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August 31 to September 6, 2016

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Southern Cross now weekly on Radio Veritas

Top rabbi’s meetings with SA Catholics

Can Catholics take Anglican communion?

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INSIDE: Souvenir poster and life story of Mother Teresa to mark her canonisation on Sep 4

Eighty-six-year-old Sr Madonna Buder (right) runs through a field for a Nike commercial. Known as the “Iron Nun”, she has completed 45 triathlons. (Photos courtesy Nike)

‘Iron Nun’, 86, in Nike ad W HEN stories mention the oldest athlete in history to compete in this sport or that sport, “oldest” usually means 31, 35 or perhaps early 40s.

But sportswear giant Nike has launched a new advertising campaign that features someone a lot older: 86-year-old Sr Madonna Buder, a Sister of Christian Community from Spokane, Washington.

The nun, who has completed 45 triathlons, featured in Nike’s “Unlimited Youth” ad campaign.

Sr Madonna holds the world record for the oldest person to ever finish an Ironman Triathlon, which she earned at age 82 by finishing the Subaru Ironman Canada on August 26, 2012.

The Ironman Triathlon consists of a 2,4mile (3,86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180 km) bicycle ride and a marathon (42,20 km) run, raced in that order and without a break. It is widely considered one of the most difficult one-day sporting events in the world.

“It wasn’t until I was about 47, 48 that I was introduced to running—actually by a priest.

I’m Sister Madonna Buder, known as the ‘Iron Nun,’” she says in a short video interview released in addition to the TV spot.

“There was a point where I did not want to see a pair of running shoes. Then triathlon came in. That was a salvation,” she explains.

“There were a lot of times I had to think about failures and not reaching the goal I may have set for myself. Then I realised the only failure is not to try because your effort in itself is a success.”

Sr Madonna’s cheery disposition, un-

bounded determination and quick wit carry her through the tough circumstances that are typical of each Ironman competition. Cheers of “you go, girl” and “way to go, Sister” have spurred her along at each race.

The one-minute-long Nike TV spot opens with a still photo of her in her running togs, wearing medals and surrounded by trophies.

Then comes footage of her wearing her religious habit and kneeling in a chapel. When the narrator introduces her as an 86-year-old sister, she turns and says: “Shhh.” She’s in the middle of prayer.

Next she is seen going for a morning run.

“Good for you, Sister,” the narrator says. Then she is swimming in an open body of water.

“She’s still active at her age. That’s…great,” the narrator says hesitantly. As Sr Madonna rides her bike on a curvy country highway, the narrator says, “Whoa! Maybe a little too active.

Naptime, Sister?” She looks directly in the camera, shakes her head and says firmly: “I don’t think so.”

In the last scene, wearing a body suit, she is in a huge crowd of fellow swimmers heading for open water during a triathlon. “What!

What? An Ironman? Wait! Oh no, no, no, no, no. This is a bad idea, Sister! A real bad idea!” comes the voice-over. “Relax! She’s the Iron Nun,” says another voice. “But this is the Ironman. … She won’t make it!”

As she runs into the water, Sister Madonna yells back: “The first 45 didn’t kill me!”

“You’ve done 45 of these? OK, do your thing, Sister, do your thing,” says the narrator. n See the interview video and the commercial at www.tinyurl.com/zjtz4c7.

A Pokemon might hide at your church

By MANdlA ZIBI

I

T has been spotted on an Iraqi battlefield, at funerals, in labour wards—and in churches. It’s the Pokémon Go sensation, the smartphone GPS-based game that has engulfed the world since its launch in July.

Church buildings and other religious sites seem to be some of the favourite dwelling places of the Pokémon characters, according to Rob Riedlinger, managing director of Mariannhill Mission Press and social media expert.

“It is fascinating that many of the PokéStops are at faith centres—churches. We were excited to find one at the statue of the grave of Abbot Francis Pfanner at Mariannhill monastery. Another time, my children snuck into the parking lot of a Methodist church to catch a Pokémon—they had to convince the security guard to let them in. That was a fun experience,” said Mr Riedlinger.

Churches and other faith centres as well as museums are considered safe spaces and are therefore favoured at PokéStops, he said.

He suggested that parishes could find out whether their church is a PokéStop, and if they are, find ways of using that as a way of evangelising gamers who stop by in the hunt for Pokémon.

“Diglett”, “Rhyhorn” and “Magikarp” are some of the names of Pokémon characters to catch in the free-to-play game. It uses a mobile device’s GPS capability to locate, capture, battle, and train the virtual creatures, who appear

on the screen as if they were in the same real-world location as the player.

When you capture a Pokémon, it gets added to your Pokédex, a sort of Pokémon database, where you can personalise them later.

And then the fun part begins; you can go to your local “gym” and battle your Pokémon against other trainers who are A smartphone locates a also real people.

PokéStop at a statue of Some of the Abbott Francis Pfanner items found at in Mariannhill.

PokéStops will further your “ability” as a trainer, or simply draw other excited Pokémon Go players to your location, hence the game’s massive social appeal.

“My children Ethan (13) and Trinity (9) are playing Pokémon Go, and we as parents are loving it. Finally there’s a game that gets you up out and about walking,” Mr Riedlinger said.

“Some “eggs” require you to only walk 2km, Continued on page 2

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The Southern Cross, August 31 to September 6, 2016

LOCAL

Zuma’s last chance to show concern for ‘common good’

By MANdlA ZIBI

T

HE Jesuit Institute of South Africa has called on President Jacob Zuma to redeem himself and stop the country’s top-priority crimes investigation unit, the Hawks, from “harassing” finance minister Pravin Gordhan.

“To step in now, Mr President, and end this racket and put the country’s struggling economy first, may be your last opportunity to show that you are concerned about the common good,” a statement from the institute said.

This followed the serving of a subpoena by the head of the Hawks, General Berning Ntlemeza, on Mr Gordhan, reportedly in connection with an investigation on allegations of the existence of a “rogue spy unit” within the South African Revenue Service (SARS) at the time of Mr Gordhan’s tenure as commissioner.

“This harassment [of Mr Gordhan], which by all accounts has no legitimacy or credibility, has serious consequences for the country. The

fall of the local currency…is indicative of the economic consequences for an already struggling economy,” the statement said.

“It is well known that Mr Gordhan, together with business in South Africa, has worked tirelessly to avert a ratings downgrade for the country. If this disturbing attack on Mr Gordhan by the Hawks continues, a ratings downgrade will become a reality and it will have devastating consequences for South Africa—especially the poorest of the poor.”

The institute said if there were real grounds for Mr Gordhan to be investigated, a credible body must be tasked with the investigation.

The statement charged the Hawks with “rapidly losing any credibility” as an impartial and trustworthy law enforcement agency and accused them of “ignoring the much more credible allegations against British American Tobacco”, referring to allegations that the cigarette manufacturers had bribed South African law enforcement officials to disrupt competi-

tors’ business operations (the company has denied the allegation).

The motive for charging Mr Gordhan “is clearly political”, the Jesuit Institute said.

The Jesuits said the latest developments had reinforced the impression that the Hawks were being used as political proxies by President Zuma in his battle for unrestricted access to state funds, particularly in connection with the nuclear procurement deal and South African Airways.

The statement noted its concern that even following the controversial sacking of former finance mister Nhlanhla Nene in December 2015, “President Zuma continues to allow this kind of action to be pursued.”

The Jesuits also called for the heads of those behind the actions against Mr Gordhan.

“If the case against Mr Gordhan is proved to be malicious…then the individuals at the Hawks who are responsible for this, and those who ordered them, must be held personally liable and accountable for their actions”.

Good News: Southern Cross on Veritas STAFF REPORTER

R

ADIO Veritas and The Southern Cross have deepened their relationship by agreeing to a weekly slot in which the current issue of the newspaper is discussed.

In an initiative that began in late August, Fr Emil Blaser OP interviewed Southern Cross editor Günther Simmermacher on his breakfast show. This will now become a standing fixture every Friday morning at 7:30.

During the live interviews, Fr Blaser and Mr Simmermacher, or another Southern Cross representative, will review the edition most readers will receive on the weekend.

“The idea is to highlight good stories in that week’s issue, but also to create greater awareness

Southern Cross editor Günther Simmermacher (left) and Radio Veritas station director Fr Emil Blaser OP. Mr Simmermacher is now featuring weekly on Fr Blaser’s Friday morning show to discuss the best stories in the latest The Southern Cross. about The Southern Cross among listeners who don’t get the newspaper,” Mr Simmermacher said.

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He noted that The Southern Cross and Radio Veritas have a long relationship, saying that the jointly headlined pilgrimage that is leaving on September 2 to the canonisation of Mother Teresa in Rome and to Assisi is a manifestation of that closeness.

“We were supporting Fr Emil and the Dominicans in their efforts to start a radio station from the beginning, and we see Radio Veritas as an indispensable part of Catholic media. I know the people at Radio Veritas feel the same way about The Southern Cross. So while we are separate entities, we are very much active partners in the social communications apostolate”, Mr Simmermacher said. n Radio Veritas is on 576 AM in Gauteng, DStv Audio 870 and streamed live on www.radioveritas.co.za

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Nyolohelo church in Sebokeng Zone 12 on the East Rand celebrated the feast of the Assumption of Our lady with a procession and Mass led

by Fr Simphiwe Kheswa OFM. (Photo: Rethabile Tsotetsi)

PE church marks 80 years with radio Mass

By MIKE lENAGhAN

I

T is almost impossible to look to the future if one has no knowledge of the past. This is the case with the 80 years that St Patrick’s parish in Sydenham was celebrating on August 28.

Prior to the construction of St Patrick’s, Mass was celebrated on Sundays at Sacred Heart convent, a small building on North Road in North End which served as a school during the week, being staffed by the Assumption Sisters.

For many years the Catholics of North End had been collecting for a convent and church, and in 1934 Bishop Hugh MacSherry laid two foundation stones for the church and the convent, in Sydenham’s Somers Road.

