We are tied together in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.

And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.

This is the way Gods universe is made.

This is the way it is structured.                                Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Second reading “One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.”  Jean Vanier

Hi Everyone, I’m Carolyn.

A few months ago I had spoken to get a group together to promote St. Mary’s on Peters suggestion. Since then a few of us have been meeting fortnightly and today I will be sharing with you all a representation of where we are at. All the fun we’ve been having!

Our two readings today speak of the importance of our interconnectedness with each other and therefore the importance of community. The homily today suggests how we can harness the existing love within our community to organically and sustainably promotes ourselves.

I’ll start off by saying that as a group, we prefer to use the term “sharing our gifts” rather than promote St. Mary’s, as it seems more appropriate for what most of us experience here.

It truly is a gift to me.

I’d also like to indemnify us as a group by saying that this is just a perception, so please treat it as just that.  Peter, I know, would like to call it an illusion. And the suggestions we have come up with are just that too. Suggestions… so if you all would listen with an open heart that would be really good… because it’s coming from one…. Thanks.

I’ve broken this homily down into three parts.

Firstly… What is it that we have here at St. Mary’s? What are our gifts?

Secondly…. Why do we want to or need to share it with the outer community?

And thirdly…. How do we go about it?

So what do we have here at St. Mary’s?………….

Basically we have 2 aspects to St. Mary’s. One is our ever-evolving liturgy, which allows us all the freedom to explore what it means to be spiritual from a base of love and not fear. And because it is love based, it is therefore also a sustainable way, which is why we still exist here 3 years later without the umbrella of an institutional Church. This freedom to explore is precious beyond words.

The second aspect of St. Mary’s is this supportive community; these support networks, which most of us have the privilege to experience. So in a nutshell we have a sustainable liturgy and we have a supportive community. These are our gifts we have to offer; the keywords being “sustainable” and “community”.

So moving onto the second part. Why do we want to or need to share our gifts with the outer community? This part I would like to share via my own experiences and perception.

When Peter first suggested we get a group together to promote St. Mary’s, without even thinking about it, I very spontaneously said “yes “to him. I did not for 1 second even consider what might be involved or what skills I may need. I personally have no experience in the marketing or advertising fields. And so my very spontaneous “yes”, came from a deep sense of gratitude for what St. Mary’s has been for me.

I came to St. Mary’s 2.5 yrs ago. I had recently separated from my husband and due to the nature of my relationship; I had inadvertently let myself get isolated for a long time. So when I finally separated from my husband, I suddenly realized that I did not have the support I was going to need to be able to cope with my upcoming challenges. I realized I was not superwoman anymore. I made a conscious decision at the time to get the support I so desperately needed.  My cousin who is a community member of St. Mary’s suggested to me to come along to St. Mary’s. She said  “come along… they have a meditation service on Saturdays and you will meet likeminded people there”. So one evening I came along with her.

I remember thinking how different it was to the church I went to as a teenager in India. By the way, I stopped going to church when I was 14. I used to go down to the local park and have a cigarette with a girlfriend and come home 1 hr later. Lucky my mum never asked me what the homily was about!! I only look sweet!

Back to St. Mary’s, I loved the whole experience of coming around the table, holding of hands, bread instead of host, beautiful words in the liturgy. Everything seemed so human like and real and of course I was looking out for where the priests were hiding because I could not see anyone in those frocks!! And there was just this amazing feeling in the room. On about the 3^rd or 4^th time I met Brian and Angela, on one of those…. now turn around and say hello to the person next to you. I was behind them. After the service, they followed up and engaged in a conversation with me. I honestly cannot remember clearly what was spoken; however I remember feeling safe with them. From there on we started to meet regularly every Friday at my place. I could honestly say I felt like I was a part of their family. They have been and continue to be my guardian angels. In fact I used to say to Angela, if you take the “a” off Angela it becomes angel. This is what St. Mary’s has been for me. Truly loving support when I so needed it.

The other reason I want to share our gifts, which are… as… if not. More important than gratitude is the crisis situation we all face on our planet today on so many fronts. I believe our gifts can contribute to the healing of our planet and our species.

So if we think about our crisis and if we keep asking the question “why”, we will arrive at the root cause being “fear”. Fear of something or the other has caused us humans to make the unconscious choices we have made, which has caused our current global crisis. Einstein said that a problem cannot be solved at the same level at which it was created, so if fear has caused our crisis, then Love must be the cure.

So what has this got to do with St. Mary’s? Well for the last 2 yrs Peter and Terry have been speaking of connecting with our essence, that love that resides within every one of us. When we connect with our essence, which is Love, we start to act from this place of love. Our choices become love based. We can start to heal our world.

Every one of us counts. It is everyone’s responsibility.

My own life experiences forced me to go down this path. I learnt that when I was connected to my essence I was able to cope much better. Connecting with our essence is really easy. All I do is just breathe. I stop… and I breathe…that’s it… I breathe from here

I’ve connected with the love inside of me…. Our breath is our life force. It’s just that we have taken it for granted. When we connect to our essence, we act from a place of love, our relationship with ourselves, with our loved ones, our community, our workplaces and our environment all change as well.

And then there is our other gift of “community”.

Well again my personal experiences has proven to me that I can’t make it alone, I need community, I need to be interdependent on others. I grew up thinking I had to be independent, I have learnt now that it is more important to teach my children interdependence.

Every indigenous culture has sustainability and community as their core concepts.

St. Mary’s offers two avenues, a sustainable liturgy and a supportive community to go inwards and connect with our spirituality, our essence, the love that we all are, which when we start to act from that place will cause us to make more conscious choices, which will in turn eventually heal our world.

This is the main reason; I would like to share our gifts. This is why I come here to support St. Mary’s.

So everything we have and are learning here is integral to the survival of our global crisis.

Our gifts are very timely and precious beyond words. We need to share them.

So now finally, how can we then share these   gifts with the outer community? What sustainable avenues can we use? “Sustainable”… being a key word again.

