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BRIAN'S
TAKE...
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 Dear friends,
Justin Bianchini is the Bishop of Geraldton — that increasingly prosperous region of Western Australia which is making a per capita contribution to the overall prosperity of this nation that leaves most other regions of Australia for dead. It also happens to be the diocese and region of this nation where I was born. Traditionally this diocese has been looked upon as one of the poorest in Australia — the Pilbara and the Murchison regions were long perceived as remote and desolate that only very reluctantly and through the expenditure of enormous human sweat yielded up its mineral treasures. The agricultural areas of the mid-West around Geraldton were in an area of more marginal rainfall than the more blessed land to the south which is generally thought of as the "wheat belt" of Western Australia. I think I am right in suggesting that for many, many decades the Diocese of Geraldton itself was officially described as a missionary diocese as it was dependent on the other dioceses of Australia, but particularly the archdiocese of Perth, for the financial and personnel resources to keep it functioning. I mention all the foregoing not so much to draw attention to this now privileged part of Australia which is now contributing so much to our overall prosperity, nor even to the long struggle the Geraldton region and its people have had to endure to get to where they are today. I do so because I want to focus on a particular charism and insight of Justin Bianchini that I believe deserves far wider recognition. I first came across this insight that Bishop Justin brought to his work about ten years ago when I was asked to do the graphic design for a conference that was being hosted by one of the agencies in his diocese. I was told the theme of the conference was to be the word "communio". I didn't really have a clue what the word meant but in the years since I have spent much time reflecting on the importance and value of that word — particularly in the context of this work I've found myself increasingly drawn into in cyberspace. If you go visit the Diocese of Geraldton website – www.geraldtondiocese.org.au – you will find that this word "communio" continues to be at the centre of the vision of Bishop Justin. These are the words prominently displayed on the website... The Diocese of Geraldton has committed itself to endorse Back in June last year when I was designing the masthead for Catholica Australia I seriously contemplated using the word "communio" as one of those key descriptor words that slide and fade through the background attempting to describe what we are endeavouring to be. In the end I had a feeling the Latin of "communio" sounded a little too pretentious and I settled for the more colloquial word "community". I share with Bishop Justin though a fondness and attraction to the shorter word. Communio is not just about "building community" in the sense that any secular town, or collection of individuals is endeavouring to create a sense of identity, meaning and solidarity. The word "communio" also links to the word "communion" and brings a theological and spiritual dimension to this work and craving almost all of us have to be part of a community — to have a sense of self-pride in who we are as "a people" and to engage in the very Christian and humanistic instinct to love one another and to help one another. The identifying mark of Christians... It's getting close to a couple of millennia since the Roman writer Tertullian used the expression "see how they love one another" as the identifying mark of Christians. Cliff Baxter's post the other day in the wake of John Briggs' death, if it does nothing else, ought remind us that we are still a long, long way short of having this mark identify our behaviours. At the same time I can understand those who are turned off by these insipid, clawing, obsequious behaviours where some seem to interpret the command of Jesus for us to "love one another" and his advice to adopt the perspective of children, as some kind of invitation to dispense with our faculties of reason and intelligence and act as though we are locked in some kind of perpetual kindgarten of paradise. "Communio", I suggest, is a very adult and mature word. I credit the existence of Catholica Australia primarily to that very real experience of adult "communio" which many of us in the original Catholica community experienced about six years ago for a short time in that cyber community created around the late Lenny Landolfo as he came to terms with the physical pain, and incertitude, of his earthly life and prepared for his journey into the new life. There is a certain nostalgia that those of us who were there carry for that small period of six or twelve months where we were able to see this entire spiritual quest in a slightly different way. We had, I suggest, a sense of the sacred and the sacramental in that sense of community that then existed and which, at least for a period, "lowered the ropes" between all those political divisions that tend to divide one from another. Communio is "the core of the Church"?
Bishop Justin Bianchini, in his website motto, describes communio as "the core of the Church". I think he is correct. But what leads to all this division that seems to be the greater characteristic of the Church in both physical and cyber space today? Also at the core of the Church's mission is the search for ultimate truth. And isn't that the word that so constantly seems to trip us up in our search for communio. So often we confuse the search for truth as being a search for certitude. Truth and certitude are not the same thing. "My 'truth' (under my breathe I mean 'certitude') is better than your 'truth'", is something that mimics the kindergarten games of "I'm the King of the Castle and you're the Dirty Rascal", or "my Dad's bigger'n your Dad". Is that not the game we play which constantly destroys "communio"? I originally started this reflection wanting to invite discussion on how we "build communio" in Catholica, and in the wider institutional Church. I think we started off well as a community in our endeavours to do that but in recent weeks we have somehow gotten away from that. Perhaps we can continue this discussion in our forums. Cliff has already provided what perhaps might be the starting point. I have questions myself as to whether one can artificially induce a sense of "communio" into a collection of individuals or is it something organic that grows from within the community itself? Bishop Justin, in a sense, is trying to create the conditions in his diocese for "communio" to flourish. I have little doubt however that he continues to see it as a constant uphill battle in a region where a high proportion of the population work in the region on a fly-in, fly-out basis and probably have less connection with Church, partly because of their inflated incomes, than other sectors of the population in Australia. From that point of view I suspect the challenges he faces are not dissimilar to the challenges we face. We don't "build a sense of communio" by all running around like terrorists proclaiming "my truth is better than your truth" and "I'm gunna terrorise you all into believing it". We "build a sense of communio", primarily I submit, by learning to listen to one another and to respect the perspectives of others while, at the same time, also learning to quietly discern internally those "ultimate truths" which God whispers in our hearts and somewhere down at the core of our be-ing. It's not a boisterous activity but it is not passive either. Blessings, Brian
We welcome your thoughts in response to this commentary in our forum. Brian Coyne can be contacted at: ©2007 Brian Coyne |
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