New wine, new wineskins (Mark 2: 21-22) New Models of Mission in the Australian Church

Transcription

1 New wine, new wineskins (Mark 2: 21-22) New Models of Mission in the Australian Church Seeking to implement the vision of Francis, the Church in Australia has begun to consider a synodal identity through its commitment to a Plenary Council in What does synodality mean, and how does it reshape the Church? The journey towards such a significant event invites new entities, such as Mary Aikenhead Ministries, to recognize their ecclesial identity in a deeper way, and to assume their theological and spiritual responsibility in a particularly conscious manner. The emergence of new Public Juridic Persons in the life of the Church is reshaping the experience of the Church in Australia. Most importantly, however, they are a critical expression of the mission of the Gospel in our society. We have spoken of the key vocabulary in the perspective of Francis, and the challenge this provides us personally and collectively. In receiving this challenge, we do so not only with gestures, but by projects and structures; we are committed to the creation of a culture of mercy. 40 Or more accurately, a counter-culture: We are part of a fragmented culture, a throwaway culture. A culture tainted by the exclusion of everything that might threaten the interests of a few. A culture that is leaving by the roadside the faces of the elderly, children, ethnic minorities seen as a threat. A culture that little by little promotes the comfort of a few and increases the suffering of many others. A culture that is incapable of accompanying the young in their dreams but sedates them with promises of ethereal happiness and hides the living memory of their elders. A culture that has squandered the wisdom of the indigenous peoples and has shown itself incapable of caring for the richness of their lands. All of us are aware, all of us know that we live in a society that is hurting; no one doubts this. We live in a society that is bleeding, and the price of its wounds normally ends up being paid by the most vulnerable. But it is precisely to this society, to this culture, that the Lord sends us. He sends us and urges us to bring the balm of his presence. He sends us with one program alone: to treat one another with mercy. 41 There is little doubt that in the face of developing social trends which are contrary to the Christian perspective on life, this mission is no easy task. We have so much to celebrate in our world. We also have much to confront: the primacy of individual rights in opposition to the rights of a community; the assertion of the self and its perceived rights as the arbiter of truth and rightness without attention to the social wisdom of centuries experience; the dissolution of the Transcendent into the technological illusion of limitless possibility; the assumption that the feel-good determines the value of our experience. This is why it is most difficult to have our voice heard in the increasing chatter around us. From the perspective of our Christian faith, and from the perspective of our long Catholic Tradition of rational reflection, we cannot, however, but resist those trends which we consider rob us of our humanity. The Christian is not interested in what is good for them individually; the Christian is passionately concerned with the world and the type of society which might promote genuine human flourishing, or otherwise. Engagement with our world, its issue and its trends, is not an optional extra for the Christian. The question is not whether, but how to engage our world - especially when it is imbued with a way of thinking that runs antithetical to our Christian perspective of what best makes for human flourishing. The theologian Edward Schillebeeckx terms this political love a self-giving to [others] in a world [which we are] to humanize. 42 It is the love into which we are summoned as a Church, and which, in the end, will be the only voice that will be able to be heard. The exercise of this love is what it means to be a prophet in our own time. 40 Pope Francis, 30 June Pope Francis, Message for the Occasion of the Jubilee Celebration for the Americas, 29 August Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An experiment in Christology, translated by Hubert Hoskins, (New York: Seabury, 1979),

2 Notwithstanding, the 20 th century scholar of spirituality, Michel de Certeau observed, even many years ago, that civil society has replaced the Church in the role of defining tasks and positions, leaving the Church with only a marginal possibility of correcting In our current context we can feel, as he wrote, as if have fallen from a sinking ecclesial ship, lost in the vast and uncertain poem of an anonymous reality which comes and goes. 44 In response, he outlines how we can be tempted to create alternate sites of meaning. However, the risk, then, is that we become, as it were simply, a religious ghetto, a museum piece that can exercise no agency in our society what the American philosopher of religion, David Tracy, calls a private reservation of the spirit. The task forward is not simply to try to fortify the Church s bulwarks such that it reclaims a power stronger than the prevailing trends, but rather for each of us to take up our responsibility, and precisely in the context of our situation seek to exercise the imperative of the Gospel. De Certeau calls this moment, for the Church, our empty tomb. 45 The body of the Church, as it were, is absent, at least in the social culture; it has no force. As he contends, no longer can we enjoy the litany of past strengths ecclesial property with cultural prestige. Indeed, the capacity of the Church as an institution to speak on any moral issue has been severely weakened by our own history of the abuse of children and of our neglect to act properly in response. In the silence of this apparent absence we must learn ourselves to speak. The English educator, Peter Vale once remarked that leadership today is white water navigation. Part of this experience is the grappling to name the situation in which we discover ourselves. We live in an age of uncanniness, as the Chicago thinker, David Tracy suggests. Leadership in such a context is complex. To lead when we have been cast adrift from the past but when we realize that the new shore will not be reached in our own lifetime calls for a particular leadership. It calls especially for a leadership that breathes the spirit of paradox into which Francis calls us - the paradox of memory and imagination, of responsibility and risk, of distinction and inclusion, of judgment and openness, of unity and diversity, of holding on and letting go. Not only does the future of our agencies depend on the development of such capacity. So, too, does the very vitality of our Church, for its future is in your hands. In the transfer of charism from Religious Order to the new Public Juridic Persons, of which Mary Aikenhead Ministries is an example, the exercise of leadership must arise from a creative tension between the originating memory of our institution on the one hand, (for it certainly is not without significance), but on the other hand, the personal sense of mission that our new leaders can develop out of their own spirituality. 46 Mission emerges from memory and imagination in conversation. However, if we take this conversation between the originating memory of our agencies and the new sense of spirituality and imagination that those now in leadership can hopefully bring with them, then two things become apparent: the personal spirituality and imagination of those in leadership risks being confronted, challenged, and extended by the founding memory and story; and the originating memory of the institute risks being changed. The risk is change. We know how difficult change is. But the viability and vitality of mission in the future will depend on our willingness and courage to take the risk. 43 De Certeau, The Weakness of Believing: From the Body to Writing, a Christian Transit, translated by Saskia Brown in The Certeau Reader, edited by Graham Ward (London: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), Michel de Certeau, The Weakness of Believing, De Certeau, The Weakness of Believing, See David Ranson, Memory and Imagination: New sources of Catholic identity. The Furrow 52 (November 2001),

