MARY: 'SPUNKY' OR MEEK? REFLECTING ON SOME JPIC REFLECTIONS

Last week an Australian JPIC (Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation) team sent me – as they kindly do every month – their ‘Sunday Reflections’. This edition commented on the Annunciation and Nativity of Christ, providing, the JPIC people hoped, "food for thought and prayer".

So I prayed and thought, and here's what I thought:

“We have sometimes ended up,” the Reflections state, “with an image of Mary that is “a long way removed from the reality that most mothers experience around conception, pregnancy and childbirth.

That’s just as it should be, isn’t it?

Mary is “a long way removed” from that natural reality. Mary conceived not by man, but by the Holy Spirit. Her pregnancy was nine months of contemplation of the Most High God physically present within her. Childbirth for Mary, according to Venerable Mary of Agreda and described similarly by other mystics of the Catholic Church, “filled her with incomparable joy and delight, causing in her soul and in her virginal body such exalted and divine effects that they exceed all thought of men. Her body became so spiritualized with the beauty of heaven that she seemed no more a human and earthly creature.”

Then in speaking of Mary’s grace, the Reflections say us that grace is “not submissive meekness. Grace is not submission. The power of God is never meek.”

Hold it right there.

It seems to me that these Reflections misinterpret the word, meek. Or maybe they’re suggesting that when God uses his ‘power’ he is ‘never meek’.

God uses his power in everything. He is meek in everything. You can’t extract or excerpt one of his divine attributes from any other - God is indivisible.

Jesus' power to save men subsisted not in force, but precisely in meekness. He says, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11, 29). So important did Jesus think meekness, he offered himself - for this one and only time - as an example.

The psalmist says, “The meek shall inherit the land and shall delight in abundance of peace” (Ps 36, 11). St Francis de Sales: “Let us be very meek toward everyone”. St Thomas: “Meekness makes a man master of himself”.

Even that useful Protestant publication, Cruden’s Concordance, says ‘meek’ means “gentle, kind, not easily provoked, ready to yield that than cause trouble; but not used in the Bible in the bad sense of tamely submissive and servile”.

But wait, there’s more - of significance to all contemplatives, especially Carmelites:

 “Meekness has a very special importance in the development of a life of prayer and union with God. ... When we are disturbed even slightly by anger we are unable to … hear the whisper of divine inspirations: the noise of our passions prevents us from listening to our interior Master, and we no longer act according to God’s good pleasure but allow ourselves to be carried away by our own impulsiveness, which will always cause us to commit faults. …

Our Lord teaches his ways to the meek, because only one who has silenced all resentments and feelings of anger is ready to be instructed by God” (Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, OCD).

And more: there’s nothing in Luke’s Gospel to suggest Mary was ‘startled’ by the appearance of an angel. She was “troubled at (the angel’s) saying ... And the angel said to her: “Fear not.” (Douay-Rheims.) The angel saw that Mary, in her profound humility, was astonished that an angel should call her “full of grace”.

There’s nothing to suggest she ‘challenged’ the angel, either. She simply asked, “How shall this be done, because I know not man?”

Neither did Mary ‘decide to bear a holy child’. She submitted, yes, but not in Cruden’s ‘bad sense’ of servility. To ‘submit’ means to ‘place oneself under a certain control or authority’ (Shorter Oxford): that authority, of course, was God.

Instead of trying to reduce the divine to the mundane, let's ask the Holy Spirit to raise us to the divinity. That's what we're designed for.

The kingdom of Heaven, after all, is within us.

'NZ CATHOLIC' OR 'NICE NZ CATHOLIC'?

It's a while now since I emailed the letter below to NZ Catholic. Two issues have turned up since, without its inclusion in the Letters column.

Of course editor Michael Otto is entitled to withhold letters from publication. But when they are published, it's with the caveat that the writers' opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the newspaper or its owner, the Bishop of Auckland (which obviously, my letter does not). 

So one wonders why this one hasn't seen the light of day. Perhaps because it's not nice. Unfortunately, the truth often isn't. 

