OPENING ADDRESS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will have the opportunity during these days to explore what it means to be neighbours in the Pacific (I know we are now not in the Pacific but on the shores of the Indian Ocean, nonetheless we all have neighbours and seek to be neighbours).  As religious we have an extraordinary wealth of networks.  We have networks upon networks, including our links with communities in our neighbouring countries. While our politicians relate in particular ways to the Pacific countries, here we want to stress our relations as brothers and sisters.  Meeting in solidarity as we do, we can be helped to understand more fully our place in the Church and our role as religious within our societies and within an increasingly globalised world.

 

As we speak, Canberra is sending the police and army into remote Australian aboriginal communities. The Australian government has acted similarly in the Solomon Islands and in PNG.

 

During these days we have the opportunity to listen to our brothers and sisters about their experiences. Having dismantled any Commonwealth department specialising in Aboriginal service delivery or policy and having abolished the elected National Aboriginal Conference set up to advise on these issues, it now appears that the government, which used children on earlier occasions, will use this cover to alter and weaken the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 and the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978. During our days together, we have the opportunity to reflect on the government's initiative and to prepare a response on this question.

 

 

During this assembly we mix business and reflection.  Together we search the Gospels for the meaning of our times and of our lives. "Test yourself", St Paul says, "to see whether you are living in faith; examine yourselves. Perhaps you yourselves do not realise that Christ Jesus is in you." (2 Cor 13;5)

 

Two centuries ago, Johann Goethe said, "Experience is only half an experience".  And Socrates reflected:  "An unexamined life is not worth living."  In the Four Quartets, TS Eliott, speaking about the Magi as they returned, commented: "We had the experience, but missed the meaning."

 

 

Reflection on our experiences, on our environment and on the events of our world help us clarify also our own vocations and to understand our roles as religious and as leaders.  We each have a three fold role, in varying balances, of course.  We are spiritual leaders, discerning for our communities.  We are CEOs, governing our institutions.  We are people of the Church and of society, giving voice to the needs of our time.  These days enable us to meet in confidence among our peers, trusting one another with our experiences, and helping one another to find ways forward.

 

Over this last year I have been perhaps more alert than before to the role of religious in the Church and society. You have privileged me with your stories. There is remarkable energy, zeal, holiness, generosity and integrity among religious. Indeed there are stirrings of new forms of religious life. Our Council has indicated that we want to be open to welcome these groups so that we can support and accompany them, and so that they not be isolated.

 

But among some of us there is uncertainty and discouragement.  Many communities have not received novices for years and are ageing and diminishing. Moreover the 21st Century is rightly a time for leadership by others in the Church, notably by lay people. And the idea of vocation is somehow counter-cultural. Nonetheless, as our lives change, we cannot help asking if we are doing something wrong. We are hurt by the behaviour of some of our brothers and sisters who have abused the trust placed in them.  Communities ask whether they have a future, and if they have a future leaders ask themselves if they have the time and energy to imagine it.

 

Whether members of small or large communities, we are each facing immense questions of transition. The forms of religious life may change, yet there always have been religious in the life of the Church. How can we be faithful to our mission in the new circumstances of our time?  How can we transmit that original inspiration of our founders so that it has a vital place in the Church?

 

The health, education and social service institutions for which religious have governance responsibilities must surely number in the tens of thousands of employees, many of whom genuinely desire to share and contribute to the mission that you live by.  A lot of your efforts are put into forming such lay people, and in working with them to develop governance practices that are consistent with mission.

 

In health care you struggle to hold the line.  Health professionals want ever smarter and more expensive machinery and procedures, while you want to serve the poor.  In education, you maintain and foster charism against many pressures.  In social services, there is the need to be large enough not to be swallowed, and in order to receive assistance, yet small enough to be flexible and adaptable.  In pastoral care, we may feel sometimes that other parts of Church leadership are incapable of listening to people.  At such times we feel like all the prophets who pleaded that the Lord leave them alone.

 

 

There are diverse of voices in the Church, even among religious and within our communities.  But that diversity is our richness, our strength.  Without legitimate diversity, the Church's unity risks collapsing into forced conformity. In order to serve the unity of the Church we must draw on the faith, learning and pastoral wisdom of the whole Church, not favouring the views of one party to the exclusion of others.  John Paul II quoted St Paulinus of Nola: "Let us listen to what the faithful say, because in everyone of them the Spirit of God breathes."  (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, No 45).  The unity of the Church is grounded in unaffected charity.    "Speak the truth in love", pleaded Paul (Eph 4:15).  The ancient maxim urges us:  "In essentials unity, in nonessentials diversity, in all things charity."

 

The first word of Benedict's Rule is "Listen".  He suggests that the hearer listen "with the ear of your heart".

