OUR LADY OF TURZOVKA, SLOVAKIA

(taken with heartfelt thanks from Sanctus Christopher Blogspot)

Our Lady of Turzovka

Matus Lasut was by all accounts a simple man. From the age of five, when his mother died, he’d learned to bear hardships as a normal part of life. He grew up tending cows, often sleeping with them in the barn on a bed of straw. His family needed his back, not his brain, to survive so his formal education was limited to just the winter months. His real education took place in his work, where he learned to scratch out a living in the rocky soils of northwestern Slovakia. During the years of violent transition that his country went through – from an independent Czechoslovakian nation to a Nazi puppet state to a Communist satellite of the Soviets – Matus always worked the land. He labored quietly as a woodcutter until he was promoted to the respectable position of forest ranger by the local government.

His faith was simple also. Without a mother to instruct him, he had nevertheless learned the basics of being Catholic. He knew the Our Father and the Hail Mary and he understood a few points of the catechism. He followed the Church’s requirements regarding his marriage and the baptism of his children but he wasn’t so fervent when it came to Mass and confession and communion, not to mention charity for his fellow men. He didn’t particularly like many people but the ones he disliked he made certain they knew it. His faith wasn’t lacking so much as it was lazy. Yet Matus retained throughout his life an aspect that was characteristic of all Slovakians regardless of status, a second-natured devotion to Mary.

So it was on June 1, 1958 that Matus was making his rounds on Okruhla, a mountain near the village of Turzovka. As usual, just before 9 am, he stopped at a spot on the side of the mountain called Zivcak (literally meaning “at the picture”). On a pine tree by the side of the trail was an icon of the Mother of God of Perpetual Help and it was here that he knelt to pray:

“I quickly prayed the Pater Noster and Hail Mary, but before I finished, at the end of Hail Mary, all of a sudden I spotted a short flash of light on my left side. I looked in that direction and to my amazement I saw at a distance of approximately 12 meters, a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes about two meters above the ground as if on a mound...

“A faint gust of wind coming from the east slightly moved her veil to reveal on the left side of her head a lock of light chestnut-colored hair... I realized that this was no statue but a living being standing on a tiny cloud as if it was made from a mist...”

Matus went on to describe her as having folded hands and wearing a crown of twelve stars. Her hair fell over her shoulders from beneath a gold-edged veil of white that stretched to her feet. A blue girdle, also edged with gold, cinched her snowy-white dress. On each foot rested a rose of gold.

Hanging over her right arm was a rosary that reached to her knees – white beads for the Aves and gold ones for the Paters. Interestingly, though the vision indeed strongly resembled Our Lady of Lourdes, the rosary that she held was of five decades, not the six decade one described by St. Bernadette.

A field of white roses suddenly appeared below the Lady and surrounding it was a white picket fence; three of the boards were loose. The lady looked at Matus and pointed to where there was a little hammer and some nails. Matus immediately understood that she wanted him to repair the fence. Unquestioningly, he bent down and set to work. Upon completion, the lady seemed pleased. She then smiled at Matus, held out her arm and gently shook the rosary she was holding. He knew that she was asking him to pray the rosary – only Matus had never learned that special prayer of Our Lady.

Before his embarrassment overtook him, the Lady turned her head in the direction of the tree where her icon stood. Matus followed her glance. Before the pine was a canvas showing a map of the world and below it was a black screen.

The map depicted was not unusual in that the oceans between the continents were blue and the land was variously colored green and yellow. Matus was made to understand that the green signified nations that were good, pleasing to God. The yellow were those countries that had abandoned Him. At first, the colors were stable but soon they began to blur and shift until the entire map was yellow. Little explosions erupted on the map, first on the coasts and in the oceans. Eventually the whole world was in flames. On the black screen below the image, these words appeared:

Repent! Pray for priests and the religious! Pray the Rosary!

Frightened and confused, Matus looked back at the Lady. She motioned for him to look above her and a flash of lightning cracked the sky in the shape of a triangle. From the hole in the sky, Christ emerged in all His majesty, wearing a long white robe and with a red cape draped over his shoulder. Under his left arm he carried a cross and in the middle of his chest there pulsed an image of his Sacred Heart. Three brilliant rays shot forth from the Heart. Two passed by each side of Matus but center one flashed right through him and he shut his eyes and collapsed to the ground.

He awoke to the sound of bells. They were the bells of the nearby church announcing the Angelus – it was noon – he had been there for three hours.

He sat up and looked around. The map was gone, as were the flowers and the fence. And the Lady was gone too, but on a rock just below where she had appeared, lay her rosary. He picked it up and began to pray. The Glorious Mysteries formed miraculously on his lips.

When Matus finished his rosary, the understanding came to him that the three fence-boards that the Lady had asked him to repair were indicative of the repairs that he needed to make in his own life. They were his three main shortcomings and he was supposed to fix them through the prayer of the Holy Rosary, the receiving of the Sacraments frequently, and a friendship with all people.

“After the apparition, I felt a great infusion of faith. First of all, I had to make peace with people whom I had come into conflict with. I would like to have avoided it but felt I had to do this. After returning from the mountain that very evening I went to beg forgiveness from all those people in Turzovka and the surrounding area. I did it as if against my own will. I took me until late in the night. People were surprised, some laughed at me, others thought that I had gone insane. The next day in the morning, I made confession and went to communion. From that time on, I was released from all my illness; first of all from heavy cough which had troubled me for many years and which the doctors claimed to be incurable.”

He told no one of what he had seen.

Matus was visited six more times at Zivcak by the Lady. Each time she appeared the same way, as Our Lady of Lourdes, and each time a vision was given to him in the same way, on a screen with words subtitled below it. Each vision dealt with the sinful condition of the world and the coming of a divine chastisement that could only be put off through prayer and penance. He gave a general description of some of his visions but he also saw specific names, places, and dates which he would keep secret from everyone except the Holy Father. (The Vatican has never made these revelations public, probably as the events are still under review). On the seventh and final appearance on August 14, 1958, she came under the guise of the Immaculate Conception.

During the time that Matus was having his visions, people began to notice a marked change in him. They pestered and questioned him until finally he broke his silence and told his story. On September 8th, the feast of the Nativity of Mary, a thousand people accompanied him on a visit to the icon on the hill. There, he surprised his new friends by announcing that in three days, he would be imprisoned.

That night, a police car stopped at his front door. Neighbors flocked to Matus’ house and prevented him from being taken away but he was ordered to appear at the police station the next day on charges of inciting insurrection. The communist authorities were not about to brook any supernatural resistance to their authority. He did as ordered, and two days later they decided it would be better to classify him as mentally ill; he was confined to a psychiatric hospital “for his own protection.”

Matus Lasut was moved in and out of various prisons and hospitals by the “committees” in charge of his case. He faced nineteen separate investigations and signed 120 sworn testimonies. During the course of his investigation, he was often subject to twice-daily interrogations. Electrocution. Hypnotism. Chemical cures.

Matus never broke and never renounced his story. From the official records kept during one inquisition, the simple forest ranger reaffirmed his faith to the procurator:

“Mr. Procurator, do you have a mother?”

“Yes, naturally.”

“And could you deny your mother?”

“No, this I could not do.”

“So, you can see why I cannot deny my heavenly mother either.”

After five years, Matus Lasut was finally released from prison but lived under constant surveillance for the rest of his life. Left half-blind and nearly toothless from the “treatments” inflicted upon him, he went right back to returning to his mountain. He found that despite attempts by the police to deter pilgrims by cutting down trees and burning images of the Holy Virgin, the site of the apparitions was growing dearer and stronger in the hearts of his countrymen every day. In fact, visitors from other parts of Czechoslovakia began to trickle in to Turzovka and soon they followed by Austrians and Germans and others. Many offered money to Matus but he never accepted a penny, preferring to live out his life in poverty.

But the story of Our Lady of Turzovka doesn’t end there.

