text:
Dr Michael Galea replies that both research and experience show that taking into consideration one's spirituality is crucial to offer a holistic treatment contribute to the wellbeing of a person experiencing mental health issues.
"Increasingly, both human experience and empirically based evidence strongly suggest that wellbeing is to be holistic in scope in order to be truly valid, with long term effects, and to make a meaningful difference in one's quality of life. In other words, I cannot treat and perhaps cure a person's physical or mental disorder while ignoring one's spiritual outlook on oneself in the long run, and how that disorder has impacted one's understanding of self and world around. In the past, spirituality was sometimes seen as the antithesis of physical and mental wellbeing. Nowadays, both are understood as key to one's well-being."
Read more:
- My Psychosis Recovery: Love, Medicine and Faith
- Feeling Insecure - Love As The Greatest Security
In the past few years we have seen Pope Francis make changes to the luxurious lifestyle associated with Popes, such as: keeping the same pectoral cross as when he was bishop instead of getting a new one, wearing simple shoes, living in an apartment, paying for his new spectacles etc. Fr David Cortis OSA who holds an accountant warrant, gives tips to Churches on a local level like parishes and convents to spend and buy with a spirit of poverty.
In addition to donating money, another way of curbing greed is to curb consumption.
An important principle in the Rule of St Augustine is to "Call nothing your own, but let everything be yours in common". This is similar to the community of Acts, in which we are called to be wise stewards of our time, treasure and talents – both material and spiritual goods.
At this point, it is worth emphasising that we ought to be wise stewards of all our material and spiritual goods. Freed from the burden of possessiveness, we are encouraged to abandon all self-seeking in order to find joy in sharing with others God's manifold gifts. The community (Church) can gather and save goods from and for the common and use this storehouse to share whatever is necessary with those in need. This is a way of life that embraces stewardship, by returning a share of what we have and focusing our mission on the genuine concern for those who are in need.
Invest ethically and review the investments one has. Divest from coal, oil, and gas investments to respond to the moral imperative of the climate change crisis. Divest from other investments that are giving mixed messages in today's situation.
4. Check What Message Is Your Convent/Parish Delivering
We need to be increasingly aware of our decisions and the messages that such decisions deliver in this respect. Our excessive focus on certain aspects leads to the alienation of other aspects which are equally important as a result.
Helping just one family might be seen as a small, insignificant initiative. However, whilst our act of kindness surely did not solve all troubles, what truly matters is that we offered the best that we could offer under the circumstances and given the resources that we have available.
One would hope that by doing so, we will also inspire others to give their share in the world irrespective of how big or small their contribution is. We also hope that our symbolic initiative makes others realise that small acts of kindness from everyone could collectively bring about big changes in the world. It is through such small initiatives that one earns the chance to bring the change s/he wants to see in this world and tries to achieve it a little at a time. For those who are not in need, the initiative may seem futile but for the family that was welcomed, the initiative was a life-changing experience, because it brought them new hope. It will hopefully also make them realise how kind God is being to them through the help that is offered to them in response to God's plea – that is to love thy neighbour as thy self.
We need to reflect more on the argument that is put forth quite often: "as long as people donate money, we will do the project". Is the project really necessary? Where are the money coming from? Are they coming from legal sources? What are the intentions?
Another aspect is to donate money to worthy causes and alleviate spiritual or material poverty on a regular basis. At the same time, it is necessary to exercise practical wisdom, with an awareness of the other responsibilities. However, monetary donations may not always be sufficient. There are times and situations in which those in need require our time, space and energy to alleviate their pain or discomfort and bring them out of their miserable situation. Such help can prove to be much more effective than giving money at times.
As we live in a society we also pay our dues. Therefore, are we asking for VAT receipts?
Further reading:
How can I have a healthy relationship with money?
Fr. Mark Sultana replies "food touches our body, our life and our spirit."
Food expresses relationships – biological and social, personal and festive. Food is both a need and a symbolic gesture. We can eat in so many ways – hurriedly or sedately, alone, in a crowd, or in an intimate setting; we can eat raw food or food produced by slow cooking. We can eat healthily or badly.
Food touches our body, our life and our spirit ... it touches us personally. Incidentally, this is why fasting is undertaken as a spiritual exercise and this is also why eating disorders often have spiritual roots. What to eat is, in this sense, a moral and even a spiritual matter. One is of course not to eat too much – that would be unhealthy and a wasteful use of resources; it also coarsens the soul. With respect to fast food, one should consider questions like the wage and the working conditions of the workers, together with the sourcing of the ingredients. In Lent 2015, a fast from fast food was suggested in the US.
The Church teaches that we can include meat in our diet. While we must care for animals and treat them humanely, this does not mean that animals cannot be eaten. What we must not do is cause animals needless suffering and death. This means that we must reflect on the means by which meat is obtained. Are animals raised for meat treated well or are they the victims of industrial use? Do the production methods of any given meat-provider reflect a "religious respect for the integrity of creation" (CCC 2415-2418)? Is too much arable land which would yield grain and produce to feed people being used instead to grow cattle feed – or used to produce biofuel? Ultimately, we must apply the principles of good stewardship when making decisions about what to eat and how to live.
Send us your question on [email protected]
In 2013 the German Bishops approved the use of Plan B in Catholic Hospitals in cases of rape with Vatican endorsement when this acts only as preventing ovulation. Pro-life organisations have often criticised this decision saying that research shows that this pill can also be abortifacient. Universe of Faith asked Dr John A. Di Camillo from the National Catholic Bioethics Center(NCBC), USA about this matter.
There is a significant difference between Plan B and EllaOne. EllaOne's direct effects is to prevent implantation (it is a progesterone antagonist like RU-486 and works up to 5 days after intercourse) whereas the data on Plan B (which is levonorgestrel, a synthetic progestogen that works up to 3 days after intercourse) suggest that it may be anovulatory and not abortifacient when given at certain times in the woman's cycle. So for practical purposes, EllaOne should never be administered even in the context of self-defense following sexual assault, whereas there may be grounds for administering Plan B under certain conditions.
There has been and indeed continues to be debate concerning the mechanism of action of Plan B and in particular whether there is any time at which it could be given which would exclude the abortifacient mechanism. It has for some years been the understanding of NCBC, based on the existing scientific literature, that administering Plan B prior to the LH surge in a woman's cycle (shortly before ovulation) could in fact prevent ovulation rather than preventing implantation. As such, NCBC has held that it could be licit to administer Plan B following sexual assault with appropriate testing to ensure the proper timing. The NCBC has been considering recent data on the topic that seem to suggest otherwise and hopes that more data continues to emerge, since these are questions of scientific and medical fact which are the basis on which moral conclusions can be drawn. The fact is that the data themselves, obviously including the more recent data, are the subject of debate.
If new data convincingly overturn the previous data about the expected action at different times in the cycle, then it may be that Plan B should not be administered at all in Catholic facilities. This does not yet appear to be the case.
Regardless of the outcome of this scientific debate, the guiding moral principle elucidated in n. 36 of the USCCB's Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services remains the same: a drug which prevents ovulation following a rape (and thereby prevents conception, defined as fertilization of the ovum, days before implantation of the resulting embryo) could be legitimately administered to a woman following a sexual assault as an act of self-defense.
If administration of Plan B is allowed, it should be under conditions that would provide at least moral certitude of the anovulant (not abortifacient) mechanism of action. NCBC has a protocol for this which is currently being updated.
Published: October 2016
Note: In January 2017, internationally renowned obstetrician Profs Bruno Mozzanega explained in a lecture given in Malta that Plan B could also be abortifacient if taken before ovulation.
Further reading: Vatican Statement on the morning after pill, 2000.
Send us your question on [email protected]
Fr Mark Sultana replies that in the Eucharist there is the real presence of Jesus Christ because the words "in memory of me" in the Hebrew mindset mean more that just "remembering". It's about "re-experiencing."
One must keep in mind that, in Jesus' Hebrew mindset, to remember is far more than recalling an event; it is a re-presentation of a past event so that it is really lived in the present. When, for example, the Passover is celebrated, it is those who celebrate who are freed, not just their ancestors. The Greek word term used in the Gospel is 'anamnesis', which means 're-experience'. Jesus is not asking His disciples to merely use symbols to meditate on his death. He is asking his disciples to re-experience the paschal event itself, using the sacraments of His Body and Blood given for us.
We can also notice how the word remember is used later in the crucifixion account in Luke's Gospel: when one of those crucified with Jesus asked Jesus to "remember me when you come into your kingdom" he was not merely asking Jesus to "think about him" as we might remember people whom we met in class last spring. He was asking Jesus to remember him in in the sense that he could really be present in heaven with him. Indeed this is how Jesus understands 'remembering': he responds, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise" (see Luke 23:42-43).
In this light, when we remember Jesus at the Eucharist, we are not simply recalling past events; liturgical remembering makes us present to the event. The real and living presence of the Lord in the Eucharist is also made very clear by Jesus in John 6, 53-56 where Jesus speaks in a very literal manner of "eating the flesh of the Son of Man" and "drinking his blood". It is significant that the context is one where Jesus had every opportunity to provide a softer or metaphorical interpretation of what he could have meant by himself being "the living bread that came down from heaven". Instead, he intensifies his language by emphasises the realism of his words. Jesus rather scandalously stated that one must eat (he uses trogein which is a very graphic and almost crude term which has none of the possible nuances of phagein) the flesh of the Son of Man. It is very hard to give a symbolic or metaphorical meaning to these words. Indeed it is very hard to give anything but a realist interpretation to Jesus' words. When Jesus used the words 'This is my body' (which are practically the same words as those Jesus uses in John 6, 51), he was not speaking poetically; he was effecting a creative act that brings about his "real, true and, substantial presence".
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Fr Jimmy Bonnici outlines the differences between secular spirituality and Christian spirituality with an emphasis on mindfulness.
|Values in Secular/Self Spirituality
|Values in Christian spirituality
|Search for oneself and a harmonious lifestyle
|Desire for a harmonious lifestyle – search for God
|Return to the individual
|Contact with the sources of life
|Individual decides criterion of spirituality
|Free from expectations
|Emptying oneself
|Emptying and opening/making space for the Other
Secular Spirituality - When exploring secular spirituality I will limit myself to what I refer to as 'self-spirituality'. This word relates to world views and practices grouped under the New-Age umbrella and should be distinguished from world views and practices that we find in Oriental religions. The point of departure for self-spirituality is often a well-intentioned care of the human person, his or her well-being especially in the context of a stressful rhythm of life. Values like the search for balance, equilibrium, and a more humane life-style is not only laudable but urgent. Yet secular self-spirituality, while promising a lot, can reinforce the root of the problem.
In a way it responds to a new cultural context where the point of departure is the individual. But it reduces spirituality to the choice of the individual with the deciding criterion being "at-the-service-of-self". This picking and choosing from the supermarket shelf what suits or soothes the individual, can rob the person from contact with the sources of life given that a person cannot be the source of his/her own life. Rather than helping the person face the paradox of life - finding self through going out of oneself/one's ego - the individual returns only to oneself. This leads either to self-absorption, and possibly despair when facing one's limits, or to arrogance when one's limit is not faced and the other is seen merely as a threat.
Christian Spirituality - In a Christian/God-oriented spirituality, the same search for oneself and for a harmonious lifestyle is addressed through a recognition of one's being created. This leads to an openness to the ground of one's being. Freedom from the expectation that one should have all the resources within oneself, one stands in the presence of a deep acceptance by the One who affirms me into being. In this case spirituality is this openness to let Life flow in me. It leads to gratitude and joy rather than effort and more stress. It implies letting go of the ego that when affirmed easily becomes violent (on self and others) in order to be receptive of a love that leads to joyful creativity.
Secular mindfulness - In the West, mindfulness is promoted for the general well-being in society especially in places of work and schools. In contrast to rumination and worry that often contribute to mental illness and anxiety, the practice of mindfulness (through meditation and other kinds of training) helps the person to bring attention to the internal experiences occurring at the present moment. In it's original context – Buddhism – it is related to spiritual enlightenment.
Christian mindfulness - In ways similar to other traditions, in the Christian way there are a number of practices that help the person to calm down, to increase in a sense of awareness of what is happening in oneself, of observing thoughts and feelings and then to go beyond them. Yet, even when the emphasis is on 'emptying oneself', it is always an "openness" and "making space for the Other". It comes out of a trust that there is God, that God is positively affirming my life (not a competitor), and out of a desire for an encounter with God and union with God.
Moreover, this process includes a deep silence wherein the person is invited to be still and learn to be present, to receive, and to observe and thus slowly letting go of the desire to grasp, clutch, control, and be driven by greed. It is openness to listen to a depth that precedes me and that gradually leads to a deeper appreciation of every being who comes in my way. It is also a process of ever deeper interior freedom: freedom both from internal destructive instincts and from exterior forces that seek to force me into inauthentic ways of life at the service of consumerist ideals or others.