Under each foundation stone was placed a glass jar containing documents, current coins, and copies of The Southern Cross and the local papers. Included was a piece of St Patrick’s altar stone, from Saul in County Down, Ireland, where a local tradition says St Patrick founded his first church.

St Patrick’s church in Sydenham is special in many ways. An outstanding architectural feature is the catenary arch used throughout the nave supporting the roof. A catenary arch’s shape is almost elliptical, and apart from having a fine and dignified form, it requires no buttresses—all thrust is carried to the ground instead of sideways and outwards. This arch is employed to a great extent in the Middle East.

The wall at the end of the nave has a vivid depiction of the Passion scene. This was the work of a roving artist from the then-South-West Africa and was done in the 1940s

A photo of St Patrick’s church in Sydenham, Port Elizabeth, under construction 80 years ago. while Mgr David Dahille DD was the parish priest.

Little is known about the painter, who had arrived at the presbytery down on his luck and in return for free board and lodging offered the talents of his brush in grateful thanks.

The work has a remarkable sense of depth; the huge crucifix behind it seemingly hovering at its centre.

In 1968, on February 2 at 2:00, the distinctive dome of the belltower was struck by lightning.

Although the convent closed in 1974, a group of “old girls” had a reunion and anniversary Mass, concelebrated by Bishop Vincent Zungu of Port Elizabeth and parish priest Fr Henry Ezenwanne CO. The Mass was recorded by the SABC for national radio broadcast on SAfm (104-107) on Sunday, September 4 from 11am to noon.

St Patrick’s has also released a CD titled Ave Maria, available at R100. n For more information contact Mike Lenaghan at 082 966 6530 or team work@vodamail.co.za or visit the parish website www.stpatrickspe.co.za

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LOCAL

The Southern Cross, August 31 to September 6, 2016

3

Bishop urges reading of Jewish texts

By MANdlA ZIBI & STAFF REPORTER

A

BISHOP who leads the interfaith dialogue department at the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) urged Catholics to not only read as much of Jewish scripture as they can but also to “learn how Jews themselves understand their holy books, including the Old Testament”.

Bishop Graham Rose of Dundee, chairman of the SACBC’s department of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, spoke to The Southern Cross after an event in Sea Point, Cape Town, hosted by the Cape SA Jewish Board of Deputies.

Titled “Catholics and Jews: From Foes to Friends”, the evening was a public conversation between Bishop Rose, SACBC president Archbishop Stephen Brislin and leading Jewish inter-faith dialogue advocate Rabbi David Rosen.

For English-born Rabbi Rosen, director of the American Jewish Committee’s department of interreligious affairs, this was a sort of homecoming: he had served as the rabbi of Sea Point, Cape Town, in the 1980s.

Rabbi Rosen also visited Durban, where he met with Cardinal Wilfrid Napier and the papal nuncio, Archbishop Peter Wells, at Emmanuel cathedral, walking through its Holy Door of Mercy.

The group was then welcomed to the Jumma Masjid, the largest mosque in South Africa, by its chairman, AV Mahomed who explained how Jews, Christians, Muslims and

left: AV Mohamed, Rabbi david Rosen, his wife Sharon, and Cardinal Napier with gifts at the denis hurley Centre in durban. Above: Rabbi Rosen with Bishop Graham Rose of dundee at the Cape Town interfaith event.

Hindus had all grown up side by side in Durban for the last 150 years.

“Here [in Durban] people of faith really do see each other as brothers and sisters. Like all families there are sometimes disagreements but we all still remain family,” Mr Mahomed said.

Rabbi Rosen was especially intrigued when Mahomed Khan of the Islamic Propagation Centre explained that, when preaching, the imam holds what is called in Arabic “the staff of Moses”. Cardinal Napier pointed out that this link with Moses, the shepherd-turnedprophet, is also seen in the Catholic tradition of bishops carrying a crozier or shepherd’s staff.

The group then moved on to the Denis Hurley Centre, a highly visible example of interfaith collaboration for the poor.

In explaining the work of the

centre, the director, Raymond Perrier, drew on a phrase from the Second Vatican Council which references the Hebrew Book of Zephaniah: “We await that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and serve him shoulder to shoulder.”

This, Mr Perrier pointed out, is happening every day at the Denis Hurley Centre where volunteers of all faiths work together to serve the homeless.

B

oth in Cape Town and Durban, Rabbi Rosen and Catholics discussed Vatican II’s 1965 declaration on the Church’s relations with nonChristian religions, Nostra Aetate.

At the Durban meeting, Rabbi Rosen, who received a papal knighthood in 2005 for his contribution to Jewish-Catholic reconciliation, ac-

Book of prayers in three SA languages

By MANdlA ZIBI

I

dedicated young Zanele dlodlo is exercising the social communications apostolate by selling The Southern Cross at St Peter Claver church in Pimville, Soweto.

Please send us your photos of parishioners selling The Southern Cross to editor@scross.co.za

N what might be a first for Catholic publishing in South Africa, a local company has produced a book of prayers in three South African languages laid out simultaneously on each page.

Catholic Resources Online, which is part of the SA Catholic Online stable, produced the booklet for the Sodality of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of the archdiocese of Johannesburg.

The book, titled Prayers of the Sodality of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Archdiocese of Johannesburg), is a collection of the most common prayers in use by the sodality” said Frank Nunan, head of SA Catholic Online.

“What makes this book unique is that it offers the prayers in English, IsiZulu and Sesotho, side-by-side. There is even a touch of Latin—making the book not just tri-lingual, but quadri-lingual,” he said.

The sodality’s Lillian Mathe explained: “Our membership is mainly drawn from people speaking those languages and we are very keen to make all our members comfortable saying

the prayers in the languages of their fellow members. We believe we have gone a long way towards achieving this goal with this booklet.”

The book is in landscape format to more easily accommodate the three columns, and is small enough to fit into a pocket or handbag.

Brimming with excitement at having received her own copy the previous day, Ms Mathe expressed her gratitude to the publishers for their patience in the face of “testing times” while producing the book.

“From a creative point of view, Mr Nunan had the greatest ideas and graphics that are central to the Sacred Heart Sodality—it was as if he knew what we wanted before we could figure out how to express it,” she said.

“My hope is that this initiative gets rolled out to other sodalities and churches countrywide. I am very proud to have been part of a historical moment in our little corner of the world.” n The book can be ordered from www.sacredheartsodalityjhb. co.za

Pokémons found at churches Continued from page 1 others 5km and some as much as 10km. This is smart game strategy because it’s hard to resist when the kids are excited to be up and walking,” Mr Riedlinger said.

“My wife Deidre and I have felt like we were on a date as we walked hand in hand for kilometres at a time along the Durban beachfront as our kids ran on ahead catching Pokémon.

“Pokémon Go has been a great way for us to get out as a family and explore our country.

“It has been great fun packing

a simple picnic and wandering around for the day chatting as the children focused on the hunt.”

But parental supervision of children playing the game is essential, Mr Riedlinger said.

“There are safety issues. Pokémon Go itself does give many warnings about being aware of your surroundings and being vigilant.

“It also warns you about playing while driving.”

The game is being closely monitored by the company that makes it and is continuously im-

proving and being made safer, he explained.

“I would recommend getting involved with your children on this,” he said, “I also know many adults playing the game.”

Current estimates peg the number of players worldwide at more than 130 million people.

The game has as many active daily users as the Twitter app.

It is being used an average of 43 minutes and 23 seconds a day, a higher use rate than WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram and Messenger, some of the hottest social media platforms at the moment.

knowledged the role that the late Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban had played in the drafting of Nostra Aetate.

He explained that the document was originally conceived by St John XXIII as a response by the Church to its history of anti-Semitism and the tragedy of the Holocaust. But, the rabbi pointed out, the decision of the council fathers to address relations with all religions made it clear that we cannot resolve one set of relationships if we are not willing to address all our relationships.

He noted what a radical turnaround Nostra Aetate marked in the Church’s teaching about Jews, whom Christians must now respect as our older brothers and sisters in faith. That such a transformation was possible 50 years ago between Christians and Jews makes Nostra Aetate a universal statement of hope

for all peoples.

Hinting at ongoing tensions in other parts of the world with the Muslim community, he exhorted: “No relationship is so poisoned by politics or economics that it cannot be transformed.”

The Durban meeting was organised by Paddy Meskin, chairwoman of the World Council for Religions and Peace, at the 120-year-old Durban Jewish Club and began with a prayerful lighting of candles by children of different religious traditions and a small interfaith choir, led by a member of the Baha’i faith.

Archbishop Wells, the papal nuncio, gave a passionate plea for the importance of “open and respectful dialogue” in order to grow in mutual understanding, with a focus on learning and not just on teaching.

The speeches closed with a plea for peace and harmony from Ela Gandhi, quoting her grandfather the Mahatma, and songs for peace by the choir of St Joseph’s parish in Morningside.

Speaking after the Cape Town meeting at the Marais Road shul, Bishop Rose told The Southern Cross: “The conversation between us was very well received by both sides.

This is a reflection of a radically new and close relationship. This bond says that we are one people of God.” The Jewish people, he said, “are our roots and we are the branch. We need to learn from them as our teachers of their scriptures. And if they are good healthy roots we need to be good healthy branches as Christians.”

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The Southern Cross, August 31 to September 6, 2016

INTERNATIONAL

Why Amoris Laetitia is firm Church teaching

By CINdy WOOdEN

P Pope Francis enters the basilica of St Mary of the Angels in Assisi, Italy, in August. he will return to Assisi in September. (Photo: l’Osservatore Romano via Reuters/CNS)

Pope to return to Assisi for peace summit

By ElISE hARRIS

I

N September Pope Francis will make his second visit to Assisi in just two months for an interreligious summit for peace, where he will pray and meet alongside major Islamic and Orthodox leaders.

The September 20 visit will mark the 30th anniversary of the World Day of Prayer for Peace which Pope John Paul II convoked in Assisi in 1986.