The remainder of the story begins with a man named Jaroslav Zaalenka. He had a dream in which a beautiful lady told him to go up to the mountain (Okruhla) and dig. Not understanding what he was supposed to do, he didn’t follow her directions until after the third night of the same dream. He brought his shovel to the mountain and wandered around looking for a place he should dig. At a loss for guidance, he picked a random place that wasn’t too rocky. No sooner had he begun when the lady from his dream suddenly appeared and spoke to him. “Not here,” she said, “but over there, where you see those ferns.” He walked over to the ferns and set his shovel below the roots. As his foot pushed the shovel into soft ground, the ferns vanished and water began to bubble up. He turned to look back at the lady but she was gone. Six more springs formed on the mountain over the ensuing years when there had never been a single one recorded in its history.

Word of miraculous cures began to spread.

Nuns, priests, doctors, engineers, and people from all walks of life swore to the healing effects of this water. Lung cancer. Blindness. Paralysis. Soon, upon request, jars of the water were being sent to Rome. The prophecy reportedly made by the visionary and stigmatist Therese Neumann to Slovakian Bishop Karol Kaspar in the 1920’s had apparently been fulfilled: "In a few years, you will have in Slovakia another Lourdes where you will go on pilgrimages." Even the name of Padre Pio was brought into the mix after he wrote in a letter to a Slovakian Jesuit priest, "Turzovka - ít is an authentic apparition. In time, it will become the Slovak Lourdes!"

Turzovka grew beyond control. Visions and voices and unexplainable events spread like a contagion among those who visited the site. Perhaps through modern eyes, jaded by the experience of so many hoaxes and false apparitions, we might see the related phenomena as fakeries by hucksters or hallucinations by “groupies.” Yet, looking at each case individually, there seems to be nothing malicious, nothing sinister behind them. There doesn’t seem to have been an “industry” that profited from the appearance of Our Lady. Nothing but good seems to have come of it. And nothing contrary to the Faith.

One of the more tender stories , of typically Slovakian flavor, regards a bus filled with passengers that stopped at Cadca, a village about 10 kilometers from Turzovka. A barefooted woman with a rosary in her belt boarded the bus. “Where are you going?” the driver asked her. “Turzovka,” she replied. The driver calculated the fare and handed her a ticket but the woman said that she had no money to pay for it. One of the passengers offered to pay her fare but the woman smiled at him and said she couldn’t accept his offer because he already had three children at home for whom he must care.

The driver, feeling pity for the woman, then offered to pay for her himself. He was taken aback when she told him that she could not accept his help either because although he was not married, she knew that wanted to be. He indeed did need to save every coin for the hard times that he would soon be facing.

By this time, the passengers had begun to pay attention. One of them came up with the idea for everyone aboard to each pay a tiny portion of her fare. The lady agreed to this but before she took a seat, someone insisted that she first show her identification as no one had ever seen her in those parts before.

The lady looked at the bus driver and announced that her ID was in his pocket. The surprised driver reached into his jacket. All that was there was a holy card picturing the Holy Virgin.

The woman disappeared before their eyes.

An extensive list of miracles and stories is still being compiled to this day at this “Lourdes of Slovakia.” Perhaps the greatest miracle to occur though, was that Slovakia and its faithful devotion to the Mother of God, survived through decades of relentless persecution to outlast the Soviet Union. After the communists departed, the dream of millions finally came true. A permanent shrine was finally allowed to be built at the site of the apparitions in 1993.

Very few English sources are available on the internet regarding Our Lady of Turzovka. Here are two with a more complete description of the messages as well as more miracle stories.

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MARY'S LITMANOVA

I just received this beautiful comment from a good former priest friend of mine in Thailand, responding to the previous posting of July 25th,  on The Virgin and the Rent Boy. It made me realize I have to overcome my hesitations and complete these reflections on this very holy Marian site in Northern Slovakia. I've been holding back because so much of the experience was very personal to me, but I intend to focus on the village and shrine itself and what it seems to mean for the people of Slovakia and for the Church as a whole.

Dear Jayden,
This entry stirs up so much!It takes me back to my first visit to Slovakia in 1974, not that long after the stifling of the Prague Spring. Dubcek's attempt to create "Socialism with a human face" had failed, but that didn't stop ordinary Slovaks of all ages from pouring into the churches on all days of the week. Joining them in an afternoon weekday Mass in Bratislava, I could feel their unabashed faith as palpably alive and unquenchable. Like that of Michel's grandmother. Like that of so many devotees in Thailand's Buddhist temples.

I have also felt Montmartre's Sacre Coeur as a holy place but was never fully aware of the triumphalistic reasons behind its creation. That makes your own experience there all the more meaningful, and you put it so well: "...triumphalism on the outside, a sacred mystery within ... which in fact far transcends its powers of control." The cri de coeur which you heard there as well as in your Jesuit novitiate and at Litmanova is certainly being sent into the hearts of thousands of Christians across the world. The more we respond with efforts like yours to open ourselves to the Spirit's healing power for ourselves and the Church, the more the "sacred mystery within" will shine forth upon the whole world instead of being hidden under the bushel basket of institutional triumphalism.

Thanks for reminding us of God's living presence in every human heart through sharing your friendship with former rent boy Michel and how it led you to Litmanova. Thanks for witnessing so vividly to how God's radiance upholds, permeates,and shines upon this broken world through the simplest of our actions.

Ed Vargo in Thailand

to be continued

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Rubbing Elbows with the Archbishop

Still reflecting on Litmanova and hope to complete the series soon: Until then, here's a little dity.

I've been attending the Early Music Festival in Prague for the past few days with some extraordinary world class musicians descending on the city to give us the benefit of their marvelous artistry. Last evening I attended the violin concert of Harmonie Universelle from Germany, playing early Baroque pieces of composers Biber, Schmelzer and Muffat. Can't say I've ever heard of any of these folks, but that's always the wonder with these kinds of concerts, presenting to us long hidden, neglected masterpieces by composers who never made the superstar list. I'm always in awe of the remarkable dedication of these musicians, devoting so much of their lives to hidden works of art of unknown composers. How do they make a living doing stuff like this?

The concert took place in the recently renovated Dominican Convent Refectory, one of the secret little enclaves in this golden city - and we have so many of these hidden treasures. Here are some photos:

I sat in the second row, directly behind Prague's recently appointed Archbishop, Dominik Duka O.P., who was imprisoned during the communist years for a time and served as both novice master and regional provincial of the Dominican order. Seems like a decent caring fellow, but obviously plugged into the ecclesiastical system.  Sitting next to him was the Papal Nuncio, Msgr.Diego Causero. And filling up the rest of the seats - the upper crust of Prague society and the hoity toity, dressed elegantly for this warm but sprinkly summer evening, the occasional wandering tourist - and me. So life goes on as it has for centuries at these kinds of events, with the wine flowing freely and the canapes presented adroitly, with the Archbishop and the Nuncio and we.....Did I forget to mention that the concert was glorious - beyond glorious and the musicians were dressed in blue jeans and t-shirts! Dress jeans and stylish T shirts, to be sure, but casual wear all the same. Summer in Prague. 

Tonight I'm going to St. Agnes Convent (no longer under the auspices of the Catholic Church, very much de-consecrated,) to hear the world renowned Bruce Dikey play the cornetto (the who?), accompanied by Paulina Victorina van Laarhoven on the viola de gamba, together with the ensemble La Violetta, also playing cornetto, harp, harpsichord and organ, playing ornamented madrigals of Ortiz, Lasso and Rossi. The Archbishop, I fear, will not be in attendance.

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THE GODDESS OF PATTAYA

I'm still trying to catch my breath after the last posting and waiting for the right moment to continue the reflections on the Marion Shrine of Litmanova, which, by the way, celebrates its 20th anniversary on August 8th, less than two weeks away, when more than 200,000 pilgrims are expected to ascend the holy mountain in the company of the two original visionaries. The very generous young priest in charge of the shrine, Father Vasil, has invited me to the event and offered to let me stay in his house in town. I'm still praying over that invitation at the moment.

However, because this is an inclusive blog, dedicated to openness and appreciation of other faith traditions, I felt that I should go on record and say (before I get too carried away with Marion apparitions) that I believe that "Jesus and Mary" exist within a much larger universe of spiritual beings, far, far more expansive and mysterious than orthodox Christianity is yet capable of comprehending. To make this point, I offer this brief anecdote.

