Successful applicants will need a faith-based approach to working for peoples in underdeveloped countries, qualifications in an appropriate field connected to the work and openness to working in a cross-cultural environment thereby offering a hopeful future for people in an underdeveloped country.

A period of preparation for this work will be conducted prior to departure for Thailand.  Applicants will be subject to the Congregation’s and Legislative screening procedures consistent with the Presentation Sisters’ commitment to child protection policies and procedures.

An application package, including the selection criteria is available by contacting Sr Rosemary Grundy PBVM, phone 07 3262 6324, or email rosegrundy@qld.pbvm.org.au

Applications close 24^th October, 2010.

In our first reading the listener is asked to behave humbly because there is no cure for the sickness of pride. It is as deadly as Old Testament leprosy. Secondly, the author of the letter to the Hebrews insists that what the followers of Jesus really hunger for is beyond the senses, intangible, spiritual, most certainly beyond materialistic possessions. That is a form of poverty.

Finally the Gospel parable warns that those who exalt themselves will be humbled, while those who humble themselves will be exalted. Know-alls will end up nowhere.

Unfortunately over the last two thousand years of history too many so-called followers of Christianity resisted such calls to poverty and humility, much to the detriment of the Christian message.

In the novel, ‘The Name of the Rose’, by Umberto Ecco there is reference to an occasion when some Franciscan friars challenge the pope of that time with being unfaithful to Christ, because he lived in obscene wealth and luxury  and exercised the power of a worldly emperor. The pope responded by having them executed.

His name is forgotten; but the influence of poor and humble people such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero and Mary MacKillop gives a lie to those who insist the poor and humble are really weak and useless  and have no value in the real world.

One of the more dramatic and challenging of the Vatican II document “The Church in the Modern World”, is the metaphor of “a pilgrim people’.

It described the church in the modern world as inexorably linked to the suffering, dispossessed and powerless of the world- nothing there about the need for wealth to spread the good news. It states-

“The joys and the hopes, the grief’s and anxieties of this age, especially of those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the grief’s and anxieties of the followers of Christ”.  Such words are inspiring to organizations like that of Vinnies the Salvos and Micah.

Much of what the Council had to say was disturbing, especially to those who believed that the church after the Council of Trent and Vatican I (with its insistence on the infallibility of the pope) had “arrived”, and therefore enjoyed the fullness of truth so much that nothing more need really be said, it being all there in the doctrines and dogmas proclaimed over the centuries. John XXIII’s call for aggiornamento (i.e. let us bring our static church into the modern world) was insulting to such people, if not dangerous.

Unquestioning and unquestionable “certainty” by people with power has resulted in the destruction of many special people and much that is beautiful in art and literature. The Inquisition, the Index of Forbidden Books, even the senseless and heartless smashing of the praying monk from the old St Mary’s church is not far removed from the dynamiting of the ancient Buddha statues by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The perpetrators operated on the same principle, beloved by the Pharisees, you must be wrong because we are right.

A truly ‘poor in spirit’ person admits imperfection in knowledge and experience and is always open to change for the better. The opposite of humility is pride and the opposite to a poverty of spirit is self-satisfaction. If we are part of a pilgrim people we must be poor and humble enough to try to follow where the Spirit leads.

Thus for some the image of a pilgrim church finding its way is certainly threatening and uncomfortable- and it is. A lot of former certainties are no longer around to cling to, like some teachings and practices that we innocently accepted as set in stone before we learned more history and began to seek answers.

Let us look at three types of pilgrim:

1. The Mediaeval Type

A pilgrim of those times usually traveling poorly with only the basic necessities, is not self satisfied, certainly needs others along the way, like the kindly innkeepers and good companions found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, is prepared to go a long way, yet yearns for “home” (like ET in the movie). Nevertheless, such a pilgrim believed with faith and hope that the fullness of  life is not found by standing still (like statues in a park, of use only to the pigeons) and is prepared to risk all in being part of a loving and united community on the same journey. Sometimes they must leave behind places where they had experienced great peace and comfort- as we did with leaving the building up the road. Actually I find great comfort and peace in my membership of St Mary’s in Exile, especially in our Eucharist’s at the TLC.  It is not Canterbury Cathedral or St James’ famous shrine in Compostella, Spain. No use hankering for what once was- up the road. (Ke Moses chastised the wandering tribe of Israelites for hankering after the flesh pots of Egypt and forbade them to look back). Live in the now (anyone who rests on their laurels is wearing them in the wrong place). Our cluster meetings also are pleasant oases along the path we follow in seeking to live out our understanding of the gospel in its practice.

2.  Another image of the pilgrimage comes from Africa. The Swahili word “safari” has recently changed to now mean an organized hunting expeditions for well heeled tourists. However the term originally referred to a nomadic community’s long and arduous journey to find food and shelter with the changing of the seasons. They sought a home where their group’s needs would be satisfied and their inner yearnings truly satisfied, otherwise they would die.

3. Finally an image for ‘the oldies’. Remember a TV series starring Ward Bond called, “Wagon Train”? The early movement of settlers across the United States was typified by the covered wagons featured in many Hollywood movies. The people involved were generally families who were prepared to risk everything in the hope of finding a new and better world across the plains and over the mountains. They did not know where they were going, but they knew what they were leaving behind. They found comfort and support in each other. When threatened they tended to move their wagons into a circle and wait until they felt free to move on. They were genuine pilgrims.

