Freedom in peace

Pope Francis is encouraging parishes and schools to participate in a Season of Creation, commencing 1 September and ending on 4 October, the feast of St Francis of Assisi. We are called to prayer, reflection and action towards care of our common home, the planet earth.

 

'I tell you solemnly once again, if to or you on earth agree to ask anything at all, it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them.

Matthew 18:19 - 20

Among the thousands of young men who gave up their lives at Gallipoli was a young 19 year old Catholic lad, Hohepa Marino. He was born in Rotorua to Ihaka and Wirihe Marino and lived just outside Rotorua in Mamaku. Hohepa was a timber worker before he enlisted on 8 October 1914. With the first Maori Contingent of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force Hohepa sailed from Wellington aboard the SS Warrimoo on 14 February 1915, then disembarking in the seaport of Suez (Egypt) on 26 March.  

Major-General Sir Alexander Godley, commander of the NZEF was unwilling to send the Maori Contingent into Gallipoli and instead sent them to Malta for further training. Rapidly increasing casualties and the need for reinforcements forced a change in imperial policy on native peoples fighting. The Contingent landed at Anzac Cove on 3 July 1915 where they joined the NZ Mounted Rifles. Hohepa fought at Chunuk Bair in early August and on Hill 60 later that month. He died of wounds on 2 September 1915 and is buried at Embarkation Pier, Gallipoli. He was mourned by his family and is named on war memorials in Tikitiki, Rotorua, Gisborne and Auckland.

Hohepa was my great-grandmother's brother.

102 years have passed since the end of the First World War and 75 years since the end of the Second World War. 9.7 million military deaths and 10 million deaths of civilians were recorded in the First War. The Second War cost upwards of 25 million military deaths and somewhere between 40 – 52 million civilian deaths.

No single country on this earth escaped unaffected from these most tragic and destructive wars. Some Eastern European countries lost up to 14% of their entire populations.  The magnitude of the losses in these two great wars can be expressed in a myriad of statistics, but is most aptly portrayed in the stone memorials that reach across the globe and upon which are etched the names of those whose lives were lost.

They had names. Hohepa, Edward, Wallace,  Adrian, Tom Awatere, Marino, Joseph: they were loved, they had promise, they had futures, they had dreams. Yet they were buried in foreign lands, far from home, far from the hearths of their childhoods.

And this is how we must measure war. Its victims are not fragile, faded memories: they lived and breathed, were present, were flesh and blood, they sang and cried. They are real.

And that is why the Christian has an unshakeable belief in the resurrection. There are songs that are yet to be sung, stories yet to be told, love still to be shared. It is not just a promise; it is because our God is a God of justice and mercy. Such a God could not desert those whom he loved to be mere scratches on stone; he will make amends. This prayer has been raised by the millions of mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, brothers and sisters and children of those who lost loved ones in the evil of war.

In the liturgy this Sunday we pray:

O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption,

look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters.

that those who believe in Christ

may receive true freedom

and an everlasting inheritance.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

(Opening prayer from the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A)

We too are named, loved and known and our place in the heart of God is assured for true freedom will be ours to enjoy in our everlasting inheritance.

To all our fathers, may your Sunday be blessed, and may you come to know and celebrate God’s love for you. For us all, let us make true peace the foundation stone of our nations so that we will no longer know war.

Peter Douglas

  

These are the service men and women in my family and Toni's. This is not dissimilar to millions of families throughout Australia and NZ whose parents, children, siblings, and cousins went to war for their country.

Killed and MIA

Private Hohepa Marino, NZEF Maori Contingent, died of wounds, Gallipoli, 2 September 1915, aged 19 (great-grandmother Rangikahiwa Roto Macpherson’s brother)

Private Marino Macpherson, NZ 28^th Battalion KIA Western Desert 16 December 1941, aged 33 (paternal grandmother’s brother)

Flight Sergeant Wallace John Douglas RNZAF 489 Squadron MIA off coast of Norway 9 April 1943, aged 21 (Father’s brother)

Warrant Officer II Adrian Vincent Douglas RNZAF 149 Squadron, KIA 6 September 1943 aged 23 (Father’s brother)

Private Edward Douglas, NZ 28^th Battalion, KIA Tunisia 20 April 1943, aged 25 (Father’s 1^st cousin)

Private Joseph Douglas, NZ 28^th Battalion, KIA Tunisia 20 April 1943, aged 23 (Father’s 1^st cousin)

Private Tamati (Tom) Awatere, NZ 28^th Battalion, KIA Western Desert, 23 November 1941, aged 30 (Maternal grandfather’s brother)

Returned servicemen and women

Temporary Corporal Geoffrey Kereti Rogers NZ 28^th Battalion (Maternal grandmother’s brother)

