GRATUITOUS INSULTS NOT A PRACTICE OF ETHICAL JOURNALISM (Letter to HB Today, July 1)

Incredulity is, I suppose, the best reaction a newspaper can hope for in its readers and it’s certainly what I felt when Peter Butler’s letter (June 24) was drawn to my attention. However, publication of gratuitous insults against any individual, let alone one like Di Petersen who has earned great respect from the community which Peter Butler was elected to serve, is not a practice of ethical journalism.   

His letter should never have made it into print and I hope that by now both you and Peter Butler have apologised to Mrs Petersen.

WHERE FAMILY STARTS BUT SO OFTEN TRAGICALLY ENDS (Letter to Dom Post, June 30)

‘Family violence’, opines The Dominion Post (June 30), ‘remains a dreadful problem.’ You’re darn tooting right it does. And it will stay that way until we can face the fact that ‘the terrible loss of life’ you rightly denounce starts where family starts, but so often also tragically ends: in the womb.

TRUCKS HAVE GOT TOO BIG FOR THEIR BOOTS (Letter to Dom Post, June 28)

The Otaihanga roundabout, like other roundabouts, is not too tight. The trucks are too loose. They've got too big for their boots.

ABORTION'S KILLING THAT'S LEGAL (Letter to Dom Post, June 28)

‘Eight people have been murdered at abortion clinics since 1977’ (Court strikes down law limiting abortion protests, June 28), you say. Let’s get real. Millions of people have been killed at abortion clinics, but you’re not allowed to say so, because abortion is killing that’s legal.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE LAW AND JUSTICE (Letter to Dom Post, June 28)

So Lucan Battison (No school ball, no footy for Lucan, June 28) didn’t break the law. What he’s learned is, disobedience and disrespect for his classmates is all right with the world. When he eventually learns it’s not all right with God, he’ll realise the difference between the law and justice.

WINNING READERS AND EARNING A LIVING OUT OF BLAMING PEOPLE (Letter to Dom Post, June 27)

‘If the entire population of Ireland abandoned Catholicism,’ asks Karl du Fresne (No prizes and no need for Google, June 27), ‘could anyone blame them?’ Certainly no true Catholic or Christian would: their response would be one of compassion, not blame. But it’s natural, and much easier, to blame people. That’s one of the reasons Catholicism is so disliked and misunderstood by many, especially journalists like du Fresne, who wins readers and earns a living from blaming people.

TEACHING THEOLOGY WITHOUT TEACHING PRAYER A WASTE OF TIME (First published in 'NZ Catholic' June 15)

 ‘Souls who do not practise prayer are like people paralyzed or cripped; even though they have hands and feet they cannot give orders to these hands and feet.’ - ‘This turning away from one’s interior life is one of earth’s greatest tragedies.’

In the wake of our bishops’ statement on Catholic schools, these words from Teresa of Avila together with Kieran Kavanagh OCD’s following comment (The Interior Castle, Study Edition) might usefully be read in reference to our teachers, as to everyone. Some may discount Teresa’s title, Doctor of the Church, but this 16^th century mystic is conceded to be as Fr Kavanagh says, ‘one of the most profound spiritual teachers in the history of Christianity, and a vivid witness to divine realities’ (which obviously aren’t seen by some).

What are we doing to actuate ‘the beauty and dignity of the human person’ (ibid) for our beleaguered teachers? With both parents in many families forced to work, time and money poor, stressed in ways previously unheard of, kids in Catholic classrooms - although not as much as secular schools, thank God – constantly present new behavioural problems for teachers to solve, while precious teaching time  is appropriated to ‘assessment’: soul-destroying paperwork.

‘All the good works a soul might do while in mortal sin are fruitless … they cannot be pleasing in (God’s) sight’ (ibid). Hmmm. Should we take that seriously? Yes. No matter how well we do what we do, teaching preaching or otherwise, while serious sin goes unconfessed and unforgiven, fundamentally our work is no good to anyone.

