Shhhhh....The Word Is Out : Focus on Silence and Word : World Communications Day Theme Announced

The Vatican has announced Pope Benedict's choice of theme for the global church's next World Communications Day in 2012.

"Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization."

The Vatican acknowledged it initially might appear strange to ask professional wordsmiths to focus on silence, but it said silence is essential for really processing the words people hear or read.

The Catholic celebration of World Communications Day is marked in most dioceses on the Sunday before Pentecost, which in 2012 will be May 20th. 

A papal message for the occasion usually is released on the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron of writers and journalists on January 24th

The Pontifical Council for Social Communications, which coordinates the event, released this statement this morning :English translation is below

"The extraordinarily varied nature of the contribution of modern communications to society highlights the need for a value which, on first consideration, might seem to stand in contra-distinction to it.

Silence is the central theme for the next World Communications Day Message: Silence and Word: path of evangelization.

In the thought of Pope Benedict XVI, silence is not presented simply as an antidote to the constant and unstoppable flow of information that characterizes society today but rather as a factor that is necessary for its integration.

Silence, precisely because it favors habits of discernment and reflection, can in fact be seen primarily as a means of welcoming the word.

We ought not to think in terms of a dualism, but of the complementary nature of two elements which when they are held in balance serve to enrich the value of communication and which make it a key factor that can serve the new evangelization."

 The Council said the Pope wanted to associate the theme of World Communications Day in May 2012 with preparations for the World Synod of Bishops, which will focus on "The New Evangelization For The Transmission of The Christian Faith" when it meets in October 2012.


 World Communications Day is the only worldwide celebration called for by the Second Vatican Council (Inter Mirifica, 1963).

First thoughts ???  I think it's a brilliant theme and I'm warming to it already.
I really do enjoy silence.
I wrote a post with some thoughts on it just a few days ago here  
Serendipity ?

Silence is God’s first language. – St. John of the Cross.

..

or In The beginning was the Word and the Word was God : St John.

Mmmmm...

If we are all going to be silent will there be a blogging hiatus on that day - or will there be a plethora of posts on silence enveloping us all in an avalanche of words after our silence.
--- nice paradox methinks.. who will break the silence first ??

Will there be a rush on silent retreats, books on silence and discernment, DVD re-runs of Into The Silence , already a bestseller...

- The monasteries better start preparing now.

Suggested Theme songs:

I think my favourite will have to be John Cage's 4 minutes 33 seconds : like the guy says we all experience silence in a different way.....whoever would have thought that you could have silence in three movements  and that there is even a John Cage's piece 4 minutes 33 seconds for piano !

and John Cage talks about his piece here...........



........ how about Bjork.  It's Oh So Quiet... 

No doubt lists of others with the theme of silence will follow.

I'm starting early and saying nothing ....only kidding.

The sweatshirts are already printed..

For starters what about God's silence ??? 

Andrew Petersen wrote this remarkable song below.

 Lyrics

It’s enough to drive a man crazy; it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven’s only answer is the silence of God

It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they’ve got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
‘Cause we all get lost sometimes…

There’s a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He’s kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His friends are sleeping and He’s weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God

I believe in the sun even when it isn't shining. 

I believe in love even when I am alone. 

I believe in God even when he is silent." 

Some attribute this quote above to a message found scrawled on a cellar wall where Jews had hidden in World War II in Cologne, Germany. 

Then there's Michael Card's interpretation on The Silence of God......

Download this mp3 from Beemp3.com

Plenty here to reflect on for all of us for starters, in silence of course, but then afterwards I really do want to hear what you have to say !

Update on Wangari Maathai and Some of My Favourite Kenyan Hymns

Earlier this week I posted here on the untimely death of the irrepressible Wangari Maathai. 

 Photo from Krista Tippett site here

This programme below considerably extends this post and is a fascinating insight into the integration between her beliefs as a Catholic and also as a biologist and ecologist and a Kikuyu.

"Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.

 

You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them.”

Nature's Coded Wisdom from On Being on Vimeo.


 Related links here are extensive and much recommended.....


Some personal reflections....
These songs below are among my own personal favourite Kenyan folk songs/hymns titled Kaung'a Yachee and Vamuvamba from the wonderful album Missa Luba.( An African Mass). 

I played them last year as part of an evening session after a week of guided prayer when the people who had participated were asked to bring something to the closing meeting that encapsulated what the week meant to them. 

These songs also bring fond memories for me as the CD Missa Luba was given to me by the Youth music group at the church I attended in Truro many years ago as a parting gift when I was about to set off to teach in Africa.

