But I wish to stray...

I owe an apology to those of you who have been expecting/hoping for more frequent updates. Anyway, today's Office of Readings from St Augustine's On the Shepherds struck me as worth sharing (courtesy of Argent):

The shepherd seeks out the straying sheep, but because they have wandered away and are lost they say that they are not ours. “ Why do you want us? Why do you seek us?” they ask, as if their straying and being lost were not the very reason for our wanting them and seeking them out. “If I am straying”, he says, “if I am lost, why do you want me?” You are straying, that is why I wish to recall you. You have been lost, I wish to find you. “But I wish to stray”, he says: “I wish to be lost”.
So you wish to stray and be lost? How much better that I do not also wish this. Certainly, I dare say, I am unwelcome. But I listen to the Apostle who says: Preach the word; insist upon it, welcome and unwelcome. Welcome to whom? Unwelcome to whom? By all means welcome to those who desire it; unwelcome to those who do not. However unwelcome, I dare to say: “You wish to stray, you wish to be lost; but I do not want this”. For the one whom I fear does not wish this. And should I wish it, consider his words of reproach: The straying sheep you have not recalled; the lost sheep you have not sought. Shall I fear you rather than him? Remember, we must all present ourselves before the judgement seat of Christ.

Can one describe the dilemma of the priest today any more accurately than St Augustine did? We find ourselves bound to the preaching of a way of life that is alien to so many of those around us, and we find that society frequently asks us to collude in the privitization of the moral life. We're told that the message we proclaim isn't relevant to the modern world, and that people should be allowed pursue their own way of life without reference to the morality we proclaim. We should, we are told, allow people to have their own 'private' lives and to not be judgemental.
It's a tempting option... to stay on the level of 'spirituality' and people's 'personal relationship with God', but Augustine will not have it so. His words are a powerful corrective to the lassitude which threatens the life and ministry of the priest. He insists that many souls are wandering and that even if they protest that they're not lost, or that they wish to be lost, we still have our duty. We have been given a responsability, and it is out of love of Christ and out neighbour and a healthy fear for our souls that we are asked to step away from the consensus of society and to continue to speak of sin, knowing that we cannot tell of the relationship between God and men without acknowledging that the conseqences of that relationship affect every dimension of human life. To speak of forgiveness and mercy is a nonsense if we do not also speak about sin.
I wish that some of our secular critics could read a little of what Augustine has to say - his words today also serve as our very up to date apologia. We're not here to judge or condemn or to make people feel uncomfortable for the sake of making them uncomfortable. We'd much rather not to have to do that. We are striving to be shepherds and the sheep are free to heed our call or not. However, we could not live with ourselves if we were silent, if we allowed the flock to wander. At least show us the same indulgence you give to climate-change activists...

An apology

.... is due to both my readers for the decided lack of content on th blog. I've been away from my computer recently, and will be for another week or so.

Mother Teresa's Dark Night and the meaning of Faith

The whole issue of what faith is intrigues me, and thanks are due to Amy Welborn for pointing me towards this little article by Anthony Esolen which deals intelligently with Mother Teresa's experience of doubt. The whole thing is worth reading, but the following extract contains the meat of what he's saying:

