A lesson in subsidiarity from the Trinity

One of the buzzwords of the Church since the Second Vatican Council has been subsidiarity. 

The principal of subsidiarity is simple: you make decisions at a level as close as you can to those who will be affected by them. In local terms, you don’t make a decision in Rome that could be made in Broome, or in Broome that could be made at Balgo. The decision making, therefore, is more inclusive and empowering, and any decisions that result are far more likely to be owned by all parties. Subsidiarity builds people up and contributes to community. However, there is a catch: subsidiarity stands or falls on communication. Just as people at the grass roots bemoan that decisions about their future are made a long way from them, people in authority are often concerned that they are ultimately responsible for actions they may know nothing about.  

When the Church is working well, decisions are made at the lowest possible level, there is a mutual trust that the interests of all are being safeguarded, and there is good communication. In other words, we are functional. This situation, codified in the Church, is valid for human organisations. Where there is trust, care, and good communication, functionality will follow.

We see this modelled for us in faith in the Trinity, which is God in relationship with God self and then us, the created world. God’s communication is perfect, and the roles of each member of the Trinity are unambiguous. The Trinity reaches into our world through the person of Jesus and the mission of the Holy Spirit.

St Augustine, writing about the year 400, described the relationship of the Trinity within itself as the ‘mutual love theory’. God relates inside the Trinity through love; the love of the Trinity breathes forth the Son into the world; the Son dwells among us and is raised to new life by the love of the Father; the Son returns back to the Father and then the Spirit is sent (spirated) to the world. In short, the Trinity is love, its relationship is love and its language is love.

God reaches into our world and allows us to make decisions which impact the future of not only our own lives, but the lives of many around us and indeed, the future of our planet. It is a great act of subsidiarity. God trusts us and gives us free will, even though he knows that in our humanness we will make mistakes and frustrate his perfect plan. God allows and invites us opt be part of his wonderful plan for creation. God believes in us and encourages us, through the Church, to be in perfect relationship with the Blessed Trinity in their work of creation and sanctification.

The mission of the Trinity is to empower us, God’s people, to live in the grace of God, to allow ourselves to be drawn into God’s life and love, and to share that with the world around us.  May God find in us willing and worthy co operators. 

Homily Trinity Sunday Year C 26th May 2013 

Parish Bulletin, The Most Holy Trinity, 26th of May 2013

 

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The Advocate

When missionaries came to the Kimberley, they were faced with local aboriginal beliefs and culture that had endured for many thousands of years. They were faced with the challenge of how these traditional beliefs would relate to Christianity. The anthropologist Kenelm Burridge wrote:

        the missionaries brought to the aborigines not just a foreign faith which might have been as    
        acceptable to them as anyone else, but a faith in foreign cultural wrappings.

The task for the missionaries was to communicate the Christian faith in a way that suited the cultural norms of the people of the Kimberley without diluting or compromising that faith. It is a big ask, and it continues today. Our reading from Acts tells us of the first time this was encountered, and how the apostles faced the issue. The procedure followed by the apostles also informs us how to make decisions as Christians.

The key person to this process of discernment is the Holy Spirit.

Among the disciples were those who demanded that new Christians follow the Jewish dietary law and then put the Christian observance over the top.  Others disagreed, so they met and talked together in prayer. There is no doubt the debate would have been heated, but it was conducted in the context of prayer and mutual support. This was the first council of the church, the Council of Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit was called upon for the first time to bring the gifts that we received at confirmation: Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord. This is the only way that they were able to come to agreement, and then able to say: it has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves. Recently, with the election of Pope Francis, we had a similar public acknowledgement of the action of the Holy Spirit when it was requested.

It is clear that when we face major issues in the life of our church or world, we need the gifts and action of the Holy Spirit to ensure the correct decision is made and course of action followed. Beyond that, however, we need the Spirit to be with us as our helper, our advocate, the one who provides the strength promised by Christ. Each day we need the advocate who will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.

Each of us encounters challenges in our daily lives that need the discernment of the Holy Spirit. We have opportunities to contribute positively to discussion and debate in our homes workplaces and community, or just to stay silent. We do this by studying and discussing what we believe and why, by struggling with the teachings of the church which we find difficult, not just giving up on them. Simply put, we have the chance to lead, or be led. If we choose to lead, we do so with the wisdom of the church and the guidance of the Spirit, not just the opinion of one person.

All of us need that spirit, whether we consider ourselves close to God or not, we all need to be held by this Spirit. Today let us ask for these wonderful gifts.

