Abraham: our father in faith

The word of the Lord is faithful

and all his works to be trusted.

The Lord loves justice and right

and fills the earth with his love.

Psalm 32:4 - 5

Do you look into the cloudless nights with your children to count the stars? Do you speak to them of the wondrous stories that have been told since the dawn of time, of how the stars came to be, of the mystery of the universe and indeed of life itself?

The greatest story ever told is a story that unfolds from the beginning of creation to the present day. It is the story of the fall of humanity from grace and the gift of hope, of expectation that one day all will be made right. And this story is peopled by those names with which we are so familiar: Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Aaron, kings, prophets, John Baptist.

Planning your family may often be more like luck than planning. If you have already waited some years there is the anxiety about what might go wrong, about fertility, about age, about the kind of world you would be bringing a child into. There are a variety of assistive reproductive technologies.

Abram/Abraham is often called our father in faith. A wealthy farmer, he and his wife, now elderly, are childless. Living somewhere in the land of Ur, an ancient Sumerian city-state, Abraham receives a message from the Lord: Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:1 – 3). In a leap of faith and obedience to this nameless and yet-unknown God, Abraham packs up his household and animals with the promise of future generations. In the land of Canaan (Gen 18:1 – 10), Abraham and his wife are visited by strangers who promise to return in a year when Sarai/Sarah would by then have a child. Thus begins the journey of salvation. For us Christians the focus and epicentre of this epic saga is the person of Jesus, the mystery of Jesus. And like Abraham, this is an act of faith.

If you are a mystery novel reader, the author’s intention is that you must link together the many clues to solve the crime. In reading back into the scriptures, the Christian finds the clues to God’s intentions for humankind. St Paul (Col 1:24 – 28) believed that this mystery had been hidden for hundreds of years, but that now, The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory: this is the Christ we proclaim. It is now revealed to believers, the saints.

When those children arrive that you have longed for, like Abraham and Sarah, it is time to ponder such beautiful gifts. It is time to thank ‘our lucky stars’ that through us, as parents, we continue this incredible epic as we seek to live out lives with our children that model Christ, that celebrate the new creation, that our hopes and dreams for them will be everlasting life at the centre of life itself – in the mystery and heart of Jesus, for we are among the blessed.

Peter Douglas

How Pope Francis is changing the Catholic Church

by Michael J. O'Loughlin January 12, 2017

Michael J. O'Loughlin

Taking a few steps is something most people take for granted. It is a fairly easy process at first thought, just one leg in front of the other. But the physical mechanics of beginning a journey are far more complex. Dozens of muscles must expand as others simultaneously contract, creating various tensions in the body that propel us forward. Though often viewed as something to be massaged away, tension is in fact a sign that we are alive.

If the church functions like a human body, as St. Paul claims, then it follows that within it there must be tensions.

Since the first days of his pontificate in 2013, Pope Francis has dealt with more than his fair share of tension in the church he was elected to govern. Those tensions have become more pronounced in recent months, as Francis tries to extend the center of global Catholicism away from Rome to the peripheries and implement reforms that his supporters say are long overdue.

Whereas popes of the distant past wielded temporal power as effectively as any king, Pope Francis’ most potent tool is his example. The men he has appointed to be cardinals and bishops serve as models of the kinds of pastors he thinks the church needs. His many interviews and press conferences demonstrate his insistence that church leaders must connect with everyday Catholics. And his decision to bring out into the open once taboo topics shows that he wants the church to confront its challenges rather than continue to ignore them out of a mistaken, simplistic notion of unity.

The pope has invited his flock to walk alongside him as he seeks to reinvigorate the church. Taking the initial steps of what promises to be a long trek means tensions in the church are sure not to let up anytime soon. But Francis is unafraid, those close to him say, trusting that God is guiding him and all the faithful on this journey.

I. ON A CHILLY November morning, 17 men draped in brilliant red robes stood before the imposing altar inside St. Peter’s Basilica. Together, they pledged to be “constantly obedient to the Holy Apostolic Roman Church, to Blessed Peter in the person of the Supreme Pontiff.”

