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Fr David's Dispatches from Rome - Part One

Dear friends,

Next Monday the Bishops of Australia meet together with the Holy Father, Pope Francis as they begin their Ad Limina pilgrimage to Rome.

dispatch-one-image-1However, during this last week the Bishops have gathered together on retreat . It has been my privilege and a great blessing to be able to join them. We have come to the Casa Divin Maestro Centre on the shores of Lake Albano at Ariccia just southwest of Rome. It is a retreat and conference centre conducted by the Pauline Fathers and it is where Pope Francis and the Curial officials come each year to make their Lenten Retreat. Situated high above the volcanic lake, surrounded by forest, we look directly over to Castelgandolfo which used to be the papal summer residence. It is a beautiful location without the noise, heat and humidity of Rome - simply, a wonderful place to retreat.

Curiously, this is the first time, in their memory, that the Bishops have come all together on a retreat. Normally, their time together is completely taken with administration at various levels. So, there is something quite historic about this event. It was decided some time ago that such a retreat, however, was important - particularly in light of the forthcoming Plenary Council in 2020. As you know the six National Themes for Discernment were published at Pentecost two weeks ago, and the fruits of what is discerned during this time will help shape the agenda of the first session of Plenary Council in October 2020. To commence this period of discernment, the Bishops thought it important to gather in prayer, listening to the Spirit. It has been, without doubt, an occasion of great blessing.

We arrived on Monday 17 June and will depart on Saturday 22 June, returning to Rome. Each day we have maintained silence until the evening. Br Ian Cribb, an Australian Jesuit skilled in the spirituality of discernment, has led a reflection each morning. At the end of each afternoon we have gathered in three smaller groups to share with each other the fruits of our day’s personal reflections before celebrating Mass and enjoying one another’s company over dinner.

Br Ian has, quite wonderfully, helped us to reflect on the way in which Jesus encounters others in the Gospels - how he responds to the needs of the people as they present; how he goes further to address the deeper need people have; and how he goes even further to open up a new vision for them. This framework will be most important in the months ahead as we discern the themes of the Plenary Council. To listen each afternoon to how each of us have entered into Br Ian’s reflections and extended them through our meditation on the passages of Scripture he has offered us, and with our own insights, has been one of the most graced features of the retreat. I know that the Bishops have greatly valued this time and experience, as I have, too.

These days have graced me personally with a deeper understanding of the nature of future and faith from our Christian perspective. The key to a Christian future is faith, not fear. The future belongs to the Lord. If we thought it was our own doing, then how anxious, restless, controlling, grasping, and demanding would we become. But there is something even more remarkable about the future, understood from a Christian perspective. The future is most often shaped for us through our encounter with what first seems negative.

Like Mary, the Mother of the Word, we know our barrenness. But God transforms this into fruitfulness. Like David before Goliath, we know our powerlessness. But God transforms this into victory. Like Jesus himself we know death. God transforms this into life. Throughout the Gospels we see this as the pattern for renewal and transformation. The host of the wedding at Cana is embarrassed but Jesus changes this into delight; the apostles are anxious as to how to feed the crowd, but Jesus takes the little they have and changes this into food aplenty; the disciples are disillusioned after working hard all night long but Jesus brings forth a catch of fish they could not have imagined. And so faith - as an active surrender to the Lord of the future - yields abundance in what is first diminishment.

I have been reading a book this week, entitled “Leaning into the Future” by Poul Guttesen. He writes,

“Christian hope is not contingent on historical optimism. While it will always seek to orient the world towards its coming ‘homeland,’ it does not lose hope in hopeless situations, whether this be at a death-bed or among the most destitute who possess no power to change their circumstances. Indeed, while an understanding of history grounded in Easter will seek anticipation of the coming kingdom anywhere, it will especially seek the most hopeless situations, because it is precisely in those circumstances that it expects interruptions, or conversions of the kingdom in history.” (41)

For me there is something incredibly important in this, personally, and for us as a Church in Australia at this time.

This week I have held us all before the Lord. In our time of waiting for a new Bishop, let us entrust ourselves with faith in the future which belongs to the Lord. Let our lives be marked always with hope, never with fear. Please continue to pray for me through these weeks as I bring our local Church of Broken Bay to Rome.

Very Rev Dr David Ranson