being afraid: they know infact that God does not abandon us, that his love reaches uswherever we are and just as we are, in our wretchedness andweakness, in order to offer us a new possibility of good.

—Pope Benedict XVI, ‘Letter to the Faithful of the Diocese and City ofRome’, 21 January, 2008.


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OF ALL THE THEMES that may beteased out from the rich weave that isthe Lukan text, one that speaks with

clarity and resonance to modern readership isthat of the journey. Journeys abound in Luke’sGospel-Acts. The undeniably central one isthat undertaken by Jesus towards the cross; inActs, we see the journeying of the disciples,culminating in their arrival in Rome; and lastly,the journey of the implied auditor towardsGod.

In this paper we shall make a brief exami-nation of this recurrent theme, with a specialfocus on the Emmaus story. In so doing, weaim to establish the metaphor of journey withinthe context of a theology of ‘end-time’ fulfil-ment. We hope also to underscore the thoughtthat the journey in Luke is an invitation to be-lievers to see the life path as God’s gloriousgift to humanity: we have been granted thethrill of the open road, and with it creative free-dom, to make of life what we will. All this,and then at the end of the road an assured eter-nal life in God awaits.

Every journey undertaken has purposeand a final destination in mind. It progressesin a linear fashion towards an end point. Forthe evangelist there is firm intent to reflectthe motif of journey in the very structure ofthe narrative. We note this in the logicalsequencing of events that he is at some painsto establish. Each little section in the plot hasa ‘separate but complementary function’.(Johnson, p10,11.) Every consecutive eventis like a little step along the way, making upin sum the whole journey. The reader ismoved purposefully from one event to thenext, and we are asked to trust in the accu-

racy of the author’s chronology.We are reminded by Johnson that Luke’s

Gospel is only half of the story, to be read inconjunction with Acts. The end of the formeris but a hiatus along the way, waiting for theremainder of the story to be picked up. Actswill continue the account, with a focus on thejourneying of the early Church.

Not content with placing his story within alogical framework, Luke seeks to position thejourney within the wider context of world his-tory. Thus, his emphasis on establishing a firmchronological base will be an attempt to lendlegitimacy and a measure of historicity to hisaccount. What began in the Galilean hills dec-ades before, will end with Paul’s arrival inRome. The story of Jesus will lead naturallyto the story of the early Church. But Luke’snarrative will hark back even further, retrac-ing its antecedents all the way to Adam (Lk3:38). It will begin with the telling of the storyof Israel (Lk1:5), and progress chronologi-cally, mapping the journey of all God’s peo-ple since.

Luke is concerned with the ‘prophecy andfulfilment pattern within the narrative’. (p12)At the beginning of his account, we are madeaware that the story he is about to re-tell isactually the culmination of something begunlong before. (Lk 1:1) The writer, Johnson re-minds us, establishes a firm link between thestory of Moses and that of Jesus. (p19) Thusthe reader will have the sense that there hasbeen but one long and uninterrupted journeyfrom the Hebrew Testament to Acts. Yet an-other ‘fulfilment’, (referred to at the end ofActs) is still in store, that of the eschatologicalpromise. There is the guarantee of an eternity

THE THEME OF JOURNEYIN LUKE

LESLEE SNIATYNSKYJ


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dwelling in God. This moment has not yet ar-rived; and the book of Acts finishes on a noteof open-endedness. As in all the best creativeacts and works, there has been room allowedfor endless potentialities. Future progress isin the hands of the reader. The story and thejourney are far from over.

If we situate the origins of Luke’s journeynarrative with the first response of the Israel-ites to God, it becomes clear that the journeyof Jesus to Jerusalem will occupy a central po-sition within the linear movement of the story.After the crucifixion event will come the jour-ney of the witnesses of Acts. Then, furtheralong the continuum will be the stories of be-lievers still to come. But it will be against thepivotal journey made by Jesus that the suc-cess of all the other journeys in Luke is to bemeasured. The movement towards Jerusalemis a steadfast embrace of the Father’s will; andthis will become the point of each journey, ei-ther side of the central one. It is in this lightthat all the journeys—both those that precedethe Jesus journey, and those that come after—will need to be viewed: as movements towardsthe ultimate fulfilment of God’s plan; asprogress towards complete rapprochementbetween God and humanity.

The journey leitmotif is inextricablylinked in Luke with the theme of discipleship.Indeed, it might be said that one cannot beproperly considered without the other. Who-ever embarks on the journey to God will lis-ten, as Jesus listened to the Father. The dis-ciple is the one who follows and, hearing theword, responds. It is interesting to note thesimilarity between the Greek terminologiesfor ‘listen’ and ‘follow’ (respectively, akouoand akoloutho); the one an expansion of theother; suggestive of a theological link thatLuke wants to establish between the two. Theclosing verses of Acts assure us that in lis-tening, God’s people will know salvation(28:28). We observe that the final chapter ofboth the Gospel and Acts has been reservedby the evangelist for an unequivocal message:an exhortation to discipleship. He specifies

what this will entail: namely, one must listento the word of God. In biblical Greek, wordscarrying the most weight tend to be placedlast in a sentence. This being the case, it issafe to assume that such positioning of thechapters, on both counts, at the tail end ofthe narrative, has been a deliberate act by thewriter to underscore something he considersof utmost importance. Thus it is that in theclosing chapter of Luke’s Gospel we arriveat the Emmaus story.

The account of the journey to Emmaushas an appealing and accessible universalityabout it. It is the perennial, personal story ofevery human. Like the Matthian account ofPeter’s attempt to walk on water, it resonatesdeeply within us. For it is an authentic repre-sentation of our humanity at its weakest; yet,when buoyed by the power of Christ, thatsame humanity becomes capable of magnifi-cent resolve.

On the face of it, Emmaus is a story wherenothing much happens. A couple of disciples,fleeing the city after the crucifixion, areheaded for an inconsequential village a shortdistance from Jerusalem. They meet astranger who talks scripture at them, allayssome of their fears, and proves himself a com-forting companion. They invite him to din-ner and, at the breaking of the bread, theysuddenly recognise in their fellow travellerthe risen Jesus. He vanishes at this point.Then, we are told, with joyful hearts they re-turn to Jerusalem to tell their friends. End ofstory.

But there is far more to the account.

Leslee Sniatynskyjteaches at St Ignatius’College, Adelaide. Sheis married with fourchildren, and studiestheology at the AdelaideCollege of Divinity.


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Emmaus is, in fact, a cameo depiction of thehuman journey through life. That is me onthe road, running away, as one often does inlife, from a difficult situation, a situation thatis demanding far too much from one littleindividual. I am deeply troubled, confusedand frightened. I have lost a beloved friendin the very worst of circumstances, and I havenot even begun to grieve. I had set such storeby him—and now he is dead. Luckily, I havea companion with whom to share my woesand fears. The only problem is that he is notmuch good at assuaging my pain, since he isin the same predicament as I am. In reality,we are nigh on useless to each other.

Then a stranger joins us on the way. Hereminds us of predictions and promises madelong ago that certain events would come topass. The more we listen, the greater the as-surance and comfort that we draw from hiswords. As he makes to leave, my friend andI cast about for ways to prolong the momentof contact with our new companion. He makesus feel safe, and ridiculously, hope has be-gun to burgeon within us. We invite him tojoin us for dinner. As we begin the meal thereis something he does, some little gesture thatis immediately familiar. In that instant we rec-ognise the stranger in our midst. We under-stand that our friend who was dead, now lives.And we remember how he foretold even this.

At the moment of clarity, our friend dis-appears from sight. No matter. His physicalpresence is no longer required. We have allthe validation we need to keep going. He iseverything he said he was. And we can restour faith on all the things that he told us overtime, for we know them now to be true. ThePromiser fulfilled all the prophecies. Andnow it is our turn to keep promises. We hadsaid once we were ready to follow him, tohelp spread the Good News. Now we are sureof our mandate. In the little village ofEmmaus we turn around and face Jerusalemfrom whence we fled. We are ready to makethe journey back, to fulfil the mission.

If the mark of discipleship is the prepar-

edness to ‘ hear the word’, then the Emmaustravellers have not earned the right to callthemselves disciples: at least, not until thatmoment on the road when they allow Jesus’words—his explanation of the scriptures tothem—to percolate deep into their under-standing. Before that instant they were theantithesis of disciples: their behaviour char-acterised by a profound alarm and anxiety.(Kealy, p245) Their blind fear had preventedthem from recognising God in their midst. Butwhen they truly began to listen, the scales fellfrom their eyes, and Jesus was revealed tothem.

We may extrapolate from the account thatsometimes it is all right, and even important,to move away from the centre—the Jerusalemof our traditional faith—in order to gain greaterclarity. Luke makes a case for those on thefringes—the outcasts, the vulnerable— repeat-edly having the best recourse to God. Jesushimself was a man of the margins. (Moxnes, p10.) Often it will be that the one running awaybecomes aware, to his joy and amazement, thatJesus—the very one we were seeking toelude—is there, running with us.

The acquisition of clarity and firm purposeare only possible, though, if, on our journeywe allow ourselves to become open to whatGod is telling us, whether through the Scrip-tures, or through the people we meet along theroad. If we are prepared to listen with the heart,even though we are standing outside the cen-tre of things, we may well become the outsid-ers who are enlightened by an encounter withthe risen Lord. (p22, Johnson.) As we progresstowards our Emmaus, we begin to glimpse thefulfilment of God’s word in our own lives. Wesee it acting in our midst. And like the Emmaustravellers, we too begin to believe the prom-ises. We understand that the journey under-taken must be brought to completion in ex-ecuting God’s plan for us. And for this, Jesusis the key. He is the companion we must firstinvite into our midst. Then we must be will-ing to hear his message, and permit it to takeroot in our hearts. For this to happen, we must

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cultivate a certain open disposition, a recep-tivity to the delicate movements of God withinus.

The road stretching before each of us isnot endless, but it is open. We have creativefreedom to enact all our choices. We can ei-ther keep going, on past Emmaus, or we can

Johnson, L.T. The Gospel of Luke. Daniel J.Harrington S.J. (Ed.) Collegeville, Minnesota: TheLiturgical Press, 1991.Kealy, Sean P. Luke’s Gospel Today. Chicago

return to confront our private Jerusalem. If wereally want to commit to the life of a disciple,we know that what we have to do is listen andfollow our road through to its completion. Je-sus, the fellow-traveller and guide, will sup-ply for all the rest. He is the one mandatedwith the fulfilment of the end-time.

REFERENCES

Studies, 1991.Moxnes, Halvor. The Social World of Luke-Acts.Henrickson, 1991.

I, too, lament the conditions that diminish and marginalise the presence and tradi-tion of Catholicism in our society. But at the same time I see signs of renewal. Iwant to speak to you about the desire for spiritual renewal of which I see the signsamong the young and others who have responsibility in our society… I thinkespecially of the young and the adults I have met in recent weeks…

I think of a woman o f 77 years who has cared for her paralyzed husband fortwelve years; she wrote to me of her desire to pray for those who do not pray: ‘Itwill be like a light in the night’.

And that young man of 21 years, a circus performer, who has known vio-lence, and who in his letter meditated on the mystery of Jesus crucified: ‘It teachesus to die to ourselves in order to live with him and through him and then in him forever.’

But the most astonishing was the young girl of 14 years who told me that shehad been a victim of sexual violence perpetrated by two members of her family.When I asked her and her friends of 14 to 16 years of age, to write messages for thepeople who were present for their Confirmation day, she wrote: ‘We must look thechallenges of life in the face, and not avoid them. God is stronger than the difficul-ties that can be so violent and that we would like to hide. And God can help us topardon those who have done us harm, so much harm.’

And one of her friends made a similar appeal: ‘Stop doing harm to peoplearound you. Trust in yourself, a life without trust is not a happy life. Make peace.’

I call this the elementary grammar of human existence. The question I askmyself is simple: are our Christian communities fully aware that they are to callmore visibly and in solidarity on the interior resources that are theirs?

—Bishop Claude Dagens, Bishop of Angoulême, France, ‘Indifference. TheVisibility and the Future of French Catholicism’, in Il Regno, 2008-2, pp. 5-8.


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THIS IS AN ESSAY about meaning—especially what its felt absence itselfmeans in the contemporary world. Key

sociologists of the modern era have long as-serted that many people, even entire groupsof people, struggle to make sense of the worldand the place they occupy in it. In this essaywe trace how the rise of the modern worldbrought with it ways of describing that worldthat—paradoxically—have made it harder forindividuals to actually answer the questionsthey ask and learn not to ask as modern sub-jects. That is, within a widely thriving secularsociety, many people relegate inquiry into‘what it all means’ to fields like evolutionarypsychology and ‘memetics’ (the attempt toapply neo-Darwinian models to study cultural‘evolution’), believing that the weight of evi-dence has revealed that there is no inherentmeaning to human existence. But, as this es-say seeks to show, such a view has blindspots,and is far from being a simple, self-evidentexplanation.

In any effective analysis of the narrativeof modernity, we believe there are essentialhistorical and philosophical signposts whosedeep interrelationship we’ll have reason toexplore. Understanding them entails a journeythrough a series of crucial stopping points orway-stations. But where are they—and howto make this journey? In our view, we are inneed of an itinerary. The itinerary we sketch isone that we believe can be deployed over andover again in different ways by different read-ers and writers. We use the term itself with anod to the overtly atheistic (but often insight-ful) critic, Régis Debray. At the outset of hisGod: An Itinerary, an account of the ‘propheticreligions’ which he sees as emerging after the

rise of civilisation, Debray remarks that he isembarking on an itinerary of the Gods not ‘inorder to debate the existence of God for theumpteenth time, but in order to understand howthe only carnivore to practise voluntary fast-ing succeeded in generating his very human-ity’ (p.2). For Debray, our religions and ourvery nature are somehow enmeshed. On thispoint at least, we find it hard not to concur.

