Hope for Merseyside

It is difficult not to be aware of some very great changes in the situation of the Catholic Church here on Merseyside. It is a situation which is probably mirrored in many another urban environment throughout the United Kingdom. Statistics seem to show that an increasing proportion of the Catholic population whilst still regarding themselves as Catholic, for one reason or another find themselves on the fringes of the ‘practising’ church. Mass attendance has fallen dramatically and there are many erstwhile Catholics who have lost touch with both the clergy and with parish life. Disappearing are the days when people here in Liverpool identified their place of origin or residence not as Toxteth or Knotty Ash, but as Our Lady of Mount Carmel or St. Margaret Mary’s. The priest perhaps does not even know of their existence in the parish, given the population movements in recent years. The old style house-to house visiting is neither welcome nor possible. Few parishes would have the resources to even carry out an effective census and there are few households who would welcome such attentions.
Many of us who are still practising, are painfully aware of the gulf which is opening up between the parochial structures and where people really are in terms of their values, aspirations and anxieties. The decreasing proportion of Catholics attending Mass combined with the irrelevance with which parochial organisations and activities are regarded by most, presents a depressing picture for the future of the Catholic presence in the City. It is not simply our children who abandon their contact with the ‘official’ Church in early adolescence. The disconnection permeates the whole of Catholic culture and practice. The alienation extends increasingly to the young marrieds, the middle-aged and even the elderly.
The picture is of course not uniform. The more affluent middle class parishes on the outskirts do not seem to have been affected to the same extent, at least as far as Mass attendance is concerned. Churchgoing and parochial commitment nevertheless is in danger of becoming increasingly a middle class phenomenon. In any case continued adhesion to parish life and culture amongst the next generation of their young ‘post-graduate’ sons and daughters is in doubt.
Perhaps the time for rearguard actions to reclaim lost ground is gone. Maybe it is a waste of time and energy to try to identify the causes or to attach blame. Bonhoeffer may have been right when he welcomed the arrival of the ‘religionless’ age; the time when ordinary men and women would no longer feel it necessary to keep a space open for a ‘God of the gaps’ or a God of Religion. The time perhaps has at last come when Christians must learn to speak of God in a non-religious way. People are indeed learning to live without the God of ‘religion’. Instinctively they find such a God artificial and unreal.
Those expending so much energy at both parochial and Archdiocesan level to keep the gaps open may find these remarks offensive and understandably so. They are striving so courageously to stem the tide. Here in Liverpool, the initiatives which have been taken at Upholland,at Sefton Park, and at parish level are astonishing in their vitality and self-sacrificing commitment. But as I am sure many would admit, they are ministering to a largely closed and dwindling community.
What is to be done? Certainly I suspect that the day of the grand plan is long gone. However there are encouraging new strategies being developed.
First of all it must inevitably be recognised that the traditional clericalised, institutional ministrations and spiritual support offered by the Parish will continue to be needed for a long time to come. The parish will continue as the centre of ecclesial activity and witness for those who look to it. The vision of the parish offered by Kevin Kelly and others would certainly be an attractive one for many of those struggling with the frustrations of the existing situation..
But what then? What of those who have become disenfranchised; those whose formal contact with the Church for one reason or another, has dwindled away to almost non-existence? Those who nevertheless continue to have the deep spiritual needs that only the sacramental life can meet? Counselling and consolation during sickness, at home or in Hospital. The Sacrament of Reconciliation for those burdened by guilt or when confronted by a life-threatening illness. The Sacrament of the Sick, the Sacramental celebration of a marriage or of a birth in the family. Even a simple non-religious celebration of the Eucharistic Meal in the home. All of these enrichments to human life offered by Jesus are beyond their means to obtain due to the distance that their life journey has taken them from the institutional church. The gulf between them and the Church of their infancy is too deep and too wide for either them or the priest in the parish to bridge. Are we to continue to insist that only through the formal and institutionalised ministrations of the clergy can their needs be met?
Whilst we await a deeper and more radical reform which would liberate the Ecclesia from its clericalised enslavement and re-incarnate itself into the realities of human society, it may be helpful to look around for more pragmatic and practical responses. One may be already to hand. There are literally thousands of priests compelled to abandon their ministry because of their desire to marry and raise a family. The majority of them are still faithful and loving members of the church. Only now, they are also husbands and fathers, working and living alongside others in the busy workaday world of secular society. They know exactly where ordinary people are and are able to communicate with them in ways that the cleric cannot. In many ways they have become truly incarnated into the life of the modern world.
In the United States, some years ago, a number of married priests established a loose federation designed to respond to requests for their ministry whenever legitimate requests for spiritual support and ministration were not or could not be met by the official parish clergy. They argue that they are able to provide this support not simply on the basis of their own conscientious convictions, but also that their actions are supported by the official law of the Church.
They cite amongst others Canon 213: ‘The Christian faithful have the right to receive assistance from the sacred pastors out of the spiritual goods of the Church, especially the Word of God and Sacraments.’ And Canon 843#1 ’The sacred ministers cannot refuse the sacraments to those who ask for them at appropriate times , are properly disposed and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.’ They also point out amongst other canons which they claim support their action, Canon 1335: ’If a censure prohibits the celebration of the sacraments or sacramentals or the placing of an act of governance, the prohibition is suspended whenever it is necessary to take care of the faithful who are in danger of death; and if an automatic censure is not a declared one, the prohibition is also suspended whenever a member of the faithful requests a sacrament, a sacramental or an act of governance; this request can be made for any just cause whatsoever.’
Others however like myself would prefer to rest the case on a theologically informed Christian conscience. The supreme law for the Christian is the law of love. Lex suprema est lex caritatis.
Organisations similar to that in the United States already exist in some European countries including Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Is this a temporary even an emergency answer to regions like Merseyside? It could be. There are many married priests like myself who continue to try to live good Catholic lives in close touch with their former colleagues in the official ministry. Many of them would be willing to share in a hidden quiet ministry to the ‘unchurched’ and the marginalised. With the advantage of today’s ease of communication via the phone or the network, it would not be difficult to let people know of their willing availability. The anomaly is that were the ‘official’ Church to attempt to sponsor this activity in any formal sense, or to bless the mission of these ‘secularised worker priests’, it might be a kiss of death to the whole enterprise.