Two and a half hours south of Bangkok, Thailand, is the beautiful seaside resort of Pattaya, the nearest major beach resort to the capitol. During the thirty years I lived in the country, I made frequent trips to the resort, usually staying south of the main city, far away from the honky tonk atmosphere. Apart from its spectacular scenic beauty, Pattaya is also notorious for its vital, heart pounding sex industry, with thousands of young women and several hundred boys working the hundreds and hundreds of go-go bars. However, one can find secluded, beautiful beaches south of the city with beautiful hotels surrounded by the assortment of pizzerias, souvenir shops, tailors, 7'11's, so that one need never leave the area.  My favorite location was Cozy Beach and the Cozy Beach Hotel (one of ten in the area -and I can hear my friends gnashing their teeth and saying, "No, no, don't give the secret away!).

To the north of the city, however, is located the five star hotel, The Dusit Resort (which has since changed it's name to the Dusit Thani Pattaya Hotel) one of the most aesthetically beautiful hotels in all of Thailand. I've visited here frequently, dined here many times, stayed here a few times because it is quite pricey. But every time I've walked into the grounds I've been overcome by a sense of profound sacredness and this feeling has increased in intensity as one walks through the grounds and heads out past the swimming pool to the point that faces the expansive Pattaya Bay. Every single time I've been out here, I've felt the presence of a divine feminine being, who seems to be watching over the thousands of young women working the sex trade. The sense of presence was so holy and compassionate and profound, a presence that seems to envelop all who come here. My good friend, John McConville, whom I've known since our Jesuit novitiate days in the 60's, has also felt her presence on numerous occasions and we both 'know' that she is distinct from the 'Blessed Virgin Mary' of the Catholic tradition. Who could she be?

Living in  Thailand at the time was a good friend of ours, Len Cranmer, who was a practicing psychic of recognized spiritual gifts - though Len hates the designation 'psychic,' because he feels it gives people false expectations when they meet him that he is some kind of fortune teller. He prefers the term, "metaphysical healer." Len is a 'spiritualist,' meaning he believes that Jesus is a radiantly enlightened being, but not the only such figure in human history, and he believes not only that we reincarnate many times on this earth, learning numerous lessons each time, but that we choose the circumstances of each incarnation. So I decided to invite Len to the Dusit Resort for dinner and rather shrewdly, I didn't tell him my motivation for doing so. However, being a very gifted person, Len caught on that something was afoot. When I walked him through the grounds, he said simply, "This is a sacred place and it has a sacred history." When we reached the swimming pool, before walking out to the point, he stopped and said - as if it were the most natural thing in the world - "Oh, there is a goddess here." I said, "really." He smiled, looked at me, and said, "Yes, but you knew that already, didn't you." We walked out onto the point and Len said, "Oh, she is very powerful and she is here to watch over the many women who suffer in this city. Very powerful indeed," and he remained silent for a while, wafting in her atmosphere, almost like the aromas of a fine cigar ( a crude image, but the best I can do.). After dinner, Len wanted to explore the matter a little, so we walked up to the front desk and asked the lovely Thai staff if they knew anything about the history of the point where the resort was located. We received many lovely smiles and looks of incomprehension. No, they didn't, they told us, but maybe we should ask the personnel manager, Khun Saowapa, who would be in her office in the morning. She had been with the hotel since its founding, almost thirty years ago! We thanked the Thai staff and made a resolution to have breakfast in the hotel the following morning and have a chat with Khun Saowapa. 

The following morning, after indulging ourselves at the fabulous breakfast buffet, replete with fresh lobster, giant prawns, smoked salmon, oysters in the half shell - and champagne, we made our way to the front desk and asked to speak with Khun Saowapa. We were greeted by a very charming older Thai woman in her 60's, wearing beautiful garments of Thai silk and a magnificent hand wrought silver necklace. When we said we wanted to ask her about the history of the hotel, she took us downstairs to her office. Following his instincts, Len went right to the point and asked Khun Saowapa if she had ever experienced any kind of special presence in the hotel or out on the point. Being a timid soul myself, I was aghast at his effrontery. Wasn't there a more tactful way of approaching the subject? Wrong! Khun Saowapa's eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, have you felt her? She doesn't make her presence known to just everyone, you know." Len said, "Oh, you mean the goddess on the point." Khun Saowapa explained, "Yes, but we don't like to speak of her too openly. Thai people are very superstitious, you know,  and very afraid of ghosts, and they would hesitate to stay here if they knew. Even the Thai staff are rather nervous about the experience, but I can assure you she will do no harm. You see, many years ago, there was a small Indian shrine dedicated to the Hindu god, Ganesha, on this point, and it was favored by the sea gypsies who were fisherman at that time, long before Pattaya was discovered as a resort. A young girl (and we don't know the exact circumstances) was brutally murdered by her lover on this point and her body was tossed into the sea. But the waves, instead of taking her far out to sea, brought her back to the shore, where she was eventually discovered. We don't really know who she was, but we feel her presence every day, and I've gotten quite used to her. That's why I've stayed at this hotel for so many years, it's a holy place to me. And if you look outside at the entrance to the hotel, you will see a large shrine dedicated to Ganesha, the Elephant god, with many flowers and gifts placed around it. Those are placed there mainly by the Thai staff, who are both grateful for the blessings of the Elephant god and the 'goddess of the point,' as you call her, as well as a little bit nervous about her, She seems to confirm for us the Thai belief that the 'world' is populated by spirits we cannot see, some benevolent and benign, some not so kindly disposed."

Len and I thanked Khun Saowapa for her graciousness to us and went for one final walk out to the point, where we both said a silent prayer to the goddess. Len was quite calm, as if nothing we had learned was particularly unusual, but I was completely taken aback. This was my first really intimate, personal encounter with a 'sacred being' completely outside the Christian, Catholic universe.  I had experienced the sacredness of many Buddhist temples, but never that 'personal' touch that usually characterizes our encounters with the Blessed Mother of Jesus.  However, I walked away from this conversation not sure of what was the more extraordinary element in this story, the presence of this gentle, compassionate 'goddess' who had manifested herself spiritually to us or this wonderful, gracious, cultivated and utterly civilized Thai woman who had served at this hotel for over thirty years because, as she explained it, she felt called to serve the secret mystery of "the goddess of Pattaya."

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PEASANT FAITH BURNS BRIGHT IN MARION SHRINE OF LITMANOVA

(Update: I'm not sure why the original photos included with this post are no longer visible, since most of them were my original photos taken on site.  But I have 'deleted' the remnants of them, to remove the distracting exclamation points!)

I have just returned from four days in the utterly sacred, mysterious, hidden Marion shrine of Litmanova high in the mountains of northern Slovakia on the Polish boarder. Allegedly, (and for myself there are no doubts) the Blessed Mother appeared to two young peasant girls on August 5th 1990, announcing herself as Immaculate Purity, and continued her visitations until August 6th of 1995. The young girls should have been attending Mass at their parish church in the town, the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, (under the auspices of the Greek Catholic Church, which practices the Eastern Rite). The young girls were playing in a dilapidated, abandoned cabin on the holy mountain of Hora Zvir when they were startled by a loud crashing sound and a white light out of which emerged a beautiful woman who gazed at them lovingly and then walked across the floor of the cabin and sat down on a little bench.  The girls said they were flooded with the most profound peace that put all their fears to rest. Ivatka has said, "I didn't feel I needed to ask her anything. Just her being here with us was enough." That bench has now become the most sacred object in the shrine and the sight of many 'healings.' A sacred spring behind the cabin has now become a source of healings as well, and pilgrims draw water from it freely.

I'm afraid I'm still too overcome by the visit to adequately describe it, except to say I felt touched by an all encompassing Love more intimate to my being than my own heartbeat. It is truly a holy place, and with every breath of my being during those four days I felt in  intimate union with the Blessed Mother of us all. Thank you, dear mother, for the grace of Litmanova. It is the Marion shrine that all of us have been searching for in our hearts all our lives. A remote mountain village of peace and harmony, touched by Mary's grace and completely unspoiled by any taint of commercialism. High in the mountains of northern Slovakia, hidden away from the world and known to very few pilgrims outside the Slovak and Polish Christian communities. It is pure gift and pure grace.

A much fuller report to follow in a few days.