Lt Colonel Peter Awatere DSO MC, Commander NZ 28^th Battalion (grandfather)

Corporal Herbert Douglas, RNZAF RAF (father’s brother)

Private Turi Macpherson, NZ 28^th Battalion (Maternal grandmother’s brother)

Sergeant Basil Macpherson, NZ 28^th Battalion (Maternal grandmother’s brother)

Frank Macpherson, RNZAF (Maternal grandmother’s brother)

Lieutenant Basil Thomas O’Halloran, Australian Army 53 Anti Tank Regiment (Toni’s uncle)

Sub Lt Geoffrey Allen O’Halloran, RAN HMAS Huon (Toni’s uncle)

Captain Gwendoline Healey, Australian Army, Australian General Hospital (Toni’s paternal grandmother’s sister)

AB Harata Douglas, RNZN (niece)

Staff Sergeant Wayne Wanakore (Renee’s husband)

Bradley Rossi RNZAF (1st cousin)

Mark Johnson RNZAF (1st cousin)

Serving

Piripi Douglas NZ Army (nephew)

Chanan Douglas RNZAF (nephew)

Maria Hodge NZ Army (niece)

Reserves (Territorials)

Renee Douglas (niece)

Brett Giles Douglas (brother, deceased)

 

Nice to have, but we don’t need churches

Fr Bill Grimm MM

Just as Christians in the 21st century are heirs of the apostles and martyrs of the early Church, Christians in Japan are heirs of the martyrs and hidden Christians of that country from the early 17th century to the late 19th century.

That is true whether we modern believers are Japanese or not, Catholic Christians or not. The Church within which we live and worship endured persecution so recent that I know a woman whose grandfather died a martyr.

The rest of her family — parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews — was wiped out on Aug. 9, 1945, when the atomic bomb exploded over the Catholic neighbourhood of Nagasaki. She was the only member of the family out of town that day.

During the centuries of persecution, Christians in Japan had no church buildings, no clergy, no religious, no Masses, no religious institutions, no diocesan structures, and no contact with the rest of the Church in the country or outside.

What they did have was each other and a commitment to maintain as well as they could the faith that was passed on to them and to pass it on to the next generations even at the risk of their lives.

They were poor, oppressed and lived in perpetual danger, but they prayed and shared their ability to help one another in need. In many ways, it was the Golden Age of Christianity in Japan.

Those Japanese Christians knew that church is not someplace to go, but something to be, something to do.

The coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity to learn or relearn that today.

We have had to be faithful without much of what we thought essential, symbolized by a building and what goes on inside it.

But God is still with us whether we are in a cross-decorated building or not. The real issue is, are we with God?

Around the world, there are Christians who clamour to have their buildings reopen so that they might exercise their Christianity.

They ignore the fact that confronted with a highly contagious disease; the most Christian thing to do is to protect others by following the advice of disease experts.

Jesus never told his followers to gather in a particular place each week. He did say that our lives would be judged on whether or not we respond to him in our needy sisters and brothers. He did say that when we pray, we should go apart to a private place and pray in secret to the Father who sees what happens in secret.

When he spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said that places are not important, that what matters is worship “in spirit and truth.”

The woman had asked him where proper worship should be done, at the temple on Mt. Gerizim or at the temple in Jerusalem.

His answer was basically, “Neither.”

In that case, do we need buildings at all if we can and should pray anywhere and everywhere?

We do not and we do.

Originally, Christians gathered in homes. Besides being persecuted, Christian communities were small enough to not need special buildings and were too poor to erect them.

Eventually, as numbers increased, homes were modified to allow larger gatherings.

The remains of the oldest known one are in Dura-Europos in Syria.

Its frescos, the earliest surviving Christian art, are in a museum at Yale University in the United States.

Over time as Christian communities grew, buildings were adapted or erected for liturgical use.

The three-aisle layout that is so common in churches comes from basilicas (public halls) that were repurposed into churches or were the architectural model for them.

So, we have buildings in which we gather in the name of Jesus so that our discipleship can be confirmed, nurtured, confronted, affirmed and comforted.

But the discipleship is the important thing.

Without that, the gatherings are nearly worthless. And that is the reason this pandemic is an opportunity for each of us. Discipleship does not require a particular kind of building or a particular kind of gathering.

Buildings, Sunday gatherings, public prayers and hymns are the accompaniments of religion, but not the essence of Christianity.

Christianity is not a religion.

It has religious trimmings, but its most basic reality is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The “religious” trappings aid our commitment to and celebration of that relationship but are not the relationship.

Now that the danger of contagion makes the buildings and large gatherings unavailable, we are invited to concentrate on what our faith really is.

It is prayer, service and trust that we celebrate with others when we can, but which we must live regardless of circumstances.

