Carmelites: British Province: CALL TO RENEWAL

July 1st, 2008

As for the 16th July 2008  

 CALL TO CARMELITE RENEWAL

Addressed to the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance

 Why do I write this?  To say to you, dear brothers, what Joe, in essence, has been saying to you from the beginning: that the province is not what it should be - and is evidently not what it should be. I write this, firstly, for the truth about a dear, beautiful, dedicated holy Carmelite who is worthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of John of the Cross,  Theresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux.

Secondly, in the hope that the Carmelite Province to which Joe belonged will finally take a good look at itself - something it has not done in centuries - and see what is really there - not what it would like to believe is there or what it would like the public to believe is there.

     Lost shepherds

In this week’s Catholic Herald (week ending 20th July ‘08) Mary Kenny writes that the lesson she learnt from that great organisation Alcoholics Anonymous is that  once an organisation forgets its prime purpose - it has lost its way.  Look at the way you live as a group.  Look at what motivates you.  Look at what your goals and “achievements” are. Then answer this question: Can you deny that her words apply to you?

TheChurch/Carmel has only one thing to offer the world - and it is the one thing people everywhere of whatever condition, prime ministers or checkout operators, need and need desperately. It is THE LOVE OF CHRIST, MAN AND GOD, BRUTALLY NAILED BY WRISTS AND ANKLES TO A ROUGH CROSS MADE PRESENT.  And most of you neither know or care about that love in any significant way, nor the enormous suffering, shared down to the very last molecule by his Mother. 

 Is it any surprise that to thinking, searching, sincere or suffering  people you have little to offer? 

And what of the young, vibrant with life and idealism waiting to be tapped by role models they can look up to, learn from?

 Harsh words?  No.  Tragic, simple, evident fact.  There for anyone with eyes to see.

The whole work of Christ emptied of meaning by lives of little meaning.

One of Joe’s sayings was that “we all need to take a good look at the skeletons in our cupboards”. It took me a long time to understand what it meant.  Now after 40 years  I can see its meaning clearly. The Carmelite province to which Joe belonged (and, quite likely, the Order as a whole) has quite a few skeletons that need close examination. To be examined in humility.  Pride drives the Holy Spirit away. To be scrutinised with a desire to see the truth that comes only with the help of the Holy Spirit. 

This is a task that  calls for nothing less than a determined desire to be totally renewed, my dear brothers - no matter what the personal cost. If you give it less than that you will be playing games with God.  No human being will win out in that contest. If you are not ready for that commitment, admit this to yourself and to God.  He can live with that situation.  He will respect that honesty. St Augustine, apparently, asked for time – and got it.  Why not a Carmelite who needs more time and is not yet ready to take the plunge he should have taken before his profession?

It will cost, but the rewards are enormous, the cost small in comparison. To achieve the task you must want to pay the price.  If you lack the courage- who of us has it unless God gives it? – then ask for it. “Seek and you will find.” Christ, the Father, the Holy Spirit are not satisfied with second rate service, “religion on the cheap” as a well-known German Christian put it. It has to be one hundred percent.  That is blindingly clear in the Gospels. A re-examination of yourselves, to this extent, demanding  such radical surgery, cannot be carried out without hot tears of sorrow.  Why?  Because the rot has gone deep and we have caused our Saviour too much pain. A cool calm look will not get you anywhere.  

That it can be done - there is no doubt. God’s infinite river of infinite mercy still runs strong and clear for those who want to dive into its healing, reviving, life-giving, eternally and astonishingly  satisfying waters. 

      Making first-class bread

I have just set up our breadmaking machine to make a loaf of white bread.  I have put in all the ingredients needed: yeast, flour, milk powder, sugar, salt and water - all in the required quantities.  It is set on the correct programme.  In four hours it will produce a perfectly cooked loaf of bread. Guaranteed to do so.  It has done so for five years or so.  And will continue to do so until it wears out. Nutritious bread, tasty.  Worth eating. 

A religious order -if the “machine” is first class - as our Panasonic is - and if the “ingredients” are likewise of the right quality - as our ingredients are - will be GUARANTEED to produce first class religious: men (in this case) who are men of prayer, filled with the Spirit of God, compassionate, caring, zealous -  men given to God in deepest sincerity for the salvation of souls. This is not happening now because the machine is dysfunctional - and the “machine” is the Order as  it now exists, especially in its priors, novice masters, provincials, and generals - the “authority  machine” that sets agendas and tone.  The “ingredients” taken into this dysfunctional  machine, the candidates, will not survive the programmes they will meet, will not be loaves of bread that will nourish. With rare exceptions.

I’m not suggessting that an Order that is what it should be will have 100% success in producing men of the Spirit.  No way.  The message that comes from Christ himself is too clear.  He chose Judas to be an Apostle.  His choice means that Judas had all the right qualities to respond to that call.  Judas did not respond as he ought to have and could have. In God’s call, free will is paramount. Personal choices  are central.  It is clear that Judas chose not to deal with his issue of the lure of money.  He did not take action when he noticed this ”skeleton” in his cupboard.  He did not “gouge out the eye” that was leading him into sin.  So one of Jesus’s chosen twelve went bad, seriously bad.  This gives even Jesus’s selection an 8% failure rate.

There is a further matter you must all face.  There is an undeniable logic.  It is this.  Those in the order deputed to vet candidates, choose them and form them are - the vast majority of them - patently unfitted for their job.  It is therefore inevitable that men will have been taken in who were not called to the Carmelite life and others asked to leave whom God had destined to the life. You/the Order has lured men into a life to which God did not call them.  You have excluded men whom God had intended for the rich pastures of Carmel.   Isn’t that the very definition of an unholy mess?

     What a dilemma

There is absolutely no doubt that there are men in Carmel, professed, ordained, who were not called to the life.  These men will probably feel this, if not clearly, at least in some deep unease that they may not be able to identify.  What a dilemma. My heart goes out to these brothers.  But - as always - there is a way out:

     the way of truth (acknowledge what has happened);

     the way of reliance on God’s  infinite mercy

    (He will be the last to judge what was done in ignorance or with good intention or  through bad guidance from others);

     the way of trust (He can and will lead those brothers to find the solution that is right for them);

     the way of charity and responsibility (in the superiors who must accept their responsibility for the tragic errors and

     have the love to find the solution that best fits each case in discussion with them).

      Victims of predecessors

Do I hold you responsible for the mess? No.  Blaming is not my task.    Blaming is not my aim.  Alerting yes.

The task I have been assigned is to continue the work Joe began of spelling out how things are between you and God and the wider Church. 

I do not hold you responsible.  Far from it.  In God’s name I draw your attention to this fact:  just as the present generation of new Carmelites are victims of the Order that brought them in - so YOU TOO,  you older ones, the “machine” in the parable - YOU TOO WERE THE VICTIMS OF THE ORDER THAT DREW YOU IN.

How far back does that regress go?  That is not your or my problem.  Your problem is the present situation - the one you can do something about.  You have all the tools you need - if you want to use them.  If we want to talk of responsibility - now we can do so.  You are responsible for what you will choose to do from this point on.  How you will choose to react to all that is written here.

      Joe’s deepest wish He never expressed it in these words, but it is obvious that, if I had pressed him on this point,  dear Joe would have admitted that nothing would give him greater delight than to see his Order take on the task of Renewal in the Spirit of God. He did all that he could to get you to face this task. To rediscover your very reason for being: TOTAL BURNING LOVE FOR THE TRINITY and for THE REDEMPTION OF THOSE WHO STILL DO NOT KNOW THE LOVE IN GOD’S HEART FOR THEM. That is the essence of the Carmelite vocation.  Nothing less.  Each brother, each priest, according to the measure of God’s gift to him, living in that love, growing in that love, to the glory of God and to the salvation of souls.      A world dying of thirst around youThe Church, ie Christ, needs this from you because, as you are at present, you are a slow-release paralysing poison in the life of humanity.  Your spiritual inertia generates inertia in those who rely on you. Your refusal - yes - refusal - to move on keeps other Christians marking time.  In the Christian life, there is no marking time.  There is forward movement or backsliding.

Joe said all this, and he knew what he was talking about, for he was living in it. The few exceptions there undoubtedly are among you do not invalidate the general observation.  It was not “judging” on his part. It was a statement of the obvious.  Is it not obvious to you?  It will become so when you take out those “skeletons” and look at them under the microscope of Christ.

 The Audit that follows will help you look at those skeletons.  If you want to. Had Christ come to you in a postulant’s habit, you would have treated him as you have treated Joe, because Joe was full of the Spirit of Christ. Christ would have said all the things Joe has said to you- and a good many more.

 I end this with a  simple reference to a central  part of Joe’s “teaching” that I have already referred to (I put the word in inverted commas because it is not his teaching - it is the Spirit’s teaching) – THE INFINITE RIVER OF GOD’S MERCY - the only hope for me and the only hope for you.

 Without that wonderful Mercy - we are all done for.

AUDIT

Carmelites who are Carmelites only in name.  Do you not believe me?  Then go into the quiet of your room and chew over what follows.  Let’s do an audit together of essential Carmelite traits.  In the presence of God.

Warning.  If you are not going to be honest with yourself and with God, stop reading right here.  Stop reading right here - or you will compound your judgement.

       “Holy Spirit.  Be with us. 

         Let us see the truth and then help us

         to take action, by your grace, on what we see.”

1. Holiness. 

The Carmelite vocation is all about holiness, right?  About living the holiness that Christ brings through his Spirit. How is it then that you did not recognise the holiness that was in him, the holiness that was evident to anyone who took the time and trouble to spend time with the man, question him on things of the Spirit and listen to his replies? Because you were incapable of recongising it, or, worse, did not want to recognise it.

There is only one reason for this inability: you did not have holiness in you.

The life of a priest is all about holiness: tending it, establishing the conditions for it to flourish, warning of the pitfalls in its way, above all illustrating it by a life of personal holiness.  What use is a priest who cannot even recognise it?Most of you, hopefully all of you, are reasonably decent men. 

Being a priest is about more than being a reasonably decent or nice man.  Far more.  It is about being holy according to God’s gift to you.  About being committed to nurturing the holiness of those given by the Father to your care. It is about being like Christ in the sense of sharing his heart and mind, his aims, his hopes - yes -hopes. 

Look at your own face in the mirror and see if it matches up to the face in that paragrapah you have just read.  Don’t play games.  If you find you are playing games then pray and pray and pray as if your life depends on it for the gift of sincerity until it comes - and it s will come.Without personal holiness, the life of a priest is barren. 

2. Living in the Spirit of God 

Your lack of holiness and your inability to recognise it, acknowledge it and value it prove that you are not living in the Spirit and from Him.  Holiness is His gift.  He is the source of it.  Joe lived in the Spirit, in daily contact.  If you had been living in the Spirit too, you would have had no difficulty in seeing this fact.

3.  Love of the Scriptures 

This is a total necessity.  A GENUINE love, not just a glib takenis dull tokenism  allegiance - which is what we have at present  - for how else can we explain to the Creator and to people hungry for the Word of God that all its commands are ignored by those who first should observe them out of love for their Source?  The Scriptures, read with the mind and heart of Christ and of the LIVING Church - not the dead Church - pomp and ceremony and lifeless ritual - are REAL food - without which we starve.

Here is the prime reason for the atheism of the Western world, its indifference to God: the “practical atheism” of the Church’s ministers (Martin Luther King’s phrase for one), their indifference to God. The “practical atheism” and indifference to Christ crucified that are the distinguishing marks of Carmel in Britain in our day.

4.  Prayer 

 Genuine prayer can arise only in a soul that lives in the Spirit.  So what must you admit about your so-called prayer-life?  You who do not live in humble, loving, living dependence on the glorious Giver of Life?

5. Love of aloneness with God. 

Had you had that you would not as a group have accused Joe of being “aloof”.  Your preacher at the funeral spoke your party line.  He almost alone (I say “almost” because you certainly have one other in your number who values this aloness).  That aloneness with God was a judgement on you.  So you had to sideline him.   You should have drawn on his wisdom.5. Mutual love  The logic of God is remorseless.  Can there be Christian love, the love Christ ilustrated, without a living reliance on God’s Spirit?

 6. Prophecy 

You make much of this in your literature.  Aylesford’s main shrine carries Elijah’s words.  Do you know what they mean?  I mean: Do you know what they mean in your souls?  Do you know what they mean because you live the concerns, the struggles, the loneliness, the challenges, the consuming love of the Prophet in your very being, day and night, year in year out?  Which is how Joe lived the Carmelite prophetic vocation and how, truth demands I say this, how I live it.  “Zelo zelatus sum…”  Those words mean, “Zeal for the Lord God of Angel Armies has consumed me” That zeal consumed joe. And - FACT - you tried to bury that fact in that awful charade of a funeral mass by saying nothing about it and giving the impression that he was like so many religious, a something and nothing.

 God sent you a prophet after his own Heart - and you took no notice. 

 He was a nobody much to you, this McKenna. You much preferred to listen to someone who is someone: like the Prior General who addressed you at your Chapter with the kind of words you like to hear, words that massage your egos or anaesthetize your deep unease about your state: words like:”Only by living in hope will we truly be saved,” and comments on Self-esteem, Community and Contemplation- which do nothing to shake your self-deceptions.

Allow me to remind you: the someone who is someone is the person whose life and teaching mirrors God.  The true nobody is the man whose words God does not underwrite. The General too is clearly lacking in spiritual discernment. He did not know his audience. How can you live “in hope” when you are not yet even started living in love?  Love is the beginning and end of the Carmelite love.  Your main failing was that you did not love Joe. I did.  That is why I discovered what a treasure of wisdom he was. 

 It is a fact too that when I wrote, more than once, to your Counsellors and Provincials about Eugene’s holiness, his enlightenment, his visitations from the Mother of Jesus - not one of you had a dickie bird to say on any of those point.  Stony silence.  Ignore them and they will go away.  

This  Audit is far from complete.  I will end with one “item” - Mary our Mother and Sister will forgive my using that word of her.

 7.  Love for Mary.

This love cannot exist unless the above conditions are present.  She is totally one with her Son in the burning heart of the Adorable Trinity. What you really think about the Mother of Jesus is seen, not in your literature - that is mere words - but in your reactions to what Joe told you about her visits. He wrote to you about them.Not a word back from you.  Is he the pariah? Or is she the embarrassment?

I will not embarrass you before the world community by saying here how Joe described your reactions or lack of.  But he did say that this dear woman, mother of our Saviour, closest disciple of her Son, the one who suffered every step of the way with Him to save the likes of you and me, is well used to jealousy.  Yes.  Jealousy.

      Respect

Final question to you before God.  Can the Son have any respect for those who have no respect for his Mother and the Carmelite who so loved her that she came to be with him now and then?  Any respect for those who tried and still try to bury knowledge of what she graciously did to one of your number? How would you feel if you were Him?

 My dear Brothers. RENEWAL can only come if you face the above challenges.  It’s enough to make a start with one.  Any one of them is a key that will open the door to the “Land of Carmel”, to the Heart of your Brother and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.

 Only RENEWAL will open up to you the joys, “the good things” that are to be found in the land of Carmel. Once you discover them you realise what dross life is without them, what a drag.  Are you intent on coming to your funeral Masses having fed only on dross?  It is one of the two choices open to you.  Which will you take? Dross - life outside God’s Spirit - or RENEWAL, feeding on “the good things” of the Land of Carmel? Eternal Life hangs in the balance. 

 The choice is yours. No choice,  the status quo is to court complete spiritual atrophy.

Our time is a time when the God of our Forebears is bringing about a new thing.  Elijah’s challenge rings out once more, this time to those who claim to be his sons.  “How long will you go on sitting on the fence?  If God is God - choose Him!”

Can you - will you - whoever you are reading this - join me in this prayer?          

“Father.  Jesus.  Mighty Spirit of Pentecost.           

See to it that my Carmelite Brothers listen to Your Voice          

- and seek repentance           

 that they may find glorious, life-giving and joyful Renewal in You. 

Let not one be lost.

Dear Mother of Jesus,  dear Joseph her husband and all Saints of Carmel, be active among us.” 

                                                   +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Family and work commitments will prevent me writing anything for a while.  But I will be back when God gives me the opportunity.  Meanwhile I will leave you with a word of Joe’s: On moving on in the Spirit:”It all depends  how far you want to go.”

John Baptist Abrami                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

                   

         

    

  

 

 

 

 

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Carmelite Brother Eugene McKenna, Pioneering Mystic

June 12th, 2008

To respect Brother Eugene’s wish that any writing about his life should have as its prime aim the Glory of God,     this material, which is based on personal contact, phone conversations and some brief letters to the author, is copyright.
Anyone who wishes to download the material, in part, or even in whole, for reasons of personal spiritual development, is most welcome to do so.  This permission applies for use in items like newsletters for use within religious groups or congregations. The author would appreciate notification of such use as it contributes to his knowledge of the benefits to others of his life and teaching.
        Copyright ©  2008 John Baptist Abrami
  
                       “THERE IS NOTHING BUT GOD
                       Eugene McKenna, Carmelite, Mystic
                     ***********
 

13th June 200 8 
                       PART 1   BRONGLAIS HOSPITAL, ABERYSTWYTH
Brother Eugene, known to many of us also as Brother Joe (Joseph was his baptismal name) died peacefully just under two weeks ago,  on Sunday 1st June 2008 in Bronglais Hospital Aberystwyth, Wales.
He had gone in simply for tests.  There was talk of his being able to continue at his flat in Bow Street but with extra care.  This was not to be.  His condition deteriorated. For the 4 days prior to his death  he had been unable to speak.  Good dear friends were with him all this time.   They occasionally spoke to him. Quite probably he could hear them but certainly could not respond externally. They held the phone to his ear at one point for me to speak to him.  Did he hear?  I could just hear his gentle regular breathing. This was to be the last of our many many phone conversations. This one a bit one-sided unfortunately, with me doing most of the talking – which is the opposite of what usually used to happen! 
From Wednesday to the Friday he was in great pain, very agitated, sometimes thrashing about. Diamorphine administered on Thursday helped to calm him.  Calm he remained till his release.
                     THE ROAD TO CALVARY
Brother Eugene, dear beautiful Joe, had suffered a great deal in his last few years with a breaking down of his health. His last year was particularly painful. In a phonecall on the 13th April he said,”I’m in very bad shape.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I am dying.  It depends on how much He [the Father] wants me to live…Having a shocking time….I’m not against the suffering, but it’s not knowing what it’s all about [that is getting at me].”
When I commented,”You’re having your Calvary,” he replied, in his typically blunt concentrated way,”I don’t know.  I don’t care [ie it does not concern me].  It can go any day [my health could give way any day]…Only a year ago I was so fresh and full  of life.  Now so beaten.  If I am to live it will be a long hard passage down to normality.”
I think Joe’s memory was playing tricks here when he says he was “so fresh” only a year ago.  His health, unless my time memory is at fault, was far from great even last year.   I have mislaid my diary from that year, so I cannot check this. 
Latterly he has experienced terrible loneliness.  Nothing strange in the lives of deeply holy people. At core it was, I feel pretty sure, a sharing in that terrible feeling of abandonment that Christ experienced on the Cross.  Whether Joe ever thought of it in those terms I have no way of knowing. 
He ended this phone call on a humorously defiant note:”I’m going to the opticians on Thursday. On my bed. Flogged out…but I’m not dead yet!”
His mobility had been severely curtailed. Two weeks before (phone call 1st April) he informed me that he had been down to Aberayron “to buy myself some wheels”, to get around inside the house and out.
                     A RELIGIOUS UNLIKE ANY OTHER
Brother Eugene was born in Ireland in Clogher 18 November 1922.  He was professed 8 September 1958, one year before my own profession in the same novitiate house of Aylesford Priory. He had lived as a Carmelite for 50 years.  Each day totally dedicated to his calling.
I met him when I was a young priest.  We were  oth members of the same Cheltenham community.  In him I discovered  a dear, loving, wise companion in the life of Carmel.  I had never met any religious, priest or brother, anything like him.  Nor have I met any since.  His guidance was sure. I found it worked because Brother Eugene spoke from experience. He did not begin to live a spiritual life after his entry into the Order.  That entry had been preceded by a seven year period of intensive struggle with God to find his vocation.
 I “left” the order to marry in 1980. I put “left” in inverted commas because the leaving was only a matter of space.  I never left the Carmel which had taken solid root in my heart.  Carmel is a place of the heart, not of where one lives physically. I never left that Carmel.  The spiritual journey I began in my year at St Mary’s Carmelite Late Vocation College in Aberystwyth in the year prior to my Novitiate at Aylesford and that continued in Cheltenham with dear Joe as a wise Mount Carmel guide still goes on, enriched in ways I cannot claim to be able to assess, by his enlightened words. Not that he didn’t make the odd mistake. He wouldn’t have been human otherwise. With regards to me, he made only one.
                      A man who laughed a great deal
 
Dear beautiful Joe was a man with a great sense of humour.  He was full of love for people.  I have never met a man who laughed more and more easily than Joe. If he found you were interested in the things of God then he would open up with you and let you into his life as he thought appropriate.  Not otherwise. But first and foremost - for that is the First Commandment - dear Joe loved God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength - which is why - when duty did not call him to be somewhere else, he always retreated to his room, to be with the One who is to be found there by those who seek Him. This “privateness”, to use a very rough word, is, perhaps, one of the reasons  why his holiness and deep wisdom is still unrecognised by his confreres. It has clearly been in God’s to us often puzzling Providence to keep this Clogher diamond well hidden.
                   A spiritual biography
Some day a full biography of his life may be written.  It deserves to be.   It may, however, not be in God’s plans.  His Father kept him hidden except from those who were fortunate enough to meet him – who were fortunate enough by God’s grace to recognise what he was worth - and were anxious to draw on the living ever-growing stream of enlightenment that flowed deep inside him and regularly broke to the surface. “Enlightenment” was a favourite word of his. A key concept.  Absolutely crucial because so little used  or, worse, so little experienced in the Church today.
This biography will be mainly a spiritual one.  It will incorporate the few biographical scraps I possess, but will above all lay out his wisdom, the word I prefer rather than the phrase “his spiritual teaching”.  Why?  Because it is not his teaching.  It is what he learnt from the Spirit of the Father and of Jesus. And as I indicated above, its main aim is to speak of the God Joe gave his all to discover.              
         A Carmelite Mystic             
If the word “mystic” means anything of closeness to the Trinity, of burning love for God and people,  of deep spiritual enlightenment and experiences, this Carmelite Brother Eugene was a mystic.  He was blessed with a number of visits from the Mother of Jesus. Her gracious visits to him came as a total surprise.  He commented, “I did not even have a particular devotion to Her.  I was focussed on the Father.”  On one occasion, he told me, (phone call 1 April this year) she said to him:“I have come to you because you love me.”  His characteristically simple unassuming comment on that was:”Could she have said anything nicer?” 
The tenour of their conversations seems to have been personal between Our Lady and Joe.  There seems to have been nothing in them along the lines of “messages” for the wider Church. Had there been, it is inconceivable that Joe would not have made sure to pass them on to someone. Nonetheless the fact of these conversations needs to be recorded because what God gives to any one soul is always to the benefit, some way or other, sooner or later, of all his children.
It only occurs to me now as I re-jig this section that there was a message for the wider Church here – and particularly for religious and priests and bishops.  It is simply the life and spirit and enlightenment  of this lovely Irish farmer, cum roofer, cum Carmelite brother.
                    A Man Ahead of his Times
Brother Eugene was not a religious who was abreast of his times.  He was way ahead.  Where he was, the Church he was born into has yet to reach - and it will be an enormous struggle of restoration and renewal achieved only by the action of God and his mighty Spirit and with the (costly) co-operation of people dedicated to God’s infinite Mercy and Love: people who live in that Mercy and Love and empowered and guided by it. It is beyond  human power – which alone can achieve nothing in the spiritual sphere.
I had to work hard on him to get details of his life out of himHe resisted giving me what I wanted because, he said, his life did not matter one jot. . “It is the living God who matters. I would like you to write about  Him,” he replied with emphasis.    I eventually got a few scraps out of him by stressing that talk about him was the same as talk about the living God he cared so much about.  Some knowledge about his life and thought and experience would only help people who were keen to work towards a living knowledge of the living God – not the empty useless god fossilised in soul-less religion.  He agreed.
          A Time that has Turned its Back on God
 It was an on-going painful awareness in him - the indifference to God, the “black ignorance” of God - his phrase - that characterises our time.
“How did we get into such a mess?” he asked me on more than one occasion, though that was, for anyone who knew his thought, a rhetorical question.  He knew the answer.
He repeatedly made an assertion that took me some time to see the meaning of:”There is nothing but God.”  This was his definition of the name of Yahweh - “I Am Who Am”. I take this powerful phrase to mean ”God alone truly is.” 
However, I may be making the mistake Joe repeatedly warned against: trying to understand God with the mind, the intelligence. 


Only the Spirit can give understanding (enlightenment).   “There is nothing but God”  came to Joe through enlightenment.  My “God alone truly is” is what my mind finds makes sense.  I am only too willing to discover, through the Spirit’s grace, that his more absolute statement is right as it stands. I in no way want to weaken what the Spirit enabled Joe to see with such evident clarity.
He spoke frequently, in recent years, about our prayer needing to be prayer “from eternity to eternity” – another  idea that initially puzzled me, hardly able to understand what it might mean.  Enlightenment came slowly for me, and it is still not completely clear.  And it will not be completely clear until the Spirit of God opens up its full meaning.
 Like the previous concept  about God, this was not a thought he got from books or “the scholars” as he used to call the professional theologians, but from his continual contact with the living adorable Trinity.
          The Spirit Alone Gives Light
 He never tired of reminding me where I would be able to find this  enlightenment.  The only “place” to find it. 
Not in books.
Not in “the scholars”.
In one place and one place only: in God’s Holy Spirit, sought and followed in  love, in sincere determined living of the Gospel.
A request 

If you had the good fortune to meet this unique carmelite brother, Eugene, and would like to pass on to me your memory, whether it was just as a lovely friendly brother, perhaps down on the farm at Aylesford, or in Cheltenham or in Aberystwyth or Bow Street in Wales (or anywhere else for that matter!) or as a spiritual father, I would love to hear from you.  I want to gather as many personal memories of this loving totally God-centred man as I can, to add to mine.
Write - remembering, please,  to put your address, and anything about yourself (eg age) or the situation that would help to explain the recollection you have of him and the  impression (or, more importantly)  the impact he had on you then and/or subsequently. I cannot promise to acknowledge your kindness by letter, for I work full time and have little spare time for writing.  I can promise that I will treat your confidences with respect and gratitude. I will thank you by first name only on this website.  If you don’t want even that acknowledgement, please say.
Write to this address:  John Baptist Abrami, 120 The Tideway, Rochester, Kent, (UK)  ME1 2NN
Amended 17th June 2008
                    **********
 17th June 2008 
 
                    PART 2
  
                   TIME FOR THE TRUTH   
                                                       
                                         
Over the past four days,  I have thought a great deal about what I have written in Part 1.  This reflection has forced me to come to one conclusion.  It is this.  The long struggle this lovely man endured in his Order and in the seven years preceding, all that he learnt from the God he sought with a steely determination and a single-mindedness born out of love, all that he  suffered especially in his last years – all this absolutely  demands that the truth be told clearly.
The outline in Part 1 says a lot succinctly.  But it needs to be expanded.  I would be failing if I shirked the task.  His death calls for it.

It is a simple fact that no Carmelite knew him as I did.  Which is why the task falls to me.  He was a father to me in the Spirit of God. It is therefore a filial duty, not just a brotherly one. 

I realised last night that my debt to him is something I simply cannot quantify.  What would have happened to my health and, more importantly, to my calling as a Carmelite priest had God’s Providence not put him my way?  I have no answer to that question.  I have always known that my debt to him was huge.  Last night I was enabled to see that with even greater clarity and certainty.

                   A prophet sent by God

That Joe was a prophet is beyond doubt.  He learnt from God.  What he learnt he passed on.  Where his confreres are concerned slightly different wording has to be used: what he learnt from God he  tried  to pass on to them.  He failed.  They would not listen.  They did not listen at the beginning.  They carried on to the end refusing to listen.

Was it because they did not want to understand?  Or because they could not understand?  Or a combination of the two?  I am not going to judge on the reason for the lack of understanding.  I am simply registering the fact of it.
It was proved by what transpired at his funeral Mass.  The preacher gave what was obviously the agreed “line” on Joe, for all the brothers there assented by their silence.  The preacher simply gave a handful of trivial incidents from his life.  These ended with the comment that, during his time in Cheltenham, Eugene became more “aloof”. His way, the way he proposed to them as Carmelites was “hard”.  Then rounded off with something inconsequential.  That was the picture given of this holy man, this beautiful dedicated soul who had been graced by God with visits from the Mother of his Son.

Not a word about his holiness. His lifelong dedication. The terrible suffering of his last years. And – perhaps most horrifying of all – not a word about the visits of Mary to this chosen soul! Silence.  In an Order supposedly dedicated to that same Mother of Jesus, whose lovely  wooden statue is on the wall behind the sanctuary where all this took place.  Looking on.  How?  In sadness?  In anger? Probably the former .

The picture he tried to leave his listeners with: of an ordinary religious, nothing much to write home about, perhaps cringing slightly at the ripe language he heard at Cheltenham when he joined the community’s skittles team, growing more “ aloof” as time went by, following, proposing a “hard” way that his brothers could not follow. This is obviously the agreed view.

A horrendous distortion…born of what?  Ignorance?  Jealousy? Incomprehension?  Those involved know the answer.

Did you think to bury the memory of his holiness by burying him?  Did you plan that, by your silence, the knowledge of the visitations from Heaven should be likewise buried in the soil of the Aylesford earth that holds its Carmelite dead?  Do you realise, brothers of his, that this is what you, in fact, tried to do.
Brother Eugene, Joe, did not know the meaning of the word “aloof”. He abominated the attitude.  “Hardness” – he never practised that in his life.   Love.  Care.  Concern.  Those were his ways.  “Cringing” at ripe language?  What a foolish assertion.  He worked among the toughest roughest men for years as a roofer, all over the country.  He was well used to rough language.
“Hard” language would never drive Joe away. 

But not even Christ could deal with hardness of heart.  There you may find a clue to what you used spin to present as “aloofness”.  If he retired to his room earlier than some other community members – it was either his duty to God as a religious or the hardness that he met in the brothers that forced him to retire to his room. Never, never, never this alleged non-existent aloofness.  I knew the man.  I was there.  He has never been any different.

But you failed to present that false, distorted picture.  Simply because there was one witness at this – it has to be said – travesty  of a funeral Mass who knew the truth.  And spoke it.
Providence organised it that, even in death,  Brother Eugene could not be silenced.
 

Call to Carmelite Renewal


Why do I write this?
 Firstly, for the truth about a dear, beautiful, dedicated holy Carmelite who is worthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of John of the Cross,  Theresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux.Why do I write this? Firstly, for the truth about a dear, beautiful, dedicated holy Carmelite who is worthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of John of the Cross,  Theresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux.

 Firstly, for the truth about a dear, beautiful, dedicated holy Carmelite who is worthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of John of the Cross,  Theresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux.
Secondly, in the hope that the Carmelite Province to which Joe belonged will finally take a good look at itself - something it has not done in centuries - and see what is really there  not what it would like to believe is there or what it would like the public to believe is there.
One of Joe’s sayings was that “we all need to take a good look at the skeletons in our cupboards”. It took me a long time to understand what it meant.  Now after 40 years  I can see its meaning clearly.
The Carmelite province to which Joe belonged (and, quite likely, the Order as a whole) has quite a few skeletons that need close examination. To be examined in humility.  Pride drives the Holy Spirit away. To be scrutinised with a desire to see the truth that comes only with the help of the Holy Spirit.  This is a task that  calls for nothing less than a determined desire to be totally renewed, my dear brothers - no matter what the personal cost. If you give it less than that you will be playing with God.  No human will win out in that contest.
If you are not ready for that commitment, admit this to yourself and to God.  He can live with that situation.  He will respect that honesty. St Augustine, apparently, asked for time – and got it.  Why not a Carmelite who needs more time and is not yet ready to take the plunge he should have taken before his profession?It will cost. To achieve the task you must want to pay the price.  If you lack the courage- wh of us has it of their own? – then ask for it. “Seek and you will find.”It will cost. To achieve the task you must to pay the price.  If you lack the courage- wh of us has it of their own? – then ask for it. “Seek and you will find.”


Christ, the Father, the Holy Spirit are not satisfied with second rate service, “religion on the cheap” as a well-known German Christian put it. It has to be one hundred percent.  That is blindingly clear in the Gospel.
A re-examination of this extent, of such radical surgery, cannot be carried out without hot tears of sorrow.  Why?  Because the rot has gone deep and we have caused our Saviour too much pain.A cool calm look will not get anywhere.
That it can be done - there is no doubt. God’s infinite river of infinite mercy still runs strong and clear for those who want to dive into its healing, reviving, life-giving, eternally and astonishingly  satisfying waters.


                     Brother Joe’s deepest wish He never expressed it in these words, but I feel convinced that, if I had pressed him on this point,  dear Joe would have admitted that nothing would give him greater delight than to see his Order take on the task of Renewal in the Spirit of God. To rediscover its very reason for being: total burning love for the Trinity. For that is the essence of the Carmelite vocation.  Nothing less.  Each brother, each priest, according to the measure of God’s gift to him, living in that love, growing in that love, to the glory of God and to the salvation of souls.He never epressed it in these words, but I feel convinced that, if I had pressed him on this point,  dear Joe would have admitted that nothing would give him greater delight than to see his Order take on the task of . For that is .  Nothing less.  Each brother, each priest, according to the measure of God’s gift to him, living in that love, growing in that love, to the glory of God and to the salvation of souls.


The Church needs this from you because, as you are at present, you are a slow-release paralysing poison in the life of humanity.  Your spiritual inertia generates inertia in those who rely on you. Your refusal - yes - refusal - to move on keeps other Christians marking time.  And in the Christian life, there is no marking time.  There is forward movement or backsliding.
Joe said all this, and he knew what he was talking about, for he was living in it. The few exceptions there undoubtedly are do not invalidate the general observation.  It was not “judging” on his part. It was a statement of the obvious.  Is it not obvious to you?  It will become so when you take out those “skeletons” and look at them under the microscope of Christ.
Had Christ come to you in a postulant’s habit, you would have treated him as you have treated Joe, because Joe was full of the Spirit of Christ. Christ would have said all the things Joe has said to you- and a good many more.
I end this with that  part of Joe’s “teaching” I have already referred to (I put the word in inverted commas because it is not his teaching - it is the Spirit’s teaching) - the infinite river of God’s mercy - the only hope for me and the only hope for you. Without that wonderful Mercy - we are done for.
To be continued)
 

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28 No-one could have made this up - not then - not now.

May 8th, 2008

8th May 2008

Contemporary event: ferocious tragic Cyclone Nargis hits Burma

 

Dear Richard

My apologies for having left such a long gap.  I last wrote on 21st March, Good Friday.  The pressures of life have simply made writing imposible.

My wife and I decided we needed a week’s break. As part of my reading material,  I took my “Jefferson Bible”, dipping into it now and then for reflection.  One evening I came on the folowing mini-parable (nos 52 and 53, p 33).  As I read it I thought of you and the theme of the last letter.  I felt I needed to add it to the list of examples included in that letter.

Here it is in his translation:

“52.  And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding feast; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.

53.  Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching.  Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.”

The image here: the “Lord” which stands for Christ himself, Son of God, Creator of the universe, actually telling his servants, his followers, to sit down and table - and that he will see to serve them  Against all reason to assume that it would have been possible for even the most imaginative among them to come up with this idea.  Such love and, even more, such humility in the Creator vis a vis his creatures, would go against their natural and conditioned instincts.

At the most one of them might have come up with something like this. “…When the lord comes and finds them attending to their duties, he will, in his goodness, call for a banquet to reward them. He will eat with them that they may enjoy his company and have his servants to attend to their needs as a reward for their loyalty to him.”

Everyone’s servant 

The whole servant imagery that surrounds Christ is beyond invention.  It is rooted in  the astonishing love that Christ demonstrated, love even to accepting willingly and against all his natural instincts the horrendous death by crucifixion - the deterrent used by the Romans, the deterrent that is an everlasting testimony to the brutality they were capable of.

 

Here we are up against love. A subject you do not seem to dwell on very much.  Isn’t that a failing?  John Humphrys says of you atheist evolutionists:”They have precious little to say about our ‘fundamental awareness of the difference between god and evil’, nor do they have much to say about love.” (In God We Doubt,Hodder and Stoughton 2007, p 281)  The reasons for that omission would be interesting and useful to delve into. What is more beneficial and crucially necessary to humanity for its survival and progress than genuine, active love that breaks boundaries of race, creed, politics, economics and species difference?

Without a deep concern about and awareness of the supremacy of love, a person stands no chance whatever of understanding the  God revealed in and by Jesus Christ. 

Aside on Humphrys

Incidentally.  It seems to me that John Humphrys’ book is far more useful than yours.  His career in the media has given him a breadth of experience and sympathy with suffering humanity that your book does not come near. He listens carefully to opinions and beliefs that he does not agree. He treats them with the respect they deserve.  He does not let sloppy or illogical or inconclusive thought off the hook.He does not indulge in high handed dismissals of inconvenient facts.  He gives reasons for his stand. And his analyses are powerful. He has unerring skill in easing out weaknesses in argument. For example He eviscerates the heart of Sam Smith’s polemic in his Letter to a Christian Nation by highlighting the  ”ludicrous” (his word, p 258) assumption at the heart of it. He is a write who amply illustrates both that he has a powerful active reason and  equally powerful active human compassion. 

 For all these reasons, and more, I feel that his book rates above yours. I hope you will not be offended if I say that it is marked by an intellectual integrity in laying out a case that is not found in yours. Hence, in my judgement, it would have been a more worthy candidate for the title of Book of the Year.  I hope you have read it carefully, not gutted it at speed; if not all, at least the sections on Conscience in  Part Six.

 

Sincerely

Your brother John

PS  I’m sorry but there is going to be another long gap. 

Home and work commitments mean that I will not be able to continue with this correspondence for some time. 

But, I promise,  I will be back.  The matter is too important to let drop.  Three or four more letters should see the first stage of our “dialogue” completed.

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27 Events and teachings beyond anyone’s powers to create.

April 18th, 2008

Good Friday 21st March 2008

Letter 27

Contemporary events: Tibetan demonstrations for freedom brutally supppressed in the name of security and good order. 

 

Dear Richard

Just over an hour ago I finished watching tonight’s episode of “The Passion”.  Did you watch it? 

One of the things that  struck me, many years ago, about the Gospel accounts of the brief public life of Jesus of Nazareth is that they simply could not have been made up. They are simply beyond human ingenuity.

Imagine a group of fans (fanatics more likely) wanting to create a God-on-earth legend, coming up with the story of a man who claimed to be God’s Son, had unbelievable powers so that he could even raise the dead and yet ends up a mangled piece of human flesh because he lets himself be arrested, falsely tried and nailed to the cross as the result of a plot by cunning manipulative religious authorities.  Not a lot there to entice people into a nice cosy churchy club.  Hardly the eminently saleable and attractive item that people intent on conning the gullible would devise. “Come and join us! Enjoy all the benefits of this new religion!  You too could incurr all the wrath of the religious authorities and end up skewered to a tree by the Romans, a bleeding mass of flesh!”  You can just see the masses of eager faced converts panting to be first to join up.

Have you read the medical details of the scourging Roman style in Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ” (Zondervan 1998, p 193ff, the interview with Professor Alexander Metherell)?  Or of the subsequent crucifixion and death (p 196 - 202) You probably haven’t. What Christ underwent makes quite spine-chilling reading . We are talking facts here, history, not fairy stories as you choose to believe. If you have read the book, you will no doubt have dismissed it; just as the co-atheists on your website dismiss him (I don’t know on what rational grounds).  just as you dismiss anything that does not fit in with your hypotheses about matters religious.

I am forced to say, Richard, that for a man who promotes himself as a champion of reason, you do behave in a very irrational manner on such matters. Head firmly buried in the sand.

Not consistent with yourself

Does it never strike you that, on these matters, you behave in a manner totally in opposition to your approach as a scientist? That approach demands that you look at all the evidence, not just the evidence that suits your theory.  It demands that you seriously consider data that contradicts it or poses difficulties and that you evaluate it on rational criteria , not on unsubstantiated and prejudice-based ones. The method that demands that you take seriously the work done by qualified researchers in relevant fields of study -  men and women who are as committed to scientific rigour in their fields as you (presumably) are in your field of expertise. Any academic worth his salt espouses the scientific mindset for which lazy dismissal of possibly relevant information is anathema. 

There is a  chronic methodological schizophrenia at the heart of your musings on religious matters .

 

If the Gospel accounts are not reliable - which they are not - then they must be fabricated. Let’s elaborate that unrealistic hypothesis for a moment. First, what kind of sicko’s would do such a thing?  What crass con-artists would they have had to be?  iWhat total unrepentant liars. It would take a totally different kind of being to come up with the sublime doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount.

Have you ever read what Thomas Jefferson had to say about Christ’s teaching, which he denotes as “sublime”?  Crass minds do not do sublime.  I would recommend you look at “The Jefferson Bible” (A Digireads.com Book, Digireads.com Publishing, 16212 Riggs Rd, Stilwell, KS, 66085)? I found my copy quite by accident in a Waterstones.

This hypothetical bunch of rascals would never have had Jesus choosing a group of locals who rarely understand what their Master is talking about; who have a pair of raving ambitionists among them (the so-called “sons of thunder”); who are quite terrified by the religious authorities. The chief wimp, Peter, actually earns himself a rebuke in which Jesus calls him “Satan”. Is that how they would have portrayed the leader of the Apostles? Who they then make to further spoil his CV by denying that he even knows his arrested Master when embarassingly pinned down by some bystanders.  Tawdry minds could never come up with the thought that this God-man would actually say to Peter:”You are Peter [Rock] and on you I will build my church.”  He would have kept that prerogative for himself rather than giving it to a mere man - especially this individual who had betrayed him verbally three times out of craven cowardice.

Would these cack-handed legend creators have portrayed their God-man as an amazingly poor judge of character by choosing Judas as a key follower, thus introducing his betrayer into his inner circle - a man who proves to have rather sticky fingers, dips into the common purse and then sells Jesus for a handy stash of silver? They would surely have given him amazing insight.  You must find it rather amusing that this rather unreliable chooser of men also picked a hardened sceptic, Thomas, as one of his trusted inner band.

Can you imagine someone in those days coming up with an idea for a man-God who in a previous existence created the whole universe - a claim that would put the Roman Emperors somewhat in the shade - and yet teaches his followers that he has come to be their servant and, shows it by washing their feet at what we call the Last Supper and tells them that they should do likewise to one another.  Who would say to them, “Learn from me.  I am meek and humble of heart.”  Such a servant ideology, such humility would never even enter their heads. 

How could they have come up with teachings that are so contrary to human nature?  That they should love their enemies? Pray for those who treat them badly? That they should turn the other cheek?  That they should not worry about tomorrow?  On the question of miracles: that they would do even greater things than he had done?  That they should be holy as God himself is holy?  There is no way that even honest folk would come up with such revolutionary teaching - never mind crass rumour-mongers. 

Jefferson was quite right.  This is “unique” moral teaching. The corollary of that is that it could only have come from a unique person.

Would they have come up with the notion that he would predict his own death?  And that his key followers would not understand those very clear predictions? And that when he came back to life they initially had great difficulty in believing it - even though he had said he would do just that?

Would they have been able to come up with the idea that he could appear and vanish at will?  That while he had obviously entered into some other dimension of existence for he could appear and vanish at will -  yet, paradoxically, he had a body as physical as theirs because he could be touched and heard  and could cook them a meal  on the lake shore and even eat a meal with them? It stretches the bounds of rational thought  beyond limits to even conceive that they could have come up with such a complex weaving of contradictory ideas.

And so on.  A whole host of details that simply could not have been put together by men and women crass enough to set out to lie and cheat and deceive their contemporaries. 

What is more, do you honestly believe that his contemporaries would have been fooled by empty unbased assertions?  That they would have followed what they believed to be crude myths and deceptions - particularly when they would endanger their lives and livelihoods by so doing? That the sensible ones among them, who were probably a hefty majority, would not have dug around and checked them out byspeaking to trusted friends and acquaintances? There must have been thousands of mature, reliable, sensible people around who could have pulled them up short and shown them up if they had been spinning tales.

Simplest is best 

I’m afraid the simplest explanation is best.  In fact it is  the only one that fits the facts.  That these things happened.  That these men and women were what they  presented themselves as: witnesses to a totally astonishing and unique phenomenon, the rabbi from Nazareth: an unbelievable revelation that yet had to be believed because they had seen it all, witnessed every word and action of it - and could vouch for it.

The news they spread around and that has come own to our day was what they had seen and heard and touched with their own hands. You have every right to say that you can’t believe the events recorded in the Gospels and testified to in the Acts and the Letters of the New Testament.  What you cannot assert is that they  did not happen or that they are a tissue of lies. For such assertions you can make no valid case that will stand up to the demands of reasoned intelligent discussion.

Kind regards. 

Your brother John

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TIBET; STATEMENT OF SUPPORT

March 16th, 2008

Sunday 16th March 2008

 

THIS WEBSITE WISHES TO EXPRESS ITS SUPPORT

IN THE STRONGEST TERMS POSSIBLE

FOR THE TIBETAN PEOPLE’S DESIRE FOR AUTONOMY.

IT VIEWS WITH ABHORRENCE THE BARBARIC NATURE

OF THE ENSLAVEMENT OF THIS AUTONOMOUS REGION

BY THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

As a tribute to the sufferings of Tibetans, the site displays the following report.  It says everything.

Report phoned in from Lhasa, Saturday, March 15:
“The situation is terrible. The person cried while talking to me and said that so many people had been killed. The chinese shot at everybody in sight and blood and piles of corpses are lying around the main temple Tsuglakhang in Lhasa. Many people have been put into prison where they are being beaten. Tibetans are being forced to beat up their own countrymen. Many Tibetans are refusing to do so. All travel has been banned. The person appealed for help.”

 

THE TOTALLY UNJUSTIFIED REPRESSION OF ALL CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN TIBET

IS IN TOTAL OPPOSITION TO THE STATED AIMS OF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT TO BUILD

A HARMONIOUS SOCIETY

IN WHICH THE RIGHTS OF ALL ARE SAFEGUARDED BY LAW.