The language is Swahili. The first one tells about the mental anguish and restlessness that separation from God brings; the second in a call and response style to the accompaniment of a drum and a Kayamba ( reed shaker) focuses on the image of Jesus Christ on The Cross bringing redemption to mankind.

There are very few African recordings of it although you can buy it from Amazon. The director of Missa Luba,  Boniface Mganga was tragically killed in a road accident last year. 

This link takes you to a superb Kyrie Eleison version and video and Agnus Dei here which is a tribute to him by the Muungano Kenyan National Choir. Sorry but the embedding code was disabled for these.



The sound quality is not the best but if you close your eyes and just listen, the music is still glorious. 

 Vamuvamba



 This video link takes you to the wonderful hummingbird story which is doing the rounds....

“I think there is such a thing as outrage fatigue. … Because statistics like that and numbers like that, scenarios like that, are as prone to make people throw up their hands and say, well, then, you know, I can’t do anything anyway.” More here

I Will Be A Hummingbird

Related articles

• Prof Wangari Maathai's State funeral (kenya365live.wordpress.com)

Dating God Podcast #12 -- Fran Rossi Szpylczyn and Mark Meade

Congratulations to my pal from across the water, Fran Rossi Szplczyn,  for this podcast with Brother Dan from Dating God Blog, where she talks about her experiences and perspectives on Catholic Ministry in The Digital Age. Fran is a fulltime Catholic employee 

at the Church of the Immaculate Conception just outside Albany.

NY. Brother Dan decribes Fran as an avid promoter and networker within the Catholic social media and Internet communities-

I'll agree with all of that and she has a wicked sense of humour to boot !

Click below for link

Dating God Podcast #12 -- Fran Rossi Szpylczyn and Mark Meade

The second part is from Mark Meade of Bellarmine University who talks with us about his work in helping to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky and across the nation in the wake of Troy Davis's execution in Georgia.

How Far Away Is The Mountain ?

Photo : Assisi from Mount Subasio
A man set out on a journey to sit at the feet of the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, who lived on a far mountain. It was a long journey and he was an old man, and it took him many months before the mountain even was in view.
Upon seeing it, he stopped and asked an old woman working in a field how many days away the mountain was.

The old woman looked at him a moment, then went back to her work. Assuming she was hard of hearing, he asked her the same question in a louder tone of voice. Again she looked at him without speaking and then went back to her work.

Shrugging his shoulders, the man assumed that she was nearly deaf, and began again to walk toward the mountain. 

He had scarcely walked a dozen or so steps when he heard the old woman behind him say, "Two days! You will reach the mountain in two days."

Turning back to her angrily, the man said, "I had thought you were deaf. Why did you not answer my question when I asked it?"

The old woman shook her head. "When you asked the question you were standing still.
How could I know how long it would take you to reach the mountain if I did not know how quickly you would walk, or with what resolve?" 

The Sacred Space and Franciscan Grace of Assisi

It will soon be the feast of St Francis of Assisi 
( October 4th) but I am ready for it now !!




 Ahh Assisi, it is a long time since I visited there but you still have a place in my heart and now I need to capture again some of your joy and peace..


. 

These three beautiful videos below capture the sacred space and Franciscan grace of Assisi and nearby Subasio:they are both by Ingrid Henzler.

 Image of Hermitage by Greenery via Flickr

The first is of The Hermitage in Assisi - Eremo delle Carceri and the second covers a wider area of Assisi as well as the hermitage.

 

 Image via Wikipedia

The third has breathtakingly beautiful photos of Mount Subasio, where Francis received the stigmata. 

This extract below is from Francis - The Journey and the Dream" by Murray Bodo

"Francis smiled as he thought of those little caves on the side of Mount Subasio. He knew, as he lay here on the plain below the mountain, that he would never again take the holy climb in his body.

But when his soul took flight above the little church of St. Mary of the Angels, he hoped that he would soar once more to the top of Mount Subasio and glide through the caves, blessing them for all those future wanderers who would be wise enough to seek themselves by burrowing into the earth of mount Subasio. 

He would ask Jesus to let their coming forth from that mountain be a resurrection of their minds and hearts and an ascent of spirit to heights of holy love.

Who would they be, these men and women of time to come? Little people, surely, of every age in life, seekers all of the Dream and of the Journey he himself had understood.

He prayed for them and for their journey full of dreams. He lifted his mind above the earth and saw them coming to Assisi from every land and every corner of the earth. And this is what he said:

Bless this earth, dear LORD,

And every cave within it.  

For here will come a host

Of lonely wanderers.

May this blessed mountain

Hold them tight until

The morning of their tomorrows

Breaks upon the crest

Of every Mount Subasio on the earth.  