Each man approached Pope Francis to receive a red hat, a ring and a blessing. They exchanged a ritual kiss with the pope and returned to their seats, now part of the most exclusive and powerful body in the Catholic Church. The new cardinals then took time to greet scores of other cardinals who had witnessed the ceremony from nearby. The ritual is designed to send an unmistakable message: Under Peter we are all one.

But days before the ceremony, four cardinals made clear that church unity was, under Francis, elusive. These men, two of whom are in their 80s and no longer in active ministry or eligible to vote for the next pope, had written a letter to Pope Francis in September that read like a Gospel passage.

Teacher, they seemed to ask, if a man divorces his wife and the woman marries again, raises a family and continues to practice her faith, should she be welcomed to Communion, as you seem to suggest in your pastoral letter “Amoris Laetitia,” or should we follow the rules set forward by your predecessor, St. John Paul II, which would prevent her from participating in the sacrament?

The letter, called a dubia, contains five yes-or-no questions. It was written to call into question ideas Pope Francis promulgated following a two-year consultative process with bishops from around the world that ended in October 2015. The pope did not respond directly to the cardinals, which has bothered some church traditionalists, but he has not exactly ignored their concerns either. In a homily a few weeks before the consistory—the ceremony in which new cardinals are created—the pope lamented the rigidity of some churchmen, which many have interpreted as a not-so-subtle jab at those criticizing his reforms.

“Let’s pray for our brothers and sisters who think that by becoming rigid they are following the path of the Lord,” Francis preached. “May the Lord make them feel that he is our Father and that he loves mercy, tenderness, goodness, meekness, humility. And may he teach us all to walk in the path of the Lord with these attitudes.”

The prayer was Vatican-speak for, “Bless your heart,” a phrase uttered with a smile by many Southerners when confronted during a tense encounter.

Then, speaking three days before Christmas to the Roman curia, Francis again made his case for reform, calling it “first and foremost a sign of life, of a church that advances on her pilgrim way.” And he brushed off the criticism, noting that the “absence of reaction is a sign of death!”

Nearly four years into his pontificate and just after his 80th birthday in December, Francis continues to use a blend of consultative deliberations, confident decision-making and appeals directly to the Catholic faithful to drive his agenda. There are hints today that he may yet fail at reforming the church—insiders and traditionalists are emboldened because of efforts like the dubia—but Francis appears as determined as ever to move the church forward.

II. SYNODALITY, widespread consultation with the greatest number of people from the far reaches of the church, is key to understanding how Francis governs.

Pope Paul VI established the synod of bishops in 1965, an institution designed to continue the collaborative ethos among church leaders that emerged during the Second Vatican Council, one that harkened back to the earliest days of the church. But by the 1980s synods had become stultifying and routine, with little real work or dialogue breaking through the Vatican’s infamously rigid bureaucracy.

The mood inside the synod hall began to loosen up a bit in the mid-2000s, thanks in part to Pope Benedict XVI, who introduced happy hours after the dry plenary sessions had wrapped up. Bishops began to open up with one another over a drink.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the newly named archbishop of Newark who worked in the Vatican for several years under Pope Benedict XVI, said that previous synods often failed to live up to their stated goal of fostering dialogue. Cardinal Tobin, who was recently given a red hat by Francis, participated in three synods under St. John Paul II and two under his successor.

“It was a very clear process that didn’t allow for real reflection or questioning,” he told America during an interview at the motherhouse of the Redemptorist order in Rome. “Instead, and this is probably exaggerated language, people were frog-marched to a conclusion.”

Pope Francis announced less than a year after his election that he would convene a special synod of bishops. Bishops would discuss family life, and nothing was off the table. The following October, in 2014, close to 200 bishops from around the world descended on Rome for the first part of the synod. They were tasked with crafting ideas to strengthen families, and that is what they spent most of their time considering.

But they also talked about the pain experienced by divorced and remarried Catholics who feel cut off from parish life. They considered how gay and lesbian Catholics and their families sometimes feel judged and ashamed. And they reflected on the complexities young couples face when discerning when to marry and how many children to have—all with the pope’s encouragement.