William Blake

William Blake andrew bebb


I have been reading some of the poetry of William Blake, a pleasure which I have unwittingly denied myself in the past. He is described as one of the Romantic Poets who died in 1857 at the ripe old age of 70. Perhaps many of us may remember learning by heart the poem 'Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright ' and maybe like myself are still able to recite it! He seems to have been a wonderful man with a very radical bent. He was also a very talented artist/engraver and he illustrated much of his writing. He is also the author of the poem Jerusalem, much loved and sung by the Women's Institutes of today. He was highly critical of any organisation, including Government and the Church which was inimical to the freedom of the individual. Perhaps that was the reason why he was not very popular in the years after his death. However to move on.

One poem of his, which I have recently read has moved me deeply. It is entitled The Divine Image' and is included in his 'Songs of Innocence'. It is only short so I will give it in full:.

To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

All must love the human form,
In Heathen, Turk or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

This is to my mind Incarnational Theology at its best Our Father, who sadly for many seems distant and awesome and unforgiving is for Blake so close throughout our daily lives. So close that His incarnate Son, Jesus, encourages us to address Him as Abba (daddy)..
Wherever and whenever we encounter love or mercy or pity or peace in ourselves or in others there and truly there, is the presence of Our Father. We are reminded of the words of St. John in his first epistle:

'My dear friends,
let us love each other,
since love is from God
and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.
Whoever fails to love does not know God,
because God is love.'

And later:
'God is love
and whoever remains in love remains in God
and God in him'

I especially like the last stanza of Blake's little poem. Whenever we recognise 'the human form' be it the humanity of the non-believer or the Moslem or the Jew 'where mercy, love and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too.' Is this not a condemnation of the racist infection which surrounds us all?

 

Getting on a Bit

I suppose it's inevitable that when you pass your eightieth birthday you begin to feel that things might just, only just mind you, begin to be coming to an end.
(Although when you spend some time with Fr.Theo you may feel that you will have to push on a little longer!)
As we come to the end of the Church's year and the nights keep coming in and the Mass readings seem to get more sombre, it may be a good idea to give some thought to the 'four last things' as the Catechism of our childhood used to refer to them. Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven. Seems a gloomy business!

As a child my most realistic hope was that I might make it to Purgatory and hopefully not spend too long there. Limbo was out since I had been baptised. Purgatory was a place a bit like the punishment of hell, in other words painful but just bearable because some time in the future it would come to an end and you might afterwards get an entry pass to slip past St. Peter and through the gates of heaven. Remember how on All Souls Day we used to nip in and out of church over and over again releasing souls out of Purgatory by saying the requisite prayers. Relatives came first then anybody who had no one to pray for them!

