Position Papers - February 2015

A review of Catholic affairs

Marriage redefined is marriage abolished Bishop James Conley Ronan O'Kelly On the problem with bad homilies Rev. George Rutler

Number 486 February 2015

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Number 486 - February 2015 Editorial

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In Passing: To lead you to an overwhelming question…

Michael Kirke

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Tua Res Agitur: It Concerns You Bishop James Conley

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The ideological colonisation of the family Pope Francis

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Law, societal ordering, and homosexual ‘marriage’ Ronan O’Kelly

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Marriage, the old romantic Siobhan Scullion

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The Parish in a Time of Change Tom O’Flaherty

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A time for planting Rev. Eugene O’Neill

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On the problem with bad homilies Rev. George Rutler

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Christian unity: Are we missing the big picture?

Rev. Patrick Burke

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Film review: Boyhood Joseph McAleer

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Editor: Assistant editors: Subscription manager: Secretary: Design:

Rev. Gavan Jennings Michael Kirke, Pat Hanratty, Brenda McGann Liam Ó hAlmhain Dick Kearns Víctor Díaz

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The editor, Position Papers, P.O. Box 4948, Rathmines, Dublin 6 email: editor@positionpapers.ie; website: www.positionpapers.ie Tel.+ 353 86065 2313 For new or renewed subscriptions contact: info@positionpapers.ie Articles ©Position Papers, who normally will on application give permission to reproduce gratis subject only to a credit in this form: ‘Reprinted, with permission from Position Papers, Dublin’. Please note: the opinions expressed in articles do not necessarily reflect those of the editor nor of the Opus Dei Prelature of which he is a priest.

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Editorial

Since the terrible events in Paris at the beginning of January

there has been much debate about Islamic fundamentalism and about the right to freedom of speech and its limits. The religious fundamentalism of the Islamists has violently clashed with the ‘enlightened’ West’s right to mockingly portray the prophet Mohammed.

In the light of these terrible events we do well to revisit two addresses given by Pope Benedict XVI, one given in Regensburg on September 12, 2006 and the other given a year later to the day to the French Institute in Paris. In the first Pope Benedict looked at the consequences of Islam’s failure to esteem rationality – showing that this at times expressed itself in seeking conversion through violence rather than through reason. The Pope famously quoted the words of the fourteenth century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II to the effect that insofar as it embraced violence Islam was against the very nature of God: Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body.

Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”.

The option for violence in some versions of Islam at least, was a consequence of the option against reason. This of course is very relevant not only to the Charlie Hebdo killings in January, but to the eruption of Islamist violence across Syria, Iraq, and Central and Western Africa.

The second text, delivered ironically enough in Paris itself, is relevant to those who marched under the ‘Je suis Charlie’ banner in defence of the right to freedom of speech violated by the Islamists. To properly appreciate the issues involved here we need to realise just how graphically offensive the Charlie Hebdo cartoons were, and presumably will continue to be. Christians find it hard to see the offence in a fairly simple portrayal of Mohammed, but must certainly find their antiChristian cartoons shocking: for instance one mocking the Trinity shows Jesus (crown of thorns, holes in his hands and feet) sodomizing God the Father and being sodomized in turn

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Editorial

by the “Holy Spirit”. (And whether or not such publication should or should not be legal is hardly the question – only a rather benighted legalist would reduce the matter to a question of law – there can be no doubt it is viciously offensive.)

The puerile Charlie Hebdo magazine’s mocking of religion reflects the European pathology of reason, a Western counterpart to the Islamist pathology of reason, in which freedom is license, and religion insanity.

And this is the matter Pope Benedict addressed in Paris when he said: … we face two poles: on the one hand, subjective arbitrariness, and on the other, fundamentalist fanaticism. It would be a disaster if today’s European culture could only conceive freedom as absence of obligation, which would inevitably play into the hands of fanaticism and arbitrariness. Absence of obligation and arbitrariness do not signify freedom, but its destruction.

A purely positivistic culture which tried to drive the question concerning God into the subjective realm, as being unscientific, would be the capitulation of reason, the renunciation of its highest possibilities, and hence a disaster for humanity, with very grave consequences.

What gave Europe’s culture its foundation – the search for God and the readiness to listen to him – remains today the basis of any genuine culture.

So ironically, at least in Pope Benedict’s reading, Islam and the West are suffering the same problem: the abdication of reason. In the case of Islam this has lead to the pathological extreme of fanatics who murder in the name of God; in the case of the secularised West it has produced an irrational fanaticism of its own which ridicules religion and the search for God. If Islam continues to shun reason, and the “enlightened” West continues to shun faith, then it is hard to see how the resultant worlds of “subjective arbitrariness” and “fundamentalist fanaticism” can avoid ever more frequent and ever more violent encounters.

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In Passing: To lead you to an overwhelming question‌

by Michael Kirke

led us further into the world of comic book characters we thought we had left behind in early adolescence. As ever, they thought they had a formula for a fast buck but were disappointed when the fast buck never showed. It was their worst year in over a decade.

Cinema is a very broad church.

In recent decades it has become an increasingly infantile church and leaves you ashamed to be counted among its believers. But there are also times when it gives us works of the rarest beauty and depth, restoring our faith in its power to open our minds to truths – sometimes reassuring, sometimes disturbing – about our personal existence and about the realities of our communal lives.

But let us not waste time moaning about the 99% of drivel Hollywood shovels our way and look for the jewels which sometimes manage to make it through the system.

The year gone by was one of the most dire on record as the misguided moguls of Hollywood

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Two films stand out this year, each unique and each utterly untypical of nearly everything else around it. You will not go to see them for an adrenaline rush – or any other kind of rush – but if your human soul is alive at all you will come away from them wiser than you were.

Of the two Ida is the purer and richer specimen of the great art form that cinema is, showing us how the medium can rise to the task of touching the transcendent at a level which can leave us breathless – to the point where its resonances might even provoke a life-changing experience.

First came Ida, which actually dates from 2013 but only made it to the Anglophone cinema in 2014. The second was Boyhood, which actually began its shooting life over twelve years ago and has just garnered the first of the many major awards it is likely to take home this year – winner in the best drama category at this week’s Golden Globes event.