Jayden Cameron

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MARIAN APPARITIONS IN LITMANOVA, SLOVAKIA

(Update: I'm not sure why the original photos included with this post are no longer visible. Perhaps they have disappeared from the original site? But I have 'deleted' the remnants of them, to remove the distracting exclamation points!)

Through a mysterious chain of coincidences, prompted first by an email from a friend and unraveling over the past 24 hours, I am now on my way to Slovakia and the sight of the 1990-95 Marian apparitions in the hillside village of Litmanova on the Polish Border. One of the minor, lesser known Marian shrines in the world, I know not what to expect but it feels like a grace.  Clearly I am being led, since this whole adventure unfolded so rapidly with an unexpected invitation this morning from one of my young Czech friends, whose parents live in the area, and whose grandmother was a frequent visitor to the site.

A report to follow.

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CARDINAL SCHONBORN ON MEDUGORJE

 I am still reflecting on my recent retreat in Medugorje and hope to post further comments at a later time. One of the facts that recently came to my attention is the role of the Old Catholic Church in the area, a role that has both disturbed and outraged the local ordinary, Bishop Ratko Peric, who refers to the OCC as a "schismatic sect." Apparently some breakaway parishes in the area together with defrocked Franciscan priests are attempting to link up with the Old Catholic Church, inviting their bishop to perform confirmations. I can certainly understand how this would be seen by traditional, faithful Catholics as a countersign of 'disunity,' but since I have great regard for the OCC as an alternative and very spiritual witness to a different way of being 'Catholic,' my own view is more open-minded. I'm definitely intrigued by these developments. At this point in history, and this is only my marginalized view, we are going to witness far more of these breakaway, spirit-filled alternative communities, living authentic Catholic lives on the margins outside the formal control of the institutional Roman Church. Splintering and fragmentation, chaos and disunity? Perhaps, but my own faith tells me these are the signs of the times, the dividing walls are  dissolving, and tribal distinctions in religion are no longer necessary or important. Genuinely sincere spiritual seekers are being moved to form alternative communities of Catholic belief, while other equally sincere believers are being given the strength and charism to remain within the larger tent and struggle for reform from within. There seems to be both a place and a dire need for both alternatives. The Old Catholic Church in Bosnia Herzegovina, where Medugorje is located, has already gone on record acknowledging its belief - not in the authenticity of the original visions - but in the simple fact that 'Our Lady' is at work in Medugorje in a powerful, spiritual way. Whether or not one can accept the authenticity of the original, charismatic experience - which is still ongoing - it seems hard to deny the extraordinary spiritual fruits of this very holy place. To make my point, here is a beautiful reflection from Cardinal Schonborn, explaining how he made the decision to come to Medugorje last December. The statement is remarkable, not only for the Cardinal's views on the whole phenomenon, but for what it reveals about the deeply spiritual, fair-minded, and balanced character of this very unique prelate in the Roman Catholic Church. The future pope? One can only hope and pray.

I cannot explain exactly how this happened. I have known about Medugorje for many years, not personally because I have not been here before, but I have experienced the fruits of Medugorje in our diocese and even further. I always used to say what Jesus has said in the Gospels, “You will recognize the tree by its fruits.” When I see the fruits of Medugorje back home, I can only say that the tree is surely good. I will just mention two little examples.

At the Security Check point at Vienna airport, one of the guards recognized me, looked at my ticket and asked me if I was flying to Zagreb. I confirmed this and added that from Zagreb I was going to Split and then to Medugorje. His face immediately changed and he said, “I was in Medugorje before!” And with much excitement he began to talk about his experience of climbing Holy Cross Mountain and the spiritual atmosphere he experienced there. A security check point guard talks about Medugorje! Another example, early in the morning I was standing at the local train station. The manager of the station recognized me and we started talking and he confided in me the deep pain and loss he felt when his wife died of cancer. But he immediately added that his friends took him to Medugorje and that strengthened his faith even more. His face reflected such joy.

Those are just two little examples among many, many experiences I have had about Medugorje. I will just repeat what I once said in one interview: if there was something wrong about Medugorje, we would have to dismiss half of our seminarians, since so many of our priestly vocations are both directly and indirectly related to Medugorje.

How, then, did it happen that I decided to come to Medugorje? I always used to hesitate, and being a Cardinal, I am a very exposed person in the Catholic Church. Since there are many controversies, I did not want to start additional discussions and in my opinion, Medugorje is already well known. But this summer I visited the community of Cenacolo in Saluzzo. I have known Sister Elvira for the last couple of years, I love her and respect her as an extraordinary witness of the  Risen Lord and I am aware of the deep relationship the community of Cenacolo has with Medugorje. In Saluzzo, I was able to experience a very strong feeling of interior security: my time to go to Medugorje had arrived! I would say that it was a kind of interior encouragement. I expressed a desire that my visit remain confidential. I simply wanted to spend time in silence and prayer. I did not want to hide my intention to come, but also I did not want that to be the main subject of discussions. I just wanted to come to the place where Our Lady gives so many abundant graces. Besides that, the visionary Ivan Dragicevic was in Vienna last year and I spoke with him, and with Marija Pavlovic Lunetti this year, they were both in the Cathedral of St. Stephen and I gave my permission for those events. Both of those encounters have impressed me so much, primarily because of the modesty, simplicity, clarity and warm heartedness of those two visionaries. That only strengthened my decision to quietly and simply come to Medjugorje.

Read the Cardinal's full statement (in very rough translation) here. 


Here is a video of the youngest visionary,  Jakov Colo, receiving his annual apparition on Christmas day in Medugorje this last December, four days before the arrival of Cardinal Schonborn.

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REPORT FROM MEDJUGORJE

I have just returned from a pilgrimage/retreat to Medjugorje, but at the risk of seeming melodramatic, I'm still a little too overcome by the power of the experience to be able to reflect and write about it adequately.  I hope to do this at a later time, so these are just preliminary notes and reactions. of a rambling nature.

As a summary of the experience, I would have to say that not since my earliest childhood have I felt so profoundly and unconditionally loved by a maternal divine presence, a love that penetrates to the most intimate recesses of one's being. I was taken into a place of such profound peace, and was sustained by this peace for the full four days of my visit. There were 'messages' that were relevant to my own personal spiritual life, but the peace 'surpassed all understanding.' Medjugorje, above all, is a place of profound peace. There is the usual commercial aspect of the place as a major pilgrimage site, but I was not a bit offended by the numerous souvenir shops around the town center, they seemed appropriate (though their numbers seemed excessive). It was only on the pathway up to 'Apparition Hill" that the souvenir shops seemed quite offensive and out of place.  Likewise with the many guest houses, pensiones and hotels about the place, they simply give the whole town a festive, holiday air, very much like a beach resort in Thailand. Prices were far above (or below) being simply reasonable. My own family-run pensione in the countryside outside the town center charged me 20 euros a night for a double room with ensuite bathroom. Dinner was 9 euros and included a double portion of soup, home made bread, a huge salad with fresh ingredients from the family's garden, a main plate of chicken, potatoes, cucumbers that was large enough to feed three truck drivers, a generous plate of fruit and a half litre carafe of wine from the family's own vineyard. For 9 euros! This beautiful Croatian family offers rooms in their home as a service to pilgrims, not as a money making operation. So no one is really making any fortune off of the pilgrims, that I can see. Pensiones closer to the town center were charging 40 euros a night for room with bath, which is still more than reasonable. A meal in one of the fancier open air pizzerias right across from the church grounds cost me ten euros for soup, pasta, side salad, two cokes, cup of gelatto and espresso. 10 Euros, and it doesn't get more expensive than that. A week later I was dining in a simple pizzeria in Milan's Galleria and the same meal cost me 50 Euros! Is any of this relevant to the spiritual significance of the place? Indeed it is, because a lot of rather vicious gossip has been spread about the 'money making machine' of Medjugorje. I certainly saw no evidence of this, quite the contrary, though the Franciscans are undoubtedly receiving large and generous donations.  Medjugorje is also set in a spectacular location of astonishing beauty, lush green farm lands surrounded by blue misted mountains in the distance. It makes for a wonderful holiday retreat and at such prices.