If you apply this metaphor of pilgrimage to the church within history then the people of God are in the moving wagons seeking a new life. The rangers and scouts  who go ahead looking for the safest way through an unknown land  are the theologians and mystics, (like the authors of those books on the back table).

The Vatican by the way claims to be the sheriff and the deputies but, unfortunately for them, the caravan has moved on. This leaves the wagon master to inspire, strengthen and comfort his uncertain, poor and humble family which is on the move. He has to be the spirit of Jesus showing wisdom and grace. His words, as found in the Gospels, will keep the community together and on track; or everyone will end up dead, or at least hungry and thirsty in a desert or hopelessly lost up a blind canyon somewhere!

These are all images of a people on the move, seeking truth and a life that will set them free. We should accept that we are a pilgrim people trying to follow the way that Jesus showed us. We hope to feel his presence around the table when we break bread together. In faith, hope and love we can humbly try to be faithful in seeking justice and peace on our journey together, and especially for the least of his sisters and brothers.

Recent discoveries about the first three centuries of Christianity clarify for us today, some seventeen hundred years later, how early Christianity deteriorated from a movement focused on a new age of freedom, healing and compassion into a religious empire focussed on mandatory/ prescribed doctrines/ creeds, strictly monitored by a powerful priestly hierarchy. The Constantinian Roman Empire became “ Christian” and Christianity that had offered an alternative culture, became Roman and imperial.

What had been a loose network of local congregations with varied forms of leadership and ritual, a movement of faith focussed on the Jesus story, which is essentially about a new age of freedom, healing and compassion coagulated into  a rigid structure of beliefs about Jesus.  One historian estimates that in the two and a half centuries after Constantine, Christian imperial authorities put twenty five thousand to death for their lack of creedal consciousness.

An increasingly disenfranchised laity, and women in particular , who played such a vital role in the earliest years of Christianity were pushed to the underside and the edges. Those discoveries suggest that Christianity was not fated to develop as it did – a different historical trajectory was possible. In other words Christianity now has a second chance.

Today a combination of circumstances makes possible a new outlook that might be more like the first three centuries and less like the last fifteen hundred years that Harvey Cox calls the Age of Belief.  Not only do we know more about the actual origins of the Jesus movement than any generation since the first century itself, but – even more important Christianity is no longer a “ western religion”, it has recently exploded into a global one. Its vital centres now lie in Asia,  Africa and Latin America, and this affords unprecedented new opportunities. We are talking about Christianity as a whole – not one particular Christian denomination.

Having said that, there is no road back to the primitive church that some Protestants long for or to the high medieval and glorious church that some Catholics dream of. But there is one thing we can all agree on concerning the future of Christianity, that if there is to be a future, Christianity must return to its roots and focus its energies not on hierarchy, not on creeds, but on what some call the Dream of God – a dream that billions of people on this planet long for everyday – a global community in which all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation – in fact all living things, including and especially the planet itself,  are treated with respect, dignity and practical compassion for all those who are most vulnerable – for what we do is surely far more important than what we believe. Otherwise Christianity has become something different from its original vision.  Knowing about the past is vital, not to return to it, but to learn from it- understanding our past can reopen roads that might have been taken but were not. There is within Catholicism an unhealthy emphasis on tradition – a tradition based on the fiction of Apostolic Succession, which locks Catholics into a belief in certain doctrines and moral absolutes that are no longer tenable.

This is why it is so imperative that we have both the most accurate picture of the origins of Christianity possible and the clearest grasp of the sweep and dynamism of the new global Christianity.

Chapter 4 “ The Road Runner and the Gospel of Thomas” of Harvey Cox’s book “The Future of Faith” from which I have taken this homily is available for you to take home – it will help to clarify for “ those with ears to listen”  where this community is presently at and hopefully will continue down that “ road less travelled”  – otherwise in my opinion , we have clearly lost our way.

Near the town of Aksaray, in Cappadocia, we came upon a Caravanserai, an enormous stone structure dating from C12 AD. Here travellers found hospitality, could rest their animals, trade, and exchange travellers’ tales. By contrast, our modern hotels are often impersonal and lonely, though I was never lonely with Ingerid as travelling companion. The Magi would have stayed at such a place on their way to Bethlehem, Paul probably sought hospitality in the Caravanserais.

The Turks, like the Magi, came from the East, from central Asia, driven out by the Mongols. They came in successive waves – first the Seljuk Turks, then the Ottoman Turks. In what is today Turkey they found a land flowing with milk and honey, magnificent and fertile, bounded by three great seas – the Black sea, the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, occupying a unique position on the cusp of the East and the West. They assimilated, and were assimilated by, the people already there – the Hittites and earlier indigenous peoples, as well as remnants of the Greeks and the Romans.

In this short talk I would like to make a few comments on what I observed of the religious phenomenon in Turkey.

Recently I was having coffee with a friend, who was asking me about St Mary’s ie us. I was just beginning to answer when she abruptly asked me, “Do you think there is life after this life?”