Boyhood is different. Its capability is more negative. It is firstly a triumphant experiment in filmmaking, using, as it does, the same actors to play its central characters from year one to year twelve in the story which it unfolds before us. But while this certainly adds to the fasciation of the film it is not at the heart of its power. What is at the heart of

Ellar Coltrane who plays Mason through the years

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its power is its searing truthfulness. It is a portrait of a family as our sorry society has now determined so many families are. It is a “document” of ordinary people muddling along through life, hurting each other, harming each other and breaking each others hearts and trying to make the best of it. For the most part they are good people but they are also flawed people, living in a society which has generated mores for them where hurts increase and multiply and no one can do much about it other than try to get on with it.

conclude – and that is even too strong a word – that rather, it is the moment that seizes us.

All we can hope for is that Richard Linklater – the genius who conceived, wrote and directed this little masterpiece for a mere four million dollars – might continue for another twelve years to tell this story of young Mason whose boyhood is the central subject. Perhaps then the fatalistic note on which Boyhood ends might resolve itself in a more redemptive way.

But something tells us that is not going to happen, and that this would not ring true in a story where truth is at its very heart.

This is a story of a muddled world bequeathed to children by muddled adults who try to do their best but their best is not good enough to save their children from making the same mistakes which they made. This is a universal story about the ordinary, sad and somewhat perplexed human beings who populate western culture in our age.

That makes it a treasure.

Ida (Directed by Pawilikowski) looks bleaker than Boyhood – but it is not. Boyhood’s lovable flawed protagonists muddle along and basically stay muddled, neither happy nor miserably unhappy. Boyhood asks questions – without even appearing to – but it gives no real answers, partly one suspects, because there are no answers in the world they have constructed. Two young people mull over the received wisdom that we should “seize the moment” – carpe diem in the original. They

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Agata Trzebuchowska plays Ida

Ida’s setting is much grimmer than the suburban middle class Texas setting of Boyhood.

the orphaned daughter of Jewish parents she never knew and who were murdered while trying to escape the holocaust. Before taking her vows she is given leave to visit her mother’s sister – and it is only then that she discovers that she is Jewish.

Her aunt survived the holocaust and became a hardened communist magistrate, with not a few death sentences to her credit. The portrayal of the family bond juxtaposed with the contrast between the life of faith of one and the clearly disillusioned ideology of the other is one of the master-strokes of the film.

It takes us back to the Spartan environment of a Poland which seemed to be settling into its harsh communist utopia. The counterfoil to the grim reality generated by communist ideology is a convent of nuns where some novices are preparing to take their vows and accept the ascetic terms and conditions of a life in this world dedicated to the God so vehemently denied by everyone around them. On the surface it appears no less grim, but the intimations of immortality which it engenders sets it an eternity apart from the other.

The two go in search of the truth about the fate of Ida’s parents – and find it. In doing so a third protagonist enters the story in the person of a young man both fascinated by the mystery of

We follow the path of one of these, Ida, whom we discover is

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Ida’s dedication and attracted to her. Their relationship develops and finally comes to a point where, in the most extraordinary circumstances imaginable, the denouement unfolds.

discuss attending the christening of his baby half-brother, if he had baptised him when he was a child. His father’s skeptical answer puts an end to that conversation. There is also, of corse, the implication of the soundtrack which features George Harrison’s “What is Life?”.

The final scene, reminiscent in some ways of Truffaut’s iconic freeze-frame finale in Les Quatre Cent Coups – but without the ambiguity of that scene – is long and paced in such a way to give us, the viewers, time to unravel something of the miracle which has unfolded before our eyes as we absorb the landscape and the serene and determined expression on the face of Ida.

But while the question is not asked the answer is still there.

Towards the end of Boyhood, as Mason is about to leave his mother’s nest and she somewhat ruefully reflects on her half-happy life, she says to him “I thought there would have been more”. He has no words of consolation or reassurance – for he himself is not even sure of where he is going or what is in store for him.

Both these films ask the fundamental eschatological question – the one directly, the other implicitly – probably without even knowing it is asking it. Ida asks it in the final two words spoken in the film and the question is answered for us in the 10 or so silent minutes which follow that scene – at least for those who have eyes to see it.

The semi-desert setting of the final scene in the film parallels the grey bleak landscape through which we see the young novice walking in the last minutes of Ida. The contrast between the two is in the souls of the protagonists. They are in entirely different places. In the one we can say, “There is a vi-

Boyhood does not formally ask it – unless you consider young Mason asking his father, as they

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sion of Life.� In the other the desert in the soul is sucking life away and all we can say is that where there is still some life, well, there is some hope.

The combined power of these two films, true and honest reflections on our human condition from very different perspectives, redeem cinema and do a great deal to restore our faith in this great art form.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michael Kirke is a freelance writer, a regular contributor to Position Papers, and a widely read blogger at Garvan Hill (www.garvan.wordpress. com). His views can be responded to at mjgkirke@gmail.com.

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Tua Res Agitur: It Concerns You

by Bishop James Conley

In the century before Christ was born, the great Roman poet Horace wrote a wise line: “Tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet.” The English translation is: “It concerns you when your neighbour’s wall is on fire.”

Horace taught that we are connected to one another – that human beings are responsible for each other’s wellbeing, and that the misfortunes of others can endanger each one of us.

Horace meant that we need to respond when neighbours face danger – that justice, and love, demand that we care for the needs of those in our communities.

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St. Paul expressed Horace’s wisdom more clearly. To the Church in Philippi, he wrote, “Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Christ put it even more clearly: “whatever you do for the least of your brothers,” he said, “you do for me.” If we really love Christ, the needs of those around us will become our needs, and the misfortunes of others will become our concern.

In November, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the state of Nebraska, alleging that Article I-29 of our Constitution is a violation of federal law. The article states that in our state, marriage shall be understood as a union between a man and woman – and that marriage cannot be contracted or recognised as a relationship between two people of the same sex.

Over the past few months, Nebraskans have fought to protect our Constitution. As the lawsuit continues to run through the federal courts, Catholics will continue to proclaim and clarify the real meaning of marriage.

