141203

The

S outhern C ross

December 3 to December 9, 2014

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No 4901

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Cardinal Napier named to cohead 2015 synod

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Joy at two new Indian saints

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Page 4

From herdboy to builder of churches

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New bishop: Now I must work on myself

By MAThiBELA SEBOThOMA & STuART GRAhAM

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OLLOWING the official announcement that Fr Victor Hlobo Phalana, the vicargeneral of Pretoria, had been appointed bishop of Klerksdorp, the cathedral’s gardener, personal assistant, cook, secretary, car guards and admirers were taking “selfies” with the new bishop.

Some immediately expressed concern about their job security after the departure of the vicar-general who had created more job opportunities in the cathedral and archdiocesan chancery than any of his predecessors.

Fr Phalana, 53, told The Southern Cross that he was “humbled” by the appointment.

“I was not expecting it. I was made aware a few days before that the Holy Father was considering me for the position, but I tossed it aside. With great humility I accepted.”

Bishop-elect Phalana said he heard the news while he was at home. “I had to withdraw into introspection. You immediately become aware of your own flaws and limitations. It has made me realise that I need to work on myself.”

He said he would meet with the laity and Church leaders in Klerksdorp, which has not had a bishop for two years, in the coming weeks.

The position, Mgr Phalana said, is “a great opportunity to work with other people to spread the message of the Gospel”.

He is the third consecutive vicar-general of Pretoria to be appointed a bishop. In December 2013 Bishop Abel Gabuza was appointed to Kimberley, and in May 2011 Bishop Dabula Mpako was appointed to Queenstown.

Mgr Phalana was born on April 3, 1961 in semi-rural Erasmus, North-West.

He was influenced by his father, Clovis, who was a full time-catechist, lay preacher and leader of priestless services.

“Sometimes I had to preside at funeral services when my father’s health and eyesight were deteriorating,” the bishop-elect recalled.

His family house was the “village mission

The first candle of an Advent wreath is lit; on the second Sunday of Advent we light another candle. The wreath, which holds four candles, is a main symbol of the Advent season, with a new candle lit each Sunday before Christmas in anticipation of the Redeemer’s birth. Advent wreaths are circles that have no beginning and no end, symbolising eternal life in God the Father. The use of evergreens reminds us of our eternal life with Christ, holly represents the crown of thorns from his Passion, pine cones represent the Resurrection, and fruits the nourishing fruitfulness of the Christian life. (Photo: Bob Roller/CNS)

Fr King set for SA lectures STAFF REPORTER

Bishop-elect Victor Phalana, who has been appointed to head Klerksdorp diocese. where Holy Mass was celebrated by the priests who visited us once in a while”, he recalled.

His father and his mother, Victoria, were both awarded papal medals, Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice and Bene Merenti, by Pope Paul VI. Italian Stigmatine Father Michele D’Annucci, who was murdered in 2001, recruited the young Victor to the vocation centre in Mmakau village. Irish Mercy Sister Majella Quinn, principal of Tsogo High School in Mmakau, paid for Victor to go to a vocations workshop at St John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria in 1979.

He joined the seminary in 1981.

As a seminarian at St John Vianney Seminary—then headed by Fr William Slattery OFM, now the archbishop of Pretoria—Mgr Phalana took part in the famous march of seminarians to the Union Buildings and visited political prisoners.

He said that as a political activist he was Continued on page 3

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HE world-renowned New Testament scholar and long-time Southern Cross columnist Fr Nicholas King SJ will return to South Africa in 2015 to lead the annual Winter Living Theology (WLT).

Fr King, who writes his weekly column on the Sunday readings exclusively for The Southern Cross, is currently teaching at the Jesuit School of Ministry at Boston College in the United States.

He has published extensively on the New Testament. He began working on an innovative and fresh translation of the New Testament in 2004. Last year Fr King finished the translation work of the whole Bible.

Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, director of the Jesuit Institute, which co-hosts the annual WLT, said he is “delighted to welcome Fr King to South Africa”, recalling that his fellow Jesuit lived and taught for many years in the country.

“Fr King’s enthusiasm and love for the Word of God is infectious,” Fr Pollitt said.

Fr King last visited South Africa in 2008 when he presented the WLT on St Paul during the Year of St Paul, which was called by Pope Benedict XVI. Next year Fr King will present three days of lectures in each of five South African cities:

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THE SAINTS OF ITALY Led by Fr EMIL BLASER OP

Rome, Assisi, Florence, Padua, Milan, Venice and more

6 - 18 September 2015

Rome WITH PAPAL AUDIENCE | Assisi | Venice | Padua | Florence | Milan | Cascia (St Rita) | Siena (St Catherine) | Norcia (St Benedict) | Birthplace of St John XXIII

Johannesburg, Durban, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. He will also present a workshop on Scripture in Manzini, Swaziland.

The WLT is open to anyone who wants to attend, Fr Pollitt said.

“The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference and Fr Nicholas King the Jesuit Institute colSJ, who will present laborate to bring an the Winter Living eminent scholar to the Theology in 2015 country every year so that priests, religious and lay people can come together to learn more about our faith,” Fr Pollitt said.

He said that Fr King’s lectures “will help us reflect deeply on God’s word and its implication for us”.

The theme of the three-day study in each location will be “The scandal of Christian disunity—a biblical approach”.

Details of location and dates will be publicised prominently in The Southern Cross and at www.jesuitinstitute.org.za.

2

The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

LOCAL

Napier added to synod leadership

By FRANCiS X ROCCA

P

OPE Francis has added Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban to the leaders of the October 2015 Synod of Bishops on the family. The roster is otherwise unchanged from that of the October 2014 extraordinary synod on the same subject.

The move means that Africa will be represented at the highest level of the 2015 gathering alongside Asia, Europe and the Americas. The appointment also gives a leading role to a bishop who openly criticised some workings of the 2014 synod.

The Vatican announced that Cardinal Napier will serve as one of four synod presidents, joining

Cardinals Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris, Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila and Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, Brazil, the three presidents of the October 2014 assembly.

Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdö of Esztergom-Budapest will reprise his role as relator, with the duty of guiding discussion and synthesising its results, and Italian Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto will again serve as special secretary, assisting the general secretary, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri.

Asked about his appointment, Cardinal Napier said the “reason given was clearly that Africa should be represented, and when you think of the vitality of the Church in Africa, that does make sense”.

Two days before the end of the 2014 synod, Pope Francis added Cardinal Napier and Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, Australia, to the committee drafting the assembly’s final report, for what the cardinal said were also reasons of geographic diversity.

A

s a member of the synod’s ordinary council, Cardinal Napier took part in a November 18-19 meeting to review the last synod and start planning for the next.

Pope Francis joined the council on the first day of the meeting.

The cardinal said the council discussed the possibility of returning to the Vatican’s earlier practice of publishing summaries of bishops’ remarks in the hall. During

the 2014 synod, spokesmen furnished reporters with selected paraphrases and occasional quotations, none attributed to specific bishops.

Publishing summaries of floor speeches might help prevent misunderstandings, Cardinal Napier said, recalling the controversy over the 2014 synod’s mid-term report, which used remarkably conciliatory language towards people with ways of life contrary to Catholic teaching, including the divorced and civilly remarried and those in same-sex unions or other non-marital relationships.

Cardinal Napier was one of several synod fathers who suggested that the document did not accurately reflect the assembly’s views.

“If you just put out the midterm report without publishing the interventions, how will people outside, journalists or whoever, how will they be able to tell whether the document actually reflects what was said on the synod floor?”

He said at least one member of the council argued “forcefully” that publishing summaries of floor speeches would allow readers to assess whether a subsequent synod report had been influenced by “ideological” considerations.

The cardinal said the council will also consider how to make the team of expert advisers to the drafting committee “more representative of the world” than at the 2014 gathering, which he said consisted only of speakers of “romance languages”.

Tablets for HOPE

By DyLAN APPOLiS

H

in the 1940s, when Ben Pottier (left) was a pupil at St Augustine’s Primary School in the parish centre at Durban’s Emmanuel cathedral, he used to slide down these wooden rails (and get punished for it). The parish centre was demolished last year to make way for the Denis hurley Centre. Now the 108-year-old rails have been incorporated into the design of the new building, providing handrails for the atrium on the first, second and third floors, as a reminder of the new building’s rich heritage.

Mr Pottier, now chairman of the St Augustine’s Past Pupils’ Team, which is raising funds for the Denis hurley Centre, paid a nostalgic visit to check up on the familiar rails, along with Shaan Steyn and Sibonelo Biyela, both of Rubin Reddy Architects. The centre will become operational in mid-December, and will be officially opened on November 9, 2015—the centenary of Archbishop hurley’s birth. (Photo: Puri Devjee, independent Newspapers)

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OPE Cape Town has distributed brandnew Samsung Galaxy tablets to its 24 community health workers as part of their ongoing development and training.

The tablets have been pre-loaded with useful data, including illustrated presentations and videos for patient education, recent and relevant TB-and HIV-related guidelines, various tools for counselling and disclosure, a wide range of reading materials, useful contact numbers, illustrated human anatomy charts and copies of training material.

This data will be updated regularly and whenever the community health workers attend monthly training, new information will automatically upload to their tablets.

“The better equipped our community health workers, the better the service they render to the community,” said HOPE’s donor relations manager, Fahim Docrat.

“As far as we know, our community health workers are the first in South Africa to make use of tablet technology for teaching and learning at grassroots level.”

