21 29, March, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au Church invites us to trav- el during Lent, as the Forty days prepare us to meet the Risen Lord at Easter and ex- perience the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Sermons by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was arguably the great- est papal homilist since Pope St Gregory the Great in the sixth century. The March and April sermons in Seeking God’s Face: Meditations for the Church Year (Cluny Media), help put the trials of this Lent and Eastertide into proper Christian focus. The writings of Anglican biblical scholar N.T. Wright I’ve often recommended the work of Anglican bibli- cal scholar NT Wright. Two chapters (‘The Crucified Mes- siah’ and ‘Jesus and God’) in The Challenge of Jesus: Redis- covering Who Jesus Was and Is (InterVarsity Press) make apt Lenten reading in plague time. The fifth chapter of that small book, ‘The Challenge of Easter,’ neatly summaris- es Dr Wright’s far longer and more complex argument in The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress Press) and makes a powerful case for the historical reality of the Easter events. Like Wright, Pope Emer- itus Benedict’s reflections on the empty tomb and the impact of meeting the Risen One in Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week (Ignatius Press) under- score the bottom of the bot- tom line of Christianity: no We need our fathers back Books, docos and lectures for a isolation time T his bruising Lent, in which “fasting” has assumed unprece- dented new forms, seems likely to be followed by an Eastertide of further spiritual disruption. What is God’s purpose in all this? I would be reluctant to speculate. But at the very least, the dislocations we ex- perience – whether aggravat- ing inconvenience, grave ill- ness, economic and financial loss, or Eucharistic depriva- tion – call us to a more pro- found realisation of our de- pendence on the divine life given us in Baptism: the grace that enables us to live in sol- idarity with others and to make sense of the seemingly senseless. If we cooperate with that grace rather than “kick against the goads” (Acts 26.14), it can enable us to transform quar- antine, lockdown, and the in- terruption of normal life into an extended retreat, a time to deepen our appreciation of the riches of faith. Dioceses, Catholic cen- tres, and parishes are offering many online opportunities for prayer, thereby maintain- ing the public worship of the Church. Here are other re- sources that can help redeem the rest of Lent and the up- coming Easter season. Anthony Esolen’s Catholic Courses video-lectures Shortly before the Wu- han virus sent America and much of the world reeling, I began watching Anthony Es- olen’s Catholic Courses vid- eo-lectures on the Inferno , the first part of Dante’s Di- vine Comedy . I’ve long admired Tony Esolen’s Dante translation and his lucid explanation of the medieval Christian worl- dview from which Dante wrote; and there was some- thing fitting about watching Esolen accompany Dan- te and Virgil through hell during a hellish Lent. Professor Esolen’s expli- cation of Dante’s Purgatory and Paradise (also available from Catholic Courses) are just as appropriate these days, however. For the en- tire Comedy is a journey of conversion that leads to the vision of God; and that is precisely the itinerary the Resurrection, no Church. Catholicism series by Bishop Robert Barron Bishop Robert Barron’s Ca- tholicism series is the great- est audio-visual presentation of the faith ever created. If you’ve never watched it, why not now? If you have, this may be the time to continue with Bishop Barron’s Cathol- icism: The New Evangeliza- tion (an exploration of how to put Catholic faith into action) and Catholicism: The Pivotal Players (portraits of semi- nal figures in Catholic history who did just that – St Thomas Aquinas, St Francis of Assisi, St Catherine of Siena, St John Henry Newman, G.K. Ches- terton, and Michelangelo). Witness to Hope –The Life of John Paul II Pope St John Paul II’s cen- tenary is the Monday follow- ing the Fifth Sunday of Easter: an anniversary worth cele- brating, whatever the circum- stances. The first 75 years of this life of extraordinary consequence for the Church and the world are relived in the documenta- ry film, Witness to Hope – The Life of John Paul II . Mean- while, Liberating a Continent , produced by the Knights of Columbus, is a stirring video evocation of John Paul’s role in the collapse of European communism – and a remind- er, in this difficult moment, of the history-bending power of courage and solidarity. Quarantine Lectures online series The Dominican House of Studies in Washington and its Thomistic Institute are intel- lectually energising centres of the New Evangelisation. The good friars are not downing tools because of a pandemic; rather, they’re ramping up. Go to thomis- ticinsitute.org to register for a series of online ‘Quarantine Lectures’ and an online Holy Week retreat. At the same home page, you’ll find Aquinas 101, 52 brief videos that make one of Catholicism’s greatest think- ers accessible to everyone, free and online, through bril- liant teaching and striking animation. And may the divine assis- tance remain with us, always. George Weigel is the Dis- tinguished Senior Fellow and William Simon Chair in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre in Washington S o what else can we do for our priests? I was struck by Archbish- op Anthony Fisher’s comments recently in Rome. He said: ‘The average Catholic woman is worried about how to juggle their full-time job, full time family responsibilities, looking af- ter their kids and also their elderly parents, while trying to maintain a few friendships and maybe a small amount of leisure time … I think that is a bigger concern for most of them than whether if they can be deaconesses.’ Some Fatherhood is the lost aspect for the priesthood. Helping our seminarians to discover that is a key element of renewal writers have commented on what they call ‘the feminisa- tion of the Church’ – the fact that when you go to Mass, most of those present are women, and most of those on the sanctuary doing things are women. There’s a priest tucked away in a chair looking sheepish, but he’s often as hard to find as the taberna- cle. These parishes tend not to produce priestly voca- tions. One of the differenc- es Australian Catholics will have to revive is a fuller awareness of the difference between the laity and the clergy. This isn’t a call for cleri- calism. It’s a call for recog- nising that clergy and laity are like men and women – equal but different. Fatherhood is the lost el- ement of the priesthood. At some point we decided it was more important for our priests to be a servant-leader, or the curator of an interac- tive liturgical experience, or a cheery social worker. We need our fathers back. I had interesting conver- sations recently with two priests involved in seminary formation in the US and the UK. Priest #1 said that in the seminary today, they’re deal- ing with an entire cohort of men who haven’t been fa- thered properly. He sees the role of the seminary, especially in the early stages, as training these young men in becoming fully Philippa Martyr mature – to father them, so that they can in turn become spiritual fathers. When I met Priest #2, I brought this issue up with him, and he confirmed that his seminaries had the same problem. He quoted one for- mator as saying, ‘You have to learn to be a son first, before you can learn to be a father.’ There’s food for thought here. So many priests need to discover what it really means to be a spiritual fa- ther. Some of them - poor- ly fathered themselves - will take longer to get there. A fully mature man can be a good spiritual father. He can be gentle but not ef- feminate, and brave but not bullying. He knows who he is, and he has good bound- aries. A father protects his children, disciplines them with kindness, and leads by example. The best priests I know are like this. So are the best bish- ops. Bishops must be spir- itual fathers to their clergy: to love them, be interested in them, and be available for them. But it’s also their job to protect their flock from pred- ators, starting with semi- nary formation. Renewing the priesthood is an essen- tial part of the renewal of our shrinking Church. Dr Philippa Martyr is a Perth-based historian, lec- turer and researcher. She can be contacted at: Philippa.
[email protected] George Weigel Columnist One of the differences Australian Catholics will have to revive is a fuller awareness of the difference between the laity and the clergy. This isn’t a call for clericalism. It’s a call for recognising that clergy and laity are like men and women – equal but different.” If we cooperate with that grace rather than “kick against the goads” (Acts 26.14), it can enable us to transform quarantine, lockdown, and the interruption of normal life into an ex- tended retreat, a time to deepen our appre- ciation of the riches of Catholic faith.” COMMENT