St John Paul went back to Assisi for successive events in 1993 and 2002. The last day of prayer led by a pope was convoked by Benedict XVI in 2011, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first historic meeting in Assisi.

The Sant’Egidio community has organised an interreligious meeting every year since 1986, held at different locations. This year the meeting will once again take place in Assisi, with the pope present.

Pope Francis’ presence at the prayer summit will be his third time in Assisi: first on October 4, 2013, for the feast day of his namesake, then on August 4 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the “perdono” indulgence.

OR FOR D

CONSTRUCTION

Titled “Thirst for Peace: Religions and Cultures in Dialogue”, the World Day of Prayer for Peace will run from September 18-20, and is being organised by the Community of Sant’Egidio in collaboration with the Franciscan family and the diocese of Assisi.

The spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, is scheduled to attend, as well as Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, and Imam Ahmen al-Tayyeb, rector of the prestigious al-Azhar University in Cairo. Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella will also be there.

Marco Impagliazzo, president of the Community of Sant’Egidio, said the meeting is “a necessary encounter”, especially given the current global climate of conflict.

“It will be a convergence of very high religious and institutional personalities: to show to all that religions are not indifferent to this cry which rises up from the people and to distance ourselves from preachers of hate, working in favour of the integration which is the key to defending our societies from violence.”—CNA

OPE Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family is an example of the “ordinary magisterium”—papal teaching—to which Catholics are obliged to give “religious submission of will and intellect”, said an article in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

Fr Salvador Pie-Ninot, a wellknown professor of ecclesiology, said that while Pope Francis did not invoke his teaching authority in a “definitive way” in the document, it meets all the criteria for being an example of the “ordinary magisterium” to which all members of the Church should respond with “the basic attitude of sincere acceptance and practical implementation”.

The Spanish priest’s article came in response to questions raised about the formal weight of the pope’s document, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love). For instance, US Cardinal

better understanding of revelation and make explicit its contents, or to recall how some teaching is in conformity with the truths of faith, or finally to guard against ideas that are incompatible with these truths, the response called for is that of the religious submission of will and intellect”.

Amoris Laetitia falls into the third category, Fr Pie-Ninot said, adding the 1990 instruction’s statement that examples of ordinary magisterium can occur when the pope intervenes “in questions under discussion which involve, in addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements”.

Accepting Amoris Laetitia as authoritative Church teaching, Fr PieNinot said, applies also to the document’s “most significant words”, about the possibility of people divorced and remarried without an annulment receiving Communion in limited circumstances.—CNS

Chapel for Christians in Pakistani jail

A

CHAPEL for Christian inmates has opened at Landhi Jail in southern Pakistan.

Christian social activists and jail authorities jointly inaugurated the chapel which was built with the help of a non-governmental organisation.

About 100 of the 4 500 inmates in the jail are Christians, reported ucanews.com. Those incarcerated are awaiting trial or serving sentences for various crimes.

The chapel was built near the jail mosque. Muhammad Hassan, a senior jail official, said all inmates are free to practise their faith.

“There is no bar whatsoever on non-Muslim inmates worshipping,” he said.

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Raymond Burke has said on several occasions that the document is “a mixture of opinion and doctrine”.

Fr Pie-Ninot said he examined the document in light of the 1990 instruction from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the vocation of the theologian.

The instruction—issued by thenCardinal Joseph Ratzinger—explained three levels of Church teaching with the corresponding levels of assent they require. The top levels are: “Infallible pronouncements”, which require an assent of faith as being divinely revealed; and teaching proposed “in a definitive way”, which is “strictly and intimately connected with revelation” and “must be firmly accepted and held”.

A teaching is an example of “ordinary magisterium”, according to the instruction, “when the magisterium, not intending to act ‘definitively’, teaches a doctrine to aid a

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perintendent, said Christian inmates normally are kept together with Muslims for most of the year, but on special occasions, such as Christmas, Easter and Eid, they are given separate barracks to celebrate their festivals.

Naqash Yousuf, 26, a Catholic, who is awaiting trial in a murder case, was thrilled to have a place to worship.

“Some 40 to 50 Christian prisoners now visit the chapel and attend Sunday prayers,” he said, adding that the pastor, who is one of the inmates, leads the service.

It was our longstanding wish to have a separate place of worship and thankfully the authorities have fulfilled it,” he said.

Samina Nawab, a leader with Angel Patient Care Services, the NGO that arranged funding for the chapel’s construction, praised a local official for recognising the needs of inmates.

“Our teams frequently visit jails and provide health care services to inmates irrespective of their faith,” she said. “I visited Landhi Jail and met some Christian inmates, who requested our help in the construction of the chapel.”

Islam is the official religion in Pakistan. Citizens are allowed to worship freely; however, prayer halls, churches, chapels and community centres for people of other religious traditions normally are not allowed on government property.—CNA

Persecuted Christians given voice

By ANdREA GAGlIARduCCI

A

TEDDY bear, a diploma, a menu—items owned, achieved and touched by Christians who were brutally killed in attacks this year—were on display in an exhibit this month aimed at drawing people into a visceral experience of the persecuted faithful.

The display was created by the Italian branch of Aid to the Church in Need at the ecclesiastical movement Communion and Liberation’s annual meeting in Rimini, Italy.

A swing and a small carousel for children, six university desks, and a restaurant table set represented scenarios where antiChristian persecution reached a peak: the suicide attack on Easter Sunday in a park in Lahore, Pakistan, that resulted in 72 deaths and 280 injured; last year’s Garissa University massacre in Kenya, with a toll of 149 Christian students assassinated; the July 1 attack in a café in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The relics of the martyrdom are also significant: the exhibit showed the teddy bear of one of the 30 children killed in Lahore; the graduation certificate that Muchire Shee was not able to complete, as she was killed in Garissa; the menu of the Holey Artisan Bakery of Dhaka which the victims browsed before they were held hostage, tortured and assassinated.

Visitors passed through “a tunnel of martyrs”, a dark space that showed images and audio of nine of the martyrs of our time.

Among those was Fr Jacques Hamel, the 85-year-old priest re-

An exhibit displaying the possessions of persecuted Christians from all over the world was on display at the annual Communion and liberation movement meeting in Rimini, Italy. cently assassinated in Rouen, France; Fr Andrea Santoro, an Italian priest killed in Turkey in 2006; Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistani minister for Religious Minorities killed in 2011 because of his opposition to local blasphemy laws.

There were also living testimonies of the Christian persecution taking place all over the world.

Fr Rebwar Basa, who spoke on the plight of Christians in Iraq, said in an interview that what is going on in his country must be called a “genocide”.

“Our houses were seized [by ISIS] and labelled with the ‘N’ of Nazarene; our churches have been turned into mosques, or into military headquarters or even in places where women are sold, raped and treated like slaves; many of our faithful were attacked and killed, or kidnapped and tortured and liberated after a

very high ransom; many of us were assassinated for the only reason that they were wearing a cross.”

In the end, he said, “there is a serious attempt to cancel everything that links us to our land: our language, religious identity, places of worship, properties, traditions, culture, liturgy, monuments, manuscripts”.

Aid to the Church in Need also showed in the exhibit its response to the dire situation: the delivery of the Child’s Bible, printed in 52 million copies and translated into 180 languages (including Pakistan’s Urdu and Central Africa’s Sango) and its support of the formation of 11 000 seminarians, more than one third of those are Africans.

In Bangladesh, Aid to the Church in Need is building a church with the family of Simona Monti, one of the victims of the café massacre.—CNA

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, August 31 to September 6, 2016

5

Seeing the face of God in the disabled By dOREEN ABI RAAd

I

N a pristine mountain setting in Lebanon, a female volunteer gently takes hold of the hands of Mohammed, a disabled adult who has trouble communicating. She gazes into his eyes—still shaded in heartshaped sunglasses from the dress-up activity a few hours earlier—as she engages him in a dance to the rhythm of the music playing in the background.

Smiling contentedly, Mohammed bows his head to kiss her hand, and she responds with a kiss on his forehead.

“By showing acts of love, we are demonstrating that everyone is made in the image and likeness of God,” Anton Depiro, a 30-year-old Catholic volunteer from London, said during a recent camp for people with disabilities, run by the Order of Malta Lebanon.

The issue of disability is still somewhat of a taboo in Lebanon, and families often experience shame when they have a child with a disability. Because the Lebanese government does not offer support for people with disabilities, many families resort to putting their family member into an institution, where

Volunteers and guests gather during a camp at the Order of Malta lebanon’s centre in Chabrouh.

(Photo: Sandra Fayad, Order of Malta lebanon) there is little connection with the outside world.

The Order of Malta Lebanon addresses this inadequacy by bringing together disabled people from institutional settings and volunteers to spend a week together at its centre in Chabrouh for a camp. Each disabled “guest” is paired with a volunteer for complete care and attention.

One of the aims of the Order of Malta Lebanon camp is to give guests “the love and respect they deserve

and to give them back their humanity,” Patrick Jabre, project director for the Chabrouh campsaid. Mr Jabre was among the first volunteers when the organisation hosted its first camp there in 1997.

Mr Depiro said volunteering with the guests can be challenging, for example, waking them to wash and get dressed for the day.

“But it’s simply about sharing love with our brothers and sisters. After a while, you find the guest starts to look after you,” he said.

Camp activities include hiking, olive picking, theatre plays, “Olympic” games as well as an outing to the beach.

Each day begins and ends with a group prayer. Mass is celebrated most days, and confession and the anointing of the sick are available.

Melkite Father Romanos Bou Assi, director of the centre, said the daily schedule “is always engulfed in the grace of the Lord”.

Marwan Sehnaoui, president of the Order of Malta Lebanon, fondly refers to the Chabrouh camp as a “house to learn how to love”. “Christ resides in these suffering people, and Christ, through these disabled people, is an instrument of peace and coexistence.”—CNS

Benedict XVI’s ‘Last Testament’

P

OPE emeritus Benedict XVI’s new memoir, a lengthy interview with German journalist Peter Seewald, will be released in English this November.