 ‘These crippled souls … are quite unfortunate and in serious danger ... Those who have completely neglected prayer and the interior life can no longer do anything to help themselves change, they need help from the Lord himself’ (ibid).

There are many, many prayerful - dare I say holy - teachers in Catholic schools, but as authoritative voices are raised requesting theological qualifications for R E teachers, Teresa’s 16^th century advice is very contemporary. Theology’s no use without the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment. Like the rest of us, teachers need to learn  prayer - which ‘consists not in thinking much’ (theology) ‘but in loving much’ (generous self-surrender to God and community).

Oh dear. That’s going to take time, and who’s got any of that? Not teachers. But it’s precisely that lack of time and knowledge of prayer’s benefits which the evil one manipulates to his fiendish ends and our sticky ones. We’re not likely to gamble even ten minutes a day on prayer until we’re convinced of the slow but sure results.

Joy. Trust in God. Gradual reconstruction of lifestyle and priorities. Living lovingly in community. Freedom from regrets, fear, worries about family, health, money, the environment, terrorism, world poverty or other people’s opinions (except for fear of alienating them from God). Concerns yes, worries no. No fear of earthquakes!

Living in the Divine Will. Like a leaf borne on the current of a river towards the weir which is union with Christ.

 

THE DOM POST BULLIES COLIN CRAIG (Letter to the Dom Post, June 23)

Could the Dominion Post find a less flattering photo of Conservative Party leader Colin Craig (June 23)? I guess not, and that’s because he’s quite a good-looking guy and you don’t like his politics so you try to ridicule him. Printing that pic amounts to what the Dom Post has been hyperactive and it seems, hypocritical, in headlining so much recently – bullying.

LUCAN WANTS TO HAVE HIS CAKE AND EAT IT TOO (Letter to Dom Post, June 24)

Lucan Battison wants to have his cake and eat it too. Just who is bankrolling his attempt? And if, as he stated yesterday, he loves his faith, how does he reconcile that faith with his disobedience?

 

CORPUS CHRISTI: OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND (This time, not a letter to the Dom Post)

Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi (the Body and Blood of Christ), a feast which actually deserves that nearly exhausted adjective, 'awesome'. Yes, you're right, this is not a letter to the Dom Post, just a reflection on my experiences of Eucharist last weekend, in Wellington.

We went to the Basilica in Hill Street for the 9.30 Choral Mass. The music was beautiful and as a tyro organist I came home determined to foist two of the hymns on our unsuspecting congregation at St Joseph's in Waipukurau. My husband Hamish (whom NZ Catholic readers know as ' 'im indoors'), who was once a choirboy at Nelson College where they preserved a fine, traditional style of liturgy, knew them both and so did I - probably from Anglican funerals rather than from my RC upbringing.

I arrived at the Cathedral in time to pray Morning Prayer of the Church and have half an hour's quiet time with the Blessed Sacrament. For those not familiar with the set-up there, the Blessed Sacrament is confined to a gloomy chapel between the light, airy, expansive foyer and the church. If there were a notice on either door proclaiming the Sacred Presence, it escaped me. The chapel was empty and the only other person present - that I was aware of - had come early thinking Mass began at 9, as she explained afterwards (she's a friend from our neck of the woods).

Not that the chapel was otherwise unused. It serves as a thoroughfare from the foyer to the sacristy and the foot traffic was considerable. I wasn't watching, but I heard no pause for genuflection as they went past the tabernacle, except thank God by two robed acolytes, just before Mass began.

I wondered why the Readings and homily were delivered from the ambo in the sanctuary and the Prayers of the Faithful from the imposing pulpit, giving the impression that the place of honour was accorded to our petitions rather than to the Word of God. I know the rationale: the priest doesn't like putting himself above his people, but by virtue of his Holy Orders I believe he is above his people. God placed him there and the grace to live up to that position is available for the asking. Preferring to use a small, modern ambo virtually on the same level as the congregation could give an impression - false, surely - of false humility.