Tragically, marriage has been legally redefined in many states across the country. The federal government has accepted alternative definitions of marriage.

So-called ‘same-sex marriage’ is increasingly accepted by cultural, religious, and political leaders. To some, universal recognition of same-sex marriage seems inevitable.

As the debate goes on, some Catholics have begun to ask

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why fighting same-sex marriage is so important. A friend asked me recently, “If the Church will not have to violate her teaching, why does same-sex marriage concern me?”

Radical redefinition of marriage concerns each one of us. It concerns me, and it concerns you.

It should concern all of us when our state’s Constitution is undermined – when the votes of Nebraskans are less important than the force of well-funded and well-organised political interest groups. It concerns us when the government is used to validate and endorse whatever kind of social arrangement citizens might wish to make – no matter the harm.

It concerns us when the world forgets that children do best with mothers and fathers, each playing unique roles in formation and education. It concerns us when “fatherhood” and “motherhood” become lost or muddled concepts. It concerns us when the real needs of children are undermined for the sake of “tol-

erance” and political correctness.

tions or inclinations – to know God’s love.

It concerns us when the state forces bakers and photographers, teachers and parents to ignore what they believe – to abandon their convictions and their faith – in order to make a living for their families.

Redefining marriage concerns each of us because its impact is profound. For the sake of our neighbours and friends – for the sake of our whole community – we need to continue to proclaim and clarify the truth about marriage.

It concerns us when our state is not free to recognise that men and women, forming stable families and stable communities, have an important role in every human culture. It concerns us when our state is not free to support and promote the sacrifices of those men and women.

It concerns us when our state must deny real truths about human families, and human hearts.

It concerns us when we begin to lose sight of God’s plan for the world. It concerns us when the world confuses real God-given dignity with moral license and pathways to unhappiness. It concerns us when a confused, unhappy, and over-sexualised culture makes it harder for all people – no matter their attrac-

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Proclaiming the truth about marriage, and families, and parents, is an act of love. It is an act of love for our state, which has the right to be organised according to reality. It is an act of love for children, who have the right to know the complementary love of mothers and fathers. And it is an act of love for all those who might be kept from discovering God’s real love – and their real dignity – by the confusing lies of the world.

The Church should be a place of welcome for all people. It should be a place where all people come to know God’s love, and to know his incredible plan for their lives. The Church should be a place where knowing the truth is a source of hope,

of healing, and of joy. And that means that the Church should be a place where the truth is proclaimed – charitably, respectfully, and openly.

The world is very confused about the meaning of marriage, about the importance of families and, ultimately, the world is very confused about happiness, and joy, and peace. The world is a dangerous place for anyone who is seeking real love.

Christ’s love – and his plan for each one of us – is the antidote to that danger. That concerns each one of us.

Tua res agitur!

This article was appeared initially as a column in the Southern Nebraska Register.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR James Douglas Conley (born March 19, 1955) is the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lincoln in the state of Nebraska in the midwestern United States.

The ideological colonisation of the family

by Pope Francis

On

the second day of his five day visit to the Philippines Pope Francis addressed a meeting with families in one of Manila’s biggest sports arenas. The arena, with a capacity of 20,000, was full while another 86,000 persons gathered outside. Here is an excerpt from his address in which he speak repeatedly of the “ideological colonisation” of the family.

Just as the gift of the Holy Family was entrusted to Saint Joseph, so the gift of the family and its place in God’s plan is entrusted to us. Like Saint Joseph. The gift of the Holy

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Family was entrusted to Saint Joseph so that he could care for it. Each of you, each of us – for I too am part of a family – is charged with caring for God’s plan. The angel of the Lord revealed to Joseph the dangers which threatened Jesus and Mary, forcing them to flee to Egypt and then to settle in Nazareth. So too, in our time, God calls upon us to recognise the dangers threatening our own families and to protect them from harm.

Let us be on guard against colonisation by new ideologies.

There are forms of ideological

colonisation which are out to destroy the family. They are not born of dreams, of prayers, of closeness to God or the mission which God gave us; they come from without, and for that reason I am saying that they are forms of colonisation. Let’s not lose the freedom of the mission which God has given us, the mission of the family. Just as our peoples, at a certain moment of their history, were mature enough to say “no” to all forms of political colonisation, so too in our families we need to be very wise, very shrewd, very strong, in order to say “no” to all attempts at an ideological colonisation of our families. We need to ask Saint Joseph, the friend of the angel, to send us the inspiration to know when we can say “yes” and when we have to say “no”.

The pressures on family life today are many. Here in the Philippines, countless families are still suffering from the effects of natural disasters. The economic situation has caused families to be separated by migration and the search for employment, and financial problems

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strain many households. While all too many people live in dire poverty, others are caught up in materialism and lifestyles which are destructive of family life and the most basic demands of Christian morality. These are forms of ideological colonisation. The family is also threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.

I think of Blessed Paul VI. At a time when the problem of population growth was being raised, he had the courage to defend openness to life in families. He knew the difficulties that are there in every family, and so in his Encyclical (Humanae Vitae) he was very merciful towards particular cases, and he asked confessors to be very merciful and understanding in dealing with particular cases. But he also had a broader vision: he looked at the peoples of the earth and he saw this threat of families being destroyed for lack of children. Paul VI was courageous; he was a good pastor

and he warned his flock of the wolves who were coming. From his place in heaven, may he bless this evening!

Our world needs good and strong families to overcome these threats! The Philippines needs holy and loving families to protect the beauty and truth of the family in God’s plan and to be a support and example for other families. Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of humanity, as Saint John Paul II often said, passes through the family (cf.

Familiaris Consortio, 85). The future passes through the family.

So protect your families! Protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure and nourish them always by prayer and the grace of the sacra-

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ments. Families will always have their trials, but may you never add to them! Instead, be living examples of love, forgiveness and care. Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death. What a gift this would be to society, if every Christian family lived fully its noble vocation!

So rise with Jesus and Mary, and set out on the path the Lord traces for each of you.

Text from the meeting with families at the Mall of Asia Arena, Manila, The Philippines, January 16, 2015.