This process of mindfulness helps the person to let go of the need of success, performance and outcomes in the time of prayer. Rather the focus is directed to being and to meeting. Thus the following expressions capture something peculiar to this form of prayer, contemplation: 'looking', 'being aware', 'being conscious', 'paying attention to', 'being there'. At that depth there are no thoughts, no images, no kinds of considerations, no 'making it happen'. As Franz Jalics SJ puts it "Everything happens through looking (gazing) and being".
Like the branch of a vine tree, the human person has a desire for life and to give fruit, a search for meaning and a sense of purpose. Yet if the focus of the person is on itself, on it's performance and outcomes, on making a name for itself, pushing for results, to produce fruits in order to impress, it actually looses the very possibility of giving fruit. Whereas in the process of prayer, one focuses on the link with the tree. One lets go of the preoccupation with self and expectations of others, and recognises that without the sap that comes through union with the tree (Jesus Christ), there could be no branch and no fruit. Rather than grasping it involves stillness, being, being present to, letting go of ego in order to receive life (the Holy Spirit).
Moreover this kind of stillness, mindfulness, becomes a place for deeper communication and communion. When we are in the presence of ourselves and of God we give space not only for our deeper self and sometimes deeper hurts to surface but also for the ever deeper acceptance of God to heal us. As Frans Jalics SJ puts it: "Silence before God where stillness is a pearl diver: it dives down to the very depth of our being and returns to the surface with a wound, unsuspected and distressing. Its discovery is hurtful, but God can take it up and heal it, because genuine stillness is nothing less than God himself".
Published: June 2017
Updated: April 2018
Further Reading:
Franz Jalics, The Contemplative Way. Quietly Savoring God's Presence, Mahwah NY 2011.
The main themes of the Catholic social justice teachings are: human identity, human rights, family, work, environment, economy, politics, the international community, peace. These themes form the social teaching of the Catholic Church which at its core brings the human person at the centre of each discussion.
The Catholic social justice principles teach that individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social institution; the person is a priority and comes before any profit or other gains. Thus, human dignity is a recurring theme in the Catholic social justice documents as the human person is the fundamental concern of this teaching.
We humans are social beings by our very nature. We grow in unity with others. The Catholic social justice teachings are thus at the heart of the Church's mission. The Church contributes to the solution of development through these social justice teachings.
Further reading:
To know more - Seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching
To pray - CAFOD Reflections and prayers
To get involved - Progressio
To be guided how to shop ethically - www.ethicalconsumer.org
To check about companies' social responsibility - www.betterworldshopper.org
For children, to learn how to protect our planet - www.kidsforsavingearth.org
"You are incomparable" is a phrase that could be said for each person inhabiting the earth. There is not, nor has there been, nor will ever be another person just like ourselves. But even though our society celebrates more and more individuality, it is easy to fall into the temptation to compare ourselves with those around us.
Comparing, in itself, is not a bad thing. In fact, it is very human. Comparison can take us on the path of admiration and the desire to improve ourselves when we find someone who has what we want to see in us. It can also lead us through the path of compassion and availability when we find someone we can help with our gifts. However, it becomes a danger when we measure our own value in comparison with others. This takes us through a labyrinth where loneliness and hopelessness reign.
The comparison labyrinth has two entrances, one more desolating than the other. For one, we are the ones who usually think that everyone is better than us. «He is much smarter than me», «she does know what she is doing», «he is so strong», «what a happy life she lives».
On the other hand we are those who praise our own qualities and reduce others. Those of us who are going through this one usually think, "Who is like me?" And we walk focused on all our merits. When we meet someone who seems to have more of something than ourselves, we justify ourselves by saying something like, "He's better than me in this, but I win on this one". Or else we look for someone we see as 'inferior' and in that comparison we look for some satisfaction and security. "I might not be the smartest, but at least I'm smarter than my partner."
Living from one comparison to another gives us a distorted understanding of reality. We concentrate on what we do not have and idealise others or we exaggerate our own virtues and minimise those of others. These dynamics of comparison can be very subtle - sometimes only a very inner feeling that we would never put into words. And yet they have the same effect of taking us through that labyrinth.
To leave the labyrinth of comparison, it is necessary to look at everything we have with clarity and not focus only on that which we desire. Yes, I have these aspects that are appreciated by others, but I also have fears, insecurities, and hurts of the past. How many times have we been surprised when someone we idealised or even envied showed us their vulnerable side?
It is here that we understand that within each person there is much more than what appearances and our own dispositions/insecurities allow us to see. But it is also here, when we have accepted our own 'limitations', that we can offer support, understanding and accompaniment to each other.
Leaving the labyrinth of comparison means accepting reality: the value that we long for is achieved neither through our merits nor by our judgments that can often be wrong. It is achieved, or rather, it is felt when we look with the eyes of that loving God who, knowing well who we are, looks at us and says, "you are incomparable".
"You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased" (Mk 1, 11).
Based on the Original Spanish text written by: Ulises Covarrubias, SJ
Translated by: Fr Jimmy Bonnici
Published: June 2019
Read more:
- How To Get Over A Mistake
-"I Lived With Mother Teresa" - Mother Teresa Personality Traits
The Natural Family Planning Method has its advantages and disadvantages. It has been strongly correlated with successful planning and prevention of pregnancy as well as healthy relationships. Yet, what about when difficulties arise like when one's partner works abroad, shift work, breastfeeding, or an uncommitted Catholic partner. Universe of Faith talks to Dr Anna Maria Vella, about the Natural Family Planning Method and contraception issues for people who wish to live the Catholic faith.
The Natural Family Planning (NFP) method, when followed properly, has a very high success rate in preventing or planning a pregnancy. Another advantage is that it can also have a lot of positive impact on the relationship of the couple as they enter in a mutual understanding of respecting one's body. However, we must acknowledge that a young married couple's needs are very diverse from a couple who have children already and yet diverse again from a couple in their forties. Therefore the principle of graduality has to be applied when following Natural Family Planning method, meaning that a couple grows gradually into the concept of Natural Family Planning method and matures slowly into the mentality. All decisions in this regard, have to be taken for the moment and not for life. What is a good decision and morally correct for today may not continue to apply for tomorrow.
Many women who want to follow the Catholic Church's teaching feel great frustration and grief when for many reasons they cannot follow the 'rules' to the letter. Unfortunately the teachings are often handed down in a very rigid and unpractical way. Men are often scared away by such rigidity and at times feel unsafe to follow such methods.
Responsible parenthood takes care of one's health and the health of the off-spring. It is not "having two is enough, having one is too little." It depends on what the couple is going through. We might feel that at the moment it's not a good time to have a child but times and seasons change. Is it responsible to become pregnant when the mother has severe depression and the family is in financial difficulty? It is not. Yet, if a child is conceived, responsibility means that the child is still given a chance at life.
A contraceptive mentality is when you want to have sex but do not want to have a baby at all costs. This is why Pope John Paul 2nd had said that contraceptives can lead the way to abortion. A contraceptive mentality seeks abortive pills and procedures when contraception does not work. A contraceptive mentality can also hurt because it induces one to want the other unconditionally and expects him/her to always be available rather than respect his/her body. This is different than using contraception because you feel that your life's circumstances are too difficult at the moment, yet, if a baby is still conceived, you are still open to welcome him/her. This is avoiding a pregnancy.
We are encouraged to leave open the possibility for opportunities of loving a new human being. Better decisions are taken by the couple about their sexual relationship when they are taken in God's presence. But if the guidelines of the Church are not felt as life-giving but are felt as constraining, then such decisions are difficult to take.
There were cases when the Church okayed contraceptives to nuns as a defence against rape. We cannot say that in these circumstances it is ok and in other difficult situations it isn't. If it is intrinsically wrong, it is always wrong. But it isn't the case because here the Church said "ok".
I do not believe that all contraceptives are always wrong to use. There are circumstances, even in marriage, where for the health of the couple, it would be better to use contraceptives. When I say contraception, I am not talking about the morning after pill. The morning after pill can be abortifacient in the first days of the embryo's life. I am referring to regular oral contraception and condoms.
An example of this is when the mother goes through a Caesarean section. It is very unsafe to have a child in the first months after birth due to a possible rupture of the uterus which could result in a fatality. In such a case it would be better for the couple to use a contraceptive than to abstain for many months, especially if times are stressful and being close can help the couple to feel more supported. Use of contraception is for a short period of time until the menstrual cycle is back to normal and the mother is not breastfeeding any more.
I am all out for Natural Family Planning method and I highly recommend it. When used well, it is highly effective both to prevent and to plan a pregnancy. One has to be committed and chart body temperatures daily. Some couples prefer it if the man takes note of the temperature of the woman so she doesn't have to explain if she is fertile or not. I have seen lots of couples who use this method who feel good about it and have used it for years. Sometimes the woman feels more respected by her partner/husband, in the sense that he can understand more why she is not available every day. Another advantage is that there are no side-effects.
The Natural Family Planning method is not the calendar method. That doesn't work! In Natural Family Planning method, one has to take the body temperature daily and chart it. One also may chart one's mucus and the position of the uterus. There are courses available about how to use this method well.
However, this method does not and cannot apply all the time to everybody. Let me give some examples:
A recent example I had was of a couple who had a baby who died a few days after birth. This happened twice. They were told by the doctors that both babies did not produce a particular enzyme and that the chances were high that this could happen again in other babies they would have. The mourning was very hard on the mother. She could not bear any longer to bury her own children and spent five years in depression. I suggested contraception; of course we are talking here about methods which are reversible not eg: closing the tubes. If she were to marry again in the future she could have normal children. Natural Family Planning method was too complex in this situation. There are circumstances in life when a couple needs to feel closer often. That is why I felt that the contraceptive pill was a good decision.
The marriage preparation courses (in Malta known as the Cana course) should be updated in a way to acknowledge that most couples today are already living together. It doesn't mean that we accept this situation as if morally right. But teachings and courses have to be presented in a new way. We cannot ignore this fact as if it does not exist. Couples should be challenged and exposed to see the fuller vision of the sexual experience.
Published: June 2017
Updated: April 2018
Further Reading:
Fertility awareness, planning or avoiding a pregnancy naturally
FEMM - Fertility Education and Medical Management
Explaining sexual issues to children
Send us your question on [email protected]
In 2017, Pope Francis reminded Bishops that it is their duty and responsibility to provide the Eucharist in a way that all the people including persons who cannot take gluten can fully participate in mass by receiving holy communion. He also reminded them to watch over the quality of the bread which has to be "purely of wheat", and the wine "from the fruit of the grape, pure and incorrupt". Universe of Faith talks to Fr Jimmy Bonnici and to Mr George Cardona Schranz from the Coeliac Association of Malta about this matter in relation to persons experiencing coeliac disease and learns that some gluten free hosts are in fact allowed by the Catholic Church.
FR. JIMMY: Although the two aspects seem contradictory – "including persons who cannot take gluten" and bread that is "purely of wheat" – they show a common concern: not purity but great respect when facing reality. If a person has this specific condition we should not pretend it is not there. We should find other ways how the person can participate in communion. Thus the possibility of special hosts (under the guidance of professionals – thus the involvement of the Coeliac Association) or to receive communion by drinking wine. On the other hand, bread is bread under certain conditions. If they are not there, we should call it something else. On this point the Church has always believed that given that Jesus used bread and wine for the sacrament of the Eucharist, we are to respect this.
FR. JIMMY: During these last years more scientific research and more awareness has been raised on this point in society in general. Slowly this is changing practices in kitchens and restaurants: something that was missing before and needs to continue. This has also helped the Church to become aware of issues that were not evident before and to take the necessary measures to integrate people suffering from this condition. Thus the dialogue with professionals that led to the production of special hosts for example. Moreover training of seminarians and priests to ensure not only welcoming these persons but also to have special containers for such hosts and wine so that there is no cross contamination. For example one can notice in various masses that children and adults are given the container in their hands so that the priest does not touch these hosts with his hands.
MR GEORGE CARDONA SCHRANZ: Coeliac Association - Malta is currently importing hosts which satisfy the Roman Catholic church's wheat requirement and contain not more than twenty parts of gluten per million (<20ppm). This limitation on the content of gluten enables hosts to be classified as gluten free in the same manner as all other food items which are prepared specifically for consumption by coeliacs.
Although these hosts should be suitable for all coeliacs including those who are very sensitive to gluten, it is always advisable for highly sensitive coeliacs to seek the endorsement of their consultant.
The Coeliac Association - Malta imports hosts which are approved by the Maltese Curia. It is hosts which are made completely of non-gluten flour like rice flour which are not approved by the Catholic Church. Pope Francis has issued this statement in regards to other countries that allow communion wafers that are made entirely from gluten free ingredients such as rice flour. The Association of European Coeliac Societies (AOECS), of which Coeliac Association - Malta is a member, has issued a clarification in this regard after recent media reports.
Published: July 2017
Question received: Quite often we hear about the importance of loving one another and being loyal to one's partner in marriage, but less often about the complementarity of the sexual difference which Catholic marriage is based upon. With the introduction of gay marriage in my country I wondered how important is this aspect in marriage and why?
Fr Paul Galea replies...