As a group we felt that some appropriate forms of media would definitely get us more exposure out there. None of our current attending group members have any experience in this area though. We also felt that equally important would be that as a community, it would be our responsibility to make sure that when new people come here they experience what we do. As far as our liturgy goes, they would definitely experience that, like we all do. Our liturgy group actively and consciously meet every week to evolve and create better and more enriching experiences for us all.

What about our community? …. Stay in that heart space…

Do we actively and consciously work on being a better community?

Do we actively and consciously reach out to other community members or do we sometimes take for granted that everyone feels supported, included, loved accepted etc?

What about when new people come along. Have we got a culture in place where it comes absolutely naturally to us to engage with them, maybe even offer a smile, just a warm welcome?

What about existing community members that we don’t know as yet, do we venture outside our comfort zones to meet new members of our community?

I have been coming here for 2.5 yrs now. I have only ventured out to meet   a few of you because I am comfortable now. I come here almost every week, I always sit in that same spot there, right next to Brian and Angela. And after the service, I generally have a chat with the same people and then I’m off until next week. Sometimes I might meet someone new. However I don’t make a conscious effort to do so because I am happy and comfortable with those I know. Could there be some community members that are not as outgoing as some of us who even though they are coming here for many years, still feel a bit isolated?

In a nutshell, just as our liturgy group is always working on our liturgy, could we as a community also be working on how we interact with each other, so that we are ever evolving our ways?

Could we just by the way we start to interact with each other in more meaningful ways actually act as walking testimonials for St. Mary’s and thereby organically attract people here. This to us as a group seemed like a sustainable way to go about sharing our gifts. We all know that word of mouth is the most authentic, sustainable and of course cost effective method of advertising.

Here are just a few of the suggestions that came up.

Firstly how can we get to know more of our community? How can we learn to interact in more meaningful ways? We are all very grateful to our connections group for the events they organize to achieve just this. However often not everyone stays back for morning tea and usually it is the same lot of people that go down to Gloria jeans for coffee; so here some suggestions that came up.

Change the spot you sit in, for starters you get a different view and you get to meet someone new too.

Make a conscious effort to engage with someone new if you have the confidence too. The more people we get to know within our community, the better support network we can be for each other.

Maybe have 2 or 3 community members welcoming people in the foyer. We currently only have Mary and June on a Sunday morning. And of course we always have our dear Ted come hail or shine downstairs. We don’t have anyone for sat and sun evenings. Could we consider ourselves as one big family and if this is our family home, then typically when family members come home, we warmly welcome them into our home and if they are coming for the first time, we show them around a bit, maybe introduce them to other family members so they feel comfortable in our home.

Could we have a yearly or 6 monthly community event that everyone takes part in. E.g. there is a concept called “Pay it forward”. It is about doing random acts of kindness for people we don’t know and asking them to pay it forward. Acts of kindness can be as big or as small as we want them to be. This could be our community signature event maybe. Even the kids could be involved. This would really foster community spirit.

Could we have cluster groups around similar interests perhaps? Currently our cluster groups are area specific. People don’t mind travelling to meet like-minded people. We currently have a meditation group and I’ve recently found out that we now have a ukulele group. If you have a certain interest, you could perhaps start one of your own.

So basically, could we be an active and conscious ever evolving community and thereby organically and sustainably share our gifts, alongside the appropriate media exposure we choose.

I’d like to share a short poem by Rumi.

AWAKE!

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill, where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don’t go back to sleep

That’s all.

Thank you for listening.

Namaste.

y

The Light of the World -William Holman Hunt 1854

We have arrived at Palm Sunday, also known as Passion Sunday, the first day of Holy Week, which ends with Easter. Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, into the life of a community that is seeking salvation, seeking the light of illumination.

Last night, March 31, people across the world turned off their lights for one hour from 8.30 – 9.30pm. United they supported the largest environmental event in history, Earth Hour. In that short space of darkness they sought some illumination! The theme for this year’s Lent is, ‘Towards the Light’, the light of illumination.

Each year we as a community seek to enter into this time of Lent/Easter and to express it through many forms. Last year 40 canvases depicted the great void; the vastness that surrounds us, the spiritual desert. The year before, a community centred cross filled with life. Prior to that, a thicket cross, made of accumulated wood, and it was this expression that accompanied our transition from our past to this present.

Light for early Christians was referred to in baptism as ‘illumination’, symbolic of humanity’s quest to seek true life, reconciliation and resounding peace; the clear resonating sound of a bell being an audible form or expression of continuing peace.

St Teresa tells us, ‘Light baptizes life wherever it falls, and every religion and all upon this earth is a shadow’.

Broadly speaking we can refer to light at this time of Lent in three ways.

The first is the light within of all of creation. Light is a powerful force in our world. The sun’s light provides energy for life. Each day we are reminded of the absence of light, when stars and moon foretell of a new and rising brilliance; our nearest star, the Sun.

As inhabitants of this planet we orbit around the Sun, contrary to past beliefs and thanks to the enlightenment of Copernicus and Galileo. Creation also includes the many forms of light which we as a species have developed; fire, candles, kerosene lanterns, incandescent lights- fluorescent lights, halogen lights, light emitting diodes and on and on the list glows! Possibly the most powerful of these lights is that light emitted from the television and computer screen; social media that drives society. This creation of light has had an enormous effect on our lives, livelihoods and the ability or inability to be part of this world; as witnessed by Earth Hour.

The second form of light is the light of Jesus’s teachings and the Jewish faith tradition of Jesus’s background and from which we as a faith community have emerged. By contemplating the Word we are able to bring light into our lives and our world.

With inspiration from the book of Revelation (3:20) and its passage, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me”, the Pre-Raphaelite mid-nineteenth century artist, William Holman Hunt’s painted, The Light of the World. This is the image that accompanied this week’s e-bulletin. The painting depicts a barefooted, crowned, gowned, royally robed and brightly haloed Jesus standing with a lantern in the darkness outside an overgrown ivy and weed infested door; the door is without a handle. Jesus is knocking on the door; a door to someone’s life and he is waiting to be invited in. The absence of the door handle implies that the door must open from within. A regal God with a personal touch but still however an outside God and as a child when viewing this image I was curious as to why Jesus needed a lantern when his glowing head provided ample light.

