The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit - A Homily to Be Preached to a Community of Religious Sisters

29 October 2007 - Monday of the 30th Week of Ordinary Time - Readings

Saint Paul speaks to us today of one of the great mysteries of our lives as Christians - the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Through our baptism, Christ has made us sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father, and so that this title might be more than just an empty saying, the Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts. It is the same Spirit in whom and through whom the Son of God brought healing to many during His earthly life. With that Power at work in us, what do we have to fear?

But St Paul tells us something else; he tells us that when our soul calls God "Father", it is the Spirit who is speaking in us. He is the one who is at work in us, even in the intimacy of our most private prayer. And perhaps this seems a little shocking. Have we lost all freedom if we give credit for our prayer to the Holy Spirit, rather than to our own efforts? Certainly not, because the Spirit is the Spirit of Sonship who liberates asked from the slavery of sin and of fear, and to permits us to live the lives of sons and daughters of the Lord whose driving force is the love we have for our Heavenly Father. We cannot claim any credit for this love, but if we can trust ourselves to it we learn that it leads to true freedom.

If we do some good today, if we bear some suffering gladly, then we are becoming a little more like Christ and coming a little bit closer to the glory he promises. If that happens, let us give thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit who lifts our soul and makes possible what is beyond the limits of our fallen nature. Knowing that he is at work in us, we realise that there is no place in us for a pride, but every reason for us to be joyful.

On the Fate of Origen

From Jean Leclercq's The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (pp 95-6):

A curious document reveals the anxiety which was felt over not only the orthodoxy of Origen's doctrine but for his personal salvation as well. The nun Elizabeth of Schonau (+1164) tells us that one Christmas night, during a vision, she asked the Virgin Mary about this, at the instigation of her brother Egbert of Schonau, a Benedictine.

In accordance with the counsel I received from my brother who at that very moment was celebrating the office at our convent, I addressed her in this fashion: "My Lady, I beg of you, kindly reveal to me something concering the great doctor of the Church, Origen, who in so many places in his works has sung your praises so magnificently. Is he saved or not? For the Catholic Church condemns him because of the many heresies found in his writings." To which she answered in these words: "It is not the Lord's intention that muchg be revealed to you at this point. Know only that Origen's error did not come from bad will; it came from the excess of fervour with which he plunged into the depths of the Holy Scriptures he loved, and the divine mysteries which he was wont to scrutinize to an excessive degree. For this reason, the punishment he is undergoing is not severe. And because of the glory his writings have given me, he is illuminated by a very special light on each feast commemorating me. As for what will happen to him on the last day, that must not be revealed to you, but must remain hidden among the divine secrets.

NCPI Disbanded

There was surprising news from the NCPI's recent conference:

The National Conference of Priests of Ireland (NCPI), which has represented both diocesan and religious priests in Ireland for 31 years, is set to wind up.
According to a report in the Irish Catholic newspaper, a lack of activity in local branches meant that there were insufficient delegates to validly elect a new President at this year's AGM of the Conference.
A motion was put before the AGM to wind up the NCPI and this was agreed. Reacting to the news, outgoing President Fr John Littleton told ciNews that it was "a sad reflection on the morale of priests in Ireland".
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the NCPI will now assist in the legal process of winding up the Conference.
A spokesperson for the NEC, Fr William Bermingham, said that there seemed to be "a lack of connection between the NEC and priests in local areas".
"Priests didn't seem to feel a sense of ownership regarding the NCPI," he said. This had created organisational difficulties, which the NEC had been seeking to address. However, ultimately they had decided to cease operations, in order to allow the possibility for a new representative body to emerge.

Would you believe that I have no strong opinions on this dissolution? That's because during the entire period of my seminary training and my brief priestly life to date the NCPI has made absolutely zero impression on me. I cannot recall, for good or for ill, any contribution that the Conference has made to debates within the Church or in the broader public square. The fact that I'd heard nothing from and virtually nothing about the Conference before its dissolution probably says a lot about the organization. The report continues:

However, Fr Bermingham stressed that such a body would have to emerge after a great deal of reflection amongst priests. "We have no template for an alternative body," he insisted.
He said that the organisation had "worked very well over the past number of years", but that such operations "tend to bloom and wane".
For over three decades, the NCPI has acted as the professional body for priests nationally, and has sought to promote every aspect of the priestly ministry. However, Fr Bermingham suggested that, with priests taking on increasingly specialised roles, such as school chaplaincy, the remit of the NCPI had perhaps been too wide.

Is this so? On the ground, it seems to be a movement away from these specialised roles towards an increasing concentration on bread-and-butter parish ministry.

The work of the winding up committee will include finalising all the legal and financial details, and it is expected that it will have concluded its task by the end of November.
At their autumn meeting, the bishops expressed concern at the current absence of a national representative body for priests.
"The NCPI played an important role as a forum to support the priests of Ireland, and to discuss and represent their views. Since it was founded over thirty years ago, it has promoted and organised many useful initiatives for priests - diocesan, religious and missionary - including residential renewal programmes and annual conferences," said the statement they released yesterday.
The bishops have now decided that the President of the Bishops’ Conference will invite the chairman of each Diocesan Council of Priests, from across the country, to a meeting to see what can be done.

A Sign of the Times?

I've not had much in the way of preaching duties recently, thus the paucity of sermons posted recently. However, I did think this article from the Telegraph concering the personal safety issues faced by Anglican clergy was worth looking at.

Vicars have been told to stop wearing dog-collars because they increase the likelihood of them being attacked.
Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, should abandon the traditional dress, according to the Church of England's security adviser.
A new report warns clergy that the collars make them an "easy target" and says they should adopt more casual clothing in a bid to give them greater safety.
It was commissioned after the murder in March of Paul Bennett, vicar of St Fagan's Church in Trecynon, near Aberdare, who became the fifth cleric to be killed in a decade.
Other safety measures proposed include disguising the whereabouts of the vicarage by taking down signs and ensuring that the front doors of their homes do not have a letter box that people can look through.
However, it is the recommendation that they should cease wearing dog-collars in public that is most controversial. They have been worn since the early 19th century and many priests are not seen without them.

Needless to say, I think this is a totally wrong-headed approach as it manages to overlook the necessity of clergy and their homes being easily identifiable, to say nothing of the spiritual and social importance of clerical dress.
The report continues.

More attacks are carried out on priests than probation officers and GPs, according to the latest figures. Between 1997 and 1999, 12 per cent of clergy were assaulted and seven out of ten were abused or threatened.
Nick Tolson, the coordinator of National Churchwatch - the organisation that produced the report, claimed that there would be no attacks on clergy if they heeded the advice.
"They haven't been streetwise in the past," he said. "They need to realise that wearing the dog collar makes them a target, especially in the case of single females. It isn't wise for them to wear it out shopping or in the car and they should never wear it when alone. The Archbishop and other bishops should give a lead in this."
The paper has been passed to the Ven Christopher Lowson, an adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who will send it to dioceses ahead of a meeting next year at which the Church will decide whether to endorse the proposals.
However, the Rev David Houlding, a prebendary at St Paul's cathedral, attacked the recommendation as a "silly, fashionable idea".
"I feel much safer wearing my dog collar when I'm walking through the streets at night. There is still an air of respect to it," he said. "Most of the time I wear it every day. It's my uniform. We'd lose our presence in the community and our witness."
He argued that he is well aware of the risks of being a cleric, but that he has already made sensible changes, such as refusing to see people on their own at the vicarage.

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.