Love first

So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?’ He answered, ‘It was of you hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture:

This people honours me only with lip-service,

while their hearts are far from me.

The worship they offer me is worthless,

the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.

You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.’

Mark 7:5 - 8

My granddaughters Rose, Hazel and Ruby are perfect. They are perfectly gorgeous; perfectly delightful; perfectly cute. Along with my children, our three granddaughters and two grandsons, Toni and I have been extraordinarily blessed and privileged. At the back of my mind is a very strong desire to ensure that my descendants know what amazing gifts they have been to my life, but also to ensure that they have access to the stories about my life, and in particular my life with them. I want them to know me.

I have a great interest in our family’s genealogy. It provides the links to the stories that make me who I am. I want to make sense of the way we do things in our family, and why we do those things. But I want them also to know that while they are important to our family, they are not immutable or unchangeable. They are traditions. Not institutions!

As we return to Mark’s Gospel (Mark 7:1 – 23) this Sunday we are challenged by Jesus’ accusation against the scribes and Pharisees who were demanding to know why the disciples were not following the Jewish rules of washing before eating: You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions. The point being, that when we put tradition before the commandment to love we are well off the mark. There are certainly some things that we do that have their origin in plain old-fashioned commonsense, but which over time have lost their significance.

The distinction between respecting those who pass down tradition (the elders, as Mark calls them) and the tradition itself must be differentiated. Rejection of a tradition, does not mean rejecting those who hold fast to them. We live in a world of constant and rapid change: the Gospel does not prevent us from accepting the multitude of challenges that await us, but we must not allow the diminishment of human respect.

I still have living uncles, aunts and great-aunts who have stories I have yet to hear, explanations for the way we do things in our family, that have yet to be expressed in words. Most of us have a family member who embodies what it means to be a member of our family, a grandparent, great-grandparent. Treasure them, love them and respect them.

 

Peter Douglas

JUST AN ASIDE

My sister, Vianney Douglas, was today ordained deacon in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Pacifica at St Thomas' Anglican Church, Maketu  NZ. Vianney is principal of a small, Maori language school near Tauranga and will continue to minister to her local parish community.

This is Vianney after her ordination - and her son, Te Koha who served at the ceremony which comprised a commissioning of a licensed lay reader, an ordination to the diaconate and an ordination to the priesthood, a celebration of the rededication of St Thomas' on its 150th anniversary, and the bishop's service awards. Vianney wears the traditional moko kauae on her chin. 

WHERE DO YOU SIT IN THE BOAT?

by Father Kevin Bates SM

The turmoil in the Federal Coalition Party room this week calls to mind that stormy evening when Jesus came walking across water as the apostles were cringing in their boat, wondering how to survive. Then here comes your man Jesus calling them to walk on the water, to get out, take a bit of a risk and to trust that there may be another way of dealing with their situation.

The lads in the boat weren’t so keen. Some of them preferred to stay put, even to hide, and maybe heckle from the safety of their hiding places, anyone who dared to get out and walk. Some of them, not so much afraid as concerned for their own power, grabbed the rudder of the boat and decided that they knew best where the boat would be heading.

Peter gets out and walks, sinks, cries out, until love and a lovely humour call him from the depths back to his feet again.

You can work out for yourselves the parallels in the Coalition, between those who are daring to get out and imagine a cleaner, more sustainable future for our grandchildren and for the planet itself, those who are still spruiking the “c” word “coal”, as one National MP proudly proclaimed in a news conference the other day, those who are frightened of jobs being lost in the fossil fuel industry and not trusting the possibilities that renewable energy technology is opening up, and of those who seem interested neither in the environment or jobs, but rather in their own power, who are fighting over who has the steering wheel! (Push the same buttons and Labor would come up no better in the light of Jesus’ challenge!)

This past week we have seen a devastating report from the Grand Jury in Pennsylvania on clerical sexual abuse of children. The report lists more than 300 priests accused of abuse in six of the state's eight dioceses. If accused priests from the other two dioceses, dealt with by earlier grand juries, are added, it amounts to about 8 per cent of the 5,000 priests who served in Pennsylvania during the 70-year period covered by the report.

In the light of this, a group of US Catholic Academics have written to the US Catholic Bishops Conference asking them as a sign of good faith to resign en masse. They say: "Systemic sin cannot be ended through individual goodwill. Its wounds are not healed through statements, internal investigations, or public relations campaigns but rather through collective accountability, transparency, and truth-telling."

They continue: "Today, we call on the Catholic Bishops of the United States to prayerfully and genuinely consider submitting to Pope Francis their collective resignation as a public act of repentance and lamentation before God and God’s People.

We urge them to follow the example of Chile’s thirty-four bishops, who resigned collectively in May of this year after revelations of widespread sexual abuse and corruption were brought to light. Through prudent discernment, Pope Francis ultimately accepted three of these thirty-four resignations.

We, the undersigned, teach in Catholic schools, colleges, universities, and graduate programs. We work in parishes, retreat centres, and diocesan offices. We are parishioners, lay ecclesial ministers, liturgical musicians, catechists, pastoral care workers, youth and young adult ministers, chaplains, parish workers, community advocates, students, teachers, professors, librarians, and researchers. We are mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, sons and daughters, vowed religious.

We are the baptized."

It does sound a bit like Jesus suggesting that we get out of our boat and walk on the water with him. At least if we sink out there we’ll be in good company and will be acting as Jesus asks us to act.

Corruption in the Church and in society is nothing new. This week we celebrated the Feast of the great Cistercian Monk and Bishop, Bernard of Clairvaux who spent most of his life dealing with corrupt practices in the 11th century Church.

In the light of all this, we can comfortably sit back, point the finger at those so publicly exposed and go back to watching the footy.

We could also look into our own cupboards where our skeletons live, dust them off and take them for a walk on the water with us and engage in a change of heart that would renew not only ourselves, but also our families, our church and society.

Worth a go don’t you reckon?

Kevin Bates SM is a prodigious composer of religious and liturgical music and is currently parish priest of Holy Name of Mary Parish, Hunters Hill, NSW.