Once one crosses the threshold of the sanctuary proper, however, it is as if an impregnable wall has been erected that keeps out all of the commercialism and carnival atmosphere. The sanctuary is a place of prayer and within the church I was carried into such a place of deep interior peace I felt I was back in my aunt Helen's kitchen ( she raised me until the age of 4) and could smell the peanut butter cookies she always baked for me.  It was so hard for me to leave the church, especially on the final day. Something within me wanted to linger within that profound spiritual security and peace. What about the crazies? Yes, some individuals have that special gleam in their eye and numerous persons wear rosary beads around their necks. But they seemed to be in the minority to me, with the majority of pilgrims looking like quite ordinary folk hungering for spiritual sustenance, which is so hard to find elsewhere in the contemporary church. No wonder they are coming in the millions to this very special place.  Thankfully, I didn't run into any hard core conservative cases, using the shrine as a weapon to bolster up their own traditional viewpoints. Undoubtedly such persons exist but it was my good fortune not to run into any.  I did run into two delightful ladies with rosary beads draped around their necks, Martine from France and Esther from the USA. They had that special gleam in their eye and seemed to be enjoying the wacky role they were playing, but they were such great fun to be around and were clearly equipped with the ability to critique their own daffy religiosity with some healthy self awareness. I enjoyed them immensely. They showered blessings on me when we parted, literally....extending their hands and arms and waving spiritual energy my way and laughing and smiling at the same time. A real treat and they both made me feel genuinely blessed. I also met a pair of Lesbian ladies when leaving, Kathy and Janet, waiting for the bus that would take them all the way back to Munich. They were on their way to a teaching gig in Saudi Arabia of all places and said they came here to receive some spiritual fortitude for the ordeal that lay ahead of them. I should say so. Lesbians in Saudi Arabia? I shudder to think. They had a wonderfully dry sense of humor and wanted to know if I would come back to Medjugorje. When I said, oh yes, with pious unction and tears in my eyes, they grunted their approval.

The messages of Medjugorje certainly have a 'radical' tolerance and openness about them, the Blessed Mother of the visions remarking that all religions are the 'same' in God's eyes in so far as they lead us to reverence and respect the divine. This has outraged some conservative Catholic groups who fulminate against the site on their blogs, calling it all an 'invention of diabolic inspiration.' One could see why they would be miffed. One of the visionaries, when asked what she had learned from the experience, said she had learned that "Mary is our mother, Jesus is our brother and companion on the way, and God is our loving father." Simple statement, to be sure, but a striking example of "Christology from below," with no exalted claims made for the Divine Master from Nazareth that would imply a superiority of Christianity over other faiths. As with the apparitions in Spain at Garabandal, the messages also contain a somber warning of future suffering, trials and contradictions. For anyone disturbed by this dimension, I would ask them to revisit the prophetic warnings of Jesus in the gospels about the destruction of Jerusalem. While scripture scholars once believed these warnings were written into the mouth of Jesus by the evangelists, based on the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the consensus of opinion has now swung the other way and the majority of scholars believe these prophecies originated with the Master himself and formed a major element in his preaching - warning of the consequences of violent hatred of the Roman occupation. The apocalyptic language used by Jesus himself is very similar to the tone and imagery of these Marian apparitions and give them a very somber dimension. I came away with the very strong conviction that the 'Blessed Mother' of Medjugorje is very serious about her call to penance, prayer, fasting and conversion. Very serious indeed. I have now adopted her requested practice of fasting on bread and water every Wednesday and Friday. Let us hope my will power holds out.

Speaking of radical openness, one of the English masses I attended in the beautiful church was celebrated by a very witty Irish priest on the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul. His entire sermon was focused on the profound betrayal of Jesus and his church committed by  both of these great apostles and that this should always soberly remind us that our leaders and the church in general were always in need of profound and radical conversion. He ended his sermon with a prayer to the Gospa (as the Lady is affectionately called here) for the continuing conversion and repentance of our church leaders. Wow! Contrary to most progressives' suspicions, Medjugorje is anything but a bastion of conservative, traditional Catholicism. There is indeed room for everybody.

These are my rambling thoughts and I've managed to skirt around the more serious, spiritual issues and the impact the visit had on my own inner sense of vocation and calling as a Christian in the Catholic tradition. The visit was a very special grace for me, affirming on so many levels. I will definitely go back. A place of great holiness and peace, and I have no doubt as to is 'supernatural' origins. Just to prove my point, I was not all surprised to hear that Cardinal Schonborn, who appears to be very much the man of the hour these days, paid a visit to Medjugorje last December,  a visit which annoyed the local bishop of Mostar considerably. Here is a quote from the Bishop's letter of complaint.

On Nov 16, 2009,the Catholic News Agency published the news story: “Cardinal Christoph Schönborn will visit Medjugorje, the small town in Bosnia-Herzegovina where six young people have allegedly been witnesses of apparitions from the Virgin Mary. But according to the Archdiocese of Vienna, the trip is 'completely private' and does not imply a statement from the cardinal on the veracity of the apparitions. It was supposed to be a completely private visit, it was not supposed to go out to the Internet,' said Fr. Johannes Fürnkranz, personal secretary to the Archbishop of Vienna.” 

4.      On December 29, 2009, Cardinal Schönborn arrived in Medjugorje. The media accompanied him the next day and on others as well. According to the news, he delivered a speech at the church of St. James the Apostle that highlighted the mercy of God the Father. In that speech, he said: “Who could put these things in motion? Who could invent them? A man? No, this is not the work of a human being.”

On December 31, 2009, journalists transmitted: “While some were expecting that the Cardinal’s visit to Medjugorje would be private, he has nevertheless surprised the locals by being very visible. He has spent time celebrating Mass at the Church of St. James the Apostle, walking up the hill where the apparitions occur with the visionary Marija Lunetti, praying in the silence of Adoration, and perhaps the most significant thing, delivering a speech at the parish church in the company of the Franciscans.”

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MEDJUGORJE THRIVING

Off to Medjugorje in six days. Decided to skip the 29th anniversary of the apparitions on June 25th because of the crowds, and probably couldn't have gotten a room in any case. What is amazing to me (why?) is that despite the Vatican crackdown on the apparitions, the crowds are only increasing and the Church of St. James is packed for services and confessions, with several thousand ascending Apparition Mountain last Friday for an 'apparition' given to the visionary, Ivan, the youngest of the five, who is in Medjugorje for the summer. I will ascend the mountain next Monday night to join in the prayer services and apparition. It is all quite mysterious, with so many levels of Christian belief on display from the most mythological and literal to the most mystical and sublime. A heady mix of emotion and spiritual feeling. But one thing is crystal clear, the average obedient pew sitting Catholic is serenely ignoring the Vatican warning against the Marian site. Clearly, for all of the ambiguities, something real and very powerful is occurring here, however carefully one must discern the spirits to make sense of it all and not get swept away by the fanatical excesses. Ordinary human beings are being deeply moved and affected by the mystery of Medjugorje. It is in many ways a metaphor for the whole church at this point in history. The Vatican authorities forbid the use of church property for any of the apparitions, so the visionaries move outdoors, making them accessible to thousands instead of hundreds. How wily are the ways of the Holy Spirit and how frequently the folly of foolish men is used for God's purposes.  I wonder what awaits me there?

Jayden Cameron reporting for Gay Mystic news

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: NEW GAY SPIRITUAL BLOG

I just came across this wonderful blog created by a young spiritual gay man. The blog is filled with musings on many spiritual topics and well worth checking out.: In Exsilium

 Of his many inspiring posts on a variety of esoteric (and exoteric) subjects, I especially loved his reflection on the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Her Holy Heart is the deep well which I hope to draw from. It's very image is, for me, an illustration and a revelation of the Christian anthropology I strive to realize in my life. The humility of her Heart, its blessed poverty, is postured by her as the receptivity of the gift of God's divine love in Christ His Son. Her heart is after the image under which I was taught to receive Holy Communion in the second grade: approach the altar, they told us, with the back of your one hand resting in the palm of the other, cup your open palm slightly where the Holy Eucharist will be placed.