I was amazed, because I had been considering this very question in the context of our recent trip.  In Cyprus, at a site called Choirokoita, we visited a Neolithic village, dating from C12000 BC. This is the earliest site we saw. Here, in their perfectly round stone houses, the people buried their dead beneath the dirt floor on which they lived their daily lives. Whether this was to  offer companionship to the dead, or to receive blessing and protection from them, noone can say. But the practice indicated to me a belief in an existence beyond this life.  In Istanbul we visited the tomb of the great Ottoman emperor and patriot, Sulieman the Magnificent, and there, beside the tomb, a man was crying and praying aloud to his dead protector.

In the archeological museum in Istanbul is the huge sarcophagus – coffin- of Alexander the Great, magnificently decorated with scenes of  battle, the combatants carried to victory by their gods.   In another museum there were scores of tiny, intricately carved, war gods, their role being to secure victory for their devotees. In our C20 and C21wars the gods, or God, has to be on both sides of every combat.

We’re all familiar with the concept of God the protector.  Today we heard sung that beautiful psalm, ‘Our God has done great things for us, we are filled with joy’. We saw small statues of goddesses, totally naked, with arms raised and palms facing forward in blessing, and in a gesture of promoting fertility,

Of Christianity in practice today there was virtually no evidence.

But the Christianity of former times was all around us – in archeological sites , in architecture, in art. What was most fascinating was the progression of history and antiquity before our eyes, like a series of stills – old structures becoming the foundation for new ones, and in their turn giving way to others, but usually with something of the former remaining, and the process continuing to this day. One needs to be both a sleuth and a scholar to work it all out.

T S Eliot puts it

Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires

Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth

Tradition never dies, and it never stands still, but feeds into the next layer and level

The Aya Sofya – Church of Holy Wisdom – we stayed a 10 minute walk away -is one of the architectural jewels of all time. First a Christian Basilica, it was later seconded by and adapted for Islam. Today it is a museum. Fortunately, the Muslims covered over, but did not destroy, its magnificent mosaics, depicting Jesus and Mary, saints, emperors and empresses. Islam allows no images of any kind in its places of worship. Apart from their great beauty, the spiritual sentiment expressed in the paintings is interesting. An outstanding one – from late C12 – shows the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist imploring Jesus Christ for the salvation of humanity. I was wondering why Jesus would not have had the salvation of humanity at heart as well as Mary and John the Baptist. The various representations of angels, especially of their wings, I found charming and endlessly imaginative. An entry from my trip diary for May 5 2010 reads, ‘I have a feeling of serenity and joy, almost of ecstasy, in that Divine space of immense beauty.’

The modern city of Iznik is built on the site of the ancient city of Nicaea, made famous by its promulgation of the Nicene creed in 325AD. Only a tiny outcrop, by the side of a lake, is all that remains of the palace where the great Council took place. Like its dogmas, it has all but disappeared into the lake.

Islam today, as well as its past, is, on the other hand, very visible. No matter how small a village, the minaret of its mosque dominates the landscape, the five times daily call to prayer fills the atmosphere.  Our hotel in Istanbul was beside the Blue Mosque, and we listened to the Imam intoning the prayer late and early. It was beautiful and moving. Outside every Mosque is a stone bench and a row of taps. At the call to prayer we would see people, chiefly men, washing their feet prior to entering for prayer.

In Konya, in central Turkey, is the Rumi museum. Here, C13,  the great poet and mystic Jelalluddin Rumi lived and worked and founded a community later known as the Dervishes, which exists to this day. We attended a Dervish ceremony, a combination of meditation, ritual, music and dance. We were enthralled and uplifted. Through silence, meditation, music, dance and poetry the Dervishes seek to understand the soul and understand life. At the same time their lives are strongly rooted in the practicalities of everyday, in helping members of the community as well as those beyond their community.

If you like history, antiquity and good food, then Turkey is the place for you. Its people, its beauty, its art, its vitality, have ensnared me – I will be going back.

……….and let us remember all those who have gone before us.

We hear this bidding at every Eucharistic celebration.  For Paul they were the Cloud of Witnesses, the men and women of the Old and NT who have gone before us and given testimony to faith. I wonder what cloud of witnesses pass through your mind at that time- family, friends, godparents, teachers, priests or those in religious orders.

Often for me, in the first instance, they are not the important people who have passed through my life and who have left an indelible impression because of how they illumined my spiritual path by the example they set or the awareness they raised or the encouragement they gave.

But when I hear this sentence, in my mind’s eye there appears a picture of the map of Turkey and I would think about the early Christian communities, people never seen but who have formed the basis of the Christian Church.  They were icons of faithfulness who “sought to live “faithfully, steadfast in purpose or devotion or affection, constant in adherence to ideals” as the dictionary describes.  So it was my dream to see the landscape and the remnants.

Joan Mooney and I travelled to Turkey and Cyprus to figuratively walk in the footsteps of St Paul to reflect on the life, letters and theology of Paul the Apostle in the context of some of the places through which he travelled and to explore the development of the early Christian Communities.  Much of the exploration will be ongoing as it remains to me a source of endless fascination.

Our Turkish journey of 2000 km was luxury indeed compared to the 20,000 km Paul traveled over the extended network of Roman roads that covered southern Anatolia as far as Syria. Paul probably covered some 20 to 30 km a day on foot, carrying his belongings on the back of a donkey or pack horse, sleeping at inns or the homes of friends (according to Paul’s own letters).  Reports on conditions in the inns of the period are not palatable.  St John reports bedbugs!