It was not business as usual.

Though most cardinals put on a face of unity when talking to the media circus, they could not conceal the tensions developing inside the synod hall. A draft document of the synod’s deliberations, which contained some of the most astoundingly positive language about gay people ever to come from inside the walls of the Vatican, was leaked to the press in order to undermine the deliberations, and the notion that divorced and remarried Catholics could receive Communion became a dividing line between reformers and traditionalists.

The synod concluded without clear consensus on the most sensitive topics and the pope asked the participants to return home and thoughtfully consider what had transpired. Another round of deliberations would take place in one year. To avoid shutting down the dialogue, Francis refrained from tipping his hand.

When the delegates returned, tensions remained high. At the start of the meeting, 13 cardinals signed a letter addressed to the pope suggesting that his synod was designed to lead to a predetermined conclusion rather than foster open dialogue. Some bishops felt that the proceedings had gone off track.

“About halfway through, I thought the synod was a complete and utter mess,” Archbishop Mark Coleridge of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, Australia, and a synod delegate, told America in a recent interview. “I couldn’t see where it was going or how it would get there.”

Archbishop Coleridge, who had worked in the Vatican’s secretary of state’s office under St. John Paul II, said that though he found parts of the synod “unnerving,” he never doubted that Francis had a plan.

Six months later, in April 2016, the pope released “Amoris Laetitia,” which summarized the findings of the synod process. In addition to describing the beauty of family life and the need for the church to support families more effectively, the pope also offered a suggestion on how to move forward on the Communion question.

He appeared to suggest that through a process of discernment and penance, in consultation with a priest, divorced and remarried Catholics who wished to receive Communion might be readmitted to the sacrament. The pope sought to move forward on the issue in a footnote, a signal that the teaching was not the main thrust of the letter. That a single footnote in a 325-paragraph document on family life is receiving the most attention is distressing to some Catholics.

Helen Alvaré, a lawyer and advisor to the U.S. bishops’ conference who often writes on marriage and the family, told America that the outsized attention paid to the divorce question, and the lack of attention paid to other important family issues, is “heartbreaking.” Further, she said, “the ‘who’s-up-who’s-down-who’s-out’ coverage of the varying responses of bishops to A.L. is a missed opportunity to take A.L. and make it the Magna Carta of a new marriage focus for the church.”

Still, the divorce question is one that has shaken up the church and offers a clue to where the pope intends to lead the faithful. So last September when bishops in Argentina released a more concrete framework for the process of opening up Communion, which was subsequently met with a papal nod of approval, it was the clearest indication to date that through the process of synodality, Francis is intent on refashioning church structures.

“The notion is, in this worldwide, global church, to put greater provision for governance in a less centralized manner, with a creative tension with the center,” Cardinal Tobin said.

Ask difficult questions, deliberate with as many minds as possible and then make a decision. Take one more step along the journey. Pope Francis may not know where the process will take him or the church, but he is confident that staying in one place is not an option.

III. MORE THAN 6,000 MILES away from the Vatican, in sunny San Diego, Calif., about 125 Catholics spent the late summer months last year studying “Amoris Laetitia” and asking how the document could be best applied to the diocese’s nearly one million Catholics.

Their task was set by Bishop Robert McElroy, who has earned a reputation as something of a policy wonk in the U.S. hierarchy. He spent most of his priestly career in his native San Francisco before being appointed to lead the Diocese of San Diego by Pope Francis in 2015.

Bishop McElroy is the type of leader Pope Francis said he wants as a bishop: A pastor who does not give in to the temptation to be a culture warrior but instead focuses on preaching the breadth of Catholic social teaching in the public square. Recognizing that something new was happening in Rome during the two synods of bishops, Bishop McElroy decided to follow the pope’s lead and hold a similar meeting at home.

“When the pope talks so much about synodality, I thought, this could be a way of doing diocesan deliberation and pastoral planning in a way that’s focused and that brings laypeople substantially and robustly into the process,” Bishop McElroy told America during an interview at the November meeting of the U.S. bishops in Baltimore.

