Sunday 7^th March 2010

Dr. Val Webb

© Copyright belongs to author. This cannot be reproduced/published without author permission.

Last month, when John sent me today’s Gospel reading, the timing was perfect.  The fig trees in our orchard were bulging with ripe, purple figs and we were eating fresh figs, stewed figs, figs with cheese, fig salad and fig jam.  However, one of our trees has stubbornly refused to bear fruit for even longer than the three years recorded in this parable from Jesus, and so the reading grabbed my attention in a practical way.

This parable isn’t just a simple story – they never are, although we often tell them as if they were cosy little stories affirming how we already act.  The parables that Jesus told were all about subverting the status quo and challenging myths perpetuated by the dominant and powerful in society as to how life is.  Despite Christian art depicting Jesus working with his father in a well-appointed carpenter’s shop, Jesus’ family were at the bottom of the social class – they were landless Galilean peasants and basic labourers, perhaps building scaffolding for stonework on construction sites.  Remember the derisive words when he taught in his hometown and the locals took offense — “Where did he get his wisdom and healing powers — Isn’t this the carpenter’s son whose parents and siblings we know?”  This makes it all the more pertinent when Jesus tells parables about reimagining a world that subverts powerful religious, political and social norms.  When the Samaritan became the hero in the “Good Samaritan” story, the Jewish audience would have been outraged because of their established myths about the despised Samaritans.  And so, if we are to understand this parable of the fig tree, we need to search for clues in the story that tell us what dominant Jewish myth is being challenged by Jesus in his turn-the-world-upside-down style.

The fig tree was symbolic in biblical times – it meant peace and prosperity with its sweet fruit and its shady leaves, but it was also a symbol for the Jewish people themselves.  In another story in two of the Gospels, Jesus looks for fruit on a fig tree out of season and curses it because it had none – a strange story that referred to the Jews — but this parable is the opposite of that story.  According to our Gospel reading, people had come to Jesus to tell him that some Galileans had been murdered by Pilate, assuming that this tragedy happened because of their sinfulness, that same belief that led people to ask Jesus about the blind man “Who sinned, he or his parents?”  Who knows – since Jesus was Galilean, perhaps this was also a cheap shot at Galileans.  Jesus comes straight back at them.  Trying to make direct links between sin and consequent suffering is wrong and totally misses the point, which is that everyone is capable of missing the mark and thus all need to repent our damaging actions.  To prove his point, Jesus pulls in another example.  Apparently some fortification tower had fallen and killed a group of people, and Jesus made the point that, whether a natural disaster like this or deliberate evil like people being murdered, neither was punishment for human sin, but all of us need to repent our wrongs.  It’s also good to remember that repentance was more about corporate repentance in Jesus’ day, rather than individuals counting out the many sins they needed to confess.  Repentance was about collective guilt, about changing one’s mind and ways and coming to a new way of thinking and acting as a people – bringing in God’s reign.

The fig tree parable challenges the Jewish myth that poverty, illness and suffering are the result of sin; and wealth, health and success were signs of righteousness, a theology preached openly in Victorian England and still believed internally by many people today who refuse to address homelessness, poverty and powerlessness.   It’s interesting to imagine who they players are in this parable – Jesus doesn’t tell us, expecting that we can work it out.  It is the owner of the orchard that comes to check the trees and found this non-productive tree.  The owner tells the gardener to cut it down.  Although in the long run, it is about economics – who wants a fig tree with no fruit to sell or eat – the reason given here is “Why should it exhaust the soil?” or, in other words, why should something unproductive be a drain on resources that could be put to better use, namely to support those that are productive.  Does this sound a bit like some of today’s arguments – why pump money and resources into welfare systems or prop up unproductive members of society or, as a corollary, let’s give incentive payments to those who produce results and millions to CEO’s who will get the most profit out of the soil?  It’s the old argument of the best use of limited resources, an argument that always pushes some off the lifeboat.  So who is the owner of the orchard in the story?

It’s the gardener, the hired hand, who stops the hand of the owner, saying that this is not the only solution.  The gardener is passionate about the trees and the soil.  “If you’re worried about exhausting the soil,” the gardener says, “I shall cultivate the ground around the tree and fertilize it so that it has a better chance to bear figs – leave it for another year while I try.  If not, you can cut it down.”  The gardener argues for a reprieve, offering nurture and special care of this unproductive tree by providing better resources which add rather than take away from the whole.  The gardener is not about to give up on it or the exhausted soil.  The story is actually not about the either/or of one fig tree, but about how to nourish all life — the interdependence of soil, air and all the trees – so that everything and everyone flourishes.