Yet, the itinerary we seek to build is obvi-ously a very different one from Debray’s.Where his concerns a tour of ‘ways of doingGod,’ ours concerns the narrative of moder-nity itself. But why is it necessary to concernourselves with this? From the time of theGreeks, the injunction to ‘know thyself’ hasstood as an exacting demand of human self-reflection. A crucial part of this, in our view,entails an historical understanding of the pathto the present. Yet, we contend, a defining fea-ture of modernity is its lack of self-understand-ing.

An entry point: The most typical andwidely accepted characterisations of moder-nity talk of anomie—a state of individual diso-rientation and disconnection. This is the es-sential first port of call in our journey. EmileDurkheim utilised the term to depict the wayin which, in modern societies, traditionalnorms and cultural values are undermined butnot replaced by new normative frameworks;norms may remain in some form, but are notsignificant determinants of individual behav-iour. Sociologists from the time of Durkheimand Simmel onwards have pointed to the con-sequences of anomie and loss of centre in themodern world.1

Once we grasp, in broadest terms, the psy-cho-social dimensions of anomie, then a sec-

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ond closely related concept is the next desti-nation: this is the famous idea of a ‘disenchant-ment’ of the modern world—a notion heavilyindebted to the work of Max Weber. It isclosely related to anomie because like that ideait depicts a stripping away or loss of mean-ing—and this in two senses: first, a loss of re-ligiously-grounded cosmology or worldview,and second, the resulting, intensely-felt, lossof sense for the individual. ‘Disenchantment’refers both to a metaphysical stripping-awayof the transcendent domain and also to thesubjective sense of de-moralisation in the mostliteral sense imaginable (demoralise: loss ofmorale and anomic depression; demoralise:loss of moral basis or meta-ethical grounding).

These characterisations of modernity un-doubtedly capture something of the reality ofthe intellectual consensus on modern life, onthe one hand, and the experience we have of iton the other. We cannot skirt them in our treat-ment of modernity. Left unsupplemented, how-ever, they are profoundly misleading; theycertainly do not bring self-awareness. Theylook like empirical reportage, but in their origi-nal contexts, they are nothing of the sort. Tothe contrary, they reflect long-held views andpartly forgotten debates. If we leave to othersthe task of showing the contexts of anomie inother domains—like psychology and sociol-ogy—we do so only because we assume anexperiential familiarity on the part of the read-ers of this particular journal—and because wehave sketched its place in our itinerary. Butwe make no such assumption in relation to thenotion of disenchantment—that way-stationmust be explored in a special and even detailedway, even in a sketch like ours because it ishere that some of the characteristic paradoxes,blindspots, and absurdities of modernity’s self-account come to light.

Disenchantment: the Work of Max Weber

Weber’s argument that modernity is the end-product of a gradual process of bureaucraticand rational development has been widely ac-

cepted—indeed sometimes rendered formulaicand over-simplified. Regardless, there is con-siderable value in retrieving Weber’s thesis,albeit in outline. Weber famously called theprocess of modernisation the ‘disenchantmentof the world’ (Entzauberung der Welt). Asmany people know, lying behind the ‘disen-chantment of the world’ (Entzauberung derWelt) is the process he calls ‘rationalisation.’

But what does this entail? For Weber, ra-tionalisation has two main facets, even if theseare, he says, ultimately inseparable (Essays293). First, rationalisation names the processwhereby instrumental rationality—reason inthe service of practical or pragmatic ends—isincreasingly refined and assumes greater im-portance: in economics, science, law, art, andreligion. It is ‘the methodical attainment of adefinitely given and practical end by meansof an increasingly precise calculation of ad-equate means’ (Essays 293). Rationalisationdisplays itself in the way social institutions areincreasingly constituted by rules that determinethe most efficient means of attaining a given

Dr Chris Fleming isLecturer in the Schoolof Humanities andLanguages, Universityof Western Sydney,Bankstown CampusNSW, Australia. Email:[email protected].

Dr John O’Carroll isLecturer in the Schoolof Social Science andLiberal Studies, CharlesSturt University,Bathurst NSW,Australia. Email:[email protected].


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goal. This takes place in a way fairly independ-ent of those values which had previously im-pacted upon the domain (Weber, Theory 115;Essays 293-4). Rationalisation leads to theapplication of precise regulations to social lifein a way analogous to the application of sci-entific method to industrial production.

Another dimension of rationalisation is aform of intellection by which systematicthought is directed to the task of uncoveringsome objective reality. The process involves‘an increasing theoretical mastery of reality bymeans of increasingly precise and abstractconcepts’ (Essays 293). This he sometimescalls ‘intellectualisation,’ and more negatively,‘disenchantment.’ The transformation ofthought has consequences well beyond theuniversity—it affects people’s conceptions ofthemselves as social agents, as well as theirnotion of what the world is like.

Needless to say, the consequences of thisthesis—and the phenomena to which it re-fers—for religion, are profound. In the reli-gious domain, we see both notions of ration-alisation intermingle. To start with, in theirattempts to rationalise their world—to calcu-late and attempt to predict what had previouslybeen thought to have been governed bychance—the capricious whims of the godshave had to make room for the determinable.Here, rationalisation ‘means that principallythere are no mysterious incalculable forces thatcome into play, but rather than one can, in prin-ciple, master all things by calculation. Thismeans that the world is disenchanted’ (Essays139). Weber’s point is that science is no longereither the gift of prophets or the result of con-templation of philosophers and sages about‘the meaning of the universe.’ ‘This,’ Weberasserts without qualification, ‘is the inescap-able condition of our historical situation’ (Es-says 152).

One might think therefore that science andreligion were, for Weber, antithetically op-posed in history. But contrary to what manybelieve, he argued, this is not his view. Forhim, both modern capitalism and science were

the result of a long development of ‘rationali-sation’:

Only in the West does science exist at a stage ofdevelopment which we recognize to-day asvalid. Empirical knowledge, reflection on prob-lems of the cosmos and of life, philosophicaland theological wisdom of the most profoundsort, are not confined to it, though in the caseof the last the full development of a systematictheology must be credited to Christianity underthe influence of Hellenism. (Weber ProtestantEthic 13)

Other cultures had developed forms of empiri-cal theorisation, but only in the West could thistheorisation be called ‘science.’

This brings us to the next—and, for We-ber, cruellest—point. Born of religion, sciencecomes to make life meaningless:

Science has created this cosmos of natural cau-sality and has seemed unable to answer withcertainty the question of its own ultimate pre-suppositions. Nevertheless science, in the nameof ‘intellectual integrity,’ has come forward withthe claim of representing the only possible formof a reasoned view of the world. The intellect,like all culture values, has created an aristoc-racy based on the possession of rational cultureand independent of all personal ethical quali-ties of man… Viewed in this way, all ‘culture’appears as man’s emancipation from the organi-cally prescribed cycle of natural life. For thisvery reason culture’s every step forward seemscondemned to lead to an ever more devastatingsenselessness. The advancement of cultural val-ues, however, seems to become a senseless hus-tle in the service of worthless, moreover self-contradictory, and mutually antagonistic ends.(Essays 355-7)Weber’s choice of the term ‘disenchant-

ment’ is, therefore, apposite, because—unlikeother possible terms, like ‘secularisation’—itconveys both the sense of a socio-structuralreality and a sense of felt, subjective loss.

This leads to a sharp and unprecedentedparadox, the paradox of rationalism. On theone hand, through rationalisation, religion and‘ultimate’ values have become ‘subjective,’both in the sense that they no longer appear to

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possess an objective status, and in the sensethat they are relegated to the realm of privateexperience, having ‘retreated from public life’(Weber, Essays 155). On the other, the scien-tist is unable to offer a justification for the ideathat what he or she does is valuable; unable toverify the idea that ‘what is yielded by scien-tific work is important in the sense that it isworth being known’ (Weber, Essays 143). Or,as he starkly tells us, only ‘big children’ wouldpresume to think that science could tell us ‘any-thing’ about what the world means.

The Myth of Subtraction

As important as Weber’s contribution to theunderstanding of modernity might be, his owndespair at the ‘disenchantment’ of the worldhas itself become part of the problem we areseeking to address. In this sense, there havebeen further inroads made on the inquiries heinitiated. In their different ways, the philoso-pher Charles Taylor and the theologian JohnMilbank, have closely explored the nature ofmodernity in terms of a myth of subtraction.Let us look at Milbank’s work first. Milbankcontends that modernity is not self-evidentlysecular. In Theology and Social Theory: Be-yond Secular Reason, Milbank argues that thepicture we (and he includes theologians andatheists alike) have of modernity is this one:

It belongs to the received wisdom of sociologyto interpret Christianity as itself an agent ofsecularization, yet this thesis is totally bound upwith the one-sided negativity of the notion ofdesacralizing; a metaphor of the removal of thesuperfluous and additional to leave a residue ofthe human, the natural and the self-sufficient. Forthis negative conception it is convenient that thereshould always have been some perception of thepure remainder, and the hybrid ‘Judaeo-Christi-anity’ is cast in this role… (p.9)

But the constitution of this ‘secular order’ isdeeply enfolded within the history of Westernreligious traditions. For Milbank, it was de-signed to ‘exclude the religious’ from its pur-view only in a very restrictive or attenuated

sense. This is because the modern origin ofthe term ‘secular’ lies in the deliberate classi-cal Christian theological distinction betweenthe saeculum and the eschaton—so-called‘historical time’ and the ‘end time.’ ForMilbank Christianity itself instituted the secu-lar (9). There is no doubt that he is right, in acertain factual, historical sense, about this. Butwe have to ask an additional question: whatdoes this actually mean to modernity today?

Milbank himself provides some clues.Questioning the quasi-structural version ofmodernity, he attacks the view that modernityis definable simply in terms of social or cul-tural plurality. For him, the very structure ofplurality which both the sociologists and com-munication thinkers presuppose to be a mat-ter only of techno-social transformation is it-self a profoundly Christian thing. For Milbank,this is especially the case on those terrainswhere Christian dimensions are most denied.For instance, as he puts it, this is the case wher-ever we find:

…the notion of the recognition of the ‘other’itself, which is so important an imperative todialogue. Hence…a postmodern position thatrespects otherness and locality and yet at thesame time still seeks the goals of justice, peace,and reconciliation, can only, in fact, be a Chris-tian (or possibly a Jewish) position’ (Milbank,‘End of Dialogue’ 175-76).

This is very clever analysis—but it is not Soph-istry. Rather, it is the kind of work that isneeded for our journey into the paradoxicalself-account of modernity itself.

Milbank’s account is compatible with—and a useful prelude to—the last of our way-stations, what is best called the myth of sub-traction. The work needed to understand thishas been conducted by the Canadian philoso-pher, Charles Taylor. Taylor’s inquiry isbroader. He has, since his Sources of the Self(1996), posed questions about the nature ofmodernity on its own terms. In questioning‘what sort of thing modernity is,’ he developsthe argument that modernity is primarily acultural, rather than a technological or bu-


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reaucratic constellation. For Taylor, Westernmodernity is a horizontal social system thatcan only with difficulty admit older notions ofvertical relations, be they with god or king.The epistemological dimensions of this areobvious: modernity comprises a number ofwhat Taylor calls ‘closed world structures,’which is to say, world views that are closedfor some reason or reasons to transcendence:‘A CWS ‘naturalises’ a certain view on things’(p.52). Taylor suggests in this system first su-perstition (by seventeenth century Christian-ity) and then belief itself (in the Enlightenment)comes to be seen as child-like, while unbeliefseems adult, even heroic (p.53).

Obviously, Taylor does not overturn thehierarchy of structure/culture simply to reversea polarity. Both structure and culture are cru-cial aspects to modernity. What is at stake in acultural explanation of modernity is the at-tempt to furnish the account with a sense ofthe moral universe that gave rise to it, andwhich perhaps enabled it. This decisive insightis itself an essential one on any itinerary seek-ing to grasp not just what the self-account ofmodernity is, but also, why it seems—for allits negativity—to be plausible. When moder-nity is understood more correctly as a moralconstellation, however, then we pass effort-lessly to the next step, which both Milbankand Taylor in their different ways have soughtto describe.

Both offer consonant accounts of the waysin which modernity hides from itself. Milbankcontends that the dominant narratives of mo-dernity are those whose ‘received sociology’impelled them to take over the ‘human half’of what was left of the ‘privatized, spiritualizedand transcendentalized…sacred, and concur-rently reimagined nature, human action andsociety as a sphere of autonomy, sheerly for-mal power’ (p.9). In a related way, Taylor sug-gests what he calls a ‘subtraction’ view of his-tory. That is,

On this ‘subtraction’ view of humanity, as whatarises from the washing away of old horizons,modern humanism can only have arisen through

the fading of earlier forms. It can only be con-ceived as coming to be through a ‘death of God’.It just follows that you can’t be fully into con-temporary humanist concerns if you haven’tsloughed off the old beliefs. (p.60).

But the question of faith-patterns now beginsto require more nuanced examination, asthose who espouse reason’s cause turn out tobe engaged in complex ‘acts of faith’ of theirown. In this version, the value attached to sci-ence by unbelievers is itself moral—or mor-ally determined. This, we believe, is why somany otherwise thoughtful commentatorsmiss the key turn-offs—and why less thought-ful ones like Richard Dawkins miss the boatentirely.

The Significance of the Journey

We have traced an itinerary of the modernworld which has shown how, with Weber, wearrived at the paradoxical situation of a rationalscience which could not supply the groundsof objective value for its own inquiry. This,however, only led us to inquire further intoWeber’s own founding contention that moder-nity entails a stripping away of superstition.With the works of Milbank and Taylor, we seethat it is not possible to take these things awaywithout leaving the entire fabric of modernitythreadbare. In addition, we realise a story aboutthe history of modernity is at stake.

