Post on 15-Jan-2016
Bradford and Keighley Catholic School’s Partnership
relax
please relax
It isn’t your fault!
“Listen, I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you, and eat with you and you with me.” Rev.3:20
Welcome
Oct 17th 2011Motu Propria Data (Apostolic Letter)
Porta FideiOct 11th 2012 – Nov 24th 2013
“Behold I set before you an open door” Revelations 3:8
“They wont let you say anything at church they even have hushers at the door.” Lowell Streiker
On the outside looking in
The “door to faith” Acts 14:27.“It is possible to cross that threshold when the word of God is proclaimed and the heart allows itself to be transforming grace.”
THEMES OF PORTA FIDEI
To enter - begins with Baptism (Rom 6:4), where God becomes “Father”, and finishes through death to eternal life.
The loss of faith to move through the threshold is stronger than ever. Para 2.
THEMES OF PORTA FIDEI
An invitation to live by faith“What the world is in particular need of today is the credible witness of people enlightened in mind and heart by the word of the Lord, and capable of opening the hearts and minds of many to the desire for God.” Para 15.
11th October 2011
•The problem of shrinking thinking
•Going back to Galilee (back to the big picture)
•God’s work or our work in God’s name? The foundation of prayer
•Gathered and sent – getting mission focused
Leadership in troubled times
Are we in danger of missing the point
“O that today you would listen to his voice! Harden not your hearts as at Meribah” Psalm 94
It is not just your arteries that harden
“The problem with modern living is that we worship
our work, work at our play, play at our worship”
Terry Hershey
“By means of a diversion a man can avoid his own company 24 hours a day” Louis Pascal
What happens when the dominant focus is not on who we are but on how we perform?
And suppose we get caught up in “Could try harder”. So we fall back onto our own limited resources
“Every man for himself,”
said the elephant as he danced among the
chickens.”
Charles Dickens
Self justification unsettles our unity
.
AD 590, Pope Gregory I Seven Deadly Sins,
luxuria, gula, avaritia, acedia, ira, invidia, superbia
reacting more than responding
Envy occurs when a person lacks another's quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it
“The disciples were arguing over which of them is the best!” Lk.9:34
A high sense of self importance or status
A desire which lacks control
Over indulgence which is unhealthy and unfair
The desire to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves
wrath greed sloth pride lust envy gluttony
?
“May the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervour, who have first received the joy of Christ."
Pope Paul VI's apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi,"
•You’re quietly irritated by other people’s enthusiasm
•You are less comfortable with the idea of “sharing” with others
•Meetings starts to feel irritating
•You start sentences with the phrase ”In the real world…..”
•New ideas annoy you
•You put your name on your cottage cheese
•Practical mundane tasks start to become appealing
• You purchase adhesive numbers to personalise your wheelie bin•You stop playing on your swivel chair when no-one is looking
symptoms
“Champions of the familiar” Prof Hermann Lombards
sometimes I feel like the structures
are working against us rather
than for us
I find out about something and I feel
like I have been overlooked
I worry that I’m not achieving anything, that
I’m not making any progress
I wonder if we have lost our sense of
purpose... ...like we are here to keep things going
just the way they are
I wonder if we are pulling on the same end
of the rope
I start to feel badly about
people, like they are competing
with me
Bradford and Keighley Catholic School’s Partnership
beware the risk of narrow vision
Local By-laws“I received a phone call from a woman who wanted to open a home-based business in their garage. They could use the garage for their office, but only if they didn't block off and insulate both, and left the two doors as a garage door.
Why? It turns out that if you have a driveway in the front of your house, you can park cars on your driveway, but only if your driveway leads to something. The something is interpreted to mean that it must lead to your garage. If you have your garage filled as a storage place you can still park in front of your (unusable) garage, but not if you block off the doors and make them unusable.
“In this atmosphere what becomes important is the behaviour. Was the law meticulously and literally followed? If it was, then that is enough. Doing the law is what counts.”
John Shea - Reflections on the Gospels
“Soon the human person is continually consulting a book of right actions to determine if he or she is doing the right thing.” John Shea – Reflections on the Gospels
the problem is that the rules rather than the reason for the rules takes over
sometimes you are singing…. but you wonder whether you are singing with your mouth or your heart
“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)
“If I have no contact whatsoever with God in my life, then I can not see in the other anything more than the other, and I am incapable of seeing in him the image of God.” Deus Caritas Est, 18 (Pope Benedict
XVI, 2006)
“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)
“Always remember that every subject you study is part of a bigger picture. Never allow yourselves to become narrow.”
