Undercover

Last Saturday morning, I drove to the next parish where there’s a recently, beautifully renovated church/Shrine in honour of Mary, known “in house” as Our Lady.

The twin parishes of Middle Park and Port Melbourne have been there for 100 years plus. The Carmelite Order of Priests has faithfully staffed both places for over a century. My parish, South Melbourne, was mother to both parishes.

So what? Well, last Saturday the Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel played host to a couple of sacred artefacts known as the Cross and Icon.

This Cross became popular during the previous Pope’s World Youth Day celebrations. This Icon is of Mary and is in the Byzantine style, i.e. more Orthodox than Roman.

They both appeared in Middle Park after a trip from Sale, eastern Victoria, and took pride of place in the beautifully lit and decorated Shrine.

A Sudanese choir sang spiritual songs from an improvised stage. Light refreshments were available in the street which had been conveniently blocked off by local council officers.

I don’t think that precaution was taken in case the assembled Catholics on a quiet Saturday morning, in a very quiet Middle Park street, could break out and try to convert the locals to catholicism.

I presume it was in case the good citizens of the respectable neighbourhood would run over with their high cylinder, turbo driven, four wheel driven vehicles, the 200 visiting caltholic pilgrims.

After a couple of hours of social and devotional fellowship, about 30 of the 200 grabbed the Cross and Icon and carried them in procession from Middle Park along the Beach Road for about a mile before reaching Station Pier.

There is “parked” the ferry, Spirit of Tasmania, which would carry the Cross, Icon and escort to Devonport, Tasmania, of course.

My spies tell me the Archbishop Denis Hart, Melbourne, met the entourage at Station Pier and wished it well.

I had vamoosed from the Shrine earlier, to do Parish and domestic chores but showed up again an hour or so later to check all was well. It’s not often that devotional pilgrimages are seen in that bayside, happy suburb.

The annual Grand Prix racing cars event causes mayhem in the same scenic area.

The beach road is often closed to through traffic by hundreds running or biking in marathons to raise awareness and funds for pressing health issues.

That little group of pilgrims quietly reminded the locals that there’s more to life than meets the eye. Men, women and children, a multicultural group, proudly, not arrogantly, carried the big heavy Cross and slightly more carrier friendly Icon, in full view of the bemused, never hostile, weekend bayside tourists.

By the way, I’d just turn up on Church occasions like the Cross and Icon. I dress down rather than up. I want to show respect for the energies lay people put into devotional exercises designed, usually, by clerics.

I have my reservations about projects like Cross and Icon because I’m a “pinko leftist” Vatican2 man.

We clerics of the 1950’s/1960’s were trained and deployed to hand our systemic Catholicism back to the original owners – lay people.

We were also trained and commissioned demolition experts. Some of us cleaned churches and shrines of marble altars and plaster statues to create space for lay people to install their “unknown god”, aka Jesus of Nazareth.

We challenged lay people to take the place occupied over many centuries by Cross and Icon. Be living crosses and icons. Church $’s, we said, should buy food for the poor and excluded first and if any $’s are left, buy a cross or an icon for the church building. 

Were we wrong? Powerful factions within Catholicism say we were and exclude us “pinko leftists” from any further leadership roles within systemic catholicism

That suits me. I can be an undercover catholic like Jesus is an undercover God!

R.J.M.

Comments

[glynis McIntyre]

Living crosses and icons..how wonderful..

You never cease to amaze me ,,Father Bob.
Where were you when I was a catholic.. mind you I was baptised ..
I used to wonder why OUr churches are locked these days ... ??,,,Would they not serve the original intending purpose of a sanctuary for those in need ??

[glynis McIntyre]

Living crosses and icons..how wonderful..

You never cease to amaze me ,,Father Bob.
Where were you when I was a catholic.. mind you I was baptised ..
I used to wonder why OUr churches are locked these days ... ??,,,Would they not serve the original intending purpose of a sanctuary for those in need ??

[Deb]

Father Bob,
I'd have nicked off to do the dishes if all that was happening as well. Ritual is nice at times, but carrying bits and pieces of statues and crosses around in a crowd is, well, *yawn*...
And a comment of the previous message-person about the churches being locked gets me cranky too. I used to like to wander into a church and feel welcome and safe. Now it's all about keeping people out and protecting church property. Where have the old values gone?
Deb

[Kate McMahon]

Bob, you are an undercover beacon of hope!

I wish there was a preist over here in England half as committed to social change and the betterment of society as you!

Tim would have a lot less work to do then! - Kate