3 In the to and fro of this conversation, formation of those in leadership positions must acknowledge, respect and encourage the sense of spirituality and mission with which people enter our organizations. This must not be done is such way as a kind of self-introduction before the real task of formation gets underway i.e. the transmission of the originating memory of the institution. No, rather we need to engage the spirituality that people bring with them into our organizations in such a way that they deepen their appreciation of its significance in their life and work, and mature in their use of it as the primary source of their sense of mission. When the leadership of our organizations is animated by persons who have a developed and conscious sense of the common good of society, a mature focus on service and on sacrifice for the well-being of others, an informed vision of what makes for a truly human life, a recognition of personal vocation in what they are doing and hence of their contribution to the common good, and a recourse to sources deep within themselves which sustain them in their vision of life, then our emerging Public Juridic Persons have every prospect of being truly enlivened with mission, and assuming their rightful identity both in the life of the Church and our society. In this context, for some time, I have indeed been concerned about the question of the identity of our Catholic agencies. More specifically, I have been concerned about the concern for the Catholic identity of our agencies, and what this concern might truly represent. I do acknowledge that we live in curious times when then concern about identity is never far from the surface. In postmodernity, we celebrate diversity and autonomy but we also become unsure as to who we are. Yet, where concern about identity becomes primary we fall victim to the self-referentiality consistently condemned by Pope Francis. The Church, and its agencies, do not exist for themselves; they exist for something greater than themselves. Identity is the outcome of something else. If we want to find who we are there then we must forget ourselves and go beyond ourselves. What are we at the service of? Why are we doing this? Whom do we serve? Our identity emerges from, and is the outcome of our mission. The Catholic agency does not exist simply as a vehicle for social improvement, and therefore as something self-sufficient, with a singular focus. Nor does it exist simply to shore up the Church s identity. It is, rather, a foundational means of revealing God s love for all, especially the vulnerable and marginalized, and, ultimately, must be both accountable to, and evaluated by, this fundamental orientation. Our agencies are at the service of mission, and if they are agents of mission, then the leadership of our institutions is about leadership for mission. As we know, the recent history of the Church has irrevocably changed its sociology. Key to this change has been the fundamental re-orientation of the call of discipleship away from particular communities of Religious men and women to a gospel way of living embedded in society, and the subsequent rise of what we call the new ecclesial ministries what Edward Hahnenburg suggests as the most significant development in the Church for a thousand years. 47 The Church now exercises its life as a rich community of ministries. 48 This emergence of a community of ministries underscores the evolution of governance from Religious Orders to new forms of executive leadership, including, but not exhausted by, the emergence of new Public Juridic Persons. This is evidently clear in the extraordinary investment of time, expertise and energy to effect such civil transfer over the last twenty or so years. What may not clear yet, however, is the deeper transfer that is occurring in these developments not the transfer of assets, but the transfer of a fundamental dimension of the life of 47 See Edward P. Hahnenberg, The Vocation to Lay Ecclesial Ministry, Origins 37, (30 August, 2007), See also David Ranson From Secular Institute to Ecclesial Movement: Conjunctions of the Sacred and the Secular in the Twentieth Century, Australasian Catholic Record 89 (April 2012), ; Priesthood within a Community of Ministries, Australasian Catholic Record 88 (October 2010), ; Religious Life into the Future, Australasian Catholic Record 85 (October 2008), John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, At the close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, Apostolic Letter, (6 January, 2001), n. 46. This is further affirmed in John Paul II, Ecclesia in Oceania (2001): We are all grateful for the various gifts God has given lay men and women to carry out their mission, which is not only a call to action and service but also a call to prayer. They and their pastors are encouraged to move forward with fresh energy and to proclaim Jesus Christ to their people with renewed conviction, n

