THE RUGBY UNION DOESN'T 'GET IT'. NEITHER DO I (letter published in Dom Post, October 1)

I’m no rugby fan but for the life of me, I can’t see why the rugby union should be blamed for a player’s violence. 

If a young farm worker employed by my son attacked someone in the street, would my son be blamed for it? Would my son be expected to beat his breast and sack his employee? Wouldn’t he more likely have a conversation with the guy, find out the reasons for his anger and help him deal with it?

We’re talking about a kid who was promoted out of his depth into a macho culture, and couldn’t handle it. The rugby union is entitled to end his contract, of course, but where does that leave its promising protege? Up the creek without a paddle.

If the nation makes so much of a violent sport, it must expect that violence to spill over into the streets, and be prepared to deal with the consequences with compassion.

A CAUTIONARY TALE

This is a story about a rock.

I’d been trying to follow a piece of advice from Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, in his spiritual classic, The Practice of the Presence of God. 'Never,' he saysO, 'do anything hurriedly or impulsively'.

I had to admit to myself that of course, that means not breaking the speed limit, which I was wont to do.

Breaking the speed limit is a sin. So at the cathedral in Palmerston North last Saturday for a Lay Carmelite meeting, at confession beforehand with Fr Brian Walsh I said that on my way down to 'Palmy' I’d realized, on those bendy bits north of Norsewood, that to compensate for keeping to 100k on the straights, I was driving faster than I should through the bends. I thought about that for a good two minutes, but I continued to drive faster than was safe.  

Suddenly there appeared in the middle of the south-bound lane in front of me, a good-sized rock. Right in the middle. Just one rock, no little stones or sign of a slip from the slight bank on the left. I had no chance of avoiding that rock.

It ripped my front left tyre open.

I limped along until I could safely pull over. I put the hazard lights on and walked back to remove the rock so no one else would hit it. There was no sign of that rock.

I had to call my long-suffering husband (known to readers of NZ Catholic as 'im indoors'), who had to get dressed (this was around 7.40 a m) and come outdoors to drive some 30 ks to change my tyre and lend me his car to drive on to PN, where I'd missed Morning Prayer but was in plenty of time for the Gospel. (Deo gratias.)

Now, how do you explain that? No way, except that the Holy Spirit Himself was teaching me a much-needed lesson in patience. An expensive lesson: not only was the tyre wrecked, but the wheel as well.

That rock cost us $300. 'God works in mysterious ways, his marvels to perform.' Or something like that.

Scottie Reeve is on to something rather more significant than container cafes. In fact, his comment on the Franciscan friar Richard Rohr’s ideas about “the interior life which could be really transformative to our culture” could qualify as the understatement of the year.

 

But as to “rediscovering contemplative spirituality in the Christian tradition”, it was never lost. Countless Christians still practise it daily, as they have for 2000 years.

In our era, you could say it’s most famous exponent was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Others will follow.

JOY COWLEY'S NEW BOOK MUST BE MEANT FOR GAYS ONLY IF THEY'RE CELIBATE (Letter to 'NZ Catholic', September 16)

Reviewing Joy Cowley’s Made for Love – Spiritual Reflections for all Couples (August 7), Lyndsay Freer inevitably references Pope Francis’ quite unremarkable question, “Who am I to judge?”- which simply states what every Catholic should know, that judgment is reserved to God alone – and his exhortation to be ‘more loving’.

 

What exactly does that mean? Because when Jesus says, as quoted by Freer, that we’ll be known as his disciples if we have love for one another, Jesus is talking about his kind of loving. Jesus loves propter Deum, for God’s sake. He’s talking about the love which gives God glory by helping others towards eternal life.

 

It’s in faith that Catholics accept the teachings of his Church. It’s in faith that they believe Christ’s love is inseparable from grace, and that grace and serious sin are mutually exclusive. So a homosexual couple can’t live ‘in faith’, except in celibacy.

 

So I assume that because Made for Love is written by a Catholic, and reviewed by a Catholic in a Catholic newspaper, these Spiritual Reflections are meant for gay men and women only if they are celibate.

STRANGULATION IS "INCREDIBLY COMMON" . SO IS DISMEMBERMENT OF BABIES IN UTERO (Letter to Dompost, Sept 15) I

So now we’re up for $130m worth of new family violence laws (September 14).

Before abortion was legalized we were warned it was a Pandora’s box, but I for one never imagined the horrific scale of violence resulting from this violence against unborn children – violence perpetrated by their parents, and aided and abetted by the rest of us through our taxes.

Women’s Refuge’s Dr Ang Jury instances strangulation as domestic violence which is life threatening and “incredibly common”.  But to be honest (as everyone says now, which is interesting), we should admit that dismemberment of babies in utero is much more common,- and life destroying.

As Mother Teresa of Calcutta has said, “The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion, because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you, and you to kill me? There is nothing between.”

EMPTY HOMES AND HOMELESS PEOPLE (Letter published in Dom Post, Sept 12)

Tom Scott (September 9) puts his finger on the pulse in confronting John Key with the conundrum of empty homes and homeless people.

In the same issue Jonathan Boston asks for ‘a robust, durable and cost-effective strategy’ to halve poverty rates by 2030.

The solution actually does stare us all in the face: it’s simply the basic requirement for fair-mindedness and generosity in sharing our resources as a nation.

All we need is the political will to do it.

EMPTY HOMES AND HOMELESS PEOPLE (Letter published in Dom Post, Sept 12)

Tom Scott (September 9) puts his finger on the pulse in confronting John Key with the conundrum of empty homes and homeless people.

In the same issue Jonathan Boston asks for ‘a robust, durable and cost-effective strategy’ to halve poverty rates by 2030. The solution actually does stare us all in the face: it’s simply the basic requirement for fair-mindedness and generosity in sharing our resources as a nation.

All we need is the political will to do it.

NO RESPECT FOR LIFE MEANS NO RESPECT FOR PROPERTY EITHER (Letter to Dom Post, Sept 1)

The sad fact that it’s now Boom time for burglars (September 1) was, from the moment we legalised abortion, entirely predictable.

Where there’s no respect for life, there’s no respect for property either.