So when Pope Benedict in answer to a question about Purgatory replied that Purgatory was not a place but an experience, the response was one that confirmed what I had felt for a long time. Moreover it was an experience which belonged as much to this world as to the next. Perhaps more so. It is something engendered within ourselves. It does not require something done to us whether by hot coals or being poked about by devils with long forks. It develops inside us as we are confronted with the sheer goodness and the burning unselfish love of God. There is heat but it is the heat from the unconditional love from Him who holds us in existence. As we realise this and struggle to accept it, the deep shame we feel is almost unbearable. There is the temptation to hide from it and to escape into our self-enclosed private fantasies, and to deeply deny our unworthiness!
It is only when we open ourselves up to that terrifying personal love directed towards us that the pain and the shame erupt within us. By grace, we may permit our shame, our unworthiness, our disloyalties, our terrible regret for our infidelities, the hurt we have caused others,to come painfully to the surface in our continuing self-consciousness. That is Purgatory and please God it takes place in the daily here-and-now, and not so much in the there-and-then. The solution is simply to accept ourselves as we are. And if we are completely honest it is pretty damn awful.
To believe in Purgatory is a pure act of faith. A faith to be utterly certain that beyond all of it I am accepted and forgiven. A faith rooted in the shame of our own self-experience. A faith which enables us to keep our heads and hands down when the worthy ones are being counted. To say:”Lord, I am not worthy” and to really mean it. God does not demand retribution or sentence us to terms of punishment. All he requires is the simple acceptance of his forgiveness..And that can hurt.

To think about life after my own death can be comforting though. 'Eye has not seen nor ear heard the things that God has prepared for those who love Him', Paul reminds us (1 Cor 2.9).

Two other thoughts come when I think about the afterlife. The first concerns how it will be for me and you.
The second is to do with time and change. The second is just my own idea but the first is sure and certain.

There is or was a school of thought which thinks of life beyond death as that of a disembodied spirit.
St Thomas Aquinas was deeply opposed to this idea as unchristian. A denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus . A life simply as a spirit couldn't possibly be me. I am not me without a human body, capable of eating and drinking and touching. Needing to hug and to be held. To look out on a beautiful world and to rejoice in the loveliness of everyone in our joyful relationships. To recognise our Father in the human face of Christ, which is the face of God Himself. “Do not touch me”, said Jesus to Mary of Magdala, “I have not yet ascended to my Father.” Then you may. Then we all may.
So, said St. Thomas, just as Jesus rose body and soul united as one, from the tomb, so also would each one of us. I remember asking the teacher daft questions as to whether I might be a bit better looking than I am now and how old I might be. She just smiled and said:'We'll just have to wait and see, won't we' Although Jesus, when he appeared to his friends afterwards in the upper room, seemed to be very proud of his wounds.. The main point is that we will recognise each other. I am looking forward to a wonderful reunion with so many friends and relatives.

And this brings me to my second thought.

The ancient Greek thinker, Aristotle, described time as the experience of movement or change..Deprived of an awareness of change, time for us would simply cease to exist. There would no way of being aware of how things were before and how things may be afterwards. There could only be the here and now.
St Thomas Aquinas agreed with this definition. The implication is that if there is no movement or change at least in our experience of it, then there is no time to take account of. So this strangely means that if everything were to cease changing, then time for us would no longer exist. At least so far as our consciousness of time is concerned! We experience this each night when we fall asleep ( provided that we don't have any funny dreams!). As far as our inner thinking is concerned, as we awake it seems that we fell asleep a few moments ago!
It is easy to recall in this connection many stories from different traditions. Washington Irving in 1818 wrote a story of a man,called Rip Van Winkle, who wandered off into the hills and met there a man dressed in very old fashioned clothing, He then met a whole crowd of men dressed similarly. He was offered a drink from a barrel and promptly fell asleep. When he awoke it was 20 years later and his children had grown up and many found it difficult to recognise him. Life had gone on whilst he slept.
Similar stories are found in many other traditions. One is found in Orkney and others in early Christianity. There is an account very like it in Islam. All describe a period of time passing whilst the central character slept on, oblivious to the passage of time.
This perhaps means that as we move from this world of constant change into the changeless world of the afterlife, time for each one of us no longer exists. We truly have fallen asleep in the Lord.
As we arise with the power of Christ's resurrection, all the dying and rising of all human beings come together into the same conscious moment of risen life..Hence we all truly die with Christ and rise with him into the new world of life and love.