On his 3 missionary journeys over a period of 20 years Paul suffered stoning, 7 imprisonments (1 Clem 5.6), 5 times the Jewish punishment of 39 lashes , was scourged 3 times by the Romans with rods, and suffered 3 shipwrecks.

There is not much left in the ruins of Turkey and Cyprus to remind us of Paul except for much later iconic images that are pretty unified in their depiction of him. One such place was the underground city of Kaymakli in Cappadocia, one amongst 40 such cave cities, dug out of a pretty amazing landscape. They were not only used by Christians as hiding places but many other folk in previous centuries hid there from marauding armies.

The city consists of 8 floors of stables, storage places, wineries, living areas, kitchens and churches. It is thought that here alone up to 3 ½ thousand people resided. Many of the walls of the churches are adorned with frescoes of biblical figures and saints of the early church.  Interestingly many of the figures are disfigured through the gouging out of the eyes by superstitious locals who believed that by removing the eyes one removed the souls.  Another interpretation is that the scraped powder from the blue eyes had some kind of healing power.

Colossae is but a memory.  The town was destroyed by earthquakes and the site has never been excavated for lack of funds. However, the correspondence from Paul to the Colossians is valuable to consider.  Paul’s greatest bugbear was legalism.  He had to deal with dissent and distortion of beliefs, “obligatory beliefs” such as food laws and circumcision that were imposed on the predominantly gentile church in order to allow them to belong. Even then, belonging was conditional! Christian Communities do much better these days.  Consider John Bell of the Iona Community holding up the host and saying: The gifts of God for the People of God and for those who are curious.  I marvel at the impact such an invitation has on a person’s spiritual seeking.

The Colossians also had cultivated their own angel cult, which was based on some Hellenistic and Jewish elements. So there existed a rich variety of theological views but the idea of heresy was not a concept known at the time.  That came much later when creed and dogmas appeared.

Ephesus was a city on a grand scale and worldly.  Paul spent a couple of years there and made himself rather unpopular.  He posed a threat to the livelihood of businesses such as those of the silversmiths when it became apparent that the Christian converts had no need of idols and altars fashioned out of silver.

In Paphos, Cyprus, I hugged the smooth, much touched pillar of St Paul, to which Paul, on order of the pro-consul, allegedly was tied when he received 39 lashes as punishment for preaching Christianity.  However Paul redeemed himself in the eyes of the pro-consul who was won over to the faith when he saw how Paul had the power to temporarily blind his friend and adviser, Elymas, the Jewish soothsayer. According to tradition, Elymas did not forget the humiliation. And his resentment cost St Barnabas, who had been Paul’s companion, his life.

Barnabas was a native of Cyprus and we visited his tomb near Salamis which was miraculously found through a dream in 477 AD by Bp Anthemios.

In the Troudos Mountains of Cyprus we visited the monastic church dedicated to St Heraclidios who led the Apostles Paul and Barnabas through the “snowy mountains” to Paphos and who was later anointed by Barnabas as the first bishop of Cyprus.  According to local tradition the apostles baptized St Heraclidios in the river only a few meters from the monastery.

The church built there centuries later, at the site of the monastery is dedicated to Lampadistis, a much venerated saint, whose skull is kept in the church, encased in silver with just the top of the cranium exposed.  I felt most profoundly moved when I touched this deeply browned skull, realizing this person had been one of the throng of Christians who have gone before us and, keeping their eyes fixed on Jesus, persevered and ran the race.

There are few things that especially stood out for me during those 5 weeks:

1. The importance of remembering.  It takes a few generations for all personal memory to fade away.  Therefore it is good to find tangible traces of people who struggled, loved, dreamed and hurt.  The lives of those gone before us illumen our path, they show us the pitfalls and they show us what is essential.
2. How in the space of a few hundred years perceptions can ossify into immovable opinions and beliefs

The circumstances of the early communities are not ours today.  We are not likely to have the same disputes.  But the future of our Faith can easily be subject to the same tortuous path as before if we don’t examine history.

So let us keep living the simplicity of the message of Jesus in all humility, let’s aim for open, respectful dialogue and for peacefulness as a core desire for a faithful community, faithful to the ideals of the Gospel and faithful to each other.

There is no Death

There is a story about a servant of a rich merchant in ancient Baghdad. The servant is walking down to the marketplace to get some vegetables for the master, and when he gets there he comes face to face with Death. Death looks at the servant with an astonished look on his face and frightens the hell out of him.
The poor servant runs back to his master and says, “Master, quick, quick, I’ve just come face to face with Death in the marketplace, and I fear he’s going to take me. Lens me your fastest horse so I can flee to Samarra and so escape him.” So the master agrees and the servant saddles up the horse, hops on it and flogs it out of the yard and across the countryside towards Samarra.

A couple of hours later the master goes for a stroll and he too meets up with Death. He says, “Hey, listen here Death, what’s the idea of scaring my servant the way you did?” And Death says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare him. It’s just that I got such a surprise at seeing him here in Baghdad, when tonight I’ve an appointment with him in Samarra.

We cannot run from death . Death walks with us the moment we take birth.

The man in the gospel gets to a point, after all his hard work, where he can sit back and enjoy life a little, when Death comes knocking. He doesn’t get to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

The first reading from Ecclesiastes “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity –

For all his toil under the sun, what does man gain by it.” (1.^1-3)

I suppose the message from these readings is that there is more to life than what the external, material world offers. That the world of form is simply passing away, but behind this world is the one life, the ground of our Being; the divine presence, and when we tap into this, we tap into the eternal, and that which gives life meaning.