We can gather few by few to break open the Word, break the Bread, and share our faith. We can be church, as were the persecuted Christians of Japan.

Fr Bill Grimm is a Maryknoll missioner who lives in Japan.

Modelling

Do not model yourselves on the behaviour of the world around you, but

let your behaviour change, modelled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants,

what is the perfect thing to do.

Roman 12:2

Having lived several years with my grandparents I returned home to my parents and (then) eight siblings soon after my 9^th birthday. In retrospect, I tried my very hardest to please my parents. I thought and believed that I had to make my mark in the family*. Now, no 9 year old could possibly know the mind or will of his parents, and I certainly did not. I now know, of course, that I did not need to earn my parents’ love, but I certainly was ambitious to be a very good son. I am not after a mark out of ten, but I was a probably a much better child than I am an adult! But it does beg the question: How do we know what is in the mind of others?

And yet this is what the prophet Jeremiah (20:7 - 9) struggled with in his attempt to know the will of God. He opened himself utterly and totally to God but discovers that knowing the mind of God is unbearable, for ‘there seemed to be a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones’. For Paul the only way to discover the will of God is by offering our bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God (Roman 12:1 – 2). When Jesus tells the disciples of his destiny (Matthew 16:21 – 27) Peter argues with him. This is man’s way, not God’s way he is told.

So, knowing the mind of God is not an easy path, for it asks us to hand ourselves over to him – not to be pawns in a divine game, but in order to model humility, justice and loving-kindness. If we do this, we might well suffer the derision and insults suffered by Jeremiah, but we also walk away with integrity.

As a parent I don’t fool myself that I don’t want my children to please me. I do. But in doing so I am honestly asking them to reach out, to seek their potential as human beings – not to follow a path predestined or predetermined for them by me. There has to be integrity in the choices that we make and undoubtedly for a young person in the second decade of the 21^st century, for your children and grandchildren, there are tough decisions to make. Knowing what God has in mind for you will take time, study, patience and prayer, but the reward will be truly knowing yourself and a key to eternal life. Knowing God's mind can only been captured in the smallest of glimpses, but even these glimpses can be totally and utterly transforming.

Peter Douglas

*What can a 9 year old do to get noticed, you might ask? Well, you could make porridge for the whole family each morning, you could do the spuds and put the roast on for Mum and later on get the younger siblings organised, mow lawns, cook tea, bake cakes, be a tidy freak - in fact, be a pain in the neck to everyone but your parents who would naturally adore you. It's true. And it worked.

Can we make retreats better? How modern Catholics are reinventing an ancient tradition.

Thomas P. Joyce ’59 Contemplative Centre

West Boylston, Massachusetts

Jim McDermott SJ

The term retreat implies an action that is also a location; we withdraw to some place away from our normal lives.

And yet the physical structure of the place where we go on retreat, things like its layout and interior design, are key elements for our experience as well. “Our bodies are our primary way of knowing the world,” the architect Terrence Curry, S.J., says. The way that world is structured informs everything from how we feel and think about ourselves to our experience of God.

Some architectural features of religious structures seem to work for everybody. Father Curry notes the way “immensity and infinity induce a quality of awe” as well as the satisfaction we all take from a composition that is coherent and engaging. “Our brains are constantly trying to make sense of things; every time we look at a space we try to make sense of it.”

Other design choices are not so universally accepted. Consider the 1950s-style retreat centres, massive old novitiate buildings and convents out in the woods somewhere repurposed into hardy meat-and-potatoes places. For some their concrete monumentalism offers a comforting sense of permanence, a God who is strong and unflappable. Others find that such structures make us feel small and inconsequential. They seem to require submission instead of inviting a relationship with God.

Today a number of designers of retreat centres around the country are thinking intentionally about this relationship between physical environment and spiritual experience. Their work suggests key ways that design can help people grow in their relationship with God.

Spiritual Exercises in Glass and Stone

For decades the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., offered the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius four times a year at a diocesan retreat centre on the Atlantic Ocean in Narragansett, R.I., about two hours from the college campus. The experience was very popular. “You hear stories of married couples taking their children to show them the spot where they made their retreat,” says Paul Harman, S.J., the university’s former vice president of mission.

When the retreat centre closed, Holy Cross began considering the possibility of creating a place of their own. Years of exploration finally led them to 50 acres of woodlands overlooking the Wachusett Reservoir near Worcester.

The site checked a number of boxes. Its location just 15 minutes from campus would allow the college chaplains to offer not just weekends or weeks away but programs on weekdays or evenings. And the spectacular views would give them the best of what they had known previously. “Narragansett was a clue for us,” says Marybeth Kearns-Barrett, director of the Office of the College Chaplains. “We knew we wanted something that had some sense of the natural world and God’s presence in that, a place that would leave you sort of in awe.”