This is indeed a thorny question which requires an urgent theological response. My present understanding is that heterosexual (male-female) marriage is the ultimate model for friendship and intimacy as it offers the challenge of unity in diversity. That ideal cannot and should not be changed.
This however, does not exclude other forms of intimate and loving relationships that "mimic" or try to get as close as possible to this model but with obvious limitations. The equality between heterosexual and same sex marriage is a forced legal attempt to make it equal by law, but it can never make it the same. It is precisely because of the nobility of heterosexual marriage that all the rest are trying to imitate it, and if not possible to make it available to others. If it were not so nobody would bother to fight for it. Besides, if one were to abstract the values that are at the basis of marriage, and to apply them to other relationships, that is not a bad thing in itself.
The other obvious theological limitation is if we were to stick too much to the biological. This presents a chasm between Christianity on the one hand, which basis a lot on biology and "natural law", and the contemporary culture which sees everything as a social construct, that is culturally bound.
I think we should find a common ground between these two positions without going into extremes.
The Fathers Of The Church are also known as founding fathers, early fathers or apostolic fathers. Some of them were even saints or martyrs, they were willing to die for the truth they had been given. The area of study of these early Christian leaders is called Patristics. It all begins a few decades after Christ's death. Expert Fr Joe Buhagiar Bianco SJ describes these Fathers mostly as teachers who taught and explained the gospel to the faithful.
"You might have thousands of guardians in Christ but no more than one father, and it was I who begot you in Christ Jesus by preaching the Good News." (I Cor. 4, 15) This is why the Church has so called those teachers who, after the death of the Apostles, taught and explained the Gospel to the faithful, the Fathers of the Church. These Fathers are, therefore, mostly – not all – Bishops since from the beginning of Christianity, teaching the faithful had been their duty.
The earliest texts (second part of the 1st Century) are the Apostles' Creed and the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. We then have the Apostolic Fathers: the Bishops who came after the Apostles like Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna who explained the Christian Faith to their faithful. The 2nd Century is when the Apologist Fathers flourished, such as St Justin, Theophilus of Antioch, Melito of Sardis and others. They wanted to present their belief to the pagans and show that Christianity was not against the Roman Empire.
The 2nd Century saw the Church refuting the heresies which were appearing in Christian communities and which were menacing her teaching of Faith and the Gospels. Bishops (and Popes) had to clearly explain and refute these false teachings. We have a complete theological refutation of the Gnostic heresy by Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons in France.
The 4th Century witnesses two meetings of the Councils of all the Churches of the inhabited world (= ecumenical) in what is now Turkey: one in Nicaea in the year 325 and the other in Constantinople (today, Istanbul) in 381. At Nicaea, Athanasius, Bishop and Pope of Alexandria, plays an important role against the Arian heresy. The first Council of Constantinople gave the Christian Church, the Creed of Nicaea-Constantinople which we still recite at Mass on Sunday. Two of the three Cappadocian Fathers were present at the Council, namely Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa. The elder brother of Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea, had died two years earlier. These three Fathers have greatly contributed to Christian theology.
There were also Fathers who wrote in Latin such as: Tertullian, a priest, who lived in the 2nd Century; Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who lived in the 3rd Century and Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, who lived in the 4th Century.
You might also be interested in taking a look at the whole list of the Fathers of the Church.
Further reading:
- Book: Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words, Rod Bennet, 2002. This book covers Ignatius, Clement, Justin Martyr, and Iraneous.
- Book: St. Ignatius of Antioch: The Epistles, Paul A. Boer Sr., 2012.
- Website: Early Christian Writings
- Website: Early Church Fathers
Published: 2016
Updated: 2019
Josette Vassallo replies... "acknowledge the bad behaviour, forgive and work on your own self-transformation."
I empathise with you as I felt the same way years ago. I was criticised and laughed at by my colleagues and friends when I said that I'm a Catholic. They would bombard me with the bad examples given by church goers and priests alike. This attitude robbed me of all peace making me feel very disturbed. During this time my life as a Catholic was more based on morality, and sometimes I struggled hard to live up to good moral standards prescribed by the church and the gospel, not to say that there were times when I failed.
However, my faith took a turning point when I attended a talk by a Catholic speaker who said that our Catholic Faith is first and foremost a loving personal relationship with a merciful God. He insisted on the importance of daily prayer and explained that prayer is not just asking things from God but an opening of our heart to Him to allow Him to reveal Himself to us and to be the Lord of our lives. He explained that one way of doing this is by meditating the Scriptures. Scripture is the living word of God through which God speaks to us individually (also as a church but individually as well) in our particular circumstances. The God of Jesus Christ, besides being the head of the Catholic Church, is also a personal God who desires to reveal Himself to us individually. This talk had a great impact on me and so I decided to spend time in daily prayer. At the beginning this was quite a struggle but as I persevered I started to look forward to my prayer time. The reason is that what I had learnt about God in my past now became an experience. It was like having a best friend, the more you spend time together the more you get to know him/her. The result is that the more you spend time with God, and meditate on His word, the more He starts to transform you and create you afresh in His own image and likeness. So your mentality, the way you speak and react, your attitudes in general will be more in tune with those of Jesus. You will become more Christ-like and besides personal prayer, participating in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, will give you the grace to be a witness of the faith that you proclaim.
In this way you will start to have peace and be at ease in the Catholic Church as your heart starts being transformed in the Heart of Christ which is an overflowing well of unconditional love and mercy. Those who walk closely to Him will experience this love and mercy for their fellowmen, no matter what scandals the latter perform within the church. Not only so but the greater the sinner, the greater the scandals he performs, the greater will your love and mercy for him be. The more will you beg Our Lord to save him, the more you will try, if it is in your power, to do good to him. Your indignation for the wrongdoing will remain, but your merciful love for the wrongdoer will grow even more and you will try to defend him even from the condemnation that others throw on him. It is similar to the episode of the adulterous woman who was brought before Jesus. Her accusers told Jesus that according to the Jewish law that woman had to be stoned. But Jesus told them "the one without sin will throw the first stone at her" and one by one they left and only Jesus remained with the woman. Actually He was the only sinless one who could have thrown the first stone. Instead His merciful love healed her and saved her.
Don't take me wrong. Abuses by priests or Church people are wrong, detestable and tarnish the image of the Church as the Body of Christ. Victims and all those prone to become victims should be protected and supported. But I cry out with Jesus crucified "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do'.
Let us do likewise.
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Ms Bernardette Briffa - bereavement specialist, says that giving yourself the permission and the time to grieve is imperative to heal from grief and loss. She gives six helpful tips to deal with unfinished grief.
Goodbye means "ouch!" Saying goodbye is always stressful. If you've ever had to say it, then you've experienced some amount of grief. Certainly the death of someone close causes grief, but so do lesser losses of daily living—only to a smaller degree.
Big losses, little losses; big griefs, little griefs—when you lose something in which you've invested yourself, it always causes stress. It hurts and leaves a wound that must be healed.
Grief is the process of healing that follows the loss. It is natural. And it is necessary. People react differently to loss, but regardless of how it is expressed, accepting and acknowledging the pain is an important first step in healing. Tolerance within the family for the many forms of expression is important. If the healing process is short-circuited by refusing to acknowledge suffering, the distress is compounded. When feelings are hidden to numb the pain, the healing process is delayed.
Unrecognised, unhealed grief leaves festering wounds. Unresolved grief is a factor behind a surprising amount of stress-related disease. At least one-third, possibly up to one half, of people hospitalised are suffering from a recent loss experience. Unfinished grief is a powerful source of distress.
So, what do you do about stress caused from loss?
Grief isn't the problem; grief is the solution.
People who go through surgery usually accept the fact that they won't regain full physical strength for quite some time. Often, however, persons with an emotional loss won't give themselves time to heal. They compound the problem by becoming impatient. You need to give yourself permission to feel the pain that follows loss.
After you've been hurt, it's natural to hesitate making new investments. Grief, however, calls for new investments. Look for people and challenges in which you can reinvest your love and attention.
Although grief is seldom an experience people choose, it is an opportunity for growth.
As a result of your pain, you will find you possess a new set of strengths. Use them to help yourself and others.
Loss signals life's impermanence. Grief reminds people of death. Faith helps you deal with others' deaths as well as your own. Every grief experience invites you to renew your acquaintance with the mysteries of life.
Share you grief with others. It keeps the healing process flowing. Join a group whose members are working through their own grief process and who are committed to caring. Sometimes you can't do it alone. Reach out.
Published: 2016
Compiled by: Ms. Bernardette Briffa
Source: Helping Teens Work Through Grief - Second Edition, a book by Mary Kelly Peschy.
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Fr Jimmy Bonnici reflects...
Dealing with shame often involves moments of embarrassment, feelings of being inadequate, a loser or not being good enough. This article offers a psychological and spiritual perspective on how to deal with and heal shame in order to experience more life and more freedom.
''Hate between men comes from cutting ourselves off from each other. Because we don`t want anyone else to look inside us, since it is not a pretty sight in there.'' Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein
As of the past few decades much has been the work and research conducted in the field of psychodynamics, gestalt therapy and social sciences that unravel the extent and depth of the harm done through the experience and perpetration of shame. Indeed, studies upon studies affirm that shame like a multi headed malignancy lies at the very heart of a myriad of social, personal and spiritual dysfunctions. The phenomenology of shame has its origin in early childhood.
In psychological terms shame is viewed as a defense against an abuse of power in the original infant -caretaker/ parent relationship. As early as 15 to 18 months, a child registers a felt sense of criticism through non-verbal cues, such as a glance, tone of voice or body language. Repeated shame-inducing encounters encode shame networks in the brain such as they become more easily activated later on, even by minor stimuli. The experience of shame is somatised in the whole body-mind complex of the individual for life. When a child is habitually criticized, ridiculed or exposed unwillingly it will perceive itself, the world and all relationships through a mantle of shame and unworthiness. When a child`s cries are not heard and its needs minimized or neglected it believes itself unworthy of love.
Abusive adult relationships have their foot hold in a childhood of shame. Family secrets, racism, gender and sexual discrimination, social exclusion and poverty all operate through shame. Disease itself was viewed up to a few years ago as something to be ashamed of, whilst the social stigma of mental disease still operates today. When my father died of a stroke I was hit by shame. His death was experienced as a disgrace for the family. And I understood why some children at school hide the fact that their parents are sick or dead. They are plagued by shame.
Toxic shame shapes a person in such a way that a person comes to experience his or her being as defective, fundamentally flawed and repulsive. Chronic shame, research confirms, is deeply connected to major mental health issues including depression, anxiety, narcissism, borderline personality disorders, obsessions and compulsions, substance abuse, and eating disorders. Fundamentally shame makes a person believe that s/he is unworthy of love and this distorts all relationships with self, society, significant other and God.
Being at the very heart of social, affective and relational disorders one marvels at the psychological insight and didactic in the book of Genesis, written in 10 century BC, when it places shame as the very fountain head of man`s fall. We read in Genesis 3: 9-10 that '' The Lord God called to the man, '' Adam, where are you?'' And Adam answered '' I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid''. To feel shame is to feel seen in a painfully diminished sense. And the scriptural verse quoted above captures this very essential nature of shame. Adam is not afraid because of what he has done, neither of the consequences and nor of God. He is afraid to face his diminished sense of self and to be seen by God as naked and lacking. So, he hides from himself, from God and from Eve whom he later on blames as the cause of his shame.
A shame-based personality is thus forged at the very onset of Genesis. And the whole dynamic of Scripture can be read as the extent of God`s love and total commitment to heal man from the devastating effects of shame brought on by sin and to establish once more a dialogical relationship with him. For this reason, He became Man, one like us and amongst us.
The disconcerting fact remains that the path God chooses to heal man is not through supremacy, power and control but by Himself becoming impoverished as man. Jesus comes to us on a cross, abandoned, naked and diminished. He is ridiculed, fallen and shamed to the core. On the cross, God takes upon himself the experience of abysmal shame and death and becomes the wounded healer reaching out from the very experience of his wounds to all man.
It is very difficult to look at Christ on the cross and to accept him as God who is shamed and crucified. For in looking upon him he touches our own wounds, the most hidden and hideous and in this way, he heals our shame for he partakes of it in the freedom of love. We discover and understand that our wounds are his wounds, and his wounds are our wounds.
The spell of isolation is broken, for now we truly come to know that God himself shares in our experience of shame and that single fact overthrows all the internalised voices that shame and disempower us.
I must confess that the first time I connected with the reality of Jesus suspended on a cross was whilst I was studying the mechanism of shame in Gestalt therapy. I had heard many times that Jesus had died for me and for all man, and I accepted this in faith, but it was not meaningful to me. I could not relate to it and in spite of believing it, I was far from realizing the intimacy inherent to the experience of God`s love in Christ. However, when I learnt about the mechanisms of shame and how the Gestalt intervention which involves love, acceptance of the other and a dialogical relationship makes it possible to heal from shame, I read the Cross from this experiential Gestalt perspective. And as human being and as a person, the Cross now became meaningful. I came to know the extent of God`s love who willingly takes on shame to heal man. I realised that the dignity of man may be broken by other man, but because of the divine Person of Christ shamed on the cross, human dignity gains a new life in God. Christ`s loving presence amidst his own and all man`s shame restores infinite worth to all the persons who experience the worst of shame when they look upon him.