I’m so glad that this was the Gospel reading assigned for today because it made me look more closely to see what Jesus might have been saying about the worldview of his time.  I hadn’t noticed how contemporary the parable is, which is exactly what parables are for – metaphors and stories drawing on common life that arrest us with their vividness or strangeness, such that we have to stop and tease them out.  We could think through this parable for all its meanings for hours and not exhaust it – make it your meditation for the coming week.  What does it say about sharing resources?  What about people we think of as “unproductive” or a drain on society’s resources?  How do we measure productivity in people?  Why is it so much about economics in our society?  Who deserves the best care, the extra fertilizer and digging around their roots?  What does it say about mercy, new life, hope, the patience and commitment of the gardener?

So who are the players in the parable?  Interestingly, the owner of the orchard is not God – or at least we don’t imagine so.  We need to give God the compassionate role, the merciful role, that of the gardener who tenderly cares for the plant – and yet we are making that assumption, it is not spelled out as that.  What if the orchard owner is God, the God with whom the Jews who questioned Jesus would relate – didn’t they assume that suffering and death was God’s punishment on sin which, in the case of a fig tree, meant not bearing fruit?  Wasn’t that their original assumption that Jesus challenged – the direct relationship, 2 + 2 = 4 between sin and punishment?  They would be thinking that God was the orchard owner until, wait, the gardener stands up to this God and stays the Divine hand, desiring mercy not death.  So is the gardener the “other” God, the God of the transformed way of living, the God whose “reign” Jesus is all about bringing in?  Is this about the conflict between the ways we have imaged God as the punishing Judge who comes from outside the orchard to give orders, control and to destroy – and the God who gives and operates within the garden, the gardener who nurtures the soil, cares for the trees and promotes the flourishing of everything within the universe, seeing the unique worth of each?

Dare I bring the metaphor even closer?  You’re allowed to do anything with parables.  There is more to life than figs.  In biblical times, the fig tree was valued as a beautiful shade tree, something essential for hot climates.  The leaves were used as medicinal poultices for healing the sick and fig leaves were incorporated into the Genesis story in order to hide the nakedness and shame of Adam and Eve.  They are also a symbol of peace and prosperity – all this without even the need for fruit.  Perhaps the owner of the orchard is the institutional church who only judge the usefulness of a fig tree or congregation by the homogenous crop of traditional fruit or believers it produces.  The orchard owner had to search for fruit on the tree which suggests it had a healthy mass of leaves under which they might be hidden.  St. Mary’s has been about the leaves – sheltering people from the heat of an unforgiving, merciless world; spreading its leaves such that peoples’ fear and nakedness will not be exposed to cruel judgment; making leaf poultices that heal the body as well as the soul; and offering a cool haven of peace and calm in a hostile world where all questions can be asked and discussed.  The orchard owner sees only figs as the point of the tree, but this community has recognized so much more and thus the Spirit of the community, the gardener, asks that it be allowed to grow, to be cultivated and fertilized to see what it can actually become, something beyond the institutional vision.

When I started pondering this parable, I saw nothing of this – it was a fig tree story with a generic idea of God’s care, but it gets deeper and deeper and wider and wider as we apply our own particular experiences and context to it.  This is the beauty of parables – they are free of baggage about truth, doctrine and form, because they loudly proclaim themselves as fiction and thus we are free to take them on board and let them speak to our own situation – Jesus said after one of his parables, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”  He was also reluctant to explain his parables when the disciples found them troubling for exactly this same reason – let them simply speak to where the hearer is in their life.  Some might say, why bother about these old stories?  We can come up with similar examples in our own day, but when so much of the Bible has become outdated with its cosmology, patriarchy and violence and when so much of what is good in it has been smothered by institutional baggage and medieval interpretation, even the person of Jesus himself, it is refreshing to be able to take these stories which, according to contemporary scholars are more likely than other material to have come from the lips of Jesus, and thus feel we are responding to what he saw as the transformed way to live in the world and with each other.

Where do you find yourself in this parable?  Are you part of the soil that nourishes life, or the gardener who never give up on anything or anyone – God has no hands but our hands, so the cultivating and nurturing is ours to do.  Or the fig tree that had a series of bad years and has been rendered unproductive and dying of thirst and nourishment, needing some good soil around you to support and strengthen you – or even simply not to give up on you?  Or do you find yourself more in the role of the orchard owner, striving for profit and success, and valuing everything and everyone around you by the bottom line?  Or, perhaps you are one of the other trees in the orchard, disdainful of the one squandering the soil without giving anything back, or alternately, thankful for a gardener who sees value and potential life in every tree?