The tablets may be used only in clinics and private use is forbidden. All tablets are stored away in HOPE’s offices to ensure the safety of community health workers, following “several incidents where they were robbed of their tablets by criminals”, Mr Docrat said.

HOPE Cape Town was co-founded in 2001

by Fr Stefan Hippler and and Dr Monika Esser with the German-speaking Catholic community of the Cape Peninsula.

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Sacred heart cathedral in Bloemfontein was packed as it celebrated 50 years of existence. Archbishop Jabulani Nxumalo was the main celebrant, accompanied by five priests. The archbishop started Mass by telling parishioners about the history of the church and how the Catholic Church decided to have cathedrals in cities.

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The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

LOCAL

3

Is President Zuma on borrowed time?

By STAFF REPORTER

P St Mary Magdalene parish in Lentegeur, Cape Town, hosted three different organisations to deliver awareness talks. Action on Elder Abuse, Dementia SA and huntingtons SA were invited by the Men for Change group to address parishioners who might be suffering from any of the above or to empower their community. Each speaker had 30 minutes to deliver their talks, with refreshments in between talks served by the Men for Change ministry.

New bishop for Klerksdorp Continued from page 1 “wild and radical, almost like Julius Malema”.

Mgr Phalana was ordained to the priesthood on May 14, 1988 by Archbishop George Daniel.

He was the chaplain of Chiro Youth Movement, lecturer at the seminaries of St Paul’s in Hammanskraal, St Francis Xavier in Cape Town, St Peter’s in Pretoria and St John Vianney, formator at Lumko Pastoral Institute in Germiston and secretary of the Southern African Council of Priests, among many other positions he has occupied.

He chairs the board of the Oukasie Development Trust, is the deputy chair of the Tshwane Leadership Foundation, and is a director of Hectorex and Androbiz, two community-based companies that promote IT training and networking, and maths and science training.

He is a passionate South African, known widely for the poetry he published about Nelson Mandela after the late president’s death.

Bishop-elect Phalana was in the

news in December last year after he and a companion were assaulted and injured by three men in an apparent racist attack in Pretoria. At the time he said that he forgave his attackers.

In Klerksdorp he succeeds Bishop Zithulele Patrick Mvemve, who headed the diocese from 1994 until his resignation in April 2013.

Bishop-elect Phalana will be the third bishop of Klerksdorp. Its first ordinary was Bishop Daniel Verstraete OMI, who at 90 is still living.

Klerksdorp diocese serves about 21 000 Catholics, in a population of 1,5 million, in 36 parishes. Apart from Klerksdorp, it includes the civil districts of Potchefstroom, Lichtenburg, Schweizer-Reneke, Bloemhof, Delareyville, Christiana, Coligny, Wolmaranstad and Ventersdorp As of going to press, all dioceses in the Southern African region are filled, with only the vicariate of Ingwavuma vacant; it is currently administered by its former head, Bishop José Ponce de León of Manzini.

RESIDENT Jacob Zuma faces being dropped by the African National Congress (ANC) in the same way as his predecessor Thabo Mbeki, according to a briefing paper by the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office.

In the paper, the CPLO’s research director Mike Pothier said what appears to be “an irrational attachment to a very fallible” Mr Zuma is in reality nothing more than “an expression of loyalty in the ANC”.

“When President Thabo Mbeki’s Aids denialism was at its height, he was stoutly defended

by ANC spokespeople, cabinet ministers and loyal MPs,” Mr Pothier said.

“Soon enough though, and well before the expiry of his second term, the tide within the ANC turned against Mr Mbeki.

His stance on Aids became an embarrassment and, when added to some of his other unpopular tendencies, the pendulum swung quickly and unstoppably against him,” Mr Pothier explained.

“There is no reason to think that anything different will happen with Mr Zuma.”

Mr Pothier said that when the ANC goes on the offensive against the Public Protector,

when it tries to brush aside criticism of the “extravagant expenditure” at Mr Zuma’s homestead in Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal, and when it deploys party members to “supposedly non-partisan positions”, its real reason for doing so is “to look after itself”.

“It is only at a superficial level that all this is happening to protect Mr Zuma,” he said, predicting that the president will step down “sooner or later”.

M

r Poithier said most analysts believe this will happen long before the end of his second term.

“Perhaps— if the infamous ‘spy tapes’ reveal that the decision not to put him on trial for corruption was indeed politically motivated—he will face prosecution. Perhaps ill health and old age will spare him from such a fate, especially if his legal representatives once again use every available tactic to delay, review and appeal every step of a prosecution,” the paper said.

Mr Pothier said that “after two decades in government” the ANC has largely run out of ideas when it comes to the key themes of education, unemployment, corruption, crime, landlessness and poverty—as “in all probability” any other party would have. But no political party can ever admit

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this, as to do so would be to “sacrifice power”.

Neither, he said, can any party concede that its current leader is “a less than seminal figure”.

“Hence, when the criticism comes, it must be met with denial, deflection and defiance, even at the cost of great harm to democratic values and structures.”

Mr Pothier said there is “very little evidence” that senior members of the ANC, including those whose defence of Mr Zuma is most pronounced, are personally corrupt.

On the contrary, there have long been rumours that some of them are frustrated by Mr Zuma’s tendency to associate with the likes of his former financial adviser Shabir Shaik and the Gupta business family, he said.

“The Nkandla fiasco has been a major embarrassment to them, even as they have rallied to exonerate the president and to scapegoat virtually everyone else involved in it,” Mr Pothier noted.

Mr Zuma “will be dropped just as quickly and finally as Mr Mbeki was” if a point is reached where he might cost the party votes or when he has alienated important constituencies—“in other words, if a divergence arises between his interests and those of the ANC”, Mr Pothier said.

4

The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

INTERNATIONAL

Six new saints canonised

By CiNDy WOODEN

U

SING a newly simplified rite, Pope Francis proclaimed six new saints and praised them for the love and self-giving with which they served God and built up his kingdom by serving the poor and needy.

Creating the two Indian and four Italian saints, the pope said: “They responded with extraordinary creativity to the commandment of love of God and neighbour, [dedicating themselves] without holding back, to serving the least and assisting the destitute, sick, elderly and pilgrims.”

The Mass in a St Peter’s Square still damp from an early morning rain began with the canonisations using an even briefer formula than what had become standard with St John Paul II. The formula had been expanded by now-retired Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

The new saints are: l Kuriakose Elias Chavara (180571), the Indian founder of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, a Syro-Malabar Catholic order. l Euphrasia Eluvathingal (18771952), a member of the Carmelites founded by St Chavara. l Nicholas of Longobardi (16501709), an Italian friar of the Minim order. l Giovanni Antonio Farina, an Italian bishop of Vicenza and the founder of the Teaching Sisters of St Dorothy. He died in 1888. l Ludovico of Casoria, the 19thcentury Italian founder of the Grey Franciscan Friars of Charity and the Grey Franciscan Sisters of St Elizabeth. l Amato Ronconi, a 13th-century Italian lay Franciscan and founder of a hospice for the poor, which is now a home for the elderly in Rimini, Italy.

In his homily at the Mass, Pope Francis focused on the feast of Christ the King and the description in the day’s first reading (Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17) of how God shepherds his people.

Thousands of Catholics from India, especially from Kerala, travelled to the Vatican to celebrate Ss Chavara and Eluvathingal. Meeting the pilgrims briefly the following day, Pope Francis said the two Indians “remind each of us that God’s love is the source and the goal and the support of all holiness, while love of neighbour is the clearest demonstration of love for the Lord.”

More than 100 000 pilgrims thronged the Chavara shrine in southern Indian Kerala state for the live telecast of the canonisation, which began at mid-afternoon local time.

St Chavara lived at the shrine for 33 years until 1866.

After the Vatican ceremony more than 100 priests concelebrated a Mass of thanksgiving for the pilNPO044-227 grims.

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Closing date for applications 10 December 2014 If you have not been contacted within 7 days of application, you may presume that your application has not been successful. St Paulus reserves the right not to make an appointment.

A nun holds an image of new saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara, the indian founder of the Carmelites of Mary immaculate, before the start of the canonisation Mass of six new saints. (Photo: Paul haring/CNS) India has reached the heavens. Fr Chavara founded the first Indian religious congregation,” said Bishop Thomas Koorilos Chakkalapadickal of the Syro-Malankara diocese of Tiruvalla during his homily.

Oommen Chandy, Kerala’s chief minister and an Orthodox Christian, and Hindu ministers in his cabinet stood around St Chavara’s

tomb in front of the altar before the final blessing.

Kerala is the most literate and educationally advanced state in India because of the work of the Catholic Church, which runs nearly half of the 15 000 private primary schools in the state. Catholics comprise less than 12% of Kerala’s population of 35 million.—CNS

Cardinal who saved Jews dies at 98

By CiNDy WOODEN

C

ARDINAL Fiorenzo Angelini, known for his service to the poor and the sick in a ministry that began in Rome during World War II and included sheltering Jews from the Nazis, died in the night from November 21-22 at the age of 98.

At the time of his death, he was the only member of the College of Cardinals to have been born in Rome.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, celebrated Cardinal Angelini’s funeral Mass in St Peter’s basilica and Pope Francis presided over the final commendation.

Born on August 1, 1916, during World War I, Fiorenzo Angelini was ordained to the

priesthood in 1940.