Michael Pagano, the project’s lead architect from Lamoureux Pagano Associates, spent months learning from the university’s planning committee not only about the kinds of programs the chaplains planned to conduct at the centre, but also about the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola that informed them. In the end, the group decided that every element of the building should be inspired in some way by the Spiritual Exercises.

Simplicity became a key element in fulfilling that desire. The design would rely on just a few main materials—glass, stone, wood. The layout would likewise be easy to understand, with the public spaces of the dining room, meeting room and chapel all on one side of the building and the residential wing on the other. The simpler the building’s structure, the designers believed, the fewer potential distractions it would pose, and the easier it would be for people to feel at home. “We wanted students to feel they can breathe here,” explained Megan Fox-Kelly, associate chaplain and director of retreats. The hoped-for result, Mr. Pagano says, “is a sense of comfort and of being welcomed. A quiet mind.”

The idea of creating a space with minimal distractions led to other choices as well. The parking lot was placed down the hill and behind the centre, where it was not likely to be seen. The centre is also located at the end of a winding, four-block long uphill driveway through a wooded area, which gives retreatants a physical experience of leaving behind the ordinary world. The three-story building was also built into the hill rather than on top of it. “We wanted the natural landscape to dominate the experience,” Mr. Pagano explains.

Ms. Kearns-Barrett had visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Ariz., and was struck by the way Wright tried to make the outdoors blend seamlessly with the indoors. “This idea of bringing the outdoors in is so Ignatian,” she says. “We’re always trying to say, ‘Look at the world; there you will find God, in all of its beauty and all of its roughness and all of its overwhelming awesomeness.’”

Everywhere you go on the public side of the Joyce Centre you find full-length windows that offer views of the reservoir below, over which the sun rises each morning. It creates “a wonderful way to centre prayer,” says Philip Boroughs, S.J., the president of Holy Cross. Ms. Kearns-Barrett agrees, noting the view also has a way of drawing students out of themselves: “Sometimes a retreat can become so self-focused. To see what’s outside, it’s like something bigger than yourself always calling back to you.”

Meanwhile the 48 bedrooms on the western side each have large windows looking out on nearby woods through which the sun sets. The rooms off the chapel for spiritual direction and confession were also given substantial windows with woodsy views. “In some [retreat centres] the direction rooms can feel so dark and cold,” Ms. Fox-Kelly explains. “We wanted ours to be a space where students could feel comfortable and invited.”

In reading about St. Ignatius, Mr. Pagano was touched by the story of how he used to love to look up at the stars. To provide some sense of that experience, Mr. Pagano gave the chapel 52 small ball-shaped light fixtures at different heights and in a pattern that subtly mirrors a spiral galaxy. Students “will sit or lie on the ground and look up at them,” says Ms. Fox-Kelly. “It’s pretty amazing.”

In considering artwork for the building, chaplains chose pieces that reflect the main scriptural images they tend to use in retreats. “If retreatants want to pray with this passage from Scripture, we can invite people to go and sit in front of it,” says Ms. Fox-Kelly.

Meanwhile Father Boroughs had the idea to include photographs of religious iconography from campus, like details of statues; and Ms. Kearns-Barrett invited the artists who had designed the altar, lectern and crucifix in the college chapel to design the pieces for the Joyce chapel as well. The hope is that these kinds of details might allow the experience people have at the centre to continue back at home. “I go back to campus and I’m reminded of my retreat again,” explains Ms. Fox-Kelly.

The centre also offers a great variety of spaces in which to pray. In addition to the chapel and dining room, alcoves throughout the building offer quiet spaces in which people can sit and look out on the reservoir, the forest, an interior courtyard or some of the building’s artwork. The entrance room to the building is also designed like the living room of a home, with a fireplace, couches and a long shelf abutting the window, where students like to set up pillows and blankets.

The centre seems to inspire such personal adaptations naturally. Discovering the long windows looking into the forest in the largely quiet stairwells, students moved chairs there. A chaplain had the idea to turn some chairs near the dining room toward the side courtyard. “It was like a whole other new experience,” Ms. Kearns-Barrett says. “So many kids started eating their meals facing out in those chairs, or just sitting there during the day.” The design of the building thus has become a means of living out the invitation of an Ignatian retreat, empowering people to trust in their own instincts and relationship with God.

Christ in the Desert: Refuge and Wonder

Nestled between mesas 13 miles down a treacherous, winding, red dirt road in north central New Mexico, the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert has surprisingly few buildings. The abbey proper and a small church sit at the top of a rise. The church is built from the same stone as the mesas that rise behind it, as though it had been carved out from them.

A simple adobe guesthouse and a small free-standing ranch house lie a five-minute walk down the hill. In terms of architecture, that’s it. If the Joyce Centre’s aim is to blur the separation between indoors and out, Christ in the Desert instead offers the canyon setting itself as the “structure” to inspire people’s spiritual experience.

The Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico is built from the same stone as the mesas that rise behind it, as though it had been carved out from them (photo: CNS).

There is wisdom in that decision. The silence and stillness of the mesas have a powerful effect on the place; they function as a high pressure front, forcing you to slow down and step gently. Over the course of days the space seems to naturally draw away any busyness within, leaving you room to simply be still and meet God in the silence and subtle beauties of this place.

The abbey church, designed in the 1960s by George Nakashima, takes its cue from the land around it, not only in its stone construction but also in the massive panes of glass that circle the upper walls. Much as at the Joyce Centre, the world is offered as material for contemplation—the skies and cliffs that rise around the church, their colors constantly changing with the light; the moon and stars at night.

Here the invitation of the architecture calls forth a physical response. One’s eyes are constantly drawn upward to those windows; the body naturally takes on a posture of seeking, of looking beyond oneself. It is a pose well-suited to a structure built for the Liturgy of the Hours, sung here by the monks throughout the day. Worshipers looking upward mirror the monks’ voices raised in hope to the Lord.

The Benedictines have come to use the setting in meaningful ways. Incense at Sunday Mass creates material with which the sunlight pouring in forms beams, until the entire church is filled with them, transforming the small, simple prayer space into something otherworldly. Likewise, the large, freestanding tabernacle, which when open displays icons of saints from nine countries (representing some of the different nationalities of the monks), glows golden in the afternoon sun. When praying in this church, the notion of the Mass as an inbreaking of eternity becomes a lived experience.

The guesthouse down the road has an unexpectedly fortress-like quality; there are no windows or reception area, just a set of wooden beam doors that take a bit of puzzling out to unlatch. From outside you have no sense of what lies within: 13 rooms nestled around a courtyard and looking out on the gorgeous mesas and river of the Chama Valley.

But as disconcerting as that entrance seems—so different from the typical retreat house—with it comes an immediate sense of privacy and ownership. For the days you are here it is clear: This is your space. The guidebook placed in each room goes further: “This orientation will surely not answer every question that you will have during your stay,” the guestmaster writes. “We have found that searching for God is always a bit mysterious and requires the need to wonder, to puzzle, to reflect and to pray for a deeper understanding of what lies right before us.”

In his book The Poetics of Space, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard talks about the human need for cave-like spaces. “It gives [one] a physical pleasure,” he writes, to dwell within “the primitiveness of the refuge.”

In a place where brutal heat, cold or precipitation can descend and the darkness of night is sometimes frighteningly absolute, the guest rooms at Christ in the Desert very much function like Bachelard’s cave. Many are little more than cells in size, yet the craftsmanship of the furniture somehow provides an immediate feeling of comfort and home.

The most significant item in each room is a large reproduction of a religious painting, like Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s poignant image of St. Francis embracing the crucified Christ. Placed in such small, simple quarters, the art offers its own powerful invitation into prayer.

Christian Leisy, O.S.B., the abbot of the monastery, notes that the retreat centre’s location in a canyon is a somewhat unusual place for a Benedictine community. “Benedictine abbeys are traditionally located on mountains,” he explains. “That’s the tradition of Monte Cassino or Subiaco.” But he believes their physical location creates a unique spiritual experience: “I think of God cradling us in this space in so many ways.”

The Spiritual Ministry Centre: No Place Like Home

From the outside, the Spiritual Ministry Centre in the Ocean Beach community of San Diego looks like a set of two-story townhouses in the middle of a suburban block. Farther down the street children run around playing with their dog, while guys sit in lawn chairs listening to the Padres on the radio. This is a community of yard sales and American flags, bird feeders and the kind of gently swaying palm trees one sees in the movies. A 10-minute walk away, in the centre of town, tourists wander past souvenir shops while homeless children sell paintings and beg for change along the beach.

It is an unexpected location, in other words, for a retreat house. And intentionally so; when the Society of the Sacred Heart decided to start a retreat centre in 1987, they did so inspired by the idea of bringing together contemplation and normal life. “The thought was to leave these isolated, protected big houses where everyone is holed up and be immersed in the regular, ordinary life,” says Marie-Louise Flick, R.S.C.J., the director of the centre.

At the Spiritual Ministry Centre in the Ocean Beach community of San Diego, every detail of the space has been considered with an eye toward giving retreatants an experience of home. The front two townhouses of the centre serve as a community for the nuns who work there and a gathering place for workshops on prayer, psychology, spirituality and art. Meanwhile, the back half offers rooms for up to four retreatants, who may come for anything from a weekend or evening to 40 days.