Letzte Gespräche is being translated as Last Testament by British theologian Jacob Phillips. It will be published by Bloomsbury.

The work is the fruit of several interviews conducted by Mr Seewald a few months after Pope Benedict resigned from the papacy.

It touches on recent events such as the reform of the Roman curia, his abdication, and Pope Francis, as well as serving as an overview of his life, from his childhood as Joseph Ratzinger to his time as Bishop

of Rome.

In his responses to Mr Seewald, Benedict speaks about himself, his

faith, his weaknesses, his private life, and the scandals and controversial issues of his papacy.

The retired pope also speaks about the reform of the Roman curia, the “Vatileaks” scandal that many pinned as the reason for his stepping-down, and outlines the differences between him and Francis in light of “his own peculiarities” and those of his Argentine successor.

Last Testament is Mr Seewald's fourth book-interview with Benedict. In 2010 he published Light of the World, and while Cardinal Ratzinger was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith they produced Salt of the Earth and God and the World.—CNA

The Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) fresco in the Sanctuary of Mercy church in Borja, Spain, before and after Cecilia Giménez attempted to restore it in 2012.

Botched Jesus art now a comic opera I T’S a bit of Church news you’re not likely to have forgotten.

Four years ago in the little town of Borja, there was a case of thought-to-be vandalism that turned out to be an unfortunate attempt at art restoration.

Cecilia Giminez, an elderly Spanish woman, created a well-intentioned but regrettably executed restoration of Ecce Homo (or “Behold the Man”), a fresco painting of Jesus before he is nailed to the cross.

The original painting, found in Borja’s Catholic church of Our Lady of Mercy, showed Jesus in a robe with the crown of thorns on his head, glancing heavenward in agony, which had begun to wear over time. However, after Ms Giminez’s touch-up, the painting looked almost inhuman—more like a monkey or a werewolf, with shapeless and fuzzy features.

But it wasn’t all bad. The original painting was not thought to be highly valuable, although it was a prized possession of the community. And the small, struggling town of Borja also benefited economically from the sudden international attention to the painting, thanks to countless memes and comedy skits about the newly refreshed fresco.

By 2016, tourist numbers to the town had increased from 6 000 to 57 000; in addition to spending money with local businesses, visitors have donated some 50 000 euros to the church.

Now, a comedic opera memorialising the painting’s story is set to debut at Our Lady of Mercy next year.

Americans Andrew Flack and composer Paul Fowler made this opera their pet project ever since the fresco flop in 2012, the New York Times reported.

The opera will feature the story of Ms Gimenez’s restoration, as well as the positive effect it had on the town.

The style of the opera will be a little bit of everything: “a Gregorian chant, a Spanish fandango, a Renaissance motet, a jota from Zaragoza, a classical chorus, an aria from the Zarzuela, a Flamenco tango, an indie-rock hook and a Swedish-house baseline,” Mr Fowler said.

The opera is part of a larger effort to maintain the fresco’s status as a tourist attraction.

Earlier this year, an interpretive art centre was also unveiled at the site of the fresco, where visitors can paint their own versions of Ecce Homo.—CNA

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6

The Southern Cross, August 31 to September 6, 2016

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

New political realities

B

EFORE the local government elections in August, the African National Congress controlled five out of the six metros with populations of above a million. Now the ANC controls two and the Democratic Alliance four. This is a seismic reversal which may very well signal a recalibration of our politics.

For the ANC these elections were a crushing defeat, even as the party retained a national majority. For a party that had never dipped below a national percentage of 60% in nine previous elections, this year’s tally of 54% represents a potent repudiation.

There is some comfort for the ANC: for all its noises to the contrary, the decline is in large part attributable to the poor performance of President Jacob Zuma, whose face dominated the party’s election campaign, from posters in wards to hubristic wall-sized images in airports.

Mr Zuma is unlikely to lead the ANC in the 2019 national election, and a different presidential candidate might persuade the lost voters—and those who stayed away from the polls in August—to return their support.

At the same time, the ANC’s post-election paralysis and the festering internal division is enfeebling the once insuperable party, and erstwhile supporters may well regard the whole party as lacking in competence, integrity and vision, regardless of its leadership.

With four metros in hand, the opposition can now show that it is a viable alternative to the ANC. This will not be easy, however. The Democratic Alliance (DA) may be performing well in Cape Town, a relatively affluent city where the party has outright control and has the assured cooperation of the provincial government.

But in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay, the DA is governing in coalitions of expedience, in ANC-controlled provinces. Especially in its two Gauteng metros, the DA leads with the aid of the Economic Freedom Front (EFF), and this will involve unpalatable compromises, threats and ultimatums, and the ever-present possibility of coalitions falling apart.

And even if these coalitions function well—which would be an unexpected bonus—the DA is facing far greater service delivery challenges than it does in the Western Cape (where its record in serving the poor is not unblemished).

For it to be seen as a credible alternative to the ANC, the DA will also need to dispel the widely held suspicion that it seeks to “bring back apartheid”.

To do that, it will have to concretely place the needs of the poor first. The party must also become conscious that the demographic compositions of municipal excos do matter.

The EFF also faces new responsibilities, especially where it holds the balance of power. As the power broker in Johannesburg and Tshwane, the young party will have to grow up. The time for gimmicks is over, and the EFF now must make the transition from being a stunt movement to a mature party— and do so without sacrificing its energy or integrity.

By virtue of being in government, the EFF cannot act with the petulant militancy it has built its reputation on. It must now serve the people—and even as the EFF must represent the interests of its constituency, it must also assume its share of the responsibility for the welfare of all the people in the metros and municipalities in which they cogovern.

For the EFF, this is a huge opportunity. It is quite possible that in 2019 the party will have its hands on the scales of power nationally. Over the next three years the EFF will have to prove worthy of being placed in such a crucial position.

The ANC has, by and large, allowed power to corrupt itself.

Greed and arrogance too often trump service for the greater good. Time will tell whether the ANC can heal itself, but it will serve South Africa ill should it fail to do so.

For the DA and the EFF, there is a cautionary tale in the ANC’s decline.

As Catholics we are always called to pray for our pubic representatives, whether or not we voted for them, that they be ever-conscious of their responsibility to serve all the people, especially those on the peripheries.

The Editor reserves the right to shorten or edit published letters. Letters below 300 words receive preference. Pseudonyms are acceptable only under special circumstances and at the Editor’s discretion.

Name and address of the writer must be supplied. No anonymous letter will be considered.

Out with clericalism in Year of Mercy

I

T seems to me that the Year of Mercy has created some complications in matters of faith.

There are those who think or feel that in the Year of Mercy some Church teachings should be ignored or rather relaxed. Not that, as priests, we should be rigid as opposed to the merciful Christ. To the contrary, we should help people understand what the Year of Mercy is about.

I would say this Holy Year is a time to be closer to God than ever and closer to the Church and her teachings.

Take, for example, the sacrament of reconciliation. I encourage the youths to frequent this sacrament,

False view of hell

I

T was with tremendous distress that I read Fr Ron Rolheiser’s article “How we misunderstand hell” (August 10). Please help me to understand how this went to print.

In the article, Fr Rolheiser states that through repentance, one can leave hell. In his view, the alternative (that if one finds oneself in hell, God forbid, it is an eternal condition), is “essentially wrong and should not be taught in the name of Christianity”, and that it is a “misconception that there is a point of no return”.

The teaching of the Church, in her catechism, is that if one does find oneself in hell, it is an eternal condition (Paras 1033 and 1861). There is no chance of emerging from it.

It is one of the many New Age beliefs that there is no distinction between good and evil, that they are really one. One of the ways in which good Catholics lose the faith is by moving from an initial position of Christocentric-ness—which includes not only a love for the person of Jesus, but also conformity to his teaching—to psychology-centredness, to humanistic-centredness.

Richard Wood, Howick n Fr Rolheiser’s article gave rise to ambiguity. What he seems to emphasise was that the older idea that you could be condemned to hell without knowing why must not be accepted. He argues that hell is not some kind of ”nasty surprise” but the result of conscious and unrepented sin.

His point is not that a conscious and unrepentant sinner can wriggle his or her way out of hell. Rather, his aim was to assure sincere Christians that our loving and merciful God is not waiting to “trip them up” and then send them to hell, as was often an erroneous perception.

While Fr Rolheiser often notes God’s mercy in the face of our sinfulness, he has not proposed that there is no distinction between good and evil.—Editor.

Celebrating the growth of the Senior School and welcome to the new Head of College, Mrs Sharon van Vuren

and the response I get is that priests ask for too many details in confession, making it like an inquisition, which they find difficult to entertain.

Were we not taught during our formation period not to dig deep into the penitent's confession?

Where is the external and the internal forum? In such a case, who is distorting the meaning of the Year of Mercy?

The Year of Mercy for me, as a priest, is a call to put aside rigidity and clericalism while at the same time following the Church’s teachings as faithfully and as humanly as possible, and to help parishioners understand the salvation message

Welcome gays

W

ITH reference to the numerous letters that have appeared in The Southern Cross over the past months, in regard to gays, both male and female, I would like to share my thoughts on the matter.

I am a happily married man. My wife and I have been married for 41 years and have four wonderful children who are married and have children of their own.

During my working life, which spanned 50 years, I met and at times worked with a number of people who were considered to be gay. I found these people often felt they were shunned and looked down upon by other people. This caused them a lot of pain.

I really believe that if we want to be true Christians, then we need to follow his teachings on how to deal with all people, that is, to obey the commandment Jesus told us is the most important: “Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole mind and your whole soul, and love your neighbour as yourself.”

After all, Jesus also told us not to judge other people but to remove the plank from our own eyes before worrying about the splinter in somebody else’s.

I really hope that with Pope Francis trying to get the Church to become more merciful and less worried about following dogmas that the hierarchy and priests in the Church will begin to be more merciful, understanding and welcoming to gay people when interacting with them.