Having promised the delegates that their time would not be wasted and, barring any doctrinal errors, that their ideas would be implemented, Bishop McElroy was a bit nervous about where the synod would venture. The delegates read “Amoris” and considered how its lessons applied to local Catholics. The results surprised the bishop.

Take families experiencing separation. The military has a large presence in San Diego, and as a result, many families in that diocese endure long deployments that keep spouses and parents apart for long periods. “Amoris” talks about fragmented families, of course, but not necessarily in this way. Localizing the pope’s universal message, San Diego Catholics said the church has to be better at offering resources to families separated by deployment.

Then there were L.G.B.T. issues, also considered at the Rome synods but reinterpreted through a local lens in gay-friendly California.

Gay people were not categorized as threats to marriage by most San Diego synod delegates. Instead, they said that gay and lesbian concerns should be considered in a wider framework of family spirituality, a surprising departure from the tone of much of the Catholic conversation about L.G.B.T. issues in recent years.

And when delegates were struggling to wrap their heads around the divorce and remarriage question—some of them were not comfortable with the idea of opening up Communion—one of the theologians on hand pointed to the model created by Argentine bishops and endorsed by the pope. The delegates said they wanted something similar in San Diego. But they also said the diocese should educate local Catholics about the Catholic tradition of conscience more broadly, going well beyond the divorce question.

Bishop McElroy accepted their recommendations, and in the coming months the diocese’s administrative structures will be reorganized and priests will be trained to accompany those currently barred from the sacrament of Communion toward reconciliation.

“We’re going to do what the pope’s asked us to do, and I’m certainly going to do it because the people asked us to,” Bishop McElroy said.

He acknowledged there is some tension in the church created by the pope’s leadership style, but he said that at heart is a bigger issue that is not new in the church.

“It’s an ecclesial question that goes to the heart of everything Francis tries to do: Does everything have to be centralized decision making?” he explained. “This is where there’s a huge dispute.”

“The fundamental question is, does everything have to be centralized so that everything will be uniform?” he said. “My answer is no.”

IV. STANDING ON THE ROOF above the offices of the Italian Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, Antonio Spadaro, S.J., looks out at the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, the late afternoon sun low in the sky. For the past several months, Father Spadaro has kept a frenetic schedule, using every means of communication available to defend the pope from attacks from within and outside the church.

Both Pope Francis and Father Spadaro are Jesuits, and the order’s emphasis on discernment guides the pope’s style of governance. This can be disorienting to people who are used to a more top-down model of leadership or who still abide by Augustine’s famous “Rome has spoken; the cause is finished” ethos.

“If the process is real, you don’t know the end,” Father Spadaro told America.

As he crisscrossed the rooftop, eager to point out the various Roman landmarks off in the distance, Father Spadaro compared the pope’s governing style to a stroll through windy, cobblestone paths in an ancient city. Whereas people today rely on their G.P.S. devices to guide them to their destinations, with no meandering turns or surprise adventures, Francis is decidedly old school in his approach.

“You know the street, and how to walk along the street, because it feels inspired and guided by God,” Father Spadaro said. “But Pope Francis doesn’t know exactly where it’s going. He learns and he understands things step by step.”

Each step can cause tension for people who are anxious about the new route Francis is undertaking.

At the conclusion of the 2014 synod of bishops, Francis talked about the disagreement inside the synod hall. Instead of expressing disappointment, however, he said he was heartened that bishops felt free to express themselves. Indeed, he would have been “very worried and saddened” had the bishops chosen a “false and quietist peace” over robust dialogue.

Archbishop Coleridge pointed to the pope’s 2015 remarks at a Vatican ceremony commemorating 50 years of synods in the postconciliar church. In that speech, Francis repeated his desire that consultation and dialogue become the norm in the church. He said those words helped him see how synodality can guide the church today. The archbishop said that Francis is intent on removing the mystique around the papacy that reached its apotheosis under St. John Paul II, whom some regarded “as a kind of oracle who could pronounce the last word on any given issue.”

“For Pope Francis, it’s more that he is part of a great conversation that belongs to the whole of the church,” he said.

