prose | Toward Insight

CLC Asia Pacific Assembly 2019: Living Faith in the Crowd

Published by James on June 12, 2020

The delegates to the CLC Asia Pacific Assembly, held in Seoul, Korea from 17 to 20 October, 2019, experienced a movement of the Holy Spirit as we communally discerned our response to the theme ‘Living Faith in the Crowd’.

Brought together as 36 delegates from 13 national communities in the region (Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macau, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Vietnam), we felt a sense of family and communion as we prayed, discerned and dreamed together.

The new CLC Asia Pacific Animating Team of Agnes Shin (Korea), Gregorius Tjaidjadi (Indonesia), Jeraldine Ching (Philippines), Cosmas Tsao (Taiwan) and James O’Brien (Australia) with Fr Jeong Ho An SJ (Korea) and Fr Jun Nakai SJ (Japan).

CLC Korea offered attentive hospitality and the Asia Pacific Animating Team (of which Australian Michael Walker was a member) led the Assembly.

Christian Life Community

Christian Life Community is a world community of ordinary people who live out Ignatian spirituality and who thus act as close collaborators with the Society of Jesus. CLC is grateful for the support and friendship of the Jesuits in Australia and throughout the region.

In our Australian presentation our delegation was able to share with the delegates that within Australia the key CLC-Jesuit collaboration over the past 25 years has been the Jesuit Tertians-CLC retreats in rural and more isolated parts of the country. In recent years these have been First Spiritual Exercises retreats, through which many people have experienced significant graces for their lives.

The heart of the Christian Life Community is the local small community which meets regularly throughout the year. As a world community, however, there are global, Asia Pacific, Australian, and state-based dimensions to membership of CLC. It is experiences such as this Asia Pacific Assembly which reaffirm that we are in fact one community living out our spirituality on mission throughout the world.

Communal Discernment

‘Communal discernment’ was an important theme in the Assembly, both in response to socio-political situations and the needs of the universal Church. We desire to make this contribution to the needs of the world and the Church that labours for its good. In this we recognised that personal discernment needs to occur alongside communal discernment.

In our Ignatian spirituality we attend to the Holy Spirit bringing light to our experience. Through our Awareness Examen at the end of each day, we became more and more conscious of the Assembly as a Spirit-led experience.

Throughout the Assembly there were ‘open spaces’ for communal discernment bubbling up from among the delegates based on the needs we find in our national communities and local situations. We noticed that we desire to continue to serve among young people.

A Community of Collaboration

One common work for the CLC Asia Pacific community in recent years was contributing to the 2017 Asian Youth Day in Indonesia. An important grace we received from that experience is that we desire to encourage deeper and more regular collaboration and communication across and between CLC local and national communities. In both formal and organic ways, we want to work together.

On the final evening we celebrated each culture through songs and presentations from each national community. The Australian delegation of Michael Walker, Gaby Grimaldo, Ana Rita S. and I sang ‘I am, You Are, We Are Australian’. As we came to the end, the screen above us revealed that we had changed the final line to ‘I am, You Are, We Are CLC’.

This was an appropriate ending sung with joy by the entire crowd of Assembly delegates and participants of the accompanying Immersion Program’ for CLC members in the region.

New Animating Team elected

At the end of the Assembly, a new Animating Team was elected to serve the regional community for the next five years. The members of this team are Agnes Shin (Korea), Cosmas Tsao (Taiwan), Jeraldine Ching (Philippines), Gregorius Tjaidjadi (Indonesia) and James O’Brien (Australia). We invite your prayers for the new Animating Team.

If you wish to find out more, CLC Australia’s national website is http://clcaustralia.org.au

Initially published by Jesuits Australia

Savouring Emily Wilson’s translation of ‘The Odyssey’

Published by James on May 12, 2020

‘Tell me about a complicated man.’ So begins Emily Wilson’s luminous translation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey.

As I quickened my way into reading this poem, I felt consumed by and drawn into its ocean-world of light and dark. Odysseus is a bold adventurer, a passionate and courageous warrior of the seas. Now far from home, he yearns to return and so to be with his loved ones. Many obstacles come his way. The route is curcuitous and takes him to the edge of death. His every misfortune calls him to lean on the hospitality of strangers and to seek the favour of the intervening gods and goddesses.

Odysseus is a ‘big’ and complex character. He will succumb to his own weakness, even when forewarned. He can say outrageous things. But within a context of his bravado and ‘heroism’, the world of the text seems to welcome (and then challenge) his ego. The gods care deeply about his journey, wondering what to do with him. Their various interventions often come disguised (Athena’s especially). His ship’s crew are skilled on the high seas and independently-minded on land. I often wanted to hear more from them.

Much had been said in reviews about Wilson’s skilful and sensitive rendering of the scene when Odysseus hears ‘the otherworldly Sirens’ singing to him from their island. Having anticipated this part of the text so much, when I read these lines I gasped in appreciation. Much of the text was like this, moving me to pause to savour and lather in the word pictures crafted by Wilson’s translation.