We have the freedom of choice; a strong tenement of Catholicism but as for the choice, the Church has a clear mandate as to what is the right choice!

Light can be giving but it can also be blinding, like that of a hunter’s spotlight halting a kangaroo’s nightly movement or the halting a prisoner’s attempt to escape, resulting in submissiveness; a blinding authoritarian light that can only exist to separate itself from darkness, to isolate and dominate. Do false and blinding lights exist in our lives? The light emitted by authoritarian powers?

Contrary to this is the light referred to by Meister Eckhart

The awakened heart is like a luminous sphere- just giving without thought to any who may come close or gaze at it.

The third and final light is within all living things; the light of life. Our previous homilists this Lent- Penny, Phil, Karyn, Sam and Terry, or could I say our Leading Lenten Lantern homilists spoke of an inner light; a light that is fueled by meditation, contemplation and being present in the moment. Seeking truth and just actions as ways to nurture this inner light.

Our expression of Lent 2012 is progressing towards a form that will be present at the time of Good Friday and Easter. Following Ash Wednesday you were invited to mark these canvases with ashes, then taking the line ‘Untangle the knots within, so that we can mend our hearts’ simple ties to each other’ from the Aramaic prayer used in the Eucharistic Liturgy, we knotted string and then we unknotted the string and connected it. The most recent canvases is of palm fronds and ivy.

To conclude, I wish to share the words from a person with a Jewish past, Leon Cohen. His song ‘Anthem’ captures much of this year’s Lenten theme ‘Towards the Light’.

The birds they sang at the break of day,

Start again I heard them say,

Don’t dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will be fought again,

The holy dove,

She will be caught again,

bought and sold and bought again,

the dove is never free.
Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in.

Recently I watched a deeply moving South African film called “Life Above All”. It had won Best International Film at the Sydney and Canberra Film Festivals in2010 and 2011. Its focus is a 12 year old girl Chandra, a hardworking, promising young student with a bright future, but her life changes dramatically when her baby sister unexpectedly dies. Heartbroken Chandra’s mother, Lillian, in turn becomes severely ill, leaving the young girl to take care of her two smaller siblings. When the small community of which they are a part irrationally turns on her and her family, Chandra sets out to face the deeply ingrained misunderstanding and prejudices surrounding AIDS.

Despite being ostracized by the community, Chandra stands her ground and continues doing what she believes is the right thing to do. That is caring for her 2 siblings and her mother with AIDS in the midst of a community which wants her mother as far away as possible. Her only other friend is another who is ostracized by the community because of becoming a child prostitute in order to survive after the death from AIDS of her 2 parents. This further alienates Chandra from the community.

Chandra is the Jesus figure throughout this powerfully moving and evocative film. She moves and acts from a place of deep wisdom and compassion despite enormous pressures to do otherwise. Although this is only a movie, it reflects the stories of so many thrust by life’s circumstances into impossible situations and forced to respond. No external law or commandment is there to force them to act, but something much bigger and expansive, inspires their every move. It is captured in the words of the prophet Jeremiah in the first reading. “For deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts.” In this deep place within each of us is a quiet wisdom that comes from being connected to the quiet stillness which is the great I AM, Breath of Life Yah-Weh, the name not to be named.

Hardships, Crises, Sickness, Marginalization, Isolation and having to stand alone as in the case of Chandra, can force us to the place of the Heart where deep wisdom resides. There are many ways to this place of the heart. For the prophets of the Old Testament, they were drawn to the desert, the wilderness place, where God could speak to their hearts, away from the distractions of life, and at the beginning of Lent we hear from the prophet Hosea, “That is why I am going to lure you and lead you out into the wilderness and speak to your heart.” (Hos 2¹⁴)

We heard in the commentaries in the election results last night of how Labor has been exiled into the wilderness, in its massive defeat at the hands of the LNP. Maybe this will be an opportunity for Labor to reconnect with its heart to rediscover its deepest core values and visions. The heart, the very core of our being, where we are one with all, where there is no separation. It is the place of no ego. The place Jesus invites us to in today’s Gospel where the grain of wheat that must die in order to yield a rich harvest, the place of no self.

For many of us it is in the quiet space, the desert space that we connect on this deeper level of heart. Throughout Lent we have tried to emphasize and invite people to a quiet place, an empty place everyday, the place where the still small voice within can be heard.

Some of us have had the good fortune of making a day of silent retreating. A day to get out of our heads, our thinking, judging, planning mind into our lives, or as Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh says “Life is available only in the present moment. If you are distracted, if your mind is not there with your body, then you miss your appointment with life.”

Recently I have had the opportunity to go into Milperra School for refugees where the principal is Adele Rice. Adele invited me to teach some interested students how to meditate. There are about 10 students; most of them are Hazaran refugees from Afghanistan. Wonderful people, but one problem for me and the task set, was the barrier of language and communication.

Most of them have never meditated or even know much about it. The first two sessions I have struggled mainly because they didn’t understand why one would want to learn to meditate.

In my last session I was fortunate to have Abdul, a community worker in the school, who was able to translate for me. Now we have had the conversation around why we meditate, a new eagerness and enthusiasm is present among them, eager to learn and know more. A lot of it has to do with them not wanting to miss their appointment with life and eager to embrace life in that alert, awake state which a practice of meditation and mindfulness can generate.

I would like to finish with a story which speaks of acting from that deep heart space which can inspire our every action.