“At times there’s a different kind of authority at work when it allows the discussion to run to a new stage,” he continued. “But I think it in no way diminishes the exercise of the Petrine ministry. If anything, it shows the truth, the power and the beauty of it more clearly.”

Turning to another interview to promulgate his ideas, this time with the Belgian Catholic newspaper Tertio in December, Francis described his synodal vision for the church.

He said, “Either there is a pyramidal church, in which what Peter says is done, or there is a synodal church, in which Peter is Peter but he accompanies the church, he lets her grow, he listens to her, he learns from this reality and goes about harmonising it, discerning what comes from the church and restoring it to her.”

Francis said there would always be movement and dialogue in a synodal church—but that the pope would always be in charge.

“But there is a Latin phrase that says the churches are always cum Petro et sub Petro,” he continued. “Peter is the guarantor of the unity of the church. He is the guarantor.”

Moving forward is never easy. It can unsettle those used to the ways things are and have been. So it is unsurprising that Francis is facing some resistance. Still, Father Spadaro said critiques of the pope receive too much attention. After all, nearly all cardinals, save for a few, have voiced support for Francis. Most Catholics, Father Spadaro contends, are not bothered by internal church debates.

“If we read ‘Amoris Laetitia,’ it’s pretty clear what the pope intended to do: to install discernment inside the processes of the church,” he told America. “He’s trying to say to the pastors, your work is not just to apply norms as something like mathematics or theories. Your job is to look at the life of your people and to help them to discover God and to help them to grow in the church without excluding, without separating anyone from the Gospel and the life of the church.”

Father Spadaro considers a question about the pope’s overarching goals and concedes that there is no master plan. “He decides what to do by looking at events and praying, which means he doesn’t build big plans,” he said. “He goes step by step, step by step.”

Each of those steps, of course, is more complex than the pope might like, revealing tensions along the way. But that does not worry the pope, Father Spadaro said. “He’s aware of the risks, of course; but if the path is guided by God, you don’t have to feel troubled or anxious.”

As for those unsure of the style Francis has chosen in leading the church, Father Spadaro offers some advice: “You have to follow the direction that Peter is giving the church.”

Michael J. O’Loughlin is the national correspondent for America and author of The Tweetable Pope: Spiritual Revolution in 140 Characters.

Temptation

Taking him to a very high mountain, the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. ‘I will give you all these’, he said, ‘if you fall at my feet and worship me.’ Then Jesus replied, ‘Be off, Satan! For scripture says:

You must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.’

Matthew 4:8 - 10

'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely' wrote Lord Acton in one of his pithy, well-quoted axioms. The context may well have been the absolute monarchies of continental Europe, but there are more than sufficient contemporary examples: Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Kim Jong-Il of North Korea, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, perhaps Vladimir Putin of Russia. But to a greater or lesser degree there are those in every community, even of our western democracies, for whom the pursuit of power over others is their primary driving force. It happens in an office, workshop, factory, restaurant, fishing boat or indeed - a family - near you.

We all have our temptations. Yet there is a very thin line between achieving your best and doing so by disadvantaging others. Acquiring wealth, fame, qualifications, particular relationships are put forward as goals to be achieved if you value success for yourself or for your children. And yet, claiming them aggressively and selfishly succumbs to four of the seven deadly sins: pride, lust, envy and greed. What each of these deadly sins has in common in the misuse of power. The autocrats mentioned above all began small and by luck, birth, opportunity, alliances, strength of personality and often, great intelligence, they forged their power blocs.

Jesus, in every possible way, presents a model of leadership and life that totally and utterly contradicts what the world proposes: it is a life of service, powerlessness, poverty, generosity, fellowship, compassion, healing, hope, renewal, forgiveness, gratefulness, grace and mercy. In order that his own life is lived to the full, Jesus freely gives of his own life.

If I were to emulate Jesus in my daily life, how would I navigate that thin line - is it greed to want to prepare adequately for a long retirement? How many degrees do I need to do my job efficiently and effectively? Do I use my relationships for my own ends? Do I choose tourist destinations where the local inhabitants are not patronised and economically enslaved? Do I avoid buying products that are the result of animal cruelty, created from unrenewable resources, made by child labour?