Assigned as an assistant pastor in a Rome parish, he opened a soup kitchen during the German occupation of the city and hid people being sought by the Nazis, including Jews. He said his actions were inspired by Pope Pius XII, and throughout Cardinal Angelini’s life he continued to advocate for the canonisation of the wartime pope.

From 1947-54, he served Pope Pius as one of the liturgical masters of ceremony, taught re-

ligion in Rome public schools and served as the ecclesiastical assistant to the men’s section of Catholic Action. In 1956, Pope Pius named him a bishop; he became the auxiliary bishop of Rome in charge of the diocese’s health care programmes.

In 1985, when Pope John Paul II established the first Vatican office promoting Catholic health care, he chose thenBishop Angelini to lead it. The office became a pontifical council in 1988. He was made a cardinal in 1991.

Under Cardinal Angelini’s leadership, the council began sponsoring international conferences focusing on scientific advances, the dignity of the human person and on the pastoral care of the sick.—CNS

Pope Francis has named 69-year-old Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah to be the new prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments. Cardinal Sarah, who had been president of the Pontifical Council Cor unum, the Vatican’s charitable distribution and promotion office, since 2010, succeeds Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, who was named archbishop of Valencia, Spain, in August. he previously served for nine years as secretary for the Congregation of Evangelisation.

Cardinal Sarah came to the Vatican after serving for 21 years as archbishop of Conakry, Guinea. When he was consecrated a bishop at the age of 34 he was the youngest bishop in the world. he served as archbishop of Conakry from 1979 to 2001.—CNS

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INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

5

Wake up, pope tells ‘grandmother’ Europe

By CiNDy WOODEN

T

HE 77-year-old grandson of European immigrants to Argentina, Pope Francis urged the European Parliament to value the continent’s faiths and recuperate a sense of responsibility for the common good to rejuvenate Europe’s social, political and economic life.

“In many quarters we encounter a general impression of weariness and ageing, of a Europe which is now a ‘grandmother’, no longer fertile and vibrant,” the pope told the European Parliament during a lightning visit to Strasbourg, France.

It was the shortest foreign papal trip ever and the first that did not feature at least one visit to a church.

European Union (EU) discussions are filled with references to human rights, the pope noted, but the idea of duties that go along with rights seem to be largely absent.

“As a result, the rights of the individual are upheld, without regard for the fact that each human being is part of a social context wherein his or her rights and duties are bound up with those of others and with the common good of society itself.”

Even worse, he said, the most basic right—the right to life—is denied to many, including the unborn, the terminally ill and the elderly.

The selfish live with “an opulence” that is not sustainable and is indifferent to others, particularly the poor, he said. Economic, trade and employment policies seem dictated by technical and financial considerations to such an extent that “men and women risk being

Pope Francis addresses the European Parliament in Strasbourg during an eight-hour trip to France. (Photo: Paul haring/CNS) reduced to mere cogs in a machine”.

He also denounced “the many instances of injustice and persecution which daily afflict religious minorities, and Christians in particular, in various parts of our world”.

Christianity, he told the parliamentarians, not only helped forge the Europe of history, but it continues to offer values and services, particularly in education, that can provide a firm foundation for a renewed future.

Protection of the environment, an agriculture policy that respects farmers and the land, improving employment rates and handling migration are particularly urgent, concrete problems that require a response honouring the transcendent dignity of the human person and recognising

the realities of this world, he said.

As the Italian government continues to decry a lack of European Union solidarity and assistance with the thousands of migrants who cross the Mediterranean seeking freedom and a better life in Europe, the pope insisted the response to migration must be continent-wide.

“We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery,” he said, referring to the thousands who have drowned trying to cross from northern Africa on rickety boats.

A

ddressing the 47-member Council of Europe, which was formed to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law on the continent in the wake of the destruction and division sown by the World

Vatican raffles off pope’s gifts

By CiNDy WOODEN

S

peaking to reporters on his flight back to Rome, Pope Francis said he would “never close the door” on dialogue with the Islamic State.

Asked if he thought there was even the most remote possibility of dialoguing with terrorists like those from the Islamic State, Pope Francis said: “I never count anything as lost.

Never. Never close the door. It’s difficult, you could say almost impossible, but the door is always open.”

“But there is another threat, too,” he said, the threat of “state terrorism,” when tensions rise and an individual nation decides on its own

to strike, feeling it has “the right to massacre terrorists and with the terrorists many innocent people fall”.

Nations have a right and duty to stop “unjust aggressors”, he said, but they must act in concert and in accordance with international law.

A Spanish reporter asked Pope Francis about a man from Granada, Spain, who wrote to the pope about a priest who sexually abused him.

The correspondence set off a widespread police investigation, the arrest of three priests and a layman, and the suspension of several priests by the archdiocese of Granada in November.

The pope said he received the letter. “I read it and I phoned the person and I told him, ‘Go to the bishop tomorrow,’ and I wrote to the bishop and told him to get to work, conduct an investigation,” he said.

Pope Francis said he had read the letter “with great pain, the greatest pain, but the truth is the truth and we must not hide it”.

One reporter told the pope that his remarks at the European Parliament on employment, the dignity of human life and the role of the state in helping citizens made it seem like the pope could be a member of the Social Democratic Party.

“I don’t want to label myself on one side or another,” the pope said, and, besides, “this is the Gospel”.

While many reporters and pundits have tried to pigeon-hole the pope’s politics, he said, “I have never distanced myself from the social teaching of the Church.”—CNS

THE JOURNEYS OF A LIFETIME!

Holy Land & Jordan

L

IKE many Catholic parishes, the Vatican has turned to a raffle to raise money; the difference is, though, the prizes are items originally given as gifts to Pope Francis.

For 10 euros—about R140—anyone can go to the Vatican post office or pharmacy and buy a chance to win a Fiat Panda 4x4, a small SUV “fully loaded” with every option available, the Vatican said. Tickets are not for sale on the Internet or anywhere outside Vatican City.

The raffle is being run by the Vatican City State governor’s office, and proceeds will be placed directly “at the disposition of the pope himself”, said Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ. Other main prizes include: a blue racing bike, an “orange bicycle with baskets”, a tandem bike, a small HD digital video camera, an espresso machine, a silver pen, a brown leather briefcase and an authentic Panama hat.

The tickets also say there will be “more than 30 consolation prizes”.

The winning tickets will be drawn

War II, the pope said: “The royal road to peace—and to avoiding a repetition of what occurred in the two world wars of the last century— is to see others not as enemies to be opposed, but as brothers and sisters to be embraced.”

Pope Francis said that he realises members of the Catholic Church in Europe have not always been blameless, but the Church constantly commits itself to serving others better, a commitment that government and international organizations must make as well.

Using the international forum of the Council of Europe, Pope Francis condemned “religious and international terrorism, which displays deep disdain for human life and indiscriminately reaps innocent victims”.

“This phenomenon,” he said, “is unfortunately bankrolled by a frequently unchecked traffic in weapons.”

Led by Fr Stefan Hippler 9 to 21 August 2015

A poster next to St Peter’s Square announces the pope’s raffle of objects he has received as gifts, in order to raise money for the poor. (Photo: Alessandro Bianchi, Reuters/CNS) on January 8, and the names of the winners will be published on the governor’s office website (www.vatican state.va). Winners will have 30 days to collect their prizes.

The raffle, Father Lombardi said, is “a response to Pope Francis’ appeal for new forms of solidarity with our neediest brothers and sisters, particularly with the approach of Christmas”.—CNS

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6

The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Pope Francis’ position

C

LEARLY, many people have yet to work out Pope Francis who in less than two years has profoundly changed the tone of the papacy, and therefore of the Church.

By some he is being seen as too liberal and by others as not liberal enough.

Some Catholics find it difficult to accept the pastoral openness which Pope Francis believes must be at the centre of an evangelising Church that wants to accompany all people on the pilgrim journey of life towards salvation.

Their fear is that this pastoral approach, which emphasises God’s mercy over the rigid insistence on doctrinal fidelity, will serve to dilute the moral teachings of the Church.

Pope Francis set the tone early in his pontificate when he answered a question about homosexual Christians with the words: “Who am I to judge?”

That answer has been analysed and spun in every direction. It seems self-evident, however, that the pope who defines himself as a sinner, as we all are, predicated his answer on Matthew 7:1-3, which warns us not to judge, with severe consequences for those who do.

In that view, the Church cannot simply exclude people who sincerely seek God, because to do so inherently requires the sin of judgment which Jesus warns us against.

This does not mean that Pope Francis is soft on doctrine, even as he holds that doctrine cannot be an end in itself, but must serve the purpose of guiding the faithful to God. In his view the teachings of the Church must be communicated in the most effective manner. Sometimes this means that rhetoric must be adapted and the emphasis on what the Church communicates redirected.

The pope’s address in November to an interreligious conference on the traditional family provided a counterpoint to the false image of a fuzzy pope.

He insisted that the traditional family must be preserved and protected and that every child has the right of being raised by a mother and a father. He warned against falling into the “trap of being swayed by ideolog-

ical concepts”.

This language, much in the spirit of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, perplexed many liberals who had formed an image of Pope Francis as an ally in their cause.

The confusion about whose side Pope Francis is on, and about the way he exercises his Petrine ministry in general, was most evident in the wake of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family in October.

When the very open language of the headline-making mid-term report was revised and three paragraphs of the final document gained only a simple majority, rather than the required twothirds, conservatives crowed about and liberals lamented the pope’s supposed “crushing defeat”.