Twickenham Address to Pupils
“When I invite you to become saints, I am asking you not to be content with second best. I am asking you not to pursue one limited goal and ignore all the others. Having money makes it possible to be generous and to do good in the world, but on its own, it is not enough to make us happy. Being highly skilled in some activity or profession is good, but it will not satisfy us unless we aim for something greater still. It might make us famous, but it will not make us happy. Happiness is something we all want, but one of the great tragedies in this world is that so many people never find it, because they look for it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple – true happiness is to be found in God.” Pope Benedict XVI to Pupils 17th September
Twickenham: Address to Pupils
There is no distinction between knowledge and love
THEMES OF PORTA FIDEI
.
”Faith grows when it is lived as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience of grace and joy. It makes us fruitful because it expands our hearts and enables us to bear life giving witness.” Para 7.
“The work of evangelization presupposes in the evangelizer an ever increasing love for those whom he\she is evangelizing. It is this love that the Lord expects from every builder of the Church.” EN 79Let love itself become your voice
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
go back to Galilee
return to what we are confident of
When do you notice in yourself a narrowing of ideals? (Lenten question)
How do you regain a sense of the bigger picture?
What is the big picture? What is it that helps us to rise above the detail so that we can look at the detail
questions
God’s work or our work in God’s name? The foundation of prayer and the call for daring
September 16th -20th 2010
“Without the life of prayer, without interior transformation which takes place through grace we can not in Newman’s words, “radiate Christ”; we become just another “clashing cymbal” (1 Cor 13:1) Pope Benedict at Hyde Park.
“Do you mark, Theotimus, how the silence of afflicted lovers speaks by the apple of their eye, and by tears? Truly the chief exercise in mystical theology is to speak to God and to hear God speak in the bottom of the heart; and because this discourse passes in most secret aspirations and inspirations, we term it a silent conversing. Eyes speak to eyes, and heart to heart, and none understand what passes save the sacred lovers who speak.”St Francis de Sales. Treatise of the Love of God. Book VI
Pope Benedict at Westminster Cathedral. Sept 18th
.
“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. “
“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
But to the grateful eye, everything is a blessing
Anam Cara – John DonoghueTo the inferior eye, everything is greaterTo the resentful eye, everything is demanding
To the controling eye, everything is a threat
To the greedy eye, everything is expensive
To the possessive eye everything is desirable
To the cautious eye, everything is a risk
To the demanding eye, everything is a disappointment
“Always be thankful.Let the Word of Christ, in all its richness, find a home with you. With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs to God.”Colossians 3: 14-17
confidence
“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
“Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honour of a critic.”
Jean Sibelius
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed.” 2 Timothy 2:15
“Do not be ashamed then, of the testimony about our Lord or about me.”
2 Timothy 1:8
“If you think you are too small to make a difference you haven’t been to bed with a mosquito.”
Anita Roddick
“God did not give us a Spirit of timidity but rather a Spirit of power and love and self discipline.”
2 Timothy 1:7
“Your life is not about you.” Mother Teresa
gathered and sent
“May the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervour, who have first received the joy of Christ."
Pope Paul VI's apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi,"
“Out of his infinite glory, may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth, until knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.”
St Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians 3:14-21
Questions•How shall we build prayer into our corporate activity before, during and after we act?•In what ways do we need to grow in confidence?
•What “Clear voice” are we seeking to be for a Church IN the world?
•The problem of shrinking thinking
•Going back to Galilee (back to the big picture)
•God’s work or our work in God’s name? The foundation of prayer
•Gathered and sent – getting mission focused
Did we.....
"Act like small children who, with one hand hold tight to their Father and with the other lean in to pick berries from among the thorn hedges. In the same way, as you manage the ordinary things of each day, hold fast with one hand to your Father and, from time to time, turn to yourFather to see if your actions are pleasing him. Take care not to let go of that hand in order to gather more. If you let go, you may well fall flat on your face."Francis de Sales, Introduction III 10.
If you are worried what sort of life you should be leading – try this.
Bradford and Keighley Catholic School’s Partnership