Modernity, then, is not quite as it appears.It is, above all, a moral constellation, and ulti-mately, a descendant of a Christiandesacralisation. The moral imperatives thatmotivate us are still, in many respects, sacred.Our allergies are as strong as those of antiq-uity. But we are profoundly unaware of them.We are indeed, it seems, in modernity’s thea-tre—in which the strings that make us twitchand jump have become invisible to us(Bandera 32); we are actors in the hypotheti-cal scenario in Macintyre’s After Virtue thatour sense of what happened in history is pro-foundly awry, disturbed.

How to re-open the problem of modernity?

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How to see it as both a historical process andyet also, remaining aware of its own tendencyto self-delusion, a kind of anti-method ormethod gone awry? We have explored the waythe past can be misconstrued and narrativisedin problematic ways. We have suggested thatwhat is taken for granted about modernityshould be put back into question. In generat-ing the sketch of the possible path to such in-

Bandera, Cesáreo. The Sacred Game: The Role ofthe Sacred in the Genesis of Modern Literary Fic-tion. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania UP, 1994.Debray, Régis. ‘Conversation avec Régis Debray.’Rencontre entre Michèle Narvaez, GérardWormser, Paul Zadzki and Régis Debray. SensPublic. http://www. sesns-public.org/imprimersans.php3?id_article=53. 10 October2003 (accessed 30 January 2007)

—. Le Feu Sacré: fonctions du religieux. Paris:Fayard, 2003.

—. God: An Itinerary. Trans. J. Mehlman.London: verso, [2001] 2004.

—. Le Scribe: Genèse du Politique. Paris:Grasset [livre de poche biblio essais 4003], 1980.Gauchet, Marcel. The Disenchantment of theWorld: A Political History of Religion. New Jer-sey, 1997.:Macintyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in MoralTheory. Indiana: U of Notre Dame P, 1984.

—. ‘Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narra-tive and the Philosophy of Science.’ The Monist(1977): 453-72.Milbank, John. Theology and Social Theory: Be-yond Secular Reason. London: Blackwell, 1993.

—. ‘The End of Dialogue.’ Christian Unique-ness reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic The-

ology of Religions. Ed. G. O’Costa. New York:Orbis, 1990. 174-91.Provine, William. ‘Progress in Evolution andMeaning in Life.’ In Evolutionary Progress. Ed-ited by Matthew H. Nitecki. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1988, pp. 49-74.Taylor, Charles. ‘Inwardness and the Culture ofModernity.’ Philosophical Interventions in theUnfinished Project of Enlightenment. Ed. A.Honnetth et al. London: MITP, 1992. 88-110.

—. Sources of the Self. The Making of ModernIdentity. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1992.

—. ‘Closed World Structures.’ Religion AfterMetaphysics. Ed. M.A. Wrathall. Cambridge, Cam-bridge UP, 2003. 47-68.Tönnies, Ferdinand. Community & Society. NewYork: Harper & Row, 1957.Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spiritof Capitalism. Trans. Talcott Parsons. London andNew York: Routledge, 1930.

—. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology.Translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and C. WrightMills. London: Routledge, 1991.

—. The Theory of Social and Economic Or-ganization. Trans. A.M. Henderson and TalcottParsons. New York: Oxford University Press,1947.

quiry, we have suggested it is a journey thatneeds to be conducted over and over again—by writers with insights different from ours,and approaches that yield different fruits. Webelieve we have done the preliminary work to-wards clearing a way—one that involvesgrasping how and why the self-account of mo-dernity has slammed the gates on the verymeaning of life itself.

Note:1 For Ferdinand Tönnies, indeed, the modern world ushered in a world of systems(Gesellschaft) which damaged the earlier community basis of life (Gemeinschaft).

REFERENCES


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IF THE FIRST Letter of Peter asked thatwe might be people ‘ready for those whoask you the reason for the hope that you all

have’ (1 Peter 3:15), Australians may well of-fer their own contextual response.

It may be held that the experience of hopeis embedded within our national mythology.It is a hope forged through a recurring frustra-tion as we have pitted ourselves against thestrangeness of the land itself. ‘Despite our af-fection for it,’ notes the author Tim Winton,‘we remain essentially at war with [it], like ourinvading ancestors. Some part of us still feelsthat landscape is enemy territory until we trans-form it, make it in our image.’ (Winton, 1999).Through its natural vicissitudes the land con-sistently resists such a transformation. We hugthe edge of this vast continent, ‘surroundedby ocean and ambushed from behind bydesert—a war of mystery on two fronts,’ asWinton elsewhere remarks (Winton, 1993). Inthat war, we are often left to hope against theelements that threaten us with a certain reduc-tion. One thinks of Lawson’s account of Tomin ‘Settling on the Land’:

Even then Tom didn’t give in—there was gritin that man. He borrowed a broken-down dray-horse in return for its keep, coupled it with hisown riding hack, and started to finish plough-ing. The team wasn’t a success. Whenever thedraught horse’s knees gave way and he stum-bled forward, he jerked the lighter horse backinto the plough, and something would break.Then Tom would blaspheme until he was re-freshed, mend up things with wire and bits of

clothes-line, fill his pockets with stones to throwat the team, and start again. Finally he hired adummy’s child to drive the horses. The brat didhis best: he tugged at the head of the team,prodded it behind, heaved rocks at it, cut a sap-ling, got up his enthusiasm, and wildly whackedthe light horse whenever the other showed signsof moving—but he never succeeded in startingboth horses at one and the same time. Moreo-ver the youth as cheeky, and the selector’s tem-per had been soured: he cursed the boy alongwith the horses, the plough, the selection, thesquatter, and Australia. Yes, he cursed Australia.(Quoted in Crombie, 1987).Perhaps, there is a part of us that still wishes

to curse this land for its unrelenting vastnessthat threatens, at times, to engulf us. The landhas resisted domestication. Yet it is, precisely,this resistance that has spawned our nationalheroes, men and women who, in differentways, pitted themselves against such force ina frustration of hope. Time and time again, theylost. Yet, in their loss they recognized, alongwith David Malouf’s words for Voss in the li-bretto of the opera of the same name, that ‘themystery of life is not solved by success, butby failure, by a perpetual becoming.’ Subse-quently, Australians have a natural affinity withthose, who in their defeat, continue to hope.As Joachim Dirks has commented:

The preoccupation with struggle against over-whelming odds is surely a significant compo-nent of the Australian national psyche in so faras there is a marked tendency for Australians tosee themselves as strugglers or to identify them-

SUFFERING, PRAYERAND HOPE

An Australian Perspective on the Encyclical ofBenedict XVI, Spe Salvi: On Christian Hope

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selves with those who struggle to survive or toimprove their lot……[In] the Australian version of the[e] peren-nial myth the quest seems to end in failure (glo-rious) more often than not. Our hero seems tobe the tragic hero, the would-be hero who isundone by a flaw or weakness in his characterof who simply cannot match the strength of theforces pitted against him, and so is vanquished(Dirks, 1984).From penal settlement and convict experi-

ence, through to the mythology of the pioneerfarmer, and to the shores of Gallipoli, Aus-tralians, historically, have defined themselvesas those who pitch themselves against over-whelming odds with every prospect of defeat,yet discovering there a new sense of solidar-ity with one another.

Such is the contextual experience of hopein Australia. Behind the highly charged sym-bolic attraction of Anzac Day, I contend, liessuch a national acknowledgement and identi-fication. It is a spirit re-enkindled as commu-nities discover a depth of bond as they facethe natural disasters of fire and flood. AsSeamus Bradley wrote in his commentary ‘OneHot Day in Hell’, an account of the deadlyVictorian bushfires on 26 January 2003, andwhich acted as a commentary to CampionDecent’s play, Embers:Again and again the fire attacks, again andagain it is pushed back. When, on January 30,a huge ball of flame and smoke rolls overOmeo setting much of the town alight,Benambra again fights for survival…Reid [theCFA operations manager] pays tribute to thetownsfolk and the local CFA for putting upsuch a dogged fight. ‘It’s the only communitythat didn’t need contract catering,’ Reid says.For an independent community, it’s the high-est compliment possible.

A similar grit, fully open to the prospectof failure, but, nonetheless, hoping, and in sucha way to experience an unexpected shared soli-darity even with the stranger, is touched upon,I suggest, in the annual cycle of the ritual ofsporting competition.

The experience at the heart of the Anzac

Mythology—pitching ourselves against over-whelming odds, and finding ourselves de-feated, yet having discovered an unmistakableexperience of solidarity with each other pre-cisely in the possibility of defeat - enables usto understand the purifying outcome of a hope,deepened, and as springing from the experi-ence of contingency.

Though on the surface we appear to leadaffluent lives, unaffected by civil and politi-cal disorder, perhaps our smallness against thetyranny of the continent’s distance and isola-tion, gives us a native understanding of thesolidarity of a shared experience of hope, andthe suffering with another: the con-solatio,the experience of consolation in the heart ofsuffering, about which Spe Salvi speaks, andin which we might intuit the redemptive dyna-mism disclosed through suffering that is shared(nn. 36,38). At least, we celebrate such in anational mythology that, in a sustained way,prefers those who, in Les Murray’s words, donot stray from the common dish—‘that vesselof common human sufferings, joys, disappoint-ments, tragedies and bare sufficiencies fromwhich most people have to eat in this world,and from which some choose to eat in order tokeep faith with them.’ As Murray explains:

This dish is the opposite of the medieval Grail,which was a vessel attained only by a spiritualelite. To refuse the common ration, or to fail atleast to recognize and respect it, earns one thecontempt of the battlers and all who live underthe laws of its necessity. It is a harsher vesselthan the Christian chalice, and not identical withit, except perhaps for the saints, but I believe it

David Ranson is apriest of the diocese ofBroken Bay, lecturingin spirituality at theCatholic Institute ofSydney where he is alsoAcademic Secretary.


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lies close to the heart of the Australian con-sciousness, and can never be safely ignored.(Murray, 1982)

It is the Common Dish that provides us inAustralia with a proletarian spirituality.

Such national experience provides us, per-haps, with a worthwhile window throughwhich to begin to reflect on Spe Salvi—OnChristian Hope (2007). In many ways, in dis-tinction perhaps from the experience of theUnited States, we have not been allowed, inthis place, the luxury of many of the counter-feits of hope, a number of which Spe Salviidentifies—political ideologies promising uto-pian idealism, on the one hand, or the illusionthat the collectivization of property makes forselflessness (nn. 24-31). The grand idea hasnever had much attraction in such a landscapeof contingency. Though we have not been ren-dered immune from scientific and secularcounterfeits of hope, manifest in uncritical trustin human progress and technological advance,we have been spared, too, those religious coun-terfeits of hope in millenarian movements,prosperity gospels and various forms of the-ocracies.

From this context we come to read SpeSalvi as Australians and, in particular, the sec-tion, ‘‘Settings’ for learning and practicinghope.’(nn. 32-40) Surely, our national con-text is one such setting, too easily taken forgranted, but one from which we can derivemuch insight into the encyclical’s treatment ofhope.

It is the section, ‘’Setting’ for learning andpracticing hope’ on which I especially wish tofocus in this paper. In the section prayer is whatis presented as a more immediate context fromwhich hope arises. Prayer is described as a‘school of hope.’ It is so, perhaps, becauseprayer is essentially that place of intersectionbetween our own hoping, on the one hand,caught up into a process of increasing purifi-cation and deepening, and, on the other handthat hope given us in the mystery of Christ.

The understanding of prayer as a place ofintersection might enable us to recognize more

clearly the implicit affirmation in Spe Salvi thatChristian hope enjoys a kind of typology. Theparagraphs in the encyclical that discuss prayeras a school of hope are weaved on the basis ofthis typology, though not made quite as ex-plicit as one, perhaps, would expect. Thoughthey are enmeshed, one in the other, there are,in fact, two types of hope: human and theo-logical. They are experienced in the other, butthey are, nonetheless, differentiated.

This typology of hope, finding its concreterealization in the experience of prayer, mightbe understood as firstly, human hope—aris-ing from what we do not have, and secondly,theological hope—arising from what we dohave, i.e. from what we have been given inChrist.

Human Hope

Human hope, firstly, is born of what we donot have. This is the hope that we might drawfrom the lessons of our own national mythol-ogy. Such hope can present as the catalyst forour praying. We pray out of a desire that seeksits fulfillment.

…Our desires imply a condition of incomplete-ness because they speak to us of what we arenot, or do not have. Desire is also, therefore, acondition of openness to possibility and to fu-ture. Desires may ground us in the present mo-ment but at the same time they point to the factthat this moment does not contain all the an-swers (Sheldrake, 1994).

In this way, we hope because we desire,and desire, within the Christian tradition, iswhat we might call ‘the royal road of prayer.’All prayer is permeated by hope. To pray is tohope, and, to hope is, in some ways, to pray -the truth of which is realized more fully, thedeeper the ground of our hope. Drawing fromthe experience of Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan,imprisoned in Vietnam, Pope Benedict sug-gests that such hope, informed by our desire,arises most profoundly from the experience ofour solitude (n. 32). Yet, the solitude fromwhich human hope stirs finds us in a diversity

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of ways. The conciliar colleague of JosephRatzinger, Karl Rahner, reminds us of thiswhen he poses the rhetorical questions:

Have we ever been silent although we wishedto defend ourselves, although we were treatedwith less than justice? Did we ever forgive al-though we got no thanks for it and our silentpardon was taken for granted?…Have we evermade a sacrifice without thanks, acknowledge-ment or even sentiments of inner peace? Havewe ever been thoroughly lonely? Have we hadto take a decision purely on the verdict of ourconscience, when we cannot tell anybody orexplain to anybody, when we are quite aloneand know we are making a decision no one canmake for us and for which we shall be respon-sible to eternity?…We can all perhaps see ourselves in such lifeexperiences, or think of our own similar ones.Rahner concludes:

[I]f we can, then we have had…spiritual expe-rience…: the experience of eternity…If we ex-perience grace-filled spirit in this way…we areat prayer. (Rahner, 1975)Human hope begins when our spirits come

to a limit, and negotiate such a limit againstthat which all limit finds its relief—the incom-prehensible horizon into which we are drawnineluctably. As Spe Salvi beautifully traces,citing Augustine, in such a deepening of hope,our desire broadens and heightens (n. 33).However, as our desire purifies in the way thatSpe Salvi indicates, our prayer itself changes.It grows from intercession though trust to con-templative desire.