Shame by its very nature causes relational disconnection, because it causes a person to withdraw in order to avoid exposure. Because shame is essentially a relational phenomenon, it requires relational connection for healing. Relationship is in fact the foundational principle in all psychotherapeutic healing interventions. The deepest and most healing of relationships is a relationship with God, for it accompanies us through this world and beyond. This relationship awakens our spiritual senses and activates our spiritual life. A life that by-passes and remains unpinched by the repeated shame-inducing encounters that encode the shame networks in our bodies and brain since early childhood. Our spiritual roots outgrow the habitual system and we come to experience what St Paul speaks of in 2 Cor 4:16 ''That`s why we are not discouraged. No even if outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are being renewed each and every day.''
When we come to know, to our great surprise, that God never rejects our rapprochement and will to love, we become free from our crippling fear of rejection. Our love is no longer limited by how much others love, measure or accept us and our relationship with the world and others becomes more open and less defensive. As a consequence, our capacity to form meaningful and lasting relationships in life increases considerably. For in the end man`s greatest wish, even greater than his wish for health and wealth, is the wish to relate to love and be loved and it is this desire that shame stunts. This is why shame is so lethal, for without relationships man cannot come to a creative life. Reaching out, connecting with others, and sharing experiences bring shame out of secrecy and silence, causing it to lose power, since shame thrives in isolation. The opening quote by Wittgenstein succinctly describes how shame bars us from ourselves, the world and the other and isolates through sentences of loathing and hate.
Rediscovering the most nurturing of all relationships which Adam lost through fear and hiding in shame, alters all the criteria on which we base our worth. In a relationship with God, our worth is no longer based on social status, success or moral righteousness but on God`s unconditional love. We become free loving persons, unhindered by our shame.
Written by Alda Anastasi
Published: August 2018
Fr Mark Sultana replies..."to be human means to be tempted."
Jesus is the Son of God who became human – he is, and remains, the second person of the divine Trinity who has personally and irrevokably become one of us. The incarnation means that he is fully human in that he has a human mind, a human will, a human memory and, of course, has a human body ... just like each one of us! The difference lies in sin. Jesus did not sin personally. He certainly was tempted just as we are tempted, however, as we see in the bible verse Heb 4, 15: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ... temptations were clearly put before Him many times. In this way he understands our weakness ... he both sympathises and empathises with us in our temptations. It seems clear that to be human means to be tempted!
However, it also seems clear that to be human is not necessarily to be sinful. Sin is a lack of humanity!! My sinfulness is my lack of solidarity, my lack of respect, my turning in upon myself in my relationships with God, with others and with creation. Unfortunately we all seem to be in the same boat so our involvement in our relationships is always prone to deceit, egoism and envy.
The incredibly good news of the incarnation is that Jesus is not like that at all! Not only, but he wants to share his purity with us so that we are always encouraged in the relationships which make up our lives ... we are never in a dead end – there is always hope for us. Not only, but he takes our sins upon himself so that, as it were, he – the guiltless one –makes himself guilty. He alone can enter into such selfless and effective solidarity with every human person! Not only, but he became human to share his divine, joyful, loving and immortal life with us. But that is another story ...
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Fr Jimmy Bonnici replies... "vocation cannot be reduced to states of life – marriage, priesthood, religious life.... Vocation is the call of God addressed to each person."
The vocation of living a single life in different life circumstances
Very often we speak about the married life, those who become priests and those who choose to live a religious life. But very often we forget about people who live a single life even though they did not want to choose that life. They also are asking the question: What is my vocation? I did not choose to be celibate but find myself single! Is there a purpose? Is this God's will for me? Why has God left me single?
We cannot conclude that this is a homogeneous group. There are those who for some reason or other wanted to marry or join the religious life but could not. Others who were married and separated/divorced and now live alone (even though they may also have a child). Thus, to fall into generalisations is misleading. Yet one can identify a number of "attitudes", ways of living and thinking. And through these we try to discover how to live the call of God. Here we will focus on three "attitudes": painful resentment, the need for hope, a search on how to be fruitful.
In our contemporary society, it is quite difficult to accept frustration. This can make it more difficult for people who are seeking a partner and do not succeed. Moreover, contemporary culture places a lot of emphasis on "sexual fulfilment" reducing sexuality to genitality, and this can make life more difficult for Catholics who want to live with integrity. On this level, it is worth exploring the truth of the 'body' as temple of the Holy Spirit where genital sexuality is not the only way of expressing one's ability to love and connect.
Other frustrations arise from a lack of pastoral care for people who are single. They are rarely mentioned. Moreover, many confuse between state of life and vocation. Whereas there is a specific search for a state of life – marriage, priesthood, religious life – vocation cannot be reduced to states of life. Vocation is the call of God addressed to each person, whatever their state of life, in order to live in fullness of life. What counts is one's response to this call to holiness, that is, the gift of self. This opens up avenues for people who are single that also enables them to overcome the voices that instil guilt: "maybe I have missed God's call"; "maybe it's my fault"'; "maybe I am not good enough".
A good number of people live with the feeling of always waiting for a providential partner. This can block them from taking a decision and give direction for their life. They can be tempted to remain waiting. While waiting for a partner, one can stop from investing in friendships marked by mutual sharing. Moreover, their life is not marked but the usual stages of married life – like first years of marriage, children, children's children, etc.
In this context, the Christian is invited to reflect on the value and meaning of life as a whole. Jesus reaches out to people whatever their situation. He communicates to them that the value of their life is not dependent on whether they are married or not. He presents himself as the way, the truth and the life. We learn to find our true meaning in Him. What we do in life does not capture the whole meaning of life. This could be one of the gifts that single people share with others. Also, single people are invited to invest in healthy relationships, good friendships that are not marked by seduction or jealousy, nor possession or exclusiveness. The fruit of such friendships they can share with more people.
Within us there is a desire to be fruitful. Yet this can be challenging when a person does not have his/her own children. In contemporary society this has become more perplexing given that, with the separation of sexuality and conception, people speak of the "right to have a child" and actually it has become possible to get a child. A Catholic who refuses to go along this way can appear to be acting in a strange way.
On this level it is worth remembering that the condition that the Gospel gives for fruitfulness is not marriage or priesthood but "union with Christ". If one remains in the vine, one produces fruit in abundance (John 15, 5). Thus, revaluing the sacrament of baptism opens up avenues of living one's vocation and giving fruit by giving one's life for others. This goes beyond efficiency and being totally taking up by one's career. Moreover, in a time where married life and priesthood is very often discredited, the witness of the single people can be an important, complementary and necessary blessing.
Published: November 2017
Further Reading:
Celebrating the Single Life, Susan Annette Muto, 1985.
Célibats, célibataires-Quelles perspectives en Eglise, Documents Episcopat, October 2017.
Fr Paul Chetcuti replies...
Thank God for your happiness. Do not let the lack of happiness in others reduce your own happiness. Instead, simply let it inspire you so you can share your joy with whom you can, and in ways you can.
This is what St. Paul meant when he said in the sufferings of others we are carrying "what is lacking in Christ's sufferings."
"Where there is no love, put some love..." the little giant woman Mother Teresa once said.
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As we will soon celebrate Jesus' birth we asked a few people around: "What difference does your belief in Jesus make in everyday life?" Here are their answers which they shared to make more visible for themselves and others the joy and hope informing their lives.
"It makes the difference of finding the energy to go the extra mile when my energies are long gone... to forgive and not brood...to hope. Without the love and companionship of Jesus my life and work would lose their meaning. Because he became one like me, there is nothing in my human life that cannot relate me to Him... in my pains and joys I find His love! The Eucharist is Living Presence that renews and enkindles my life."
Alda Anastasi – Homeopath from Malta
"When I get up each morning to the sound of nature followed by my childrens' voices,
laughter & fights, I feel them as a blessing that God has granted me.
Who am I to deserve this?
Believing in Him gives me courage to face the day.
Knowing that He's there to watch over us puts my mind at rest."
Claudia Cini – Author from Malta
"Due to the hurried life we are living it is very easy to forget Jesus in our daily life, however when I do stop to reflect on the day I have ahead of mine and how best I should live it, Jesus immediately springs to my mind.
My belief in Him allows me to keep calm and also to carry out my duties in the best way possible."
Cyril Spiteri Staines – Lecturer from Malta
"My belief in Jesus gives me the courage to face my everyday challenges,
knowing that He is with me at all times.
I look at life positively,
because I know that everything I look at,
has been planned out by Him."
Dawn Powell – Video Editor from Malta
"Jesus is what has formed me to be in who I am today.
Perfect? Absolutely not!
Trying to letting Him forming me into a better person, everyday.
Whilst hoping to help others discover Him and themselves.
It is a treasure worth living for."
David Dye – Lab Technician from Malta
"God is a constant companion, whose guiding hand is often unseen, and yet, His presence give peace and certainty at all times, even in the most adverse of circumstances.
While I may not be perfect, and easily distracted,
I am called to love unconditionally, and in seeking to do so, I emulate Jesus whose sacrifice delivered me into God's Grace."
Steven Mifsud – Programme Officer from Malta
"Believing in Jesus in my daily life makes a great difference to my well-being. This belief in Jesus, God the Son made Man for us, fills me with peace in a turbulent world - my inner tranquility is untouched by all the unpleasant episodes I witness around me. I feel His love protecting me and, I acknowledge that without God in focus, life would have been much worse. Jesus is the light in the darkness."
Maria Cordina – Retired Administrator from Malta
"I realise that there is nothing but truth in Jesus' words. He has changed my life (in a good way of course!) so dramatically. I love living for him now, and how he keeps on challenging me to love others unselfishly the way he loved us. I believe in Jesus because even the "bad times"; are not that bad only because I know Jesus is there and is providing."
May - Student from the United States
"Each day and in all situations, I know that I am loved unconditionally in very special ways."
Antoinette Boutros - Psychotherapist from Lebanon
Published: December 2018
Fr René Camilleri explains what the Church is trying to say when she talks about plenary indulgences.
I have to admit that this kind of "language" which might have been relevant in certain times, is not going to get across to today's modern man and woman. However, what the Church is trying to say is that to receive God's mercy it is imperative to prepare one's heart and commit oneself. Today there are many ways to do this including being more self-aware, getting in touch with our true self and our false self in a prayerful spirit.
In olden times the Church used to tell you "say three Hail Maries, walk from here to there, say a rosary and then confess". These conditions still make sense for some but do not make sense for many others. What we should really emphasise is being aware of what is happening within us, within our heart, striving to move towards love and authenticity.
The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.
An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints. An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin." Indulgences may be applied to the living or the dead.
Lord, sometimes I wonder if you are there. If You do hear my prayers. If You do answer my pleas. For a long time I have been asking you to show me the Way. I keep feeling that the more time that passes by, the more I keep drifting away from You. Guide me Lord so I may do what you ask of me. For I am troubled, confused, sad, not knowing what Your plans for me are.
Dear Lord, some months ago I came across Saint Francis and discovered how mad he was about you. How he left behind all his foolish youth, his rich family, his wealthy up-bringing. He heeded Your request to "build my crumbling church". How embracing strict poverty, a life of sacrifice and constant prayer, he helped all those in need – poor, homeless, the lepers, the abandoned. How in just a few months more willing men, rich, noble or poor, joined this humble, determined man.
Through Francis I met a woman too, Saint Claire. Bent and ready to sacrifice her love for You. More women joined Claire, to live in a stricter, poorer and convent bound existence. No possessions, no money of their own, but praying, working and fasting, during the day and during the night.
I was impressed by the great spirituality of these saintly people, who changed life and helped the poor around them. These ordinary people who learned and lived Your true calling to all creation, the real reason why You created us. They learned the message that was in the Bible. Your Son's message was in the New Testament. No longer the "do or don't" of the Commandments handed down to Moses, but the Beatitudes preached by Jesus Christ, perfecting our life's attitude towards God and fellow mankind. One rule, one commandment: "Love God and love your neighbour"
Despite the sometimes false image of the man from Assisi, docile, sweet and quiet, a lover of animals, Francis was a resolute, determined and harsh humble man eager to love and sacrifice himself to poverty, praying and fasting, and preaching God's Love to mankind. His mission was Christ's mission, Paul of Tarsus's mission. Clare's, Mother Therese's, Gandhi's mission. It is Pope Francis's mission. I know it is also my mission.
But Lord, your way is too hard! How can I sleep on the cold floor and beg for food from passers by, the way St. Francis did? How can I preach You to others like Paul of Tarsus, who was beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, thus risked his life for You? How can I live enclosed in a convent, praying, meditating, doing house chores?
How can I live without a car, without a television, a computer, a mobile phone? How can I go on without good food, high-fashion clothes, a holiday abroad? How can I change my life, be reborn after becoming old? How can I give up the habits, the commodities, the pleasant routine I have been accustomed to, and give it all away because of You?