Law, societal ordering, and homosexual ‘marriage’

by Ronan O’Kelly

Intrinsic

to the idea of law is reason. Law is in effect the application of the ordering force of reason with a view to protecting and promoting what is best for society as a whole. In a democratic society mechanisms of varying complexity have been developed in order to facilitate this end.

It seems quite reasonable to maintain that a well-ordered, well-functioning society establishes the conditions required for the flourishing of individuals in general even though the generalities of law can at times clash with the life-plans and desires of individuals. There is a myriad of laws without which communal life in our society would descend into chaos.

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It is not simply a case, however, that society establishes the conditions for individual human flourishing in general. The happiness of individuals can often, though not always, contribute to the well-being of society. There can be a fruitful tension between individual life-plans and desires, on the one hand, and societal cohesion, on the other.

Sometimes, however, individual life-plans and desires interfere with the well-ordering of society in such a way as also to undermine the very conditions for individual flourishing in general.

In recent times the idea of gay marriage has been brought into the arena of tension between individual pursuit of happiness

and societal well-being. The feeling of love that a homosexual couple experience for each other, so it is argued, ought to be afforded the same recognition in society as that which is afforded to heterosexual couples. Equality is what is at issue here.

Personal fulfilment is of course integral to heterosexual marriage. Mutual love is its basic fuel. What precisely this word ‘love’ means is something that has not been explored thus far in the quite one-sided narrative in favour of homosexual marriage.

There are however fundamental difficulties with this position. The language of equality can be misleading. Clearly, whatever we mean when we talk about the fundamental equality of all human beings, we do not mean that we are all endowed with equal intelligence, physical beauty, musical talent, sporting prowess, and so on.

The love of a heterosexual couple is not simply an experience of emotional well-being induced by another person. Such emotional well-being is of course partly constitutive of and integral to heterosexual love. Heterosexual love is however a kind of love that is capable of mutual expression in an embodied way, which expression is intrinsically ordered toward the conception of children. Heterosexual love thus has an intrinsically political import since children constitute society’s very own future.

Likewise, whatever people mean when they talk about sexual equality, they cannot deny the fundamental difference between the nature of a relationship between a man and a woman and the kind of relationship that obtains between samesex couples. The former alone has procreative potential and is thus ultimately ordered towards the continuance of society.

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Children and, by extension, society, are literally inconceivable without the bi-polar complementarity of men and women. Society therefore has a stake in legislating for the protection and promotion of the institution of heterosexual marriage since it creates the optimal conditions in

which the fruit of heterosexual love can be educated towards a life of personal fulfilment, which personal fulfilment naturally contributes to the overall flourishing of society.

Love takes on qualitatively different forms. There is, for example, the love that exists between siblings. Another qualitatively different kind of love is the love between heterosexual friends of the same sex. There is love of one’s fellow citizens.

And so on. All of these are qualitatively different from heterosexual love. So too is homosexual love of a qualitatively different kind from heterosexual love.

Inscribed at the heart of the embodied expression of heterosexual love is the family: according to the laws of nature we are born of heterosexual parents, a fact that also constitutes relations of paternity and filiality.

Inscribed at the heart of the embodied expression of love is also future society.

Law, properly understood as the application of reason to the right-ordering of society in order to safeguard and to promote the

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optimal conditions for general and individual well-being, seeks to protect and to cultivate heterosexual marriage. It has no stake in legislating for other kinds of love, no matter how personally fulfilling they might seem to those involved.

Recognition of the right of every child to be raised by its biological mother and father and of how the violation of this right can negatively affect a child’s emotional and psychological well-being – and, by extension his/her future contribution to society and therefore the health of society going into the future – demands that right reason privilege heterosexual marriage by way of legislation.

The corollary is of course that society ought to refuse to allow the rights and privileges of this institution to other forms of relationship.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ronan O’Kelly is a freelance writer based in Ireland.

Marriage, the old romantic

by Siobhan Scullion

Ah

February! The month of Valentines and all things love and romance. These are the days of red roses, expensive gifts, wining and dining. Florists across the country will be overrun with orders, perfume supplies will diminish and Hallmark will make themselves a very tidy profit indeed.

In my house? After five years of marriage, I imagine that Valentine's Day may well go unnoticed. And I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I actually don’t mind. Before I was married, I had a very fixed idea of romance and Valentine's Day etiquette. Growing up, I thought that any man who didn’t show up on Valentine’s with flowers cascading from his arms, heavily laden with expensive gifts and reciting eloquent expressions of

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undying love wasn’t worth it. He had no idea what romance was!

Indeed, what love was! Now that I’m married, I realise that love and romance can show itself in very different forms indeed. Although they may be welcome and at times very necessary, marriages are not built solely on pretty flowers and sweet words. I’ve learnt to appreciate that it isn’t just your typical Valentines present that shows how much a spouse cares. Valentine's Day comes but once a year but love and romance should be expressed every day. I am a firm believer that romance should never disappear – I can’t rid myself of my youthful sentiments that easily – but being married has taught me that sometimes it isn’t the red roses you appreciate the most but other things, like my break-

fast being prepared for me before my husband goes off to work, or having the heating fixed at 6am in the morning when it’s freezing outside, or taking the children outside to play so I can have a half hour to myself after a busy and stressful week.

Sometimes it’s just a hug, a kiss, or words of encouragement exactly when they’re needed. It’s those things that really matter.

Although the pressure will be on the men, as it is on every Valentine's Day, we can’t leave it all to them. What can we ladies do to show love to our husbands and cultivate romance in our marriages? This is something I have been thinking about a lot recently and I share my ideas and thoughts here. I’m not saying this is the ultimate guide book to romance in marriage – as every marriage is different and each spouse knows each other best.

I’m simply sharing what I have found to be helpful for my marriage, and these ideas come from both from my own experience and from seeing it in practice in others.

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First things first: praise your husband and all the good things he does. Praise him in front of your family and the people around you, but especially to your children. Obviously it’s probably not a good idea to stop complete strangers in the street extolling the joys of being married to your particular husband.