The English spiritual author, Bernard Bas-set, writing in the 1950’s, gives an account ofsuch a transformation in this quirky but won-derful description of prayer. He has the char-acter, Miss Copsely Smith trace her way ofpraying through the imagery of that flat littlecardboard man used in ancient days by doc-tors and nurses in their training. Just as eachflap is opened up to reveal further organs, sowe are to open ourselves in prayer, layer bylayer, until, as Miss Copsely Smith recounts,we:

…arrive at the Ego or what I would prefer to

call the heart. Lift up the flaps and I uncoverthe central longing, this yearning, this desireand I invite God to look in and to fill it up. I sitor lie down and being very liturgical, thoughthe Canon does not think so, I say inside: ‘Takea peep O Lord.’ (Basset, 1968).’The disclosure of this central yearning, the

culmination of human hoping, achieves itsgreatest poignancy in the experience of suf-fering, particularly in the swirl of those ques-tions that resist answer (n. 36).

Pope Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II,expressed this same sentiment of that hopeborn in the midst of suffering in SalvificiDoloris (1984):

…the suffering human being knows that theyare suffering and wonders why; and they sufferin a humanly speaking still deeper way if theydo not find a satisfactory answer. This is a dif-ficult question, just as is a question closely akinto it, the question of evil. Why does evil exist?Why is there evil in the world? When we putthe question in this way, we always, at least to acertain extent, are asking a question about suf-fering too.[We] put this question to God with all the emo-tion of [our] heart and with [our] mind full ofdismay and anxiety; and God expects the ques-tion and listens to it, as we see in the revelationof the Old Testament. In the book of Job thequestion has found its most vivid expression(nn. 9-10)

Spe Salvi rightly indicates that such a ques-tion finds insertion into an entire tradition ofprayer (n.34). The Psalter is the prayer bookpar excellence of such hope. In this liturgy ofhope, about which both Spe Salvi and SalvificiDoloris speak, we touch upon what Metz termsthat ‘mysticism of suffering unto God’:

This language of prayer is itself a language ofsuffering, a language of crisis, a language ofaffliction and of radical danger, a language ofcomplaint and grieving, a language of cryingout and, literally, of the grumbling of the chil-dren of Israel. The language of this God-mysti-cism is not first and foremost one of consolinganswers for the suffering one is experiencing,but rather much more a language of passionatequestions from the midst of suffering, questions


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turned toward God, full of highly chargedexpectation…[This] is not a language of exag-gerated affirmation, no artificial song of jubila-tion that would be isolated from every languageof suffering and crisis and which all too quicklyfalls suspect to being a desperately feignednaiveté. What occurs in this language is not therepression but rather the acceptance of fear,mourning and pain; it is deeply rooted in thefigure of the night, the experience of the soul’sdemise. It is less a song of the soul, more a loudcrying out from the depths—and not a vague,undirected wailing, but a focused crying-out-to.…It is found today…wherever we pose to our-selves the ultimate and decisive God-question,the question about God in the face of the world’sabysmal history of suffering (Metz, 1998).

This mysticism of suffering unto God, part ofJesus’ own God mysticism according to Metz,is a thread that runs throughout the scripturaltradition, which might, itself, be viewed as anarticulation of hope.

Theological Hope

Human hope, however, comes to its limit. Itstands in need of receipt of another hope—that which we know as theological hope.

Theological hope is born, not of what wedo not have, but is born, rather, of what wehave been given. Theological hope, the sec-ond of the three theological virtues, identifiedby Paul, (1 Cor 13:13), and thus by which weparticipate in God’s own life, is more than therealization of our own human aspirations, nomatter how ardent they might be, and no mat-ter how passionately they stretch out into theincomprehensible horizon of God’s mystery.As Pope Benedict writes in Spe Salvi, trulyChristian hope ‘is the great hope based uponGod’s promises that give us courage and di-rects our action in good times and in bad.’(n.35)

Theological hope has its genesis, not withinus, but outside of us. We have been given aword of hope. That hope is faith in a promisegiven (Gen 12:2-3; 13:15; Ex 6:5-8; Is. 65:17).Christian hope breathes on the irrevocable

nature of this promise. It is the confidence(faith) that this cannot be forever frustrated.

The promise received, culminating in theproleptic event of Christ’s Resurrection,changes the way in which we see our life andwhich changes the way in which we do things.It is that promise that opens up for us newpossibility even in the midst of what might beextraordinary limitation. The promise we havebeen given, and the hope that springs ever newfrom this faith, enables us to celebrate even inthe face of frustration, distortion or limitation.

Such is the paradox of genuine Christianhope that it is most keenly experienced in theface of all that would seem to deny it. Genu-ine Christian hope is, therefore, exercised inthe midst of evil: it is the projection of thePromise, given and received, over the absurd-ity of evil. St. Paul put it this way, ‘Afflictionmakes for endurance, and endurance for testedvirtue, and tested virtue for hope. And this hopewill not leave us disappointed’ (Rom 5:3-5).This, then, becomes the basis for Paul’s prayerof celebration:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, orfamine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…No,in all these things we are more than conquerorsthrough him who loved us. For I am sure thatneither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princi-palities, nor things present, nor things to come,nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anythingelse in all creation, will be able to separate usfrom the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.(Rom 8: 35-39)

In Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict inserts such aproclamation in the moving testimony of Paulle Bao-Tinh, one of the Vietnamese martyrs(n.37).

Conclusion

In ‘The Flowering Light of the Godhead’Mechtild of Magdeburg penned:

And God said to the soul‘I desired you before the world beganI desire you nowAs you desire me’

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And where the desires of the two come togetherThere love is perfected.If Christian prayer finds itself in this con-

fluence of desire, Christian existence, moregenerally, can be said to be that which findsitself in the intersection of these two hopes. InChristian life, hope meets hope. The hope thatarises from our hearts in our struggle to findmeaning in the face of all that threatens tooverwhelm us, meets a hope that is the cel-ebration of a Promise given to us.

In this intersection of hope, Lawson’s cursebecomes not a weed, like Patterson’s, evenspiritually, which threatens suffocation of ourspirit. Now, even in the frustration of our hu-man hope, we can celebrate in the assuranceof a gift irrevocably given. Our ANZAC my-thology finds its surest foundation

Bassett, Bernard. We Neurotics, (London:Doubleday Image, 1968), 32-33.Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter, Spe Salvi—On Christian Hope, (30 November, 2007).Dirks, Joachim. The Inner Snowy, (Melbourne:Spectrum, 1984), 20.John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Salvifici DolorisThe Christian Meaning of Human Suffering,(11 February, 1984), 9-10.Crombie, George. ‘Fate and Faith: A Reflec-tion on Australian Culture’ Colloquium 20(1987):1, 22-30.Metz, Johannes. A Passion of God: The Mys-tical-Political Dimension of Christianity,translated by J. Matthew Ashley, (New York/Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1998), 66-69.

Murray, Les. ‘Some Religious Stuff I knowabout Australia’ in The Shape of Belief: Chris-tianity in Australia Today, edited by DorothyHarris, Douglas Hynd and David Millikan,(Homebush West, N.S.W.: Lancer Books,1982), 13-28.Rahner, Karl. ‘The Possibility and Necessityof Prayer,’ in Christian at the Crossroads,(London: Burns & Oates, 1975), 60-61.Sheldrake, Philip. Befriending our Desires(London: Darton, Longmann & Todd, 1994),14, 16.Winton, Tim in Qantas, The Australian Way(November 1999), 47.Winton, Tim Land’s Edge (Sydney: Picador,1993), 36.

As Christians we are the people who live inthis intersection. As those full of hope, we arethe people to whom another hope has been en-trusted. We are custodians of this hope received,and we are called to celebrate that hope. Thathope received, meeting the hope that rises fromour hearts, will enable us to act differently thanthe predicted concerns of the world dictate to us.We celebrate even in the face of the world’s dark-ness. It is a celebration of the freedom we havenow because of that hope, of the beauty that wecan create now because of that hope, and of joythat we can share now because of that hope.

Our prayer perseveres even in the face ofsuffering, and perhaps, because of it.

We can dance now even in our grief, wecan love now in our fear. We can live now evenin our death.

REFERENCES


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THE SIGNING OF Pope Benedict XVI’ssecond encyclical, Spe Salvi, on the feastof St Andrew the Apostle (30th Novem-

ber), 2007, is widely interpreted as an ecumeni-cal gesture. The theology of hope is one whosemajor themes are shared by all denominations,and some commentators see in the dating of theencyclical a year after Benedict’s visit to Istan-bul—of whose patriarchal see St Andrew is bothpatron and legendary founder—a sign of thePope’s ‘hope of unity’ between the Churches.But the date also holds a clue that somethingmore is being offered. In Spe Salvi the Popeoffers a unique and unusual olive branch toOrthodoxy with a gesture of recognition andrespect that both transcends the confessionaldivide and goes to the heart of the communionbetween the Churches.

In the twenty-eighth paragraph of the en-cyclical Pope Benedict writes about this com-munion:

Being in communion with Jesus Christ draws usinto his ‘being for all’; it makes it our own wayof being. He commits us to live for others, butonly through communion with him does it be-come possible truly to be there for others, for thewhole.

The Pope then goes on to quote from the writ-ings of a seventh-century Greek monk,Maximus the Confessor, who wrote that:

Love of God leads to participation in the justiceand generosity of God towards others…[A]n in-terior freedom from all possessions and all ma-terial goods…is revealed in responsibility forothers.1

This quotation from the writings of the Saintknown also as Maximus of Constantinople andto the Greeks as Maximus the Theologian saysmuch about Pope Benedict’s approach to com-munion. Maximus is not, of course, the onlysaint mentioned in the encyclical; the Pope alsoquotes from Gregory Nazianzen (another Greekknown as ‘the Theologian’), Thomas Aquinas,Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Augus-tine of Hippo and Bernard of Clairvaux; addi-tionally he cites the nineteenth century saintsJosephine Bakhita and Paul Le Bac Tinh, andthe twentieth-century cardinals Henri de LubacS.J. and Nguyen Van Thuan (formerly Arch-bishop of Saigon).2 Yet it is in this encyclicalthat for the first time Maximus the Confessor iscalled a Doctor of the Church—and not just aDoctor of the Church but ‘the great Greek Doc-tor of the Church’. Considering that apart fromMaximus there are only thirty-three other Doc-tors of the Church, this is quite an accolade.

Doctor of the Church

In the past, Doctors (literally ‘Teachers’) of theChurch were announced with fanfare. A require-ment for the nomination was that the teacherpossessed outstanding holiness, depth of doc-trinal insight, and an extensive body of writ-ings which the Church could recommend as anauthentic expression of its faith. This last re-quirement was waived in the case of the next-to-last saint to be named a Doctor, Therese ofLisieux, whose body of writings—though in-spiring—was not extensive. Nevertheless her

BENEDICT, MAXIMUS ANDTHE GREATER HOPE

(PART I)

MICHAEL MODINI

Pope Benedict’s nomination of St Maximus the Confessor as a Doctor of theChurch invites us to explore the person of Jesus Christ as the One in whomdivine and human wills coexist.


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teaching had to be examined by both the Con-gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and theCongregation for the Causes of Saints before itcould be pronounced ‘eminent’ and her Doc-torate proclaimed in a public ceremony at StPeter’s by Pope John Paul II3 . Other saints—Peter Canisius and Albert the Great—becameDoctors on the day of their canonisation;4 thereis inevitably some sort of procedure and alwaysa ceremony. Yet Benedict’s reference toMaximus as a Doctor in the course of his sec-ond encyclical is almost casual: it is as ifMaximus always was a Doctor, and the Popehas merely confirmed it for us, albeit somewhatbelatedly.

In a way, this isn’t as strange as it seems.Maximus always has been respected as ateacher: he has been revered as a saint since hisdeath in exile in 662; his teaching on the twowills of Christ became orthodoxy at the sixthEcumenical Council (Constantinople III, 680-1); and he left a substantial body of writingsthat fill two volumes of the Patrologia Graeca.The only thing preventing his being named aDoctor was the requisite ecclesiastical ap-proval—namely the Pope’s go-ahead—whichuntil last November just hadn’t been granted.

The history of these Doctors of the Churchmakes an interesting study. Up until the late six-teenth century, only seven saintly teachers hadbeen awarded the title—four of them fathers ofthe Western church (Ambrose, Augustine,Jerome and Gregory the Great) and three fromthe East (Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzenand John Chrysostom, who are even today hon-oured by the Orthodox as ‘the three HolyHierarchs’). By the Middle Ages the numberseemed to have become fixed: there were sevenDoctors in the same way that there were sevensacraments, seven days of the week and sevenecumenical councils. Only occasionally was thename of St Athanasius included to equalise thenumber of Eastern and Western Doctors.

The great Dominican Pope St Pius Vchanged all this when, in 1567, he added thename of the Dominican theologian St ThomasAquinas to the list, and the Franciscan Sixtus

Vfollowed suit with the Franciscan StBonaventure in 1588. From the time of Clem-ent XI in the early eighteenth century two outof every three Popes (there have been eightexceptions among twenty-three pontificates)have invoked their privilege of adding a newname to the list. Most of those named have beenWesterners; only four (Cyril of Alexandria,Cyril of Jerusalem, John of Damascus andEphrem of Nisibis) were from the East. The vastmajority of the Doctors who lived in the sec-ond millennium (all except Francis de Sales)belonged to religious orders; only three (Teresaof Avila, Catherine of Siena and Therese ofLisieux) were women. Most Popes have re-stricted themselves to naming only one Doctorduring the course of a pontificate; four Popes—Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XI and Paul VI—havenamed two or more.

