‘ANATHEMA
SIT’
A joke I tell my priest friends who know
Latin goes as follows: If I ever get a
dog I’ll call him ‘Anathema’ so I can shout out regularly ‘Anathema –sit’! The words
mean ‘be cut off’ , ‘you are excommunicated’ or ‘ you
can no longer belong to this
community’ and were used by the church from the Council of Trent in the
sixteenth century up until Vatican II to those who had committed a serious sin.
The refusal of Holy Communion to
Catholics by some American bishops is a modern attempt to bring it back. I never had much time for the idea. Firstly, my own godmother, Una Quinn, was
excommunicated. My mother’s cousin, she
had fallen in love with an American sailor here at the Derry base. He refused to ‘turn’ on principle and, as his
ship was leaving in a few months, they married civilly in the Guildhall. I am not condoning what she did but from today’s
standpoint it seems harsh. Many had
their names read from the pulpit all over Ireland during those cruel times. Being excommunicated
meant being cut off from the sacraments – and therefore doomed to hell. Can you imagine the pain? I do not know how I
could have survived as a priest in such a church. So much for the yearning ‘if only we could turn the clock back to the
good old days.’
But God
has a sense of humour. It was the same
church of St. Eugene’s Cathedral where decades later I began my priestly
ministry. Perhaps we are paying the
price today for such a heavy handed use of authority in the past for I believe that
such things entered the psych of the
Irish people so subservient for so long until, as the little boy in this
story shouted, ‘The Emperor has no
clothes.’
The second reason I have difficulty with the
concept of excommunication – in whatever
from it takes -is that it seems to
contradict what Scripture teaches about God’s mercy and how he loves us even in
our sins. Look at the parables of the
Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son and we are told of a God whose love never ends
even in our waywardness and sin. In last
Sunday’s gospel you may have heard how Jesus still loved Peter inspite of his betrayal – indeed offering him the
opportunity to unburden his guilt by professing his love three times and in so doing wiping out the three previous denials. To be loved in our goodness is natural and does not make any great demand but in the three examples I
mention we see what God’s abundant
generosity and grace are all about. That
is the God I believe in and, from what I have seen so far, the one it seems our
new Pope Francis believes in as well.
Some Thoughts:
[reflecting
on the tension in Korea]
‘what
the world needs today is not guided missiles but guided morals’
the man of integrity walks securely…[Proverbs 10:9]
………………
‘’Live life
by its breadth not by the length …
Be alive to
joy , kindness,
purity, poetry, music, dance,
nature,
stars, God, and eternal hope.
Life is what
we are alive to.’’
JOKE
A little boy was waiting for his mother to come out
of the shop. As he
waited, he was approached by a man who
asked, "Son, can You tell me where the Post Office is?"
The little boy replied, "Sure! Just go straight down that street and turn to your
right."
The man thanked the boy and said, "I'm the new priest here.
I hope I see you at Mass on
Sunday. I'll show you how to get to Heaven."
The little boy replied with a chuckle. "Come on Father ,you don't
even know the way to the Post Office!"
Feedback
welcome: paddy@okanes.org