Both camps had false expectations: the liberals thought Pope Francis would force his positions on the synod in the way of his predecessors; the conservatives saw his “failure” to impose his supposed agenda as a sign of weakness and a repudiation by the synod.

Of course, the final document gave a fair reflection of the pope’s apparent positions, and where it didn’t, this was a concrete sign of the collegiality of bishops which Pope Francis had himself implemented and encouraged.

The truth is that Pope Francis, like most Catholics, is neither a conservative—even if his position on doctrines could be described that way—nor a liberal, even if his belief in a welcoming, non-judgmental Church coincides with the views of many progressives. Pope Francis, like most Catholics, transcends such labels.

If we want to ascribe a position to Pope Francis, then we must locate him in the middleground which loves the Church, its teachings and tradition, and which seeks to follow and serve God to the best of one’s ability and conscience.

It is the middle ground which is not prepared to compromise the essence of the Christ-centred Church in the face of either secular values or doctrinal rigour, but is prepared to engage with and be accessible to the secular world.

The Editor reserves the right to shorten or edit published letters. Letters below 300 words receive preference. Pseudonyms are acceptable only under special circumstances and at the Editor’s discretion.

Name and address of the writer must be supplied. No anonymous letter will be considered.

Saving our blessed earth up to us

I

WRITE as an 85-year-old grandmother, one who always has been and always will be a passionate lover of God’s beautiful earth.

I am shocked to my roots to read in Fr Chris Chatteris’ critique of Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything (November 5) that we have not 100 years but maybe only 40 in which to completely turn around our greedy, selfish, earth-destroying lifestyles, if we want there to be an earth for our descendants.

This surely is a wake-up call for every single one of us, and that includes the Church.

Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, especially, and now Francis have all spoken clearly about the serious need to address this problem.

But what has happened? Many people comment, “Interesting, isn’t it?” or “You can’t believe all you

Choosing bishops

Y

OUR article “Pope advises bishops: Choose priests wisely” (October 15) deals with the pope’s advice to his bishops. It should be supplemented with advice by all the people of God to him, the pope, Salva reverentia, to appoint only good and worthy bishops whose role model is definitely Jesus Christ.

Should here and there a less worthy priest raise his head, this is certainly bad. But if a bishop is no longer in line with Jesus and compromises his position, his whole diocese will soon be out of balance and in complete turmoil.

For the sake of his people, he will have to resign and hand the diocesan reins over to a colleague, knowing too well that a diocese is by no means a patrimony, but a place of God, where God’s children can find happiness, fulfilment, inspiration and support on their pilgrimage to heaven, the home of their heavenly Father.

Leopold Scherer, Queenstown

Don’t be confused

I

WOULD like to add to the debate, to the best of my ability, regarding the two letters on women priests (November 5) by Gabriella Broccardo and the group headed by James Boshell.

Every one of us has come into contact with women of powerful intellect, deep spirituality and the love of fellow humans. Some were nuns, some professional and also wives and mothers, others those who devoted themselves to their professions.

These are not necessarily the qualifications or indications of a calling to the priesthood, though all will be later requirements.

read in the press”. So we surely need God to give us his grace to be honest and to have the courage to know that the 11th hour is upon us.

The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference pronounced on this issue some years ago, publishing a booklet to help. To my shame, I must admit to knowing this and having done little about it.

Things are now much worse and climate change has become exponential in its rise.

I am convinced that if we want to save the world, it is you and I who will have to do it. Certainly Big Business with its vested interests and weak world governments will try to stop us interfering with their pots of gold.

So how can the Church help us in all of this? I believe it is imperative that the clergy focus much, much Overemphasis on discrimination belies differences, and men and women will always be so.

The difficult virtue to practise—humility—will help make us realise our limitations, men and women. Emotions, the drive and passions of others, can confuse our consciences so that our will goes contrary to the Holy Spirit who guides us.

Pope Benedict XVI so often stressed the need for us to be silent so as to hear God’s word.

One cannot really compare the calling to be a priest with early Church leaders and religious, ignorant in science, or evil laws instituted by lay governments, our own and those of many countries.

In choosing his male apostles, Jesus Christ was revealing God, his father, the second person of the trinity to show us mortals how we should live our lives, to redeem us from past and future errors.

And according to our Catholic faith, he sent the Holy Spirit to be with us always in order to carry out his teachings, difficult as they often are to practise.

ME Nicholls, Cape Town

Catechism help

T

HERESA Lovall in her letter “Catechism lack” (November 12) draws attention to the lack of correct catechesis and indeed the lack of evangelisation on the part of some Catholics.

For Ms Lovall’s information, may I recommend the book What the Catholic Church Teaches, written by myself and Frank Bompas covering most aspects essential to our faith as Catholic Christians.

The book was checked for theological correctness by Fr Michael Austin SJ and has been disseminated by Mr Bompas and myself

Y

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more on this now vital issue. They do, after all, have us as a captive audience every week! We will need constant urging and prodding. We are, as you surely know, weak, forgetful and selfish, not to mention stressed out by life in the fast lane.

This has been described as a “Kairos moment”. I do believe it is.

The time for words is over. We need now to do something to stop world governments in their tracks before it is too late. And this will mean a worldwide protest now, before the imminent climate talks.

So let us add our voices, use our feet if necessary and march, or easier yet, our clicks and join those who have been trying to wake us up.

So with fervent prayers and our beloved worldwide Church behind us, we really could make a difference, so that one day we may hopefully be able to stand before God and say: “Lord, I did try”.

Jill Hopwood, Port Elizabeth among many Catholics in the past ten years or so.

I would recommend this book to my fellow Catholics as essential weaponry in the field of evangelisation, in response to St Paul’s warning to us—lay people, religious and clergy alike—“For woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor 9:16).

John Lee, Johannesburg

No to cohabitation

O

NE of the major issues under discussion at the synod on the family in Rome was that of couples involved in pre-marital cohabitation (October 29).

There is no doubt that most of these persons use “the Pill”, which often acts as an abortifacient as well as a contraceptive. See the website www.epm.org/static/uploads/downloads/hcpill.pdf The said persons are thus practising ongoing chemical abortion.

The synod will publish its final report in October 2015, and it is to be hoped that it will, inter alia: 1. Emphasise again the Church’s condemnation of pre-marital cohabitation (which, incidentally, remains mortally sinful), and 2. Unequivocally condemn all forms of artificial birth control, especially the abortifacient forms thereof, the most popular being the Pill.

Damian McLeish, Johannesburg Opinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in Letters to the Editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or staff of the newspaper, or of the Catholic hierarchy. The letters page in particular is a forum in which readers may exchange opinions on matters of debate.

Letters must not be understood to necessarily reflect the teachings, disciplines or policies of the Church accurately.

Letters can be sent to PO Box 2372, Cape Town 8000 or editor@scross.co.za or faxed to 021 465-3850

PERSPECTIVES

Pápá Francisco: A dad with his family Sarah-Leah N Pimentel OWHERE can one see the results of the faith the size of a mustard seed better than in Rome. Today the Vatican is the heart of the universal Church.

A walk through the Roman ruins, however, reminds us that this is also the city where just under 2 000 years ago, one of Christ's most faithful disciples, Peter, was martyred. A simple fisherman who denied Jesus three times. This impetuous man whose faith often faltered was precisely the one to whom Jesus entrusted the Church. The same man in whose footsteps two millennia's worth of popes have walked. The man in whose footsteps Pope Francis walks today.

On October 26, the Schoenstatt movement had an audience with Pope Francis, marking the final high point of the apostolic movement's centenary celebrations which had started in Schoenstatt, Germany, the week before.

As thousands of us lined up outside St Peter’s Square to make our way into Paul VI Hall, the excitement was palpable. We were going to meet the pope! We all tried to imagine what it would be like when the pope would address us, bless us and send us out to continue our apostolic mission. We were going to meet a great man! But it all played out so differently…

In Portuguese the word for Pope is Papa. The affectionate word for dad is pápá. It's the most appropriate word I can find to describe Pope Francis. Dad. A dad who walks with his family.

From the minute he walked into the audience hall, the first thing that struck me is that he wasn't in a rush to get to the podium. He really took his time to walk slowly through the crowd and speak with individual people.

Some of our South African group were really close to the guard rail. He paused in front one of the older members of our group and took time to greet her, allow her to kiss his hands. He stopped when

saw a young man from New Zealand and laughed, showing his appreciation for the stuffed kiwi that he was carrying to represent his country. This was a dad having a quiet chat with his family members before the start of a family celebration.

My eyes followed him as he came closer to where I was standing. I was most touched by the joy that seemed to radiate outwards from somewhere deep inside of him.

We are so used to seeing world leaders paste on a smile for the cameras as they shake people's hands and hold babies.

Something about Pope Francis made me certain that this was not an act for the media. He looked genuinely happy and seemed as excited to meet us as we were to meet him.

A

s soon as he opened his mouth to speak with us, he did something else that made many of us feel even more at home with him. He spoke in his native Spanish. At least 70% of the crowd were native Spanish speakers, so it really felt

Pope Francis greets a child before a special audience for members of the Schoenstatt religious movement. (Photo: Max Rossi, Reuters/CNS)

Called to do God’s will M Y articles for The Southern Cross for the greater part of this year have focused on the different visions and projects that I have pursued at different stages of my life.

At each stage I felt that God was calling me to do something good and great as briefly explained below.

At one point I thought I was called to be a Jesuit priest, but I gave up the idea as a result of what I later considered to be a minor reason.