LORD Jesus, I Your little servant

And singer of Your love,

Announce for You to all the children

Of the Dream,

"Rise up, you dreamers and troubadours

Of the endless Journey!

Your Dream begins."

He wished that Brother Leo could read his mind, so that he might copy down this prayer for all the seekers yet to come. 

Now it would be lost, except perhaps if someone young at heart in years to come, standing on the crest of Mount Subasio, would hear in his own heart the echoes of what Francis uttered in his soul as Sister Death approached. 

Francis prayed that it would happen."

An invitation to be still and enter into the mystery and allow the transformation of heart and soul.

Music "Agnus Dei" and Kyrie Eleison by Jean-Marie Benjamin

In Henzler's own words : "this video is dedicated to God - His creation - The gift of life : our journey on earth... a pilgrimage touched by the rising sun... a drop of rainbow colours..... soon it is night."

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.

WB Yeats - “A Coat” 

May all who share the Franciscan charism be blessed today and in the future.

Related articles

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On Stillness

I had a mighty migraine today and maybe this was due to too much left brain work, trying to figure out just what my institutional church is going to look like if the Pope's vision for it comes to fruition. Much frustration !!

Then this passage caught my eye today... actually it was mainly because of one sentence in it by Donald Nicholl,  but I've included some more  to give it a context too.

It is an edited extract From an address given by Esther de Waal on an exploration of Benedictine spirituality and its value for life in the modern world given at Westminster Cathedral Hall,2007.
 

"I want to end with some thoughts about stillness, reminding you of what St Gregory the Great said about Benedict: “he held himself still before the gaze of God.” 

God was gazing on Benedict while Benedict gazed on God.

Donald Nicholl was one of the great lay prophets of the Catholic Church.

I visited him as he was dying of cancer. So did Gerard Hughes.

Donald told him, "I've been thinking. I think that thinking is a result of the Fall, so now I spend my days in gazing.”

 Image via Wikipedia

Icons also have much to tell us about stillness, and about the gaze of the eyes, especially those in that most familiar icon of the Trinity by Andrei Rublev, of which someone used the striking phrase “the listening eye.” 

And Thomas Merton when given an icon said that it brought its stillness to the whole hermitage.

Stillness and silence: what is the distinction between them? 

Here is a Benedictine sister from the community of Osage in America (where East meets West) in a paper given to the American Benedictine Academy Convention in August 1994:

Silence can be legislated,
Stillness cannot.
Silence is on the level of the rational,
Stillness opens onto the intuitive.

In stillness of heart we reach far deeper layers of consciousness than the ordinary keeping of silence.

There is a Latin tag from the Benedictine tradition: tranquillitas ordinis, the stillness of order. 

But the present-day monk David Steindl Rast tells us that this is a dynamic tranquillity. It is like the stillness of a flame burning in perfect calm or like a wheel spinning so fast that it seems to stand still.

So I guess we end up with something that is not static or safe - just as it should be at the end of a day like this. I am tempted to stop here, because this would be a very good point. 

YET it is from that centre that we must move outwards. 

It is the place where God finds us and we find him. It is not empty space per se. 

It is space for listening to the Word.

We enter into that conversation with God, in which our part is mainly to be silent and to listen. And then, from there, strengthened, we go out. 

Thomas Merton, steeped in the silence of his hermitage at Gethsemani, was at the same time deeply engaged in the world – in radical and prophetic ways, he fought for the causes of social justice, against racism and war. 

Outside his hermitage stood this wheel. 

Where is the energy here? 

Does it flow from the hub to the rim?

  Does the centre hold the edges?

What is the relationship between the two? 

Does the power of the wheel to move depend upon the firm stillness at the centre?

Do we have to find the right connection? 

The way of coming and going?  Going out and returning?

---

Related articles

• Learning from the Silence - Words of Wisdom from St Benedict (godspace.wordpress.com)

Inter Religious Dialogue

Click here for a report from a monk in 2002 on why we needed a peace summit in Assisi.

"If I can unite in myself the thought and devotion of Eastern and Western Christendom, the Greek and the Latin Fathers, the Russian and the Spanish mystics, I can prepare in myself the reunion of divided Christians.

From that secret and unspoken unity in myself can eventually come a visible and manifest unity of all Christians.

If we want to bring together what is divided, we cannot do so by imposing one division upon the other. 

If we do this, the union is not Christian. It is political and doomed to further conflict. We must contain all the divided worlds in ourselves and transcend them in Christ."

Thomas Merton From Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that
separates us from ourselves? 

This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.