We stand on that same mountain as Jesus and we face the temptations he faced. Is the world a more complex place than Palestine in the first century AD? Maybe. Maybe not. The Gospels reveal a highly sophisticated religious society under Roman overlords. There are spies abroad. There are rebels (Zealots), terrorists (sicarii), Pharisees and Sadducees. Such countries still exist.

You and I may not carry the weight of the world on our every decision, but we must accept that we do carry a responsibility to choose well. We must never allow our classrooms or schools to become places where the exercise of power is for personal gain. When we see it misused, be aware that silence is a decision. Choose good. Choose Jesus.

Peter Douglas

Fr. James Martin: Hate confession? Here’s why you should reconsider.

I have a Catholic friend who hates confession. I am not going to break any confidences, but my friend despises confession so much that he hasn’t gone for a decade. He has offered several reasons why he doesn’t go to what is formally called the sacrament of reconciliation. He is afraid that his sins are now too much to confess all at once; he is frightened of what the priest might say (he’s had a few bad experiences); and he is too busy.

My friend is not the only person I’ve met who feels this way. Several years ago, while directing a retreat, I met a woman who said that she hadn’t gone for 20 years. Her reason was also an unpleasant experience with a priest during the sacrament. As I recall, he berated her for not coming in more frequently.

In response, I asked her: “If you had a bad experience with a physician, would you would never see a physician again?” However, even after we talked about her experiences, she was hesitant to return. Our spiritual direction session was brief, and by the time our 20 minutes was up it was time for another retreatant. So, I have no idea if she ever returned to the confessional.

Sometimes I feel nearly tongue-tied in these situations. Not because I judge people in these situations to be bad Catholics, or because I don’t know any helpful responses to these common roadblocks. Rather, it’s because I go to confession frequently. Very frequently. And I like it.

Admittedly, it’s easier for me to do when I live in a house filled with priests, and especially when my spiritual director is a member of my community. If I ever feel burdened by sin, or even a sin, all I need to do is knock on someone’s door and ask.

On the other hand, it’s arguably harder, since these are men with whom I live and, in many instances, work. After confessing your sins to someone, you may see the fellow at breakfast the next morning. Or at an editorial meeting. But that has never bothered me, because I figure that anyone who lives or works with me already knows I am not perfect.

I often ponder what makes me more inclined to go than the people I mentioned. I am certainly not any holier than anyone else—not by a long shot. It’s not that I have fewer sins.

Maybe it’s the frequency. I go to confession once a month, if not more. I’m used to it. Consequently, it ceases to hold any conceivable fear. Something like a person who has a fear of flying taking 50 flights in one year, and then suddenly realizing that he’s comfortable on a plane. He knows there will inevitably be turbulence and can say, “I’m used to this. And it is not as bad as I thought it would be.”

Sometimes I tell skittish Catholics how wonderful it feels to be honest with God in the sacrament. The old argument against confession that you can always tell God your sins is a good one. Of course you can. But often you don’t. Moreover, it helps to verbalize your sins with another person. And hearing the words of absolution, viva voce, is a lot more powerful than intuiting them in prayer. At least for me.

My comfort level may also stem from experiences with confession from the other side. When hearing confessions, and offering absolution, I can see how people feel unburdened. They exhale. They relax. They smile. And I can feel how grateful they are to be forgiven for something they thought was unforgivable. All that makes confession precious to me.

But mainly I like the way I feel afterward, as if God had given me another chance—which, of course, God has. And no matter if I’m hearing confessions or going to confession, I always think of what my theology professor, Peter Fink, S.J., told our class, “Confession isn’t about how bad you are, but how good God is.”

I wish I could invite everyone who has stayed away to come back. And for returnees, I hope you hear some form of what I say to people who haven’t been to confession for years: “Welcome back.”

This article also appeared in print, under the headline "Hate confession? Here’s why you should reconsider," in the 6 March 2017 issue of America. Click here.