And what do Sacred Heart churchgoers think of the placement of the Archbishop's chair, the cathedra, at centre stage in the spot formerly occupied by the tabernacle? Maybe it's just for effect; certainly I've never seen Archbishop John use it. I've asked parishioners once or twice about the need to return the tabernacle to the place ascribed to it by the Magisterium, but haven't had an answer.

Same with St Joseph's Church, Mt Vic, where we attended the evening Youth Mass with our daughter. I'd circled this imposing edifice once or twice on my own, trying to gain access to the Blessed Sacrament only to find every door locked - which has been my experience also at the Basilica, most notably on Divine Mercy Sunday just before 3 p m.

And when you get inside St Joseph's, even on a second visit (wouldn't you think I'd remember?) finding the Blessed Sacrament is a mission there also. Last Sunday, wanting to make thanksgiving after Mass, I blundered into the Ladies before finally locating the Holy Grail in its 'special' chapel. No one else was in there on either occasion. Except of course, for Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, the other major Wellington city church, St Mary of the Angels, where we used to have free access and the moment you entered the door you knew you were in a Catholic Church, is closed for 'earthquake strengthening'.

Just this week Pope Francis called for churches to be kept open, and I think he'd expect the requirement for the Real Presence to be obvious, for the tabernacle to be clearly visible from the church door, to be met around the world, even at the bottom of it. He's also had a few words to say on the subject of that personage we'd prefer not to think about. The evil one, the devil, who's not one to waste these new opportunities.

In relation to the Blessed Sacrament, an old adage comes to mind. Out of sight, out of mind. And I know what my mother would say about all of this.

'Carry me home to die.'

P S: Please feel free to comment on this, or on any of my posts. See below, under 'no comments'.

PUTTING A PEACEFUL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT BEFORE SELF-ADORNMENT (Letter in the Dom Post, badly edited, June 23)

This letter was printed in Points but without the final sentence, which makes the point no other letters on this subject did.

St John’s College isn’t ‘fixating over hair’ (Editorial, June 19) it’s expecting boys and parents to put others’ need for a peaceful learning environment before personal preferences in self-adornment. Far from being a ‘bad, outdated rule’, it’s the basic Christian tenet of ‘do as you would be done by’. Although the Dominion Post and possibly many of its readers may not share that belief, surely they can grasp that the inculcation of such principles is the very reason for the existence of Catholic schools.

 

LUCAN 'S PARENTS SHOULD HAVE CHOSEN A SECULAR SCHOOL (Letter to Dom Post, June 17)

Lucan Battison’s parents (June 17) would have been well advised to read not just their contract with St John’s College, but also God’s contract with his people, to whom St John’s belongs. ‘You shall not put strange gods before me’ means not putting your own interests before God’s. Had they understood this basic Jewish and Christian teaching, they would surely have chosen a secular school which allowed them and their son to indulge themselves to their hearts’ content.

 

 

THE BEST 'CAREER' IS LOVING AND SERVING OUR CHILDREN (Letter to Dom Post, June 9)

In claiming Pope Francis is ‘irresponsible’ Marg Pearce (Letters, June 9) demonstrates exactly the perversion of natural, inborn values he was regretting. For Marg obviously, women are better off with careers than children, and men likewise. In other words, we should all be working for money rather than for love.  

But the best ‘career’ for both men and women is loving and serving their children and teaching them to love and serve others – which they’re arguably more likely to learn in ‘oversized’ families – so that the next generation will be less greedy, and more generous, than ours.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE HUMAN INTO THE DIVINE (Letter to Dom Post, June 3)

Even pithier ‘advice for a peaceful mind’ (June 3) is the mantra, ‘Jesus’ – or alternatively the traditional version, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’. Repeated daily, if only for ten minutes to begin with, this ‘mantra’ slowly but surely brings complete release from worry. Concerns will remain, but no worries. The normal development of this practice, proven over 2000 years, is eventual transformation of the human person into the divine.