Losing Sight of
the Treasure
The Stewardship Journey
Portsmouth Heads and
Deputies Conference
April 25th – 27th 2012
please relax
Plymouth Diocese with the Benedictine Community present
A Festival of Theology at
Buckfast Abbey
July 14-17th 2012
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
01364 645390
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
In the first chapter
of Mark Jesus is
travelling
throughout Galilee
Mark 1:39
Jesus’ own execution
is marked by a journey
he must walk along
the Via Dolorosa.
Lk: 23:26-33
Joseph must take Mary
from Nazareth to
Jesus’ mission moves
Bethlehem, the foreigners
him from village to
must arrive from the East
village. Lk 9:6
bringing him gifts, and
Joseph must take Mary
and Jesus to Egypt.
Paul sets off on exhaustive
Matt 2:13
journeys throughout his
ministry, almost tirelessly
Paul is converted
supporting community after
on the road to
community.
Damascus
Acts 18:23
Acts 9:3
Philip must head off
to Samaria
Acts 8.5
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
Pilgrim’s
Progress
John Bunyan
Jericho
Nazareth
Capernaum
Samaria
Gennesaret
Jordan River
Ephraim
Sychar
Decapolis
Cana
Nain
Caesarea Phillipi Jerusalem
Kursi
Gadarenes Bethany
Galilee
Tyre and Sidon
Bethsaida
the tension
between holding
on and letting go
The recruitment
required three things;
Hearing a call,
Leaving a family or
occupation,
and following Jesus. The person;
Mark 1: 14-20
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
Back to the journey
In the bible the
journey metaphor
defies geographical
logic!
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?
Order
Certainty
Jerusalem
Vulnerability
Identity
Adventure
Babylon
Wilderness
Dependency
Temple focus
Elohim
Confidence
Loveless
Ritual bound
Jerusalem
Lost
Self righteous
Corrupting Exclusive
Babylon
Lose confidence
Diluted identity
Maintaining a
Mellow Heart
The Stewardship Journey
Portsmouth Heads and
Deputies Conference
April 25th – 27th 2012
God is
found in
the mess
Jerusalem
Babylon
Conversion
Restoration
God is found
in the order
Heading for
Jerusalem
I’m looking for
Heading for
Babylon
I’m looking for
Restoration
Identity
Foundation
Clarification
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
Twickenham Address to Pupils
“Always remember that every
subject you study is part of a bigger
picture. Never allow yourselves to
become narrow.”
•New parishioners annoy you
symptoms
•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
•You’re quietly irritated by other people’s enthusiasm
•You start labelling people according to their preferred mass times
those 6.00 O’clockers 9.30, 11.30
•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
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
Lumen Gentium (1964) 2,151 to 5
The Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes (1965)
“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 20thcentury 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.”
Staff fears in
Jerusalem
What if they
ask questions
I can’t answer?
“Where is the
rule book for
this?”
“I MUST KEEP
QUIET ABOUT MY
OWN DOUBTS”
“Everyone else
here is really
Holy.”
“Do I have to
believe it all”
“There are not
many people
here like me”
“I must avoid
mistakes at
all costs”
Staff fears in
Babylon
“The parents are
more concerned
about the results
than our ethos”
“They have lost
the baby with
the bathwater”
“The new staff have
little faith formation
other than what they
had as children”
“I don’t see how
learning about
Hinduism helps”
“The children
don’t know how to
behave in Mass”
“I think we
have replaced
the word
‘Catholic’ with
‘caring’.”
“We talk about faith
to the children but
not so much to
each other”
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
How
do
we
live
it?
.
“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. “
The Pope at Westminster Cathedral.
“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 25th – 27th 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
Westminster Hall
“There are those who
would advocate that the
voice of religion be
silenced, or at least
relegated to the purely
private sphere.”
Bellahouston Park
“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.”
“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