You won’t sound like you’re in love, you’ll just sound crazy. But when opportunities arise to tell a story about something he did, or to compliment him for his talents or work, take it! It lets your children know how much you appreciate their father and everything he does for your family.

When this happens in our house, I can see my children’s appreciation of their father grow.

Praising your husband is most helpful on those days when you actually want to throttle him.

Even through the mist of rage, vocalising something you are grateful for has that curious effect of cultivating gratitude and love even more. Leave throttling him to later … when you’ve had time to calm down and realise that it’s probably not the best course of action!

Secondly: food. Yes, the way to a man’s heart really is through his stomach it would appear, or at least in my husband’s case.

When I first got married, I was a terrible cook. And I mean terrible. I could do the basics but it was exactly that, basic. I had come from a household of two exquisite cooks. Both my mother and father love cooking and make a great team in the kitchen. As a result, I never really had to cook and even when I went off to university, I survived on minimal efforts until the weekend when I could stock up on the good calories again.

When I got married, my poor husband suffered the consequences. Now, please do not take this as affirmation that men too cannot be responsible for cooking, but in our household at that time, I was home first from work and then was on maternity leave so it was only fair that I was the one who made the attempt to feed us. In the years since, I have learnt a lot about cooking, baking and serving food and it’s become a real hobby of mine. I have noticed the delight around the table when a meal is well cooked and

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served, when chocolate brownies and oatmeal cookies are served fresh out of the oven and snacks and treats with a little bit of thought into what they prefer, are slipped into lunch boxes.

The great thing about cooking?

You benefit from your culinary delights also so it’s a win-win situation in my book.

Chances are most married couples are both working outside the home, so household tasks are shared between the two. It can often feel however, that the majority of those tasks fall on the wife, especially if she has part time work or is on maternity leave. Taking care of children, especially when they’re small, as well as running a home alongside other professional work can take its toll and can leave Mum ready to snap!

Ladies, let him help you out when he offers to do something that could ease your workload a little. This was one of the best pieces of advice I was ever given about marriage. When your husband wants to do something, let him. The crucial part comes in here for wives: let go. Easier said than done, I know, but

sometimes we women like to be the ones in control of household affairs. We have the tendency to think no one else but us can save the household and children from falling into a mass pit of despair and destruction. Someone else can and you married him for it. He is on the same team! He might not be the best at it just yet and he may need a little practice but let him and let go. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if the bathroom bin hasn't been emptied or if the children are dressed in mismatched clothes and have eaten a diet of yogurt and dry cereal all day. They will survive.

Your marriage is worth more than a squabble about it. Don’t undermine him by failing to appreciate that he is trying to help and that he may have a different approach to it than you do. You know how you feel when your efforts go unnoticed. Complaining unnecessarily over something that doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, could perhaps mean that offer of help may never come again.

Take the time to remember why you married him and how you

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felt on your wedding day. Every so often, look back over your wedding photos and talk about your big day. Our little ones love looking at photos and they love hearing stories so I find this to be a great thing to do, not only with my spouse, but with our children as well. I love looking at our wedding photos when we were dressed in all our finery and promised to love each other come what may. Those photos remind me of how I dreamt about the future and looked forward to each year of our marriage. Well, this is that future that I’m living now in the present. It is very easy to lose that sense of idealism when children come along and demand our attention, when sleepless nights leave us tired and frazzled and the never ending pile of laundry and toys and dishes seem to surround you.

But although that is the day to day substance of marriage and family, it doesn’t end there. For every sleepless night with a baby, there’s the pleasure of watching your husband become a father. For every shirt you iron, there’s the compliment and reassurance he couldn't do it

without you. For every busy day, there’s the hard won, precious quiet time when it’s just the two of you and you can marvel at the life you have built together, and laugh at everything that went wrong along the way.

Last but not least, a little act of kindness every day can work wonders. Too often, we overlook the fact that little things do really matter. I don’t know about you but I would much prefer something seemingly small done every day rather than a gigantic present given to me on one day in the year. Great things are not achieved overnight but built up little by little with small acts. It’s the same with love and romance in marriage.

You know your spouse best and what exactly they would appreciate the most.

It might be that you have a coffee flask ready for them when they are heading out the door to work, or a note slipped into their book, or that you schedule out an hour or two for them to focus on a hobby they enjoy, or taking those few minutes to really listen to his reply when you ask him how his day was. It can be anything at all and the beauty of

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a little act like this is that it shows your spouse they are always in your thoughts and you will always put them first.

Let’s face it, marriage is under attack and when society’s problems seem so big and we seem so small in the face of it all, we wonder what we can do to reverse the tide. I believe it is in starting small that we can make a difference. Each person can make sure that their marriage is the best that it can be, by loving their spouse not just with pretty flowers and sweet words but with thoughts and deeds. It is these things that will endure long after the outward signs of romance have slipped out of view. Happy Valentine’s!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Siobhan Scullion is an Arts graduate of Queens University Belfast and a regular contributor to Position Papers.

The Parish in a Time of Change

by Tom O’Flaherty

Whatever

changes may come about in the Church in the coming decades, it can be stated with some confidence that the place of the parish in Church life will remain as crucial as ever it has been. In 2003, in his PostSynodal Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Europa, St John Paul II said “In today’s Europe too, both in the post-Communist countries and in the West, the parish, while in need of constant renewal, continues to maintain and to carry out its particular mission, which is indispensable and of great relevance for pastoral care and the life of the Church. The parish is still a set-

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ting where the faithful are offered opportunities for genuine Christian living and a place for authentic interaction and socialisation, whether in the situations of dispersion and anonymity typical of large modern cities or in areas which are rural and sparsely populated.” (Ecclesia in Europa, 15) Likewise, in the very recent Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, he says “The parish is not an outdated institution; precisely because it possesses great flexibility, it can assume quite different contours depending on the openness and

missionary creativity of the pastor and the community.”

And Pope Francis goes on to say “The parish is the presence of the Church in a given territory, an environment for hearing God’s word, for growth in the Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration.

In all its activities the parish encourages and trains its members to be evangelisers. It is a community of communities, a sanctuary where the thirsty come to drink in the midst of their journey, and a centre of constant missionary outreach.