From what I have read about this community, especially in the recent book published about Father Kennedy and you all, I see you as the gardener, caring for so many people whom the orchard owner would reject, believing in the worth of every living thing, resisting a society that looks only at productivity and the bottom line and, most of all, living in hope that, with a little bit of cultivation, nurture and tender loving care, everyone of us can flourish and no one needs to be overlooked or eliminated. You are believers in the interconnectedness of all life and the Spirit that lives within you and this garden, caring about its survival and flourishing.  May you continue to be so.

St Mary’s Community Ltd, BSB 064-131 10339414

or contact St Mary’s Catholic Community and Micah Projects

PO Box 3449 SOUTH BRISBANE 4101 Ph 3029 7000

www.stmaryssouthbrisbane.com

The new sets of envelopes for the community giving system have arrived and will be available for collection after Masses on the weekend.

The various ways to donate here at St Mary’s include:
1    A cash donation is placed on the collection plate,
2    A numbered envelope is used where amounts can be written according to the contributor’s wishes,
3    A quarterly/half yearly contribution can be given and apportioned according to the members wishes using a plain envelope with details and amount enclosed,
4    Community members may wish to use their own internet banking system to transfer an amount weekly, monthly or quarterly to the St Mary’s account or approach their own bank to arrange a periodic payment to BSB 064-131  Account number: 10332933

Increasingly more members are choosing this fourth option and a form for this purpose is available giving the details of St Mary’s Commonwealth Bank account.  If you are not using prenumbered envelopes we ask that you consider joining this scheme and leave your name and address on the sheet provided at Mass so that appropriate receipts can be issued for the tax deductible portions that are given.

Here at St Mary’s we have only one collection time during the mass. This collection time is just after the Homily and before the Prayers of the Faithful. One amount is given by the those present to cover the traditional first and second collections.

NOEL PRESTON -LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The Editor
The Morning Bulletin
Rockhampton.

Notwithstanding the views of your correspondents (Robert Mills and Ivan Jones, Letters, 20 Feb.)  readers of this newspaper are entitled to know that  Father Peter Kennedy is not a lone voice crying in the wilderness. The contributors to the book launched during his recent visit to Rockhampton are testament to that. Indeed one of the contributors, former Catholic priest Michael Morwood  says of this challenge to conventional Christianity: “What we see here is not so much the tip of an iceberg but rather the flaring of a volcano.”

In fact after Easter in Melbourne there will be a large national gathering of those who share this quest just as in a modest way the so called Seekers group are a local manifestation of this global phenomenon. Key characteristics of this movement include taking seriously the biblical gospel message together with a commitment to sustaining life on this planet, as well as emphasising the importance of how we live rather than conformity in belief, while cultivating a spirituality that is not dependent on an interventionist God.

Twenty first century knowledge and experience, evidenced in the decline of church attendance in Australia, guarantee that questions about the future  of Christianity and the church will not go away.

The key question is to what extent this future can be shaped within traditional religious institutions.

That is, to use the time honoured imagery of the church likened to a ship: to what extent can we stay on board and rock the boat by honestly  questioning some aspects of faith,  or will we only be moving deck chairs on a sinking vessel? is it inevitable that those who seek a spirituality, informed by the Jesus way but stripped of unbelievable dogma, must either jump ship or risk being pushed overboard?

As for St Mary’s in exile, I have participated in its life on and off during the decades Peter Kennedy has been its priest.   There is something very attractive and authentic about hearing the Gospel when you are surrounded by those who have been excluded elsewhere, like gay and lesbian people, divorcees, married priests and others who have suffered marginalisation. This inclusiveness goes hand in hand with an emphasis on social justice. Social justice is a hallmark, not only of the preaching, but also of the actions associated with St Mary’s. There is another important emphasis. In the past decade the community has embraced what might be called an eco-theology – one that focusses on the environment and life’s  interconnectedness. All this comes through in the way the liturgy is expressed.

Our society desperately needs more religious communities like St Mary’s- in- exile.

Yours faithfully

Noel Preston
Frenchville
(20/2/10)

BISHOP HITS BACK AT RADICAL VIEWS
Adam Wratten | 16th February 2010

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au

CATHOLIC Bishop of Rockhampton Brian Heenan yesterday expressed surprise at the anti-church convictions of his lifelong friend and rebel priest Peter Kennedy.

Bishop Brian Heenan has a different opinion about the Catholic Church than his lifelong friend and former priest Peter Kennedy.

CATHOLIC Bishop of Rockhampton Brian Heenan yesterday expressed surprise at the strong anti-church convictions of his lifelong friend and rebel priest Peter Kennedy.

In Saturday’s The Morning Bulletin Mr Kennedy, a priest for 45 years before the Catholic Church evicted him from his Brisbane parish at St Mary’s because of his unorthodox practices, said he no longer believed in the priesthood, the virgin birth or the infallibility of the Pope.

