Church Alive!: Pilgrimages in Faith, 1956-2006

291 Pages·2006·2.77 MB·English

by  Greg Dening

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Church
A LI V E !
Emeritus Professor GREGDENINGis a world-renowned scholar
in his chosen field of research and writing: the encounter
between indigenous and settler societies.From his first seminal
book, Islands and Beaches (1980), to his most recent, Beach
Crossings(2004),he has had a global reputation in cross-cultural
and cross-disciplinary scholarly writing.All his books are in the
great libraries of the world and are featured in postgraduate
studies across the USA, the UK and Europe. Mr Bligh’s Bad
Language (1992) was published by the History Book of the
Month Club.Performances(1996) is much used in postgraduate
courses and The Death of William Gooch (1996) is counted as a
cross-cultural murder mystery written in near poetical prose.
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C hu r c h
A L I V E !
Pi lgrimages in faith
1956–2006
G R E G D E N I N G
UNSW
PRESS
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A Poet’s Prayer
O God,who by the spirit in our hearts
dost lead us to desire Thy perfection,to
seek for truth,and to rejoice in beauty;
illumine,we pray Thee,and inspire all
thinkers,writers,artists and craftsmen;
that in whatsoever is true and pure
and lovely,Thy name may be hallowed
and Thy kingdom come on earth.
Lord,hear us.
Direct and bless,we beseech Thee,
O Lord,those who speak where many
listen,and write what many read;
that they may do their part in making
the heart of the people wise,its mind
sound,and its will righteous.
Lord,hear us.
PHILIP JOHN TALBOT MARTIN
POET AND PARISHIONER
28 MARCH 1931–18 OCTOBER 2005
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A UNSW Press book
Published by
University of New South Wales Press Ltd
University of New South Wales
Sydney NSW 2052
AUSTRALIA
www.unswpress.com.au
© Provincial of the Society of Jesus in Australia 2006
First published 2006
This book is copyright.Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose
of private study,research,criticism or review,as permitted under the
Copyright Act,no part may be reproduced by any process without
written permission.Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Dening,Greg,1931– .
Church alive!:pilgrimages in faith,1956–2006.
Includes index.
ISBN 0 86840 843 3.
1.St.Mary’s Parish (North Sydney,N.S.W.) - History.
2.St.Francis Xavier’s Church (Lavender Bay,N.S.W.) -
History. 3.Star of the Sea Church (Milsons Point,N.S.W.)
- History. 4.Catholics - New South Wales - History.
5.New South Wales - Church history. I.Title.
282.9441
Design Di QuickandRuth Pidd
Front cover image The Bridge from North Sydney,1939,by Roland
Wakelin.Courtesy of Judith Murray,Leslie Walton.
Back cover image Tuhbowgule Nangamay,Sydney Harbour Dreaming,
by Deborah Lennis of the D’harawal people.
Printer Everbest,China
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Contents
A Prefatory Note 9
Prologue:The Spirit at Work 11
1 Living History 23
2 Triumph 1956 40
Reflection:On Religious Change 63
3 Hopefulness 77
Mystery 90
4 Breaking Bread 101
Believing 117
5 Word and Song 128
Celebrating 146
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6 New Church,New Priest 158
Priestliness 178
7 The Christ and Women 192
Calling 209
8 The Prophetic Imagination 224
Ministering 237
Epilogue: Pilgrim Parish 252
Acknowledgments 254
Notes 257
Notes on the artwork by Anne Kearney 270
Bibliography 276
Index 286
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A prefatory note
Vatican Council II (1962–1965) brought an aggiornamento– a renewal – into the
Catholic Church.This living history of three Jesuit parish churches on the North
Shore of Sydney Harbour is a story of the hope and pain in that renewal.
Church Alive! is a living history because it is, on my part, an ethnographic
description of religious experience in times of change,1956–2006.But it is living,
too,in another way.Nothing’s said till it’s dreamed out in words/and nothing’s true that
figures in words only,the poet Les Murray has written.You will find the hope and
pain of the Church’s renewal dreamed out in words in the word pictures of many
parishioners who describe their religious experiences as they are – not as they should
be or as they are told they should be. As they are! Those word pictures are to be
found as Mystery,Believing,Celebrating,Priestliness,Calling and Ministering.
There are living images as well as living words in Church Alive! Anne
Kearney,a parishioner and an artist who has exhibited in oils,pastels,collage and
ceramics for over 20 years, and who is also qualified in Systematic Theology,
