Catholic Diocese of Broome

Title: MORE AWARDS FOR KCP

The Kimberley Community Profile has again been successful in the Australasian Catholic Press Association Awards taking out ‘Best Column’ and being Highly Commended for ‘Best Editorial’.

The award for ‘Best Column’ was gained through Bishop Saunders’ Viewpoint article, in the April edition, which we have reprinted here:

Recently I spoke with the Priests and Pastoral Associates of the Diocese about the

need for an ‘imagination’ in pastoral practices. Not the imagination of children but the ‘imagination’ of faith. Not the imagination of fantasy and fairy-tales but that which is born of prayer and listening attentively with the heart to the needs of our community and fellow travellers.

For a host of reasons our pastoral endeavours are apparently not nearly as effective as we wished and not nearly as relevant as they used to be. There has quite obviously been a marked change in the nature and depth of spirituality among Kimberley residents, as elsewhere, and hence a diminished receptivity to religious values and tenets of faith. There is now more than ever before a pressing urgency to reflect carefully on the gospel metaphor of “new wine” being unsuitably contained in ‘old wineskins’.

To put it plainly our present manner and method of passing on the faith is not adequate. The faith as we treasure it is not being received by present generations. To preach effectively in this era of stark materialism and faithless self-gratification requires a ‘new imagination’ beyond anything we have experienced before in our lives. This ‘imagination’ is the ability to create images – to cope with what we are experiencing in our pastoral endeavours and to cast aside images which are no longer helpful.

Father Ronald Rolheiser OMI speaks of the need for a “paschal imagination” that allows us to move on from tired and inadequate images of faith and Church, to let these die so that other images may be born and may thrive, bringing life to weary and worn-out structures. Father Rolheiser goes on to say that we must “let ourselves be led by God through changing times” – and this requires great imagination! To image in our minds what God is saying to us.

God is aware of our difficulties. He knows of the parent who languishes at the thought of their children growing up with a threadbare notion of God. He hears the teacher who struggles to find the language to transmit something of the divine mystery to his students. He sees the priest proclaiming the Word that is falling on deaf ears. And He invites us to ‘imagine’ how we might best bring the “Good News to the poor, to set the downtrodden free, to let the blind people see.”

The world has changed dramatically in the last thirty or so years. As a faith community the Church has to change too particularly in how it lies in and interacts with the world around it. But the matrix we work from must not be that of the world or any one particular culture but that of the person of Christ himself.

When Jesus fed the 5000 He did so because they were hungry. He connected with His congregation at their point of need. In this act of service He nourished them spiritually and expanded their horizons of faith. Our task is first to find out what the needs of our people are and then to ‘imagine’ how we might most meet those needs. God invites us to ‘imagine creatively’. To “Take and eat” – how will we respond?
I once knew a woman who was a person of great and unshakeable faith. It was a faith she came to late in life. Her children had grown up wild and undisciplined. They lived a life on the edge, tainted by drugs, mishappen by self-indulgence and by every appearance they were Godless in character. The woman never abandoned her children. She blamed herself partly for their early childhood misdemeanours and resolutely she remained always there for them. She prayed constantly for them and cared for the physical and spiritual needs of her children and grandchildren whenever possible. Sometimes her children abused her generosity but that didn’t cause her at any time to disregard them. When she spoke of faith they tuned out. When she invited them to pray they found every excuse to avoid such practices. So she contented herself to serve her children as a listening ear, to share the everyday family crisis and to stand in solidarity with them. Eventually some of the children began to see in the life of their mother something of a saint. They became curious as to why she persisted in loving them no matter how hopeless they were. She told them it was simply because she loved them in a way that God had asked her to love them. She added that God loved them even more than she did. For that reason alone, she said, God was worth knowing well.

That is an imagination born of faith and most certainly led by God. It is not only amazing – please God, it is inspirational to us all in every facet of our calling.