At another point I thought God was calling me to establish a Catholic university. Indeed I initiated the project that led to the establishment of St Augustine College of South Africa; but by the time the college came into being I was no longer part of the project.

The next stage was when, with great zeal and conviction, I led the formation of an interdenominational Christian Practice Movement which subsequently fizzled out.

My wife and I were then convinced about making a contribution to the development of good leadership in Africa, but the activities of the Lead and Inspire School of Leadership have not as yet made a significant impact on the poor leadership that is so characteristic, not only of Africa, but of the whole wide world.

The question is: Has God called me to fail, or have I been chasing false visions that have nothing to do with what God has called me to do in life?

My reflection on this question and these experiences has led me to ponder on how God calls people in different

ways and what should be our response.

There are different kinds of calling, and here I identify only four types.

First, there are some people for whom the calling is clear and apparently unambiguous.

Consider, for example, the life of Paul the Apostle. Once Jesus called him there was no turning back, and despite all trials and tribulations he knew that he was called to be the apostle of the gentiles.

And so he became God's instrument in the development of the early Church and laid the foundations of missionary work for all time.

There are some servants of God who may initially feel the zeal and conviction of doing something great for God, but may become disillusioned with their work even if they are successful.

Bl Mother Teresa of Kolkata was one of this kind. There was a time when, in spite of the outward success of her congregation, she felt disillusioned, feeling that she did not have Jesus in her and even going to the extent of doubting the existence of God. It is my firm conviction that there are some priests whose initial zeal for the ministry subsequently wanes and their work becomes a mere drudgery. They may continue to say Mass and preach, but without the fire and conviction they had when they were first called.

T

here are some humble servants of God, typified by married women and mothers. Some of them may not even be aware that theirs is a calling. They just feel that they have to do what they have

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The Mustard Seeds

like he was a dad speaking with his family.

He was completely relaxed, so much so that he barely glanced at his pre-prepared text, and just spoke from the heart, regularly making use of very typical expression from Buenos Aires.

And speak he did. Someone told us that he'd give us no more than 40 minutes because the Holy Father always has his lunch at 1pm. At 1:20 we were still there, and when the president of the Schoenstatt general presidium tried to hurry things along so that Pope Francis wouldn't miss his lunch, the pope just laughed and joked that he'd never met a member of the clergy who'd died of starvation!

His casual jokes, however, were also a form of practical education, gentle and caring, but also challenging. Speaking about family and why many young men seemed reluctant to marry, he suggested that mothers stop ironing their shirts!

At another point, while speaking about Christians who barely seem to acknowledge Mary as our mother or the mother of the Church, he said that if we don't want her as a mother, then we'll have her as a mother-in-law!

At the very end, when Pope Francis blessed us, he thanked us for visiting him.

We should have been the ones to thank him for giving his time and sharing his wisdom with us. And yet, he thanked us for coming to see him. What humility, what tenderness and love!

It truly was a wonderful afternoon we spent with our spiritual dad, Pope Francis, Papa Francisco…Pápá Francisco.

Emmanuel Ngara

Christian Leadership

to do—taking care of their families from day to day without any sense of doing something great for God and his Church.

I have a relative, a school teacher, whose husband used to be a successful man. For the last two or three decades he has been completely paralysed, unable to do anything for himself. For her the husband has become worse than a baby: She bathes him every day; cleans him when he soils himself; puts napkins on him and feeds him. For decades this has been her routine day in and day out.

Then there are those like myself who feel called to do something but fail to see the fruit of their labour. Nothing of great substance ever seems to work. One has been involved in projects, but nothing seems worthy of going down in the annals of history.

My reflections on these and other cases have led me to conclude that what we are called to do, is to do God's will— nothing more, nothing less.

There is a tendency in us to look at our calling from the perspective of what satisfies us; but God calls us, not for our purpose, but for his purpose. What we should aim to do in this life in terms of self-satisfaction is to do God's will and leave the rest to him.

There is therefore a need for us to reconcile self-actualisation and submission with the will of God. The next series of articles will explore this theme in some detail.

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The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

7

Michael Shackleton

Open Door

Must I believe in hell?

Hell is a state of permanent separation from God, we are told, and images of eternal flames are no longer acceptable. I have come across Catholics who reject the existence of hell altogether. What must I believe?

Sarah Bauer

W

ELL, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does tell us that those who die in mortal sin will find that “the chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs” (1035).

This makes sense. God made us, as the old Catechism put it, “to know him, to love him and to serve him in this life and to be happy with him forever in the next”. We are created male and female in his image and we belong to him. We have nowhere else to go but back to him.

Those who keep close to God their Father are united with him in Christ and with one another.

They will be quickly embraced and given full and permanent happiness when they finally receive his assessment of their loving fidelity to him.

The delights of heaven consist in having God recognise us as his own children, and keeping us in his infinite love. Our innate need to be loved will be fulfilled. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16).

Hell can he imagined as the opposite. Those who reject God and the salvation he offers, by their immoral conduct and lack of love for their neighbour, are not recognised as God’s children.

This is the utmost calamity for any soul.

To be estranged from our Father, the source of our being, is to endure unending homesickness of the worst imaginable kind.

The tragedy of those who may have to grieve forever in separation from God is that they have lost the capacity to love and be loved. They become forcefully aware that they are misfits and yearn in vain to be with God and his saints, where they really belong.

Jesus used the word Gehenna for hell, probably because this was a valley outside Jerusalem where rejected junk and rubbish were burned. He seems to have used this image to symbolise eternal rejection. The association with burning may have given rise to the widespread perception of the damned being burned in a fiery agony. But hellfire is not a doctrine of the faith.

That hell exists is doctrine, as Christ warned when he distinguished between those who will be sent to eternal life and those who will be sent to eternal punishment (Mt 25:46).

n Send your queries to Open Door, Box 2372, Cape Town,

8000; or e-mail: opendoor@scross.co.za; or fax (021) 465 3850. Anonymity can be preserved by arrangement, but questions must be signed, and may be edited for clarity. Only published questions will be answered.

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The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

COMMUNITY

Legiton, an outstation of St Anne’s parish in Mpophomeni in the archdiocese of Durban, welcomed Fr Jude Peries from Sri Lanka who came to conduct a leadership workshop. Pictured with parishioners are Deacon Seraficus Nzimande TOR (far left), Fr Peries (seated centre) and parish priest Fr Jude Fernando TOR (far right).

holy Rosary School in Edenvale, Johannesburg’s Grade 3 pupils received their first holy Communion at St Therese parish by Fr Joseph Leathem OMi. (From left) Primary School staff Mrs Fitzpatrick, Mrs Peterson and Mrs van Tonder with pupils (back) Donatella Muralo, Alexandra Gomes, Michaela Merven, Gabriela Mendes, Shannon Macintosh, Tiana Rader, and Simona Pera, (middle) Kianna da Silva, Gemma Caplan, Madalena Paulino, Kiana Bove and Sofia Bollo, (front) Jessica Kremnitzer, Sienna da Sousa Main, and Palesa Mokose.

St Matthew’s parish in Bonteheuwel, Cape Town, held a Debutantes Ball as part of its silver jubilee celebrations. Winners (from left) 2nd Princess B Morris, Queen h Adams and 1st Prince Bradley Smith are pictured with Fr PeterJohn Pearson and parish priest Fr Peter Ziegler.

Sherwin Anthony hurri and Pamela Chetty were married on October 11 at Our Lady Star of the Sea parish in Amanzimtoti, KwaZulu-Natal, with Fr John Dalais presiding.

Couples for Christ hosted a successful men’s conference with the theme “Abba Father” in Kokstad, attended by faithful from all over South Africa.

Members of a holy Land pilgrimage by holy Redeemer parish in Bergvliet, Cape Town, in the ancient Roman theatre in Caesarea, with Redemptorist Father Sean Wales (back, right) and Brother Richard Maidwell (back left).

The group also visited Cairo and Jordan, including the fabled city of Petra.

holy Trinity parish in Matroosfontein, Cape Town, held its annual week-long rosary novena which ended with the faithful of different parishes in the central deanery coming together in holy Cross children’s home grotto to honour Our Lady, in procession reciting the rosary and singing hymns. Fr Peter-John Pearson, vicar-general of the archdiocese, officiated at the Benediction.

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CONSECRATED LIFE

The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

9

DRC missionary leads the youth To an Oblate priest in Kwa Zulu-Natal it is the spirit of his community that keeps him going. Opening a series of profiles in the Year of Consecrated Life, STuART GRAhAM visited St Theresa’s mission in Inchanga.

F

ATHER Jean-Lambert Nzaji Kalala OMI cuts a popular figure among the youth in the area served by St Theresa’s mission in the village of Inchanga, halfway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg.

It is a difficult time to be young, particularly if you are poor, says Fr Kalala who serves St Theresa’s with his fellow Oblate of Mary Immaculate Fr Mthokozisi Mncwabe.

“The youth need guidance and wisdom more than ever,” Fr Kalala says.

“Young people are so easily alienated. When you approach them, it is so important to listen not with a mindset, but to walk with them and to understand where they are,” he advises. “When you do that they find it easier to relate to you.”

The young people Fr Kalala works with have many problems, ranging from drugs to teenage pregnancies.

Mostly though, they simply do not know how to cope with the struggles of daily life, he says.

“The community is semi-rural.

There is no development happening here. People depend on grants. Many are not at school and loiter around the area. The level of young pregnancy is enormous,” he explains.