Here's the letter: 

It wasn’t a “Reformation anniversary marked in Auckland” (NZ Catholic, Nov. 19). According to Cardinal Gerhard Muller, in truth it was the anniversary of “a revolution against the Holy Spirit”. “Luther”, says Cardinal Muller, “abandoned all the principles of the Catholic faith, Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium. The Reformation was disastrous”.

Luther deleted seven books from the Bible and excused his disordered lifestyle as justified by faith alone, a heresy condemned by the Council of Trent. He would hurl his faeces at the devil who he said, visited him in his cell at night. He was excommunicated.

It mystifies me that Palmerston North’s cathedral walls could be papered with bumf about this man, who had no intention of ‘reforming’ the Church, which as instituted by Christ cannot be ‘reformed’ -  although its members did and always will, need reform.

It astonishes me that Bishop Dunn could give thanks for “the gifts of the Reformation”. Unless he meant Luther’s legacy of 105 saints hanged, drawn and quartered defending the faith in England alone.

It appals me that the Vatican can commemorate Luther with a “special postage stamp” installing him in the place of John and the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the foot of the Cross.

Loving our Protestant brethren doesn't mean rewriting history. This is ecumenism gone mad. 

"EUTHANASIA IS A TERRIBLE, DIRTY WORD" (Letter to Dom Post, Dec 26

“Euthanasia is a terrible, dirty word,” says Karyn Hopper (Hutt resident wild over 'feral' felines, December 26). My reaction was to laugh, but actually it’s not that funny.

 

Because as a cat lover, Hopper “was not afraid to take a hard line on the issue”, which was to suggest cats should be rehomed or (shock, horror!) “put down”. 

Once upon a time we all used that expression in regard to animals, but as our sensitivity towards animals increased in inverse proportion to our regard for human life, especially in the womb, we substituted the euphemism ‘euthanasia’. 

 

So why is ‘euthanasia’ a terrible, dirty word when applied to cats, but not to people?

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF NICE AND ITS STARVING PEOPLE

The true Advent mission of priests which the Association of Catholic Priests talks about today in our parish newsletter is surely to save souls by preaching the gospel to the poor, not to those they call the ‘oppressed’.

Who gave them licence to change the Gospel? The Douay-Rheims, the New Jerusalem and the NRSV all talk about “the poor” – not the ‘oppressed’.

This is important. In the Church of Nice the physically poor - the hungry, the homeless, the persecuted - are rightly championed but those who are poor in the spiritual sense are forgotten.

Who are the spiritually poor? The people who call themselves Catholic, who send their children to a Catholic school, who throng the church for their prize-giving but who aren't there on the following Sunday: not a single altar server, even. It’s the same story throughout New Zealand and the western world (with the exception of France, 'the first daughter of the Church', where churches are reportedly full again). The clergy lament the shortage of priests but fail to nourish their starving people.

No wonder they don't attend Mass; they don't know what they're missing, because they've never been told.

I heard a homily on the feast of St Juan Diego (last Saturday) in Wellington which I thought was leading up to the need and the reason for Catholics to March for Life later in the day. (And/or we could have heard the story of St Juan and Our Lady’s message at Guadalupe, of the love, compassion and mercy that she wants to show her needy - “poor”- people.)

Not a bit of it. No mention. That afternoon, 600 people Marched for Life to Parliament, and only one priest (at least, only one who looked like a priest) and he - tellingly - was SPPX.

No wonder that later in the week the infamous Euthanasia Bill proceeded to a Select Committee. How many people in the pews of the Church of Nice were warned by their priests of this impending disaster? How many were encouraged to urge their MPs to vote against it?

CHRIST ABANDONED PARLIAMENT (Letter to Dom Post, Dec 16)

Gavan O’Farrell (Letters, December 15) says the religious “argument against euthanasia has no cogency in secular space”. Too true!

But you can oppose euthanasia, as many opposed and still oppose abortion, purely on grounds of common sense.  

And common sense having been proved right by the deaths of 500,000 unborn (not to mention flow-on effects) since that pernicious legislation in 1977, wouldn’t you think it might prevail with our politicians against euthanasia? Absolutely not, going by the grounds given in the Bill they cunningly and cowardly kicked into touch.