 

 

The state of religious life today prompts two reflections.  The first is this: change never comes purely from within.  Look at Salvation History, at the great events of the Bible, such as the escape from oppression in Egypt, the Exile, the time of the Kings, the time of the Judges.  These events give the imagery for our prayer and liturgy and nourish our faith in God's action in history.

 

Yet they were also events of the politics, and of the superpowers of their time, of the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Chaldeans.

 

Similarly the apostles were indeed inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the events of the 1st century Roman Empire, the desire of the Greeks seeking wisdom, and the collapse and disarray of Jerusalem gave the opportunity for Christianity to become embedded in totally new cultural, geographic and social terrains.

 

So today, we need to interpret the signs of our times, what is happening in our world, in order to discover God's will for us.

 

The second reflection arises from last Sunday's feast of the Birth of John the Baptist and Gospel story of this as told by Luke.   Elizabeth and Zechariah stand in a long line of tradition starting with Sarah and Abraham:  Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth, were mothers beyond normal child bearing age and so regarded as barren, who yet are able to be the instruments that bring God's saving mercy to birth in our world in immense fruitfulness.  'John', the female form is Joanne or Joanna, means 'God's grace': John the Baptist is graced by God and is also an instrument of God's grace.

 

Our communities may be ageing and diminishing, but there is no certainty that we cannot be for our world the agents of God's mercy.  Indeed, our biblical faith informs us that those who seem poor in the world's eyes are precisely the instruments that God would prefer.

 

When we launch pathways you will see that it has the by-line "promoting the contemplative and prophetic service of Australian Religious".   In response to the survey of members late last year asking what you expected of the CRA Council, you asked that religious be helped to be prophetic voices.  We see that CRA first and foremost must offer and facilitate communication among us, must have the means to be heard.

 

To be prophetic means to interpret the present and to attempt to point to the implications of how we live today for the future of human society.  As Thomas Moore said, "We are condemned to live out what we cannot imagine."    In these days we hope to stretch our imagination, to enter the world of our sisters and brothers in our neighbouring countries, to discover how we can best stand in solidarity with one another.

 

What we are doing just by coming together to support one another is an immensely powerful action. Margaret Mead's statement about this rings true for our gathering:  "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that has."

 

We will hear from those who attended the meeting of UISG during May.  There the Holy Father spoke to 800 or so Religious Leaders from around the world, urging that we "renew own spirituality and study needs of others."  He urged religious to follow the example of the prophets who first listen and contemplate and then speak, allowing themselves to be totally permeated by that love for God, which fears nothing and is stronger even than death.  The participants felt challenged to weave a new spirituality which generates hope and life for all.  They focussed on helping other women, migrants, safeguarding the earth, working with the laity, inter-religious dialogue.

 

In the preparations for our own chapters, for example we are preparing for a Jesuit Congregation early next year, our preliminary discussions call for a renewal, clarification and prioritization for our mission today in the light of the new circumstances of our time. Our documents name these circumstances:  the new context of globalisation, ecological concerns, the dramatic needs of Africa, dialogue with Islam, the needs of indigenous and discriminated peoples, migrants, refugees and displaced people, the needs of youth.

 

These are common concerns among many religious, along with renewal of our common life, improvements in our communications and the impact of that on governance, and the important role of lay leadership in the Church.

 

 

Benedict XVI spoke in a helpful and revealing way after a visit to Spain where he had kept silent about some contentious issues in Spanish political life.  When asked why he chose to be silent, he said:  

 

Christianity, Catholicism, isn't a collection of prohibitions: it's a positive option.  It's very important that we look at it again because this idea has almost completely disappeared today.  We've heard so much about what is not allowed that now it's time to say: we have a positive idea to offer ..  The human person must always be respected as a human person.  But all this is clearer if you say it first in a positive way.   (reported by John L Allen in "The Tablet" 14 April 2007)

 

We know that our vow of poverty is empty if it is not relevant to the poverty in which so many people live today.  We know our chastity gains meaning if it channels our creative imagination and passions and frees our spirit to love others selflessly.  We know that obedience makes sense if it freely joins us in solidarity with one another in common projects that will make captives free.

 

As Archbishop Oscar Romero said:

 

We will squeeze in a lot of business during these days.  There are reports and proposals concerning professional standards, the institutes in transition project, formation in Canon Law, follow up on the trafficking project and on the ecology.  Most of our discussions will be at Pacific pace, but for the business, we will ask you to fasten your seatbelts.

 

Thank you for being here.  Please enjoy and profit from our time together.

 

 

 

photo credit:  Fr Mark Raper SJ, from a photograph taken by Andy Tyndall of The Australian, Perth