|
I was happy to read Alan Gill’s article on Dr Peter Jensen, An Evangelical at the Anglican helm. Alan’s article was applauded all round for what we all needed – the ecumenical commitment to awaken Catholics and
Anglicans, not to the great divide, but to the need for love and co-operation.
As a catechist at Concord High for 15 years, I’ve worked with men of faith from all denominations, and students till Year 12 bore
the fruits of our ecumenical commitment.
Archbishop Peter Jensen said that Anglicans are good mixers with all faiths.
Catholics today can see the need for the ecumenism of the Gospel. I am glad you
published a much needed article.
Noel Crusz
Concord, NSW
GRAVE OVERSIGHT
Your recent reports of the 150th anniversary celebrations at St Thomas
Becket Church, Lewisham, have been most interesting.
However, the reference to Archbishop Polding (150 years of service, CW 24/6) contains some inaccuracies.
He died in March 1877 and was placed in a
below-ground vault in Petersham Cemetery, which was adjacent to St Thomas’ Church.
In 1901, Devonshire St Cemetery was being cleared for the construction of Central Railway Station. Preparations were being
made for the transfer of the remains of pioneer priests McEncroe, Therry, Power and Davis to St Mary’s Cathedral.
Cardinal Moran decided to move the remains of Archbishop Polding from Petersham to the
cathedral on the same day, March 17, 1901 – just 100 years ago. They were all placed in a vault in the Chapel of the Irish Saints (it was St Patrick’s Day), just to the right of the sanctuary.
A large
rectangular block of white Carrara marble had been placed over Archbishop Polding’s grave at Petersham in June 1881. In 1933, it was placed in the new crypt of the Cathedral as the Polding Altar. The remains of
Archbishop Polding, together with those of Cardinal Moran, Archbishop Vaughan and the pioneer priests were relocated to the crypt, close to the Polding Altar, in 1946.
The beautiful mosaics on the floor of
the crypt were not completed until 1961.
The Little Company of Mary Sisters from Lewisham Hospital built a grotto on the site of Polding’s grave but there is no plaque or monument to commemorate him or the
cemetery he founded in 1865.
Kevin Quinlan
Strathfield, NSW
INDEPENDENT?
In A personalised faith (CW 24/6) young adults were surveyed on their
view of the Church. The respondents at one point stating that loyalty to the Church “springs from a conviction that the individual can define Catholicism on his or own terms independent of Church authority”.
If such an attitude were to become prevalent, the oneness of the Church that we proclaim in the Creed would be destroyed, and therefore the Church itself. You would nearly have as many churches as people with one
person believing in the Real Presence while another denies it, one believing Jesus is God while another sees him as only a man and so on, and with no official teaching authority to speak in the name of Jesus to
settle these differences, so that the truth can be known, loved and lived, the end of the Church would come quickly.
Happily Jesus saw the possibility that this could happen and so gave us the gift of Peter
and the apostles and their successors the pope and bishops, to speak in his name and with his authority in the area of faith and morals. So that knowing the truth we can be set free from the darkness, delusion and
bondage to error which is so prevalent in today’s world.
So if we wish to be “loyal” Catholics we need to be loyal to someone other than ourselves. That person is Jesus.
Cardinal Clancy put all of
this so succinctly: “The trouble is that many people today, while they want the faith, they want the Church, they want God … they want them on their own terms and according to their own designs. My eternal salvation
is not assured because I was baptised a Catholic. Much more relevant is whether or not I will have tried to live my life according to the Church’s teaching”. (CW 18/2/96) .
Mark Nicholas
Shalvey, NSW
PRE-MARRIAGE
It was indeed a pleasure to see it reported (CW 3/6) that the Australian Bishops’ Conference was looking at the matter of pre-marital
education to reinforce the bishops’ support for marriage preparation and “the important role it plays in the sacrament of marriage”.
With respect, this is only part of the problem. Having had experience,
over a period of more than 20 years, with tertiary students of marriageable age and hearing their comments on some of the pre-marriage courses they have attended, could I suggest that it is more a matter of the kind
of people who give the courses, than the matter discussed.
Whether they are lay people, religious or clerics or a combination of these groups, the presenters first need to come over to hearers as people who
deeply understand the human condition and who have a sound grasp of the theology that underpins good sacramental praxis.
This laudable preparation will not solve the problem of marriage break-up if the
Christian/Catholic community does not take even more seriously the matter of post-sacramental catechesis.
This is the constant contact that laity and ordained ministers keep with the recently married couples
in order to socialise and create a forum for reflection on the lived and living experiences of these couples.
We know that the God we encounter in the sacrament is incarnated potentially in all human
encounters and so keeping contact with these couples is almost an obligation on the ordained minister and the whole community.
Catherine Thom RSJ
Bankstown, NSW
|