Every detail of the space has been considered with an eye toward giving retreatants an experience of home. The beds are much bigger than one would normally find in a retreat centre, with comfortable mattresses and bed linens. The rooms also have a pleasant sitting area, large walk-in closets and an en suite bathroom. “We believe comfort is important,” explains Sister Flick.

At the same time there is simplicity to the space. “We don’t have a lot of fluff around,” says Sister Flick. The artwork on the walls is understated, and while the furniture is comfortable, it doesn’t all match. Nor do the sheets. For the sisters, that, too, is about creating a feeling of home. “Our model is that we are not institutional,” says Jane O’Shaughnessy, R.S.C.J., a staff member. “People can come, and the retreat is arranged the way they’d like.”

The idea of going on retreat to a place that looks quite like the one you left at home may seem odd. And yet the sisters have witnessed how being in a space that looks and feels like a home without all the responsibilities of one creates a sense of freedom and rest. “People really do like the ease of it,” says Sister O’Shaughnessy. “They find their comfort zone.”

Cooking for oneself—part of the setup of the centre—has turned out to be a powerful part of that experience for some, as well. “People really like the freedom to eat what they want when they want,” explains Sister Flick. “It creates a kind of hermitage for people; it actually kind of amplifies their silence and their routines.”

And on a pleasant San Diego evening, having a simple meal by yourself on a patio as the stars slowly come out is itself a kind of spiritual experience. The light changes so gradually, you find yourself naturally starting to slow down, savoring the world around you.

The other thing that has made the Spiritual Ministry Centre uniquely attractive for retreatants is its proximity to the commercial district of Ocean Beach. For visitors, the neighborhood streets become a part of the experience, a kind of actual labyrinth space in which their physical wandering can mirror what they are going through spiritually. And oftentimes in that activity retreatants have powerful experiences of discovering or being discovered by God. Sister O’Shaughnessy recalled a woman from the East Coast: “She came with her surfboard, rented a bicycle and she was all over the place. When I met with her and asked where was Jesus, [she said] Jesus was on the rock, he was out there surfing, ‘He was there with me.’”

In Margaret Visser’s The Geometry of Love, a best-selling book on the architecture and spirituality of St. Agnes Church in Rome, the author writes, “A church is deliberately ordered toward consequences, toward the future.” It is laid out “with a certain trajectory of the soul in mind.” It has a “plot,” a story being told.

For as different as they are in setting and design, the Joyce Contemplative Centre, the Monastery of Christ in the Desert and the Spiritual Ministry Centre share an interest in simplicity and in the world as a fundamental source of grace. These features give them a slightly different orientation from Visser’s image of church. Rather than being pointed toward a future, the modern retreat house intends a deepened appreciation of the multitudinous present, an opportunity to discover, as Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., wrote, that “Christ plays in ten thousand places,/ Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his.”

Like all Catholic institutions, these centres have as both their foundation and purpose our shared story, the story of salvation. And yet rather than directing people where to go, they seem built to enable all who visit to meet the God who loves them as they are, in their own way.

This article appears in print, under the headline “And the word became steel and stone ,” in the September 2020, issue of America Magazine.

The mind of God

How rich are the depths of God - how deep his wisdom and knowledge - and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods! Who could ever know the mod of the Lord? Who cold ever be his counsellor? Who could ever give him anything or lend him anything? All that exists comes from all. all is  by him and  for him. To him be glory for ever1 Amen.

Romans 11:33 - 36

A question put to us by St Paul himself is (Romans 11:34): Who could ever know the mind of the Lord?

How do we explain the way things are? Those big questions that our children ask when we least expect: Where did I come from? Why did grandpa die?  Is there really a God? Why doesn’t daddy live with us anymore? The list of questions, as you know, is long. Some of these questions may well be our own questions, maybe they were never answered to our own satisfaction when we first asked our own parents. Imagine then, attempting to know the mind of God.

There is no doubt that the sciences have been able to explain many of the questions we might have asked. We have an understanding of the planetary, solar and galaxy systems from Galileo and his successors. From the work of Kubler-Ross and others, we have an understanding of the process of death and suggestions of what might lie beyond. Social scientists and psychologists are able to make connections about the relationships we have and provide support when marriages and families break down. When our children learn about love, they know that is the reason they are conceived and welcomed into our families. The biology is no longer frightening.

There are still big questions, however, such as, How did life begin? Even, Why did life begin? That I would like answered. Knowing the mind of God would make getting answers so much easier. 

Science comes from the Latin word scientia meaning knowledge. And knowledge itself is acquired through education, skill and experience. Knowledge, according to Plato needed to be justified, true and believed if it was to truly be knowledge. This he and many others have explored in the philosophy of epistemology. So what knowledge do we have of God, or of his mind? What are our sources of this information? Our human reason has come up with several propositions for knowing all that needs to be known (also known as theories of everything) – e.g. string theory, loop quantum gravity, causal dynamical triangulations, quantum Einstein gravity and quantum gravity theories. One source that is not theory – but reliant on experience - experience of over three thousand years - is sacred scripture. Passed on by word of mouth, recorded in writing, edited, added to and held in the highest esteem, the mind of God was revealed, his intentions for his creation and his creatures made plain, his divine plan for us all is made known, his salvation made explicit though Jesus.