This second thought is my own and if it seems a bit complicated, just ignore it.

The pharisee and the prostitute

It was St. Ignatius who recommended that in our meditation we should prioritise the gift of our imagination; a gift which God has so richly bestowed upon us. This morning I tried to take up the role of a silent, unseen observer at an incident described in St. Luke's gospel. A sort of 'fly on the wall'

Jesus had been invited into the house of a Pharisee to have dinner. Jesus loved parties and social gatherings and seems to have accepted with alacrity. This must have been a quite an unexpected occurrence. It was the sect of the Pharisees who were subsequently the most distressed by, and critical of the lifestyle and teaching of Jesus.

The Pharisees were a minority party in Jerusalem. Surrounded as they were by pagan Romans, they had a reforming agenda for Judaism. They had little respect for the Priestly party, the more sophisticated intellectual and upper class Sadducee, who rejected a belief in the resurrection as being naïve. The mission of the Pharisees was to establish a new social and reforming identity for the Jewish people. Their primary aim was to win respect for Judaism among the lower classes. This they attempted to achieve by clarifying for them the sometimes minute external requirements of the Law. The internal features of domestic life and especially with regard to ritual meals predominated in their teaching. So the Jewish people would be clearly identified both internally and externally in society. Much perhaps as Catholics used to be identified years ago with their Friday abstinence and their blessing before meals and the dress of priests and nuns in the street. As also are indeed the Moslem today by dress and customs. Pharisees had little regard for worldly occupations and most of their time was devoted to the concentrated study of the Jewish law. Their living was supported largely by charitable giving. They were to have a lasting effect on Jewish life for centuries to follow.

Imagine the scene: Jesus entering, taking off his sandals as he entered to reveal feet dusty from his journeying. He takes his place. Whether it was a place of honour we are not told. Probably not, since he was very observant of the manner in which guests were positioned A story he tells later shows that he was sensitively aware of the order of precedence at feasts and meals.
Luke tells us that he complained later that the common courtesies given normally to an honoured guest were not observed in his case. No kiss of greeting..No water to wash his feet. Was it simply a patronising invitation made out of amused curiosity? Or was it perhaps a kind of interview to investigate his credentials with a view to Jesus joining them. After all, his appeal to the lower classes was obvious, his familiarity with the scriptures was undoubted and he believed in the Resurrection without doubt. His family were observant Jews. Witness their visits to the temple annually. They watched him closely to see how he conducted himself at meals.

Each guest would take their place in a semi-supine position on couches around the repast Their feet would be facing partially outward. One arm supported the weight of the upper body as the other partook of the food.

It seems to have been early during the meal that the unexpected entrance of a well known woman occurred. There must have been quite a shocked silence around the table. After all she was someone they were all familiar with. If we recall the later attack of Jesus on the 'white d sepulchres' amongst them, perhaps too familiar. She was a well known prostitute. Singling out Jesus, she kneels behind him and weeps with a loving concern over his dusty feet. Her tears flow as she sobs and with concern she wipes them with her long flowing hair. Then to their shock, she withdraws from her robe an alabaster jar of extremely expensive perfume, myrrh. After covering them with kisses she proceeds to pour it over his feet and his head. Had she been able to purchase it from the proceeds of her trade? Maybe some of the fellow guests secretly knew. Jesus had had no hesitation later in describing them as 'white-d sepulchres', shining white on the outside and filthy within.

None of them seems to have commented. From their expressions Jesus could know what they were thinking, Shouldn't he be aware of what kind on woman was touching him. They clearly did.
Jesus cleverly breaks the silence with a question seemingly unrelated to the situation. A parable of the remission of debts and the depth of love manifested as the debts were remitted. They must have wondered at the point he was making until he turned and pointed at the woman. 'See this woman? I came into your house and you poured no water over my feet, but she has poured out her tears over my feet and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she has been covering my feet with kisses ever since she came in. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. For this reason I tell you that her sins, many as they are, have been forgiven her, because she has shown such great love. It is someone who is forgiven little who shows little love.'
Then to the profound shock of his host, he turns to the woman and says :'Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.'
In this one incident is the message of Easter, the Good News of our salvation, encapsulated.

In contrast, the image of Catholic Christianity today is sadly so often a negative one, particularly in the media. We are so often defined by those things we cannot do, rather than the joy which liberation brings.
Liberation by the Holy Spirit of Jesus which we have all received in our sacramental contact with him enables us to turn away from our past, our guilt,our shame into a new life of joy and self-acceptance. The woman who gatecrashed so courageously that meal in the house of the Pharisee can be our model. Notice how Jesus does not humiliate her by detailing her sins. Each of us now can 'go in peace'. In the presence of the Holy Spirit all things can be made new as we are healed, welcomed and forgiven; called into a joyful self-affirming future.

