Bishop John

Guest blogger Richard Humphrey, The Dean of Hobart, writes:

The religious life of Australia takes a big step this weekend with the canonisation of Mary MacKillop as the first Australian Saint recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, now to be called St. Mary of the Cross.  You could hardly miss this event with the amount of publicity, even flags are flying in our streets.

I have read many comments about Mary this week and they all take a similar line.  So our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, noting her work in education and social justice said “This event recognises a courageous woman of willing spirit and deep faith. … Mary’s example lives and shines to this day”  Tim Costello from World Vision Australia said that her story resonated with Australians because of her courage and strength, her authenticity and her perseverance.

Without doubt there is much to give thanks for in her contribution to the Christian heritage of Australia.

Without wishing to be a naysayer, however, I have to wonder if this step is really one in the right direction.  For canonisation in the Roman Catholic Church is not simply recognition of a life of ministry but recognition of a supposed ongoing ministry.  So Bishop Christopher Prowse of Sale writes “There is joy because one of us, an Australian, has become a saint! …As a saint we can rely on her intercession … Saint Mary of the Cross, pray for us.”

Intercession by saints is very hard to reconcile with the biblical image of Jesus and the Holy Spirit interceding for us (Hebrews 7:25, Romans 8:26-27) and of Jesus being the only mediator we need: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all people.” (1Timothy 2:5-6).  To focus so much on Mary is to distract from the God she served and the Lord who saved her, Jesus Christ of the Cross.

Furthermore the whole language of “Saint” as someone special is problematic as it is the common New Testament word for all Christians as the start of most of Paul’s letters show.  All who believe in Jesus as Lord are saints, not based on what they have done but on what Jesus has done for them.  Christians are set apart by God to be holy, to live for him wherever they find themselves. 

Here Mary is a great example to us.  Bishop Geoffrey Robinson writes “… no one in this country may ever again say that genuine holiness is not for them, that they can settle for being ‘ordinary’ Christians.  If there are secrets to her holiness, then surely they consist in total integrity, in following what is right even when others condemn, in a profound generosity of spirit, and in constantly, in every new situation asking the same question, ‘What is the most loving thing I can do here?’ “

If we follow that path it will be big step in the right direction.

Also, Lent: Tiger Woods and Mary MacKillop.

I still have my ‘Kids don’t belong in detention centres’ T-shirt from 2002, although it has shrunk in the cupboard  🙂  

A birthday wish –  “No children in detention centres.”

It is with great regret that we inform you that ChilOut has reactivated as a campaign group. ChilOut (Children Out Of Immigration Detention) is a group of parents and citizens opposed to the mandatory detention of children in the Australian immigration detention regime.

From 2001-2006 we campaigned to release children from immigration detention. In 2005, after a long and committed campaign by many groups such as ours, the Migration Act was amended to include the principle that “Children should be detained as a measure of last resort.” At that time, all remaining detainee children were released into community arrangements.

Sadly, there are over 700 children in immigration detention right now. With the increase in political rhetoric on boat arrivals, the political willpower to do the right thing by children is dwindling.

Get behind the campaign to have kids released from detention. We can do better as a nation. 

See also   Christian compassion 4 boat people?    and    Refugee Mythbusting Animation-GetUp!     and    Refugee Sunday 2010    and   ‘Boat people have no friends’

Ignorance of current end-of-life care in modern Australia fuels fear of death/ end of life.

“First: many think laws for voluntary euthanasia are for burdensome treatments to be stopped, or for life‐support to be switched off, when people are about to die. But these are already best‐practice: good end of life care does not keep people lingering on endlessly.

“Second: thousands of people around the country are working long and hard, right now, to make people comfortable and to help them die well. We call this ‘palliative care’. But in a society so shielded from death, most of us know nothing about it. In the recent Western Australian debate, thirteen palliative care specialists wrote ‘We share many of the goals of those who support euthanasia,’ they wrote, meaning that they agree when patients want to cease pointless treatments, or want to die well at home. These specialists can then control symptoms sometimes by use of ‘deep sedation’ that ‘is both ethical and legal.’

This short briefing touches on:

• The fear surrounding this discussion of death;
• Two misunderstandings about end-of-life care;
• The practice of palliative care;
• The likely results of a euthanizing culture; and
• A motion now before the Sydney Diocesan Synod.
• It also lists 7 excellent links. 