It has become customary, then, for a newPope to name a new Doctor, and for the theolo-gian Benedict XVI it was only a matter of time.Yet the method of nominating Maximus hasproved surprising, and encyclopedists and list-makers are now scratching their heads and won-dering if it is actually official. It is, of course:Pope Benedict is simply doing it his own way.It reminds me of the time he dropped the title‘Patriarch of the West’ from his list of titles:without fanfare, it was simply there in theAnnuario Pontificio one year and gone the next.In this pontificate the encyclical—that mostauthoritative of papal writings—has suddenlybecome the place to announce which other writ-ers or writings on the faith may also be consid-ered authoritative. Or is this encyclical unique

Michael Modini is ateacher at a Catholichigh school in theBrisbane Archdioceseand a former student ofboth the CatholicInstitute of Sydney andthe Brisbane College ofTheology.


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because it is an encyclical about hope?

Maximus and the Two Wills of Christ

So who exactly is this St Maximus, whose nomi-nation to the position of Doctor of the Churchhas not happened in the way we would haveexpected? Born around 580 at Constantinople(probably) and called Megistos (‘greatest’—theLatin Maximus is a translation) perhaps in or-der to compensate for his small stature, he wasthe son of a Byzantine civil servant. Well edu-cated, by his early thirties Maximus was secre-tary to the Emperor Heraclius; some time after610 he experienced a call to the religious lifeand became a monk at the monastery ofPhilippicus at Chrysopolis (modern Scutari, theAsian suburb of Istanbul). Around 615 he trans-ferred to the monastery of St George at Cyzicus(modern Erdek) on the Sea of Marmara, butwith the advance of the Persian army throughAsia Minor in the mid-620’s, and along withmany other Greeks, he emigrated. By 630 hewas at Carthage in North Africa, where hisfriend and former tutor Sophronius (the futurePatriarch of Jerusalem) was also in exile. En-couraged by Sophronius, Maximus wrote ex-tensively—his works are exegetical, mystical,ascetical and devotional in nature, but his fa-vourite topic was the union of God with hu-mankind brought about through the Incarnation.Maximus is considered one of the Church’s fin-est teachers on this subject.

The seventh century was one of ongoingcontroversy about the person of Jesus. Whilethe nature of Christ’s nature had been clarifiedtwo centuries earlier at the council of Chalcedon(451), in the 600’s it was the nature of Christ’sintellective faculties that occupied the mindsof theologians instead. Earlier in the centurythe Emperor had tried to heal the rift betweennon-Chalcedonian Monophysites (who said thatthere was only one [divine] nature in Christ)and orthodox Dyophysites (who said that Christis both true God and true man, of one beingwith the Father as regards his divinity and atthe same time of one being with us as regards

his humanity) by imposing a proviso to the ef-fect that, despite these two natures, Christ hadonly one (divine) ‘energy’ (sometimes knownas ‘activity’ or ‘operation’). This theory (‘mono-energism’) was demolished by the most percep-tive theologians of the day (among themSophronius), only to be replaced by anotheraccording to which Christ had only one (divine)will (in Greek thelêsis or thelêma)5 . This theorywas known as Monothelitism.

It was Maximus’ insight that the Will be-longs to Nature, and therefore that if Christ hastwo natures he also has two wills—one divineand one human. Though the churches of the Eastby and large supported Monothelitism,Maximus’ position was shared by Rome andthe West.6 In 649 Maximus was invited to theLateran synod convoked by the new Pope,Martin I, and invited to state his position pub-licly. To do so would be to invite the wrath ofthe Emperor, yet Maximus held the view that‘the smallest point of faith is to be held at therisk of one’s life’7. In 653 both Martin andMaximus were arrested and brought to trial(separately) in Constantinople. Pope Martin wasimprisoned, humiliated and exiled to Cherson,where he died as a martyr to the faith two yearslater. Maximus also was exiled, to Byzia inThrace; six years later he was brought to trialagain. This time he was imprisoned, beaten, andhad his tongue and right hand cut off so thatthey might never again ‘minister to your blas-phemous argument’8 . Exiled to Lazica, nearColchis on the eastern shore of the Black Sea,he died on August 13th, 662, at the age of eighty-two.

Maximus may have been small in staturebut he was great in his defence of the truth.Though commemorated liturgically as a Con-fessor, he surely died as much a martyr (liter-ally ‘witness’) to the faith as Pope Martin. Asfor his holiness and teaching, we can probablyapply to Maximus the words which Pope PaulVI applied to St Catherine of Siena, anotherDoctor who suffered for the unity of the Church:‘What strikes us most about the Saint is his in-fused wisdom, that is to say, his lucid, profound

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and inebriating absorption of the divine truthsand mysteries of faith’9 . In a world whichwanted Christ to be—at least on some level—fully divine, Maximus insisted that on all lev-els Christ is fully human as well.

As One in Compassion

Though the possessor of two wills (one divineand one human), in the Gospels Jesus only everuses the pronoun ‘I’. Though both God and manhe is a single Person, and in most cases the di-vine will and the human will are in perfect ac-cord—for Maximus, the human will assumedby the Logos submitted to the will of the Fatheras an example of obedience for the sake of oursalvation. Only in the Garden of Gethsemane,where Jesus eventually said: ‘Nevertheless, notas I will but as thou wilt’ (Mt 26:39 and paral-lels), was there any trace of a conflict: in theGarden, the all-too-human fear of suffering anddeath was at odds with the divine plan10 .Maximus cites as evidence of Jesus’ humanitythe numerous other scriptural passages whichreveal him as possessing the faculty of will ac-cording to his human nature. According to theseChrist:

...willed to go to Galilee; willed his disciples tobe with him where he is; did not will to drinksour wine mingled with gall; did not want to walkin Judea; did not want anyone to know when hepassed through Galilee; went to the region of Tyreand Sidon and entered a house and did not wantanyone to know it; though he could not be hid-den, wanted to pass by his disciples walking onthe sea; and became obedient to the point ofdeath.11

In today’s world, however, where the hu-manity of Jesus is taken for granted, it is in-structive to examine more closely those otherpassages in Scripture where Jesus uses the wordthelô (‘I will’, sometimes translated as ‘I de-sire’ or ‘I choose’). Maximus pointedly doesnot, for example, cite Jesus’ quotation of theprophet Hosea (‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’[Mt 9:13; cf. Hos 6:6]), or the resurrectedChrist’s ‘If it is my will that he remain until Icome, what is that to you?’ (Jn 21:22), or Mark’s

reference to the calling of the apostles (‘Andhe went up on the mountain, and called to himthose whom he desired’ [Mk 3:13])—here nodoubt because the calling of the Twelve has adivine aspect. But are there places in the Gos-pels where Christ’s words can be said to repre-sent both his divine will and his human will?

The first use of thelô in the Gospels is foundat Matthew 8:3 (and parallels), and here thesupremely communal nature of two wills isclear. Confronted with the misery and humansuffering of a leper, Jesus responds to his re-quest for healing with the words: ‘I will: do thoube made clean’. Here the union of the two willsin the person of Christ finds expression in hu-manly charitable yet divinely miraculous heal-ing, providing for the leper hope in a previouslyunimaginable future. Later in the Gospel Jesusis unwilling to send the crowds away hungrylest they faint on the way (cf. Mt 15:32), andfollows this up with a miracle of loaves andfishes; later still he wishes he could have gath-ered together the children of Jerusalem ‘as ahen gathers her brood under her wings’ (Mt23:27, with allusions to Isaiah 49:15 and 66:12-3). In all three of these examples we see thedivine will and the human will in perfect ac-cord; see also that in their union in Christ theyare as one in compassion for Christ’s fellowhuman beings.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ divinity is ex-pressed more clearly and thelein used morewidely. As ‘the Father raises the dead and givesthem life,’ Jesus says, ‘so also the Son giveslife to whom he will (thelei)’ (5:21); and hedesires ‘that they…may be with me where I am,to behold my glory’ (17:24). Those to whomthe Son would give life are identified as the dis-ciples, which in a Johannine context means allthe faithful. Those who ‘abide in me [may] askwhatever you will (thelête) and it shall be donefor you’ (Jn 15:7); and in John’s first Letter thisconfidence becomes ‘ask anything accordingto his will (thelêma) [and] he hears us’ (1 Jn5.14). This doesn’t mean that Jesus’ will is tobe identified with ours, however. Rather, Jesusseeks—or came to do—not ‘my own will but


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the will of him who sent me’ (Jn 5:30, 6:38; cf.4:34), and the content of the Father’s will isthen explained in three ways. Firstly, it is that ‘Ishould lose nothing of all that he has given me,but raise it up at the last day’ (6:39)12 ; secondly,with a linguistic recapitulation, it is identifiedwith Jesus’ teaching, which is ‘not mine, buthis who sent me’ (7:16); and thirdly, it has todo with Jesus’ passion (cf. Mt 26:42 and paral-lels; Heb 13:12) and death—which is offeredfor us (cf. Jn 10.15) and for all (cf. 12:32).13

The Perichoresis of the Wills

For Mary Coloe, ‘the greatest teaching in theGospel of John’ is that of the mutual indwell-ing, or reciprocal relationships, between Fatherand Son, Jesus and believers: ‘the same lovingcommunion of life experienced within the di-vine Godhead is opened up as a possibility forall’.14 The incorporation of humanity into Jesus’use of thelein in John’s writings reflects thisinvitation into the divine life. While there is inthe coexistence or union of the two wills inChrist a real perichôresis—a ‘genuine recipro-cal penetration’—analogous to that among thepersons of the Holy Trinity15 , there is also aprofound communion with others such that wemight even be able to speak of this communionas a ‘constitutive dimension’16 of theperichoresis of the wills. In the perichoresis ofthe divine and human wills in Jesus Christ wefind his compassion for the suffering individual,the multitude, the nation, the human race. Inthe perichoresis of the divine and human willsin Jesus Christ we find a dwelling place evenfor ourselves.

Similarly, in the Body of Christ which is theChurch—animated by the Spirit of life whoselaw sets us free from the deficiencies of thehuman will17—this communion of wills simul-taneously reveals not only the nature of God,but what it means to be fully human. In theperichoresis of the two wills in Christ we findthe willingness to participate in compassionateand affectionate acts of charity (or love)—‘inthe justice and generosity of God towards oth-

ers’18 —such that there is a place for us in the‘sanctification of men in Christ and the glorifi-cation of God’19 . In the perichoresis of the twowills in Christ we find the desire to ‘fully re-veal man to man himself’20 such that there is aplace for us in the redemptive death that ‘hasdefinitively restored his dignity to man andgiven back meaning to his life in the world’21 .And in the perichoresis of the two wills in Christwe find the mystery of God’s will set forth inChrist, whose purpose is ‘to unite all things inhim’22 such that there is hope in the life afterthis life for us all.

Intra-ecclesially the communion of willsalso finds expression in the Ignatian attitude ofsentire cum ecclesia (‘think/feel with theChurch’), an approach to theological thinkingwhich in a world of disunion is essential forecclesial communion. We find this attitudeabove all in the teachings of the Doctors of theChurch, whose lives and sanctity are reflectedin theologies which are faithful yet creative re-workings of the essential deposit of the Gos-pel. With teachers like these in our traditionsand in our midst, it is clear that we are alreadyparticipants in a communion of teaching withthe Eastern Churches, with whom we share theseDoctors’ stories, honour their writings and cel-ebrate their feast days. The Orthodox may notrecognise our Eastern Doctors under the sametitle, but they surely recognise that the Popemeans them a great deal of respect with hisnomination of St Maximus of Constantinople—whose doctrine of the two wills in the one per-son of the incarnate Christ has become ‘a pillarof union rather than a source of division be-tween the churches’23—on the feast day of StAndrew the Apostle. This is a significant olivebranch. There is hope for the future.

The Doctors of the Future

The nomination of St Maximus the Confessorbrings the number of Doctors of the Church tothirty-four, and the number of Eastern Doctorsto nine. This is not a large number if we con-sider that the other twenty-five Doctors are all



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Westerners, but it at least equals the number ofWestern Doctors of the first millennium (includ-ing St Bede). The split between Catholicism andOrthodoxy occurred around the turn of the mil-lennium (1054 is often cited as a convenientdate), and until the Churches are reunited it isunlikely that a Pope will name as Doctor a sec-ond-millennium non-Catholic.

But are there other Doctors from the ‘GreatChurch’ of the first Christian millennium yet tobe nominated? A number of saintly teacherswho united faith with learning and wisdom, andwhose writings ‘draw us into Christ’s ‘being forall’, might still merit the title of Doctor of theChurch in addition to those already named. Thebishops Epiphanius of Salamis in Cyprus (aJewish-Christian), Gregory of Nyssa (theCappadocian described recently by PopeBenedict as a ‘pillar of orthodoxy’24 ), andFulgentius of Ruspe (a North African) were allinfluential writers as well as spiritual leaders.The Church in Spain already acknowledgesthree ‘Spanish Doctors’—Ildephonsus of To-ledo, Leander of Seville and Fulgentius of Ecija.And the feast day of the lay theologian Prosperof Aquitaine is celebrated in the diocese ofLourdes-Tarbes as that of an ‘Aquitainian doc-

tor’25 .As for the Catholic teachers of the second

millennium, there are a number of great saintsamong these too. The Scottish Franciscan andscholastic John of Duns26 was beatified by PopeJohn Paul II in 1993, and the Italian JesuitAntonio Rosmini-Serbati by Benedict XVI in2007 (coincidentally just twelve days before thesigning of Spe Salvi). The causes of two Vener-able cardinals—Cesare Baronio (the ‘Father ofEcclesiastical History’) and the Anglican con-vert John Henry Newman—are also nearingcompletion, while St Teresa Benedicta of theCross (Edith Stein)—author of a substantialbody of work incorporating the themes of phe-nomenology—was canonised in 1998 and (ifthe example of St Therese of Lisieux is pro-phetic) will probably be named a Doctor forthe centenary of her martyrdom in 2042. Andperhaps the contributions of Henri de Lubac,source of much of the ecclesiology of the sec-ond Vatican Council, and Nguyen Van Thuan,whose reflections on the experience of impris-onment have been a source of hope to many27 ,might one day be recognised as eminent aswell—to the building-up of the Church and tothe praise and honour of God.

1. Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 28; cf. PG 90:962-66.2. Other sources include Jesus, St Paul, the au-thor of the Letter to the Hebrews, Plato, MartinLuther, Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant, FyodorDostoyevsky, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.3. In 1997, the centenary of her death (on MissionSunday). The story is told that the priest who waschaplain to the Carmelites of Lisieux used to callTherese ‘the little Doctor’; cf. The Story of the Can-onization of S. Thérèse of Lisieux, 144.4. In 1925 and 1931 respectively.5. By ‘will’ is understood that rational desire (touse an Aristotelian term) or cognitive faculty orcapacity which desires ‘what is in accordance withnature. For every being, and especially the ra-tional beings, desires by nature what is in accord-ance with nature, having been given by God ac-cording to essence the capacity of that for its ownconstitution … In accordance with this will we

willingly think and …wish and…search and con-sider and deliberate and judge and are inclinedtowards and choose/decide and rush and use’. Cf.Demetrios Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ: Per-son, Nature, and Will in the Christology of SaintMaximus the Confessor, 123 & 127, citingMaximus’ Opusculum 16 & Disputatio.6. During his trial Maximus was asked: ‘Why doyou love the Romans and hate the Greeks?’ Inanswer he replied: ‘We have a precept which saysnot to hate anyone. I love the Romans as thosewho share the same faith, and the Greeks as shar-ing the same language.’ Cf. George C. Berthold(ed.), Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings, 26.7. Catholic Encyclopedia, ‘Maximus the Confes-sor’, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10078b.htm.8. P. Allen & B. Neil (eds), Scripta saeculi VIIvitam Maximi Confessoris illustrantia, 119.Maximus’ two assistants—both called

NOTES


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The Story of the Canonization of S. Thérèse of Lisieux:with the Text of the Principal Documents in the Proc-ess. London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne Ltd, 1934.Allen, Pauline, & Bronwen Neil (eds). Maximus theConfessor and his Companions: Documents from Ex-ile. Oxford: University Press, 2002.Allen, P., & B. Neil (eds). Scripta saeculi VII vitamMaximi Confessoris illustrantia. Turnhout: Brepols,1999.Bathrellos, Demetrios. The Byzantine Christ: Person,Nature, and Will in the Christology of Saint Maximusthe Confessor. Oxford: University Press, 2004.Berthold, George C. (ed.). Maximus Confessor: Se-

Benedict XVI. General Audience of Wednesday, 29th

August, 2007. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070829_en.html.Benedict XVI. Spe Salvi . 2007. http://

lected Writings. London: SPCK, 1985.Butler, Alban. Butler’s Lives of the Saints. Westmin-ster: Christian Classics, 1956.Coloe, Mary. Dwelling in the Household of God:Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality. Collegeville:Liturgical Press, 2007.John Paul II. Redemptor Hominis. Homebush: Soci-ety of St Paul, 1979.Louth, Andrew. Maximus the Confessor. London:Routledge, 1996.Nichols, Aidan. Byzantine Gospel: Maximus the Con-fessor in Modern Scholarship. Edinburgh: T&TClark, 1993.

www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encycli-cals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html.Catholic Encyclopedia, ‘Maximus the Confessor’.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10078b.htm.


Anastasius—were similarly dismembered and ex-iled to Perberis.9. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 62 (1970), p. 675.10. For Andrew Louth, Maximus’ defence of twowills in the Incarnate Christ is not intended tosuggest that there are two subjects in Christ, but‘to safeguard the full humanity in which the Sec-ond Person of the Godhead lives out a human life’(Maximus the Confessor, 28). Christ’s prayer inGethsemane shows, ‘in the shrinking’, the deter-mination of the human will to be shaped andbrought in harmony with the divine will ‘in ac-cordance with the interweaving of the naturallogos with the mode of the economy’ (p. 61).11. Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ, 138. Scrip-ture references are to Jn 1:43, Jn 17:24, Mt 27:34,Jn 7:1, Mk 9:30, Mk 7:24, Mk 6:48, Phil 2:8. Thequestion addressed to Christ by the disciples,‘Where do you want (theleis) us to go and prepare,that you may eat the Passover’ (Mt 26:17 and par-allels) is an additional reference to the human will.12. ‘For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him shouldhave eternal life; and I will raise him up at thelast day’ (Jn 6:40).13. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews adds:‘By that (i.e. the Father’s) will we have been sanc-tified through the offering of the body of JesusChrist once for all’ (10:10).14. Mary Coloe, Dwelling in the Household of

God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality,196. Cf. also 1 Jn 3:2, where ‘all are open to thepossibility of the divine presence’.15. Cf. Aidan Nichols, Byzantine Gospel:

Maximus the Confessor in Modern Scholarship,109. Nichols points out that, according to G.L.Prestige, Maximus was the first to use the nounperichôresis (circumincession) in Christology,‘even if Gregory Nazianzen did centuries beforeemploy the verb’.16. To appropriate the terminology of the 1971

Synod of Bishops.17. Cf. Romans 8:2; 7:15, 20.18. Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 28.19. Cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10.20. Cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22.21. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 10.22. Ephesians 1:10.23. Pauline Allen & Bronwen Neil (eds),

Maximus the Confessor and his Companions:Documents from Exile, 30.24. Benedict XVI, General Audience of Wednes-

day, 29th August, 2007.25. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, Vol. 2, 188.26. The septicentenary of Duns Scotus’ death will

be celebrated in November this year.27. Nguyen’s prison writings were published un-

der the headings Road of Hope, Testimony of Hopeand Prayers of Hope. The cause into his beatifica-tion was opened in 2007, five years after his death.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WEBOGRAPHY


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IT IS NOT SCIENCE that redeems man: man is redeemed by love. Thisapplies even in terms of this present world. When someone has theexperience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of ‘redemption’

which gives a new meaning to his life. But soon he will also realize that thelove bestowed upon him cannot by itself resolve the question of his life. It isa love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death. The human beingneeds unconditional love. He needs the certainty which makes him say:‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, northings to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in allcreation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus ourLord’ (Rom 8:38- 39). If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty,then—only then—is man ‘redeemed’, whatever should happen to him in hisparticular circumstances. This is what it means to say: Jesus Christ has‘redeemed’ us. Through him we have become certain of God, a God who isnot a remote ‘first cause’ of the world, because his only-begotten Son hasbecome man and of him everyone can say: ‘I live by faith in the Son of God,who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20).

In this sense it is true that anyone who does not know God, even though hemay entertain all kinds of hopes, is ultimately without hope, without thegreat hope that sustains the whole of life (cf. Eph 2:12). Man’s great, truehope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God—God who has loved us and who continues to love us ‘to the end,’ until all ‘isaccomplished’ (cf. Jn 13:1 and 19:30). Whoever is moved by love begins toperceive what ‘life’ really is. He begins to perceive the meaning of the wordof hope that we encountered in the Baptismal Rite: from faith I await ‘eter-nal life’—the true life which, whole and unthreatened, in all its fullness, issimply life. Jesus, who said that he had come so that we might have life andhave it in its fullness, in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10), has also explained to uswhat ‘life’ means: ‘this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God,and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (Jn 17:3). Life in its true sense is notsomething we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship. Andlife in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If weare in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself,then we are in life. Then we ‘live’.

—Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi—On Christian Hope, pars. 26 and 27.


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REVIEWSBen Quash and Michael Ward (eds), Her-esies and How to Avoid Them, SPCK/Wil-low Connection, $32.95, paperback, 160pages.Talk of heresy, and its opposite, orthodoxy, setsoff a negative reaction in the general public inour time, and even in some within the Church.The idea of heresy is seen to be linked to thenotion that the Church is a repressive organi-sation, suppressing original thinking and crea-tivity, and even ‘the truth’.

One of numerous revealing points made inHeresies and How to Avoid Them is that oftenthe position that came to be understood as theorthodox Christian belief was much more radi-cal and original than the heresy. Those pro-moting what came to be understood as heresyfailed to fully wrestle with the full spectrumof the biblical tradition, or tried to make senseof an aspect of Christian belief in a way thatsurrendered to commonsensical thinking thatfailed to do justice to the fullness of Christianrevelation.

An example is Arius, who denied the fulldivinity of Jesus. While he was a devout Chris-tian, Arius was greatly influenced byNeoplatonic philosophy, and he could not ac-commodate within his philosophical beliefs theidea that Jesus was as much God as the Fatherwas.

Another important aspect of heresy that isnot commonly appreciated is that the viewsproposed that came to be understood as her-esy, were the trigger for a debate about an as-pect of Christian belief that had the end resultof an orthodox view on the matter being de-cided upon (at a Church Council and gener-ally enshrined in one of the Creeds). In otherwords, if there were no heresy, there would beno articulated orthodoxy.

Heresies and How to Avoid Them is anexcellent guide to key Christian heresies, pre-sented by twelve experts from a variety of

Christian traditions, principally Anglicans, butalso an Eastern Orthodox and a Society ofFriends (Quakers), as well as two Catholicscholars, Janet Martin Soskice and DenysTurner.

The core of the book is a series of twelveessays, one on each of the heresies. Each be-gins with a concise account of the heresy andits history, followed by key biblical texts rel-evant to the issue. The rest of the essay dis-cusses the heresy in more detail (working tounderstand what was behind the heresy, notdemonising those involved), and its relevancefor believers today.

The essays were originally given as a se-ries of sermons at Peterhouse Chapel, Cam-bridge, where the editors serve as Anglicanpriests. In keeping with their origins the es-says are very accessible, engaging and con-cise (each is around ten pages).

The book also has an informative introduc-tion and afterword by the editors, along with aglossary, further reading list, and indexes.

Readers of this book should find not onlywill they gain a better understanding of thefundamental heresies the Church has struggledwith in its history; they will also be challengedto think through their own understanding offundamental aspects of Christian belief.

—Kevin Mark

John Honner, Love and Politics: The Revo-lutionary Frederic Ozanam. Melbourne:David Lovell Publishing, 2007. ISBN -9781863551212This is a small but powerful book of just overone hundred pages which, to use the author’sown words, ‘explores Frederic Ozanam’s in-volvement in the revolutionary politics of hisown day and…reflects on current [Australian]discussions about social justice and the roleof religion in politics.’

While the book does outline Frederic


40

COMPASS

The knowledge of social well-being and of reform is to be learned, not frombooks, nor from the public platform, but in climbing the stairs to the poorman’s garrett, sitting by his bed-side, feeling the same cold that pierces him,sharing the secret of his lonely heart and troubled mind.

—Frederic Ozanam

Ozanam’s life and foundation of the St Vin-cent de Paul Society (for which Frederic is bestknown), it examines the roles of Charities andWelfare in Australia and the need for love andjustice in our society. Dr. Honner points outthe many similarities in the times of Fredericand those of present day Australia. He de-scribes Frederic’s concern for people’s spir-itual development and the need for self-sacri-fice. Dr Honner wonders about those attributesin Australians today.

He quotes from Frederic’s writings of1834: ‘I believe in authority as a means, inliberty as a means and in love as the end.’

The introduction to the book sets the toneand outlines the subject matter. The authorgives a brief outline of Frederic Ozanam’s lifeand his ambitions. With a few short paragraphsFrederic and his times come to life. ‘Imaginehim at a desk in a small room three or fourstoreys up, a small window, a candle burn-ing’…’

Frederic wrote to a friend: ‘We need po-etry in the midst of this prosaic and cold world,and at the same time a philosophy which givessome reality to our ideal conceptions.’

Dr. Honner quotes Frederic’s three aimsin life: ‘Three things should be the object ofmy studies: law, the moral sciences, and someknowledge of the world looked at from theChristian point of view.’

The Introduction is entitled ‘What is the

World Coming To?’ and is followed by fivechapters dealing with the many issues of ourpresent day society—Charities, Politics, theEconomy, Truth and Justice, to name a few.The final chapter tries to answer the questionset out in the Introduction.

The book is written in a scholarly fashionbut is easy to read by the not-so-scholarly. Eachchapter begins with a summary of what is tocome and so focuses the reader’s attention onthe issues to be discussed. The chapter is fur-ther divided by sub-headings which make foreasily finding a point of special interest to thereader.

I found the book fascinating because of itsstory of Frederic and for the wonderful con-tribution to discussion of problems in our owntime.

The Society of St Vincent de Paul in Vic-toria commissioned the book and it waslaunched by John Molony, Professor Emeri-tus of History, of the Australian National Uni-versity. To quote him as he launched the book:‘It is not often that I have come away from abook with the feeling that practically everypage has enriched me. In this case it is the sim-ple truth.’

Love and Politics is obtainable for $10.00from the National Office and State Offices ofthe St Vincent de Paul Society, or by calling03 9895 5815

—Margaret McCarthy

REVIEWS


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The Black Dress: MaryMacKillop’s early years;Pamela Freeman; Black DogBooks, www.bdb.com.au;PB $18.99 [9781742030395];270pp; 210x140mm; 2008Reissue of a novel, first pub-lished 2005, for teenage andyoung adult readers and basedon the early life of BlessedMary MacKillop (1842–1909), the founder of the Sis-ters of St Joseph. Cover ofnew edition features photo-graphs of MacKillop. Story istold as the recollections ofMacKillop at the end of herlife as she faces death. She re-counts the trials of growing upin a poor family and her de-veloping sense of religious vo-cation. Includes guide to fur-ther information; teacher notesare available from the publish-er’s website. Book wasawarded the Young People’sHistory Prize, 2006 NSW Pre-mier’s History Awards, andnamed a Notable Book in the2006 Children’s Book Coun-cil of Australia Awards. Syd-ney-based author is an expe-rienced writer for children andyoung adults.

The Existential Jesus; JohnCarroll; Scribe Publica-tions; PB $35.00[9781921215179]; 278pp;235x150mm; 2007Rejecting the traditional pres-

entation of Jesus by the Chris-tian Church but believing that‘Jesus is the core of the West-ern Dreaming’, the author un-dertakes a retelling of the firstwritten Gospel, that of Mark,reflecting on its contents in thecontext of today. Carroll’s Je-sus is an existential hero, theWest’s great teacher on thenature of being. Part 1 consistsof the author’s translation ofMark, each section followedby his interpretation. Part 2focuses on five characters whorepresent the different reac-tions to Jesus (this section alsodraws on the Gospel of John):Peter, Magdalene, Judas,Pilate, and John. Endnotes;bibliography; index. Author isProfessor of Sociology at LaTrobe University, Melbourne.Previous books include Egoand Soul: The modern west insearch of meaning (1998) andThe Wreck of Western Culture(2004).

The Pastoral Care of Ital-ians in Australia: Memoryand prophecy; AnthonyPaganoni (editor); ConnorCourt; PB $24.95[9781921421013]; 185pp;210x150mm; 2007Collection of papers exploringthe contribution of Italians tothe Catholic Church in Aus-tralia. Anthony Cappello’schapter is ‘A Brief Survey of

the Italian Catholic in Aus-tralia until the Second WorldWar: An Italian Problem?’Ilma Martinuzzi O’Brien con-tributes ‘Italian Australiansand the Australian CatholicChurch through War, Intern-ment and Mass Migration’.Desmond Cahill contributes‘From Dagoes to Doers: Ac-commodating Australia’s Ital-ian Families by Church andState. Christopher J. Mona-ghan CP considers the bibli-cal perspective on exile, thechallenge of whether to as-similate, and the handing onof traditions. Anthony J. KellyCSsR’s paper is ‘The ItalianExperience: Lessons inCatholicity for the EmergingMulti-cultural Church in Aus-tralia’. Editor contributes anintroduction and conclusion.Each chapter includesendnotes and further readinglists. Foreword by ApostolicNuncio Ambrose De Paoli;contributor notes; index. Edi-tor is a Scalabrinian nowbased in Australia whofounded the Scalabrini Migra-tion Centre in Manila.

Prayer and Relationships:Staying connected: AnIgnatian prespective;Patrick O’Sullivan SJ;David Lovell Publishing; PB$22.5 [9781863551250];126pp; 215x140mm; 2008

NEW RELIGIOUS BOOKS BY AUSTRALASIAN AUTHORS

KEVIN MARK


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Inspired by the Spiritual Ex-ercises of St Ignatius ofLoyola, but avoiding Ignatianterminology, the authorpresents an account of prayerthat focuses on the relation-ships we have in prayer. Bymaking choices that allowspace for our relationship withGod, we progress in the wayof prayer. Author is a Jesuitpriest who has been the Soci-ety’s Australian Provincial,head of the Jesuit Secretariatein Rome for the Christian LifeCommunities, Director ofCampion Retreat Centre, Mel-bourne, and is presently spir-itual director at Corpus ChristiSeminary, Melbourne. Previ-ous books include Sure BeatsSelling Cardigans: Fosteringour relationship with God(1995) and God Knows Howto Come Home: Reflections onan active spirituality for today(1999).

Prince of the Church:Patrick Frances Moran,1830-1911; Philip Ayres;Melbourne University Pub-lishing (The MiegunyahPress); HB $55[9780522853735]; 384pp;240x160mm; 2007The first book-length biogra-phy of Patrick Francis Moran(1830–1911), Australia’s firstcardinal. Born in Ireland, af-ter many years in Rome, in-cluding during the RomanRevolution of 1848, Moranwas made Bishop of Ossory(at Kilkenny, Ireland) in 1872.He was appointed Archbishopof Sydney in 1884 and made

cardinal the following year.Moran was vocal on moral andreligious issues in Australiaand was influential in themovement for Federation.Book was commissioned bythe current Archbishop of Syd-ney, Cardinal Pell. Account isbased on the author’s exten-sive research in Australia, Italyand Ireland, and Moran’s dia-ries 1850-1911. Photographs;endnotes; bibliography andiconography; index. Authorwas head of English atMonash University, and pro-fessorial fellow and visitingprofessor at Boston Univer-sity. Previous books includeClassical Culture and the Ideaof Rome in Eighteenth-Cen-tury England (1997) andMawson: A life (2003). He isa Fellow of the Royal Histori-cal Society (London) and theAustralian Academy of theHumanities.

Putting Life Together: Find-ings from Australian youthspirituality research; PhilipHughes; Rainbow BookAgencies (Fairfield Press);PB $34.95 [9781875138074];215pp; 235x165mm; 2007Detailed study of the views ofAustralians aged between 13and 24 about the world andtheir relationships with self,society and nature. Examinesthe influences on the youngpeople’s spiritual and moraldevelopment. Based on inter-views and surveys from the‘Spirit of Gen Y’ project un-dertaken between 2003 and2006 by the Christian Re-

search Association (CRA) inconjunction with researchersfrom the Australian CatholicUniversity (including MichaelMason and Ruth Webber) andMonash University. Executivesummary; tables and charts(some in colour); referenceslist; index. Author is the sen-ior research officer of theCRA, a research fellow in theCentre for Social Research,Edith Cowan University, anda Uniting Church minister. Heis editor and major contribu-tor to Australia’s ReligiousCommunities: A MultimediaExploration (2004).This Is You; GerardDowling; Spectrum; PB$19.95 [9780867863871];69pp; 210x145mm; 2007Guide to assist readers to re-flect on their own human life,appreciating God’s concernfor them. Section one consid-ers Your Identity, includingpersonality, emotions, sexual-ity and talents. Section twoconsiders Your Journey, frombirth to old age. Section threeconsiders Your Company, in-cluding family, teachers,friends, enemies, and the com-munity of believers. Sectionfour considers Your Destiny,including purpose, prayer, per-severance, and death and eter-nal happiness. Author is apriest of the Catholic Archdio-cese of Melbourne. His radiotalkback program, ‘The Fam-ily Consellor’, on AM RadioSport 927, has been broadcastsince 1973. He received aMedal of the Order of Austral-ian for services to the commu-


43

nity in 1985 and a Medal ofHonour in 1995 from theChristophers (USA), ‘whichfosters Christ-like contribu-tions to the media’. He haswritten over 15 books includ-ing Seasons of Your Life(1985) and Praying Continu-ally and Never Losing Heart(1998).

Through a Catholic Lens:Religious perspectives ofnineteen film directors fromaround the world; PeterMalone (editor); Rowman &Littlefield Publishers (Sheed& Ward), USA, dist. by Cen-tral Book Services; HB$93.95 [9780742552302]; PB$35.99 [9780742552319];278pp; 230x155mm; 2007Volume in ‘The Communica-tion, Culture, and Religion’ se-ries. Collection of studies byan international group of con-tributors on 19 Catholic filmdirectors, examining theCatholic undercurrents in theirfilms. The directors examinedare also from a great varietyof countries, and include NeilJordan, John Sayles, PedroAlmodovar, Luis Bunuel,Krzysztof Kieslowski, LouisMalle, Kevin Smith and MelGibson. Editor Malone con-tributes a chapter on FredSchepisi. Another Australiancontributor, Jan Epstein writeson Andrej Wajda; one of threestudies that also considerCatholic-Jewish relationships.Review questions and notes atend of each chapter; notes oncontributors; index. Author isa Missionary of the Sacred

Heart priest, a former editorof Compass, and has beenPresident of SIGNIS, theWorld Catholic Associationfor Communication. His nu-merous books include theLights, Camera, Faith: AMovie Lover’s Guide to Scrip-ture series (2001-2006).

Through Ecological Eyes:Reflections on Christianity’senvironmental credentials;Robert Barry Leal; StPauls; PB $29.95[9781921032073]; 206pp;215x140mm; 2006Series of reflections to helpreaders re-look at their Chris-tian heritage with ‘ecologicaleyes’. Opening chapter placesChristians in the environmentand also links ecology withconcern for social justice.Next four chapters considerspecific aspects of nature inthe Bible, including water, air,earth, fire, animals and birds,and vegetation. Ecology in theHebrew scriptures is also con-sidered, before author focusesspecifically on Jesus. What arethe ecological implications ofthe Incarnation? How areChrist and Creation related?Author also reflects on Jesus’parable of the Prodigal Sonfrom an ecological perspec-tive. Concluding chapterpresents three figures from theChristian tradition with greatenvironmental relevance:Hildegard of Bingen, Francisof Assisi, and AlbertSchweitzer. Endnotes; bibli-ography. Author is a formerDeputy Vice-Chancellor,

Macquarie University, andVice-Chancellor, Universityof Southern Queensland. In2003 he graduated Doctor ofTheology from the SydneyCollege of Divinity and isLeader of Earth Ministry inthe Uniting Church congrega-tions of Northbridge andCastlecrag, Sydney. Previousbook is The Environment andChristian Faith: An introduc-tion to ecotheology (2004).

The Trinity: Nexus of themysteries of Christian faith;Anne Hunt; Orbis, USA,dist. by Rainbow BookAgencies; PB $34.95[9781570756290]; 270pp;235x155mm; 2005First volume in the ‘Theologyin Global Perspective’ series.Author of two earlier books onthe Trinity, Hunt explores theinterconnection of the mysteryof the Trinity and the othergreat mysteries of ChristianFaith, synthesizing the tradi-tion and her and other theolo-gians’ work in this area. Chap-ters include: Faith SeekingConnections; the Develop-ment of Trinitarian Theologyin the Patristic and MedievalPeriods; Contemporary Ap-proaches to Trinitarian Theol-ogy; Trinity and Christology;Trinity, the Paschal Mysteryand Soteriology; Trinity andCreation, Evolution and Ecol-ogy; Trinity and Church; Trin-ity and World Religions; Trin-ity, Grace and the Moral Life;Trinity, Spirituality and Wor-ship; and Trinity and Escha-tology. Preface by series edi-

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tor, Peter C. Phan. Footnotes;further reading lists for eachchapter; bibliography; glos-sary; index. Author is Rectorof the Australian Catholic Uni-versity, Ballarat, Victoria. Pre-vious books include The Trin-ity and the Paschal Mystery(1997) and What Are TheySaying About the Trinity?(1998).

Understanding the GeneralInstruction of the RomanMissal; Gerard Moore; StPauls; PB $25[9781921032387]; 132pp;230x150mm; 2007Commentary on and explora-tion of The General Instruc-tion of the Roman Missal(GIRM, 2002 edition). Au-thor’s primary goal is to revealthe underlying principles andtheologies that shape theGIRM. Chapters are Princi-ples of Interpretation, Theo-logical Themes, The Mysteryof the Church, The People ofthe God Arrayed Hierarchi-cally, and The Eucharistic Cel-ebration. Endnotes. Author isAssociate Professor and Di-rector of Research at the Syd-ney College of Divinity. Hehas a doctorate in theologyfrom the Catholic Universityof America, Washington DC,has been a member of the Na-tional Liturgical Commissionof the Australian CatholicBishops’ Conference, andbeen a consultant to the Inter-

national Commission on Eng-lish in the Liturgy (ICEL).Other publications includeEucharist and Justice (2000)and Why the Mass Matters(2004).

Unintelligent Design: WhyGod isn’t as smart as shethinks she is; RobynWilliams; Allen & Unwin;PB $17.95 [9781741149234];171pp; 195x130mm; 2006Author uses facts from natureand science for a no-holds-barred attack on the Christianfundamentalist theory of Intel-ligent Design (ID). He sees IDas at odds with the true pur-poses of science and religion.The bulk of the book, Part 1,is devoted to this critique ofID, concluding with a chapterspecifically on ID in Australia.The final two chapters, whichform Part 2, are a more gen-eral critique of belief in God,including autobiographicalmaterial by the author. Authorhas presented science pro-grams on ABC radio and tel-evision since 1972. He is thefirst journalist to be elected afellow of the Australian Acad-emy of Science. Other booksinclude Future Perfect (2007).

Why the Church?: Anagreed statement of the Aus-tralian Anglican–RomanCatholic Dialogue; St Pauls/Broughton Publishing; PB$4.95 [9781921032844];

31pp; 180x115mm; 2007Document written jointly bymembers of the AustralianAnglican–Roman CatholicDialogue (AustARC) with theaim of articulating ‘a positiveappreciation of the Christianchurch in today’s Australia’.Afterword by AustARC co-chairs, Graeme Rutherfordand David Walker. List ofAustARC members.

Witness to Wonders:Healings and miracles to-day; John Rea SM;Comsoda Communications,dist. by Rainbow BookAgencies; PB $17.50[9780958091213]; 158pp;210x140mm; 2005Autobiographical account bya New Zealand-born Maristpriest of his experiences ofthe use of the gifts of the HolySpirit, especially the gift ofhealing. He first discoveredthe power of prayer with faithon a missionary journey toFiji, and his healing ministryhas taken him to the PacificIslands, the Philippines,Papua New Guinea, theUnited States, Europe andAustralia. Also tells of au-thor ’s involvement withCatholic Charismatic Re-newal. Includes texts of nu-merous healing prayers byauthor. Foreword by CardinalThomas S. Williams, Arch-bishop of Wellington, NewZealand. Photos.

Kevin Mark manages the Australasian information in the Global Books in Printdatabase and is former religious publisher for HarperCollins Publishers.


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PREPARING TO CELEBRATE THE LITURGYOF THE WORD

JULY—OCTOBER

From the Fourteenth to the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Prepared by Michael Trainor

PART ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE READINGS

The following is a brief overview of the read-ings of the Liturgy of the Word for major cel-ebrations proclaimed while this issue of Com-pass is current. It focuses on the readings forSundays between July and October 2008, fromthe Fourteenth to the Thirtieth Sunday in Or-dinary Time of Year A. Please feel free to useor adapt these reflections, with the customaryacknowledgement of source.

The readings over this time offer a uniqueopportunity to proclaim the readings of Ordi-nary Time, with only the Feast of the Triumphof the Cross (September 14) interrupting theflow of Ordinary Time readings. We can traceMatthew’s Gospel over this period, given theLectionary’s unique method of Gospel selec-tion and the way the First Reading is chosenwith the Gospel in mind. The Second Read-ing, as usual, follows Paul’s writings in a semi-continuous but selective fashion.

1. The First Readings allow us to pro-claim selections mainly from the prophets(chiefly from Isaiah, but also Jeremiah, Ezekieland Malachi), though readings also appearfrom the Torah (Exodus–OT 30), and the his-torical (1 Kings-OT 19) and wisdom (Sirach-OT 24) writings. The Book of Isaiah is fre-quently divided into three sections or ‘books,’not written by the same author but reflecting acommon spirit of the prophet and dealing withdifferent periods of Israel’s religious life

around the time of the Exile. For this reason,commentators talk of First-Isaiah (Is 1-39),Second-Isaiah (Is 40-55) and Third-Isaiah (Is56-66). Our present selections cover all threebooks. First Isaiah (OT 21, 27 & 28) celebratesGod’s holiness and power which shapes thedestinies of peoples. It calls Israel to integrityof life and fidelity to their covenant with God.Second Isaiah (OT 25, 29) seeks to comfortthe exiled people of Israel and ensure themthat God is always with them. Third Isaiah (OT20) envisages a new moment where all peo-ples are gathered as one on God’s holy moun-tain. All the prophetic writings enable presentChristian communities to reflect on God’spresence in the midst of our political and reli-gious lives. They invite us to identify God’saction in our world.

2. The Second Readings allow us to fol-low Paul’s theological message to three of hiscommunities, either ones that he was respon-sible for (Philippians, Thessalonians) or onethat he was planning on visiting (Romans). Inthese Sundays of Ordinary Time we read Ro-mans, from chapter 8 to the end of the letter.Paul is writing from Corinth around 55CEs andfocuses on God’s promises to Israel (OT 20,21). He encourages the Roman Christian tolive authentically within their own culture, con-scious of God’s presence with them (OT 22,23). The readings from Philippians (Triumph


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of the Cross, OT 25-28), written around 56CE from Ephesus, offer an opportunity tomeditate on the power of life with God andthe kind of life that flows from this unity withGod. Paul models and encourages the quali-ties of a faith-filled life focussed on Jesus. OnOT 29-31 (October 19-30) we turn ourthoughts to the final weeks of the liturgical yearand begin reading from the earliest writing ofthe New Testament. I Thessalonians. The let-ter was written around 50CE from Corinth andexplores some of the most fundamental con-cerns of Christian living: need for fidelity,openness with God and hospitality.

3. The Gospel readings continue from theGospel of Matthew. This is a Jewish-Chris-tian gospel, written in the late first century, to

a community undergoing transition, struggleand searching for how to live in its own cul-ture, faithful to the spirit of Jesus and engag-ing life. Our selection covers Mt 14-23. Thispart of the gospel is concerned with mission-ary endeavour, dealing with internal divisionand understanding religious history. The evan-gelist presents a portrait of Jesus concernedabout disciples who want to know how to han-dle conflict and develop a form of leadershipthat is clear and embracing of those who areexcluded. The passages of Mt from OT 19-31offer wonderful opportunities for contem-porary Christian communities to reflect ontheir own issues: internal division, leadershipand engagement with the wider society. Theseare the perennial and ever relevant concernsfor all communities throughout history.

PART TWO: NOTES ON THE READINGS

July 6—Ordinary Time 14: Zech 9:9-10.God as King will come to deliver, protect andoffer peace. Rom 8:9.11-13 We possess God’sSpirit who empowers our daily lives. Mt 11:25-30 We are invited to come to Jesus who wantsto be with us in our daily struggles. Theme—God’s Comfort. Many people today feel theburdens of life. Our faith community gatheredin this Sunday Assembly reflects a gentle Godwho seeks to offer support and comfort to thosewho struggle. How is this happening practi-cally at a local level?July 13—Ordinary Time 15: Is 55:10-11.God’s Word is eternally effective. Rom 8:18-23. The whole of creation is caught up withhumanity in the inward search for God and therelease of God’s spirit of renewal. Mt 13:1-23This is the ‘Great Parable’ chapter of Mt’sGospel: God’s Reign is present mysteriouslyand unexpectedly. Theme—God’s Presence. Todispirited people the invitation to contemplatea God who is present, active and mystery is anessential truth. It uplifts, converts, strength-ens and offers a fresh perspective.July 20—Ordinary Time 16: Wis 12:13.16-19. God teaches, offers hope and wisdom. Rom

8:26-27. God’s Spirit helps us in our weakness.Mt 13:24-43. This is the parable of good andevil. Theme—Weakness. The human experienceof weakness and disaster invites us to draw closeto a God who is present in our struggles. Mt’sparables remind us of the realism of life’s am-biguities which are part of discipleship and mys-teriously reveal God’s presence.July 27—Ordinary Time 17: 1 Kings 3:5.7-12. Solomon is blessed for seeking wisdomand discernment rather than wealth Rom 8:28-30. God invites us to live in the image of Je-sus. Mt 13:44-52. The parable concerns thesearch for the pearl of great price. Theme—Wisdom: All of us desire deep, lingering wis-dom to live in peace and happiness with our-selves, others and God. Many illustrationsabound where such wisdom is practiced byunwitting disciples.August 3—Ordinary Time 18: Is 55:1-3.Everyone is invited to come to God and livedeeply. Rom 8:35, 37-39. Nothing can sepa-rate us from Jesus’ love for us. Mt 14:13-21.Jesus feeds the hungry crowds. Theme—Be-ing Nourished: Our deepest desire is to behappy and interiorly nurtured. Through times


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of difficulty, experiences of desertion, or evenfeelings of separation from God—all these canbe interpreted as invitations for deeper spir-itual nourishment. The journey ever continues.August 10—Ordinary Time 19: I King 19:9, 11-13. The prophet experiences God in theunexpected silence of nature. Rom 9:1-5. Paulaffirms the role which the Jewish people playin God’s plan of salvation. Mt 14:22-3. Jesuswalks on the water, overcomes the powers thatthreaten to annihilate the household of disci-ples. Peter accompanies him. Theme—God’sPresence in difficult times: Elijah experiencesGod’s presence in the silence of nature afterthe natural violence that precedes it; Jesusovercomes the violence that attempts to over-come Mt’s community represented by the boat.God’s presence never deserts the householdof disciples. This conviction continues today.August 17—Ordinary Time 20: Is 56: 1, 6-7. Justice lies at the heart of being open to Godand acting religiously. It is the source of unity.Rom 11:13-15, 29-32. Paul continues to ac-knowledge the role which the Jewish peoplehave in God’s plan. Mt 15:21-28. A non-Jew-ish woman’s persistence pays off. Jesus blessesher and heals her daughter. Theme—God’s At-traction. Faith communities show the attrac-tion which God has for people; everyone is onthe search for God. It is revealed in people’scommitment to justice (1st reading) or theirsearch to deal with seemingly insurmountableproblems (Gospel).August 24—Ordinary Time 21: Is 22:15, 19-23. Shebna, a royal official, is removed fromoffice and Eliakim is given authority (‘thekey’) over the royal household. Rom 11:33-36. Paul celebrates God and God’s wisdom.Mt 16:13-20. Jesus is acknowledged as God’sMessiah; Peter is commissioned with leader-ship. Theme—Leadership and Authority: Ex-amples abound of political and religious lead-ership that is empowering and inclusive ofthose conventionally excluded. This is the kindof authority envisaged in Isaiah and Mt, andneeded still.August 31—Ordinary Time 22: Jer 20:7-9.

The prophet recognises the struggle of the pro-phetic vocation and mission. Rom 12:1-2. Paulencourages total spiritual renewal that is per-sonal and social. Mt 16:21-27. Jesus prepareshis disciples for the suffering that awaits. Pe-ter, commissioned last week, becomes a stum-bling block to Jesus this week. Theme—Strug-gle: Today’s liturgy offers a moment to namethe ways that faithful Christians in the localcommunity struggle. They are authentic wit-nesses as contemporary prophets and disciples.September 7—Ordinary Time 23: Ez 33:7-9. The prophet is entrusted with the task ofspeaking God’s truth, even though this maybe unpopular. Rom 13:8-10. Love of neigh-bour is the summary of the commandments.Mt 18:15-20. Jesus offers practical advice fordealing with internal tension. Ultimately, heis always present. Theme—Tensions: Faithcommunities will always experience difficul-ties and tensions. They are part of living outof God’s truth (1st reading) and the human re-ality of communities (Gospel). What are somepresent difficulties being encountered?September 14—Exaltation of the HolyCross: Num 21:4-9. The struggle of the desertexperience brings the Israelites to a renewedfaith in God. Phil 2:6-11. Paul’s hymn aboutJesus praises his communion with human be-ings and his exaltation by God. Jn 3:15-17.God’s love and desire for our world (and allhumanity) is revealed in Jesus . Theme—Suf-fering and God’s presence: Stories abound ofhuman suffering and struggle. God’s commun-ion with creation and humanity in the midst ofpain, even death, is celebrated as we reflecton those who show us God’s compassion evi-dent through their own suffering. This is a goodmoment to offer the Anointing of the Sick.September 21—Ordinary Time 25: Is 55:6-9 The Prophet’s invitation to seek out and ex-perience the surprising and mysterious God.Phil 1:20-24,27. Paul acknowledges his deepdesire to die and be with God, and his com-mitment for his people. Mt 20:1-16. The par-able about God’s surprising generosity and thereversal of fortune. Theme—A Surprising God.

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Today’s readings invite us into a meditationand celebration on the surprising nature ofGod, as generous, loving and unfathomable.What are our dominant images of God? Howdo these shape our actions and influence ourfaith communities?September 28—Ordinary Time 26: Ez18:25-28. The prophet celebrates God’s for-giving nature and the human possibility ofchange and repentance. Phil 2:1-11. We areinvited to have the mind of Jesus as we reflectupon the great hymn about Jesus’ mission andstatus. Mt 21:28-32. The socially and morallyunexpected who have the capacity for changeand repentance are invited into God’s com-munity. Theme—Change and Repentance: Theliturgy presents a moment to encourage andoffer hope for those who feel cut off or ex-cluded. Repentance and change are alwayspossible (Gospel). God always embraces therepentant (1st Reading) and this Eucharist canbe the moment of forgiveness and healing.October 5— Ordinary Time 27: Is 5:1-7.God’s people are like a cared-for vineyard,sometimes fruitless. Phil 4:6-9. Paul offers en-couragement not to worry, but live faithfullyand confidently in peace. Mt 21:33-43. Theparable of what happens to the servants andson of the vineyard owner is an allegory ofMt’s community: its struggles and suffering.Theme—Suffering. Mt’s Jewish Christian com-munity sees its own story in today’s Gospel.To live with integrity and authenticity comesat a cost. Are there local and pertinent exam-ples of this?October 12—Ordinary Time 28: Is 25:6-10a. Paradise is presented here as a mountainfeast with choice foods and wines. Phil 4:10-14,19-20. In all that happens to him, no mat-ter his physical or financial resources, Paul’sultimate focus is always God. Mt 22:1-14. Godlavishes a banquet is for all, ‘good and bad.’Theme—Eucharistic Inclusiveness. The local

Eucharistic celebration is a reflection of theUniversal Church: How does it celebrateinclusiveness in a world of cultural diversity?October 19—Ordinary Time 29: Is 45:1,4-6. An unexpected non-Jewish military emperorbecomes God’s agent of salvation. 1 Thes 1:1-5. Paul addresses a community with faith andopenness in God. Mt 22:15-21.Jesus avoids atrap set by the religious leaders. God is thetrue source of all life, even political. Theme—God and Politics. An opportunity to reflect onthe way God and religion have been co-optedinto contemporary politics and military affairs,and offer an alternative focus: The heart of lifeand human community is God (1st Reading andGospel), not the human whim for power or theseduction of privilege.October 26—Ordinary Time 30: Ex 22:21-27. God’s concern for the Israelites is to at-tend to the poor and not oppress the residentalien. 1 Thes 1:5-10. Paul praises theThessalonians for their hospitality and open-ness to God’s preached word. Mt 22:34-40.Jesus summarisesthe heart of ethical life: loveof God and neighbour. Theme—Hospitality tothe Stranger. The treatment of the socially for-gotten, excluded and the poor in our commu-nities is the touchstone of authentic religiouslife. A number of positive examples from thelocal scene can illustrate the living out of suchfaith.October 30—Ordinary Time 31: Malachi1:14-2:2,8-10. God critiques the practice andinfidelity of Israel’s religious leaders. 1 Thes2:7-9,13. Paul offers himself as a model ofcare, commitment and fidelity. Mt 23:1-12.Status and privilege are not part of the life ofthe Christian community. Theme—AuthenticLeadership: The readings (1st reading andGospel) offer an opportunity to highlight thequalities of authentic political and religiousleadership: integrity, humility and service ofothers.
