Losing Sight of the Treasure The Stewardship Journey Portsmouth Heads and Deputies Conference April 25 th – 27 th 2012

please relax

Choose from 50 speakers including Fr Ronald Rolheiser OMI. Fr Christopher Jamison O.S.B Fr Nick King SJ. Fr Denis McBride CSsR Baroness Sheila Hollins For more info go to clearvoices.co.uk or phone our administrator for further details One day tickets available. Why not call it a “holiday”

Are we in danger of missing the point?

Abraham must leave his country, his people, his homeland, and go to the land that “I will show you.” Gen 12:1 Moses the foreigner is called to deliver the people from the Egyptians and to take them to a land, “flowing with milk and honey” Ex 3:7 Joseph must take Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the foreigners must arrive from the East bringing him gifts, and Joseph must take Mary and Jesus to Egypt. Matt 2:13 Philip must head off to Samaria Acts 8.5 Paul is converted on the road to Damascus Acts 9:3 Jesus’ own execution is marked by a journey he must walk along the Via Dolorosa. Lk: 23:26-33 Jesus’ mission moves him from village to village. Lk 9:6 In the first chapter of Mark Jesus is travelling throughout Galilee Mark 1:39 Paul sets off on exhaustive journeys throughout his ministry, almost tirelessly supporting community after community. Acts 18:23

Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan

Capernaum Jordan River Galilee Cana Jerusalem Sychar Samaria Nain Kursi Gadarenes Nazareth Bethsaida Gennesaret Tyre and Sidon Decapolis Caesarea Phillipi Bethany Ephraim Jericho

the tension between holding on and letting go

The recruitment required three things; Hearing a call, Leaving a family or occupation, and following Jesus. Mark 1: The person; Finds, (call) sells, (leaves) and buys. (follows) Matt 13:44-46

“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Gen 2:24. Mk 10:8-9. Eph 5:31.

“Every call requires a leaving and a following” John Shea

to be called is also to leave

We try to take it with us

“Take nothing for the journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.” Mk 6:8

“The problem with modern living is that we worship our work, work at our play, play at our worship ” Terry Hershey

Isms... Individualism, Materialism and Consumerism

Supposing we have a bit of a tendency to get caught up in our own sort of self sufficiency

In the bible the journey metaphor defies geographical logic! Back to the journey

Don’t ask a Rabbi for directions

"Listen to the path, it speaks more wisely than the traveller" Bedouin Proverb

In the bible the stewardship journey is about conversion more than destination

Barbara Kruger

The desire to stay or to go?

The desire to build Jerusalem Ezra Ch: 1,2. Nehemiah

And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills? William Blake

Jerusalem

It’s unspoilt

Jerusalem all inclusive

Why would anyone want to stay in Babylon?

Jerusalem Babylon Certainty Identity Order Temple focus Confidence Elohim Adventure Wilderness Dependency Vulnerability

Jerusalem Babylon Ritual bound Self righteous Loveless Exclusive Corrupting Lose confidence Lost Diluted identity

Maintaining a Mellow Heart The Stewardship Journey Portsmouth Heads and Deputies Conference April 25 th – 27 th 2012

Jerusalem Babylon God is found in the order God is found in the mess Conversion Restoration

Heading for Jerusalem I’m looking for Restoration Identity Foundation Clarification Heading for Babylon I’m looking for Adventure Purpose Challenge Relationship

“When I am frightened by what I am for you, I am consoled by what I am with you.” St Augustine Sermon 3:40

“ May the world of our time, which is searching, be enabled to receive the Good News not from disciples who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from whose lives glow with fervour, who have first received the joy of Christ." Pope Paul VI's apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi,"

“But if in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be “devout” and to perform my “religious duties”, then my relationship with God will grow arid. It becomes merely “proper”, but loveless.” Deus Caritas Est, 18 (Pope Benedict XVI, 2006)

“It becomes merely “proper”, but loveless.” Deus Caritas Est, 18 (Pope Benedict XVI, 2006)

“Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly.” British Home Stores Batman costume

“And now what follows for the Church today? Today, more than ever, she must live her mission; more energetically than ever she must repulse that NARROW and false conception of her spirituality and inward life which would confine her, blind and dumb, to the recesses of the sanctuary.” Oscar Romero

“The Church cannot shut herself up, inactive, in the privacy of her churches and this neglect the mission entrusted to her by divine providence, the mission to form man in his fullness and so ceaselessly to collaborate in building the solid basis of society. This mission is of her essence.” Oscar Romero

“Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outer necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave. Here we see the necessary interplay between the love of God and the love of neighbour which the first letter of John speaks of with such insistence.” Deus Caritas Est, 18 (Pope Benedict XVI, 2006)

the risk of a narrow vision

“Always remember that every subject you study is part of a bigger picture. Never allow yourselves to become narrow.” Twickenham Address to Pupils

You’re quietly irritated by other people’s enthusiasm You sit in the same pew each week You develop a subtle but pointed raised eyebrow look for children who don’t know the rules You start to bring your milk to work in a medicine bottle and you put your name on your cottage cheese New parishioners annoy you You start labelling people according to their preferred mass times those 6.00 O’clockers 9.30, You stop going to meetings because they are “talk shops” You purchase adhesive numbers to personalise your wheelie bin You don’t tell her you love her because she already knows symptoms

Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium (1964) The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes (1965) 2,151 to 5

“She (the Church) exists as a leaven and as a kind of soul for human society.” 40. Gaudium et Spes

Communio Missio

“According to Karl Barth, God is hidden everywhere but found only in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Therefore, according to Barth, the Christian is never at home on earth, he or she is passing through. Catholic theology encourages Christians to dwell on earth. They are not in a hurry to get to heaven because God lurks everywhere, especially where you do not expect him to be.“ Fr Andrew Greely.

“Catholic imagination is analogical. It is founded in creation itself and views creation as God in disguise. According to Catholic imagination, God lurks everywhere.” ibid

“Catholics live in an enchanted world: a world of statues and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious medals, rosary beads and holy pictures. But these Catholic paraphernalia are merely hints of a deeper and more pervasive religious sensibility that inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation. The world of the Catholic is haunted by a sense that the objects, events, and persons of daily life are revelations of Grace” Fr Andrew Greeley

A problem…

“Dark Satanic Mills”

Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th- century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets.

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Gerard Manley Hopkins

“Pied Beauty—" Glory be to God for dappled things-- For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.”

“Where is the rule book for this?” “Everyone else here is really Holy.” “I must avoid mistakes at all costs” What if they ask questions I can’t answer? “There are not many people here like me” “Do I have to believe it all” “I MUST KEEP QUIET ABOUT MY OWN DOUBTS” Staff fears in Jerusalem

“They have lost the baby with the bathwater” “I don’t see how learning about Hinduism helps” “We talk about faith to the children but not so much to each other” “The parents are more concerned about the results than our ethos” “I think we have replaced the word ‘Catholic’ with ‘caring’.” “The children don’t know how to behave in Mass” “The new staff have little faith formation other than what they had as children” Staff fears in Babylon

John 14:6

“I have come that you may have life and have it in all its fullness” John 10:10

“Who ever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.” John Ch10: V8

“Behold I set before you an open door” Revelations 3:8

The Pope at Westminster Cathedral.. “Deep within your heart he is calling you to spend time with him in prayer, but this kind of prayer, real prayer, requires discipline. It requires time for moments of silence everyday. Often it means waiting for the Lord to speak. Even amidst the business and stress of our daily lives we need to make space for silence, because it is in silence that we find God. And in silence that we discover our true self. “ How do we live it?

“Glory be to Him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, glory be to him from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.” St Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians 3:14-21

Losing Sight of the Treasure The Stewardship Journey Portsmouth Heads and Deputies Conference April 25 th – 27 th 2012

How do recognise the tensions we have explored today? For staff For parents For children?

“It is the special vocation of the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will, they live in a world in each and every one of the worlds occupations and callings and in the ordinary circumstances of social and family life which as it were, formed the context of their existence, they are called by God to the sanctification of the world, from within like leaven, in the Spirit of the Gospel by fulfilling their own particular duties.” LG 31

“The metaphor of leaven is used 6 times in the council documents 5 of which refer to the laity in the world. In Gaudium et Spes (40) it refers to the entire Church as leaven” Richard Gaillardetz

“There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere.” Westminster Hall

“Society today needs clear voices which propose our right to live, not in a jungle of arbitrary freedoms, but in a society which works for the true welfare of it’s citizens and offers them guidance and protection in the face of their weakness and fragility.” Bellahouston Park

“Newman would describe his life’s work as a struggle against the growing tendency to view religion as a purely private and subjective matter, a question of personal opinion.” The Pope at the Hyde Park Vigil