We must admit, though, that the call to review and renew our parishes has not yet sufficed to bring them nearer to people, to make them environments of living communion and participation, and to make them completely missionoriented.” (Evangelii Gaudium, 28) Against the exalted background of these words of the two Popes, this article offers some

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more mundane considerations about the life of the parish in Ireland today and in the immediate future, particularly in the context of the decline in numbers of priests. Because of this decline, if for no other reason, it seems inevitable that many aspects of parish life will have to change over the coming decades.

The thrust of much that is being said about forthcoming change is in the direction of a greater role for the laity in the life of the parish, whether as pastoral workers or in other capacities that will relieve over-stretched priests of some of their present workload. It will undoubtedly be of crucial benefit to the Church in the time ahead that lay members of the faithful will in increasing numbers be prepared to give of their time to assist in parish activities.

It is true of course that many already do so, in a multiplicity of roles from Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, and Ministers of the Word, to involvement in traditional lay organisations such as the St Vin-

cent de Paul Society and the Legion of Mary. But it is clear that the shortage of priests will present an additional challenge as this shortage becomes progressively more acute. It will increasingly demand that parochial functions which are not strictly reserved to the ordained ministry (i.e. tasks other than celebrating Mass and hearing Confession), will be carried out by suitably-trained laypeople, both male and female. A subtle but significant re-alignment of the line of demarcation between clergy and laity in the parish will have to take place.

In this regard, a crucial question which remains to be substantially addressed is how the required lay personnel are to be selected, trained and duly commissioned, and to what specific tasks they will be assigned. Are they to be full-time professionals, part-time professionals or simply voluntary helpers, or a combination of all three? The answers to these questions can probably best be arrived at by means of a structured dialogue involving both laity and clergy, initially at least at national level.

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The onus of initiating such a dialogue, however, must surely lie with the hierarchy, or at least with the bishop of an individual diocese.

An important proviso is that lay persons, who undertake quasiclerical duties in this way not be seen, either by others or by themselves, as in some way a superior class of laity to those who live out their Christian vocations in the purely secular domain. It is important, in other words, that the universal call to holiness – “Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) – not be seen as requiring participation by a lay person in quasi-clerical activities, valuable though these activities may be as a service to the Church.

To bring the discussion back to the parish level, however, it seems clear that an important instrument in guiding and facilitating the greater involvement of laity in parish duties will be the Parish Pastoral Council (PPC).

In accordance with a directive from Archbishop Diarmuid Martin early in his term of office,

PPCs have been in existence for several years in the parishes of the Dublin Archdiocese.

Whether they are in all cases functioning effectively is perhaps less certain. From personal experience, it does not appear to this writer that the precise functions, or the modus operandi, of a PPC have yet been defined with any degree of clarity.

Nor indeed has a wholly satisfactory procedure been evolved for the election/selection of the membership and chairperson of a PPC. It seems important as a minimum that this process be formalised on a basis acceptable to both clergy and laity. In addition, it is highly desirable that the procedures and practices in the functioning of a PPC attain the same standard of professionalism as one would expect to find in any well-run secular organisation. Only thus, it seems clear, can the work of a PPC be expected to have the kind of outcome that will contribute meaningfully to the welfare of the parish.

The thrust of this article lays great emphasis on the expand-

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ed role for the laity in the future life of the parish. Against this background, an important point needs to be made about the intrinsic importance of the priesthood in the Church. It may be a slight exaggeration, but it seems to this writer that in some of the current commentary about the shortage of priests there is an undertone which would, so to speak, shrug its shoulders about the scarcity of priests, with the implication that no matter how few priests there will be, it will just be a matter of the laity “stepping up to the plate�, leading some form of prayer service that does not require a priest, and everything will be fine.

This trend of thought ignores the reality that the Church cannot exist without priests, and the certainty that ultimately the Lord will provide labourers for his vineyard. For this to happen of course requires fervent prayer for vocations. It also requires positive projection to young men of the calling to the priesthood, as well as doing everything possible to enhance the morale of existing priests, which has inevitably been impaired by

events within the Church, as well as by growing secularism in society, in recent decades.

So the parishes of forthcoming decades will not be without priests, though they will have less than in the past, while suitably trained laity will play a greater part than heretofore.

Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium, has projected an inspiring vision for the place of the parish in the life of the future Church. It now falls to both clergy and laity “on the ground” to make this vision a reality.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tom O’Flaherty is a retired Chartered Engineer, and a member of a Parish Pastoral Council in the Archdiocese of Dublin.

A time for planting

by Rev. Eugene O’Neill

Coming as I do from a long line of farmers, this is the time of year, I remember, when granny would be planning the annual spring clean of the house – an epic undertaking; and my grandfather would sit in the evening before the range with his boots off and his feet on the fender, thinking through the planting of the purtas and the taking in of the silage; and getting ready for the lambing….

And though I’ve been a townie for most of my life, I think those old-time rhythms go deep: because it’s about now every year when I feel an itch to do those

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two things: clear out the house; and sow some seeds.

Basically: to have a look at all the clutter that used to have a purpose but now just sits there and gets in the way.

And part of me wants to put something into the ground and see will it spring up new.

And really, isn’t that what Lent is about?

Clearing out from our lives what’s leaving no room; planting a few seedlings and hoping they might take root.

It’s not so much about denial of self – but working with natural human instincts; using what’s there in life as a stepping stone to the Spirit.

When we were children at school, my teacher – Mrs Murray – would tell us what had been passed on to generations of children: that Lent came from the Old English word meaning “lengthening of the days”; and that we should do two things “give something old up; take something new up.”

And we were always warned that keeping a good Lent wasn’t about outward show but sincerity so that we would reach Easter Sunday Morning with a changed heart.

“Let your hearts be broken not your garments torn.”

The poet-priest, Robert Herrick, expressed the tension between faith’s outward form and inward reality and caught its human rhythms perhaps best of all: “Is this a fast, to keep The larder LEAN? And clean

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From fat of veals and sheep?

Is it to quit the dish Of flesh, yet still To fill The platter high with fish?

Is it to fast an hour, Or ragg’d to go, Or show A downcast look and sour?