Mr Kennedy, who was visiting Rockhampton to launch his new book, said he doubted Jesus existed and no longer prayed “because there’s no one to pray to”.

Bishop Heenan said many of the church’s Central Queensland community were talking about Saturday’s story and were saddened by it.

He said while the Catholic Church wasn’t perfect, he didn’t agree with his friend’s new beliefs or his thoughts that the Catholic Church would disappear.

“I know him very well, he’s a lifetime and dear friend of mine,” said Bishop Heenan.

“Reading the article in the paper I was a little surprised.

“They are very strong statements.”

“While I respect him, I do not agree with his position because these are the very foundations on which my life is built.”

He said he had always admired Peter’s strong commitment to help marginalised people, before going on to point out the many Catholic and Christian groups, such as the Sisters of Mercy, St Vincent de Paul, Centacare and Anglicare, who also help the disadvantaged.

“Good friends are allowed to differ and we differ very much now in our beliefs,” said Bishop Heenan, who didn’t get a chance to see Mr Kennedy on the weekend because of commitments in Bundaberg and the mining towns.

Meanwhile, Bishop Heenan also said the church was in the process of organising visas for three Indian priests who he hoped would move to Central Queensland to help make up for a shortage of local clergy.

Having recently returned to Australia from India, he said the new priests would be welcomed across the region.

“One of the challenges now is getting visas, even temporary visas, and this could take most of the rest of the year,” Bishop Heenan said.

“We are happy to go through that process.”

He said priests in India underwent a longer training period than in Australia, with many studying for more than 10 years.

While the new priests speak perfect English, the church will support them with speech classes to help overcome any accent barriers.

“I think our parishioners will be very welcoming, they have supported me in going down this path,” Bishop Heenan said.

Asked if he felt under pressure from the challenges facing the church, Bishop Heenan said he felt blessed to serve the people of Central Queensland for many years whose faith was alive and hope filled.

PRIEST DOESN’T BELIEVE IN GOD

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/story/2010/02/13/meet-the-priest-who-doesnt-believe-in-god/

Adrian Taylor | 13th February 2010

DON’T call me Father, says Peter Kennedy.

And it soon becomes clear why the man, who was a serving priest for 45 years before the Catholic Church evicted him from his parish in Brisbane, no longer wants the title.

He doesn’t believe in the priesthood anymore, nor the virgin birth, nor the infallibility of the Pope. In fact, he doubts that Jesus ever existed and although he is the spiritual leader of a 500-strong Christian community, he says he no longer prays because there’s “no one to pray to.”

“We have made God in our own image. I can’t believe in a God that grants some people miracles but punishes others, but I do think there is something more, but what it is, I have no idea.”

The controversial and charismatic ex-priest, who made headlines last year when he refused to leave St Mary’s as instructed by his Bishop, will preach tomorrow at All Saints’ Anglican Church in Simpson Street, North Rockhampton.

Last night he launched his book – Peter Kennedy. The Man Who Threatened Rome – at the same venue, as part of a nationwide promotional tour which will include Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne later this month.

Although he has not been excommunicated, he finds himself at odds with virtually every attitude and teaching of the Catholic hierarchy.

He was ousted, he said, not so much for his progressive and increasingly challenging beliefs, but for straying from the straitjacket of conformity in the Catholic Mass.

His services at St Mary’s attracted huge congregations by today’s standards and he celebrated Mass with women preachers and former priests who had left to get married.

“We welcomed the homeless and alcoholics and I preached about social justice. I welcomed non-Catholics and gay and lesbian worshipers who were shunned by other churches. It was just too unorthodox for the hierarchy,” he said

And while his congregation flourished, others dwindled, leading him to conclude that the Catholic Church was finished in Australia.

“Today only 13% of people who call themselves Catholics go to Mass on Sunday. Church is becoming more and more irrelevant to modern society because it is still medieval in its doctrines while the real world had changed so much.”

He said he could not believe in the divinity of Christ and it was no longer tenable to believe in the virgin birth.

“Modern science has changed all that. We know that man evolved and was not created separately.”

But questioning the pillars of organised religion does not make him any less spiritual, he argues.

“I don’t think what you believe is important. It’s what you do that matters.”

He says he stopped wearing a priest’s vestments when he realised that members of his congregation had been sexually abused as children by priests and they were traumatised by the robes.

“There are still elements in the church who think what happened to those children was a sin – and can be absolved in confession – but not a crime,” he says.

“Celibacy is madness for priests. Of course they should be allowed to marry and have children and normal relationships. Celibacy is not normal, although there are, of course, many who choose to be chaste.”