Peter Hoar, Waterfall, KZN

No sexual choices

I

DO applaud the anonymous writer of the letter “Bisexual in a happy marriage” (July 27) for going against the tide that says that we can be whomsoever we want to be, even if it defies the natural order of God’s creation.

they contain.

When asked about clericalism what comes to my mind is a pilgrimage I had. At the grotto, a nun asked a certain gentleman to stop taking photos as this was not allowed during this particular period.

He responded to the nun: “I am a priest”. The intimidated nun responded: “Sorry, Father”. This was an instance of clericalism and abuse of power!

The Church is always merciful and will remain merciful even after this jubilee Year of Mercy. As for us priests, we should learn to be humble and overcome any form of rigidity that goes with clericalism which we may be harbouring.

Fr Ephraim Odhiambo, Kroonstad Rather confusing is that he makes a U-turn to justify “variant” relationships by citing scripture out of context.

Indeed, Jonathan does express a love for David, but David’s personal relationship with Jonathan is as a vassal to a master or lord rather than a “lover”, as implied by the anonymous letter writer.

Ignorance of ancient Jewish history leads to interpreting scriptural text in the prevailing erotic samesex narrative. The biblical story is also written in a literary genre expressing a deeper spiritual meaning that ascends to a relationship with the Father.

Anonymous’ twisted application of scripture is at odds with and avoids the corpus of scripture where same-sex acts are condemned.

While parish support groups are a positive way of assisting those who struggle with their sexuality, there is no getting away from the fact that the Church has been infiltrated by laity and priests who agree and tacitly support disordered lifestyles.

The Church should look at providing guidelines to prevent samesex “support groups” from devolving into a breeding ground for scandal which she can ill afford.

The Church continuously prays for the conversion of those of us who are afflicted with sinful disorders to come to know Christ Jesus and to ascend to the will of the Father through and with him.

Henry Sylvester, Cape Town Opinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in letters to the Editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or staff of the newspaper, or of the Catholic hierarchy. The letters page in particular is a forum in which readers may exchange opinions on matters of debate. letters must not be understood to necessarily reflect the teachings, disciplines or policies of the Church accurately.

Letters can be sent to PO Box 2372, Cape Town 8000 or editor@scross.co.za or faxed to 021 465-3850

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PERSPECTIVES

Do something beautiful for God T HE canonisation on September 4 in the Vatican of Mother Teresa focuses the world’s attention again on the extraordinary works of this extraordinary woman.

19 years after Mother Teresa’s death, her name remains short-hand for a model of self-sacrifice, of love for the poor and of care for the dying.

One might say, “She’s such a Mother Teresa”,when applauding a friend or relative; though it could also be said slyly as a way of trying to cast doubt on someone’s good works. Either way, the reference is instantly recognised—Mother Teresa has no less global awareness than Coca Cola or McDonald’s.

Her life has made a lot of people want to claim her by association. As Catholics we want to hold her up as one of ours; for religious she can be the pin-up for vocations promotion; for the sub-continent she became a fellow-Indian and was given a state funeral; for Albanians she is their most famous export (they even named an airport after her!).

Mother Teresa captured this once in her words when asked how she would describe herself: “By blood, I am Albanian; by citizenship, an Indian; by faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.”

In declaring her a saint, the Church is holding her up as an example for others to follow. In her case this is merely formalising something that has been true for a long time.

But often the response to her as a model can have unintended consequences. One is that her heroic sanctity puts people off even trying. “Oh I could never be Mother Teresa!” or “To do that I’d have to be a second Mother Teresa”.

These are common lines that are readily used by people who know that they ought to do some good work and are looking for an excuse or an explanation why they cannot. We feel that we cannot be heroes ourselves and so we don’t even need to try.

On the other hand, many people have been inspired by her and have literally sought to follow in her footsteps.

The clearest example of this is in the religious order that she founded, the Missionaries of Charity.

In 60 years, this grew to over 4 000 women (and some men) dedicating their lives to working with the poorest of the

poor all around the world, including here in South Africa. But she also inspired many young people to turn up in Calcutta (now Kolkata) to volunteer to tend to the sick and dying.

This impulse—to do something dramatic to help others—is a good one and one we see in many young people, especially those growing up in comfortable families in Europe and North America, and even in South Africa.

They want to give up a month or a year, travel across the globe, and “do their bit”. Sometimes they have useful applicable skills: trainee nurses and doctors, English teachers and so on. Often they only have enthusiasm and perhaps a misplaced belief that a committed but unskilled (white) person can solve the problems of poor (brown or black) people in just a few weeks.

I have a 17-year-old god-daughter who recently went to Bolivia to help build a school. I was intrigued since, as far as I know, she has never before in her short life shown any aptitude for construction—whereas I am sure there are many in the village she visited who do!

T

here are many examples of sincere, selfless service by such young people.

But at their worst, such initiatives can be “humanitarian tourism”, young people wanting to travel the world and gain experiences with more focus on their own needs than on those of the community they are visiting.

Afterwards they all say with pride that their lives were changed—and I am sure that is true—but that only reinforces the sense that it is about them, not about the

A group of Missionary of Charity Sisters from Chatsworth in durban visit the city’s denis hurley Centre.

Raymond Perrier

Faith and Society

people in whose communities they are guests.

Every squeaky clean American who works in an Aids orphanage for two weeks feels they have helped Africa—but does the abandoned child really get an experience of love and stability from a constant rotation of foreigners coming in and out of their lives like a revolving door?

Mother Teresa discouraged this sort of response to the poor. When addressing the Jesuit university in Pennsylvania she urged the students to “know poor people in your own home and local neighbourhood”. When asked, on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, what we can do to promote world peace, she answered simply: “Go home and love your family.”

Sadly, we live in a world where people are more likely to cross the world to help someone than they are to cross their city or even cross the street.

The Denis Hurley Centre—like many other community-based Catholic charities—is a good counter-example to this.

We manage to feed 300 people, five days a week, with most of the food donated by local individuals and businesses, and almost all of the work done by volunteers from schools, parishes, mosques, universities and groups of friends.

These are people who are inspired by the “heroic virtue” of saints like Mother Teresa but not put off by the scale of the problem. They are not about to win Nobel prizes or become world icons of selfless love.

Instead, they generously give from the time and the resources that they can afford to give and—most importantly— open up their hearts for an encounter with people in need.

We are all called to make our contribution. We do not need to cross the world to do so; we do not need to give up everything for the poor; but we do need to do something! In Mother Teresa’s famous phrase, “Find your own Calcutta”.

And that way, to quote the saint again, we can “do something beautiful for God”.

Who is Mother Teresa for you?

E VERY so often Mother Teresa hits the headlines, and sometimes it touches one more personally.

I remember her visit to South Africa in 1988. We then heard her give a talk alongside St John Paul II at the 1st World Meeting of Families in 1994, which I attended with my late husband Chris, our daughter Desiree and Fr Francois Dufour SDB en route to a Catholic Engaged Encounter meeting in the US. I recently asked my daughter how she remembered that event in 1994: she recalls Mother Teresa, a tiny figure with such a big message.

Those were very early days for us for family ministry, and the theme of the 1994 meeting “The Family at the Heart of the Civilisation of Love” might have been an inspiration for us, as was Mother Teresa.

I followed her story, read Malcolm Muggeridge’s well-known book Something Beautiful For God and listened to tapes of talks she gave. I also found the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa and the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers powerful additions to her apostolate.

There was her death in 1997, only days after that of Princess Diana, and I remember thinking how much more adulation there was for the unhappy princess than for the happy “saint”.

Her beatification was celebrated in 2003, and now of course her canonisation is taking place.

The book Finding Your Calcutta and an article in Time magazine about Mother Teresa’s own painful journey of faith had a great impact on me and even now gives me encouragement when I at times feel down and spiritually abandoned.

I know of many of the causes she championed, always promoting the right and the dignity of life; the dying, espe-

Toni Rowland

Family Friendly

Two saints together: Mother Teresa and St John Paul II in the 1990s. (Photo: l’Osservatore Romano/CNS) cially those on the streets of Kolkata, HIV/Aids sufferers, orphans, the unborn.

She very often mentioned the family as the first source and place for love and care.

I

n 1979 on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize—one of many awards

she received over the years—Mother Teresa addressed the audience with the following words: “There is so much suffering, so much hate, so much misery. To remedy this we must start work in our homes with prayers and sacrifices. Love is born in homes. I want you to try to look for the poor, first in your own house and there begin with love. Be the good news for your loved ones. Take an interest in your neighbours.”

My own Calcutta has not been a calling to work for the absolutely destitute, or against HIV/Aids, or directly to combat abortion. What has remained with me most over many years were Mother Teresa’s statements about poverty of the other kind: of relationships, of lack of love.

She encouraged her listeners: “Let us do the essential: that not one single child may be unwanted, that we may meet each other and smile, especially when it is hard to smile.”

I once found a leaflet promoting the Apostolate of Smiling. I think Mother St Teresa will be smiling her warmest smile on September 4 at her canonisation—not in personal gratification but for the many millions who will be there (including the Southern Cross/Radio Veritas pilgrims), and hopefully many other millions who will be watching and hearing and seeing her radiant smile that warms the heart and yet covers over so many crosses she bore—her own and those of others.

The Southern Cross, August 31 to September 6, 2016

7

Michael Shackleton

Open door

Is Anglican Communion OK? At a funeral in an Anglican church, the priest invited anyone in good standing with the Lord and in the right disposition to receive the Eucharist. I decided not to receive communion but was confused by a fellow Catholic who did.

She told me she believes she can receive the true Body and Blood of Christ even in the Anglican Church. What was the right thing to do?

Tiro Amos Dinake

T

HE Catholic Church consistently teaches the revealed truth that we, its members, all share “one Lord, one faith and one baptism” (Eph 4:5).

This is most significantly and openly proclaimed when we celebrate the Eucharist together. We express our communion with one another and with our Lord Jesus Christ, and simultaneously we embrace the fulness of faith handed down to us from the Apostles. This ensures that we are one in Christ.

There are two important elements of this act of sharing.