“Many of the youngsters lack education and come from broken families. They do not have great support.

[To many people] having a child is a way to have money. Some follow other kids, thinking: my friend does it, so I will do it.”

Fr Kalala, who is the chaplain for youth in the Highway deanery of the archdiocese of Durban, says that when Pope Francis announced 2015 as the Year of Consecrated Life he found himself reflecting on his own youth and on the calling he received early in his life.

“I was a young man, living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) when I received my calling,” he says.

“Now, after 15 years as a priest and 28 years in religious life I find myself trying to capture the days of my youth. How did I get myself in this vocation? Was I touched? Was I motivated by missionaries who gave me the idea to join this religion?” he reflects Fr Kalala completed his formation in the DRC, coverering such fields as philosophy, missionary experience and theology.

“After my [ordination to the] priesthood I asked for work ad intra or ad extra. I was open to be sent to whatever country. They sent me to South Africa, so I came here in 2001.”

(From left) Oblate Fathers Mthokozisi Mncwabe and Jean-Lambert Nzaji Kalala.

Fr Kalala believes that the Year of Consecrated Life has raised a challenge for religious around the world.

“It is a challenge to us. We have to ask: Do we still have our identity?

Do we still love this life? What does this year mean to us?

“For me the year is a way to look back and shake my motivation as a missionary and to see how can I improve and [get] other people to understand this life,” he says.

Fr Kalala says he wants to use the year to show young people what it is like to live a consecrated life.

He is introducing the youth to the spirituality of St John Bosco—the Italian saint and founder of the Salesian order who worked with young people in Turin in the 19th century—and is challenging them to understand the importance of religion, education and social skills in their lives.

prayers, and on Tuesday and Thursday Mass is held. He and Fr Mncwabe visit hospitals and respond to the needs of the people in the area.

Fr Kalala says it is “the vibrance of Inchanga” that keeps him going.

The spirit of Fr Albert Hanon, an Oblate who founded the first Catholic mission at Inchanga in 1924, is alive and well at St Theresa’s, Fr Kalala says.

Fr Hanon worked tirelessly, farming, evangelising and caring for the people in the area. In 1928 he had collected enough money to build a church.

In the same year an Oblate novitiate for African brothers was started and the first African Oblate brother, Leo Gumede, joined the staff.

The intermediate school for African children was built in 1930; it is now part of the Inchanga Primary School.

Inchanga also has the KwaThintwa School for the Deaf,

founded by Archbishop Denis Hurley, the Ethembeni School for the physically challenged and a preschool creche, Mater Spei. All are situated close to the church.

The Dominican Sisters run the Mater Consolans Aids hospice and also care for and counsel young women in trauma and pregnancy crisis in the Mater Africae home, which forms part of the Right to Live Project.

Fr Kalala and Fr Mncwabe serve five outstations: St Augustine’s in Emboyi, St Eugene De Mazenod in Sthumba, All Saints in Skhelekhehleni, Holy Rosary in Msunduzi, and Sacred Heart in Camperdown.

Fr Kalala says he is motivated by Inchanga's record of having produced more priests than any other mission or parish in the archdiocese of Durban.

To date, ten priests and three religious sisters received their calling while at Inchanga. It is a trend that he and Fr Mncwabe want to continue.

Three young men from the parish are currently in the initial stages of formation, says Fr Kalala.

“I am grateful that we [Oblates] have two, and one who joined the archdiocese in Durban” as a candidate for the secular priesthood (priests who don’t belong to a religious order or congregation).

“We also have a girl who would like to be a nun,” he added.

Fr Kalala believes the Year of Consecrated Life is a wonderful chance to attract more to a religious life.

“From my side I will try to renew my religious life,” he says. “But I will also try to show it to others and get them to see what a wonderful life it is.”

The Five First Saturdays - Mary's Great Promise at Fatima!

A

typical weekday at St Theresa's starts for Fr Kalala with morning

On 10 December, 1925 Lucia received a visit from Mary with the Child Jesus, who said, "Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce Her at every moment, without there being anyone to make an act of reparation in order to take them away." Our Lady then promised Sr. Lucia that she would assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who on the first Saturdays of five consecutive months:1. go to Confession (within eight days before or after ) 2. receive Holy Communion (obviously in a state of grace) 3. say 5 decades of the Rosary (ie one mystery)

4. keep her company for 15 minutes whilst meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary 5. all this with the intention of consoling and offering reparation to Her Immaculate Heart

The Reasons for this Devotion:

On May 29, 1930, Our Lord explained to Sr. Lucia why five First Saturdays: “My daughter the reason is simple.

Against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, five kinds of offenses and blasphemies are committed: ♦ against the immaculate Conception. ♦ against the Virginity of Our Lady. ♦ against her Divine Maternity - the refusal to accept her as Mother of all mankind. ♦ those who publicly seek to sow in children’s hearts indifference, contempt and even hatred for our immaculate Mother. ♦ those who insult her directly in her holy images/statues.”

The Origin of the Five First Saturdays:

On July 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared at Fatima to the three seers Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco and revealed a three part secret to them. The first part was a vision of hell, which was so terrible that Lucia later declared that if it were not for Our Lady’s presence, they would have died of fright. After the vision was over, Our Lady spoke thus: “You saw Hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them god wishes to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart in the world. If they do what I shall tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace.” “i will come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my immaculate heart (MMP 351e; 356e; 437k) and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays (MMP180). if they listen to my requests, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. if not, it will spread its errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the holy Father will have much to suffer, and many nations will be annihilated……”

"...in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!"

Act of Consecration to The Immaculate Heart of Mary

“My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the sure way that will lead you to god” (MMP 572)

“O Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of Heaven and earth, and tender Mother of all, in accordance with your ardent wish made known at Fatima, I consecrate to you myself/my family/my parish/my diocese/my country, and all those I love and pray for.

Reign over us and teach us how to make the Heart of Jesus reign and triumph in us, and around us, as it triumphed in You. Reign over us dearest Mother, that we may be yours in prosperity and in adversity, in joy and in sorrow, in health and in sickness, in life and in death.

O Most compassionate Heart of Mary, Queen of Virgins, watch over our minds and hearts. Preserve and heal them from the deluge of impurity which You lamented so sorrowfully at Fatima. We want to atone for the many crimes committed against Jesus and Yourself.

We want to call upon our country, and the whole world, the peace of God, in justice and charity. We want to be pure like You.” Amen.

10

The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

PEOPLE

The herdboy who built the church at Chwezi Vincent Nyawo never went to school but took the building trade to heart to build a new life for himself and a church for his community.

SyDNEy DuVAL spoke to him.

B

UILDER Vincent Nyawo’s birthplace is the small village of fields, peanut plantations and thatched huts called Ndabeni in the foothills of the Lebombo mountains—a frontier place of legend and adventure that shares its rugged beauty with KwaZulu-Natal, Swaziland and Mozambique, where enclaves exist to protect precious and vulnerable wild life.

Now 46, Mr Nyawo did what boys in his village usually did in those days. He spent his childhood and youth herding cattle and tending the vegetable garden surrounded by rural isolation and raised in old ways and customs.

He never went to school and did not learn to read or write through formal education, but he was lucky enough to be living close to a kindly primary school teacher, Dumisani Mtshali, who gave him some rudimentary literacy lessons.

Childhood passed and the time came for Vincent to search for work to support his family, including his siblings and his now-deceased parents.

In 1989 he met Chris Amstutz, a structural engineer from Interlaken in Switzerland, who had set up a building construction business in Vryheid and was building a pumphouse to carry water from Jozini dam to the town.

Mr Amstutz gave Mr Nyawo a job mixing concrete for the roof. The builder liked what he saw, the willingness of the youngster, and more work followed.

Along the way Mr Amstutz taught Mr Nyawo to mix cement, lay bricks and foundations, use a spirit level, plaster and tile walls, fit ceilings and roofing, and work with wood.

Mr Nyawo learnt to hang doors and windows. He learnt to make cupboards and shelves. More impor-

tantly, perhaps, Mr Amstutz taught the man who had no formal education to count. He got Mr Nyawo to check bags of cement against the number on the delivery note.

From delivery notes, Mr Nyawo was taught to speak English and to read invoices, to do quotations and to read a building plan. He was beginning a journey that was to develop into a multi-skilled experience and a more fulfilling life.

Many of the bricks that passed through his hands are now buildings of many shapes and sizes and uses in different parts of northern KwaZuluNatal—many of them Catholic religious houses and institutions.

Over the years the building trade took Mr Amstutz and Mr Nyawo to Twasana, Nongoma, Vryheid, Nkandla, Richard’s Bay and Volksrust. Mr Nyawo was part of a team that built churches, chapels, open-air altars, church halls, shrines, convents, church guesthouses, school boarding houses and residential housing.

At Vryheid they built the priest’s house of St Thomas More church.

Between 1995-97 they refurbished Inkamana Abbey outside Vryheid, home to the Benedictines of St Ottilien, later adding the reception facility.

At Nkandla, they built St Damiano as an early formation house for the Franciscan Nardini Sisters, followed by a staff house for the convent employees.

They later worked at Sizanani Child and Youth Care Centre, adding a kitchen, study, dining room and recreation room for children.

Mr Nyawo left Mr Amstutz about 2005 to work for John Glover, a builder from Vryheid and former tea plantation farmer, who was also active in the Nkandla area.