Perhaps most controversially of all for a man who served Christ for more than four decades, he says he doubts Jesus ever existed.

“There is not much corroborative evidence,” he says. “I don’t wear a crucifix because it’s just a symbol of Roman oppression. There were many men crucified for their beliefs and daring to challenge the authority of Rome.”

Below are some of the responses to this article in the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin. You may wish to add to them via the URL above or you may wish to leave a comment on this website.

Posted by blackdog from Uki, New South Wales

13 February 2010 12:30 p.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

Peter Kennedy is my hero!

Posted by Albinus from Newtown, Queensland

13 February 2010 3:40 p.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

Fantastic bloke! He has over the years taught that loving and helping fellow man is the way to spiritual fulfilment, not being scared by threats from a fairy tale book to make “believers” conform. Peter Kennedy is a true example of how people can live their lives to the fullest.

Posted by qwert1 from Lammermoor, Queensland

13 February 2010 6:55 p.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

the most profound thing i have ever heard a priest say.
thank god someone is making sense!!!!!!!

Posted by tonyryan from Maroochydore Bc, Queensland

14 February 2010 12:56 p.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

Historical evidence indicates Peter Kennedy is right.

The history of ancient Greece, Rome and more the more recent Christianity was nearly lost with the collapse of Rome, but was rescued by the Irish Monks.

Far from being repressive, the Christianity as proselytised by the Monks (4th to 8th centuries), was based on a much more democratic society than exists anywhere now; and one third of Monks were women.

Many hold that the most famous Monk of all was a woman, and it would have been rare in those times to find a Monk that did not have a spouse and children.

The Irish Monks were philosophers and scholars, and spent much of their time traveling and recording the cultures of other peoples. For example, they described in detail the democratic kingdoms of Finland, in which kings administered the decisions of the people; very similar to government of Ireland in those times.

In the 8th century, a homosexual-dominated and misogenist cabal controlled Rome, and expanded its power rapidly, eventually forcing celibacy on all Christians, including the people of western Europe.

Thus commenced the true Dark Ages: 1100 years of repression, enforced ignorance, the disenfranchisement of women, mass poverty, torture, ritual execution; and internecine war.

To discourage scholars from studying what was really an era of enlightenment, Rome described this as the Dark Ages and destroyed as many surviving books as possible. Three decades ago books describing the ancient democracies disappeared from our libraries.

Little wonder Kennedy’s seeking of the truth is exciting so many; especially as a new era of repression is darkening the horizon, heartily supported by the current Pope.

Posted by RogerFI from Brisbane Region, Queensland

14 February 2010 1:39 p.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

How unsuprising. Predictable in fact. Mr Kennedy is obviously a victim of reading too much Spong, Borg and other boffins from the Jesus Seminar. At least these ultra-liberals believe Jesus existed.

It seems Mr Kennedy has slide down the slippery slope of liberalism and syncretism, right out the back door and into the steaming dung-heap of apostacy and unbelief.

Posted by Lorelei from Yandina Creek, Queensland

14 February 2010 2:18 p.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

What refreshing honesty! More strength Peter! Years ago some of my friends sought out St Mary’s as they were comfortable there and, I thought, became better people for their attendance at your church.
I call myself an a-gnostic now because I am in awe of the universe and this planet and whatever it is that allows life, spirit and breath in such wealth but I do not pretend to know its origin. I know and love many good people who live by beliefs as they have them presented by parents, culture, friends and Churches. They will go to their death believing all sorts of articles of faith and sometimes I envy them their simple trust…but not for long.
I feel free now to live as my reason informs me, always trying to love instead of to hate. I can recommend this life after 65 years of service in a Christian denomination where I was devotedly busy and I don’t regret a minute of that either except it wasn’t very considerate to family! A rigorous course of Theology and Biblical study after learning Ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew set me to rights about the origins of religions and left my reason free to choose my present path.

Posted by mikejoc from Kawana, Queensland

14 February 2010 6:38 p.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

Peter Kennedy is not a Christian. And sadly, in denying the person and work of Jesus Christ and the teaching of the Bible has himself managed to become irrelevant.

He comes to Rockhampton to preach nothing but himself no wonder he doesn’t believe in God he has managed to replace God with himself.

Rev. Mike O’Connor
Rockhampton Presbyterian Church

Posted by Fair-Dinkum from Noosa North Shore, Queensland

14 February 2010 7:06 p.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

I agree with Kennedy re the catholic Church and nearly all of its doctrines. So many are man made. However, I disagree with him concerning Jesus. There is so much more evidence that he lived that cannot be denied.
Jesus really left us with only 2 decisions concerning himself.
If you read the Bible for yourself, the only two conclusions that you can come to is; that Jesus was, who he said he was, the Son of God, or he was a madman!
There are no other choices!
He can’t be “just a good moral teacher” because good moral teachers don’t go around calling themselves the Son of God! No, he really only left us two conclusions. It’s up to us to make our choice. He was the “Son of God” or he was a madman!