SIBriefing #087, 14/10/2010, Euthanizing fear: why it won’t work.

The more I consider legislation for euthanasia/assisted suicide/medical killing the more concerned I become.

Concerned for whom? – For the elderly, people living with disabilities and all vulnerable people.

Why my concern for them? Because I do not believe assisted suicide can ever be enacted without the possibility of abuse. The measure of a society is its protection of the elderly, people living with disabilities, infants, children: the vulnerable. Assisted suicide weakens the protection and care of our more vulnerable members. This is weakens our society, our community. This is a wrong turn. Do not enter.

“Those who believe that legalizing euthanasia and/or assisted-suicide will assure their ‘choice,’ are naive.”
(William Reichel, MD, Coeur d’Alene Press, June 30, 2010) quoted by Margaret K. Dore who writes,

“These acts (legalizing euthanasia/ assisted suicide) empower heirs and others to pressure and abuse older people to cut short their lives. This is especially an issue when the older person has money. There is no assisted-suicide bill that you can write to correct this huge problem.”
Patients are not necessarily dying
Oregon and Washington’s acts apply to “terminal” patients, defined as having no more than six months to live. Such patients are not necessarily dying. Doctor prognoses can be wrong. Moreover, treatment can lead to recovery. Oregon resident, Jeanette Hall, who was diagnosed with cancer and told that she had six months to a year to live, states:
” I wanted to do our law and I wanted my doctor to help me. Instead, he encouraged me to not give up and ultimately I decided to fight. I had both chemotherapy and radiation.
” It is now nearly 10 years later. If my doctor had believed in assisted suicide, I would be dead.”

See her detailed legal article, Aid in Dying: Not Legal in Idaho; Not about Choice.  This and other comments pro and against assisted suicide/ euthanasia follow the sad article, Suicide like execution.

Among other comment, eg Sue Neales,’Pollies dodge blame’, a letter to the editor in yesterday’s Mercury Hobart newspaper, page 23, by M.E.Klitzke, Midway Point, captured our inability to guarantee protection of the vulnerable members of our community.

Euthanasia trust lost. A vulnerable child unable to be protected by this Government and legal services, a maximum-security prison which is anything but secure built by this Government and now the Attorney-General, along with Greens leader Nick McKim, will try to convince us that this Government can produce sufficiently safe legislation to protect vulnerable members of our community against involuntary euthanasia. I for one have zero confidence they have the ability to offer such protection.

I count myself among the many Tasmanians who “have zero confidence that they (the Government) have the ability to offer such protection.”

For the sake of our society in general and the elderly, people living with disabilities and the vulnerable in particular, please Attorney-General Lara Gidding and Nick McKim, do not go ahead with this legislation.

In preparing myself for this week I reread an article I have on ‘Lectio Divina’ and put it into practise with Matthew 14:13-21, Jesus feeding the 5,000 with the 5 loves and 2 fishes. I have had a wonderful time of reading, reflecting, further marvelling at the person and compassion and provision of Jesus the Christ. I have hunted up a sculpture, a mosaic plate and a photo that have all added to my ‘ruminating’ on the Biblical text and taking scripture further into my life. All and every way of immersing myself in the Bible is life giving. Lectio Divina is one way; a helpful way. Enjoy 🙂

Basically Lectio is reflecting on a small portion of the text. It is a different approach to the way we would normally read the bible. It is a way of reading slowly and with reverence and appreciation. It is ruminating on the text, savouring the text until all the sweet juices are given up. It is a divine encounter where we have to learn to read slowly and with careful attention; we have to read the words of scripture over and over until they pierce us through. They are to be imprinted on our hearts and memories so that they can continually return to our minds.
 
Lectio Divina is a fluid process, which for ease of understanding, can best be described as a movement, a progression, stages which flow into one another:
Lectio – Meditatio – Oratio – Contemplatio – Evangelizatio – Ruminatio
(Read – understand/reflect – pray – be still – respond – continue to ponder.)

You may like to use a journal to dialogue with the text/with God/with yourself – asking questions like:

What do you want of me?
How can I hear what you are saying and allow it to shape my life?
How is my life touched by the Word?
Is there an invitation there for me?
Does the Word relate to what is happening in my life now?
How does it make me feel? Why?

Article, An Introduction to Lectio Divina by Margaret Crook. Thanks to Melbourne Anglican’s ‘Faith and Worship’.