They extended Sizanani Child and Youth Care Centre and renovated the small thatched chapel that adds a spiritual source to the psychosocial support for orphans and vulnerable children accommodated there. They renovated the flatlets in the convent grounds and replaced water reservoirs blown down in heavy wind.

In 2007, Mr Nyawo left Mr Glover to take his chances as an independent builder. He got his driver’s licence

Vincent Nyawo, whose life’s journey has taken him from the herdboy of his youth, through the building of many churches, chapels and church-related institutions, to an independent building contractor who built the new church for the parish at Chwezi. (Right) St Francis’ church, on the outskirts of Nkandla, with the old tin structure in the forground which served as the church for many years. to increase his mobility and availability—and to sustain the independence he so valued.

Water runs through Mr Nyawo’s life and work as a replenishing stream, beginning with the great Pongolo/Jozini dam of his childhood and the water pumphouse. Even his wife has an aquatic name, Ntombiyamanzi, meaning “the girl by the water”—and he met her beside a stream.

But the significant wellspring that he remembers with pride and nostalgia is his early experience of Mr Amstutz taking him “to the holy springs” in the Ngome forest, outside Nongoma, and associated with miraculous cures. Nearby is the Marian shrine dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

A

bbot Godfrey Sieber OSB, in his comprehensive history The Benedictines of Inkamana, includes a detailed narrative of Ngome which has become one of Southern Africa’s most popular pilgrimage destinations. Ngome was established in 1944 as one of several outstations of Nongoma mission station which the Benedictines had opened in 1926 in

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order to win new converts and form them into communities.

The springs, open air altar and chapel at Ngome mark the place where Sr Reinolda May, of the Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing, experienced ten visions between August 22, 1955 and May 2, 1971.

In these apparitions, the Virgin Mary identified herself as “the Tabernacle of the Most High”.

During the vision of March 15,1956, the Virgin pointed in a north-westerly direction and asked that “a sanctuary be built at the place where seven springs well up and meet”, to allow for grace to flow and for people to be converted.

Mr Amstutz took Mr Nyawo to Ngome to improve pilgrims’ access to the water from the celebrated springs which are surrounded by forest and the remnants of a tea plantation from the 1970s.

They built a channel to carry water from the springs to a small weir, or spillway, where pilgrims could collect water to drink or stand in the small pond forming below.

Steps and a cemented gathering place were added to overcome the muddy conditions when it rained.

“I took out all the mud and cleaned the water from the springs with my own hands,” Mr Nyawo recalls, waving his arms and hands as though he were doing it all over again.

All that he had learnt over the years, when he had become the worker Mr Amstutz described as “my foreman, my kingpin”, seemed to have been a preparation for his biggest job working under his own steam with three assistants: to design and build St Francis church at Chwezi, on the outskirts of Nkandla, at the request of Fr Aquilin Mpanza, parish priest at Holy Trinity, Nkandla.

Mr Nyawo was there for the blessing and opening by Bishop Xolelo Kumalo on October 5 (as covered in The Southern Cross).

Dressed in his Sunday best—his overalls put away for the moment— Mr Nyawo allowed himself a shy smile, knowing quietly that he had changed the landscape at Chwezi with something of lasting value: a church where you could also get holy water to bless your life, built by the herdboy who never went to school.

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The Southern Cross, December 3 to December 9, 2014

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Free gift in next week’s issue!

Look out in next week’s Southern Cross for a free copy of the Upper Room, a daily devotional booklet that covers the months January and February.

The booklet is published by the interdenominational, international and interracial upper Room Ministry which has its international headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, uSA, and a South African branch in Eikenhof, south of Johannesburg. The booklet is inserted as a gift from the ministry to the readers of The Southern Cross.

Community Calendar To place your event, call Mary Leveson at 021 465 5007 or e-mail m.leveson@scross.co.za (publication subject to space)

CAPE TOWN: Helpers of god’s Precious Infants. Mass on last Saturday of every month at 9:30 at Sacred heart church in Somerset Road, Cape Town. Followed by vigil at Marie Stopes abortion clinic in Bree Street. Contact Colette Thomas on 083 412 4836 or 021 593 9875 or Br Daniel SCP on 078 739 2988.

Padre Pio: Holy Hour 15:30 every 3rd Sunday of the month at holy Redeemer parish in Bergvliet.

Eucharistic Perpetual Adoration at Good Shepherd parish, Bothasig, in the chapel. All hours. All welcome.

DURBAN: Holy Mass and Novena

to St Anthony at St Anthony’s parish every Tuesday at 9am. Holy Mass and Divine Mercy Devotion at 17:30pm on first Friday of every month.

Sunday Mass at 9am.

031 309 3496 Overport rosary group.

At Emakhosini hotel, 73 East Street every Wednesday at 6.30 pm.

Contact Keith at 083 372 9018 or 031 209 2536 NELSPRUIT: Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at St Peter’s parish every Tuesday from 8:00 to 16:45, followed by Rosary, Divine Mercy prayers, then a Mass/Communion service at 17:30pm.

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Southern CrossWord solutions

SOLUTIONS TO 631. ACROSS: 1 Cock, 3 Socrates, 9 Archaic, 10 Ghoul, 11 Thessalonian, 13 Repays, 15 Arisen, 17 Fasting times, 20 Loser, 21 Proviso, 22 Massacre, 23 Eton. DOWN: 1 Crafters, 2 Cycle, 4 Occult, 5 Regeneration, 6 Trojans, 7 Salt, 8 Mass hysteria, 12 In a swoon, 14 Praises, 16 Sniper, 18 Moist, 19 Glum.

Liturgical Calendar Year A Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday December 7, Second Sunday of Advent Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11, Psalms 85:9-14, 2 Peter 3:814 Monday December 8, Immaculate Conception of Our Lady Gen 3, 9-15.20, Ps 98, 1-4, Eph 1, 3.6.11-12, Lk 1, 26-38 Tuesday December 9, St Juan Cuauhtlatoatzin Is 40, 1-11, Ps 96, 1-3.10-13, Mt 18, 12-14 Wednesday December 10 1s 40, 25-31, Ps 103, 1-4.8.10, Mt11, 28-30 Thursday December 11, St Damasus Is 41, 13-20, Ps 145, 1.9-13, Mt 11, 11-15 Friday December 12, Our Lady of Guadalupe Is 48, 1-19, Ps 1, 1.4.6, Mt 11, 16-19 Saturday December 13, St Lucy Sir 48, 1-4.9-11, Ps 80, 2-3.15-16.18-19, Mt 1, 10-13 Sunday December 14, Third Sunday of Advent Is 61, 1-2.10-11, Resp: Lk 1, 46-50.53-54, 1 Thess 5, 16-24, Jn 1, 6-8.19-28

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Births • First Communion • Confirmation • Engagement/Marriage • Wedding anniversary • Ordination jubilee • Congratulations • Deaths • in memoriam • Thanks • Prayers • Accommodation • holiday Accommodation • Personal • Services • Employment • Property • Others Please include payment (R1,37 a word) with small advertisements for promptest publication.

WEDDINg ANNIVERSARY

KEN AND VILMA LUE—65th wedding anniversary. Congratulations on blessed marriage of great values and love, with much love and gratitude from your 12 children, 26 grandchildren, 18 greatgrandchildren, spouses, our wonderful aunties, uncles, cousins, their families and all your and our friends who have blessed, and still do bless, our lives with their love, care, faith and prayers. Deo gratias.

DEATHS

gORDON—Susan (née Pope). Our loving mother, grandmother and greatgrandmother passed away peacefully on November 20 at the tender age of 93.

Will live forever in our memories, Norma, Mervyn, kids & grandkids.

IN MEMORIAM

BRUYNS—Noel left us on December 6, 2004. Still fondly remembered by his colleagues at The Southern Cross.

MAHER—herbert died 6/12/2002 and his wife of 54 years Cicely Myrtle died 11/12/2006. in loving memory of our parents, from Joan, James and Sharon.

PRAYERS

HOLY ST JUDE, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faith-

ful intercessor of all who invoke you, special patron in time of need. To you i have recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly beg you to come to my assistance. help me now in my urgent need and grant my petitions. in return i promise to make your name known and publish this prayer. Amen. in thanks for prayers answered. Leon and Karen.

HOLY ST JUDE, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who invoke you, special patron in time of need. To you i have recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly beg you to come to my assistance. help me now in my urgent need and grant my petitions. in return i promise to make your name known and publish this prayer. MPM. HOLY ST JUDE, apostle and martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who invoke you, special patron in time of need. To you i have recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly beg you to come to my assistance. help me now in my urgent need and grant my petitions. in return i promise to make your name known and publish this prayer. Amen.

Riccarda

THANKS

gRATEFUL thanks to the Sacred heart of Jesus, Our Mother Mary and Ss Rita, Joseph, Anthony, Jude and Martin de Porres for prayers answered. Riccarda

PERSONAL

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ANgELWOOD B&B: Linksfield, Johannesburg, 081 590 5144.

CAPE TOWN: Fully equipped self-catering 2bedroom apartment with parking, in Strandfontein.

R500 per night (4 persons). Paul 021 393 2503, 083 553 9856, vivilla@ telkomsa.net KNYSNA: Self-catering accommodation for 2 in Old Belvidere with wonderful lagoon views and DSTV. 044 387 1052.

MARIANELLA Guest house, Simon’s Town: “Come experience the peace and beauty of God with us.” Fully equipped with amazing sea views.

