WELLINGTON SHOULD BE ON ITS KNEES

First published in NZ Catholic, August 25, as

SHOULD QUAKE-PROOFING CHURCHES BE A PRIORITY?

Is anyone else feeling queasy about the millions of dollars the Church proposes to spend  ‘earthquake-proofing’ its places of worship?

Of course, no one’s chuffed about it, except maybe engineers and construction companies and chippies, and a certain identity facetiously depicted with horns, a tail and a pitchfork - but this is no laughing matter.

Let’s consider the chances of churchgoers being crushed by crucifixes or statues or lacerated by shattered stained glass. In Christchurch, three men died in a church classified as too dangerous to occupy; in the Anglican cathedral one person was injured; in the Catholic cathedral, none. In Napier 256 died, but only one in a church.

Yet St Mary of the Angels in Wellington’s CBD has closed for up to 18 months while $5 million to $8m is spent preventing a putative fourth death. Couples planning weddings, the Guardians of SMOA who committed an hour every week outside Mass to keep the church open, and the people who came there to pray, may feel the heart of the city has stopped beating, and wonder how the cost of resuscitation can be met.

Doomsayers are suggesting SMOA may never reopen; administrators say funds must be found for another 50 buildings in the archdiocese considered ‘earthquake-prone’. Meanwhile, the Presbyterian St John’s in the City, similarly assessed, is ‘in a better position’ to offer services and will take SMOA’s faithful under its roof for one Mass a week, on Sundays; weekday Masses will be held in SMOA’s  gloomy parish hall. At a time when prayer for Wellington, especially the celebration of the Eucharist, is needed more than ever before, I predict there will be many fewer bums on pews - or on seats in the hall.

After the bad press the Church has suffered, it’s only natural for administrators to want to demonstrate attitudes that look good in the media, but even natural logic proves that Massgoers are far less likely to be harmed by an earthquake in church than at work or in the street.

Are we snared in a secular mindset, a fear of physical harm which says ‘safety of parishioners is paramount’? What is Christ’s perspective?

‘Do not fear those who kill the body,’ he says, ‘but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell’ (Mt 10,28).

And St Paul says ‘Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect’(Rom 12, 2). We acquire that divine perspective by the power of the Spirit, in contemplative prayer.

 The first Christchurch earthquake happened at dead of night, and the city that didn’t live up to its name carried on as usual until the second struck, at midday. The first jolt in Wellington, where Parliament recently enacted profane legislation, occurred in the quiet of a Sunday evening.

God will not be mocked. Wellington should be on its knees.

 

 

A LETTER TO THE DOMPOST EMAILED A  DAY LATE, AFTER I FOUND IT LURKING IN MY DRAFTS FOLDER: 

If Mrs Bennett’s wondering how she’s going to keep suspected child abusers out of parks and pools, may I suggest the good old-fashioned scarlet A, branded on their foreheads? Otherwise how will this egregiously unjust legislation be policed?  

And in the meantime thousands of real child abusers, men who get their rocks off and then tell their partners to go get an abortion, ‘doctors’ who sign off abortions and ‘doctors’ who perform them, carry on regardless. Too right, Mrs Bennett, there are too many children dying in pain, and most of them in our hospitals, before birth, at the taxpayers’ expense. They’re unborn, they’re unseen, they’re unwanted. Does that make it all right? 

If we think we can start preventing violence and abuse after birth – as now for instance, with pathetic attempts to stop toddlers bullying in pre-school - we’re deceiving ourselves. And ‘O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!’ 

Julia du Fresne

 

What the Catholic Church has been keeping secret

(First published in NZ Catholic, July 28.)

            The Catholic Church has been keeping a secret – not just in our lifetime, but for roughly six hundred years.

            Relax. This is nothing salacious. I refer to the international army of foot soldiers for Christ called the third orders. They’re mostly lay people, as opposed to first orders (priests) and second orders (nuns) but sharing with both the spirituality of the saint/s under whose colours they do battle.

If it weren’t for the devilish connotation you might say ‘their name is Legion, for they are many’ (Mk 5,9). If the somewhat obscure Servites number 400 in the US, we can only guess at the numbers in third orders world-wide.

But as a lay Carmelite, my impression is that Mass-going Catholics’ knowledge of third orders is hazy. If women get wind of my involvement they’re likely to describe it to third parties as ‘training to be a nun’ and ask me, archly, what does my husband think about that, while men regard ‘im indoors with pity, guardedly expressed.

Let me explain. Men in third orders might be deacons, but only rarely priests (diocesan). Women outnumber men (natch) but they’re not the sort who hanker after the priesthood and they’re not ‘some kind of nun’.  Nuns live in monasteries and take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience which under canon law are binding, as opposed to the promises made by lay Carmelites, lay Franciscans, lay Dominicans, Cistercians, Benedictines or Marists, married or single. Lay Carmelites of the original order (O Carm) as opposed to the reformed (OCDS) for example, promise to live in the spirit of the rule of St Albert, and both orders share the charism of contemplative prayer.

A sine qua non for members of third orders is a disciplined prayer life. The daily Mass, Divine Office, mental prayer and spiritual reading required of lay Carmelites - although much less than for nuns -  prompted a priest to say I might as well be in the convent.

Well, not really. You can’t have babies and work in your husband’s pharmacy if you’re in the convent. You can’t commute weekly to a caravan in another city to mind your toddler great-nephew, or care for a husband with Parkinson’s and dementia, or work in a university and run a Catholic Workers group, or have eight children, as do the lay Carmelites I know, in a convent.

While I, as everyone knows, just lie on a sofa and eat chocolates and read magazines, these others commit themselves to authentic prayer, sustaining and deepening their love for God and others. According to their different charisms, third orders are  out there in the thick of things, otherwise Pope Francis might be justified in calling them Gnostics. Any suffering, and the sacrifice of time others spend on shopping, eating, telly, the gym or travel must serve the same purpose, otherwise His Holiness could  say they’re Pelagians.

‘Evangelisation’, as Francis notes, ’is done on one’s knees.’ Third orders might be called love at the heart of the Church.