undertook to take an unmapped journey of considerable risk and insecurity by
providing her own creations to introduce our essays on sacred space and sacred
time and the word pictures.
I thank Anne and all the others for being willing to join me in writing a dif-
ferent sort of history,one informed by hope and love as much as science and art.
By agreement, the word pictures are individually unnamed. The names of
their authors are to be found in the Acknowledgments.
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Prologue
The spirit at work
Pentecost
They come down from the mountain in a daze.They realise that the Lord has
gone from them in a physical sense, that his appearances – ophte is the word
they use, a word their Scriptures use exclusively for the ways Yahweh ‘made
himself seen’to Abraham and Moses – are as much a way of understanding as
seeing. There is much to be understood. First, they must understand that a
Spirit will support them in their ministry. Their ordinary human presump-
tions will have to be watched. They know somehow that these momentous
days in their lives between a Passover that gave them a frightening freedom
and Shavu’ot, The Feast of Weeks, when Israel celebrates the Covenant it
made with Yahweh at Sinai, have been 40 days and more of their own pil-
grimage – their own journey in the desert.
‘Go to Jerusalem’, they are told. Jerusalem isn’t far. It’s a ‘Sabbath walk’,
Luke tells those readers who don’t know Jerusalem,just a mile or so,two kilo-
metres. The traveller moves down through the rocky burial sites on the
Mount of Olives, across the Kedron, with a glance to Gethsemane with its
terrible memories of cowardice and betrayal, and around the Temple. Then
she or he continues nervously past Caiphas’ Palace, past the memorial to
David that Herod had created to assuage his guilt for having tried to rob the
King’s Tomb (Peter would refer to it in his first sermon, reminding the Jews
of Jesus’royal lineage.) Finally,to the ‘Upper Room’.
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12 ~ Church Alive!
The Upper Room, Hyperion, probably belonged to Nicodemus, a
Pharisee and a man of means.It was their meeting place of prayer and reflec-
tion.It will be their first synagogue,their first church.The room is large and
equipped for prayer.There would have been a niche that acted as a library for
their sacred texts. At this time, that niche was oriented to the north and the
Temple. When it was rebuilt by Jewish Christians after the Romans had
destroyed all of Jerusalem in 70 CE,the niche was oriented to the north-west,
to the empty tomb and the site of the Lord’s Resurrection, a symbol of the
new sacred spaces and sacred times of a new covenant.
The Upper Room was on the edge of an Essene encampment on the
south-west slope of Mt Sion. ‘Camp’ is their word. They are the spiritual
purists of Israel.They live life with all the laws of hygiene and food as if they
were still in Exodus.There is an air of intensity and fervour in this camp, of
Torah debate and interpretation, of prophecy and history.We see much of it
in their library,which has survived in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The city itself is intense. This Passover has been like no other. The
Roman occupation lies heavily on it, mocking the insurgencies all around by
crucifying ‘The King of the Jews’.Pilgrims from all over Israel and the known
world are in Jerusalem to prepare for Shavu’ot.There are Jews in all their spir-
itual and political genres – Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes – and proselytes,
and pagan converts who bring their own brand of intensity. They are all in
reflective retreat.That is the chief demand in preparation for Shavu’ot.Prayer
and reading sacred histories.
The Upper Room is full of memories for this band of Eleven coming
down from the Mount of Olives. The Lord had his Last Supper there with
them. They gathered there in terror after the crucifixion. They interviewed
the women telling them,in near delirious words,the story of the empty tomb.
Thomas had tested his doubts there.They had heard of the bloody death of
Judas Iscariot there, and the details of his 30 pieces of silver in betrayal.The
Eleven make themselves Twelve again.They throw stones or die on the floor
and let the Lord choose Mathias by lot.They are searching for signs and are
certain that they will find them.
Their numbers are growing all the time.In the end,there will be a 120 in
the Upper Room,or,as Luke might be telling us,as large a number as would
be representative of the twelve tribes of Israel.In any case there had been 72
disciples in Galilee who had gone out two by two on their ministry and we
can name at least 30.