My letter to the parish priest

 We were asked to send in thoughts on the future of the church. A wonderful opportunity although I wonder if the church realises what it is in for?! 

Here is what I wrote in my email:

During my prayer this morning it became clear that I should make a contribution to the debate thus:

The role of the celibate priesthood must remain sacrosanct but it has to be acknowledged that celibacy is a very high calling, There is a constant duplicity in the church over this issue which has to be acknowledged and redressed.

Persons who are married should be able to become priests and, when the priest feels unable to continue because he has fallen in love or needs to find a pertner, he should NOT be required to relinquish his priesthood. 

The churches teaching on sexuality remains too negative - centuries of sexual guilt are written into the churches literature and this needs to be contradicted and understood in the light of scientific research   . . and just simple compassionate commonsense. 

The churches teaching on homosexuality likewise needs to radically alter - again, in the light of modern scientific understanding. Instead of dragging it's feet on this issue it should be blazing the way for better understanding and better tolerance in numerous countries throughout the world where there is violent oppression and suppression of homosexuals. 

The church needs to face up to the fact that there are many many priests who are homosexual. At present, they have to hide all of that away and this should not be the case. Such intolerance bleeds into the fabric of the societies in which we live and the church should be, above all, a place of tolerance and compassionate understanding of human nature. (One could argue that it always has been covertly but the veil needs to be drawn aside and honesty prevail.) 

As the  number of priests diminish, the role of the deacon needs to be extended and the role of the "services of word and communion" need to be better known and accepted as an integral part of the church's liturgical calendar.

The services are presently viewed as a sort of "second best". I have sometimes been asked by   apologetic deacons at the church door if I mind that "there will be no priest today". 

Women should definitely, most definitely, be allowed to become deacons in the church. 

St. Paul’s writings, 1 Timothy 3:11, Romans 16:1, indicate that women functioned as deacons in the early church. Again, instead of dragging it's feet, the church should be blazing a path toward true sexual equality. It may be centuries before the church finally allows women into the priesthood but, rest assured - just as night follows day - it will happen and I rejoice that I can go to my grave knowing this! 

One  more thing: locked churches.

When I was a young man it was possible to go into almost any church for quiet time and it grieves me to the core that churches are locked up for more than 90% of the time. For many many people with busy lives and families at home it means that they hardly ever get the opportunity for silent prayer. This is a catastrophe. Silent prayer is at the heart of all of our spiritual journeys and the church must understand how crucial it's role is in fostering this. Silent prayer is not an option: it is a necessity if we are to sustain our life with God from day to day. It must be the sacred role of the laity to ensure that churches are kept open at least for a few hours daily.  I would be utterly willing to help with this.

Thank you. Stephen Yates 

Via Negativa

 Tuesday psalms.

The atheist, on using the word God,  thinks, in his blindness. that he sees:
the word has a material meaning for him which he can then (correctly) discount as nonsense. 

The prayerful man, however, on using the word God, eventually discovers - if he has searched diligently- that he does not see:
the word, he finds, has no material meaning at all: there is only absence! 
And yet, it is at the very moment of discovering his blindness - this absence -, that he knows that he is witnessing the truth: 
You Yourself are discovered in that very moment! 

Thus, all our apparent understanding is turned on it's head! 

And so, in this topsy-turvy way, the atheist is actually right except that - believing that he can see - he lives on in a darkness.   

Pope Leo XIV

 

Pope Leo XIV for Ash Wednesday on "structures of sin."

“Sin, of course, is personal, but it takes shape in the real and virtual environments we frequent, in the attitudes we use to influence one another, often within actual 'structures of sin' of an economic, cultural, political, and even religious nature. Opposing the living God to idolatry—Scripture teaches us—means daring to embrace freedom and rediscover it through an exodus, a journey. No longer paralyzed, rigid, and secure in our positions, but gathered together to move and change. How rare it is to find adults who repent, people, businesses, and institutions who admit they were wrong!”

Leo the Great

 Today´s reading from a sermon by Pope Leo the Great (5th century) struck me: enshrining what is, for me, the most telling in Catholic doctrine:

"Jesus,  born true man without ever ceasing to be true God, began in his person a new creation and by the manner of his birth gave man a spiritual origin. What mind can grasp this mystery, what tongue can fittingly recount this gift of love? Guilt becomes innocence, old becomes new, strangers are adopted and outsiders are made heirs. Rouse yourself, man, and recognise the dignity of your nature! Remember that you were made in God’s image; though corrupted in Adam, that image has been restored in Christ.

  Use creatures as they should be used: the earth, the sea, the sky, the air, the springs and rivers. Give praise and glory to their Creator for all that you find beautiful and wonderful in them. See with your bodily eyes the light that shines on earth, but embrace with your whole soul and all your affections the true light which enlightens every man who comes into this world. Speaking of this light the prophet said: Draw close to him and let his light shine upon you and your face will not blush with shame.(Psalm 34). If we are indeed the temple of God and if the Spirit of God lives in us, then what every believer has within himself is greater than what he admires in the skies.

  Our words and exhortations are not intended to make you disdain God’s works or think there is anything contrary to your faith in creation, for the good God has himself made all things good. What we do ask is that you use reasonably and with moderation all the marvellous creatures which adorn this world; as the Apostle says: "The things that are seen are transient but the things that are unseen are eternal."

 

I noticed the window in the local church when I was at mass the other day and it struck me that the most important element in Christian stained glass is the people.  Stained glass windows are all filled to overflowing with people. Saints, angels, and the rest of us as well. . . . the Kingdom is, above all, filled with people!
"You take delight in your people." 

 

filioque

Leo is in Turkey and I discovered the reason for the Schism in 1054: filioque. 
"who proceeds from the Father and the Son . . ." 
or does it mean "who proceeds from the Father through the Son . . ." 
Either way it makes me so cross that such subtle matters of interpretation split the church.
And once the cracks appear they only widen: like faults in concrete. 
Language: our greatest gift but, at the very same time, a tower of Babel.

kyrie eleison