Posted by Jerry101 from Rockhampton City, Queensland

15 February 2010 10:15 a.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

If Peter Kennedy and his followers don’t believe much of what the Catholic Church teaches, then that’s fine, lots of people don’t believe what the Catholic Church teaches. But why did Peter Kennedy and his followers throw such a hissy fit when asked by the Catholic Church to vacate property which the Catholic Church owns?

The more I read about this man and his followers the less impressed I am: “Look at me everyone I don’t believe what the Catholic Church believes.” Mmmmm.

Somehow I think the Catholic Church will survive attack.

Posted by tonyryan from Maroochydore Bc, Queensland

15 February 2010 10:24 a.m. | Suggest removal » | Post reply »

Someone, above, missed the point:

‘Belief’ is not something to admire.

An objective definition of ‘belief’ is Adoption of a position or attitude in spite of evidence to the contrary.

This comes significantly close to a loose definition of insanity.

As to evidence about Jesus, the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal the only notable Jesus of that era was an Essene of a rebel cult that was forced to commit mass suicide rather than be captured by the Roman troops.

But around 360 AD, Emperor Constantine got fed up with the proliferation of religions, and designed a composite new religion made up of remnants of all those known. The prophet was named after the Indian Krishna (Christ) and the German god, Gesu; which later became Jesus when the letter J entered lexicon.

The old testament (of which there are four versions, not one), borrows liberally from Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indian, and many other legends.

A reasonably knowledgeable person would be aware of all this, but religious people typically only read, what they hope, will reinforce their neurotic beliefs.

Christian-Judeans, particularly, have tortured and killed countless millions,and stolen vast lands, to force their fanatical beliefs on others. They are doing it right now in the Middle East and now want to do it to Iran.

Book List
Armstrong Karen – THE HISTORY OF GOD
Anderson ‘Sailor’ Bob – WHAT’S WRONG WITH RIGHT NOW?
Arntz et al – WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?
Braha James – LIVING REALITY
Campion Edmund – TED KENNEDY – PRIEST OF REDFERN
Charlesworth Max – DEMOCRATIC CHURCH
Fiand – AWE-FILLED WONDER
Fiand – FROM RELIGION BACK TO FAITH
Freke & Gandy – THE JESUS MYSTERIES
Harpur Tom – THE PAGAN CHRIST
Hodgens Eric – NEW EVANGELIZATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Hollaway Richard – BETWEEN MONSTER AND SAINT
Holloway Richard -  DOUBTS AND LOVES
Holloway Richard – GODLESS MORALITY
Holloway Richard -  LOOKING IN THE DISTANCE
Holloway Richard – ON FORGIVENESS
Kung Hans – THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Leloup Jean-Yves – THE GOSPEL OF MARY MAGDALENE
Morwood Michael – TOMORROW’S CATHOLIC
Morwood Michael – FROM SAND TO SOLID GROUND
Morwood Michael – IS JESUS GOD?
Ogden Steven – I MET GOD IN BERMUDA
Oliver Patrick – THE FREEING OF GOD
O’Murchu Diarmud – CATCHING UP WITH JESUS
Pearce Joseph Chilton – THE BIOLOGY OF TRANCENDENCE
Pope John XXlll – IN MY OWN WORDS
Ranke Heinemann – EUNUCHS FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Rohr Richard – WILD MAN TO WISE MAN
Spong John Shelby – A NEW CHRISTIANITY FOR A NEW WORLD
Spong John Shelby – ETERNAL LIFE: A NEW VISION
Spong John Shelby – THE SINS OF SCRIPTURE
Spong John Shelby – WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE.
Tolle Eckhart – PRACTICING THE POWER OF NOW
Tolle Eckhart – THE POWER OF NOW
Tolle – FINDHORN RETREAT  (BOOK AND DVD)
Vosper Greta – WITH OR WITHOUT GOD
Walsch N.D – HOME WITH GOD
Wheeler John – AWAKENING TO THE NATURAL STATE

Jim Kilbride has presidered.

Tony Carol has presidered.

Dermot Dorgan presided at the Sunday evening mass on February 6th  2010.

Kerry White presided at the Saturday evening mass on February 5th 2010.