A wood carver called Ching had just finished work on a bell frame. Everyone who saw it marveled for it seemed to be the work of the spirits. When the emperor saw it, he asked, what sort of genius is yours that you could make such a thing? The woodcarver replied: “Sire, I am only a simple workman. I am not a genius… But there is one thing. When I am going to make a bell frame I meditate for 3 days to calm my mind.  When I have meditated for 3 days I think no more about rewards or recognition. When I have meditated for 5 days I no longer think of praise or blame, skillfulness or awkwardness. When I have meditated for 7 days I suddenly forget my limbs, my body: no I forget my very self. I lose consciousness of the court and my surroundings. Only my skill remains .In that state I walk into the forest and examine each tree until I find one in which I see the bell-frame in all its perfection. Then my hands go to the task. Having set myself aside, nature meets nature in the work that is performed through me. This is no doubt the reason why everyone says that the finished product is the work of the spirits.”

“Father, forgive me for it’s been a very long time since I’ve been to confession and I must admit that the confessional box is much more inviting than it used to be”.
The priest replies, “Get out, you idiot. You’re on my side”.

On Wednesday of this week we begin the 6 weeks of Lent where the emphasis traditionally has been on prayer and fasting and doing good works (and going to confession).

Today I would like to take a look at the prayer Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. Recently we have adopted a translation from the Aramaic by Doctor Neil Douglas-Klotz. Neil is internationally known in the fields linking religious studies, spirituality and psychology with a specialty in Aramaic Christian, Jewish mystical and Sufi traditions.

We see the Lord’s Prayer recorded in the Gospel of Matthew (6^9-13) and the Gospel of Luke (11^2-4). But it is not in the Gospel of Mark or John. In each of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke Jesus’ invitation for teaching it are different. In the Gospel of Matthew it is part of the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus is instructing his disciples how to pray unlike how the hypocrites, who pray standing up in synagogues and street corners. In the Gospel of Luke he teaches the disciples after they request to be taught how to pray.

Most scholars would agree that the Lords prayer has its roots in the Jewish liturgy and scriptures (the Talmud) and that it shares themes with the Kaddish prayer found in the Jewish prayer service.

Originally written in Aramaic, Matthew and Luke have taken this prayer and placed it on the lips of Jesus for different reasons. Whether Jesus actually prayed this prayer, we can never know (maybe as a good Jew he did). We do know, that when or if Jesus said anything, he said it in Aramaic.

The Lords Prayer we have been reciting has been translated from the Syriac Aramaic version of the Gospels called THE PESHITTA, shared by most Aramaic Christians today. Eastern Aramaic or Syriac is pronounced a bit differently from the Western Palestinian Aramaic that Jesus spoke; however, as Doctor Neil Douglas-Klotz observes, all the major words and concepts are identical.

The issue, he continues, is not whether these are Jesus’ exact words (no one can know this), what is at issue is Jesus’ spirituality – his way of prayer, meditation and action. If or when he said anything, he said it in Aramaic, and so an early Aramaic version like the PESHITTA offers us – from a spiritual point of view – a much better entry directly into Jesus’ spiritual experience and practice than any Greek version.

As Mark Hathaway, ecologian and author writes “by entering into the Aramaic language, we look through the lens that Jesus himself used to perceive reality. As the tongue of peoples who worked the land, it employs imagery close to the earth and all growing things. Found in the words we have been praying “Help us love beyond our ideals and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures. Animate the earth within us.”

It is also a language allowing for multiple possibilities to be present at the same time (each word can evoke an entire family of images and nuances).

For these reasons, some have observed that it is much closer to the language of aboriginal peoples than to those of modern Western cultures. Indeed, Mark Hathaway observes, it might help us to understand Jesus better to think of him as a native Middle-Eastern person.

What we begin to see in the translation of the Aramaic Lords Prayer is the highly inadequate translation from the Aramaic to Greek to the Latin Vulgata to the Old English and the English we know today. And, how, we have missed out on the rich and beautifully multi-faceted access to the indigenous, earth-based language of Aramaic. This of course is true, therefore for the rest of the New and Old Testaments we have inherited. We have settled for the belief that the entire New Testament was originally written in Greek and of course, the Eastern Churches have always disputed this. But because Western Christianity dominated our world, we have been left with this legacy- A legacy which left us with an interpretation with largely patriarchal images of God.

Taking, the first few lines of the Aramaic Lords Prayer.

Abwoon d’bwasmaya (Our Father who art in heaven) elicits the image of creation, of giving birth to the universe. Abwoon, as Neil Douglas-Klotz observes, can be translated as “father”, but it can equally be rendered as the word for parenting (in either a physical or spiritual sense.)

At another level, it presents the image of the divine breath (spirit) flowing out of oneness, creating the whole diversity of forms. D’bwashmaya conjures the images of light, sound, and vibration spreading out and pervading all. In essence, then “heaven” is conceived not so much as a place as a dimension of reality that is present everywhere.

Some possible renditions of this phrase in its totality would be: “O Source of the Radiance, dancing in and about all that is” or “O creative breath, ebbing and flowing through all forms.” Again these are just examples of the many possibilities that exist simultaneously in the original text (which includes as well as the translation we normally pray). Still, they challenge us to be open to new ways of conceiving of both God and heaven. Hopefully, we will be able to use some of these various beautiful translations in our liturgies.

Meditating on the Aramaic version of Jesus’ prayer can be very challenging, precisely because it calls us to re-examine and to re-think our spirituality. The images evoked call us to a very down to earth life of prayer. They also touch us at a profound level, stimulating us to live more simply, more authentically, and more justly. Yet, the prayer also recognizes that conversion is a continuing process, something that must be entered into on a daily basis.

During this upcoming Lenten Season, perhaps we can endeavour to deepen this process in a special way.

Three Yogis are meditating in a remote cave. One day a sound is heard from outside the cave.

One day a sound is heard from outside the cave.

After about six months, one of the Yogis says, “Did you hear that goat?”

Once again there was silence. About a year later, one of the other Yogis says “That wasn’t a goat, it was a mule.”

Again there was silence.

About two years later the third Yogi says “If you two don’t stop arguing, I’m leaving.”

I am not sure Jesus had any other yogi’s top disturb his silence inn this gospel.