In this way, we quietly and contemplatively approached Christ with an empty, curved palm. The idea was, of course, to embody an interior sense of openness to Our Eucharistic Lord. Presently, this signifies the Marian Heart for me before the Trinity. She could have been terrified, as so many of us are, when we try to peer into our own depths and reach down to the root of ourselves, so that we can attain an understanding of the mystery of our being, and from there, the world. But the most thorough of us, I do think, find it always eludes us, it disappears like smoke, and we find a merely empty curvature, a kind of shape of a shell, a well, a darkness, and we wonder where the self that we were once so sure we possessed has gone off to in the course of the passage of time, and in our interrogation of its truth.

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Love the Sinner

I'm off to London on Monday for a week of theatre, followed by a trip to Croatia and Medjugorje, the famous (or infamous) site of Marian apparitions, recently "condemned" by the Vatican. I'm paying 180 Euros a night for a luxury hotel on the sea in Dubrovnik, and 10 Euros a night for a room in a guest house in Medjugorje. Let no one say the people of this Marian village are profiting off of the tourists. Full board of three meals is an extra 17 euros, more than the room ! but still quite reasonable. This is my first visit to Medjugorje, and it's partly prompted by it's now exiled, heretical status. The visionaries are told they may no longer hold their prayer meetings on Church property,  priests at Masses may not advocate or advertise the visions/messages in any way, and that should be the end of that, so thinks the Vatican hierarchs. However, the visionaries have simply moved off of Church property, taking the crowds with them,  and, without a whimper of complaint or bitterness, are continuing their spiritual witness in a deep spirit of faith in the midst of trial and contradiction. Sort of a metaphor for many of us in the church today,  for whom the Vatican has become both an obstacle and an irrelevance, which is why I decided it was now time to go and check it out for myself.

One of the plays I'm most looking forward to in London is Love the Sinner at the National Theatre, a gay oriented play that is right off of today's headlines - gay bishops, same-sex blessings in Africa and carnally copulating evangelicals!  Here's a review.

Love the Sinner starts in the middle of a religious conference in Africa. The delegates have come to an impasse while discussing homosexual bishops and same-sex blessings. Should they move with the times or worry about re-painting the house of Christianity too often, and too easily?

The African/European stand-off is resolved, with a twist, in the second scene hotel room encounter between Jonathan Cullen’s volunteer white layman at the conference and Fiston Barek’s black hotel porter, a member of the Holy Mountain of Fire mission to the world.

Cullen’s sexually conflicted Michael has “eyed” Barek’s Joseph – in a roomful of clergymen, and one woman, closing their eyes for secrecy – and they are caught, post-carnally, with Joseph asking for help and asylum in Britain. In the play’s third scene, Michael is confronted at home by his wife Shelly (Charlotte Randle) over their childlessness. She’s 39, and desperate.

In the second act, two more great scenes show us Michael at work in his small envelope business, going evangelically crazy until interrupted by Shelly – Joseph has turned up at the house – demanding explanations and sex; and a conference “wrap” in Michael’s parish church, where Joseph has been secreted by Michael in the basement.

It’s an unusually good plot for a modern play. Matthew Dunster’s production, beautifully arranged on Anna Fleischle’s adaptable set of wooden blocks and panels, has one of those fine mini-ensembles – Ian Redford as a kindly old bishop, Paul Bentall as a cringing vicar, Nancy Crane as priest and businesswoman, Scott Handy as an ecclesiastical “suit” -- that seem to sprout so regularly at the NT these days.

And they are led by an exemplary trio of performances: the tortured Cullen, who expresses a crisis in the clergy as a personal problem; the demanding and emotionally volatile Randle, stripping for action in the office; and the outstanding debutant Barek as the gay not-so innocent who puts the jizz into Jesus. We have a strong and serious contender for this year’s most promising playwright.

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Without Buddha I could not be a Christian

 Just started reading pluralist theologian, Paul Knitter's recent book, Without Buddha I could not be a Christian, which promises to be rewarding, provacative and inspiring. Here is Tom Driver's review from The Christian Century.

Paul F. Knitter, the distinguished and blessedly maverick Catholic theologian, has had many lives. And more than one religion. His devotional life is now a double one—or, as he calls it, a hybrid. Although getting there took him over a rough path, his reward is a deep inner satisfaction that he wants to share, and in this book about his spiritual journey, he reveals himself to be an unusually honest teacher and guide. Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian will be a lifesaver for some and a scandal for others.

A onetime priest who taught theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, for nearly three decades, Knitter was called out of retirement by Union Theological Seminary in New York in 2007 to serve as Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture. Religious pluralism has been Knitter's concern from the beginning of his academic work. In 1985 he gained international recognition with a controversial book titled No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions. In that work he both abandoned the exclusivism of traditional Christology and ecclesiology and went beyond the inclusivism of his former teacher, Karl Rahner, who held that it was possible for persons outside the church to be saved by virtue of their "anonymous" Christianity. Knitter opted for a more radical pluralism, arguing that Jesus and Jesus' name do not provide the only path to salvation.

With the exception of John Hick, with whom he has collaborated more than once, there is probably no English- language author as widely known as Knitter for sustained theological attention to religious pluralism. Since No Other Name? he has authored four other books on the subject, coauthored one, edited or translated six and been the subject of one. He has also translated a history of Zen Buddhism.

Unlike his previous books, Without Buddha is intensely personal. Writing in the tradition of Augustine's Confessions, Knitter turns on a light in the inner room of his mind, allowing the reader to see him struggling with himself. Even writers with little exposure to Buddhism will be able to identify with Knitter, for the problems presented by Christian imagery and doctrine are endemic to modern thought.

Knitter has difficulty not only with the image of God as a kindly paternal figure somewhere up above but also with the idea, entrenched in classical theology, that God is totally other than creation (totaliter aliter) and entirely sufficient unto himself. The problem is a familiar one. Everything that we know in experience is delineated by its relation to other things. As human beings we are deeply relational, since our very personhood is produced and maintained by interactions with others, a process that starts in utero and continues throughout life. To say that God is God without relation to anything other than God is to remove God from the realm of the intelligible; it flies in the face of the biblical idea that human beings are made in the image of God. For Knitter this contradiction is too much to bear.

While Knitter's relief from the contradiction came by way of Buddhist thought and practice alongside his Christian faith, other paths can be taken. These, although little mentioned in Knitter's book, have been explored by process theology and in the writings of Gordon Kaufman, myself and the Chicago theologians of an earlier generation.

Still, Buddhist thought can help, and it is there that Knitter has found a healthy supplement and corrective to his once conventional Christian theology. I wish he had said more about what specifically led him into the study of Buddhism and its meditative practices. When did this happen? Did Buddhist thought and practice appeal to him equally from the start? If not, which came first for him? Was the attraction immediate or slow? In midlife, Knitter married Cathy Cornell, a Buddhist convert from Christianity. How did that turn in the road affect his spiritual journey? The book does give us an account of Knitter's thought process as he found himself pulled between loyalty to Christ and attraction to Buddha. Only at the very end does he tell us that he "took refuge," the Buddhist version of joining, and pledged himself to the Bodhisattva vows.

Since the book depicts its author in debate with himself, a theologically trained reader may be tempted to get into the argument as well. Has Knitter adequately understood Christian theology? Does he have an adequate understanding of metaphor and symbol? Is it possible, as Peter Steinfels writes in his review of the book for the New York Times, that Knitter's Christianity is "laden with all the impurities of popular piety and workaday theology" while his Buddhism is "that of the best and the brightest"?

Taken on its own terms, this book is wonderfully candid. When Knitter has trouble envisioning and relating to God the Father, he says so. When prayer, especially petitionary prayer, becomes hollow or too self-regarding, he confesses it. When liturgy is too wordy, too symbol-laden or too busy, he voices his desire for something else. And when he finds the stillness and attentiveness of Buddhist meditation answering his inner need, he goes with it. At the same time, when the love of Jesus and the reality of a reconceived God call him back to his Christian roots and identity, he says yes to that also. His is a spiritual life born of two lineages, joined together yet, as has been said of Christ's two natures, "not confounded." As Knitter puts it, he is forever "passing over" from Christianity to Buddhism and then "passing back."

Knitter encourages us to travel as more than mere tourists, taking the other religion as seriously as we take our own. If we take up residence there for a while, we will see if the Spirit will call us to pass back home, profoundly changed from being away. I do not hear in this any note of betrayal. I hear the Holy Spirit singing.