Lord, how difficult, austere and rigid the way of life is, You ask of me.
How shall I live what you call me for?
Bernard Scicluna
Lord, your apostles were also surprised. "Who can be saved?", they asked.
But you helped them to discover a new perspective. "For God this is possible".
You joined in because they found a treasure. With "joy" they took the necessary steps to get this treasure. Help me to discover this treasure.
Francis also! He did not speak of "poverty" but of "holy poverty". Rather than embracing misery, he discovered the deep freedom of not being suffocated by created things. Show me the way how to live not by possessing but by appreciating.
Lord show me the secret of your dynamism and joy; the dance of the good Samaritan rather than the rigidity of the levite.
As I admire the radicality of the saints, show me the difference between becoming a lifeless copy of what they did and a creative work of art in my present circumstances.
Show me the secret of your words "I came that my joy may be in you".
Show me the joy of the Gospel.
Enable me to hear the music that makes sense of the dance of the saints.
Published: January 2019
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Human persons are not simply part of humanity … every human person is always more! We can also zoom out in this regard: no human person is simply part of the universe … every human person is always more! That is: you are more precious than the whole universe! And that is true for every human being. That sounds paradoxical; after all each of us is, of course, part of the universe too. Also, if I am precious, it seems that I must be precious to someone. Now, that is true of my parents, my siblings, my friends. They try to treat me with respect, they love me and cherish me … and I attempt to do the same in their regard. But I never say to myself: 'My mother is more precious than the entire universe'! I rather say that the love I have for my mother is unique … she is completely irreplaceable … and so am I. But that is scarcely enough … what could we mean by 'unique'? What do we mean by 'human dignity' after all?
And this brings us to what we mean by 'soul'. My human soul is not part of me but it is my relatedness – primarily with God. And this 'relatedness' is personal and completely unique. That is, my existence means that God wants me … and wants me for myself. I exist because I am loved for myself – not because of what I can do or say but simply because my creator, the Lord God wants to love me irrevocably. And this is true for every human person; God does not love humanity in general … God loves every human being personally and uniquely. And neither can I love humanity in general … I can love my mother, my father, my friend … personally and uniquely. So the real question of "what are we living for" is really 'why do I exist?'
This brings us to another point … each of us is created in the image and likeness of God. That is, each of us is a unique participation in what it is to be God. And this is why we have such immense capacities, why we have infinite wishes and desires. Each of us reflects, through his or her existence, a unique light on God's existence, goodness, beauty, knowledge, love. Each of us is a unique mirror on what God is personally like so that we can see that whole of humanity – throughout the ages – as a kind of immense reflecting telescope on what God is personally like.
And God is certainly unique … God can only be one! So each of us, through his or her uniqueness shows what it is like for God to be one. God is always greater so no one of us can exhaust what this means … neither can the whole of humanity do so. But each of us is a unique take on God. The Lord God is also related … God is Trinity. So each of us, through his or her relationships, is called forth to uniquely show part of what the relationships within God are like.
Now, we know that our reality is not so idyllic. We face grave difficulties. We know that we are tarnished mirrors. Not only, but we tend to be narcissistic in that the mirror that we are is facing inwards. This is what we mean when we speak of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, gluttony, envy, anger and acedia. We cast shadows with our presence.
The Lord God, our creator, continues to call us to look outward … through the love the Lord God shows us in so many ways and all the time. The Lord God calls us to turn the mirrors of our lives towards God. We are scared to do so but the Lord God reassures us. As we slowly turn our gaze towards the Lord God, we receive the light of sanctification … beautiful light. And that light enkindles and encourages our hearts. And we are made more and more capable to relate beautifully and with true goodness and transparency, with purity and self-gift.
So the answer to the question: 'what are we living for' or rather 'why do I exist?' is to receive love … from God my creator. I am created to be loved by God. The Lord God loves me in creating me, in walking alongside me, in being always closer to me that I am to myself and in transforming me into a more beautiful image of Godself. The Lord God loves me through thick and thin: even in my doubts, even in my suffering. The Lord God enables me never to lose joy. Even when I am in pain and suffering, the Lord God grants me a deep peace which is joy. And when I allow myself to be fully loved, I become love. And I am created to give and receive love from all persons around me and also, to relate well to all creatures around me. I exist in order to relate well and beautifully. I exist in order to receive and to give joy and peace. And this is also what we mean by 'vocation'.
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Mr. Mario Camenzuli from the Interdiocesan Environmental Commission of Malta and Gozo gives an overview of what the Season of Creation is about.
The month of Creation also known as the Season of Creation, is celebrated annually through prayer and action between the 1st of September and the 4th of October. It was embraced by Pope Francis in the Roman Catholic Church since 2015. The idea developed in the year 2000 in Adelaide, South Australia. In 2001, it was embraced by major Christian European churches. The Season of Creation revolves around the four weeks between Creation Day, 1st September celebrated by the Orthodox Church since 1989 and the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, celebrated on the 4th of October. Both occasions are closely related to Creation. There was no specific motive behind the origin of the Season of Creation but both days inspire us to reflect on the blessings of Creation and therefore they provide the perfect opening and closing to reflection on the Season of Creation.
Just as during Advent we are encouraged to engage in the active preparation for the coming of our Lord Jesus in Christmas; a coming which has to change us from within; and Lent is a time when we are called to reflect on our weaknesses and failings and strive for a deep internal conversion in preparation for the great feast of Easter; during the Season of Creation we are invited to reflect on the great gift of Creation and on whether our own lifestyle is contributing to its conservation and consolidation or, to its deterioration.
This time of reflection would enable us to pass on to the ecological conversion we read about in Pope Francis' Letter On Care For Our Common Home.
From the secular perspective care for Creation is directly linked to a scale of duties and rights which ensures that the benefits of the resources of the planet are equally distributed. The political sphere has had and still has a great influence in the implementation and interpretation of the necessary legislation both on a national and on a global level. Unfortunately cases of serious injustice still abound. But documents like the Earth Charter issued in the year 2000, come as a breath of fresh air.
On the other hand, through our faith we can see the hand of the God in Creation. When we are in touch with our self, we discover that we have this innate feeling to care for creation since the love of God is expressed through the love of his remarkable work. We are invited to love our Creator through his creation. Caring for the world in a Christian way implies being in a relationship with God. It is also the perspective presented by Pope Francis in the same letter On Care for Our Common Home portraying the planet as "our common home". Who wouldn't care for one's own home?
Very often the terms Creation and Environment are used interchangeably, but there is a difference which is often overlooked. When we speak about the environment, most of us immediately think of the air, the countryside, the sea etc. inspired even subconsciously by what we read in the Book of Genesis and then we think of pollution, waste, and waste-recycling.
We might forget that we ourselves are part of Creation. The human person is an essential component of creation. Most of us regard the environment as being outside the boundaries of our daily lifestyle. Creation includes ourselves, our person, our lifestyle. There is no feeling of spiritual integration and receiving creation as a gift.
The month of Creation is celebrated worldwide. Celebrations can take various forms like nature walks, conferences, exhibitions, clean-ups, religious services and liturgical ceremonies. These are all inspired by the notion mentioned above.
For the programme of events and celebrations being held in Malta and Gozo during month of Creation please visit the fb page: Kummissjoni Ambjent or contact Mr Mario Camenzuli/Ms Marie-Therese Camenzuli on [email protected]
Read more:
- Ideas To Help Save The Environment: An A-Z List
- Protecting The Environment: Insights From The Christian And Jewish Tradition
Fr. Paul Chetcuti SJ replies... love and pain can live together.
I've met a woman whose husband had an affair with another woman. She has two children. She forgave him. Her capacity to say my husband's betrayal won't cancel my love for him, we call that forgiveness. Living with that suffering, the betrayal, means, that you will accept that you will be loving a man who has made that mistake. It doesn't mean you won't feel the pain of the betrayal anymore or that you won't forget the mistake that has been done, but love can live, can cope with betrayal, if it's truly love.
The same goes for the husband, he also has a big challenge to say the fact that there was a moment went I betrayed my woman it doesn't mean I don't love her or I can't love her. He has to live with that burden, with the scar of the betrayal, but he is still capable of loving. He can still say I was stupid at the time but I still wish to be with her, to love her always and in everything. Now that he has made that mistake, it doesn't mean that he has to throw away everything. It will be throwing away the trust I have in my capacities and my genuineness.
We love in a genuine and insufficient way. But it is still love. It is genuine, it doesn't mean I'm a hypocrite, as long as I admit my mistake. This was Jesus' style. Peter betrayed him, but Jesus never told him "goodbye, you're fired." Jesus asked him "Do you love me, with your betrayal?"
We can only love each other in this way. I betrayed you because I went with another woman, but you also betrayed me when all you thought about was the children, the clothes you bought and forgot all about me, as if I don't exist, because you were too happy with them. You wanted to be a fully dedicated mother and forgot me. At the same time can I blame you, can I say you didn't love me becuause we had children? Maybe, you were not able to balance things out but it doesn't mean you didn't love me. It means that that's how you could love at that moment as your priorities got mixed up.
This means that love can survive all failures, as long as we do not reduce ourselves and others for our failures. It has to be a choice. If in your eyes I have become "a betrayer", I have no chance. "Betrayer" will become my label and you will forget all the good that I've done, how I have helped you in different life circumstances. All that you have forgotten. What' s left is only my betrayal. This is what happens when the definition of the person becomes the betrayal.
When I do this both on others and myself, both are mistaken. Love (love = God & God = love), that love, knows how to live with these failures. It's what Jesus said when he was asked: "How many times should we forgive? "7 for 77 times". That symbolic 7 which means 'always'. Indeed, if you love, don't you always have to forgive? Love is not giving 3 chances and if you use them all you're lost. But, many a time isn't this want we all do because our love is limited?
In another case, a woman, betrayed by her husband a few months after her marriage is now living with another man. Can I say that the love for her present partner is not true? She will live a love which is not the love she wished for. She wished to love her husband forever. It is that intention which she had. But she couldn't cope. And her husband couldn't cope giving her all that love. It is two-way. She could have been stronger and said I love this man and I will remain faithful. I know people who have lived the rest of their life alone and raised their children alone to remain faithful to what has been promised. Some of us are strong to say it, some of us are not. But this doesn't mean that the less strong are not capable of loving. Love and pain can live together.
Pain is always a deficiency, a limitation, a piece of death, a weakness. If I have a whitlow in my finger it's a little death in my finger. A sin is also a little death of love, that's why we say 'mortal sin'. It doesn't mean that if I had a heart attack and some cells have died, than all my heart has died. But don't cells won't heal, they have died. But with the ¾ heart that I have left, I still can do a lot. We all have, 3/4ths, ½, 5% of a heart given all the blows life has given us, but we can still love.
But, have you personally met people who have lived this love & pain together, who have forgiven?
Yes, a lot of concrete cases. Mostly women, some men as well. But many a time women get badly treated.
A separation case...Many a time forgiveness is also related to children, "I want to give my children an experience of love which does not betray" one of these women told me "so if their father has betrayed them, I will not betray them. At least they will have one parent who remained loyal to the marriage promise till the end. That's what I wish to give to my children." This is an experience where the woman has been abandoned by the husband and has raised the children alone. There are many more others like hers.
When a couple remained together... This is great suffering. Not much are capable to live this love. The strong are lonely it is said. However, God will not judge our performance but how much we have loved with our handicaps.
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Maltese veteran practitioner in the social and youth field Mr Leonard Griscti, says youth leaders in Catholic groups should, "create an ethos where everyone feels welcome, be informed about LGBTIQ realities and culture and help young people adopt a positive attitude towards LGBTIQ people. If all LGBTIQ persons abandon the Church because they feel it rejects who they are, the institution would never come to understand them."
It is very important for the health of the group as well as for LGBTIQ youth themselves, to create an ethos where everyone feels welcome - embracing differences and acknowledging the contribution and enrichment which everyone brings to the group.
Statistically, LGBTIQ persons are relevant and present and their invisibility can no longer be reinforced. I would say that the starting point would be for youth workers / leaders to receive specific and objective training on LGBTIQ realities and culture. We need to understand first and then use our understanding and knowledge to inform our practice. What I try to do is to nurture a group culture where everyone feels valued and if the LGBTIQ person declares themselves to me, I let them know that should they need any support, I am there for them - in the same way that I am there for everyone else. We need to assess whether LGBTIQ persons might need personal accompaniment that helps them accept and value themselves if there are issues of internalised homophobia or lack of acceptance from the family.
When it comes to sexual development, there are no specific problems really - but specific challenges faced by LGBTIQ youth need to be incorporated such that these youth feel that they are normal and included and the other youth get to adopt a positive attitude towards LGBTIQ persons. Very often this involves debunking stereotypes commonly present in society.
