September Already

Yes I can hardly believe that it is September already and for me it has brought a rather unpleasant "S" as well. I am suffering with a rather painful bout of sciatica which is quite de-energising!

Recently I watched an old film " The Man for All Seasons" - the story of St. Thomas More. I was particularly struck by the way that he remained faithful in his allegiance to the Catholic Church while at the same time so critical of many of the details of the institution. I guess that It where so many people are today particularly those who like me are committed to the central teachings of the Second Vatican Council which appear to be being undermined. I am especially speaking about the nature of the church and most notably the real implementation of collegiality with the Bishops really given authority to lead their own diocese rather than being controlled by out of touch figures in the Vatican curia. My dear friend Cardinal Hume had many a tussle with them and i take him as a model with his understanding of the church as "Communion" This is particularly evidenced today in the Vatican's control of local churches and their liturgy. I think the Bishops need to just simply say as a Body we are not going to do this. I think that there is a little precedent on this with the Catholic Bishops in Canada who decided to use the Catholic version of the NRSV translation for their liturgy. It was approved by the Cngregation for worship in the Vatican so they went ahead only to be told later by the CDF that they were not to use it as it had doctrinal flaws! The bishops simply said well they have the books all printed and they are using it already so they weren't going to stop! i think the Bishop's conferences should all take a similar line and just make their own decisions as that is what their ordinations define that they are capable of doing!

I am also finding Cynthia Bourgeault's book "The Wisdom Jesus" quite fascinating. it looks at Jesus in the Scriptures through a contemplative lens which is very powerful It is much like the last couple of books by Fr. Richard Rohr and also fits well with the work of Fr. Bruno Barnhart. The book is summed up well in words by Jim Marion " She invites us to follow Jesus's path of self-emptying love and she describes wisdom (contemplative) practices that we Christians can use every day to transform (Awaken) our own minds so that we too can see with the eyes of Christ" _ that seems to me to be a good description of what we who are Christians do when we practice Zen.

So what we should do now is quit reading this and sit in some form of contemplative silence for 25 minutes - RIGHT NOW!