~Thomas Merton

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Pope Benedict Reuters Article Analysis of German Visit

This analysis by Tom Heneghan from Reuters, draws some tentative conclusions drawn from the Pope's visit to Germany last week.

It's pretty much the same old story from Benedict and I am very disheartened.

"Pope Benedict's visit to his German homeland was bound to provoke harsh words from his critics.

The surprise of the event was how bluntly he took his own Church to task and disappointed Protestants ready to work with him.
Despite his frail physique and soft-spoken style, the 84-year-old pontiff delivered a vigorous defense of his conservative views and brusquely rejected calls for reforms, some of which even had cautious support from some bishops.

 

At the end of his four-day visit on Sunday, Benedict predicted "small communities of believers" would spread Catholicism in future -- and not, he seemed to say, the rich German Church, which he hinted had more bureaucracy than belief.

Some Church leaders fear they may end up with only small communities if they don't consider reforms. Record numbers of the faithful have officially quit the Church in recent years, often in protest against clerical sex abuse scandals.
"The pope was demanding, almost hard -- not in his manner, but in the essence of his words," Berlin's Tagesspiegel daily commented. "Nobody should be fooled by his fragility."

"The pope sees the signs of the times, but interprets them not as a demand to courageously open up the Catholic Church but, on the contrary, to close its ranks."

Breaking down faith barriers is a major issue in the land of the Protestant Reformation. Christians are equally divided between Catholics and Protestants in Germany and intermarriage and ecumenical cooperation make both sides ask why old divisions still exist.

Politicians from President Christian Wulff down publicly told the pope they hoped his visit would help to bring the churches closer. One suggestion was to allow Protestant spouses of Catholics to take communion when they attend Catholic mass.

"ECUMENICAL DISASTER"

Benedict made a historic gesture for interchurch unity by presiding over a prayer service with a Protestant bishop in the Erfurt monastery where the 16th-century reformer Martin Luther lived as a monk before he split with Rome.

But in his speech to Protestant leaders there, he bluntly told them they were mistaken to expect him to come bearing gifts, like a political leader coming to negotiate a treaty.

His hosts, who would have been happy with vague words about the need to look into some problems, instead heard a short lecture about how Christian faith could not be negotiated.

Benedict's Protestant host in Erfurt, Bishop Nikolaus Schneider, stressed the bright side of the meeting -- the pope's positive words about Luther's deep faith -- and added: "Our heart burns for more, and that was clear today."

German media were less diplomatic. "An ecumenical disaster," wrote the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper, blasting Benedict's treatment of Protestant leaders as "spectacularly half-hearted, patronizing and callous."

The lay Catholic group We Are Church said the faithful should stop hoping for help from Rome. The churches in Germany should simply "declare the unspeakable 500-year-old split in Christianity to be ended," it said in a statement.

"Let's do what unites us," it declared.

Catholics weren't spared either. Another reform proposal was to allow Catholics who divorce and remarry to receive communion at mass, something now barred to them because the Church upholds the sanctity of the first marriage.

Even Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops' Conference, said before the visit he hoped to see some change in coming years to prevent the rising number of divorced Catholics feeling excluded from the Church.

Benedict passed over that idea in silence.

PRAY AND OBEY

By contrast, Benedict was loud and clear in criticizing the German Church as too bureaucratic and focused on organizational changes rather than on the zeal of true faith, which he said was the key to confronting its problems.

He told this to the lay Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), some of whose members have called for moderate reforms such as allowing women deacons to help at mass or ordaining older married men to counter the shortage of priests.

If a stranger from a far country visited Germany, he told them, he would find it materially rich and religiously poor.

"The real crisis of the Church in the Western world is a crisis of belief," Benedict said. "If we don't find a way to really renew the faith, all structural reform will remain ineffective."

The next day, he repeated this message to a wide range of lay Catholics working with and for the Church. He said they could only face the challenges ahead if they closed ranks with their bishops and with the Vatican.

"It is not a question here of finding a new strategy to relaunch the Church," he said, but of putting strategy aside and "living the faith fully, here and now."

ZdK president Alois Glueck was not convinced. "It's not a question of either promoting introspection and prayer or changing Church structures," he said. "We have to link both these things."

Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the most influential daily in the pope's native Bavaria, summed up the trip with the headline: "He came, he spoke and he disappointed."

Painting of Old Church and Sad Donkey both by Diana Pivovarova

When The Going Gets Ruff

Surfing for fun.....  and the video is wonderful... take a break and enjoy...

Surf City Surf Dog competition from Guardian newspaper. Images from the annual event for canines at Huntington Beach, California

Lots more great photos and Related articles

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Wangari Maathai First African Woman To Win Nobel Peace Prize Dies

Image via Wikipedia

Kenyan Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Laureate and conservation heroine, died today after a long struggle with cancer, aged 71. 

She was the first African woman recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for combining science and social activism.

She was the first environmental campaigner to do so. 

She was also the first woman from East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate, in veterinary anatomy. 

She was the founder of the Green Belt Movement, where over 30 years she mobilized poor women to plant 30 million trees. 

Mrs Maathai was beaten, tear-gassed and whipped as she took to the streets in protests against environmental damage around Nairobi through the 1980s and 1990s.

But as Mr Moi's era ended in 2002, Mrs Maathai was elected to parliament and made assistant minister for environment in President Mwai Kibaki's first government in 2003.

Tributes poured in on morning radio call-in shows in Kenya, on Twitter and on Facebook. 

"Rest in peace Dr Wangari Maathai. A great woman, an inspiration for many women across Africa, a magnificent visionary and embodiment of courage," Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzania's president, said in a Twitter message.

In her speech accepting the Nobel prize, Ms Maathai said she hoped her own success would spur other women on to a more active role in the community.

"I hope it will encourage them to raise their voices and take more space for leadership," she said.

 Passionate video poem tribute given to Wangar Matthai when she was alive by Christa Bell.

More memorable quotes here

The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, said: 

"Africa, particularly African women, have lost a champion, a leader, an activist. We're going to miss her. We're going to miss the work she's been doing all these years on the environment, working for women's rights and women's participation," she said.

Related articles

• Wangari Maathai, Nobel peace prize winner, dies at 71 (guardian.co.uk)
• Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dies at 71 (nytimes.com)
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• Kenya mourns Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai (independent.co.uk)

The Human Condition

If you are looking for a great way to start the day have a look at Fr. Austin's homily for yesterday here at A Concord Pastor comments.

It's a great prayer that identifies the good intentions but woefully poor performance of the human condition

and then as Fr Austin says, "invites God to come in
and make the changes we seem unable to make on our own"..

I discovered these poems which seem to go well with the theme too. 

A Contribution to Statistics 

Out of a hundred people

those who always know better
-- fifty-two

doubting every step
-- nearly all the rest,

glad to lend a hand
if it doesn't take too long
-- as high as forty-nine,

always good
because they can't be otherwise
-- four, well maybe five,

able to admire without envy
-- eighteen,

suffering illusions
induced by fleeting youth
-- sixty, give or take a few,

not to be taken lightly
-- forty and four,

living in constant fear
of someone or something
-- seventy-seven,

capable of happiness
-- twenty-something tops,

harmless singly, savage in crowds
-- half at least,

cruel
when forced by circumstances
-- better not to know
even ballpark figures,

wise after the fact
-- just a couple more
than wise before it,

taking only things from life
-- thirty

 
(I wish I were wrong),

hunched in pain,
no flashlight in the dark
-- eighty-three





sooner or later,

righteous
-- thirty-five, which is a lot,

righteous
and understanding
-- three,

worthy of compassion
-- ninety-nine,

mortal
-- a hundred out of a hundred.





Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.

~ Wislawa Szymborska ~

(Poems: New and Selected, trans. by S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh)

  

Love Should Grow Up Like a Wild Iris in the Fields 

Love should grow up like a wild iris in the fields,
unexpected, after a terrible storm, opening a purple
mouth to the rain, with not a thought to the future,
ignorant of the grass and the graveyard of leaves
around, forgetting its own beginning.
Love should grow like a wild iris
but does not.

Love more often is to be found in kitchens at the dinner hour,
tired out and hungry, lingers over tables in houses where
the walls record movements, while the cook is probably angry,
and the ingredients of the meal are budgeted, while
a child cries feed me now and her mother not quite
hysterical says over and over, wait just a bit, just a bit,
love should grow up in the fields like a wild iris
but never does
really startle anyone, was to be expected, was to be
predicted, is almost absurd, goes on from day to day, not quite
blindly, gets taken to the cleaners every fall, sings old
songs over and over, and falls on the same piece of rug that
never gets tacked down, gives up, wants to hide, is not
brave, knows too much, is not like an
iris growing wild but more like
staring into space
in the street
not quite sure
which door it was, annoyed about the sidewalk being
slippery, trying all the doors, thinking
if love wished the world to be well, it would be well.

Love should
grow up like a wild iris, but doesn't, it comes from
the midst of everything else, sees like the iris
of an eye, when the light is right,
feels in blindness and when there is nothing else is
tender, blinks, and opens
face up to the skies.

~ Susan Griffin ~

(Like the Iris of an Eye)