When it comes to sexual relations, again, realistically we need to present both facets of sexual involvement: some choose to engage in it for pleasure only whereas others engage in it as a powerful self-giving act of love in a committed relationship. We start from the human and then this leads to an understanding of what and why the Church teaches what it does on the subject. The most basic and core principle is being able to discern one's motivations underlying sexual involvement and whether the activity is rooted in love and respect - thus bringing life (in the wide sense of the word) to the partners. The potential consequences of the "hookup" mentality for young people of all orientations need to be addressed and discussed frankly as well. Providing correct information is essential ... there are many misconceptions about ways in which LGBTIQ persons express intimacy and generalisations do more harm than good. I think that debunking twisted messages communicated by the media and porn is still relevant for young people (and not so young) of all orientations.
If they are comfortable doing it, and the culture of the group is that couples express their affection for each other in the group, then this should be no different for LGBTIQ persons. This is a personal opinion obviously and not everyone would agree. But we need to help those who are resistant to this, to understand that LGBTIQ persons are called to love and capable of doing it just like anyone else.
Prohibitions force LGBTIQ persons to choose to frequent other (very often much less healthy) places where they can be themselves. In Malta this is a problem for young LGBTIQ persons because the gay scene is very restricted and not all young people feel they fit in it - but they have very little choice, if any.
The presence of LGBTIQ persons in a group might present a personal challenge to the youth worker or other pastoral operators who feel strongly about the issue. I believe that the message of the Gospel is universally valid for all. The official teachings of the Church need to be understood within the context of a Church that is itself on a journey of searching and the principles of ALL ethical schools of thought that guide moral decision-making should be presented. Some issues might require personal / couple discernment that goes beyond what is said and done in a group context ... this is no different for anyone else. Having a pool of well-informed resource persons (including spiritual directors) who can take on this role is very useful.
Any sessions or discussions need to be open rather than legalistic and they need to be guided by the "spirit" of the law". This was Jesus' approach too after all. Formation programmes need to include Pope Francis' teachings (which are not new in a way) about personal discernment, love as the source and the primacy of the formed conscience. Also relevant is the understanding that the Church is not a club for the perfect but a clinic for the wounded - which we all are. When "straight" persons meet and get to know LGBTIQ persons for real, this is the best experience that helps understanding and acceptance beyond any amount of academic information. Like all other youth, LGBTIQ youth need to feel valued, capable and contributing. A helpful point of departure, as always in education, is to journey from the known to the unknown - and most individuals today know or are aware of friends, relatives, etc. who are LGBTIQ and who are known to be good persons. What is life like for them? What would they like to tell us if we gave them the space?
I am no expert on spiritual direction. But my recommendation is always to keep searching and to select communities that are meaningful to them in the circumstances of their lives and where they feel they are nurtured to grow as persons.
I also like to point out that ultimately God reads our innermost desires and intentions. I like to remind everyone that if all LGBTIQ persons abandon the Church because they feel it rejects who they are, the institution would never come to understand them. For it is in living-with others that we come to know them. Even locally, there are pastoral contexts that make it less difficult for LGBTIQ persons to belong and contribute. In this area though, we still have a lot of work to do. We need to inject hope as opposed to judgement. And we need to be understanding and supportive lest LGBTIQ Catholics wear out because they are made to feel that they need to constantly struggle against incessant opposing waves.
For a copy of Mr Leonard Griscti's thesis, contact us.
Published: June 2017
Fr David Cefai SJ replies...
It is a great temptation to feel it's hard to believe that God loves you. However, no matter how you feel, God is always present in your life. Whether you feel abandoned or you feel loved, God is always with you. He is always present in our lives, not just in Church or in prayer but also in our daily routine, our very basic one; eating, washing, sleeping etc. In both what is sacred and what appears profane, God is constantly with us. Even when life hits hard, he is still there.
Saint Sr Maria Faustina Kowalska, the polish nun who received messages from Jesus about mercy in the 1930s, wrote, "My heart overflows with great mercy for souls" (Diary 367). These messages are approved by the Catholic Church. Jesus keeps inviting us to believe in him and experience his "oceans of mercy", his immense love for us. Whatever we have done, even if they are terrible things, even if we have caused others to suffer, even if we haven't kept our word, we can always start anew.
We in turn are invited to be merciful to others by showing kindness, by creating this mental filter of kindness. Before we speak we should ask ourselves whether these words are kind or unkind words. We should make this constant effort to spread kindness.
I have witnessed a couple who were on the verge of separation. They have been through a lot of hurt and pain. But when I invited them to start believing in Jesus' mercy, to think of his love coming out of his wounds, to stop saying unkind words and make an effort to have a kind look and kind words, they started a long and laborious journey which left fruit. Today their house is a Christian home and they still practise these things in bad moments.
Ask Him. He will listen to you.
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"The accumulation of excessive wealth is a deadly sin". What is excessive wealth? How can I have a healthy relationship with money? What is the role of money in my life?
Fr David Cortis O.S.A replies...use your money to serve not to rule.
The first question we need to ask is; what is wealth? In my attempt to answer this very question I will briefly compare "wealth" as depicted in the Gospel according to Luke to the definition of "wealth" in contemporary capitalism.
Luke dedicates one sixth of his Gospel verses to teaching on poverty and possessions. There must be a message that Luke wished to communicate to us. Wealth in the Gospel according to Luke revolves around "land", whereas in contemporary capitalism, wealth is created without the need of land.
One possible interpretation of the concept of wealth in the Gospel according to Luke is therefore, that wealth is created from the land which is precious in itself and provides security. In the 1st century AD society, economics were closely tied to agriculture which was dominated by a patron-client relationship. Such relationships were also closely tied to concepts of honour and shame. In such complex societies; kinship, economics, politics and religion were closely intertwined to create a complex and wide relationship between the notions of honour and wealth.
On the other hand, in contemporary capitalism, "capital" embodies the gradual gathering of goods past the productive activity through human added value action, put to use in the production process in a dynamic mode, to facilitate and generate a flow of goods and services, thereby creating value and wealth over time. Such value and wealth can then be used as further capital. It includes all the produced intangibles which are used in production. Capital is owned, transferred or traded.
Excess wealth is the wealth someone has that exceeds what you think they ought to have. Taking St Thomas Aquinas' teachings, one can divide possessions into three categories: (a) necessary possessions (such as the daily necessities); (b) necessary possessions according to a circumstance (such as a transport card), (c) unnecessary possessions/savings. The redistribution of the unnecessary is what St Thomas Aquinas calls, the "alms of justice". If we do not engage in "alms of justice" we find ourselves absolutizing money and making it idolatry. This scheme was used by Pope Leo XIII in his concept of just wage which included categories (a) and (b) as well as a certain amount of the unnecessary. Such savings are necessary against the fear of the future.
The quotation - "The accumulation of excessive wealth is a deadly sin", attributed to Pope Benedict XVI, is in actual fact more of a media quotation following an article published in The Vatican Newspaper; L'Osservatore Romano, on March 8, 2008, which featured a highly practical interview with Bishop Gianfranco Girotto who is an official at the Apostolic Penitentiary, on the subject of social sin. In that interview Bishop Girotto explained how, due to globalisation, sin today has an impact and resonance that is above all social. He pointed to a number of "social sins", amongst which he mentioned "economic injustice", "environmental irresponsibility", "genetic experimentation with unforeseen consequences" and also the "accumulation of excessive wealth".
The media's reporting, however, transmogrified this into something different. Some wrote "Seven New Deadly Sins," overlooking Bishop Girotto's emphasis on the "social" aspect and thereby failing to recognise that these new social sins were in fact different in nature from the predominantly individualistic "deadly sins," which focus more on regulating a variety of human passions. To title Bishop Girotto's interview as "Seven New Deadly Sins" also shows lack of commitment to previous Church teachings and to the Bible itself, as if accumulating excessive wealth hadn't been already condemned by the Church for centuries, and, before that by Jesus himself. In fact, Jesus is not against wealth as such, but he warns against staking one's safety in money. Thus this reminds us that apart from the individualistic aspects, sin also has a social dimension which believers need to reflect upon.
As Pope Francis points out "money has to serve, not to rule" and this statement leads us to question what our relationship with money is and what our acceptance of its power is over ourselves and our society.
Further reading:
How can the Church on a local level grow in her spirit of poverty?
A refugee is a person who flees his country for safety or survival. People are refugees for various reasons. Reasons for fleeing one's country and becoming a refugee include war and civil war, genocide, natural disasters like drought, abuses of human rights, opposing the government, ethnic cleansing, economic crisis and having no homeland. There is a difference between asylum seeker, internally displaced person and economic migrant.
Asylum seeker...is a person who seeks a safe place in the country they've arrived in: "When we were fleeing the war in Libya, I got separated from my husband. He reached the border with Tunisia but it was too dangerous for me to travel by land and too dangerous to stay. I fled by boat." Rachel, 25
Internally displaced person... moves within the same country. At least 6.6 million people have moved within Syria between 2011-2016.
Economic migrant... is a person who moved to another country to work, possibly coming from a poor background: "I had been homeless and unemployed in Mexico since I left school. I entered the USA illegally in 2001 and found work as a caretaker of an office block." Felipe, 22.
Sometimes, people who are not technically refugees, but cannot be sent back to their country are given a lower level of protection called subsidiary protection.
Refugees are rarely welcomed because immigrants are blamed for taking the jobs of the locals. But how true is this especially in some European countries which have an ageing population? Nigel Harris, Professor of Urban Economics at the University College London said that "An increase in workers usually expands the economy and so increases the jobs available for native workers... that is why a million Cubans lifted the economy of Miami and a million French colonists returning from Algeria(1962) lifted the south of France."
The greatest number of refugees are in the poorest regions of the world. The European Union hosts only 6% of the world's refugee population, according to the UNHCR.
Pope Francis said that "Refugees are people like everyone else" and that some of the conditions where refugees live are intolerable. Having a welcoming attitude helps refugees feel more accepted. Persons are never "burdens" or "statistics". They are people.
Check reliable sources like the Jesuit Refugee Service or the UNHCR. Most prejudices are based on misinformation.
Make friends with refugees in your neighbourhood, at school or in your church. Help them in small practical ways like learning your language, listening to their story or supporting them in their material needs.
When you hear or read racist comments, express your opinion and raise awareness prudently but assertively.
If you are available you can volunteer with NGOs who work with refugees who help them to integrate in society.
On a larger scale if we work towards a more just society, conflicts will decrease leading to less refugees. The gap between the rich poor countries has been getting wider since mid 1970s with transnational companies making it difficult for small producers to survive.
For those forced to abandon their homes; for their continued hope and for their safety.
2016 - Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia are the top three countries where most refugees come from.
2015 - Venezuela closes borders with Columbia after three Venezuelan soldiers are shot and injured on the Venezuela-Columbia birder. Thousands of Columbians living in Venezuela leave the country.
2011 - Syria anti-government demonstrations begin causing millions of Syrians to flee as refugees in other countries.
2000 - Zimbabweans who oppose anti-democratic leader Robert Mugabe flee abroad.
1994 - Rwanda. Genocide. 2 million Rwandans leave their homeland.
1991 - Yugoslavia collapses. In 1999 a peace plan for Kosovo was agreed. 820,000 Kosovan Albanian refugees return home by the end of the year.
1990s - Kurds from northern Iraq end up us as refugees. Kurds today have no homeland. They are spread in other countries. In some countries like Turkey, they are not allowed to speak their language or practice their culture.
1990s - Sierra Leone is invaded by neighbouring Liberia causing a million people to be uprooted in the following three years.
1990 - Mynamar. Aung San Suu Kyi and other opposition leaders are sent to prison for opposing the government.
1980s - Ethiopia. In 1980 many Ethiopians fled to Somalia to avoid fighting. In 1984 a famine led to a further exodus from Ethiopia.
1980s - Conflicts in Africa, Asia, Central America. The largest number of refugees being from Afghanistan.
1979 - Afghanistan plagued by war. Today Afghan refugees live mostly in Iran and Pakistan.
1971 - Bangladesh war and conflicts in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam create more refugees.
1960s-70s African countries against European rulers. Algeria experienced one of the bloodiest conflicts with many Algerians fleeing to Morocco and Tunisia.
1956 - Hungary. A crushed uprising against the communist government causes 200,000 refugees to flee for safety.
1956 - Sudan gained independence. Civil war and fighting has been going on and off between the richer Muslim Arabs from the North against the black Africans of the poorer South. More than 4 million people have moved to another part of the country and some fled as refugees.
1948 - Israel-Palestine. The conflict between the two countries created thousands of refugees and displaced people which are still displaced today.
1947 - India - Pakistan. In nineteenth century India, the British rulers favoured Hindus over the Muslims. This kind of policy led to conflicts, which later caused waves of refugees.
1940s - World War Two - About 60 million people where forced to leave their home amid the death and destruction caused by the Second World War.
Article compiled by Universe of Faith
- Why are People Refugees?, Cath Senker, UK, 2007.
- Jesuit Refugee Service Malta
Published: 27th September 2016
American journalist Marty Nemko considers family to be overrated, she says family is given too much importance: "Politicians, clerics, and just plain folks extol family as our most important institution. I believe family is overrated. So many people suffer inordinately from family. Millions of people don't even speak with a family member. Millions more spend years and fortunes on therapists, trying to undo the ills that family perpetrated on them. All this shouldn't be surprising. After all, unlike with friends, we are placed in our family of origin at random, with no say in the matter."