 

The span of life

‘That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing! Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life?

Matthew 6:25 - 27

Kinder teachers start the year with a class full of quite ego-centric, sometimes impulsive young charges and their role is to draw their students into a sense of community beyond their immediate family. Ultimately, the skills of a lifetime of learning are required before finding your place: at school, for some - at home, at work, at university, at play, at church, and with yourself.

You have to know your place in the universe [check out this clip]. We know the ancients had various understandings of what lay beyond the earthbound world they experienced. For some there existed a great dome, for some the heavens were layered, and for others the worlds of the gods mingled with the daily lives of humankind. Even we postmoderns who struggle with reason and faith, raise our eyes and hands to the unseen God and from our thuribles emit and propel towards the heavens our prayers upon the smoke and smells that please the Divine.

Our place is found in the stories we write with our lives, our reflected lives. There is the story of how atheist CS Lewis, found God in his life, through literature and conversation – including his friendship with JRR Tolkien. There is the journey of Richard Holloway, the Scottish Episcopalian Bishop of Edinburgh who lost faith, and has become an ardent atheist. Then there is Bishop John Shelby Spong whose whole life has been a constant cycle of re-conversion. There is my story and your story. In these stories is the search for meaning, the discovery, the joy, the pain, the suffering and the loss.

It was Benjamin Franklin who, in corresponding with Jean-Baptiste Leroy in 1789, wrote: "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." So whether you live a fleetingly brief or very long life, our earthly lives are terminal. And so we must make the most of our time between being born and dying. Our stories must be complete. Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl believed there was meaning in every moment of life, in suffering and in death. Indeed for Frankl, love was the ultimate truth and the highest goal to which man can aspire.

It is at the essence of our nature to seek understanding, create or make meaning. Blind faith, uncritical religiosity, slavish devotion is not what God is asking of you. You are alive just to find yourself, make sense of who you are and what you called to be and do, and in doing so find the one who created you and who will walk with you in every step you take. We then respond to this extraordinary and lavish generosity by caring and loving those who cross our paths, and give thanks and praise for the gift of our lives.

Peter Douglas

A Muslim scholar sets out to investigate Jesus Christ

by Thomas P. Rausch

First published in America February 16, 2017

Fr Rausch

Mustafa Aykol, a practicing Muslim who writes a column for The International New York Times, begins his book by relating how one day in Istanbul he received a copy of the New Testament from a Christian missionary. Before going to sleep he opened it to the Gospel of Matthew and quickly became fascinated. Within a couple of weeks he had finished the entire New Testament. While there were parts of it he as a Muslim could not accept, much was not contradictory to his own faith, and parts were strikingly similar to the Quran. Like a good investigative journalist, he began a study of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim sources that come together in the story of Jesus of Nazareth. This book is the result.

Mustafa Aykol

The book traces the complex relations between the Gospels, Judaism and Islam. From the beginning the author contrasts Pauline Christianity, with its emphasis on the divinity of Jesus, with early Jewish Christianity, especially as it comes to expression in the “Q” sayings source, the Epistle of James and later Jewish-Christian sects like the Ebionites. How to explain the startling connections between the theology of the Jewish followers of Jesus who saw him as the promised messiah but not divine and the Arab followers of Muhammad?

Jesus is honored in the Quran as born of the Virgin Mary, the Messiah of the Jews and a reformer but not divine; he appears in 93 verses in 15 different Quranic chapters. Akyol shows parallels between a number of Quranic stories of Jesus and Mary with some of the apocryphal gospels, the Protoevangelium of James, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the Arabic Infancy Gospel and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas—for example, the story of Jesus making birds out of clay and then giving them life—imaginative stories rejected by mainstream Christianity. As a Muslim, Akyol believes in the Quran as divinely revealed, though he suggests that the similarities show that the Quran was in dialogue with various traditions present at its time of origin, both the apocryphal gospels and various Jewish-Christian sects, some of which believed in the virgin birth. He sees another parallel in the expression “Two Ways,” appearing in both the Didache, a late-first-century Christian text, and the Quran, which offers salvation to those who are devoted to God and benevolent toward other humans—in other words, salvation through faith and good works, not “faith alone,” as in the Protestant understanding of Pauline Christianity. This is the teaching of Jewish Christianity, reflected in the Epistle of James.