The first is that we come to the Lord’s table and receive him as food for our souls. This is a personal and private spiritual contact which we need in order to know Christ more intimately.

The second is broader than that. In receiving the Body and Blood of Christ we also unite ourselves with the entire believing community of the Catholic Church and we recognise its authority vested in Peter and the apostles and their successors over time.

When we are seen and heard to respond “Amen” to the minister’s words “The Body/Blood of Christ”, we are openly telling everybody that we are in complete solidarity with the Church and its faith.

Catholics who receive communion in any other church may believe that Christ is really present in the eucharistic bread and wine, and may feel spiritually fulfilled by this. This is a private experience and does not fulfil the communal dimension essential to the Catholic Church. There may be oneness in the Lord and in baptism but there is not the important oneness of a common faith.

It is sad that there is not unanimity in the faith of Christians. By your not taking communion at the funeral you showed just how sad it really is, but you were right. Only when all Christians are one in faith and authority can we rightfully celebrate the Eucharist together.

A last remark: If you had taken communion as a courtesy and as an act of closeness to your Christian family, it would be understandable, even though you know that doing so lacks the true meaning of being united in one Lord, one faith and one baptism.

n Send your queries to Open Door, Box 2372, Cape Town,

8000; or e-mail: opendoor@scross.co.za; or fax (021) 465 3850. Anonymity can be preserved by arrangement, but questions must be signed, and may be edited for clarity. Only published questions will be answered.

8

The Southern Cross, August 31 to September 6, 2016

CANONISATION

Mother Teresa: A life of mercy On September 4 Pope Francis will canonise Mother Teresa, who many people saw as a living saint during her lifetime. This is the life and background to this remarkable woman.

Mother Teresa’s life at a glance 1910 Born on August 26 in modern-day Skopje, Macedonia 1928 Makes first vows as Loreto Sister in Dublin

A

FAVOURITE motto of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata was: “Do small things with great love.”

But the “small things” she did so captivated the world that she was showered with honorary degrees and other awards, almost universally praised by the media and sought out by popes, presidents, philanthropists and other figures of wealth and influence.

Despite calls on her time from all over the globe Mother Teresa always returned to India to be with those she loved most—the lonely, abandoned, homeless, disease-ravaged, dying, “poorest of the poor” in the streets of Kolkata (née Calcutta).

On September 4, Pope Francis, who has spent this year preaching about mercy, will canonise Mother Teresa, who travelled the world to deliver a single message: that love and caring are the most important things in the world.

“The biggest disease today,” she once said, “is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one’s neighbour who lives at the roadside, assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty and disease.”

Her influence is worldwide. The Missionaries of Charity, which Mother Teresa founded in 1950, has more than 5 300 active and contemplative sisters today. In addition, there are Missionaries of Charity Fathers, and active and contemplative Brothers.

In 1969, in response to growing interest of laypeople who wanted to be associated with her work, an informally structured, ecumenical International Association of Co-Workers of Mother Teresa was formed. It also is represented in South Africa.

The members of the congregation take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience—but the vow of poverty

Sources: The Southern Cross, CNS

1929 1937 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1965

Arrives in India, begins her novitiate in Darjeeling Takes her solemn vows on May 14 Appointed headmistress of girls’ school in Kolkata Receives inner call to serve the poor on September 10 Becomes an Indian citizen Establishes Missionaries of Charity Opens home for dying destitute in Kolkata Receives pontifical approval for her order

1965 1969 1979 1988 1997 1997

Order’s first house outside India opens in Venezuela Fame after BBC documentary by Malcolm Muggeridge Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Visits South Africa to launch first house in Cape Town Passes leadership of order to Sr Nirmala Joshi Dies in Kolkata on September 5

2003 Beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19 2016 Canonised by Pope Francis on September 4

is stricter than in other congregations because, as Mother Teresa explained, “to be able to love the poor and know the poor, we must be poor ourselves”.

In addition, the Missionaries of Charity—sisters and brothers—take a fourth vow of “wholehearted and free service to the poorest of the poor”.

“What stunned everyone was her energy and efficiency,” a Red Cross official involved in the evacuation said afterwards. “She saw the problem, fell to her knees and prayed for a few seconds, and then she was rattling off a list of supplies she needed—nappies, plastic pants, chamber pots. We didn’t expect a saint to be so efficient.”

T

S

he tiny, wizened Mother Teresa in her familiar white and blue sari opened houses for the destitute and dying, for those with Aids, for orphans and for people with leprosy.

She founded houses in Cuba and the then-Soviet Union—countries not generally open to foreign Church workers.

Her combination of serene, simple faith and direct, practical efficiency often amazed those who came in contact with her.

In 1982, when Israeli troops were holding Beirut under siege in an effort to root out the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Mother Teresa visited a community of her nuns at Spring School, a home for the aged in East Beirut. It was her first visit in a war zone but not her last.

Meeting with Red Cross officials about relief needs, she asked what their most serious problem was.

They took her to a nearby mental hospital that had just been bombed, requiring immediate evacuation of 37 mentally and physically handicapped children. “I’ll take them,” she said.

he was an advocate for children and was outspoken against abortion. In a 1981 visit to New York, she proposed a characteristically direct and simple solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancy: “If you know anyone who does not want the child, who is afraid of the child, then tell them to give that child to me.”

When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, 1979, she accepted it “in the name of the hungry, of the naked, of the homeless, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society”.

She also condemned abortion as the world’s greatest destroyer of people: “To me, the nations who have legalised abortion are the poorest nations. They are afraid of the unborn child, and the child must die.”

Often when criticised about her approach to social issues, Mother Teresa told of a man who suggested she could do more for the world by teaching people how to fish rather than by giving them fish.

“The people I serve are helpless,”

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Top left: Mother Teresa’s parents, Nikollë and dranafile, and her with siblings lazar and Aga. Below: The future Mother Teresa as a young woman (left) and as a young loreto Sister.

she told him. “They cannot stand.

They cannot hold the rod. I will give them the food and then send them to you so you can teach them how to fish.”

When she was criticised for not using her considerable influence to attack systemic evils such as the arms race or organised exploitation and injustice, she simply responded that was not her mission, but one that belonged to others, especially to the Catholic laity.

“Once you get involved in politics, you stop being all things to all men,” she said in an interview in 1982. “We must encourage the laypeople to stand for justice, for truth” in the political arena.

M

other Teresa was born Anjezë (Agnes) Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to Albanian parents in Skopje, in what is now Macedonia, on August 26, 1910. She had a sister, Aga, and a brother, Lazar.

Her father Nikollë was a grocer, but the family’s background was more peasant than merchant. Politically engaged, Nikollë died in 1919.

Lazar once said their the example of their mother, Dranafile, was a determining factor in Agnes’ vocation.

“Already when she was a little child she used to assist the poor by taking food to them every day like our mother,” he said. When Agnes was 9, he said, “she was plump, round, tidy, sensible and a little too serious for her age. Of the three of us, she alone did not steal the jam.”

As a student at a public school in Skopje, she was a member of a Catholic sodality with a special interest in foreign missions.

“At the age of 12, I first knew I had a vocation to help the poor,” she once said. “I wanted to be a missionary.”

At 15, Agnes was inspired to work in India by reports sent home by Yugoslavian Jesuit missionaries in Bengal—present-day Bangladesh, but then part of India. At 18 she left home to join the Irish branch of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Loreto Sisters. After training at their institutions in Dublin and in Darjeeling, India, she made her first vows as a nun in 1928

and her final vows nine years later.

While teaching and serving as a principal at Loreto House, a fashionable girls’ college in Kolkata, she was depressed by the destitute and dying on the city’s streets, the homeless street urchins, the ostracised sick people lying prey to rats and other vermin in streets and alleys.

In 1946, she received a “call within a call”, as she described it.

“The message was clear. I was to leave the convent and help the poor, while living among them,” she said.

Two years later, the Vatican gave her permission to leave the Loreto Sisters and follow her new calling under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Kolkata.

After three months of medical training under the American Medical Missionary Sisters in Patna, India, Mother Teresa went into the Kolkata slums to take children cut off from education into her first school. Soon volunteers, many of them her former students, came to join her.

In 1950, the Missionaries of Charity became a diocesan religious community, and 15 years later the Vatican recognised it as a pontifical congregation, directly under Vatican jurisdiction.

In 1952, Mother Teresa opened the Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart) Home for Dying Destitutes in a dormitory—formerly a hostel attached to a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Kali—donated by the city of Kolkata. Although some of those taken in survive, the primary function of the home is, as one Missionary of Charity explained, to be “a shelter where the dying poor may die in dignity”. Tens of thousands of people have been cared for in the home since it opened.

Her Missionaries of Charity have opened institutions around the world—including in South Africa.

In November 1988, Mother Teresa visited South Africa, for the only time, to officially launch a home for people with HIV/Aids in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Today her order is also represented in Johannesburg and Durban.

When in 1964 Bl Pope Paul VI Continued overleaf

The Southern Cross, August 31 to September 6, 2016

CANONISATION

Mother Teresa and Pope Francis: Two of a kind

By CINdy WOOdEN

I

f there is one person who immersed herself in the “peripheries” Pope Francis is drawn to, it was Mother Teresa.

If there was one who showed courage and creativity in bringing God’s mercy to the world, like Pope Francis urges, it was the founder of the Missionaries of Charity.

For many people, the Catholic Church’s Year of Mercy will reach its culmination when Pope Francis canonises Mother Teresa on September 4, recognising the holiness of charity, mercy and courage found in a package just 1,52m tall.

Ken Hackett, current US ambassador to the Holy See, worked closely with Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity in his previous positions at Catholic Relief Services.

“Where Mother pushed the Missionaries of Charity was to the edge, to the most difficult places,” said the ambassador. “They were always way out there, both geographically and with the people who absolutely fell through the cracks,” he said.

Mother Teresa opened homes in Ethiopia during the communist military dictatorship, in the most destitute neighbourhoods of Haiti, in Rwanda after the genocide, and in Yemen, where four Missionaries of Charity were murdered in March.