Secure parking, ideal for rest and relaxation. Special rates for pensioners and clergy. Malcolm Salida 082 784 5675, mjsalida@ gmail.com SEDgEFIELD: Beautiful self-catering garden holiday flat, sleeps four, two bedrooms, open-plan lounge, kitchen, fully equipped. 5min walk to lagoon. Out of season specials. Contact Les or Bernadette 044 343 3242, 082 900 6282.

STELLENBOSCH: Christian Brothers Centre. 14 suites (double/twin beds), some with fridge & microwave, others beside kitchenette & lounge, ecospirituality library. Countryside vineyard/forest/ mountain views/walks; beach 20-minute drive. Affordable. 021 880 0242. www.cbcentre.co.za Email: cbcstel@gmail.com LOVING FATHER bless us, the people of AFRICA, and help us to live in justice, love and peace Mary, Mother of Africa, pray for us For prayer leaflet: sms 083 544 8449

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3rd Sunday of Advent: December 14 Readings: Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11, Luke 1:4650, 53-54, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28

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John foresees the coming of Christ Fr Nicholas King SJ

A

S we go deeper into this season, we are invited by the readings for the day to imagine what the Lord’s coming will be like. And it is possible that it may not be all that comfortable.

Our first reading is the famous one that, according to Luke’s gospel, Jesus applied to his coming on his first appearance in the synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted.”

This is an awesome, not to say disconcerting, responsibility; nevertheless we are also encouraged to be joyful: “I shall certainly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall rejoice in my God, for he has clothed me in garments of salvation.” This leads into a wonderful vision: “As the earth brings forth its produce and as a garden makes its produce spring up, so the Lord, the Lord will make justice grow, and praise, before all the nations.”

The psalm for next Sunday is the song that Mary sang in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel; and very joyful it is too, but we need to look closely at it, to see how uncomfortably subversive are the words of the Mother of God: “My soul magnifies the Lord”, she sings, “and

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Sunday Reflections

my spirit exulted in God my Saviour.”

That sounds cheerful enough; but then look at why “all generations will congratulate me”: “because he has looked on the humiliation of his slave-girl”. Then it completely upsets (as God is all too prone to do) what we regard as the normal order of things: “He has filled the starving with good things, and the affluent he has sent away with nothing.”

We perk up a bit at the final words: “he helped Israel his servant”, but then we notice the tail-piece: “remembering his mercy”, a reminder to us that we need God’s overflowing mercy—we cannot be said to have deserved it.

The second reading is from the very first surviving Christian document, Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians; and it sounds cheer-

ful enough: “rejoice all the time”, but we should also notice the hints that things may not after all be going ahead perfectly.

For the Thessalonians have to be reminded to “pray unceasingly, and give thanks in everything”. They are warned, “not to extinguish the Spirit, not to despise prophecy”.

And there is a stern injunction to “keep away from every evil shape”, followed by a prayer that should remind them that they need help: “The God of peace himself consecrate you as perfect offerings…your body be kept blameless at the Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” We can take nothing for granted at the time of the Lord’s coming.

The gospel for next Sunday is thought by many scholars to be the original beginning of the Gospel of John, and it is a bit sombre.

As always on the 3rd Sunday of Advent we are invited to contemplate the slightly weird figure of John the Baptist: “There was a man sent from God—John was his name.” He has to be distinguished from the coming light: “He was not the light, but was to bear witness to the light.”

Now we eavesdrop on a slightly uncomfortable dialogue between him and emissaries

Finding God in two Churches G

OD has given us two Churches.

One is found everywhere and the other is found at select places.

Some of us prefer one of these and struggle with the other, but both are sacred places where God can be found and worshipped.

When most people think of church, they generally think of a building, a cathedral, a shrine, a temple, a synagogue, a mosque, or a holy site.

Catholics might think of St Peter’s basilica in Rome or their local parish church. Anglicans might think of St Paul’s cathedral in London or their local church building, even as Muslims might think of Mecca or their local mosque.

These are all churches, privileged holy places where God meets us. This is one kind of Church, housed in a building or a holy location. But what grounds this concept?

In the Book of Genesis we read that Jacob had a dream within which he saw a ladder connecting earth to heaven with angels going up and down. Waking from the dream, Jacob realises that he has had a very privileged experience, within which the gap between heaven and earth was, for a moment, bridged.

Not wanting to lose this experience, nor this special place, he sets up a stone as a pillar, as an altar, to mark the place, so that he find his way back to this privileged spot.

That’s the first church building and

Conrad

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

that’s ultimately the meaning of every church building, every temple, every shrine, every mosque, and every holy site. It’s a privileged place where there’s a ladder between heaven and earth. It’s a special place where one can go to pray.

B

ut there’s a second kind of Church that has nothing to do with buildings, churches, temples, shrines or holy sites.

This is the church that Jesus reveals to the Samaritan woman in John 4:3-42.

Most of us are familiar with the dialogue Jesus has with this woman. In their conversation she confesses a certain confusion regarding churches. She tells Jesus that she lives in a world that disagrees about where the real church, the real ladder between heaven and earth, is to be found.

The Jews tell her that the real place to worship, the authentic church, is the temple in Jerusalem, but her own community, the Samaritans, tell her that the proper place to worship is Mount Gerizim. So

which is the proper place to worship?

Jesus tells her that she need not necessarily worship at either of those sites. Rather the real temple, the real sacred place, the real privileged place where a ladder runs between heaven and earth, upon which angels ascend and descend, is inside her.

The real Church is not always a building or a holy site, but a place of conscience and spirit inside a person, accessible to us without having to travel to the Holy Land, Rome, London, Salt Lake City, Mecca, Lourdes, or your neighbourhood church. The ladder upon which angels ascend and descend between heaven and earth can be found everywhere; nature itself is a cathedral and, inside each of us, there’s a church.

Thus there are two real Churches given us by God; one is outside of us, physical and concrete, the other is inside of us, spiritual and amorphous.

Ideally, of course, a healthy sense of church would have us all worshipping deeply at both places, outside in our church buildings and inside in our heart and conscience. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.

Today huge ecclesial tensions exist within all major religions and within all Christian denominations, between those who define church primarily or exclusively by one’s active participation inside a church building (“If you aren’t coming to church, you aren’t a real believer!”) and those who define church, however unconsciously, as sincerity and worship within conscience and spirit (“I’m spiritual but not religious!”).

Both are right, both are wrong, and both need to widen their understanding of church. God gave us both churches, and both are vital.

I know people, not least some very good male friends, who struggle with spiritual interiority. They grasp the meaning of church buildings, holy sites and church structures, and these genuinely ground their religious lives.

They can relate to the Church as a building and as an institution that holds holy services; they can grasp Jacob’s ladder there.

Conversely, I have good friends, not least some women friends, who have a rich spiritual interiority but struggle with the Church as an institution, one that, to their minds, too easily and sometimes idolatrously privileges certain human organisations, sites, and persons as sine qua non avenues to heaven; they struggle to see Jacob’s ladder inside such concrete, imperfect physicality.

Both need to learn from each other, and grasp more deeply the interrelationship of the two Churches God gave us.

from the religious authorities, who interrogate him, “Who are you?” Then, in a rather clumsy formulation he makes an uncomfortable denial: “He confessed and he did not deny; and he confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah’.”

The interrogation does not end there, however, as they try various hats on him, which are one by one discarded as not fitting him properly: “Elijah?”; “the prophet?”. Then he openly proclaims the (undoubtedly inferior) role to which he has been assigned by God: “I am ‘the voice crying in the wilderness: make straight the way of the Lord’, as Isaiah the prophet said”.

What we have to notice here is the sheer difficulty of knowing how to talk about the One who is coming, and therefore how to talk about the one who is his forerunner. So finally John is reduced to telling them that he is inferior: “I am baptising you people in water; but in the middle is standing one whom you people do not know, the One Coming After Me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”

That is not comfortable; but it should give us hope as we wait for the Coming One.

Southern Crossword #631

ACROSS 1. St Peter heard its dawn cry (4) 3. Scores at being the philosopher (8) 9. Antiquated (7) 10. Phantom around the lough (5) 11. Salient Shona interpreted for St Paul’s correspondent (12) 13. Rewards (6) 15. Sin era has come up (6) 17. Seasons when nothing is taken (7,5) 20. Perhaps he can never win (5) 21. Condition attached to the agreement (7) 22. Slaughter of the Innocents (8) 23. School collar (4)

DOWN 1. They make things by hand for the market (8) 2. Rotation of annual liturgical readings (5) 4. Confused lout gets two hundred. It’s esoteric (6) 5. State of being born again (12) 6. They are very hard workers (7) 7. You are the ... of the earth (Mt 5) (4) 8. Uncontrolled excitement about the Eucharist? (4,8) 12. Faint way to be (2,1,5) 14. Aspires and applauds (7) 16. Bird right at the end may take a pot shot (6) 18. Tom is damp (5) 19. Gloomy inside making lumber (4)

Solutions on page 11

CHURCH CHUCKLE

L

ittle Johnny was coming home from church one Saturday morning with his mother. His mother noticed he had a very serious look on his face.

“What’s on your mind, Johnny?” she asked.

“Is it true what Father said about us all coming from dust and all turning back to dust?”

“Yes, it is, Johnny,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, then when we get home,” he answered, “you better look under my bed, because someone’s either coming or going.”

Send us your favourite Catholic joke, preferably clean and brief, to The Southern Cross, Church Chuckle, PO Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000.