We need not seek to know what is in the mind of God, for he had already given his own son for us to know, love, trust and befriend – there is no secret theory, our God is an open book, and most extraordinarily we fin discover how rich are the depths of God (Romans 11:33).

Peter Douglas

Dark arts in pursuit of the seat of St Peter

by C Lamb

This summer, several voices long dissatisfied with Pope Francis have started to beat the drum roll for change. There has been a stream of press articles and social media posts, and last month two books were published, both titled The Next Pope. There is nothing unusual about chatter in Roman trattorias about who the next Pope might be, naturally exacerbated when the incumbent is in his eighties. In 2020, however, opponents of Francis are not only idly speculating, but channelling their energies into trying to influence the next conclave. There is going to be an almighty battle.

Let’s be clear: even though Francis is 83, and has run a gruelling schedule for seven and a half years as the 266th successor of St Peter, there are no indications that he is unwell or suffering from any specific health problem. Cardinal Michael Czerny SJ, one of Francis’ closest collaborators, told me during a webinar for The Tablet last month that the Pope had successfully adapted his ministry to the Covid-19 pandemic and was “in good health, good humour and good hope”.

Francis shows no signs of slowing down. Following his July “staycation” in the Casa Santa Marta, the Pope said last week that his forthcoming Wednesday general audiences would be devoted to Catholic Social Teaching, so that the Church can help “prepare the future” in the light of Covid-19. He continues to push through a programme of Vatican reforms, as we saw most recently with a raft of new appointments that included six women to the council that oversees Holy See finances.

In 1995, in a book also called The Next Pope, the papal biographer and Rome cor-

respondent of The Tablet, Peter Hebblethwaite, surveyed the possible successors to John Paul II, as did another distinguished Vaticanwatcher, John Allen, in 2002 in Conclave. At that time, however, the Polish Pope had held office for more than two decades and was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Neither Hebblethwaite nor Allen were foolish enough to predict when the next conclave might begin; as Jesus warned, “you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13).

So where is the current talk of a new Pope coming from? The conclave chatter is loudest among a vocal minority of Catholics, mainly in the United States, who have made little secret of their hope that the Francis pontifi cate has been an unfortunate historical blip. He is an obstacle to their vision of a Church that emphasises doctrinal purity, defends the unfettered free market, and joins the culture wars to fight on the side of conservatives and traditionalists against liberals and progressives. Their goal is simple: to make sure the next man to be elected Pope follows their theological, political and social agenda.

Some of the campaign activity has more in common with the cynical politicking of Washington DC than with quiet reflection and patient discernment of spirits. Along with the new books, a project called the “Red Hat Report” is under way with the aim of preventing a repeat of the 2013 conclave.

Detailed dossiers on possible cardinal candidates at the next conclave are being prepared; launching the initiative at the Catholic University of America in 2018, the organisers said they had hired ex-FBI investigators and planned to delve into cardinals’ sexual orientation and to edit their Wikipedia entries to link them to scandals.

MEANWHILE, one of the books published this summer on the next Pope could be described in political jargon as “opposition research” seeking to push the conclave towards reversing the direction Francis has been taking the Church. Written by Edward Pentin, Rome correspondent for the National Catholic Register, and “an international team of scholars”, it offers profiles of 19 papabile, the men Pentin considers the most plausible candidates to be elected to succeed Francis.

Included on the Pentin shortlist are three cardinals among the most prominent conservative critics of the Francis reform agenda: the former Vatican doctrinal chief Gerhard Müller; leader of the English-speaking world’s traditionalist Catholics, Raymond Burke; and the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Robert Sarah. The book is published by Sophia Institute Press, which has been behind several titles deeply hostile to this pontificate. It operates in partnership with Catholic media conglomerate EWTN (the Eternal Word Television Network), which regularly offers a platform to those unhappy with this Pope. The National Catholic Register is owned by EWTN.

The other “next Pope” book, written by St John Paul II biographer George Weigel, does not discuss possible successors to Francis.

Instead, it outlines the qualities Weigel regards as essential if the new Pope is to reverse the catastrophic direction in which he argues the Church is headed. The thinly veiled critique of the current papacy includes sharp disagreement with Francis’ decision not to respond to the four cardinals who challenged the orthodoxy of his opening of the door to a return to Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. Weigel argues that the next Pope must avoid the temptation for what he calls “Catholic Lite”: the watering down of teaching on moral questions – contraception, abortion, divorce, homosexuality – is why, he says, the Church in Europe is moribund, and a new Pope is needed to reassert traditional teaching without compromise.