“When there was war, when there was fighting, there they were,” Mr Hackett said. “They stayed.”

Like Pope Francis, Mother Teresa drew energy from personal, one-on-one contact with people and consciously chose to live as simply as the poor she befriended and tended.

In life and after her death, Mother Teresa faced criticism for not using her fame and contacts to advocate more directly for social and political change to improve the lives of the poor.

“You can find all the things she wasn’t,” the Mr Hackett said, “but what she was, was much more important than what she wasn’t” Valeria Martano, Asia coordinator for the Community of Sant’ Egidio, said: “We are talking about a woman who broke out of the existing framework of what was expected of a Catholic woman in the 1940s. And, like Pope Francis, she chose to make her life a denunciation” of injustice. “Her witness was testimony that things can

When a future saint came to South Africa In November 1988 Mother Teresa visited South Africa.

In Cape Town, journalist SydNEy duVAl was her driver. Here he remembers his time with the future saint.

T Mother Teresa with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. change. She did not speak of justice so much as do justice.”

“Mother Teresa chose to understand the world through the eyes of the least of the least, what Pope Francis would call the periphery,” said Ms Martano.

But it is not just about “going out”, she said. For both Pope Francis and Mother Teresa, she said, everything starts with prayer.

The founder of the Missionaries of Charity insisted that she and her sisters were “contemplatives in the midst of the world”, she said. “It was not just about doing.”

Mother Teresa’s prayer took her to the periphery and the peripheries were key to her prayer.

“What Mother Teresa lived, Pope Francis teaches constantly: compassion in the face of pain and never accepting indifference in the face of suffering,” said Archbishop Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, Italy.

For the archbishop, Mother Teresa modelled “a Church close to the poor, a Church that is mother to the poor and that lives the joy of serving the poor”.

Revelations after her death that she suffered a “dark night of the soul”—decades of feeling abandoned by God—are for Archbishop Zuppi a further sign of her deep immersion in the lives of the poor and forgotten.

“Her spiritual director would say that thirst is knowing there is water and longing for it,” he said.

“She was a woman who made the thirst of Christ on the cross her own. She lived that thirst.”—CNS

9

HE late Cardinal Owen McCann’s personal driver for many years was Leslie Goldsmith. One day when the Cape Town chancery staff was having a “get to know you” session, he introduced himself, to a burst of laughter from all present, as “my job is to drive the cardinal round the bend”.

In the four days I drove Mother Teresa from venue to venue in Cape Town and the Cape Flats, from November 8-11, 1988, I quickly got the message that my job was to keep my car, and Mother Teresa, on the straight and narrow.

There was to be no time for detours, distractions or small talk. She hardly had time to look up to appreciate the grandeur of Table Mountain, except for a cursory glance with a diffident remark to her host, Archbishop Stephen Naidoo CSsR: “Who would have thought that?”

Mother Teresa was to be seen in various moods as she responded to a press conference; walked through the shacks of Khayelitsha; talked to the Pallottini Sisters at St Joseph’s Home, Montana; got close and intimate with the Carmelites on Wynberg Hill; negotiated with Catholic Welfare & Development’s Peter Templeton for Srs Audrey, Pulpushpa, Concessa and Bethany to set up a temporary home in a sandbag house in Z section, Khayelitsha; complied with Archbishop Naidoo’s putting her under obedience; thrilled to the moment she met Archbishop Desmond Tutu at a mayoral reception that brought the two Nobel Laureates together; interacted with priests, religious and deacons at Mary Help of Christians, Lansdowne; shared cordial greet-

Pat of The Southern Cross’ coverage of Mother Teresa’s 1988 visit to Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East london, durban and Johannesburg. ings with chancery staff.

And she chatted and washed dishes in the early hours at House 20 in Khayelitsha’s Z section, as I waited to take her to the airport with Archbishop Naidoo.

M

other Teresa’s visit, always in the company of Durban travel agent Margaret Cullis, was a journey of contrasts and actions that also created space for a variety of impressions of a remarkable personality.

I think especially of the night she spoke to some 10 000 people at the cavernous Good Hope Centre.

She stood alone on the vast stage, a frail bird wrapped in a sari of white and blue, looking as though she had found the deck of a giant ship to break her flight across the ocean.

She spoke, illuminated from without and within, in words of utter simplicity and with the conviction of one who has made her option for the poorest of the poor a profoundly lived reality which she embraced with a powerful single-

mindedness.

She was to say, with words she repeated elsewhere: “We were not created for our colour, but to love and be loved. My concern is for the poorest of the poor who need love, food, clothing, shelter, the compassion of Christ. But this concern also extends to the many who are poor in spirit all over the world, even where there is wealth.”

Thinking back on these events some 28 years ago, it seems to me that the lasting value of this brief but intense experience of Mother Teresa is to be found in the message she shared with Cape Town, South Africa and other parts of the world.

Hers was a challenge to men and women, rich and poor and whole and broken, to reach out to each other, to build bridges between one another—that to proclaim the Good News is “to do something beautiful for God”.

Her message was not something new or astonishing, but a cri de coeur to renew ourselves, again and again, by living out the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Pastoral Plan for Southern Africa reinforces that parable in calling us to be “a community serving humanity” which includes the poorest of the poor whom Mother Teresa took to her heart and served with heroic virtue—one of the distinguishing signs of saintliness.

When Sr Concessa, a Burundian who describes herself as “one of the lucky ones” to have been invited to the canonisation on September 4, leaves Khayelitsha for Rome she will take with her the affection of many South Africans for the woman from Calcutta who showed the world what it means to serve the poor, to be a Good Samaritan.

She sang their song with the softest of voices, but the strongest of spirits, wherever her mission took her.

A woman religious and social worker who heard Mother Teresa speak said during her visit: “A saint has put her feet on our South African soil.”

Mother Teresa’s life of mercy Continued from previous page visited Mumbai, in 1964, he presented Mother Teresa with a white ceremonial Lincoln Continental given to him by people in the United States. She raffled off the car and raised enough money to finance a centre for leprosy victims in the Indian state of West Bengal.

Twenty-one years later, when US President Ronald Reagan presented her with the presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House, he joked that Mother Teresa might be the first award recipient to melt it down to get money for the poor.

I

n addition to winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa was given the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize in 1971; the Templeton Prize in 1973; the John F Kennedy International Award in 1971; the $300 000 Balzan Prize for Humanity, Peace and Brotherhood in 1979; the US Congressional Gold Medal in 1997; and dozens of other awards and honours, including one of India’s highest, the Padmashri Medal.

Even after health problems led her to resign as head of the Missionaries of Charities in 1990, her order re-elected her as superior, and she

continued travelling at a pace that would have tired people half her age.

In 1996 alone she had four hospitalisations: for a broken collarbone; for a head injury from a fall; for cardiac problems, malaria and a lung infection; and for angioplasty to remove blockages in two major arteries.

In late January 1997, her spiritual adviser, Jesuit Father Edward le Joly, said: “She is dying, she is on oxygen.” That March, the Missionaries of Charity elected her successor, Sr Nirmala Joshi. But Mother Teresa bounced back and, before her death on September 5, 1997, she travelled to Rome and the United States.

Mother Teresa was beatified in record time—in 2003, just over six years after her death—because Pope John Paul II set aside the rule that a sainthood process cannot begin until the candidate has been dead five years.

Now on September 4, the eve of the 19th anniversary of her death, the woman who millions regarded as a saint in her lifetime, will officially join the College of Saints when Pope Francis canonises her on St Peter’s Square, with more than 40 Southern Cross/Radio Veritas pilgrims in attendance.

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St Teresa of Kolkata Canonisation 4 September 2016

The Southern Cross, August 31 to September 6, 2016

CLASSIFIEDS

Liturgical Calendar Year C – Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday September 4 Wisdom 9:13-18, Psalms 90:3-6, 12-13, 14-17, Philemon 9-10, 12-17, Luke 14:25-33 Monday September 5 1 Corinthians 5:1-8, Psalms 5:5-7.12, Luke 6:611 Tuesday September 6 1 Corinthians 6:1-11, Psalms 149:1-6, 9, Luke 6:12-19 Wednesday September 7 1 Corinthians 7:25-31, Psalms 45:11-12.14-17, Luke 6:20-26 Thursday September 8, Birthday of Our Lady Micah 5:2-5 (1-4), Psalms 13:5-6, Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23 Friday September 9, St Peter Claver 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-27, Psalms 84:3-6,12, Luke 6:39-42 Saturday September 10, Saturday Mass of Our Lady 1 Corinthians 10:14-22, Psalms 116:12-13, 17-18, Luke 6:43-49 Sunday September 11 Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14, Psalms 51:3-4, 12-13, 17, 19, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-32

Word of the Week

Immaculate conception: The teaching that Mary was conceived without original sin.

Inquisition: The court established by the Church in the 13th century to stop and punish heretics. If the individual(s) would not recant, then they were turned over to the secular government for punishment, often resulting in death.

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CIOLLI—Mary-Anne (dickie) née dixon.

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Passed away on August 22, 2005. Sadly missed by his wife lorna and all the family RIP.

to themselves, to one another to rediscover the fullness and mystery they once felt in their union. let them be honest enough to ask: “Where have we been together and where are we going?” let them be brave enough to question: “how have we failed?” let each be foolhardy enough to say: “For me, we come first.” help them, together, to reexamine their commitment in the light of your love, willingly, openly, compassionately.

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This week we congratulate: September 6: Archbishop William Slattery of Pretoria on his 73rd birthday September 6: Bishop Dabula Mpako of Queenstown on his 57th birthday

DURBAN: Ugu deanery revival.

September 4 at St Francis Primary School sports ground, Park Rynie, South Coast. 8:00 till late. To support Bishop dlungwane to educate Catholic seminarians.

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O MOST beautiful flower of Mount Carmel, fruitful vine, splendour of heaven, blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in my necessity.