Tom F. Driver taught for many years at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He is the author of Liberting Rites: Understanding the Transformative Power of Ritual.

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CONFIRMATION AT JOHN OF THE ROCK

 

I attended a very moving confirmation ceremony this Sunday at the beautiful baroque church of St. John of Nepomuk on the Rock which I've described in earlier postings on this blog. Two of my younger students were among the confirmed, Hans Joseph and Alex. Their parents were delighted to see me in attendance at the ceremony, an upstanding Catholic teacher giving Christian witness to his young students. If only they knew! Good people all of them, stolid middle class, bourgeois German Catholics, obviously privileged, secure, confident of their place in the world - or am I making too many judgments.

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The ceremony was conducted by a kindly, elderly Bishop from Austria and was very long, well over 90 minutes, with an interminably long sermon from the  sweet-natured, benign presider. Since I don't speak German, it was a long sit, so I entertained myself by studying the large number of children in the congregation, many under the age of ten,  fidgeting in the pews, squirming a bit on the platforms of the side altars, picking their noses and in some cases, scratching their behinds - but otherwise very quiet,  well behaved and polite. The tiny one in front of me amused himself by kissing his father repeatedly on the nose. Most of the under 10's were boys, most of the over 13's were girls, looking very poised and self-possessed.  One family had four boys sitting in a row in the pew with a fifth boy in the baby carriage nearby. The Church was packed, with a congregation of about 300. However, the father of young Alex informed me that on most ordinary Sundays, only about 30 members of the expat German Catholic population in Prague bother to show up for services. Nonetheless, I found this show of solidarity impressive and conversations during the champagne brunch that followed only confirmed a judgment recently made by Terry Weldon at his blog Queering the Church in reference to studies that attempt to gauge those central Catholic beliefs that define Catholic identity for many church going, faithful believers:

• The most important, central, factors were the core beliefs of Catholicism: the Trinity, the incarnation, the Real Presence, and Mary as Mother of God.
• The next set were the Church’s social teachings and responsibility to the poor.
• The third circle concerns rituals, such as attending Mass and receiving communion, which are commonly represented as “practicing Catholics”.

Once again, I do not see in there any reference to automatic obedience, still less to compliance with “official” sexual ethics.

Some witty comments were made at the lunch table about one of their own, German 'Cardinal Raztinger,' now sitting on the papal throne as Pope Benedict. "Oh, we know all about him,"  was one parent's remark. I laughed, but did not feel inclined to pursue the matter. With the champagne flowing, the overall tone was one of slightly giddy irreverence and the subtle, subliminal message I picked up from one and all is that the essence of church consisted in just such family get togethers, so let's not take the big wigs and their pronouncements too seriously. Above all, let us not get ourselves upset on a beautiful Prague Sunday like today with our young children anointed into Christian maturity - since the essence of Christian maturity should be the ability to discern and judge for oneself. Am I reading too much into the genial bonhomie? I don't think so. Reference was made to Cardinal Meisner of Cologne who recently spoke at the meeting of priests in Rome and who made headlines some years ago for comparing abortion to the Holocaust. "Oh, don't pay attention to him," was the advice given by one lady at the table. Interesting. But since most of the conversation was in German, I missed out on the subtext, so to speak! Were there conservative, traditional, obedient Catholics in the crowd? I would assume so, but they were not determining the overall mood of genial independence of thought and spirit. 

 

How did I feel in the midst of all of this? As I usually do, as a gay, marginal, pluralist 'catholic' man - outside of things, on the edge, and not wanting, desiring or needing to be in the center of it all. It's difficult for me to attend any Catholic parish on a regular basis because of the Church's present stance on Gay people, since it violates something in my conscience to do so. That is in no way a judgment on other gay persons who feel called to remain in the pews. We each have our own parts to play. Furthermore, I'm no longer comfortable in any house of worship which only honors one religious tradition. The future does not reside with such singularity of vision. Humility requires us to recognize and honor other signs of the Sacred alongside our own particular tradition, since no religious tradition can stand alone anymore at this point in history. Sitting in a temple of worship which honors only one tradition or religious figure feels idolatrous to me, and ultimately dishonors and diminishes the very tradition such exclusivity is designed to enhance. The Vedantas have it right. Ramakrishna in the center, Buddha and Jesus on the sides...together with appropriate symbols of female divinity - which are still in such short supply. Relegating the Blessed Virgin to a side altar is simply no longer enough. 

Jayden Cameron reporting for GayMystic News. 

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HEART OF JESUS

Thanks to Michael Bayley at Wild Reed for this beautiful image:

From the Web:

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RETURN TO THE CENTRE

Prophetic words taken from Return to the Centre by Father Bede Griffiths. OSB (1976)

What is the reason that modern society has lost this principle of integration?The reason seems to be this. In the Middle Ages - that is, in the years AD 500-1500 - not only in Europe but also in China and India and the Islamic world, a creative synthesis was achieved, in which the physical and psychic and spiritual worlds were marvelously integrated. The economic, social, political and cultural orders were all conceived as a harmonious unity in which each man (sic) was related to nature, to his fellow-man and to the divine source of truth and justice, the dharma, the eternal Law. Of course, this order was being continually threatened with destruction by the forces of disintegration, but the principle of integration was preserved in the 'perennial philosophy', the tradition wisdom, whether Confucian or Buddhist or Hindu or Islamic or Christian. A Chinese landscape, the Ajanta frescoes, the Hindu temple, the Gothic cathedral, the Taj Mahal, are all alike evidence of this creative synthesis, of the harmony of heaven and earth, of the right order of human life. In this period we can see the model of perfection, what human life was intended to be. After this period this creative synthesis began to disintegrate. The Reformation and the Renaissance, the 'Enlightenment' and the French Revolution, the Russian and the Chinese revolutions, are all stages in this process of disintegration. Now, after nearly five hundred years, the process seems to be almost complete, and there are those who question whether our present civilization can survive for more than fifty years.

Protestantism broke up the organic unity of the mystical Body of Christ, that divine-human order which the Church had established in the West, and made each man an isolated individual. Rationalism set the human mind free from the divine and enclosed each man in the limits of his own reason. Finally, communism came to deprive man of his basic liberty and enslave him to the material world, separated from the divine and dominated by human reason. But this is only one side of the picture. On the other side the religious traditions had each lost their creative power. Catholicism in Western Europe, Orthodoxy in Russia, Confucianism in China, like Hinduism in India and Islam throughout the Middle East, had all alike declined and become closed in on themselves, so that the divine Truth, which was in each one of them, could not exert its power. At the same time each of these revolutionary movements had released immense forces - humanism and democracy, science and technology, capitalism and socialism - which could no longer be controlled by any religious order.

Of course, all these movements have positive values, but they have been vitiated by a violent break with the santana dharma, the divine order, by which human life must be ruled. The principles of all these movements are to be found in the perennial philosophy on which all ancient civilization was based, and it would have been possible for the modern world to have developed organically from the ancient world instead of making a violent break with tradition. Protestantism would have been a movement of  reform within Catholicism, bringing about a renewal of the Church by a return to the bible for which we are looking today. Humanism and democracy, science and technology, capitalism and socialism, could all have grown out of the medieval order of Europe and India and China, in which they were already present in principle. But each has advanced by a violent break with the ancient order and thrown the whole world out of balance. The only way in which the world can recover is by a return to the eternal religion, the divine law on which human society is based. But this eternal religion cannot be discovered now exclusively in any one religion. We cannot return to the past forms of Catholicism or Buddhism or Confucianism or Hindu or Islamic orthodoxy. Each religion has to return to its source in the eternal religion, freeing itself from the limitations which historical circumstances have imposed upon it and rediscovering the principles on which modern society must be based.

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ULUWATU TEMPLE BALI

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BARBARIANS AT THE GATE: CHRIS HEDGES ON THE THREAT OF THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT

Another powerful prophetic warning from Chris Hedges at TruthDig

Posted on Jun 7, 2010

Truthdig collage based on a White House photo by Pete Souza

By Chris Hedges

Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as “nominal Christians”—meaning Christians who do not embrace their perverted and heretical interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy the mass movement are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. All will be purged.