No; ‘tis a fast to dole Thy sheaf of wheat, And meat, Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife, From old debate And hate; To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent; To starve thy sin, Not bin; And that’s to keep thy Lent.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rev. Eugene O’Neill is parish priest of Killyleagh, and of Crossgar, Co.Down and is a regular contributor to A Thought for the Day on BBC Radio Ulster.

On the problem with bad homilies

by Rev. George Rutler

When

asked to account for “bad preaching,” I go on the defensive since I preach and belong to that fraternity of those who may be the object of criticism. However, there is substance to the charge that much sacred oratory is done poorly and the reasons are more than can be given in a quick summary.

First, the nature of preaching is poorly understood and the very word has become something of a pejorative: “Don’t preach to me” and so forth. So euphemisms spring up, such as

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“delivering a homily” instead of preaching a homily. Singers sing and do not deliver a song.

Painters paint and do not deliver a painting. So preachers preach and do not deliver a homily.

Preaching will be inadequate if it is an afterthought or incidental to the liturgy. It never occurred to the Fathers of the Church that preaching was anything other than the chief duty, Primum Officium, of the Sacred Priesthood, as affirmed by the Council of Constance and the Council of Trent. The old Code of Canon Law called the homily a “legitimate interruption” of the Mass,

but Benedict XV and Pius XII formally declared otherwise. The preaching of the Gospel leads the faithful to the sacramental life, just as preaching outside the Liturgy, as a “proto-evangelion� is meant to convert others to the Faith.

Vatican II emphasized what always was present in this understanding, and the great pulpits of the Counter-Reformation architecture show the importance of preaching the Word. Christ is uniquely present in the Blessed Sacrament, but that patron of parish priests, St. John Vianney, said that he did not know which was worse: to not pay attention to the preacher or to let the Blessed Sacrament drop to the floor. St. Francis de Sales understood preaching as a form of prayer and said that it must be preceded not only by remote and immediate preparation, but also by meditation. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta told me once after Mass, perhaps as a gentle correction, that the preacher should pray and then tell the people what Jesus had told him.

Blessed is the preacher who could be on her kind of wave-

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length! Yet so high was her appreciation of the priestly character of preaching that she never would have dreamed of preaching in the Liturgy. The same was said of St. Francis of Assisi.

While Church law permits deacons to preach by exception during the Liturgy, diaconal preaching is essentially nonliturgical and catechetical. As a deacon, St. Francis would never preach in the presence of a priest.

Preaching has widely become rather moralizing and edifying rather than doctrinal. Even back in the depths of World War I, when Belgium was being crucified, the great Cardinal Mercier thought it important to reprimand priests for telling the people to love but not explaining why they should love.

Another problem is the failure to distinguish kinds of preaching.

As there are preludes, sonatas, and symphonies, so preaching has different forms. Some preaching is liturgical (homilies) and other kinds are devotional and also catechetical (sermons).

Sermons may be longer than

the homily. At Mass, some homilies are too short and some are too long. Once when Lord Melbourne told a curate that his sermon was short, the young cleric said, “I did not want to be tedious,” to which Melbourne replied, “But you were tedious.”

Like music, the length should not overwhelm the ritual, nor should it be only a pious hiccup or an intermission for entertainment.

The preacher’s motto is “cupio dissolvi.” That is, the preacher should be convincing by his integrity, so that what he is does not drown out what he says, but he should also “dissolve” and let Christ alone be encountered.

When the Gentiles went to Philip, they asked to see Jesus and not Philip. Just as the priest does not leave the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer, so should he remain in the pulpit, orambo, while preaching and not roam about in an affectation of intimacy which only draws attention to himself. Any revival of preaching will avoid the sort of self-conscious “celebrity” preacher who in times past

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would practice before mirrors and take bows.

As for humor, there are rare moments in sacred rhetoric when some whimsy is natural in passing, but at the Mass one is at Calvary and the preacher should only tell the jokes that John told the Blessed Mother as her son bled above her.

Not every priest is a Chrysostom or Bernardino, so if he is pressed with many other legitimate pastoral duties and his imagination is lax, he would do well just by recounting the life of a saint. The Internet makes preaching preparation much easier than any time in the past, and the challenge is “discerning spirits” so as not to follow poor models or wrong information. As Christ came to us “in the fullness of time,” a knowledge of history is essential. For a guide and source of ideas, I would cite the man whom I consider the greatest Catholic preacher of the twentieth century: Ronald Knox.

The preacher should have one point to make, and not try to ex-

haust the whole Gospel. He should mark clear from the start what his point is and then lead the people to it, rather like an Alpine guide who points out the summit and then leads the climbers up from the base along well-worn paths, knowing that for them the paths are ”ever ancient, ever new.”

This article first appeared on the Aleteia website: www.aleteia.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR The Rev. George W. Rutler is pastor of St. Michael's Church in Manhattan and author of Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Combat 1942-1943. According to a December 20 article in L’Osservatore Romano, the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments is coming out with a “homiletic directory,” a guide to good preaching.

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Christian unity: Are we missing the big picture?

by Rev. Patrick Burke

The Octave of prayer for Christian Unity was begun by Fr Paul Watson in New York in 1908. Fr Watson was inspired to begin this work by the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, as recorded in the Gospel according to St John, ‘that they all may be one’. During the more than one hundred years since the octave was initiated, great strides have been made in relations between those brothers and sisters in Christ who follow differing Christian traditions. In Ireland in particular much progress has been made over the course of the time that covers the living memories of many of those here tonight. It wasn’t all that long ago that a Catholic

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attending the funeral rites of a Protestant, or vice versa, was an unthinkable thing,and mixed marriages, while possible, were often a painful and difficult thing to both arrange and live out.

But for all the progress made, I wonder if the bigger picture has been missed. Our dealings with each other in the comfortable Western World are much better, it is true; but have we any sense of solidarity with our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, many of whom are suffering truly dreadful persecution on a daily basis for the sake of their Christian faith? How many here today would, for example, know that the most persecuted group in the world today are Chris-

tians? And how many are aware that literally thousands are martyred every year for no other reason than the fact that they refuse to renounce their faith in Christ?