I simply couldn’t understand how the majority of the House could promote euthanasia and assisted dying for just about any New Zealander aged 18 or over.

But then I remembered how Speaker Mallard in his wisdom removed Jesus from the Parliamentary Prayer. Secular argument and religious argument may indeed be separate, but in truth it’s impossible to divorce them - Parliament abandoned Jesus Christ, and Christ abandoned Parliament.

If we want to avoid the awful outcomes of euthanasia in other countries like the Netherlands, where it’s normal now for the elderly to opt for the lethal needle, ordinary New Zealanders will resort to the common sense we’re famous for.

God defend New Zealand!

St JOHN'S NOT-SO CHALLENGING MESSAGE (from the Assn of Catholic Priests)

There there, Catholic people of the Church of Nice. Relax. Enjoy Christmas. Reconciliation? No worries. Eat, drink and be merry, because the Association of Catholic Priests tells us the ‘challenging’ message of John the Baptist is that Jesus did not come to judge.

Such is the nonsense quoted in our parish newsletter on the 2^nd Sunday of Advent. The message of the readings is two-fold and we ignore the real challenge of John the Baptist at our peril. We must have confidence and trust in God, yes, but John calls us to repentance for the forgiveness of sins – because Jesus will meet us one day as our judge.   

John 5:26, 27: (among others): The Father … has given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man.

St Peter (2 Pet 3: 11) reminds us that God is patient. He doesn’t wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. In the Church of Nice however, the word ‘repentance’ has become archaic. It seems we have nothing to repent.

So sit back, people. You’re not rapists or murderers. You’re okay! But wait a minute. St Peter adds that we be diligent that you may be found before him unspotted and blameless. Which surely means we need the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Big time. Frequently, and specially in Advent.

I’m so over those soothing sounds from the pulpit and Catholic media. No wonder our churches have emptied – we’re given absolutely no reason to go there (oh sorry, we do hear that it’s nice to say thank you to God sometimes).

Does anyone in the Association of Catholic Priests ever read the saints, all without exception canonised by the Church for their uncompromising response to the challenge of John the Baptist? For example, St Francis Xavier, who says:

Ah, how many souls lose Heaven and are cast into Hell!

And St John Chrysostom, Father and Doctor of the Church:

I do not speak rashly, but as I feel and think. I do not think that many priests are saved, but that those who perish are far more numerous.

GOOD NEWS AGAIN FOR PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL

Something extra for people of good will to celebrate, this Christmas!

Two bioscience companies in the US are forced to close down after reaching a settlement of nearly $8mill over allegations they sold body parts of babies killed by abortion by ‘Planned Parenthood’.

These companies faced a lawsuit for selling parts of aborted babies’ brains for up to $1,100 to pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions across the world, including Australia.

Money makes the world go round indeed.

And no one is immune from the contamination of profiting from evil.

JESUS CHRIST WAS A JEW

I suppose Tom Scott knows (December 9) it’s not only Jews who’ve held Jerusalem sacred since 4,000 BC.

 

Jesus Christ was a Jew and so his Jewish history as related in the Torah is the history of Christianity also, as related in the first five books of the Christian Bible.

The Muslims,  as Scott implies, are Johnny-come-latelies.

A BRAVE MAN (Letter published in Dom Post, December 7)

Ken Orr is a brave man (Speaker's wrong move made on a whim and a prayer, December 5).

His comment on Speaker Mallard's mauling of the parliamentary prayer, “we forget our need of God’s protection at our peril”, will have the politically correct brigade rolling about laughing.

But many others will be deeply touched and grateful for his acknowledgment of the primacy of Jesus Christ - especially at Christmas time, in the heartbreaking rush to eat and drink and spend, and forget him who is the reason for the season.

GONE TO RUBBISH BINS EVERY ONE (Letter to Dom Post, Dec 4)

We baby-boomers absolutely deserve to be left to our own devices in our old age (Aged-care crisis looms, December 4).

 

 In 1977 we voted to legalise abortion and since then 500,000 lives have been lost.  In 2007 alone we killed more than the 18000 the Salvation Army says we need now to care for the elderly.

 

Where are all the workers gone? Gone to rubbish bins, every one.