But his contrast of early Jewish and Pauline Christianity is much too facile. He falls into an approach first popularized by liberal Protestant theology of speaking of the “Platonization” (or Hellenization) of Christianity, making recognition of the divinity of Jesus a late development, an approach long since abandoned by mainstream scholars. The church’s high Christology is rooted in the Jesus of history, in his use, at the time unprecedented, of the familial term Abba in his prayer, the fact that he referred to himself as “Son” and in his claim to authority to interpret the Mosaic law and proclaim the forgiveness of sins, both of which scandalized his contemporaries. Theologians as critical as Walter Kasper and Edward Schillebeeckx find evidence that Jesus understood his death as tied in with his mission, promising his disciples a renewed fellowship beyond it.

Akyol does not seem to appreciate how the church’s Christological language developed slowly within the New Testament period as the early Christians reread their experience of Jesus against their Jewish tradition. For example, while Mark’s Christology is still inchoate and his use of “Son of God” did not mean what it would mean two decades later, there are clues that he is struggling to express a mystery that goes beyond the language available to him. His account of Jesus walking on the water is clearly a theophany, using the expression, “He meant to pass by them” (Mk 6:48), jarring in context, to echo a verse in the Book of Job where Yahweh walks on the “the crests of the sea” and might “pass by” (Job 9:8, 11).

From the beginning, both Jewish and gentile Christians used the divine title “Lord” (Mari or Maran in Aramaic, Kurios in Greek) for Jesus. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (third to 2nd centuries B.C.E.), used  Kurios to translate the Hebrew Adonai, which took the place of the holy name Yahweh. Jewish Christians used Mar to avoid pronouncing the divine name. Even the Epistle of James refers to Jesus consistently as “Lord” or “the Lord Jesus Christ.” Larry Hurtado points out that Paul can use the Aramaic invocation Maranatha, “Our Lord, come” (1 Cor 16:22), to his largely Gentile church at Corinth without translating it, as it was certainly familiar to them. He notes that Jesus, from very early in the Christian movement, was the object of the prayer and worship ordinarily reserved for God and that there is evidence of pre-existence theology even prior to Paul. Akyol pays little attention to the Gospel of John beyond commenting on its high Christology. But John is a very Jewish Gospel; its Prologue, which most probably predates the Gospel, speaks of Jesus as the divine Word, active in creation, a recasting of the Wisdom theology that developed in the late Old Testament.

In spite of the author’s efforts to explain the church’s Christology in terms of an aberrant tradition, there is much to recommend in this study. Akyol writes with a clarity that is admirable, and the book is well researched. (The footnotes take up 55 pages.) He finds common themes within the Scriptures of the Abrahamic religions, the People of the Book, a term originating in the Quran. Both Muslims and Christians can learn from it. Muslims might see in the example of Jesus inspiration to focus on the spirit of their tradition rather than legalistic or fundamentalist interpretations, or his teaching that the law—whether Torah or Shariah—is for man rather than man (and woman) for the law, or his words in Lk 17:21, “The kingdom of God is within you,” for Akyol evidence that Jesus transformed the kingdom of God—which Muslims would call the caliphate—from a political kingdom into a spiritual one. Christians will be introduced to a more irenic vision of Islam, one that has come to terms with modernity. The fact that the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have far more in common than is generally known should lead to greater mutual respect and to the reconciliation so needed today.

Thomas P. Rausch, S.J., is the T. Marie Chilton Professor Catholic Theology at Loyola Marymount University. His Systematic Theology: A Roman Catholic Approach (Liturgical Press) and Go Into the Streets: The Welcoming Church of Pope Francis, co-edited with Richard R. Gaillardetz, appeared last spring. The Slow Work of God: Living the Gospel Today (Paulist Press) will appear early in 2017.

The original article may be found here.

 Richard, Anita and Fiona at CEW celebrations 2014