4 the Church which we call the charismatic. This is that dimension of the Church s life in which the Spirit within the Church endows it with diverse gifts to bring its life to realization. These gifts of the Spirit, expressed in a kaleidoscope of ministries, are the leaven that make the Church truly Church. Yet, as one of the principal theologians of the 20 th century, Karl Rahner, would observe, such gifts, or charisms, are not just given to help the Church but have emerged in continually new forms; hence they must be continually rediscovered. 49 Our new institutions, like Mary Aikenhead Ministries, just as the Religious Orders that preceded them, come into existence in response to charism rather than institution. The new ministries of service, leadership, governance and stewardship all exercising the ministry of charity in different ways - in our educational, health and aged care institutions is a demonstration of such a transfer. 50 The leadership of these agencies now house the charismatic dimension of the Church s life. In other words, it is the in these ministries of our agencies which become the place in which the Spirit of God grants to the Church the gifts that it requires to become truly Church. If charisms are given by the Spirit for the undertaking of various ministries at the service of the constant building up and renewing of the Church, they are now to be found in the ministry of governance of our agencies. The leaders of our agencies have become the bearers of such gifts, and therefore it is they who are endowed with the responsibility for exercising the deliciously unpredictable life of the Spirit of God that continually interrupts the life of the Church to bring about something new. Their presence calls the Church to recognize that it is always more than ecclesiastical structure. Thus, our public juridic persons are most suited to stand in the gaps between social context and the ecclesial community; i.e. they are most suited to appreciate fully those areas in which there is alienation between a culture and the Church, and to witness to the Kingdom in those margins. Because they are at the same time church and yet, in another sense, beyond Church, our emerging institutions, like Mary Aikenhead Ministries, have a unique opportunity to witness in these margins to be truly bridge builders and instruments of reconciliation, to be able to bring both the Gospel and the Church to those who will never be able to feel comfortable, or to belong, within the structures of the Church. They are, therefore well placed to be the very inhabitors of the intersections about which we have been speaking these days together. Inhabiting these marginal places of our world, they can become the arbiters of what Francis describes as that attitude of listening, of which God is model, spur[ing] us to pull down walls of misunderstandings, and to create bridges of communication, overcoming isolation and closure in one s small world. Someone said: to make peace in the world ears are lacking, people that are able to listen are lacking and then from there dialogue comes. 51 For this reason, the voice of the agencies, such as Mary Aikenhead Ministries, is critically important in those processes leading to the Plenary Council for the Australian Church schedule in 2020, this remarkable historical event that looms before us. As Daniel Ang, one of the Executive Committee, explains, The Plenary Council as an expression of the Church s nature as a communion, a journeying together, to listen to the Holy Spirit and one another to chart the course of the Australian Church into the future. It is a once-in-a-century opportunity that calls for the participation of the whole Catholic community, to discern the patterns of change facing the Church and the wider community. The forthcoming Plenary Council challenges the whole Church to growth in what is called synodality as 49 See Karl Rahner, Charism, in Encyclopaedia of Theology: The concise Sacramentum Mundi, edited by Karl Rahner, (London: Burns & Oates, 1975), 184. For a fuller treatment on the theme of charism see Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Iuvenescit Ecclesia: A Letter Regarding the Relationship between Hierarchical and Charismatic Gifts in the Life and Mission of the Church, 15 May See Mary Aikenhead Ministries, Journeys 10:4 (December 2017) Pope Francis, Address to Telefono Amico Italia, March

5 exhorted by Pope Francis, a journeying together by all the baptised marked by mutual listening to what the Spirit is saying to the Church. The whole Church is invited to ask how our faith and the Spirit is calling our faith communities to better proclaim and live the Gospel in the twenty-first century, how we might best be a missionary, pastoral, contemplative, poor, inclusive and joyful Church as invited by Pope Francis. Francis own commitment to the concept of synodality is an outcome of that very framework at the centre of his understanding of Christian life - the holding oppositions in tension - about which we spoke yesterday. Just as mercy is the conduct most fitting for such intersections, synodality is his strategy by which resolution of the tensions might manifests itself. As he declares, We must continue along this path. The world in which we live, and which we are called to love and serve, even with its contradictions, demands that the Church strengthen cooperation in all areas of her mission. It is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium... A synodal Church is a Church which listens, which realizes that listening is more than simply hearing. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn. 52 There is something vitally important in this, in fact an entire theology of conversation. The American philosopher of religion, David Tracy, observed once that truth manifests itself through conversation. 53 And the concept of synodality, as now proposed by Francis he who has been shaped by his view of the Church as a conjunction of opposites - breathes this recognition. The Australian Bishops, themselves will be called to discern this conversation and to make binding decisions for the good of the Australian Church in its life and mission as we face the future, particularly after the finalization of the recent Royal Commission. I do not know how the voice of the emerging public juridic persons, such as Mary Aikenhead Ministries, may be incorporated into this national conversation, but I plead with you that you find the way, for yours is a voice that must be heard. You are an essential party to the conversation. Yours is the voice of intersection. Yours is the voice of mercy. And yours is a voice of our future as a Church in Australia. 52 Pope Francis, Address Commemorating the 50 th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops, Rome, 17 October See David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion and Hope, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987),