Fr Paul Galea from the University of Malta replies on how important the family is...
There is no doubt that the ideal family exists only in the textbooks. The criticism above is partly justified by the idealisation of the family. Although people have no choice as to which family they are born, it is inconceivable not to have one, and being deprived of one can be a much worse experience. Evolution has made it that the human offspring takes longer to be weaned and to start living independently. Ironically, the higher the standard of living the longer it takes to separate.
The argument that there are many who do not speak to members of their family or who spend fortunes to undo negative emotional experiences is a confirmation of the importance and relevance of the family especially in the development of the child. That something can go wrong at any stage of development is a misfortune that can happen also to the best of families.
What is more of concern behind such argumentations is the ideology that supports them. As contemporary society becomes more individualistic there is less appreciation of family ties. As the family becomes more variegated emotional bonds with strangers become more important than blood relationships. Furthermore, what we are seeing today is an anthropological regression as fathers become less and less involved in the life and upbringing of their offspring.
The biggest challenge to our families, however, is how to reconcile other interests with those of the family. Because of career and work people put family interests on hold, including procreation which follows a different schedule. The individual pursuit of happiness is severely challenged by the heavy toll that a family can exert. Dedication to a family requires an adherence to certain values and ideals. In their absence it is more convenient to underrate the importance of the family.
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Universe of Faith interviews Fr James Alison and Fr Mark Sultana, two Catholic priests who offer different perspectives on questions regarding homosexuality yet both agreeing that the Church cannot and does not want to speak about homosexuality as an illness.
1. You believe that the Church's teachings on homosexuality are false. On what bases do you say this?
FR JAMES: I believe the third order teaching of the Roman Congregations, which claims "the homosexual inclination… must be considered as objectively disordered", to be false. And I do so because many years of research have yielded overwhelming scientific and human evidence showing that what we call being gay is a non-pathological minority variant in the human condition, and not some pathology, vice or disorder that is a defective form of heterosexuality. Furthermore, the more gay and lesbian people are visible, the clearer it is to our friends and family that there is nothing inherently self-destructive about being who we are. There are other elements of teaching in this area, for instance, on the importance of sensitive treatment, avoidance of violence and so on, with which I am wholly in accord.
"the more gay and lesbian people are visible, the clearer it is to our friends and family that there is nothing inherently self-destructive about being who we are."
2. Why does the Church keep maintaining that the inclination of homosexuality must be seen as an "objective disorder" when with a few exceptions from some professionals, we can say that there is consensus from behavioral and social sciences and mental health professions globally that homosexuality is a healthy variation of human sexual orientation?
FR MARK: I believe that the Church – perhaps somewhat clumsily – is trying to accompany persons in our journey of faith. This journey is one which involves the entire human person – with our spiritual, personal, physical, moral and relational facets. I believe that through such an expression, which is not among the most helpful of phrases, the Church is trying to say that a homosexual genital relationship is not conducive to moral and spiritual growth.
Of course, there are aspects of such a relationship that are helpful – one can mention the virtues of patience and forgiveness which must be involved in any relationship. But one must also see that the meaning of a genital act cannot be completely arbitrary. Of course, it can express love, patience, forgiveness, empathy, sensitivity and much more. However it can only do so if one considers that the genital act has a grammar of its own. And that grammar includes the reciprocity of the sexes and the possibility of new life.
When the Church says that a homosexual genital relationship is intrinsically disordered, the Church is trying to point out that, in itself, it cannot fulfil the meaningfulness of such an act.'Objective disorder' here has to do with the moral and the spiritual sphere. It is a textbook way of speaking, which is why it often comes across as being insensitive.
'Objective disorder' here has to do with the moral and the spiritual sphere. It is a textbook way of speaking, which is why it often comes across as being insensitive.
But the Church says this to accompany, to illumine, and to help each person's conscience. The Church does not – and cannot – use the term to impute personal guilt. That is for God alone to do … who are we to judge! After all, we all know how hard it is to understand and to make decisions in this, and in other, personal areas. We all know how sensitive and personal the question of sexual identity can be. In all areas – perhaps including particularly the area of sexual activity – so many of us can look back and see that certain decisions we made, perhaps in good faith, were actually misguided. It would be helpful for us all to try to understand more deeply why the Church – that has so much experience in human affairs – is saying that such a genital relationship is not in and of itself conducive to moral and spiritual growth. I believe that this is nothing but an expression of the Church's care for each person… But I also believe that it could be expressed far better – with more love, compassion and understanding. After all, we are called to communicate the faith personally, accompanying one another in a journey which is sometimes fraught with doubts and difficult emotions. But we are accompanied by the Lord who is understanding, and merciful … who tells us the truth with love.
3. So how do you explain the inclination of homosexuality, which the Church says "must be seen as an objective disorder"?
FR JAMES: If you mean by this "why are there some people who are gay or lesbian?", then the answer will eventually come from the scientists who are working out what configuration of genetic, hormonal, and neurological matters underlie this variant. But that is what it appears to be: a non-pathological minority variant in the human condition, much more analogous to left-handedness (which we would all now agree to be non-pathological) than to anorexia (which we would all agree to be an objective disorder). The acts proper to anorexia, left unchecked, will tend to the self-destruction of the person, and so can be considered intrinsically wrong, or disordered; the acts proper to left-handedness will be good or bad according to circumstance.
"the answer will eventually come from the scientists."
Herein lies the problem for ecclesiastical logic. For in Catholic theology you cannot properly derive knowledge of what is from a prohibition: "Because it is forbidden to eat pork, therefore pigs must be seen as somehow improper". Instead, true prohibitions flow from proper knowledge of what is: "Because heated frying oil is dangerous to human skin, you should never use naked fingers to stir chips while they are being fried". So ecclesiastical logic cannot say "even though we know that being gay or lesbian is a neutral or positive way of being, nevertheless same sex acts are intrinsically evil", for that would be the equivalent of saying "While we know perfectly well that pigs are no more or less clean or unclean, proper or improper, dangerous to human health, than any other animal, nevertheless, to eat pork is always and everywhere prohibited". It would be an arbitrary command, one that had no particular regard for the good of the people on whom it was enjoined. There are religions for which such logic, the claim that a supposed divine command trumps human learning about what really is, would be appropriate but Christianity is not one of them. So, if Church authority concedes what appears to be true concerning the inclination (that it is a non-pathological minority variant), it can longer maintain what it wants to maintain: that all same-sex acts are intrinsically evil. This is why they use the phrase "must be seen": the link between what really is, and any prohibition flowing from it, is vital in Catholic Christianity. But if what "must be seen" turns out to be false, then the accompanying absolute prohibition falls as surely as does that concerning eating pork.
4. The Church speaks of gays as "those who have this condition". She says it accepts the person but not his acts. Many gays feel offended and unaccepted by this. How can a gay person reconcile his sexual inclinations/feelings with his faith and feel welcomed in the Church?
FR MARK: The term 'condition' can be misleading because it connotes illness. I don't think that the Church wants to – or can – speak about illness. That is for others to do in their own areas of expertise.
I believe that the moral and spiritual questions have to do with our combatting the roots of sin within us – whether these involve envy or pride, greed or acedia, lust, anger or gluttony … probably the whole lot! These are tendencies which are not sins – but which incline us to sin.
And they are tendencies which we battle continuously. So, life is a continuous battle in this sense – a battle where we are not alone! A battle where we have continuous and instant access to an excellent medic. I believe that lust is a sinful root which we all experience – whatever our sexual tendencies. I believe that we all need forgiveness. I believe that no one saves himself or herself. I don't see any difference in this sense between persons –whether bishops or lay persons whether gay or straight, whether female or male. We are all sinners on a pilgrimage. We are all wounded. We are all welcomed by God.
"I don't think that the Church wants to – or can – speak about illness. That is for others to do in their own areas of expertise."
5. The Church speaks of homosexual acts as intrinsically evil. What about those who live in a loving committed gay relationship and those who lead a promiscuous gay life, can these acts be put on the same level?
FR MARK: Obviously there is a world of difference – even morally and spiritually – between those who are in a committed and loving gay relationship and those who live a promiscuous life. At the risk of sounding pedantic, the sexual acts of the former persons are fuller with respect to personal meaning than those engaged in by the latter. One must say however – with a great deal of love and respect that those who live in a loving committed gay relationship still cannot enjoy the full meaning of sexuality … where this openness to the other involves a sexual reciprocity and a connotation of life which is immersed in a vital relationship with the creator. But they are all still members of the Church! They are all our brothers and sisters. We all have a spiritual life – that is, a connection with God – and the Lord does work in mysterious ways. We are all called to ask the Lord continuously "Lord what do you want of me?" … a question which is not always easy to ask but which always leads to life. And we are all called to encourage one another (and not sit in judgement!) to grow – perhaps very slowly – as disciples of the Lord.
"One must say however – with a great deal of love and respect that those who live in a loving committed gay relationship still cannot enjoy the full meaning of sexuality."
6. If you are gay are you automatically called to be chaste? I mean is chastity the only way to lead a morally good life for a gay? From your experience have you encountered chaste and happy gay people? How easy/hard it is to live it out?
FR MARK: We are of course all called to be chaste – just as we are all called to be loving and integral and just and honest! I do know gay persons who are serenely doing their best to be chaste. It is, of course, not easy … and it may be more difficult for gay persons (and therefore, I feel great admiration for these brothers and sisters and I believe that their efforts are often greater than they could be for most people) but it appears to be possible. Of course, the sacrament of reconciliation renews our chastity – as it does our honesty, justice, love and integrity – if it is wounded. So we can always hope!
"We are all called to be chaste."
7. Pope Francis said: "Experience teaches us: in order to know oneself well and develop harmoniously, a human being needs the reciprocity of man and woman." (April audience 2015) If a child is up for adoption and a gay couple and a straight couple with the same skills & interests are short-listed to adopt, what do you think the best interest of the child would be - to go with the gay or the straight couple?
FR JAMES: Bit of a trick question this, since when Catholic authorities have got involved with the precise legal issues surrounding adoption by same-sex couples, they have tended to take the line that Catholic adoption agencies must be exempt from even considering the possibility that in certain, rather limited cases, the most suitable adopting couple might be a same-sex one. For my part, I wouldn't dispute that in the huge majority of cases, the best arrangement is for a child to go to a straight couple, where one is available. But I would also insist, along with many highly responsible adoption workers, that there are particular occasions when the best option for a particular child, even given the possibility of a straight couple, is a particular same-sex couple, and that to refuse even to imagine that possibility is a triumph of ideology over the best interest of the child. Certainly there is no reputable evidence to show that children brought up by stable same-sex couples fare worse in any way at all than children brought up by stable opposite-sex couples.
"I wouldn't dispute that in the huge majority of cases, the best arrangement is for a child to go to a straight couple. But I would also insist...that there are particular occasions when the best option for a particular child...is a particular same-sex couple."
8. Pope Francis said: "I ask myself, if the so-called gender theory is not, at the same time, an expression of frustration and resignation, which seeks to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it." (April audience 2015) What is your reaction, is gender theory afraid of difference?
FR JAMES: To be perfectly honest, I don't know what is meant by "the so-called gender theory". The phrase you quote seems to be a sort of blanket calumny which casts something undefined in a negative light, without ever specifying exactly what, or why. I was sad that Pope Francis, who can call a spade a spade when he wants to, resorted to this sort of language. If ecclesiastics have something to criticise, they should do it clearly, exactly, and in a reasoned way, with a view to convincing those who have got something wrong, rather than preaching pabulum to the choir.
"I was sad that Pope Francis, who can call a spade a spade when he wants to, resorted to this sort of language."
9. Some people say that heterosexuals do not talk in public about their sexuality, come out, and make an issue about their sexuality like gays do. What do you have to say about this?
FR JAMES: In our western world, public life speaks very loudly about the heterosexuality of those involved, with people taking this for granted as the assumed background of everything, and so not noticing it. You only notice this if you are a minority that doesn't share the same background assumptions. Imagine a world in which the standard presumption was that your significant other is of the same sex. So invitations, school dances, courtship, family events, holding hands on the street, photos on your desk at work, all reflect that assumption. I suspect that in such a world heterosexuals would want to stand up and insist on their right to be honest about bringing their other-sex partner to a dance, a family event, holding their hand or giving them a kiss on the street, having a photo of them on their desk etc. Initially, this might produce a frisson of objection that they were making too much of a fuss about something that should really be private. But with a bit of luck, their need to "come out" as straight would eventually be accepted. This can be appreciated quite clearly by anyone with a sense of what it was (and often still is) like to live with the background assumption of the naturalness of male domination, where women who insisted on pointing out where they do not share, and are being unjustly treated by, the dominant background assumptions, were regarded as being uppity, excessively ideological, or men-hating "feminazis", rather than simply truthful.
"You only notice this if you are a minority that doesn't share the same background assumptions."
