Leap of faith into a southern land

Less than 200 years ago most of our ancestors, with the exception of our Aboriginal families, lived in far, distant places. For a hundred different reasons, they packed all their belongings for a journey that would take several months by sea, to a new land, a strange land, a land of promise and hope. It lay in the south and was thus called Australia (from the Latin adjective australis meaning, ‘south’). Such a journey is unimaginable for those who fly for 24 hours to reach the very shores from which those ancestors came. It is no less horrific but real for those latter migrants who arrived, and still arrive, aboard rotten, unseaworthy boats that are mere flotsam and jetsam. They came from Vietnam, Indonesia and now Sri Lanka.

470 years ago, a unique group of individuals in the church, was formally established and approved as a religious congregation whose aim was to be at the pope’s disposal, at that time Paul III. The group had the capacity to be flexible, to go where there was the greatest need. The founder of this group was of noble descent, a soldier, badly wounded at the siege of Pamplona against the French. A long period of recovery was spent studying the life of Christ and the saints. Ignatius Loyola thus began his journey of faith that was to culminate in the establishment of one of the church’s greatest religious orders: The Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. One of the Jesuit’s earliest missions was to the Far East, making St Francis Xavier the patron saint of missionaries.

In 2008, three young Nigerian priests, Kene Onwukwe, Felix Ekeh and Christopher Igboanua arrived in the chilly climes of Hobart to begin their mission to, and within, the church of Tasmania. Their journey was recorded in a series on the ABC, The Mission.

There are degrees of discomfort for all who seek new lives, our ancestors were pioneers, convicts, freemen, soldiers and sailors. For most there was no return to their place of their birth. They came to fulfill a dream, a sentence, a ‘tour of duty’, to escape persecution. For Ignatius’ followers, some 19,000 today, their mission to preach the Gospel through apostolic ministry is carried out in 112 nations on six continents. A step into the unknown, a leap of faith, and obedience to their call to priesthood brought Kene, Felix and Christopher to these most southern of shores. Their presence and youth are signs of hope in a diocese of great need. Like Ignatius and Xavier they have trusted in God.

Perhaps much less is asked of you and me. Pehaps our sole duty is to survive the 21st century. Perhaps the seed that was planted in all those whose stories brim full in the history of Australia, and those who are driven to make a difference to build a better society, or to build God’s kingdom on earth in this terra australis, is ready to take root in you.

St Ignatius’ feast day is this Saturday.

My daily bread

As adults none of us wishes to either show or admit our dependence on others. If it is about our spouses and partners, we use words like shared responsibility, or, working together. However we word it, the research still tells us very plainly that women do most of the housework. I know, I know. The statistics are against us, if not personally, then across the entire male gender in general. In essence, while we try to avoid such words as dependence, reality suggests that we are, in fact, utterly and totally reliant on someone else filling in the gaps, or coping with everything. OK, perhaps on a good day we could call it co-dependence.

Our children, on the other hand are called dependents for a very good reason. Their welfare, their health, their education, their everything, is channeled through us. It is our responsibility, it is our lot until they start making those decisions, slowly but surely, for themselves. When we have children we become acutely aware of their needs – they need feeding, warmth, a change of clothing, sleep, play, talking to, cuddling, discipline, teaching. Those who lack this acute awareness struggle with the notion of parenting and more often than not require support. And let’s be realistic: it is not uncommon in many communities.

Luke (11:1 – 13) introduces his notion of dependence when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. We call it the Lord’s Prayer. More appropriately it should be called Our Prayer. In this prayer, God, addressed as Father, is approached as the giver of grace and mercy. Our spiritual and physical health is dependent upon his unrestricted, unconditional generosity. We are already most favoured, we are his children. He is utterly and totally aware of what we need, and Jesus tells us, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.

This is not a dependency that requires no action from us. No. Each day we must forgive our neighbours their debts, we must keep his name holy and ultimately assist in the building of his kingdom, for his will must be done. This prayer also becomes an indicator of the presence of the kingdom among us: we pray we will be nourished by his daily bread (in the sense of the Eucharist, as well as both spiritual and physical nourishment, and as participation in a divine, heavenly banquet begun now in the present and to be completed in the eternal kingdom).

Paul, in writing to the Colossians (2:14), succinctly expresses our dependence on God: He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross.

None of us needs to be carried from birth into the next life. Even dependents have obligations: to be thankful, to be cooperative, to acknowledge the work done for and on their behalf, to contribute, to encourage and to fortify the efforts made. But helpless dependency must end. It too must be nailed to the cross. Each of us needs to carry our own weight.

Father in faith, the mystery revealed

Do you look into the cloudless nights with your children to count the stars? Do you speak to them of the wondrous stories that have been told since the dawn of time, of how the stars came to be, of the mystery of the universe and indeed of life itself?

The greatest story ever told is a story that unfolds from the beginning of creation to the present day. It is the story of the fall of humanity from grace and the gift of hope, of expectation that one day all will be made right. And this story is peopled by those names with which we are so familiar: Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Aaron, kings, prophets, John Baptist.

Planning your family may often be more like luck than planning. If you have already waited some years there is the anxiety about what might go wrong, about fertility, about age, about the kind of world you would be bringing a child into. There are a variety of assistive reproductive technologies.

Abram/Abraham is often called our father in faith. A wealthy farmer, he and his wife, now elderly, are childless. Living somewhere in the land of Ur, an ancient Sumerian city-state, Abraham receives a message from the Lord: Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:1 – 3). In a leap of faith and obedience to this nameless and yet-unknown God, Abraham packs up his household and animals with the promise of future generations. In the land of Canaan (Gen 18:1 – 10), Abraham and his wife are visited by strangers who promise to return in a year when Sarai/Sarah would by then have a child. Thus begins the journey of salvation. For us Christians the focus and epicentre of this epic saga is the person of Jesus, the mystery of Jesus. And like Abraham, this is an act of faith.

If you are a mystery novel reader, the author’s intention is that you must link together the many clues to solve the crime. In reading back into the scriptures, the Christian finds the clues to God’s intentions for humankind. St Paul (Col 1:24 – 28) believed that this mystery had been hidden for hundreds of years, but that now, The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory: this is the Christ we proclaim. It is now revealed to believers, the saints.

When those children arrive that you have longed for, like Abraham and Sarah, it is time to ponder such beautiful gifts. It is time to thank ‘our lucky stars’ that through us, as parents, we continue this incredible epic as we seek to live out lives with our children that model Christ, that celebrate the new creation, that our hopes and dreams for them will be everlasting life at the centre of life itself – in the mystery and heart of Jesus, for we are among the blessed.

My neighbour in the flesh

I spent frantic school holidays with my family traipsing to other side of the globe, visiting London, Paris, and the south-east of France. Part of this journey was to seek a sense of place as described by the author Kate Mosse, writer of Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Winter ghosts. We visited such towns as Carcassonne, Limoux, Rennes-les-Bains and Rennes-le-Chateau and visualized Mosse’s characters moving through the streetscapes. Being there put flesh and substance on our imaginations.

Luke (10:25 – 37) tells of the lawyer who asks what must he do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks him, What is written in the law? To which the lawyer responds, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself. But who is our neighbour? And to put flesh and substance on this question, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan.

We know that in telling this parable that the most effective way to answer the lawyer was to use the environment in which he lived and the people who surrounded him. For the lawyer this parable was a salutary lesson about living out the law of love everyday. It is equally salutary for us: are you a priest, a Levite or a Samaritan? The priest and the Levite had good excuses, certainly reasonable by the standards of the community of that time. But their excuses didn’t pass muster with Jesus then, and they still don’t pass muster today. Jesus doesn’t hesitate in requiring all those who love the law to care deeply for everyone who is our neighbour, to act justly, and to follow it through to the end.

There is a salutary lesson here too for the Australian government and its response to refugees. In our own community, how welcoming are we to the refugees already settled in our city? How open are we to the outsider, the unusual, the straggler, or anyone who challenges our idea of ‘neighbour’. There are no simplistic answers, of course, to an issue of global importance, but in the end, we must exercise our option for the poor and dispossessed wherever they may be processed. And this we must do every day. As the psalmist (Ps 18:9) reminds us, The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart. That’s the pay off, for everyone.

Who will speak for the poor and broken?

Marty Haugen, a hymn writer of some renown in the world Christian community wrote a most powerful hymn that goes to the core of the Christian message:


Who will speak for the poor and broken?
Who will speak for the peoples oppressed?
Who will speak so their voice will be heard?
Oh who will speak if we don’t?

Who will speak for the ones who are voiceless?
Speak the truth in the places of pow’r?
Who will speak so their voice will be heard?
Oh who will speak if we don’t?

(M Haugen, GIA Publications, 1993)


Just whose job is it to care for those who are aged, homeless, seriously ill, depressed, widowed, disabled, bereaved, in pain? Who will speak on their behalf? For thousands of years, the poor were the objects of charity, subject to the kindness and generosity of their rulers and fellow citizens. The scriptures record the duty we have to support the poor and downtrodden, and Jesus, we might recall (Luke 6:20) advised his disciples that ‘Happy are you who are poor, yours is the kingdom of God’. This never meant that they had to fend for themselves, this speaks, surprisingly, of their closeness to the Kingdom of God.

The provision of health and social services grew from the growth of the public voices that emerged from humanitarianism, universal enfranchisement and the demand for an equitable share of the public purse. But despite the progress made in the last 150 years, the voiceless are still with us – still seeking justice. So, who will hear, and who will speak out?

‘The harvest is rich, but the labourers are few,’ writes Luke (10:1ff). There is much to do, and few to do it. In another time this was interpreted as priesthood or religious life, even a call to work and life as missionaries in far distant lands. Frederic Ozanam (founder of Vinnies) and Teresa Bojaxhiu (of Calcutta) responded to the immediacy of the poverty of their neighbours and sought, as their followers continue to do to this very day, to alleviate their suffering. Their critics have also been consistent: providing food, clothing and shelter do not challenge or change the systemic and structural injustice that allows such poverty to exist – lack of education, chronic unemployment, fractured families, alcohol and drug dependency, unplanned and unprepared parenthood, moving industry offshore, globalisation, war.

The church, and its living saints, are not inactive, but nor are they the only ones with the courage to accept the call to labour for the Lord, to speak for the voiceless, to challenge the status quo. It is within the gift of each of us to accept the mission given us through baptism and our common humanity to: preach good news to the poor… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed (Luke 4:18). Whose job is it? Mine. And yours.

Out lawed with love

Judging from the fines collected in Tasmania for traffic infringements and parking fines, we, as a community appear take a rather broad view of obeying ‘the law’. But we also have the knack (or misfortune) of knowing if it applies to me now or whether or not I just might get away with it.

When you travel to Italy, you will notice that people will park where their cars will fit. I never imagined that bumper bars were actually for bumping, but that’s how they fit into tight little spots, a little bump here, a little bump there, and you’re in. No place for the feint-hearted. If there were road rules in Rome (and I am sure there are) you would wonder what they were.

There are reseachers at all levels of government whose job it is to locate inconsistent, redundant or outmoded laws, regulations and bylaws. Sometimes it may be necessary to go back to why the law was implemented in the first place and whether those circumstances still apply in a different time and place.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians contains one of his central theses, namely that Gentiles who become Christians are not bound by the Mosaic law, but that they were not to abuse this freedom. Indeed, ‘If you are led by the Spirit,’ writes Paul, ‘no law can touch you (5:18)’. Furthermore they should not submit ‘to the yoke of slavery (5:1)’ – and here we can understand this ‘slavery’ as being the Mosaic law. So, even though Paul is quite clear that the law does not apply to these Gentile Galatians, he is doubly clear that the freedom thus earned is an obligation, and this obligation is to accept the direction of the Spirit.

Paul repeats Jesus’ summary of the Law: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. And he continues: ‘If you go snapping at each other and tearing each other to pieces, you had better watch or you will destroy the whole community.’ No truer words were ever written. For even if you are freed from the burden of the Law, the obligation to be led by the Spirit remains.

Most laws exist for a good reason, and the assent we give to them must be proportionate to the good that is achieved. A parking infringement is certainly at the low end of scale, while the deliberate taking of a human life is at the other end. In the middle are those misdemeanors that disrupt and disturb schools, workplaces and communities. But it is not blind compliance and obedience that is required of the either local government, Tasmanian, Australian, international, Mosaic, canon law or even school rules – for each of these sets the minimum standard required of our behaviour and actions. If we follow Paul’s exhortation, the Spirit will guide and lead us in truth and love, then, as the prophet Micah implores us – we must live justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with our God.

Who do you say I am?

Sometimes we are so busy discovering who we are, we stop living real lives. It’s probably a 21st Century phenomenon. Other generations didn’t have the luxury – putting food on the table, a roof over their heads, learning to read and write. One of the most valued possessions provided by my high school was the headmaster’s personal reference – valued, because employers, the teachers’ colleges and the university also valued the opinion the headmaster’s summation of who you were. Our patience with other’s opinions about us runs out somewhat quickly, we get prickly.

On the other hand, in a social setting, we enjoy the self-revelation that goes with a glass of wine or beer. We revel in discussions about our work, children, footy teams, politics. We hope that the person we present in these situations is likeable, interesting, companionable – even enchanting or attractive. But is this who you are? Are there many yous? Is there a parent-you, a work-you, an exercise-you, a child-you or are you a ‘whole person’ where all these facets are integrated into the one you?

In Exodus we see Moses ask of the Lord, ‘Who shall I say sent me?’ The Lord replies, ‘Tell them that ‘I am sent’ you’. This is the ultimate revelation, for this is both the revealer’s name, and it is also about his/her being. In Luke’s Gospel (9:18 – 24) Jesus asks his disciples, ‘Who do I say I am?’ Peter speaks up, ‘God’s anointed one’ (or alternatively, ‘The Christ of God’). Is this Jesus? Is this who he is?

In the two thousand years since Jesus lived and breathed in Palestine, Christians from every century and every decade have sought to answer this same question asked by Jesus, ‘Who do you say I am?’ The results of these searches is, not surprisingly, inconclusive. While the Church has maintained an ‘orthodox’ stance, many, like the Albigensians, Gnostics, Arianists, Docetists have come to alternative conclusions. Today’s ‘isms’ include humanism, anthropomorphism, deism, dualism, indifferentism, pantheism, but there are many more – which, when overlaid with the search for Jesus, can often result in disharmony with the magisterium of the Church. More words have been written about this search than any other topic in humanity.

In the end, the search for Jesus, like the search for who you really are, is about truth. In the same way I need to be truthful, open and honest about my upbringing, my life experiences, my fidelity to those I love, my capacity to grow, my desire to do good for others, compassion, generosity, warmth and kindness. If these rank highly in your life then you need not be surprised by being the delightful and wonderful person you have become. If I know this truth, then undoubtedly, finding the person of Jesus will be a much easier task. Will this truth reveal an ‘orthodox’ Jesus? Maybe, maybe not. There are guides, there is the collected and collective wisdom of the elders, there are people of faith and people of hope. Inasmuch as you will reflect on the words people say about who you are, do Jesus the honour of reflecting on the words others have to say about him. This is really living.