I love the story about Zen master Ryokan. It’s a bit extreme but makes the point very clearly.

WHO CAN STEAL THE MOON ?

The Zen Master Ryokan lived a very frugal life at the foot of a mountain.

One night when the Master was away, a thief broke into his hut only to discover there was nothing there to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught the burglar.

“You have put yourself to so much trouble to visit me,” he said. “You must not go away empty-handed. Please take my blanket and clothes as a gift.”

The bewildered thief slunk off with the gift.

Ryokan sat naked at the door of his hut, watching the moon in the sky. “Poor fellow,” he said, “I wish I could give him this.”

There is joy and contentment in his owning nothing,  and to give away the little he does own.

These sentiments are found in the very best of all religious traditions.

It is found in the words of the 4^th century mystic Meister Eckhart when he says “ You must be empty so that you may be filled.”

All that is artificial in us needs to be peeled away so that we may experience wholeness and fulfillment. For Eckhart, God (the Divine Presence) is always near to us, and we are as far from God only to the extent that we are lost in the passions, in the senses, in the mind, and in the fragmentation which we take to be ourselves.

These thoughts were expressed in a conference recently held at the Centre for Action and Contemplation in Pecos, New Mexico, America, entitled “Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate” lead by Richard Rohr, James Finley and Cynthia Bourgeault.

One of the really nice things they did was to open many of the sessions with a time of meditation which started with a simple chant. One chant was based on Psalm 46¹⁰.

“Be still and know that I am God”.

As the chant progressed to drop off a word each time until we were left with simply BE.

Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know that I am

Be still and know

Be still

Be.

As we pare away a word each time, it’s like taking us down, down, down, down from conceptual thinking into simply Being – to match our minds to the minds of the mystics. If we use only our thinking, rational dissecting mind, the mystics will always look difficult.

As the Greek mystics said in the use of chant, we are putting the mind into the heart, into our bodies that we may hear with our heart and with our bodies. In doing this we bring ourselves into resonance with our bodies, with each other, with nature and all that surrounds us.

So we sing it on a single tone. If you hear harmony, add the harmony in.

Let it take us into our fundamental intention, to be one with all.

(Bell)

Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know that I am

Be still and know

Be still

Be

(Bell)

Candidates for  First Communion and Confirmation 2010 for Sunday Aug 8 at the 9am mass (click image to enlarge)

One particular person cannot speak on behalf of everybody’s personal spiritual creed.  Once we try and draw a box around ourselves and state “That is what St Mary’s in Exile believes!” we run the very real risk of excluding new insights and new ways to experience our shared journey.

David Cantwell



My name is David Cantwell and I have been a member of this community since 1987.

I feel I have come full circle given my first real encounter with Peter Kennedy was at our rented flat in the late 80’s.  We had invited him over for dinner as Trish and I had become engaged and in true Catholic tradition, we invited the priest over for dinner.

Peter consistently kept saying to us, “Why get married?” and “It will never last?” clearly attempting to sow the seeds of doubt in our minds.  I took great joy in April of this year when we celebrated our 20 wedding anniversary.  Peter’s response was simply “She’s a patient woman he replied!”

As we know, Catholic priests are always right !!!

But I still have the wedding photos with Peter adorned in vestments.  I am considering if these could now be sold for fundraising.

It is also a miracle that he ever allowed me in front of a microphone given Peter seemed to have little faith in my ability.  You see I did not impress Peter with my photography skills in 1989 when he asked me to come and take photos of his newly completed retreat centre at Numinbah Valley.   I failed miserably in that assigned task and he never forgot it.  Maybe it was something to do with Peter last piece of advice before I retired for bed.  “If a snake crawls over you in the middle of the night, don’t move and he might not bite you!”  Being a produce of the city and having never spent a night outside of secure urban accommodation, I didn’t get much sleep, and consequently it showed in the results of my photos.

Peter’s lack of confidence in me continued.  After 10 years at St Mary’s I had rarely stood behind a mike until the mass in which Sophia was Baptised in 1999, being some 12 years later.  I told him I could sing and I wanted to sing at my daughters Baptism.

He had his doubts.  The morning of the mass in October 1999, Peter rushed over, grabbed the mass sheet, assuming that I had hijacked the music for the day and was about to lower the boom on any liturgical dissention (ironic hey?) when he realised that Joan had given it the OK… Shows you the power that ex nuns still have..

But still he was nervous.  After the mass finally he had changed his tune.  Reference to the Cantor being a “Cant – well” indicated that I had finally won his acceptance.  It only took 12 years.  So standing in front of you today, I do feel I have turned the corner.

This community is fundamentally unique.  Trish and I have often talked about where we would go if St Mary’s in Exile ceased to be.  My daughter Sophia thought that a Sunday morning bike riding would be a good alternative.

Whilst I concurred, I certainly would miss the interaction with so many wonderful people and the tremendous joy I get personally from sharing the gift of music.  I could not however see myself returning to a mainstream Catholic Parish again.  I might consider it only if sometime in the future a Lesbian Pope was elected as that would be a strong indication that the Church would have fundamentally changed for the better.  I won’t hold my breath.