10. What's your advice to young people who are gay and feel they have a vocation to become a priest or nun?
FR JAMES: The more young people, gay, lesbian or straight, grow up with an expectation of straightforwardness and honesty in this field, the more the burden falls on religious authorities to be able publicly to match that honesty in their decision-making processes, and especially, in their treatment of their own recruits. So, I would say to young people with a vocation of this sort: "Seek out a Bishop or religious order of proven honesty. One whose formators in charge of the route to ordination or vows are not afraid to show public understanding that it is the their responsibility to offer a shared context of truthfulness within which you may develop into an obedient and truthful priest or religious. This is vital, whether you happen to be straight, gay or lesbian. Avoid like the plague those Bishops and religious formators who will want you to play some sort of "don't ask, don't tell" game. These will bind you into the practices of polished mendacity which so often characterise seminaries, houses of religious formation and clerical culture in general".
"Seek out a Bishop or religious order of proven honesty... Avoid like the plague those Bishops and religious formators who will want you to play some sort of "don't ask, don't tell" game."
11. What do you think is an appropriate way of supporting gay people become who they are?
FR JAMES: You are dealing with vastly different people, with a huge range of talents, qualities, problems, character defects, life-projects and so on. Such people will flourish in just the same ways as everyone else if given the chance to do so. For instance, we will soon have the first generation of young men and women for whom the real possibility of eventually being married to someone of their own sex will have been available to their imagination from earliest childhood. I suspect that they will be the generation who will be able to teach us what "sanity", "appropriateness" and "flourishing" look like in this matter. Since for them, being gay or lesbian will be a relatively small and not very remarkable, part of what makes their lives interesting, useful, frustrating, difficult, and open to the heavy challenges in so many other fields which we are bequeathing them.
"Such people will flourish in just the same ways as everyone else if given the chance to do so."
12. What do you think is the appropriate way of supporting gay people become who they are?
FR MARK: I believe that the only way is through acceptance, love, respect and a process of accompaniment and listening. But this applies to all of us! The Christian life is a process where we recognize more and more deeply how precious we are in God's eyes and how far the Lord trusts us. It is a process where we realize that we are not loved by God because of our successes or achievements but we are loved regardless of these. This is a profoundly freeing love.
Fr Sandro Vella. O.Carm replies... these are choices that include.
I admit that there are Biblical texts where God seems to choose between one and the other. Many a time this choice is done in view of his plan. The one who is not chosen is not destroyed but is given another role. I am referring, as an example, to the choice between Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. Regarding the choice of the Jews as a people in both the Old and the New Testament, God chooses for himself the Jews so that through them he will eventually get through all the nations, So, again, it is not a choice that excludes. This is why the Jews are referred to as those "through whom the imperishable light of the law was to be given to the world." Wisdom 18:4.
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Fr Paul Chetcuti SJ explains the meaning and the Catholic vision of afterlife and heaven, of what happens when you die.
When I die, I will be liberated from my bodily needs because relationship itself becomes the beginning and the end of all that I am. In what we call heaven, I do not lose my identity but I will discover my identity as Paul, because I have found what you mean to me and what I mean to you.
I will discover what my mother, father etc means to me and what I mean to them in its totality; what is special for me in my relationship with my friends. We are too small yet to experience the same oneness of the afterlife now, because in this world we are limited and we cannot experience everything. To reconcile what is precious for me and what is precious for you is sometimes very hard due to our differences and limitations.
When we die, these things are conquered. We experience perfect reconciliation of all the differences. This is what St. Paul means when he says that God becomes everything for everyone.
To arrive at this stage we do not renounce and lose what we had when we were alive, with our limitations. This is so because our identity is formed from all these limitations that you are a woman, I am a man, that your eyes are brown and mine are blue. That is essential, none of this is lost. So if you had brown eyes it will remain a part of your identity, the way that your brain works is part of your story. No person can be a person without a story.
After he resurrected Jesus ate fish. In this event we notice that this new resurrected life which I have is not in spite of these limitations which I have to eat, like the apostles had to eat but it is thanks to. Had I not a need to eat etc, then I would have become a ghost, an idea. It is the body which makes an idea real. This is also mentioned in the Bible, the "resurrection of the bodies".
So when we die, the body has been transformed but not abandoned or discarded. The experience that our spirit was born and nurtured in a body, that experience will remain, our body will carry that experience. So, Jesus, to show that he was not an idea in the air, asked for food and showed the signs of the nails. But it was a transformed body.
Transformed body, though we find hard to understand, we have already partially experienced it. The experiences of play that I did when I was a child or in my mother's womb, are all memories in my body. The body has memory. There is continuity between the body that I have today and the body I had when I was a 3yr old. But the body I had as a 3yr old has disappeared completely. When I look at my nails, though somewhat the same I cannot say that they are the same nails that I had when I was 3 yrs old, I have cut so much of it and threw away. My heart today is not the same which I had back then, but it's still the same heart. The same can be said for all the parts of my body. The link which I have between my body today and my body back then is neither the cells nor my specifications, but all these parts make me, me, Paul. There is continuity in change. This is talk about the spiritual life. Like when Jesus said see how the spirit cannot be spirit without a body?
When we die and all the body ceases, we would have arrived at a stage where the spirit can assume to have a voice without having the need to have vocal chords, tongue etc. How, I don't know. The mistake we do is that, we either say - that the body is not important but the soul is, like in olden times when people want to almost become a spirit, today it's the opposite – the body has taken such a central place that it is the other extreme, the body has almost become just a cover, a facade. Like Descartes the philospher did, he found identity only in thought, cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), I find it very much superficial. So, we create a dichotomy, something which we did so much as Church. Our spirit is not an entity in a cover.
I cannot think about anything – say justice with the consciousness of the body. My body is an integral part of what is my sense of justice. What Jesus said whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers, you have done unto me. Love cannot be just a sentiment, it means that I wash you, I give you clothes etc These are all spiritual experiences which are forming our souls. Because our body is the way in which we can enter in a relationship with others. This is why the Church insists so much that every human being should be born out of a relationship because the body is destined to become relationship so it needs to come from a relationship.
Published: 2016
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Fr Mark Sultana explains the significance of fasting during lent, that is - why Catholics consume less food on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
Fasting and abstinence have to do with a healing of relationships – with God, with others, with creation, with self. We each need this healing badly. For we all have a tendency to gobble: we want to eat, not only with our mouth, but also with our eyes, touch, smell and ears. Our way of eating may come to mean that we want to own and dominate more and more of nature. We want to compensate for the emptiness within us through food. Gluttony is akin to consumption. As consumers, we very easily become gluttons. The way we eat shows to what extent we can distance ourselves from our fixation with self and our solitary pleasures so that we can be freer to receive and give love. Thus, fasting and abstinence are an invitation to trust God who provides for us. They are an opening of the heart to gratitude. They are an opening of the heart to God.
Precisely because we have a tendency to gobble, we need to act against (agere contra) ourselves. We do this in order to repent for our sins which are all rooted in narcissistic pride so evident in so many of our consumptive patterns. We need forgiveness, and fasting and abstinence help us to recognise and present this need. In addition, through fasting and abstinence, we slowly learn that we are not self-sufficient: we really, profoundly desire God – a desire which is often buried under layers of alienation and consumption. This is why it is important that we fast in prayer: prayer, and fasting and abstinence are an expectant emptiness before God. On the one hand, we desire God; we hunger and we thirst for God. On the other hand, we feel the struggle involved in fasting because we tend to want to consume more and more. Fasting and abstinence lead to purification of this desire, to repentance and to compunction; they lead us to continuously want to change ourselves. Fasting and abstinence also bid us to be vigilant towards our thoughts, our words and our heart. They are of benefit when they are combined with love for our neighbour, and when we seek not so much to criticise others but instead to work on ourselves. Then we are marked by love for others and love for our soul: the fulfillment of the great commandment, that of love of God and one's neighbor.
We recognise that we cannot do all this on our own. Indeed, in this struggle (aptly called agonia), we are not alone. We fast before God. Fasting or abstinence by ourselves, are dangerous: they tend to become an expression of mere narcissism. True fasting is a road to humility. By making our tables poorer, we learn to live in gratitude according to the logic of gift and love. By submitting ourselves, before God, to some form of deprivation – and not just depriving ourselves of what is excessive – we learn to look beyond our 'ego', to discover that God is indeed close to us and to recognize God in the face of our brothers and sisters. Fasting, far from being a heavy weight, opens us ever more to God and to the needs of others. Abstinence means that we deprive ourselves from the rich food (both in the economic and the ecological sense) which is meat in order to curb the concupiscence of the flesh and to open the heart and mind to God.
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This article describes the story of the first ever Santa Claus who was really Saint Nicholas (or Saint Nick). We will see how his character eventually become included in poetry, and song and the changes that were made to his image through advertising.
The man behind today's figure of Father Christmas or Santa Claus was born in the 3rd century modern-day Turkey. Nicholas was born in a wealthy family and in his early years he was brought up by his parents to be a devout Christian. Sadly his parents died when he was only a teenager. Subsequently, he went to live with his uncle who was a priest. Responding to Christ's radical call to "give everything and come follow me", he gave away his inherited wealth. Because of his zeal in adhering to his faith, he spent a number of years in prison under the Roman Emperor Diocletian who ruthlessly persecuted Christians. After his release from prison, he became renowned for his generosity to those in need, his love for children, his concern for those who suffer injustice, as well as for his care for sailors.
Nicholas tried to give his help secretly. He didn't want any attention or to be thanked. A number of years after his imprisonment had passed and he was appointed to become the Bishop of Myra. His concern for his flock went beyond religious regard. When Myra was affected by famine he negotiated with some sailors who were coming from Egypt, and bought wheat for the people so that no one went hungry. He helped many, young and old, who were in trouble. All his life Nicholas showed people how to love God and care for others.
In St Nicholas' days, there was a rich man, who had fallen on hard times. Since the man could not afford a dowry for his three daughters, they were bound to a life of slavery or prostitution as they would remain unmarried, and unable to earn a living in any other way. It is said that St Nicholas heard of the family's plight, and secretly delivered gold to the family right before each daughter came of age. St Nicholas wanted to keep his charity a secret. So each time he dropped a sack full of gold down the chimney, it landed in the girl's stocking, which was hanging on the fireplace mantel to dry.
After Nicholas died, the people told stories of the good and kind things Nicholas had done. Sailors spread these stories about St Nicholas wherever they went. There were stories about his special care he had for children, saving the innocent from injustice, providing food during time of famine and calming the seas. As people heard about the good and kind St Nicholas, they wanted to imitate him. Since the liturgical feast of St Nicholas falls during the Advent period, for these past 1000 years St Nicholas has become associated with Christmas. In recent centuries, the custom of children receiving gifts on the eve of St Nicholas' day originated, particularly in Northern European countries. The devotion towards St Nicholas was so strong that the tradition to this day, in a number of European countries with a predominant Protestant tradition.
An early and famous poem, called, A Visit From St Nicholas was written by Dr. Clement Clarck Moore for his own six children. This poem is also known by its first line ''Twas the Night Before Christmas".
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there; ...
In 1864, Benjamin Hanby wrote the song "Up on the House Top" which was probably inspired by Dr. Clement Clarck Moore poem.
"Up on the house top, click, click, click,
Down through the chimney with good Saint Nicholas..."
Since the 1920's Santa Claus was depicted in cartoon art in a bright red suit. He became entrenched in the social imagination as a jovial character after his image was used by a beverage company to endorse its drink as being the solution for 'a thirst for all seasons'. Other businesses' were quick to follow, using the jovial Santa Claus to advance the commercial emphasis that dominates Christmas today.
However, symbols of the real Santa were also used such as the crimson or deep purple characteristics colours of bishop's robes, the bishop's crozier (a shepherd's hooked staff), the mitre (a bishop's pointy hat), and a book symbolising the Sacred Scriptures. Other symbols related to the stories about him include, a ship or anchor, hanging the stockings by the fireplace and candy canes.
It is recommended that parents or helpers of St Nicholas buy small presents for children and help them appreciate these gifts rather than buying big presents or having the children ask for a particular present which they would like.
Article written by Suzanne Vella. Thank you to Professor Adrian Gellel for the historical details in this article.
For further reading and other stories about St Nicholas visit: St Nicholas Centre
Published: December 2016
Updated: December 2018
Read more:
- Parent-Child Faith Sharing Ideas By Bishop Mario Grech
- Top Popes' Quotes About Christmas
The Catholic faith can be understood as an invitation that leads those who embrace it to an active life aligned with the ideals and example of Jesus Christ. Catholics are Christians. The Catholic faith goes beyond obedience to the "rules and statements" of the Catholic Church like the Ten Commandments and the Cathecism of The Catholic Church. The Catholic faith is dynamic rather than static as it causes one to learn, grow, change and give fruit in his or her daily life.
The Catholic faith seeks understanding based on the personal experiences of the person who believes, the scriptures, the community of believers, and also traditions passed from one generation to the other. The Catholic faith is also closely related to prayer as the believer seeks to connect and grow in his/her relationship with God.
Further reading: