Fr Jim's (old) Blog

Today I was reading an article by an American religious commentator concerned with the large numbers of migrants coming into the country, staying in blocs together, not assimilating and causing problems because of their religion. Does this sound familiar to Australians? But the article was from the 1880s, the commentator was a Methodist, and the problem migrants were Catholics of Irish and Italian descent. It reminded me yet again that we need to look at questions of migration and Islam through the long lens of history and not the myopic lenses of Jones, Bolt, Abbott and Trump. We as Catholics were once perceived as a problem too. What can we do to welcome, engage and embrace migrants of Muslim faith, who have every bit as much right to migrate to Australia as did our Irish and English ancestors? Well, this month is the Ramadan fast. If you know a Muslim, or you see one and don't know what to say, say "Ramadan mubarak" which is pretty much "happy Ramadan...

It's been a couple of days of personal bests. Not in terms of race times or anything else we might consider to be PB. But some of the best things I've experienced in the past month. 1. We are spoiled for choice with Masses here. I go to one of them most days. Yesterday I went to the 5pm weekday Mass for the first time. And it was wonderful. It was in a small chapel with comfortable seats. There were about 20 people which the priest said was a lot for the summer. It was just the most prayerful, intimate, beautiful Mass I've been to since I've been in the US. The priest, one of the Jesuits, Fr Steve just prayed the prayers of Mass so slowly and gently it was as if he was dropping every word into my soul. It was intimate and soul touching. I'll keep going to 5pm. 2. It's cooled down a little from the consistent run of 35 degree days, enough that I went for a good long run last night. Something I haven't been doing much of for awhile. It's only about a m...

Every year Omaha hosts the baseball College World Series. College sport seems to be a big thing here in the US, more so than in Australia. I don't think people pay money to watch Macquarie Uni play RMIT in soccer, for instance. But it's a very US thing to do, so on Friday night I went to see two teams I've never heard of play I game I barely understand. But it was a great night! Americans do atmosphere very well. The stadium was full. It was a balmy summer evening as the sun set below the western bleachers. There's a palpable sense of excitement. People are chomping down in stadium food which all seems to be variations of deep fried something covered in the thick dark yellow cheese Americans seem to love. The game moves quickly, much more so than cricket, with teams alternating pitching and hitting between each innings (equivalent of an over in cricket), and musical interludes between each innings. The ball is often hit into the crowd and it was just a few seats away ...

My Call to Holiness class is giving me the opportunity to read saints whom I've never read before. Last week I read some of Catherine of Sienna's writings. Catherine was a remarkable 14th century lay woman who composed evocative prayers with phrases such as "and you, high eternal Trinity, acted as if you were drunk with love, infatuated with your creature.....you engrafted your divinity into the dead tree of our humanity". She wrote hundreds of letters with psychologically prescient wisdom to her peers, to clergy, and even to popes, ultimately brokering peace between the Pope and various opposing rulers which allowed the papacy to move back to the Vatican. This week I'm reading St Francis  de Sales, a 17th century bishop of Geneva whose gentle pastoral manner is striking me and reminding me of my shortcomings which I constantly need to work on. As we read through the history of saints we're looking at how holiness has been understood through the ages, and...

Two weeks ago the deadliest mass shooting in US history took place when a disturbed man killed 49 people and injured more in a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. As the news broke we held our breath wondering "is this yet more ISIS inspired violence?". At first it seemed that it was, the gunman phoned 911 and claimed it for ISIS. But investigations showed the gunman had no links to ISIS, but instead was a fragile, disturbed man, known to be violent, who was also deeply homophobic, supposedly triggered by seeing two men kissing in the street. This turned out to be the focus of his violence; it was a gay nightclub, and it was gay people he was targetting. Investigations showed that he had been a regular visitor to the club, perhaps scoping it for the attack, but paired with the uncovering of his phone & internet history of going to gay websites and dating apps he may well have been a closeted gay man, filled with loathing for himself and for other homosexuals. Creighton Unive...

Things have improved a whole lot since I arrived at an empty building two weeks ago. My building, McGloin Hall is now full of people doing summer programs, and my group all live on the second and third floors. There's a chapel on the top floor. It's only a few hundred meters one way to the classrooms, and a few hundred meters the other way to the dining hall. I've got a 14 meals a week meal pass, so I have cereal at home for breakfast and then lunches and dinners in the dining hall. The food is pretty good. Each 'room' is a suite with two bedrooms, a shared bathroom and lounge. This is good for two people to share, but the freshmen (first years) who usually live here during college term have four to a suite, two to a room, which would be very cosy, to say the least. I think the beds can be double bunked, which I remember being fun when I was 11 years old and sleeping at a friend's house for one night. It might be less fun doing it as an adult for a whole ye...

Today Summer Term 1 began. I have two classes each day for four weeks. I'm with an extraordinary group of people. There are priests and religious sisters from Uganda, Nigeria, Vietnam and Hong Kong, as well as priests, religious and laity from the US. I feel like the dumbest person in the room when I realise that some of these people have three degrees and speak four languages (English is usually their second or third), and do some challenging ministries, such as in the case of Fr Peter from Nigeria, ministering to people who have been attacked by Boko Haram. My first class is The Call to Holiness, which our lecturer describes as "a romp through the communion of saints". My knowledge of the saints is rather piecemeal, so I'm looking forward to discovering depth and context. One of the resources we'll be using is a series of podcasts, such as this one on Saints Perpetua and Felicity, whom I knew were 3rd century martyrs but not much else. http://cucatholicctr.o...

Every half marathon or other endurance race I've run has a familiar pattern: I warm up in the first kilometer, find a rhythm and run most of the way at that pace. Then somewhere in the back third or quarter it gets really tough,  everything hurts and I want to quit. But if I press through I get a second wind and then when I see the finish line I can sprint home. Most retreats follow this pattern too, and so it  was with this 8 day (really 10 days) retreat in Griswold, Iowa, surrounded by gently rolling hills covered in corn and soyabean farms. I had a great spiritual director who gave me some spiritual exercises to do (eg, read the healing of the blind man in Mark 10, meditate from the point of view of the blind man, then from the point of view of Jesus, then from in prayer sit with Jesus and let him as you the question he asked the blind man "what do you want me to do for you?" But by Tuesday I'd just had enough peace, silence and prayer, and I wanted to get  o...

Well, I’m in Omaha.  It’s a bit  underwhelming compared to Seattle. Not just the city, but the experience of arriving at a near empty accommodation block last night with no one around, no instructions, finally finding a key, finding my room, then going searching for basics like toilet paper (found), and a kettle (none). There’s only a few of us who were arriving last night, as we’re heading out on retreat for eight days this afternoon. I’m sure it will get better from here on in. Seattle though was just wonderful. Not just the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, as they call it, but the warmth of hospitality of my friends which made this seem so rather bleak by comparison.  But this did two things for me. Firstly it gave me an insight that this is just a millionth of what any new migrant, let alone refugee must experience in coming to a new place where you know no one and nothing. At last I had the language to ask directions and the money to go buy some takeaway...