In a highly surprising move, every cardinal in the world has been sent a copy of Weigel’s book, along with a letter praising its contents from New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan. The US prelate’s decision to champion a book so sharply critical of the Francis papacy appears to run contrary to John Paul II’s 1996 constitution forbidding cardinals from discussing papal successors. It again illustrates the problems Francis faces with some parts of the US hierarchy.

Behind these attempts to sway the next conclave is a desire to see the papacy play a more aggressive role in the global culture wars, something the Pope refuses to do. At a geopolitical level, his repeated – sometimes lonely – defence of migrants and asylum seekers and his bridge-building with other religions and cultures have been a powerful buffer against global forces, especially among conservative Catholics in the US who want to enlist the Catholic Church in their battle against liberalism, Islam and China.

Francis has been a counterweight to populist-nationalist trends seen in popular support for Donald Trump in the US, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Italy’s right-wing leader Matteo Salvini. All seek to use Christian imagery and language in their political campaigning. But another Pope in the Francis mould would continue to resist hitching the Church’s wagon to the populist agenda, which is why the stakes at the next conclave are so high.

At the European Academy of Religion’s digital conference at the end of June, Professor Kristina Stoeckl, a sociologist at the University of Innsbruck, offered an analysis of the global culture wars. She argued that conservative Christians from across denominations were coalescing around a “traditional values” agenda which opposes liberal democratic protection of minorities. “They challenge, very often, the leadership of their Churches,” she explained during a keynote lecture. “Look at the criticism of Pope Francis by many conservative Catholics.”

It all means that the next conclave is likely to take place during a highly charged moment in global history, a moment in which there is a highly public battle over the very meaning of Christianity, with a minority doing everything it can to ensure that the leader of the Catholic Church is fully signed up to its campaign to oppose liberal values. My guess is that ideologically-driven books and dossiers will have little impact on the next conclave. Given the long history of attempts to manipulate them, papal elections have been deliberately designed to resist outside interference. Before the 2013 conclave, for example, Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York, gave an interview to Italy’s Corriere della Sera endorsing Cardinal Dolan as “the right man for this extraordinary moment in history”. It went down like a lead balloon with the electors.

The Pope has chosen more than half of the men who will process into the Sistine Chapel and cast their votes for his successor in front of Michelangelo’s awe-inspiring fresco of The Last Judgement. Picking cardinals is the closest thing a Pope has to succession planning. With his choices from far-flung corners of the globe, such as Tonga, Panama, Sweden, Iraq, Pakistan and Cape Verde, Francis has radically reshaped the college of cardinals. He has not imposed any particular theological template. But he has been determined not to appoint any ideologically-driven culture warriors, and has i stead chosen pastors renowned for their closeness to their people and their witness to the Gospel.

The extraordinary geographical range of the cardinal electors will itself be a significant factor. It makes it harder for them to be influenced. Few share the same narrow preoccupations that obsess conservative lobby groups in the US. It's true, too, that many of the cardinal electors barely know each other. Many do not speak Italian or know their around the Roman Curia.

Those hoping to influence the next conclave are trying to exploit this by providing enough (negative) information about the candidates they dislike in order to pave the way for someone who shares their agenda. But I think it would be a mistake to underestimate the speed with which the newer cardinals will grasp the dynamics of Rome’s subtle yet brutal internal politics, and how a conclave works.

Most cardinal-electors will come to Rome for the next papal election with an open mind. They will make a discernment of the candidates during the crucial pre-conclave meetings and the many private dinners and gatherings which take place in the days that lead up to the voting, in which all cardinals, including those aged 80 or over and not entitled to vote, are fully involved. One essential requirement they will be looking for is that the candidate comes from a local Church with a strong faith.

“The Pope should somehow represent the whole Church, and he should have his roots in a truly unified local Church,” as Indian Cardinal Telesphore Toppo explains in Gerard O’Connell’s authoritative account of the 2013 conclave, The Election of Pope Francis.

The cardinals also value continuity. Each Bishop of Rome builds on the work of their predecessor. There is no such thing as a “selfmade Pope”. It is hard to see how a future Pope could turn the clock back on the Francis reforms, which are deeply rooted in the Second Vatican Council.

Rather than imposing a specific agenda on the Church, the Pope has put in place a leadership model based on discerning the movement of the Holy Spirit in the circumstances of the day. We cannot know what will happen at the next conclave, or who will emerge as the next Pope. But any attempt by lobby groups to uproot and discard the seeds of renewal planted during the Bergoglio pontificate will backfire.

As Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, one of Francis’ close advisers, once told me: “The Church does not have a reverse gear.”