It is not a mysterious thing, after all, that a young and enthusiastic person should become disillusioned after a month or two of the squalor of the Black Hole of Calcutta. People lose their faith all the time -- and people gain their faith all the time, and often they are the same people. What is mysterious is that after her visions of Jesus ceased, after all the inner consolations were taken away, after the locutions, what my evangelical brethren call "words of knowledge," fell silent, still Mother Teresa clung to Christ. She retained her faith without the emotional accompaniments (and here let married Christians take heed). She continued to serve the poor of Calcutta even though the nagging little viper at her shoulder must have whispered to her, constantly, "This is all absurd." Let us be absolutely clear about this: outside of the ambit of Christian culture, no one goes to Calcutta. What Mother Teresa did, no one does, not even for a year, without having been influenced by the message and example of Christ. And to live there for good, no one does at all without the virtue of faith.
[...]
Dubiety is inseparable from the human condition. We must waver, because our knowledge comes to us piecemeal, sequentially, in time, mixed up with the static of sense impressions that lead us both toward and away from the truth we try to behold steadily. The truths of faith are more certain than the truths arrived by rational deduction, says Aquinas, because the revealer of those truths speaks with ultimate authority, but they are less certain subjectively, from the point of view of the finite human being who receives them yet who does not, on earth, see them with the same clarity as one sees a tree or a stone or a brook. It should give us Christians pause to consider that when Christ took upon himself our mortal flesh, he subjected himself to that same condition. He did not doubt; His faith was steadfast; yet He did feel, at that most painful of moments upon the Cross, what it was like to be abandoned by God. He was one with us even in that desert, a desert of suffering and love. Nor did the Gospel writers -- those same whom the world accuses on Monday of perpetrating the most ingenious literary and theological hoax in history, and on Tuesday of being dimwitted and ignorant fishermen, easily suggestible -- refuse to tell us of that moment.

Now, the question of whether one can validly speak of Christ having faith is a whole 'nother ballgame... I'd quibble with Esolen on that point, but I think his point holds good.

O Doctor Mellifluus

Fr Mark has a wonderful meditation on St Bernard and the liturgy of his feast-day:

Zeal, then, characterizes Saint Bernard. A burning passion for Christ and for the Bride of Christ, the Church, consumed him. In Chapter 72 of the Holy Rule, Saint Benedict distinguishes between two kinds of zeal. The first he calls “an evil zeal rooted in bitterness, which separates from God and leads to hell.” (RB 72:1). Evil zeal always leads to rancour and strife in a community. Good zeal “separates from vice and leads to God and to eternal life” (RB 72:2). The Holy Spirit infuses the grace of good zeal. It is gentle and sweet. It is warm and attractive. It inflames others but it doesn’t scorch them. It attracts souls by means of a gentle, steady radiance.
Burning and Shining
The Collect goes on to say that the grace of prophetic grace caused Saint Bernard to burn and shine in the Church. Here, there is an allusion to Saint John the Baptist. In the 5th Chapter of Saint John, Our Lord, speaking of the Baptist, says, “He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light” (Jn 5:35). Saint Bernard was, and remains even today, a burning and shining lamp in the Church. By burning, he enkindled others; by shining, he enlightened others.
Those who read Saint Bernard know that his fire has not been extinguished nor has his flame become less bright. When the Holy Spirit sets a heart aflame, nothing earthly can extinguish the blaze. “Love is strong as death,” says the Canticle, “the lamps thereof are fire and flames. Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it” (Ct 8:6-7). Many waters and great floods have come and gone, assailing the Church and sweeping away the grandest monuments in their torrents. Still, after the nine centuries that separate us from Saint Bernard, his fire burns with the same intensity and his light is undimmed.

The whole thing is worth meditating upon.

Fr John Sullivan SJ

From CatholicIreland.net, information about this well-known Irish Jesuit:

After the sudden and unexpected death of his father, Sir Edward Sullivan, Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1885, John seems to have retreated from his familiar world in Dublin's fashionable society and went to London to continue his legal studies. Little is known of this period of his life and so we could refer to this time as 'the hidden years'. But while WE may know very little about his spiritual journey, we do know that during a visit to Greece he visited the monastery of Mount Athos and he remained in contact after he returned to England.

We also know about his regular visits to Glencar, Co. Kerry and how he used to eavesdrop on the catechism lesson of one of the young ladies of the house! This was at a time shortly before he made his decision to become a Catholic. On 21 December 1896 he was received into the Church at Farm Street, the famous Jesuit church in London. We can only imagine the reaction of his mother, Lady Bessie Josephine Sullivan.

After becoming a Catholic there was a dramatic change in his lifestyle. He removed all material comforts from his room in Fitzwilliam Place. His ward-robe was changed drastically. From his reputation as one of 'the best-dressed men around Dublin', his clothes were of the simplest and plainest style.

He became a regular visitor to the Hospice for the Dying in Harold's Cross, Dublin. From this time onwards he was to become known for his devotion to the sick, to the poor and to anyone in need. This was to be part of the driving force for the rest of his life. And, as they say, the rest is history.
[...]

From the time of his arrival in Clongowes, he was always known as a friend to the poor and to anyone in need. His ministry radiated from the People's Church and he was usually to be found there, praying, unless he was away on some errand of mercy. His confessional became a haven of peace for many. Those who were ill sent for Father John. People had great faith in his prayers. He could bring comfort and peace where others failed. Why?

An old lady who lived near Clongowes and who knew him well probably penetrated the secret: 'Father Sullivan is very hard on himself'. Is this the healing that the Lord promised which comes through prayer and fasting?
In our own time many of his faithful friends visit his tomb in Gardiner Street church in Dublin. His crucifix is in constant demand for the blessing of the sick. There are many accounts of healing and favours received through his intercession.

Through intercession to this Servant of God we see the healing power of God at work in our lives. This is all part of the Good News announced by Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Sacred Heart: 'He laid his hand on them and he healed them'. The Master sent his disciples into the world in his name to continue his healing work on earth. Father John Sullivan was such a disciple.

Let us pray together that the example and prayer of Father John will continue to inspire many to draw near to the Lord and that, in our different needs, we also will feel the healing hand of the Master upon us.

Typhoon Problems at Filipino Seminary

From ciNews:

Young Filipinos – many of them future priests – may be forced to leave a leading seminary amid increasing fears over the safety of buildings ravaged by a string of typhoons.
Students at St Gregory the Great Seminary, in the Philippines, have already had to abandon almost half the buildings and now the rector has announced that unless repair work speeds up, growing structural problems mean some pupils will be withdrawn from the school.
In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, seminary rector Fr Nic Bilono explained that funds were desperately needed to finance the building work.
He said: “If we cannot do some repair work, we will have to cut the number of students.
“Our facilities are not safe enough to continue accommodating as many as at present and there is nowhere like St Gregory’s where they can go instead.”
The seminary, in Legazpi, 250 miles south of the Philippines capital Manila, was just one of countless buildings devastated by three typhoons late last year, ruining people’s lives in parts of South East Asia.
Immediately after the freak weather, ACN provided emergency assistance to an appeal for help, but the repair bill still stands at over £60,000.
With many of the buildings out of action, the shortage of dormitories mean that students are sleeping in bunk beds.
Classrooms are doubling up as halls for large gatherings. Food is now prepared in an out-house 20 metres from the main building. Many of the library’s books were lost.
Fr Bilono stressed how at least a quarter of the 12 to 16-year-olds at St Gregory’s go on to priesthood and that the college was essential for laying the foundations for seminary formation. He went on to highlight its leading academic credentials.
He said: “In the Philippines, we are still a very Catholic country. We have plenty of vocations but not enough seminary places – that is why we are in hurry to repair St Gregory’s.”

Amnesty International drop Abortion Neutrality

As a youngster, I remember questioning an Amnesty Internatial speaker at my school about whether the organization was doing anything to protect the human rights of the unborn. As I recall, he was rather taken aback by the question, but did make me aware of the charity's position of neutrality. Now, however, that policy has been changed, as this BBC News story explains:

Amnesty International has confirmed its controversial decision to back abortion in some circumstances, replacing its previous policy of neutrality.
The human rights group will campaign for woman to have access to abortion in cases including rape and incest.
[...]
The decision in April by Amnesty's executive committee to support access to abortion for women in cases of rape, incest or violence, or where the pregnancy jeopardises a mother's life or health was greeted with an outcry by churches.
Roman Catholic leaders in particular accused Amnesty of betraying its commitment to human rights, and a senior Vatican official called on Catholics to stop funding it.
But Amnesty's international council - meeting in Mexico - has overwhelmingly supported the decision, insisting it was upholding the ability of women to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights free from coercion and violence.

Personally, I find that more and more of my charitable giving is going to Aid to the Church in Need which does some splendid work.