Kevin Kehoe presided at morning mass on January 24th 2010 with two of his children

Baptism recertification

‘For Baptism to be valid the Catholic Church requires that the minister must pour the water and say the words in the ritual. This has not always happened in this parish. This certificate attests that a ceremony took place but is not a guarantee that the Baptism was valid. If the one whose name appears on the certificate is preparing for the reception of other sacraments such as the reconciliation and confirmation reception of first holy communion  or wishing to be married in the Catholic Church  please show this certificate to the priest involved in the preparation. He will do what is needed to ensure validity of the baptism.’

Peter Kennedy response

This is an excellent example of what the former Scottish Anglican Primate Richard Holloway calls the “theology of anxiety” which the church imposes upon its people, in the name of orthodoxy”.

It is moreover a nonsense to argue that a baptism is invalid – “read ‘does not work” – because the celebrant uses the words “Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of Life” instead of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. We can only talk about God in metaphor – that which is unknowable, ineffable is always beyond words.

The Leadership of the Catholic Church in this Archdiocese is complicit in encouraging unnecessary anxiety in the minds of some parents. But not many I would suggest.

As Father Eric Hodgers – a priest in the Melbourne Archdiocese – said only last year: “of course baptisms at St Mary’s are valid. All you have to do is apply the ‘duck test’. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck”.

What Eric Hodgers is pointing out, albeit humorously, is that the INTENTION to baptise is what matters, not the use or non-use of a “magical” formula/metaphor.

The Catholic Church under its current leadership is rapidly descending into farce.

Where are the voices of sanity?

You and your friends are invited to attend the book launch of

PETER KENNEDY: The Man Who Threatened Rome

Flanagan, Martin et al: Peter Kennedy: The Man Who Threatened Rome.
One Day Hill, Melbourne, 2009. ISBN 978 0 9805643 6 5.

If you know of anyone in these locations, please pass on this invitation and information.

Rockhampton – Friday 12th February 7pm
All Saints Anglican Church, Simpson Street, North Rockhampton.
Noel Preston to launch the chaired by Fr Cam Venables.

Canberra – Tuesday 23rd February 12 noon
Parliament House Canberra
Paul Collins is launching the book hat day. If attending please contact Senator Claire Moore’s offices – 02 6277 3447 Parliament House..

Sydney – Tuesday 23rd February 6pm
The Glebe Bookshop 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe – (02 9660 2333
Phillip Adams is launching the book.

Melbourne – Thursday 25th February 6pm
Readings Carlton Bookstore 309 Lygon Street, Carlton – 03 9347 6633
Martin Flanagan is launching his book

]]> http://stmaryssouthbrisbane.com/2010/01/25/national-book-launch/feed/ 0 http://stmaryssouthbrisbane.com/2010/01/25/homily-by-joan-mooney-st-mary-in-exile-january-23rd-24th-2010/ http://stmaryssouthbrisbane.com/2010/01/25/homily-by-joan-mooney-st-mary-in-exile-january-23rd-24th-2010/#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:23:43 +0000 John http://stmaryssouthbrisbane.com/?p=341 HOMILY  by Joan Mooney Jan 23rd-24th 2010

Some years ago one of my brothers was in Ireland researching our family history. One day, not being sure of a destination he asked directions of a bystander. The gentleman replied, ‘Ah well, you go along here, then you turn right, and then you turn right etc etc’. It was all very complicated, and he ended with ……‘but if I was you I wouldn’t be startin’ from here.’

I am calling this talk ‘the way forward.’ One day Thomas, one of the disciples, said to Jesus, “we do not know where we are going, so how can we know the way?’ To get anywhere, then, we need to know not only our destination and the way there, but , most important of all, where we are starting from, where we are now.

TS Eliot puts it-
In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

We live in a very future-oriented world. An article by Kevin Rudd in The Australian this week is entitled – How we can achieve a more productive future. He begins …….
As we enter the 2nd decade of the 21st century, we can be optimistic about our future. But we cannot be complacent.

The catchcry of education today is –prepare them for the future. Then there are the ‘futures funds’, whose meaning escapes me entirely, and countless other futures predictions.

What many are forgetting about, is to consider where we are now, for to know where we are now is to know who we are.

To know where we are now is to know our place in history, for the way forward is the way back. The great contribution of Charles Darwin was to show us our position in the chain of evolution. And history is more than facts and data. That part is easy. History, as the word implies, is story, and story includes experience and understanding. We have all kinds of stories to investigate –more than investigate, we have to enter a story, walk around in it , absorb its message, its wisdom, and translate it into an understanding and a guide for ourselves and our own time. We have all sorts of stories – family stories, literary, ancestral, national, global, universal, cosmic etc. A crucial genre of story, in my view, is our religious story. A person I was speaking to recently dismissed our religious heritage as ‘mere fairy stories.’ Unknown to him, his statement was ironic, for fairy stories also hold wisdom.