My upbringing was one of a typical habitual Catholic.  The 6 kids, mum and dad went to mass every Sunday, rain or shine.  We sat in the same seats.  We arrived 1 minute before kick off and left once the priest genuflected but before the last verse to avoid the car park traffic and be first in line at the local hot bread kitchen.  That way we spoke to nobody and nobody spoke to us. Consequently, we didn’t really know too many people even after 25 years in the same parish. Extracting the uncomfortable dress shoes and clothes when we got home was the only pleasant part of the whole morning.

I left my parish of 25 years when I left home for the first time in my early 20’s.   A mutual friend was involved in a old inner city parish near South Brisbane.  Michael Fitzpatrick along with Dean Hamilton lit a flame in this fledgling inner city church community that still burns brightly today.  Dean had a voice of such perfect tone and pitch that word quickly spread.  I had had enough of badly played organs and poorly sung hymns.  At St Mary’s there was a grand piano.  The music was contemporary without being garish. There was a sense of joy with the musicians unlike anything I had experienced in my previous parish.

But if we came for the music, we stayed for the liturgy.  Unlike the liturgy that resembled the dregs of a sucked mango seed, Peter and subsequently Terry spoke with passion and authority.  Not authority derived from their status as “priests” but from their own life examples and experiences.  We journeyed with Peter during his time as a prison chaplain and the challenging environment that he engaged with every week.  Through Karyn Walsh, Micah was born out of this community adding practical witness to the gospel messages.  My daughter Sophia’s name was chosen after one of Peter’s homilies on the feminie concept of God I remembered all those years ago.

Even in the early 90’s, the liturgy at St Mary’s was different.  We dropped the creed.  Thank God for that.  I could still recite it in my sleep complete with every single mumble and inflection of a habitual Catholic.  At the time I was not even aware the creed was written in 325CE well before the concept of a round earth, a solar system and universe were understood.

The 2 great strengths of this community were the music and the liturgy.  I was particularly concerned when we relocated, that the music would not survive or not be as good as it was.  It was not an easy task.  We had many different views on how to proceed.

Whilst this space is comfortable and ideal for us, it comes to us only through the generosity of key people in the Union movement.  It is also never designed for music and is acoustically challenging to say the least.  We could virtually get away without mikes in the old church, where as in this space we need a lot of equipment to replicate the sound.  The community bought the sound equipment we now use from its own funds.  After some teething issues, we seem to have that under control now albeit we sometimes can blast people who sit too close to the speakers.

Like many in this community I have read a lot of banned books over the past few years.  You know a book will be insightful and challenging if it’s on the Catholic Church’s banned list.  One of those authors was John Shelby Spong.

I had the great privilege and honour to meet Bishop Spong in 2007.  My connections with my employer the Anglican Church allowed me to gain a rare insight to one of the most influential progressive theologians of the last hundred years.

Spong enable me to read a Gospel story without having a sense of embarrassment.  I no longer had to believe they were literally true.  And unless you believe that 2,000 years ago the law of physics changed enough to allow dead people to rise, for angels to appear, to a human to walk on water etc… then accepting a literal interpretation of the gospels requires you to suspend your disbelief and become beholden to blind faith.

Spong speaks of a Jesus not a man of literal miracles but as one who was so in tune with his real life that his earthly life that death did not matter to him.  He refers to this understanding of God as the “Ground of our Being”.  Not an elsewhere God, but one “that is all and in all”.

With these new insights I can no longer tolerate the beatings of Orthodoxy Morons…

Greta Vosper captured this beautifully in her book “With or without God” as TAWOGFAT – “The authoritive word of God for all time”.  It is phonetically so close to the word “Hog Fat” that I had to smile.   But it sums up the ridiculous notion that the Bible is the “Word of God”, no if’s and not but’s.   So therefore, if you question the bible you question God.  Catholics had the catechism in lieu of the bible as the church did not want the laity to own or read the bible – that was the church’s job.   I had throughout my Catholic upbringing been fed TAWOGFAT all my life.  Only in the last 10 yeas have I cut out the TAWOGFAT in my spiritual diet and I feel much better for it.

In late January of this year, I had her book with me when I was sitting on the veranda looking out to the ocean at Maroochydore.  I love watching the waves especially if I have a drink in my hand.

I watched the waves.  I can see them.  They have shape and form.  They have a limited life, and once they break on the shore, they merge back into the ocean from which they came. No two waves are ever the same.  We have traditionally seen Jesus (and ourselves) as the wave.  I think Jesus realised he was the ocean.  The concept of this one life was revealed to me by watching those waves on that particular summer’s day.  We are the ocean, not the wave.  “I am all and in all”.

Modern progressive theology does not see the gospels as TAWOGFAT, but a collection of stories, poems and tribal propaganda that has been cobbled together to form various versions of the book called the bible.  They are limited by the time and culture in which they were written.  It was some 70 years before the first gospel was written.  They are works of men, not literal truth.

For example, our Gospel today, we see the apostles suggesting that they could bring fire down to smite the Samaritans.  Early follows would have recognised that fire was a power assigned to Elijah one of the great Jewish prophets.  The writer was painting a picture of Jesus as the new Elijah and those hearing this story would have recognised it as such.

Peter and Terry had the courage to speak out against the dogma of the Catholic Church that blinds us to the beauty and rich message of the gospels.  We paid for it by ultimately being removed from our church, but from this pain we now have freedom.

