A new perspective, from the Faroe Islands, on 'The CATechism' - and something more serious

I believe that when God created the first cat He smiled. The photo above brought more than a smile to my face. It made me laugh. I found it in the Facebook account of my friend Sr Maria Forrestal FMM in the Faroe Islands. She is from County Wexford, Ireland, Through her I spent six or seven weeks in the Faroes in the summer of 2000. There's no permanent priest there. The Faroes come under the Diocese of Copenhagen, which includes all of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, probably the only diocese in the world now that covers three countries in two continents.

Here are Sister Maria's own words to accompany the photo: Hehe, naughty but nice! Must confess to having "borrowed" the photo from another profile... There is a play of words.The title of the book the cat is "reading" is a send up of a book called "The God Delusion" by English evolutionary biologist and atheist, Richard Dawkins. He argues that God is a delusion. So here we have God spelt backwards (dog) and a cat being "persuaded" that dogs don´t exist!!! We know the answer to that one.

This reminds me of the then eleven-year-old son of one of my closest friends in Dublin who asked me if I had heard about the dyslexic, insomniac agnostic. I hadn't. My young friend informed me that he had spent the whole night awake wondering if there was a dog.

Sister Maria works through art. She conducted days on Art and Prayer on 13 and 20 November. Here is how she describes the experience:

A day during which participants relax in silence,

reflect and meditate on their lives in the light of the Word of God,

enjoy the beauty of nature in the nearby park

and the beauty of the architecture in Mariukirkjan,

discover and explore their creative talents,

share their experience together,

get to know each other

and enjoy some good food!

Here is the image, painted by Sister Maria, which inspired the day:



"Believe"

John 1:4-5

The Church and Sisters' convent in Torshavn, Faroes

You can get a brief history of the Church in the Faroes here with links to the many interesting pages, in English, Danish and Faroese, on the website of the Church there. One of the most interesting is FOCUS ON "FORBIDDEN GRIEF" (RACHEL´S VINEYARD) IN MARIUKIRKJAN Sunday, 3rd. October.

Sr Maria (right) introducing Mrs Bernadette Goulding of Rachel's Vineyard, Ireland, in the Faroes.

When I was at home in Dublin a while back I had a long chat with Fr Laurence Kettle OFMCap, who grew up there who told me about Bernadette the day before he returned to Seoul. I contacted her and when it was possible for me to visit her in Cork, where she lives, I discovered she was in the Faroes at the invitation of Sister Maria. Bernadette and I met for lunch the day after she returned. I don't know yet where all of this is leading.

Bernadette gave me Forbidden Grief, which I'm reading at the moment. There is a review of the book, with many links, on the website of the Church in the Faroes here.



I had no idea that the feline philosopher/theologian at the top would lead me here. This post is all over the place, in more senses than one - but that is how life is.

'Increase our faith' - Some thoughts for Sunday



I will be travelling in the south of Ireland over the next few days visiting friends and may not have time to use the internet. I'll be returning to the Philippines two weeks from today.

Here are some thought for Sunday, which is the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C.

Gospel (Luke 17:5-10, RSV, Catholic Edition)


The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"


And the Lord said, "If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, `Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

"Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, `Come at once and sit down at table'?

Will he not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink'?

Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?

So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, `We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"

Altarpiece, El Greco, 1597-99

Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet's yet unfinished basilica of the Holy Family, Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, under construction since 1882 and not yet finished, will be consecrated and proclaiimed a basilica by Pope Benedict on 7 November. It is an expression of the faith of the great architect Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) who designed a beautiful work that he would never see finished. It may be completed by 2026, the centennial of Gaudí's death. This in itself is an expression of the faith that Jesus speaks about in the parable, a faith that trusts in God to bring about growth, the kind of faith that God often demands of missionaries such as the Columbans who may never see the fruit of what the plant in God's name.

Gaudí



El Greco's altarpiece is also an expression of faith, drawing us to heaven at the place where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered. Maybe we have lost a sense of the awesomeness of the celebration of Mass. El Greco, 'The Greek', is how Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541-1614), born in Crete, signed his paintings. He moved to Toledo, Spain, in 1577 and stayed there till his death.


Both Gaudí and El Greco found a lack of acceptance, and even disdain, during their lifetimes but both, through the beauty of their creations, can speak to our hearts and help bring about the growth in faith that God wills all of us to have.

Portrait of An Old Man (presumed self-portrait of El Greco), circa 1595–1600, oil on canvas, 52.7 × 46.7 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, United States

The cause for the beatification of Gaudí began some years ago. You can read an article by Austen Ivereigh about this here. The opening paragraph gives us some idea of the kind of person he was:

When in 1926 God's architect was run over by a No. 30 tram on his way to evening prayer, he was mistaken for a beggar and taken to Barcelona's pauper hospital. His friends found him there the next day. But Antoni Gaudí refused to leave. "Here is where I belong", he told them. He had always wanted to leave this world poor and did, two days later, aged 74, honoured by a city which universally acknowledged him to be both an artistic genius and a saint.

Japanese sculptor Etsuro Sotoo found his Catholic faith through working on La Sagrada Familia, as you can read here. The article ends with these words:

According to the Japanese artist, the imposing character of the church is not meant to be the display of the proud power of an artist, but a work dedicated and maintained by God, of whom Gaudí regarded himself a collaborator, to the point that he did not want to put his personal name to the project.


Sotoo, who requested baptism in 1989, said that since his conversion, his way of working has not changed, but it "is easier and more secure" and fills him with "pleasure and freedom."


"Gaudí's architecture indicates, it does not oblige, it is something human," Sotoo said. "This is also Jesus' way. He does not oblige us to do anything, but guides us. And this way we can be much happier and secure."


Etsuro Sotoo ended his address at the Rimini meeting stating that "the artist, as Gaudí said, collaborates with his work in God's creation; in this way, freedom and happiness are possible. This is the only way man must follow."

Pope Benedict has shown in many ways the importance of beauty in bringing us closer to God:

The encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes, so that later, from this experience, we take the criteria for judgment and can correctly evaluate the arguments. For me an unforgettable experience was the Bach concert that Leonard Bernstein conducted in Munich after the sudden death of Karl Richter. I was sitting next to the Lutheran Bishop Hanselmann. When the last note of one of the great Thomas-Kantor-Cantatas triumphantly faded away, we looked at each other spontaneously and right then we said: "Anyone who has heard this, knows that the faith is true."


The music had such an extraordinary force of reality that we realized, no longer by deduction, but by the impact on our hearts, that it could not have originated from nothingness, but could only have come to be through the power of the Truth that became real in the composer's inspiration. Isn't the same thing evident when we allow ourselves to be moved by the icon of the Trinity of Rublëv? In the art of the icons, as in the great Western paintings of the Romanesque and Gothic period, the experience described by Cabasilas, starting with interiority, is visibly portrayed and can be shared. (Message of the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2002).