Why are our religious stories of such importance? Because they contain wisdom. I am not , of course , speaking of literalism and dogmatism, but of the pearls of wisdom hidden in our scriptures. I beg to differ from the person who recently stated that God did not write the scriptures. Divine wisdom, in my view, is clearly evident in our Christian, as well as in the  scriptures of other religious traditions.

To cut people off from their history, from their story, as happened in the dispossession of land of our own and other indigenous people; in the displacement of peoples through war and exile is to deny them their very humanity.

Of course, we don’t want to get stuck in the past, either, to cling to clearly outmoded practices or world views. The thread that binds us to our history is both strong and fragile, and brings us right down to our present time.

What , then, can we do to answer the question in Drew Dellinger’s poem

my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered

Drew Dellinger is a contemporary American philosopher and poet, recently in Brisbane.

In a recent interview, Andrew Denton asked the distinguished White House journalist, Helen Thomas   ‘what do you see as the future of our species?’
She answered – I don’t care about the future, but I worry about how we are now.   -  people killed by wars, the gas chambers, people discriminated against.’ Among a battery of journalists hers was the only voice to publicly challenge George Bush on the torture of Iraqis by American soldiers She asked later- where were they, where were all the colleagues who should have spoken out in support? When Peter and Terry were dismissed from St Mary’s, unjustly, was there a single colleague, a single bishop, a single priest who came publicly to their defence or support. Where were they? We may well ask.

In a recent talk Drew Dellinger suggests that a way forward for is to listen to the voice of women. There’s no shortage of women’s voices in this community, but in most societies and communities throughout the world, despite the great feminist movement, women are still largely unheard. Most commentators judged the Copenhagen meeting a flop. Penny Wong would have been there, but amidst the large array of men in suits I didn’t notice many women.

Most ages of history have made a specific  contribution to our human story eg the cathedrals of medieval Europe, the plays of Shakespeare, the inventions of modern science etc. Drew Dellinger opines that the unique contribution of our era may well be our embracing of ecology. This is more than planting a few trees, important in a practical way  as that is; ecology implies understanding , entering the story of our earth; going further, to cosmology – the story, not just the scientific, facts, of the universe. Cosmology is recognising the interconnectedness of all things, and therefore treating all creatures, all things, with respect, compassion and love.

‘Lifting millions out of subsistence living should be our moral imperative’, writes journalist John Cox. Development is not necessarily a dirty word. Here again the way forward may well be the way back.  Harry S Truman’s inaugural address in 1949 used the word ‘development’ to commit the US to world economic progress. ‘The present focus on terrorism and globalisation makes me pine for the idealism of the 2nd half of C20’, writes Cox. The fierce opposition in the US to Barack Obama’s proposed health reforms is born of the unwillingness of Middle America to share their wealth with the poor, especially the black poor. They are forgetting that in degrading these people they are degrading their own flesh and blood.

Then we have to wake up the dreamers, the poets, the philosophers, the statesmen, of today. A young boy, Laurie Wallis, topped the NSW HSC English course for a sequence of poems in which he meditates on mankind, nature and language. This is a voice, the voice of youth, which we could well heed.

And we have to wake up ourselves. We are all depositaries of wisdom, but on the whole we don’t know how to access it. We can’t just sit around waiting for sparks of wisdom to come forth, we have to prepare the ground.  The great C16 Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila, tells us that after spending 20 years meditating, patiently and perseveringly, she experienced a Divine and transforming illumination.  Mozart wrote 41 symphonies. On one occasion he saw in his minds eye an entire symphony. But Mozart, too, had done the hard yards. From the age of three he had studied music, worked at his harmony ezercises. Then there was more more hard work, translating the wisdom of that symphony into a format that others could access. And so we can listen to the great Mozart symphonies today.

On the other hand, the spirit breathes where she will. In our Peace Dance tradition there is a beautiful song and dance. The text is
Suddenly, at any mundane moment, the infinite may come through.

If we are lucky, wisdom may simply strike us out of the blue. As the first reading for today says,

‘wisdom walks about looking for those who are worthy of her.

A pity if we do not recognise her. For Wisdom comes in many guises. She won’t always come as a full-blown symphony.  TS Eliot reminds us–
The only Wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility

That, surely, is accessible to us all.

KR urged us not to be complacent; Goenka, a meditation teacher in the Vipassana tradition, says over and over. Every moment is so precious; we cannot afford to lose a single moment.We can glibly dismiss the fleeting moment as  just that, but this moment,  to give TS Eliot the final word,

‘is not isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

We must seize that moment.