We are free from dogma, the power structures that maintain them and the Church’s intractable attitude towards woman.  With all of the horrible stories of ritualised sexual abuse against children that has been covered up for decades it is an embarrassing time to be a Catholic.  And let’s not forget the recently announced “crime” of ordaining a woman priest placed on the same level of seriousness as child rape.

I note that those that were so quick to see fault in our community’s liturgy have been notably silent on these issues.  The Church’s reputation is now about as bad as BP’s image as a “green” oil producer.

The changes and freedoms we have are becoming more and more self evident.  In any mainstream Catholic Church, I and many community members would not be able to deliver the Homily.  I would not have been inspired by Mary Fletcher’s homily on Mary Mackillop.  I would not have shed a tear when Mary Peace told us of her journey with cancer.  As women, their homilies are not permitted.

Many of us are have come to, or are coming to the conclusion that we don’t need the Church to get into heaven.  It’s no longer a place for the chosen.  I am not sure it’s even a place.  And the Church’s role in our salvation?  Well, if we never “fell from grace, then we have no need to be “saved”.

Hence the church is sort of out of a job.

And lets not forget “guilt”, the gift that just keeps on giving for generations.

We take these things for granted at SMX but that is the reality.  Some in the community may feel uncomfortable with changes to the way we gather around the table for communion.  But this is not a community to attend if you wish to feel comfortable.

We grow spiritually when we challenge others and ourselves.  Not in a pious or arrogant way, but in a way that repeats that long held St Mary’s mantra that “everybody is invited and nobody is turned away”.

One of the problems during our separation was responding to the proposition that “if you break the rules, then you’re out”.  It is difficult to respond with a 10 second sound bite because the issue is just so much deeper.  You need to firstly establish if the rules are just and if the rules are true to the message of the gospel.  You cannot do that in a dumbed down media debate without falling into the trap of defining what it is we collectively believe.

To do so, frankly I think would be an insult to everybody present.  One particular person cannot speak on behalf of everybody’s personal spiritual creed.  Once we try and draw a box around ourselves and state “That is what St Mary’s in Exile believes!” we run the very real risk of excluding new insights and new ways to experience our shared journey.

I am comfortable with a consultative approach to liturgy that has been taken which is one of trial (and sometimes) error.  As we move as a community in any particular direction, it will require a process of continual reassessment.  What is not good is removed until all you are left with is beauty.  If we think we will ever achieve this then we have already failed.  We must constantly critically assess our collective offering to avoid becoming the very thing we left – institutionalised and resistant to change.

My own concept of prayer has changed.  I no longer look to an external parental figure for divine freebees but see prayer as a way of tapping into that seldom used area of our inner self.  Prayer can connect us with this one’s real life and unite us in a way that seems almost transcendent.  But we need to stop partitioning a mythical father figure who will grants us this and grant us that.  The way we pray also needs to mature.

Finally, given that music is such a large part of my St Mary’s experience, I would like to share with you one of only a handful of songs I have ever written.  This is a feat in itself because as the very talented women whom I sing with will tell you, I can’t read music very well at all and often drive them to distraction with my totally lack of technical skills.

I hope this song strikes a chord for you all…



We are the Ocean

Copyright David M Cantwell 2010

Capo 4^th fret  D  G  D  A

Wake up to our real life

To that which divides us

Throw out the message of fear

It’s the message of “oneness”

Is that which unites us

The one that we’ve waited to hear

The Spirit’s within us

It never really left us

So what do we have to fear?

When anger and violence

Are replaced with kindness

The need for rules disappears

Chorus

G    D   A

We are the ocean

We’re not the wave

We are the spirit

We’ve no need to be saved

The Ground of our Being

Now that worth believing

The rest can just fade away

No longer is heaven

A place for the chosen

When the wonder of life is “today”

Wake up to the feeling

That life is unceasing

The body is just an illusion

Love is the answer

When hatred and anger

Just keep us apart and in fear

Chorus

G    D   A

We are the ocean

We’re not the wave

We are the spirit

We’ve no need to be saved

Now that we’ve started

We have now departed

From power, rules and exclusion

We’re do we take this?

It’s something we can’t miss

When we gather as one here today

Let keep what is sacred

Throw out what is hatred

It’s a freedom now in our hands

Reach out with love now

Awakened and strong now

Our “real” life is here now today!

Chorus

G    D   A

We are the ocean

We’re not the wave

We are the spirit

We’ve no need to be saved

We are the ocean

We’re not the wave

We are the spirit

We’ve no need to be saved

Reverend Ken Howell conducts the 9am Mass at St Mary's Church, South Brisbane, on Sunday July 11. Photo: Michelle Smith

KATE DENNEHY July 19, 2010 – 10:37AM

The pictures tell the story of attendance at the two St Mary’s Catholic churches at South Brisbane with the rebel congregation substantially outnumbering the traditionalists last week.

Fairfax Media’s Sun-Herald dropped in unannounced at the 9am services on a recent Sunday to check on parishioner numbers following last year’s very public split.

The church sanctioned by Brisbane Archdiocese’s Archbishop John Bathersby attracted about 45 people while the rebel St Mary’s-in-Exile had about 240 parishioners.

Father Ken Howell officiates at the original location, while Peter Kennedy – who does not use the title ‘Father’ – tends his flock down the road at the Trades and Labour Council building.