A Lenten Reflection

A Personal Reflection for the Season of Lent. Andrew Bebb

Like many of us who spent our childhood in the pre-Vatican 2 period , the season of Lent was never a very inviting prospect. Whether we received our religious education at the hands of the Sisters in School or during our Catechism lessons on a Sunday afternoon before Benediction, the dominant emphasis seemed to be one of a focus on guilt, confession and penance. It seemed difficult to believe that the old Anglo-Saxon meaning of the word Gospel was Good News. Especially was it so as we realised on Ash Wednesday that it was to be a long, long time before Holy Saturday morning (very early!) when we might take the wrapper off the chocolate bar or open the bag of sweets.. God seemed a distant forbidding figure who demanded a degree of satisfaction before we might be acceptable at his feet.
Confession seemed such a humiliating forbidding prospect as we knelt in the restless queue in the benches at the rear of the church trying to avoid missing our turn.

Just before Christmas I took part in a four day retreat at the Jesuit Centre at Rainhill. The focus was on Sin and Contrition. The main speaker was James Hanvey S.J. I had heard James lecture previously at a Theology conference in Edinburgh and had been deeply impressed by both his learning and his eloquence. Anyway it was at this time a topic which I was, and had been for some time, grappling with in my old age.
As I grow old, eighty last December, it is inevitable that a retrospective examination of one’s life, its sins, its failures and its disloyalties may predominate very heavily. A deep sense of unworthiness can even lead to clinical depression. However a few years ago, during a particularly low moment of self disgust, something profound occurred. As I returned to my bench after receiving Communion, and as the tears of old age began to trickle on my cheeks, I felt a pressure on my left chest. I heard quite distinctly the quiet words: 'It's alright'.
Maybe it was simply wishful thinking but it didn't seem so then and has remained an abiding memory. At the time I could never have been so self-satisfied as to conjure up those words from within myself at that particular time.

Anyway back to James Hanvey.
He reminded us that the New Testament had spoken of Jesus being made sin for our sakes. The wounds in his flesh were proof of that. Not that he was found guilty of actual sin but that he had taken upon himself our shameful sinful condition. The complete thread throughout the life of Jesus was the calling of the unrighteous. He did not hesitate to scandalise the upright by eating and drinking with the detritus of society: the sinners, the despised. His closest friends were the humble artisans who with Simon Peter, begged him to depart from them because of their sinfulness. All he asked was that his followers should open their hearts. No sin was beyond the offer of forgiveness save that against the Holy Spirit which was simply that of the refusal of a humble love. He asked for no deals, no retribution, no quid-pro-quo. no penances, no balancing of the scales of justice. Just the simple acceptance of the love he offered. The companion hanging beside him on Calvary was destined for Paradise that very day because of a simple act of compassionate love. Could there be any better good news than that!
How come that we have made the season of Lent such a gloomy business? It is the season of new life, of spring, of tulips, daffodils and snowdrops; the season of finches and bluetits and the promise of the return of the larks and swifts in the skies above our heads; the season of happiness and thanksgiving for our unbelievable good fortune. A season of joyous laughter. A season in which we may deepen our love for that gorgeous man from Nazareth. A season in which we can prepare inwardly for that joyous climax on Easter Day.

Some words of Jesus may at times seem hard and even difficult. The word to the woman taken in adultery: 'Neither do I condemn you, go now and sin no more.'
The word to the young would-be follower:'One thing remains, go sell all you have and give to the poor.'
Yet they are not words of condemnation but look towards the future. It is not the past, the 'there and then' that we are invited to focus our eyes upon, but the 'here and now'. The resources for our future are promised to us.

After his resurrection from the tomb, Jesus, in that upper room in Jerusalem, stood before those who had fallen in love with him. He showed them his wounds. Not as shameful reminders of what the sins of humankind had cost. He showed them with pride. They had not been obscured. They had become the medals of his triumph. So much so that he invited them to be touched; to allow the wound in his side to be fingered. And so too for us. Our wounds. The wounds of our infidelities, our weaknesses, our sins. They, after their immersion in the forgiving waters of Christ's death and resurrection have become our medals which we can exhibit with pride. It is from these that He has redeemed us.