If these facts were something you were unaware of, part of the problem may lie in the way the media fails to focus much attention on the outrages perpetrated against Christians. For example, two atrocious acts of terrorism took place last week. The first took place in Paris. There, as I’m sure you all know, a small number of Muslim extremists burst into the office of a satirical magazine and opened fire. Between that, and in the hostage situations that developed in the aftermath, seventeen people were killed. It was a horrendous incident, which made headlines around the world, and dominated much of the reporting on radio, television, and newspapers for many days after it happened.

At much the same time, there was another attack by Muslim extremists in another part of the world. Boko Haram militants attacked a town in Nigeria. At

least 2,000 were killed, possibly a great many more. It is hard to say - there were so many bodies they were impossible to count. Boko Haram, for those of you not familiar with them, are dedicated to promoting their own particular form of Islam, with violence being the primary tool of their evangelism. The majority of their victims to date have been Christians; although they are, of course, like so many terrorists, more than happy to kill anyone who happens to disagree with them.

The latter event has received relatively little coverage, despite the fact that it also was a terrorist act, and it also was carried out by religious extremists, even though around two hundred times more victims were claimed. Why the difference? Is it because the Paris attack was portrayed as an attack on the right to free speech? And yet the one in Nigeria was also an attack on a fundamental human right – the right to religious freedom?

It is one thing for the media to ignore those who suffer for ex-

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ercising their right to practice the religion that they choose; it is another thing altogether for Christians to ignore the suffering of Christians, with no better excuse than it is taking place somewhere else far away. What is the point of praying for Christian Unity, if we fail to take action to stand in solidarity with our suffering brothers and sisters?

That action may only be to express public outrage when they are persecuted; it may only be to urge our elected officials to speak out on our behalf to the leaders of the countries which allows this suffering to continue; it may only be to send a letter or an email to the diplomatic representatives of those nations that have a presence in our own country. It does not entail doing nothing and turning a blind eye when yet more of our fellow Christians are martyred.

I am reminded of the letter of St James, where the apostle reminded people that there was no point in wishing a person well, in telling the hungry and the naked that you truly hoped that they would be warm and well fed, and then doing nothing

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to help them. He called that kind of behaviour a dead faith. And that is how we are behaving, I believe, if we pray for Christian Unity, but fail to stand united with those who suffer for the faith. May our prayers for Christian Unity during the Octave be echoed in the actions we take in the days and weeks following: the action of being a voice for those who are suffering, a voice for those whom the world refuses to hear, a voice for our brothers and sisters to whom we are united in Christ.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR The Rev Patrick G Burke is Rector of Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny and a member of the Church of Ireland Council for Mission. He blogs at thewayoutthere1.blogspot.ie/

Film review: Boyhood

by Joseph McAleer

To

describe Boyhood (IFC) as unique is to underestimate a film that was shot in 39 days over the course of 12 years.

For this reason alone, Boyhood offers an unprecedented cinematic experience. In this greenscreen era of computer-generated effects, it's refreshing, even astonishing, to watch characters age naturally – if not gracefully – on the big screen.

Writer-director Richard Linklater (Before Midnight) sets out to chart "the rocky terrain of childhood" as no one has done before. As such, Boyhood has a documentary feel, and brings to mind Michael Apted's Up series, which checks in with the same participants every seven years.

But Boyhood is a work of fiction, and its tone of moral indifference ultimately will not resonate well with viewers of faith – or with those who cherish the loving bonds of family.

At its heart is Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane). We meet him as a perfectly ordinary 6-year-old boy in suburban Texas, and then

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follow his life to age 18 and his departure for college.

Along for the ride are his spunky sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater, the director's daughter), and his divorced mother, Olivia (Patricia Arquette). The lad's f a t h e r, M a s o n S r. ( E t h a n Hawke), is an occasional presence.

Olivia is restless and insecure.

She wants more out of life than being a mother, and uproots her family multiple times as she searches for a career and a new husband.

Mason Sr., on the other hand, is footloose and fancy free. He indulges his children whenever he sees them (which is not often), dispensing dime-store advice.

When Mason Jr. throws gutter balls at the bowling alley, upset that there are no bumpers in his lane, Dad tells him to grow up.

"You don't need bumpers. Life doesn't give you bumpers."

Divorce looms large in this movie, as children are forced to deal with their parents' inadequacies and their opposing methods of parenting, a situa-

tion made all the more challenging when Mom remarries (twice), and Dad finds another wife.

In the end, the children essentially raise themselves, and decide on their own what is right and wrong.

This is where Boyhood falls short. The film is critical of Olivia's poor taste in men (both of her new spouses are abusive alcoholics) as well as Mason Sr.'s narcissism. But when it comes to the bratty kids, judgment is suspended.

Mason Jr.'s journey is presented to the audience as perfectly natural, even normal. We watch him drink beer in middle school, and smoke pot and have sex in high school.

He is lazy, indifferent and rude, marching to his own drummer despite the protestations of his mother and teachers. In the end, he is an admired figure, possessing a "wisdom" that seems beyond his years.

While many viewers may identify with Mason Jr.'s experience, that does not make his actions morally acceptable.

Not surprisingly, Boyhood has no time for religion, even when Mason Sr. marries a sweet lady from the Bible Belt who manages to reform his freewheeling ways. Her gun-toting parents

give Mason Jr. a Bible for his birthday, played as a cringe-worthy moment.

Samantha laments, "You're not becoming one of those God people, are you Dad?" Heaven forbid.

The film contains a benign attitude toward drug and underage alcohol use, teenage sex, and contraception, an ambivalent portrayal of religion, occasional profanity and frequent crude language. The Catholic News Service classification is L – limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R – restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph McAleer is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service. This article is reprinted with the kind permission of Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com). Copyright (c) 2015 Catholic News Service.

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Interdiocesan Retreats For Priests 2 Feb (9pm) - 6 Feb (10am) 2015 23 Mar (9pm) - 27 Mar (10am) 2015 The retreat will be preached by a priest of Opus Dei Prelature and will also include plenty of time for silence and private prayer.

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