O Star of the Sea, help me and show me where you are, Mother of God. Queen of heaven and earth I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succour me in my necessity. There is none who can withstand your power, O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands. “Say this prayer for 3 consecutive days and then publish.

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LORD, inspire those men and women who bear the titles “husband” and “wife”. help them to look to you,

ALMIGHTY GOD, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed, kindle in the hearts of all men the true love of peace, and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who make decisions for the nations of the earth; that in tranquility your kingdom may go forward, till the earth be filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our lord. Amen.

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Traditional Latin Mass THANkS be to thee, my lord Jesus Christ, For all the benefits thou hast won for me, For all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me. O most merciful Redeemer, Friend, and Brother, May I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly,

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the

24th Sunday: September 11 Readings: Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14, Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 17, 19, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-32

H

OW does God deal with the reality of sin? By dialogue, it seems. Next Sunday’s first reading recalls the terrible moment when God reveals to Moses that Israel has got things horribly wrong: “They have made themselves a golden calf and worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel who brought you from the land of Egypt.’ ” However, the alert reader will notice that when God addresses Moses, he speaks of “your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt”; and we know perfectly well that it was God, not Moses, who performed that feat.

This sets the stage for one of the more engaging dialogues of the entire Bible, where Moses reminds the Almighty that it is your people, whom you brought up, and God agrees not to destroy the people. Moses, however is quite as cross as God, and in his rage with the people breaks the tablets of the Ten Commandments which God had written.

So what does this reading tell us? That there is a real horror about sin, the refusal to listen to the God who made our wonderful world; but that horror, thanks to God’s mercy, is not the end of the story. We shall not,

S outher n C ross

today, forget that we are still celebrating the pope’s Year of Mercy.

That, of course, is the message of the psalm for next Sunday, which is traditionally ascribed to David, repenting of his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband: “Have mercy on me, God, in your steadfast love, the multitude of your mercy blot out my offence.”

It is, must always be, God who dominates the story, and so God is asked: “Create a clean heart for me” (using the word from the Creation story at the beginning of the Bible) “do not send me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.” And what can we offer in return? Nothing grander than “a broken heart”, which God will not despise.

In the second reading we have a reflection on Paul’s early career as a “blasphemer, and a persecutor, and an arrogant person—but God gave me mercy!” And what was the result?

“The grace of our Lord super-overflowed.”

And why? “In order that in me Christ Jesus might reveal all the patience [of God]”. That is how God deals with sin.

The Gospel offers us three well-known stories that tell us how God operates with regard

to sinners, and the short answer is that the Almighty rejoices when we come back to him, so much so that he throws a party.

That is the heart of the personality of God that we separate in this Year of Mercy. Not that we always embrace the reality of God’s mercy with any enthusiasm; for look at the way our Gospel begins and ends.

It starts with a complaint about Jesus, because “all the tax-collectors and the sinners were drawing near to listen to him”, and the complaint is the following: “This fellow gives hospitality to sinners and eats with them!”

The ending is not actually given: for at the end, the father, far from despairing of his horrid younger son (who has blown his fortune on prostitutes), and of his raging elder son (who is sulking because he feels that he has not been given his due), comes out to plead humbly with this seething adolescent.

But with some artistry, Luke does not tell us how the situation is resolved; and the reason for this is that it is up to us, the reader, to decide what we shall do about this unfailingly forgiving God of ours.

To help us in the process, Jesus tells the three stories.

The first is that of an incompetent shep-

God: exuberance or the Cross I

God’s real nature?

God is the unconditional love and forgiveness that Jesus reveals, but God is also the energy that lies at the base of everything that is. And that energy, as is evident in both creation and scripture, is, at its root, creative, prodigal, robust, joy-filled, playful, and exuberant.

If you want to know what God is like, then look at the natural exuberance of children, look at the exuberance of a young puppy, look at the robust, playful energy of young people, and look at the spontaneous laughter of a sixteen-year-old when she is startled by a falling basket.

And to see God’s prodigal character, we might look at billions and billions of planets that surround us. The energy of God is prodigal and exuberant.

T

hen what about the Cross? Doesn’t it, more than anything else, reveal God’s nature? Isn’t it what shows us God? Isn’t suffering the innate and necessary route to maturity and sanctity? So isn’t there a contradiction between what Jesus reveals about the nature of God in his crucifixion and what scripture and nature reveal about God’s exuberance?

While there’s clearly a paradox here, there’s no contradiction.

First, the tension we see between the Cross and exuberance is already seen in the person and teachings of Jesus. Jesus scandalised his contemporaries in opposite ways: He scandalised them in his capacity to willingly give up his life and the things

Conrad

T’S funny where you can learn a lesson and catch a glimpse of the divine. Recently, in a supermarket I witnessed this incident: A young girl, probably around 16 years of age, along with two other girls her own age, came into the shop. She picked up a shopping basket and began to walk down the aisle, not knowing that a second basket was stuck onto the one she was carrying.

At a point the inevitable happened, the basket stuck to hers released and crashed to the floor with a loud bang, startling her and all of us around her.

What was her reaction? She burst into laughter, exuding a joy-filled delight at being so startled. For her, the surprise of the falling basket was not an irritation but a gift, an unexpected humour happily fracturing drab routine.

If that had happened to me, given how I’m habitually in a hurry and easily irritated by anything that disrupts my agenda, I would probably have responded with a silent expletive rather than with laughter.

Which made me think: Here’s a young girl who probably isn’t going to church and probably isn’t much concerned about matters of faith, but who, in this moment, is wonderfully radiating the energy of God. Meanwhile, I, a vowed religious, over-serious priest, church-minister and spiritual writer, in such a moment too often radiate the antithesis of God’s energy: irritation.

But is this true? Does God really burst into laughter at falling shopping baskets?

Doesn’t God ever get irritated? What’s

I

Nicholas King SJ

God’s loving gift of mercy

Sunday Reflections

herd. This one does what a good Galilean pastor would never do, abandons the rest of his flock and goes hunting for the single stray, puts it on his shoulders (!), then throws a party in celebration.

The second story is that of a woman (Luke often pairs men and women) who has lost a coin from the miserable amount that her husband has given her for housekeeping; she sweeps the floor (in a dark house all you can do under these circumstances is hope to hear the sound of the coin as you sweep), and when she finds it, throws a party for her women friends, and the implication is that the party cost more than the money that had been rediscovered.

And in the third story, the father (or is it a mother?) likewise behaves in a very odd manner; it turns out that when the younger son returned, the father had his binoculars trained on the road, and then threw the party that so upset the elder son.

How does God cope with the reality of sin?

In a way that we find almost unimaginable.

It is the way of mercy.

Southern Crossword #722

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

of this world, even as he scandalised them equally with his capacity to enjoy life and drink in its God-given pleasures.

His contemporaries weren’t able to walk with him while he carried the cross and they weren’t able to walk with him either as he ate and drank without guilt and felt only gift and gratitude when a woman anointed his feet with expensive perfume.

Moreover, the joy and exuberance that lie at the root of God’s nature are not to be confused with the bravado we crank up at parties, carnival, and Mardi Gras. What’s experienced there is not actual delight but, instead, a numbing of the brain and senses induced by frenzied excess. This doesn’t radiate the exuberance of God, nor indeed does it radiate the powerful exuberance that sits inside us, waiting to burst forth.

Carnival is mostly an attempt to keep depression at bay. As the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor astutely points out, we invented carnival because our natural exuberance doesn’t find enough outlets within our daily lives, so we ritualise certain occasions and seasons where we can, for a time, imprison our rationality and release our exuberance, as one would free a caged animal.

But that, while serving as a certain release-valve, is not the ideal way to release our natural exuberance.

When I was a child, my parents would often warn me about false exuberance— the exuberance of wild partying, false laughter, and carnival. They had this little axiom: “After the laughter come the tears!”

They were right, but only as this applies to the kind of laugher that we tend to crank up at parties to keep depression at bay.

The Cross, however, reverses my parents’ axiom and says this: “After the tears comes the laughter!”

Only after the Cross is our joy genuine.

Only after the Cross will our exuberance express the genuine delight we once felt when we were little, and only then will our exuberance truly radiate the energy of God. Jesus promises us that if we take up his Cross, God will reward us with an exuberance that no one can ever take from us.

ACROSS 3. John’s description of Jesus (4,2,3) 8. It’s in a speech on sound return (4) 9. Likely to cause harm and grouse badly (9) 10. Hole I’m in to find name of God (6) 11. The lost sheep (5) 14. This kind of blazer indicates the innovator (5) 15. Karl disturbed the bird (4) 16. Wise men who get older in the ship (5) 18. Leave out nothing with return of Tim (4) 20. Pitched up with fifty on the animal (5) 21. Keeps in check (5) 24. Is it engraved on your doctor’s prescription?

25. Process of seeking marriage in tennis arena on the vessel (9) 26. Blood carrier (4) 27. Pursuit of the deeply contemplative (9) Solutions on page 11

DOWN 1. Desire not about abandonment (9) 2. Musical scale confused with Tico March (9) 4. He was ribbed creatively (4) 5. Very prejudiced person (5) 6. Conventionally grave (6) 7. Composition that might be Magnum (4) 9. Faces when one telephones (5) 11. We send up our ..., mourning and weeping (prayer) (5) 12. Jewish men’s caps arranged in Mary’s Luke version (9) 13. Kinds of keys for the bone cupboard? (9) 17. Morsel left over from the fight (5) 19. Little tower (6) 22. Fundamental (5) 23. The bride’s little bunch?

(4) 24. Fasteners (4)

CHURCH CHUCKLE

A

LITTLE boy was listening to a long and excessively boring homily during Mass.

Suddenly, the red sanctuary lamp caught his eye.

Tugging his father’s sleeve, he said: “Daddy, when the light turns green can we go?”

How we offer a key towards a better life

N the gospel of St Matthew, Jesus says: “I was in prison and you came to see me” (25:36) At The Southern Cross we have taken to heart the Lord’s message and deliver the nation’s Catholic newspaper weekly to all prison chaplains who request it for distribution among inmates.

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