Archbishop Bathersby sacked Mr Kennedy as administrator of the church in February last year for unapproved practises including giving communion to divorced and gay people, priests not wearing traditional vestments and baptising babies using unorthodox wording. He gave his last sermon there in April last year before taking about 1000 supporters with him.

Mr Kennedy said last week the break-away group attracted about 500 people over three weekend services. “If there’s a special event about 1000 might come but normally there’s around 500 although not all of those would come every week,” he said.

The Dean of Brisbane’s St Stephen’s Cathedral, Fr Ken Howell who has taken over as administrator of St Mary’s said the decisions made last year were not about numbers, but about ensuring Catholic worship and teachings were restored.

“I am pleased to say that this has occurred and whilst we may be a small community, I am encouraged by the weekly growth of this community and the enthusiastic commitment of the people who have made St Mary’s their Parish,’’ he said.

But advertisements for St Mary’s Masses have appeared in the local paper, presumably in the hope of boosting numbers.

Mr Kennedy said the church had been used for many community events when he and fellow priest, Terry Fitzpatrick celebrated Mass there, including events run by the social justice group, Micah Projects and indigenous Australians.

Partly on the strength of those events, the Brisbane City Council in 2008 – when it was trying to have its controversial $370 million Go Between Bridge approved – agreed to give St Mary’s $1.5 m for noise mitigation because of the predicted extra traffic.

“Now the church can only be used by Catholics for worship so it’s become a very expensive exercise when so few attend,” Mr Kennedy said.

“They (the Catholic archdiocese) are only keeping it open to save face and no other church would be kept going with so few.”

He said the rebel church was part of the Progressive Spirituality Network, a group that has gained popularity with many denominations in the last 10 years.

It updates Christian beliefs and practices in line with the modern world and the latest findings in science, psychology, and sociology.

Mr Kennedy said the group ‘‘reinterprets as metaphor or even denies’’, the supernatural and miraculous elements of Christianity, including core beliefs like the virgin birth of Jesus and the resurrection.

Fr Howell did not comment on general church attendance numbers but said the Brisbane archdiocese would take part in a national church census next year that would supply updated figures.

Archbishop Bathersby said he was delighted with ‘‘standing only crowds’’ at the cathedral at Easter time, especially the number of young people.

Source: The Sun-Herald

This book ‘The Future of Faith” by Harvey Cox was given to me recently in Melbourne by the Progressive Christian Network.  It is a book which I believe can help us to understand what happened to this community and why it happened and what our future might look like.  I found it easy to read and indeed compelling.  I want to look only at Chapter 1 entitled “ An Age of the Spirit” – “The Sacred in the Secular?”

Cox begins with a question “ What does the future hold for religion and for Christianity in particular?”  I believe the clue to a correct answer is clearly evident in todays gospel reading The Good Samaritan.

Cox says that at the beginning of a new millennium three qualities mark the worlds’ spiritual people.  The first is the unanticipated resurgence of religion. The second is that fundamentalism is dying. The third and most important quality is that there is a profound change happening in the elemental nature of religiousness.

It is the rediscovery of the spiritual within the secular – as Vatican II proclaimed – the Secular is Sacred. It’s a return to the age of the Spirit that marked the first three centuries of Christianity.

In the last paragraph of his book Cox writes “ The wind of the Spirit is blowing . One indication is the upheaval that is shaking and renewing Christianity. Faith, rather than beliefs, is once again becoming its defining quality, and this reclaims what faith meant during its earliest years.”

Lets take a look at those two words – faith and belief.  Many of us may think they mean the same thing.  In fact they do not.  We can believe something to be true or not true, without it making much difference to our life but we place our faith only in something that is vital for the way we live.

Gretta Vosper clearly spells out the difference in her book “ With or Without God – what we do is more important than we believe “ . The message of todays  gospel is the same. It’s the unbeliever who lives faithfully.

Orthodoxy  i.e. Right belief marked the 1500 years of the Age of Belief which began with the Emperor of Constantine.

Orthopraxis  i.e. Right action is portrayed in todays gospel. To act with compassion is to live with integrity. Orthopraxis not Orthodoxy was the defining element of the first centuries of Christianity – before Constantine.

Cox now argues that a newly global Christianity is flourishing in  Latin America, Asia and Africa enlivened by a multiplicity of cultures and yearning for the realisation of God’s reign of Shalom is finding its soul again.  All the signs suggest we are poised to enter a new era of the Spirit and that the future will be a future of faith – a return to early Christianity.

It is common enough today to hear someone say that they are a practising Christian but not necessarily a believing one.  In August 2007 the New York Times reported that in her collection “ Come Be My Light “ Mother Teresa who died in 1977 confessed that for years she had harboured troubling doubts about the existence of God, even as she worked ceaselessly to relieve the anguish of the sick and dying in Calcutta. Her confession evoked a wave of criticism. Was she a hypocrite?  Had she been faking it all along?  In the tumble of public comments that followed one was most telling – a student wrote “ Mother Teresa’s life exemplifies the living aspect of faith, something sorely needed in a society where Christian identity is most often defined in terms of what a person believes rather than how he or she lives.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around? “

If Cox is right this community may one day be welcomed back into the fold of a renewed, much less dogmatic and increasingly democratic Christianity.

But don’t hold your breathe!