THEREFORE WE CALL ON THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT

TO GRASP THIS OPPORTUNITY TO REVERSE ITS UNWISE POLICIES

AND INSERT ITSELF, FOR THE FIRST TIME,

FIRMLY INTO THE COMMUNITY OF CIVILISED NATIONS -

AN ACTION WHICH WOULD GAIN IT THE SUPREME RESPECT OF ALL WOMEN AND MEN OF GOOD WILL -

 BY IMMEDIATELY INITIATING LEGISLATION FOR GENUINE AUTONOMY FOR THE REGION.

 THIS WEBSITE SUPPORTS THE DALAI LAMA’S STAND.

HENCE THE EXTENDED QUOTATIONS FROM HIS STATEMENT ON THE 49TH  ANNIVERSARY OF THE TIBETAN NATIONAL UPRISING DAY, MARCH 10TH 2008:

 

For nearly six decades, Tibetans in the whole of Tibet known as Cholkha-Sum (U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo) have had to live in a state of constant fear, intimidation and suspicion under Chinese repression.-Nevertheless, in addition to maintaining their religious faith, a sense of nationalism and their unique culture, the Tibetan people have been able to keep alive their basic aspiration for freedom. I have great admiration for the special characteristics of the Tibetan people and their indomitable courage. I am extremely pleased and proud of them.

Many governments, non-governmental organisations and individuals across the world, because of their interest in peace and justice, have consistently supported the cause of Tibet. Particularly during the past year, governments and peoples of many countries made important gestures that clearly expressed their support to us. I would like to express my gratitude to every one of them.

The problem of Tibet is very complicated. It is intrinsically linked with many issues: politics, the nature of society, law, human rights, religion, culture, the identity of a people, the economy and the state of the natural environment. Consequently, a comprehensive approach must be adopted to resolve this problem that takes into account the benefits to all parties involved, rather than one party alone. Therefore, we have been firm in our commitment to a mutually beneficial policy, the Middle-Way approach, and have made sincere and persistent efforts towards achieving this for many years. Since 2002, my envoys have conducted six rounds of talks with concerned officials of the People’s Republic of China to discuss relevant issues. These extensive discussions have helped to clear away some of their doubts and enabled us to explain our aspirations to them. However, on the fundamental issue, there has been no concrete result at all. And during the past few years, Tibet has witnessed increased repression and brutality. In spite of these unfortunate developments, my stand and determination to pursue the Middle-Way policy and to continue our dialogue with the Chinese government remain unchanged.

…A major concern of the People’s Republic of China is its lack of legitimacy.

…In Tibet today, due to the Chinese government’s numerous actions, driven as they are by a lack of foresight, the natural environment has been severely damaged. And, as a result of their policy of population transfer the non-Tibetan population has increased many times, reducing native Tibetans to an insignificant minority in their own country. Moreover, the language, customs and traditions of Tibet, which reflect the true nature and identity of the Tibetan people are gradually fading away. As a consequence, Tibetans are increasingly being assimilated into the larger Chinese population. In Tibet, repression continues to increase with numerous, unimaginable and gross violations of human rights, denial of religious freedom and the politicisation of religious issues. All these take place as a result of the Chinese government’s lack of respect for the Tibetan people..…The world is eagerly waiting to see how the present Chinese leadership will put into effect its avowed concepts of “harmonious society” and “peaceful rise”. For the realisation of these concepts, economic progress alone will not suffice. There must be improvements in observance of the rule of law, transparency, and right to information, as well as freedom of speech. Since China is a country of many nationalities, they must all be given equality and freedom to protect their respective unique identities if the country is to remain stable.

…I would like to take this opportunity to express my pride in and appreciation for the sincerity, courage and determination of the Tibetan people inside Tibet. I urge them to continue to work peacefully and within the law to ensure that all the minority nationalities of the People’s Republic of China, including the Tibetan people, enjoy their legitimate rights and benefits.…I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Government and people of India, in particular, for their continuing and unparalleled support for Tibetan refugees and the cause of Tibet, as well as express my gratitude to all those governments and peoples for their continued concern for the Tibetan cause.With my prayers for the well-being of all sentient beings. The Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, India.

THE WEBSITE SUPPORTS HIS OPINION THAT THE OLYMPICS SHOULD GO AHEAD.

THE WEBSITE EXPRESSES THE HOPE THAT ATHLETES WHO SHARE THE GENERAL REVULSION AT CHINA’S ACTIONS

WILL CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING AS A PRACTICAL ACTION OF SUPPORT

FOR A TRAGICALLY AND BRUTALLY OPPRESSED PEOPLE:

TO WEAR AN ORANGE AND BLUE COLOURED ARMBAND 

AS A REFERENCE TO THE VIBRANT TIBETAN FLAG WHICH IS BANNED FROM THE OLYMPICS.

 Finally the website offers the following PRAYER FOR CHINA for use by.  It is framed in Christian terms, but members of other faiths are most welcome to re-write it in terms that suit their beliefs and theologies. It can also be edited and adapted to suit a humanist belief stance.

Prayer for China
Almighty Father, Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, I pray to you for the whole population of China.
May she become the great nation she desires to be,
not just economically
but also in terms of the highest human values and
to this end I offer You all the righteous suffering of your dear children there.
Pour out your Spirit abundantly on her.
Drawing on all that is best in her present and her past
may her leaders and people succeed in their stated desire to create a harmonious society
in which the rights of all are upheld by the rule of Law.
May justice and compassion come to the forefront in politics.
May her leaders come to  see that true religion is never a threat to legitimate government but its strong support.
May those who are called to speak out against abuses do so with undaunted courage.
I ask this through Christ your Son
who sacrificed everything to make our highest aspirations possible.
Father.  Thank You that, so often, You give us not what our thoughts and actions deserve, but what your loving Heart suggests.

 

 

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26 The documentary profile of this God-revealing man Jesus

March 11th, 2008

Letter26

19th February 2008

Contemporary events: i) Attenborough’s astonishing TV series “In Cold Blood”;                                                        ii) : “Why are children so unhappy?” (The Independent page 1)

Dear Richard

Since my last letter, I’ve had another visit from Gran.  Here is what she said.

Gran:  Hello, John.  What are you up to?  Me: just starting my next letter to Richard.

Gran:  Did he answer your last one?   Me:  you know answers don’t come into it yet.  This is a one-way process.  I may get answers later.

Gran: I honestly don’t think you should just wait for him to do the profile of Jesus for himself. You suggested that in your last letter didn’t you?   Me:  I did.

Gran:  He’s quite likely too busy.  I’ve heard that he’s got another book already in mind. Do it for him.  Save him some time.  He’ll appreciate that.  It’ll give him more time for his next bout of religion-bashing. 

And before I had time to answer, she’d gone again!

I will take her advice.  Here’s my profile of the carpenter from Nazareth.  Here goes.  No structure.  Just as it comes.

An unpleasant character?  I can find no trace of that.  He was