In this gospel I am drawn to the part where Jesus gets up long before dawn, leaves the house and goes to a lonely place to pray. He seems to be in overdrive in the rest of this gospel. We see him in the Synagogue, at Simon’s mother in laws house healing her, then the next thing, the whole town is at the door wanting some sort of healing such as people possessed and people with all sorts of diseases.

It sounds like he had a long night. No wonder he needed some space to recharge the batteries – some silence and stillness. We read, he gets up (so he had got some sleep) long before dawn- A perfect time to be alone. I had the rare experience during the week of getting up long before dawn and watching that wonderful miracle that happens every day. As Sister Stanislaus Kennedy in her book “Moments of Stillness” writes of this time “I remember the first time I heard the dawn chorus. I was about 12 years old, and I stood at the back of the house, beside the river, where the montbretia and the fuchsia were in full bloom against mountain ash and oak trees. The glorious song of a multitude of birds broke over me, and in a moment that is still alive for me today, it was as if I had never heard birds singing before. I began to wonder if they always sang like that and I just hadn’t noticed. As I stood and listened to the birds pouring out their song above me, and gazed at the beauty around me, it felt as if the day grew brighter and brighter and everything around me grew still. In fact, in those few moments, time seemed to stand still and I remember the feelings of awe and wonder which took me over. It was as though I was standing in the presence of something very special, something beyond sacred.”

The last darkness of night dissipates the sun bursts over the horizon- everyday a new miracle- rarely experienced, yet always there.

Rarely experienced like sunsets, not many of us taking the time to savour it, to enjoy it, to really take it in. These moments can be moments of renewing and refreshing the spirit. As I am sure they were for Jesus or I doubt he would have made the effort. Because when the disciples find him he is in for another big day. The disciples say to him on finding him “Everyone is looking for you”. Jesus says “Well they are looking for me, not only here, but in all the neighbouring country towns throughout Galilee” Off we go.

We all need to take time out. Many of you have recently returned from holidays, no doubt refreshed and rejuvenated, and maybe in the light of your present workload, wondering if you ever did take that break. Meditation is like taking a break, a holiday. A holyday from our busy minds.

Nisargadatta Maharaj said “Meditation is the radical decision not to harbour thought. Gautama Buddha said that when we come to meditation and mindful living.

We are like the piece of rope. Prior to meditation, we are all tied up and tight. In the process of relaxing and letting go we untangle. We feel lighter with a sense of ease, peace and harmony.

Sometimes those problems we thought were insurmountable don’t seem as difficult, or problems are solved in a moment of insight and clear seeing. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh described the process like letting muddy waters settle. As the mud settles to the bottom, we begin to see clearly. The mud, the happenings, the things that fill our minds fall away, fall to the bottom, and a new seeing can happen, a seeing with the heart.

Thich Nhat Hanh speaks a lot about mindful living. This living in the present moment is like taking a holyday/ a sacred day refreshing and renewing the mind with each moment.

The practice of meditation and mindful living is taking off in the world of psychology as a way of assisting people through the difficulties of their lives. One such practitioner who came into prominence in 2009 with his book Buddha Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, love and Wisdom, is neuropsychologist, Doctor Rick Hanson.

Rick writes “ Moment to moment, the flows of thoughts and feelings, sensations and desires, and conscious and unconscious processes sculpt your nervous system like water gradually carving furrows and eventually gullies on a hillside. Your brain is continually changing its structure. The only question is: Is it for better or worse?

In particular, because of what’s called “ experience-dependent neuroplasticity” , that is, whatever you hold in attention has a special power to change your brain. Attention is like a combination spotlight and vacuum cleaner. It illuminates what it rests upon and then sucks it into your brain (like those alien spaceships) and your self.

Therefore, and this is why I am sharing this, controlling your attention- becoming more able to place it where you want it and keep it there, and more able to pull it away from what’s bothersome and pointless (such as looping again and again through anxious pre-occupations, mental grumbling or self criticism) is the foundation of changing your brain, and thus your life for the better.

As the great psychologist, William James, wrote over a century ago: “The education of attention would be education par excellence.”

Rick notes “that to gain better control of attention- to become more mindful and more able to concentrate – we need to overcome a few challenges.” In order to survive as a species, our ancestors evolved to be stimulation-hungry and easily distracted, continually scanning their environment for opportunities and threats, what he calls carrots and sticks. Then there is the natural range of temperament, from focused and cautious “turtles” to distractible and adventuresome “jackrabbits”. Upsetting experiences- especially traumatic ones- train the brain to be vigilant, with attention from one thing to another. And modern culture makes us accustomed to an intense fire hose of stimuli, so anything less – like the sensations of simply breathing – can feel unrewarding, boring or frustrating.

Despite the many obstacles to becoming more mindful, I recommend you explore further the power and benefits that can be gained from living more mindfully.

In this gospel, Jesus models for us what we can do in the midst of our over-stimulated world. Learning to take time out away from it either psychically or in the recesses of our minds, in the practice of being mindful, giving a rest to our busy thinking, judging, planning minds. Taking a holiday in the midst of our busy lives. All the meditation in the world can never replace a holiday – if not holy day, holy hour, holy minute, a holy second, anything is good to savour and appreciate the present moment.

Once rejuvenated, to engage our world, as Jesus did, with revitalized energy and enthusiasm.

On Tuesday night I had the good fortune (or bad fortune) of not being able to sleep, so I got out of bed and went outside to be greeted with a magnificent display of stars. I was in the country away from the city lights so the clarity of the display was all the more spectacular. I had recently paid a visit to the Brisbane Planetarium, where as part of the show they spend 20 minutes explaining the present position of the stars in the summer sky. If you have never gone to the Planetarium, it is well worth a visit. Apart from giving you reclining comfortable chairs, the night sky is placed before you on the domed roof in a way that makes for fascinating viewing.

One of the constellations that dominates our summer sky at the moment, is the constellation of Orion, or as we liked to call it as kids, the BIG DIPPER or the SAUCEPAN. The bottom of the saucepan or what is known more popularly as Orion’s Belt, is what I would like to speak about briefly. It has a lot do with the feast that we celebrate today, the Epiphany.

Many of us know that the 25^th December is not the real Birthday of Christ. The 25^th December is a birth date shared by many Avatars around the time of Jesus. So why was this date so significant to the ancients? Many of you may have heard what I am about to say, but it bears repeating as we celebrate this feast. It also serves as a reminder to us that many of the stories we have in the Bible were borrowed from other religions, particularly those we described and dismissed as Pagan. They were people who were very connected to the earth and its many cycles.

They were people familiar with the stars and their connection to the earth cycles. The three stars of Orion’s Belt were also known as the three wise men or three kings and throughout winter, they seemingly follow the brightest star of the sky, Sirius. Hence, the story of the three wise men following the Star to Bethlehem. At a point, three days prior to the 25^th December, on the  Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, in the Northern Hemisphere.

The three stars line up with Sirius, and when a straight line is drawn through the four stars to the horizon, the point on the horizon marks the spot where the winter sun stops the journey south. The point on the horizon where the sun rises, it no longer journeys, and appears dead for 3 days and on the third day it seemingly wakes up and begins its journey north to become the strong bright summer sun. Hence the 25^th December marks the coming of the Light (of warmth).

A very important day, a day to be celebrated if you live in a cold northern country. You would definitely want to celebrate this day. Any Avatar worth his/her salt would want to be seen as the bringer of Light, a perfect day for the birth of a Messiah. In this event we see not only a perfect day for a birth, but the connection to the three days of death before resurrection, and again the coming of Light. A very sacred day indeed.

Unfortunately, much of the connection of this day to rejoicing in the coming of light and warmth, when for us in the Southern Hemisphere and particularly Australia, we have enough light and warmth this time of the year – sometimes too much. So the beautiful light into the darkness in the Midnight Mass often gets lost amidst the simmering heat of summer.

But the powerful symbol of the coming of the light found in the Jesus story remains at the very heart of Christianity. And at the heart of the very prayer and only prayer Jesus teaches his disciples.

Mary Nelson shared with me this wonderful translation of the Lord’s Prayer from the original Aramaic, translated by Neil Douglas-Klotz where Aramaic is his first language. It is found in the book “Prayers of the Cosmos”.

I will read it through.

“O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos.

Focus your light within us – make it useful.

Create your reign of unity now – through our fiery hearts and willing hands.

Help us love beyond our ideals and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.

Animating the earth within us: we then feel the wisdom underneath supporting all.

Untangle the knots within so that we can mend our hearts

Simple ties to each other

Don’t let surface things delude us,

But free us from what holds us back from our true purpose.

Out of you, the astonishing fire, returning light and sound to the Cosmos.”

Amen

Jesus praying to the source of life. Prays that the Light which emanates from the source will be focused within us, so that it can be used for good. Jesus recognizes our dependence on this Source. “this astonishing fire” which animates us and brings light and life to the Cosmos.

The closer we are to this light, this astonishing fire, the more it allows us to love beyond our ideals, and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.

Maybe we could begin to pray this form of the Lord’s Prayer in the original Aramaic in our liturgy to remind us of our dependence on this astonishing fire which is the source of all life.

Emma-Kate Rose

St Mary’s in Exile Homily

I want to share with you, more about the experience I wrote about and which now can be read in St Mary’s Matters. Firstly, I will do this by commenting on John’s Gospel 1:6-8, 19-28. These comments will not be from an academic learning or from biblical studies.  They will be coming from my own way of seeing.

I know that we all have the truth within us. The Reality of heaven is within us. I see that Reality as our true being.  Whatever truth and wisdom that may be expressed belongs to the One Being. Anything else can be let ‘pass to the keeper.’

In the Gospel we see the priests and Levites coming to John the Baptist with a question, “who are you?  Does it remind you of the theme of our magazine,’ Who are you?’ Who am I?’ Maybe, this is another invitation to us to ask ourselves this question and listen to our own answer.

The voice, arising from the wilderness, from the silence of my awakening experience, has a lot of,’ l am not’ in regards the reality of the separate self, and it views the very idea of separation as illusionary. Instead, the voice cries out in surrender and points to the one Reality – the mystery in which we are all embedded. T he Unmanifest is seen manifesting in form, including what I call myself. I had the good fortune recently of gazing into a Gerbera flower. It was stunningly beautiful with all its magnificent petals connected to the centre and pointing back to the centre. I have also seen amazing paintings of flowers – one with petals enrapturing the center, one with petals partly open to reveal a burst of magnificent growth from its centre and another displaying the center.  I have also been watching a beautiful little bird, a finch, who built an exquisite nest in the shrub on my balcony. She has been coming and going with food in her beak. I have been made aware that creation is teaming with witnesses, both vocal and silent, all manifesting the One; emptiness dancing.

I will comment on ‘Make a straight way for the Lord’. In the times when I have felt disturbed and  out of center I have found it wonderful to remember that our true being is just as it always is. It is just a matter of letting go and being home. I think Emmet Fox certainly has got a “A golden Key” when he says, “Stop thinking about the difficulty, whatever it is, and think about God instead.”  I know that the root of my lack of peace is the same root for all the misery in the world so love has an answer& may invite me to compassionate action. Right here , right now the one intelligent, loving Reality is in every moment, every event . It is the reality of myself and everyone. If I am drawn to meditation, reading or any practice – fine , but there is really nothing to be done to improve on ‘what is’.   Awareness reveals the Presence is here, and. is there in everything that arises. It makes everything perfect just the way it is. This has helped me greatly to accept how events unfold and not be attached to a plan.

I will now share a very brief overview of my life story in thanksgiving for how my direct experience has made such a difference. I can conclude from my life story that it is not by chance that our unique life stories have evolved the way they have. It is rather wonderful that they have all brought us to be here together today.

In the years that followed the awakening experience, I was carried along by  grace.  Mass and visits to the Blessed Sacrament  were relished. My egoic press button reactions and complexes about shyness and lack of relating skills were still there but did not diminish in any way the truth received and which was kept as a secret..

Towards the end of my school days I just happened to pick up a brochure about the blessed sacrament Fathers and when I saw in their church a pamphlet about the Servants of the blessed Sacrament I was convinced it was the place for me. I had thought of the Daughters of Charity, however, the desire to be silently with my truth won the choice and I entered the enclosed congregation on the 1^st of May 1955. I felt like a fish in water – just where I was meant to be.

I rejoiced that there was nothing that could add to the perfection of our being. We could never be more one with God than what we are right now. The reality experienced was very present to me, especially, after talks about ways to strive to be closer to God.

My Truth & firm belief that vowed religious life was God’s will for me, enabled me to accept challenging events that became the ‘straight way for the lord ‘to anoint with Presence..

. No one expected’’ The Vatican 2 council ‘to propel such vast changes to our lifestyle. However, I haven’t got the time to go further into the ‘the parable of Barbara’. I think it would span the larger part of my life’s journey. Suffice it to say, that through all the changes of like styles, persona changes, undreamt of situations, places & events , the Truth of Reality was my unchanging  rock  with all its different manifestations.

My purpose for sharing with you today is to give witness to the light – the often overlooked source that truly is who we are, the Way, the Truth & the Life.  I just spoke of the amazing changes since Vatican II, however, nothing can really compare with the stupendous  change which came with awakening from –  who I thought I was with my world view and  conditionings – to the unshakable awareness of Reality that is  all that is.  What a change from a world where God was difficult to find to knowing that, in truth, there is only God, consciousness or what some prefer to say– the mystery in which we are all embedded.

What do I still value from those early days?  Among all that has been let go off what has those early years reinforced?   It was fairly obvious that I couldn’t point to external circumstances for my happiness. Happiness comes from within our true nature where there is no will but God’s.

It is blessed to have a still mind which is open to the holy spirit and the mind of Christ.  In reality it is our true state. Obedience required me to go to confession once a week. At first this was a challenge as I knew God only sees innocence. Finally, I came across, “vain , idle, useless thoughts “ Whenever, I became aware of them , I valued coming back to the MIND of  Christ and availability to the holy spirit.  I still like to keep an awareness of my thoughts and shed the light of truth on them. However, even the ability to be aware comes from awareness Itself – and we are that.

The vastness of love is no respecter of circumstance. It can be manifested doing the most menial of tasks, as well as, the grandest. We are that love.

Reality is worthy of absolute trust. Looking back as now I can see the guidance. Everything has flowed perfectly and is perfection just as it is. This doesn’t appear on the surface.

I will conlude by referring back to the Gospel, I will have to say as John, as Barbara with a separate identity that who I appear to be is not. However, if you look closer with grace you will see the mystery in which we are all embedded, manifesting in diversity – one of which is called,  Barbara; who really is one with the whole.

Please excuse me as I am putting words to that which is beyond words. Hopefully there is a pointer among them.

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to express what is true for me.

Thank you for listening.

One night Rabbi Isaac was told in his dream to go to faraway Prague and there to dig for a hidden treasure under a bridge that led to the palace of the king. He did not take the dream seriously but when it recurred four or five times he made up his mind to go in search of the treasure.

When he got to the bridge he discovered to his dismay that it was heavily guarded day and night by soldiers. All he could do was gaze at the bridge from a distance. But since he went there every morning the captain of the guards came up to him one day to find out why. Rabbi Isaac, embarrassed as he was to tell his dream to another soul, told the captain everything for he liked the good-natured character of this Christian. The captain roared with laughter and said, “Good heavens! You a Rabbi and you take dreams so seriously? Why if I were stupid enough to act on my own dreams I would be wandering around in Poland today. Let me tell you one that I had last night that keeps recurring frequently. A voice tells me to go to Cracow and dig for treasure in the corner of the kitchen of one Isaac, son of Ezechiel! Now wouldn’t it be the most stupid thing in the world to search around Cracow for a man called Isaac and another called Ezechiel when half the male population there probably has one name and the other half the other?”

The Rabbi was stunned. He thanked the captain for his advice, hurried home, dug up the corner of the kitchen and found a treasure abundant enough to keep him in comfort till the day he died.

Now this is not an invitation to go home and dig up the corner of your kitchens. But an invitation to go within, to the is-ness of your life right now and to find the real treasure that you seek.

At this time every year, before Christmas, we hear in our liturgies from the voice that cries in the wilderness who pleads to us to prepare a way for the Lord. To go within, to that sometimes seemingly desert or ordinary place, and to discover what it is we truly seek.

As those in this Gospel, who made their way to him to find that something more, so we are invited into this space, this empty place to find that which is all in all, beyond, and everything. To become and recognize our no-thing-ness and hence discover the everything, our every-thing-ness, but mostly, we resist this empty place because it is the place of death, death of the self, the place deprived of thought and the mind-the place devoid of distraction.

When we come to meditate we are invited to enter this empty place, this wilderness, where the mind is invited to become still.

To the ego it can appear to be a dull and lifeless place and it can resist entry. Therefore it is often brought kicking and screaming to this place. But it is in this place of no-thing-ness we can discover the every-thing-ness which we are.

In the words of the famous Indian Sage Nisargadatta Maharaj, “When I see I am nothing that is wisdom; when I see I am everything that is love.”

The art of living is somehow to live both of these realizations at once.

The gospel sets out a blue-print of how to do this. We see in the beginnings of it in the story of John the Baptist.

The people made their way to John the Baptist in the desert. In the desert (the empty place) they are invited to repent, to metanoia, to transcend the small mind, to have a change of mind, and then to be baptized to enter the waters where the old self dies, is washed away, and the new self emerges which takes on the larger mind of God.

The small separate self is no longer. A new consciousness is put on, like the new garment of white which was worn by the newly baptized.

“Now, (to use the words of St Paul,) it is no longer I that live but Christ (universal consciousness) lives in me! And St Paul says, “The challenge of living is to put on the mind of Christ everyday.”

To live and move from this consciousness we are invited into the death/resurrection motif everyday. And so for me, this means simply to take time out from my busy life to be quiet, to still the mind, to move into the desert, to hear the voice crying from the wilderness, to prepare a way for the bigger, more universal consciousness than the small ego consciousness that dominates my insignificant thoughts and tiny world.

In this ordinary place within is the treasure we all seek in our dreams, it is the all and all, and it is found in the corner of our kitchens, the places we visit everyday.

For more than two millennia, the Catholic Church has been the author and repository of some of the highest ideals of humanity. Yet, as humanity is flawed, so is the Church. Few would deny that the Catholic Church has dark chapters in its history. However, do these darker moments unfairly obscure the light – perhaps because so much is expected of an institution that claims to bridge the sacred and secular? Or is the Catholic Church simply the most ancient of wolves in sheep’s clothing?

Father Peter Kennedy

In 2009 the ABC Australian Story produced a feature film entitled “Holier Than Thou” which documented our forced removal from St Mary’s Church in South Brisbane into Exile.

At the end of the filming of our story at Natural Bridge in Qld I went down with the production team for a coffee at the roadside café on the road between Nerang in Qld and Murwillumbah in NSW. As we sat down on the veranda a classic Aussie bloke dressed in stubbies and thongs shot a glance in my direction and pointed me out to his wife. Shortly after they got up to leave and he put his hands on his hips, looked down to me and said “Stick it up ‘em mate”. A little surprised, I half stood up and said “what’s your name mate” and he said “it doesn’t matter what my name is mate, just stick it up ‘em”.

Only later did I realise how pivotal that encounter was for me – a light bulb moment, a road to Damascus moment, except it was on the road to Murwillumbah.

The insight that arose was that the ordinary man and woman, the bulk of the church’s membership, the battlers, the mums and dads, who built the churches, hospitals, schools -  who were loyal all their lives to the church to its bishops, priests religions and its rules and regulations, its doctrines and its dogmas -  frankly -  had had enough -  they were voiceless in a church ruled by an elite, clerical caste who demanded and expected that the “laity” that derogative term, should just pray, pay and obey. They have had it up to here and they’ve left in their hundreds of thousands, never to come back -“stick it up ‘em mate”!

My argument is simple: – that the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church that arrogantly refuses to allow its membership, its most loyal supporters, a voice in its governance cannot be a force for good in today’s world where increasingly democracy and human rights is the primal cry of people who know the pain and suffering and disempowerment of dictatorships – especially women.

The Roman Catholic Church is such a totalitarian regime e.g. to become a bishop, male of course, a priest has to promise obedience of mind and will, to one man  the bishop of Rome, the Pope, in whom all authority resides.

To argue that Jesus established the church in this way and that the church cannot be more democratic, involving the people in its governance, is based on a fiction, a lie – known as apostolic succession,

Stay with me… the bishops claim to be the successors of the twelve apostles with the bishop of Rome claiming to be the successor of the apostle Peter, who was no.1 in Team Jesus. They argue they have that same authority to rule over the church today. Please note it is an authority of power – it ought to be an authority of love.

The Pope as No.1, claims to be – wait for it – the Vicar of Christ- well, I don’t know about you, but from my reading of the gospels I think Jesus would be far more at home with the Vicar of Dibley!

The facts are very different. In the first 3 centuries of  Christianity in the various communities of faith that dotted the Mediterranean there was no one form of liturgy, no one form of governance, no one theology. Instead you had communities of equals where both women and men exercised the various gifts given to them by the Spirit.  e.g. The gift of leadership, the gift of healing, the gift of prophecy, the gift of preaching etc.

In the 4^th Century of the C..E the Pagan Emperor Constantine used the fledging literalist community in Rome to unify his empire. In order to bolster their claims to authority, the church leaders invented the fiction of Apostolic Succession which is still the basis of governance in the Roman Catholic Church today.

As Harvey Cox, Emeritus Professor at Harvard writes in his book “The Future of Faith” – “as the empire became notionally Christian, the church that had been from its beginning fiercely anti – imperial became its fawning imitators blurring the essence of Christianity almost beyond recognition.

The paradox is that when the Roman Empire collapsed, up bobbed a pseudo-religious empire – the Roman Catholic Church. As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes in the 17^th Century wrote – “the Church, the papacy became nothing other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting on the grave thereof.

Let me now speak from my own experience and that of our community, now in exile in our struggle with such absolute, ruthless and callous authority.

On that fateful day when I saw the Archbishop in 2008 as I was leaving his office, I turned towards him and with some compassion said “You know John, you are going to cop a fair bit of flak from our community”.

He paused and said “This is the Roman Catholic Church. You put me in a corner and I’ll come out fighting”.

People began writing to him respectfully and as intelligent people of faith. He wrote to me saying “if you think that what they’re saying is going to change my mind, let me tell you, it will do the very opposite.” He added “I obey the Pope, you should obey me, and they should obey you”

I tell you this – not to denigrate the Archbishop but to indicate to you the mindset of total obedience of the bishops of the church to absolute Roman Papal authority.

Such an undemocratic church cannot be a force for good in today’s world. Until the Church falls unto the hands of the people it cannot be a significant player in today’s world  – a world that demands and expects that the voice of the people be heard. Peter Kennedy

Speakers

For

• Senator Helen Coonan past Liberal member of the Australian Senate
• Julian McMahon barrister, member of the Melbourne Catholic Lawyers Association.
• Sister Libby Rogerson IBVM Loreto sister with Mary Ward International Australia

Against

• Father Peter Kennedy Catholic priest forced to stand down from St Mary’s in 2009.
• Anne Summers AO is a best-selling author, journalist and thought leader
• David Marr author and past editor of the National Times.