Book Cover: The Odyssey — Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey sings on every page.

A prompt for self-reflection

Significantly, Odysseus’ journey took me deep into reflecting on my own. The poem’s language, image and metaphor speak to some of my experience. I too have crossed unknown seas to strange shores. There have been times I have felt far from home and longingly sought return. Looking back, I recognise that I have experienced the restorative power of providential journeying, cast forward by a grace I can only attribute to divinity. I have also experienced the upheaval brought about by spirits of unease and distress here attributed to lesser gods.

The experience of reading this poem gave me a generous feast for the senses, a magnificent meal for the imagination. I often paused to appreciate the beauty of the translation which sings like a top choir hitting all the notes of their renaissance polyphony. This is a gorgeous, big-hearted, uplifting, and transformative experience of Homer’s epic. I felt invited to enter a larger world.

2 Comments

Light shines in the darkness: ‘take heart, seek courage’

Published by James on April 15, 2020

‘Fear is a bad counsellor’—
take heart, seek courage,
walk boldly.

Night lights dim and crowds empty public places—a great silence envelops the land. Now, more than ever, we are vulnerable together.

Plants grow, unaware of the commotion online, the ALL-CAPS headlines. Life will continue.

These times pose challenges to our sleep, images saturating our minds. The night of our sadness seems to extend into day.

At dawn, reaches of light move across the city, tending our streets with beauty and gifting us all with day.

The reactions of people vary wildly, each one distinctive in their living of fear. Meanwhile, the clouds move overhead.

What you fear most
could very well happen
but hope is still possible.

1 Comment

Acting within the confines of the possible

Published by James on April 3, 2020

Feeling sad at all the news, the havoc caused by the virus, I turn my eyes to the sunlight streaming in the window, stopping for a moment to enjoy its peaceful act of care for plants and people.

Darkness

The destruction in Italy, the ten pages of obituaries in the Bergamo paper, creates a fear of what may become of my own locale, my family, friends and community seeming so fragile against the violence of the contagion.

Light

A friend calls. I’m self-isolating and he asks, ‘do you need me to get you some groceries?’ The question, so kind and thoughtful, returns me to that sense of belonging to a human family whose strength is the bonds of union between us.

Meditation

I sit in darkness, a single candle my source of light. Deep meditation gives me calm amidst all the upheaval of these days. I think on all the people in my life and my heart wishes each well: rivals, friends, neighbours, colleagues, siblings, parents and loved ones.

Action

My days are slowing down, and I am acting within the confines of the possible. My feet still long for running in the mud, rain on my face, wind at my back. For now, it’s physio exercises and sitting in the sun, getting my Vitamin D. I am being creative as best I can in these unsettled times.

Community

I see my friends by video calls and the connection gives me great joy. Within these walls I am going solo in a communal way, reaching out, reaching in, reaching peace.

Rest

I begin to sleep but remember my friend in distress. Having this virus is one thing, a physical illness, but the mental coping is a new experience for all of us. We must lean on each other, checking in to see how each is going.

Music

Music has a primal urgency now—as though it is heard anew by our ears. We play audience to orchestras in empty concert halls, our phones streaming the beauty to our living rooms. The enforced slowdown gets in the way of our regular rhythm, syncopating the beat of routine.

A Melbourne sunset photo I took earlier this year.

Invitation

The strangest thing has happened: even as the horizon seems ever darker, I take heart that the sun will rise in the East day by day, its light an invitation to hope.

Community and hope during a change of era

Published by James on March 30, 2020

A change of era is unfolding. We are all reaching for meaning, grappling for a sane response to the encroachment of the virus. People everywhere are responding to the new norms of behaviour. We are trying to understand what is happening at local and global levels.

All told, I sense that what is happening to the human family is revealing what matters to us. We are uncovering what is of ultimate significance. Personally, I am waking to a deeper experience of belonging to others. I notice my desire for better relationships with my loved ones, friends, neighbours and rivals.

‘I am waking to a deeper sense of belonging to others.’

Our communal identity

Community has arrived through conversation. We are connecting digitally and calling each other. Neighbours in every city and town are asking questions of each other. A new communal fabric is being knit together across oceans and continents online and off.

No one is an island anymore. We must never again see ourselves as separate “individuals” living separate lives. We are innately communal beings who long for relationships of love and solidarity.

The physical distancing requirements call for creativity. Each person is finding their own ways to give and receive tenderness. We all need strategies for sustaining community bonds in a time of seeming separateness.

The invitation today

The invitation today is for the creation of deeper ties between us. It is in seeing each person as sister and brother that we will pave a path forward.

With open hearts we can receive the invitation of this moment as persons and communities. With open eyes we can encounter that graced sense of belonging to each other.

As we approach unknown futures, it is crucial for us to become people of hope. May we notice the light which shines in the darkness.

3 Comments

Tag: prose