The followers of deviant faiths, from Judaism to Islam, must be converted or repressed. The deviant media, the deviant public schools, the deviant entertainment industry, the deviant secular humanist government and judiciary and the deviant churches will be reformed or closed. There will be a relentless promotion of Christian “values,” already under way on Christian radio and television and in Christian schools, as information and facts are replaced with overt forms of indoctrination. The march toward this terrifying dystopia has begun. It is taking place on the streets of Arizona, on cable news channels, at tea party rallies, in the Texas public schools, among militia members and within a Republican Party that is being hijacked by this lunatic fringe. 

Elizabeth Dilling, who wrote “The Red Network” and was a Nazi sympathizer, is touted as required reading by trash-talk television hosts like Glenn Beck. Thomas Jefferson, who favored separation of church and state, is ignored in Christian schools and soon will be ignored in Texas public school textbooks. The Christian right hails the “significant contributions” of the Confederacy. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who led the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, has been rehabilitated, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is defined as part of the worldwide battle against Islamic terror. Legislation like the new Jim Crow laws of Arizona is being considered by 17 other states. 

The rise of this Christian fascism, a rise we ignore at our peril, is being fueled by an ineffectual and bankrupt liberal class that has proved to be unable to roll back surging unemployment, protect us from speculators on Wall Street, or save our dispossessed working class from foreclosures, bankruptcies and misery. The liberal class has proved useless in combating the largest environmental disaster in our history, ending costly and futile imperial wars or stopping the corporate plundering of the nation. And the gutlessness of the liberal class has left it, and the values it represents, reviled and hated.

The Democrats have refused to repeal the gross violations of international and domestic law codified by the Bush administration. This means that Christian fascists who achieve power will have the “legal” tools to spy on, arrest, deny habeas corpus to, and torture or assassinate American citizens—as does the Obama administration.

Those who remain in a reality-based world often dismiss these malcontents as buffoons and simpletons. They do not take seriously those, like Beck, who pander to the primitive yearnings for vengeance, new glory and moral renewal. Critics of the movement continue to employ the tools of reason, research and fact to challenge the absurdities propagated by creationists who think they will float naked into the heavens when Jesus returns to Earth. The magical thinking, the flagrant distortion in interpreting the Bible, the contradictions that abound within the movement’s belief system and the laughable pseudoscience, however, are impervious to reason. We cannot convince those in the movement to wake up. It is we who are asleep.  

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THE SPIRIT BLOWS WHERE SHE WILL

The Prague Fringe festival is underway in this city of many theaters (almost as many as there are churches). One of the venues hosting events is the lovely little Hussite Church of St. John the Baptist in Mala Strana at the edge of Kampa Park. I attended a concert there last evening - local pop/folk singer favorite, Alasdair Bouch, accompanied by friends on sax, oboe, cello and exotic timpani. The musicians entered the church carrying lighted candles and placed them around the sanctuary, which only increased the sense of  holiness of this tiny place of worship. The feeling was palpable and I'm far from the only one to pick up this vibe from Kostel Sv. Jana Kritele Na Pradele, as the Church is known in Czech. This is a holy place of prayer and worship which also serves as a concert venue for some carefully chosen artists, from Japanese flute players to performers of Tibetan ritual instruments, the Dun, Kangling and Drill-bu - celebrating the Tibetan New Year of the Metal Tiger. Yesterday evening we listened to the soulful melodies of Alasdair Bouch, who performed under the very striking wooden sculpture of the Risen Christ above the chiseled stone altar. Seen from the distance of the back row, the figure above the altar seems to be a young woman. Squint a little and it appears to be an angel with upraised arms and hands. After the concert, I went up for a closer look. The figure does indeed have feminine curves, but looks more like a very youthful male with blond ringlets, page boy style, arms upraised over his head, palms turned upwards - with wounds in the palms, signifying that this is indeed a figure of the crucified and Risen Christ. The angel image? An angel is behind the figure embracing it with its wings, it's left arm around the torso of the Christ with it's hand placed over the youthful Christ figure's heart. It is an astonishingly homoerotic and deeply spiritual, joyful image of liberation, freedom, intimacy and love. Who designed it and when? Don't know, but it reflects a very liberated artistic vision. This is indeed a holy place imbued with the spirit of the Risen Master - embraced like a lover by a youthful angel.

This peaked my interest in the Hussite Church, and a bit of research later that evening revealed that it was founded in 1931 as yet another breakaway  Church from Rome, with ties to the Old Catholic Church. It's heresies were the familiar ones. The liturgy should be celebrated in the vernacular, the faithful should receive both elements of Communion, celibacy should be optional, women should be ordained. And in fact, in 2000, the Hussite Church ordained it's first female bishop, with Catholic representatives attending the consecration. What this tells us - yet again - is that, while it is important to respect and preserve the uniqueness of particular religious traditions, the boundaries are slowly dissolving, and the Spirit of the Risen Christ is no respecter of dividing walls, but moves and blows where she will. She was certainly moving and stirring last night, during the concert of Alasdair Bouch, and many of us in this sacred space felt deeply moved.

From Wikipedia

Relations between the Church and its fellow members of the ecumenical movement are cordial, but remained strained with the country's Roman Catholic leadership. The first female bishop of the Czechoslovak-Hussite church was elected to a 7-year term of office in April 1999. In January 1999, Catholic Archbishop Miloslav Vlk initially made a public statement of disapproval, warning against election of a woman to this position and saying that it would cause deterioration of ecumenical relations.^[1] Following criticism by the Czech-Hussite Church for interfering in their affairs, the Roman Catholic Church distanced themselves from his remarks and stated that they would exert no pressure against her election.^[2] In 2000, Catholic representatives attended the consecration of Jana Šilerová as the Hussite Church’s first woman bishop.^[3]

 From BNET 

Jana Silerova, Eastern Europe's first woman bishop, distanced herself from feminism and said she will be guided by the "femaleness" of Christ's mother. Of her election as bishop of Olomouc by the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, she said, "This step had to be taken, since women already make up almost half of the church's clergy. However, it has also needed its own time, as well as more forthcoming ecumenical attitudes and a greater spirit of unity." A spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Church rejected suggestions that Cardinal Miloslav Vlk of the Czech Republic condemned Silerova's appointment. "The emergence of a woman bishop does not create any barrier at all," said Daniel Herman, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops' Conference. "This is an internal matter for the Hussite Church and Catholics have no right to interfere." 

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QUOTE OF THE DAY FROM THE WILD REED

 Found this at Michael Baley's Wild Reed: In the Garden of Spirituality - Jeanette Blonigen Clancy

For greater spiritual depth, we have to take the focus off worshiping an external god, a certain image of God named Jesus, and instead facilitate awareness of every person’s Higher Power, whatever that person likes to call it — the Force, the Holy Spirit, the Buddhist observer, the Hindu Atman, the humanist center of integrity, the inner Christ, the self, the soul . . . It is the wisdom that knows better than our surface thinker. It is our link to the Source of All.

Here is where, I’m afraid, I lose atheists who deny all spiritual reality. I can’t bridge the divide with them, but I hope to bridge with those who scoff at belief in Christian myth but also accept the existence of a spiritual dimension in the universe. They share common ground with thoughtful Christians who have graduated from literal belief to realizing that no religion can define spiritual reality.

We have to realize that all religious language must be understood figuratively, that is, non-literally. Fierce literalism now holds sway among Christians, which, I warn, signals the impending death of Christianity as the prevailing spiritual paradigm.

To us in this period of transition is given the task of preserving the tradition’s spiritual treasures—they are many—by heeding promptings from the Deep, whatever our name for it. We cannot reverse the evolution of human consciousness. Change happens.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY FROM JOHN MCNEILL

This just in from John McNeill on the recent  Vatican decision to deny ordination to openly gay men:

I see in this move by the Vatican the shrewdness of the Holy Spirit! The celibate male priesthood is dying out. The number of candidates entering the seminary are rapidly declining. The average priest is over 60 and a vanishing breed with no adequate replacements in sight. The Vatican has resisted all calls for married priests and the ordination of women. Now by denying ordination to gay men the Vatican has almost certainly achieved the death of the cultic celibate male priesthood! But this is in all probability the outcome that the Holy Spirit intended.

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