His Last Will and Testament

One of the very confronting things we have to do after becoming an adult is to make a will. We have to decide and then put in legal terms what is important in our lives and what we wish to happen to it when we die. Young people don’t like talking of death, and as I did not have anything of substance to leave anyone, the experience was strange, but I wrote it anyway for the sake of form.

The purpose of a ‘last will and testament’ is to direct material possessions to those whom we wish to receive them, after our death.  Wills often go into great depth, and are a window into how a person wants to be remembered after their death. The shortest extent will is two words (‘to wife’), and the longest will is that of Frederica Cook, who died in London in 1925 leaving a will of 1066 pages![i] It seems that with material goods we even have to be possessive after death! That being so, the attachment we feel for material goods needs to be ordered toward something greater. The American Jesuit John Kavanaugh puts it this way: Our very love for the goods of this earth draws us to the good whose self is love.[ii] If this transition does not happen, then our attachment is disordered and self-centred. In other words, material goods are at the service of the spiritual life, not the other way around.

The material will needs to lead to a spiritual will. This is the will that we see written in the lives of those who go before us into death. Yesterday Granny May Howard died after 108 years living in this world.  She has left an extraordinary spiritual will to the five generations of her family that have come after her. Her will is that of faith, family and perseverance. These wills are always the best and most fruitful, for they truly are a gift for generations to come. So with this will of Granny May, we remember a woman who lived her life in faith, who persevered through the trails of the Stolen Generations without bitterness, and who lived on a spiritual plane for most of her life.

Gospel today gives us Jesus’ last will and testament. St John has written it down for us to make it very clear. It is a gift of love: I give you a new commandment, Love one another as I have loved you. Just as I have loved you, you must love one another.

At first it does not seems to be a free gift, since Jesus is commanding us to a particular action. However, remember that he is bequeathing this at the Last Supper, just prior to offering his life for the salvation of all people. Jesus proves by his life and witness that love for others is the only way that we can live the life that he invites us to. You can’t do half measures on this one:  it is either all or none! Michael Fallon teaches us: Only by obeying this command of Jesus can we live the divine intimacy which he came to share with us. [iii]

After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the church gradually came to an understanding of what being a Christian entailed. It was based on self-giving love, the last will and testament of Jesus Christ. Sometime after 130AD a Roman public servant, writing a government report, recorded of Christians:

They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. [iv]

This is what Jesus meant!

This is the faith and practice that Jesus bequeathed to the Church, and that the Church has always held firmly. On the other hand, putting into practice has sometimes been challenging. St Josemaria Escriva, writing last century, notes wryly:

The Master's message and example are clear and precise. He confirmed his teaching with deeds. Yet I have often thought that, after twenty centuries, it is indeed still a new commandment because very few people have taken the trouble to practise it. The others, the majority of men, both in the past and still today, have chosen to ignore it. Their selfishness has led them to the conclusion: 'Why should I complicate my life? I have more than enough to do just looking after myself.' Such an attitude is not good enough for us Christians. If we profess the same faith and are really eager to follow in the clear footprints left by Christ when he walked on this earth, we cannot be content merely with avoiding doing unto others the evil that we would not have them do unto us. That is a lot, but it is still very little when we consider that our love is to be measured in terms of Jesus' own conduct. Besides, he does not give us this standard as a distant target, as a crowning point of a whole lifetime of struggle. It is — it ought to be, I repeat so that you may turn it into specific resolutions — the starting point, for Our Lord presents it as a sign of Christianity: 'By this shall all men know that you are my disciples.'[v]

This is what gives us life in this world and the next. In the end, love is all that matters.  

May we live the challenge of the people of God, like Granny May and so many others have taught us, and may we continue to receive love and life from Christ as the Church has done for the last two thousand years.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, 27^th April 2013, OLQP Broome.

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[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_and_testament

[ii] John F. Kavanaugh, The Word Engaged: Meditations on the Sunday Scriptures Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York (1997), pp. 64-66. Found at http://liturgy.slu.edu/5EasterC042813/theword_engaged.html, last accessed 27^th April 2013.

[iii] Michael Fallon MSC, The Gospel According to St John: An Introductory Commentary, Chevalier, Kensington, (1998), p.247.

[iv] Mathetes, Letter to Diognetus, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0101.htm .

[v] St Josemaria Escriva, Friends of God, http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/friends_of_god-point-223.htm, 223.