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Catholica Conversations: 01 Brian Coyne & Adel Ghali

It is our pleasure today to bring you a mini-video documentary on the Shalom House of Prayer at Carcoar in rural New South Wales and an extended audio interview with Ted Mason who has recently retired as manager of Shalom and leader of the lay prayer community located there. As editor I see two particular values in the documentary and interview. Firstly, the Shalom House of Prayer in itself is a fascinating lay initiative that's been going for 34 years now — and it pays its way. Secondly, Ted Mason is simply an interesting person. He calls himself "an ordinary bloke" and, in some ways, I think he fits that description from the point of view that I think he thinks a lot of the thoughts that I come across today in people who've seen a bit of life and who have been "mugged by reality" when it comes to many aspects of the spirituality and religiosity we were brought up on. At another level he's far from ordinary. There are few lay people around this nation who would have put in the 25 year full-time commitment that Ted and his wife, Ada, have put in furthering a valuable initiative in adult faith development like this. Enjoy — the video lasts about 5 minutes and I've broken the 50 minute audio interview into segments of about ten minutes duration. I'm publishing the first three segments of the interview today and the two concluding segments tomorrow. Brian Coyne, Editor and Publisher

Visit the Shalom website:
www.bathurst.catholic.org.au/shalom/shalom.html

We began by asking Ted when he started getting "holy" in his life and in this introduction he provides some background to his previous life in business and goes on to explain how he and Ada became involved with Shalom.
Ted Mason: Ted was General Manager of Seven Seas Stamps in Dubbo. Through Catholic Charismatic Renewal he got to know about Shalom and became part of the community. In 1983 he and his wife felt a call to move there and manage the house and lead the prayer community. Husband and wife team, Brian Coyne and Amanda McKenna are the publishers of Catholica.

IF THE MEDIA CONTROLLERS ARE NOT VISIBLE ON THIS PAGE: There should be a media controller above this block of text, and in the equivalent places further down this page. If you cannot see it you most probably do not have the Java or Media Player plug ins installed on your computer. You can still hear the segments by donwloading the original audio file and listening to them separately. To do that right click on the link and save the file to your hard disk and play it manually.
LINK: Conversation 02: Brian Coyne, Amanda McKenna and Ted Mason – Segment 1 [10m08s 2.32Mb]

“Then Helen and Neville (Bowers — the founders of Shalom) felt this very strong call to go to Carcoar, to re-open the convent, and make it a place where people could come to find strength or renew their relationship with God.” …Ted Mason

Ted explains the golden years of Shalom during the 70s, 80s and early 90s … the older people have died off and younger ones are 'not remotely interested' … the charism … the support of the bishops that made it possible…
Ted on the changes at Shalom over the 25 years: “It has changed quite dramatically. The 70s, 80s and right into the 90s there was still that very strong spiritual wave — you could feel it with people turning up for retreats and whatever. I suppose in the mid to late-90s I began to sense a change. Because the people we'd worked with since the 70s were getting older — it's the old story — they're dying. The newer generations underneath have gone somewhere else. They're not remotely interested.”

IF NO MEDIA CONTROLLER IS VISIBLE ABOVE USE THIS LINK: Conversation 02: Brian Coyne, Amanda McKenna and Ted Mason – Segment 2 [11m48s 2.70Mb]

“What has happened — and it happened from day one — is we've had a very strong ecumenical influence here as well.”
…Ted Mason

“So they then gave Bathurst to Patrick Doherty and Frank Carroll brought him up for his induction – and of course, coming up from Canberra, you come up over the hill and see this tiny little village all tucked down here in the valley. Frank Carroll said to him 'don't ever forget that building you can see there is your powerhouse of prayer for your diocese.'” … Ted Mason

Ted on how the institution has handled the social changes of the last half century … this moves into a discussion of his experiences bringing up a family … and then into discusses he sees the Church needing to tackle
Ted on the changes in the Church since Vatican II: “The Church did a wonderful thing, 62 to 65 with Vatican II. It realised everything had changed. World War II had changed everything and they had to bring themselves kicking and screaming into the modern era. And they did a wonderful job. The trouble is the world changed again in 1968 – the universities, the riots, sexual liberation … all of a sudden the world took another turn. The trouble is the Church kept going that way. That's when it started to lose touch with people.”

IF NO MEDIA CONTROLLER IS VISIBLE ABOVE USE THIS LINK: Conversation 02: Brian Coyne, Amanda McKenna and Ted Mason – Segment 3 [9m42s 2.22Mb]

“(Q: Will the Church be able to celebrate Masses at all these little country towns?) Oh, no, no, no — it's happening here already. (Q: So what's going to happen?) It'll probably collapse — eventually — certainly in the West. I don't have any doubt in the world about that. And I think it has to … and then it'll start again. So we still play around with this nonsense of women priests and married priest and whatever — the Church has the lamest excuses in the world for not handling those issues. Having said all that — those things are not going to save the Church. They've not saved the Anglican Church, or the Uniting Church.” …Ted Mason

A lost sense of "salvation" — the approach taken to helping people who came to Shalom — the importance of listening — two churches? — differences between women and men when it comes to spirituality
Ted on the approach to counselling at Shalom: “But they'd sit with Ada, or Helen, or Neville or myself — it might be an hour, or an hour and a half — and all you would do is listen. But all you were saying to them is 'you're OK! You're so important that I'm prepared to give you as much time as I can — and I'm not going to tell you what to do, I'm just going to listen to you.' … That's all. That's the only way I would ever approach it. 'Now, would you like to come in and we'll pray about this?' And they walk out the house different people altogether.”

IF NO MEDIA CONTROLLER IS VISIBLE ABOVE USE THIS LINK: Conversation 02: Brian Coyne, Amanda McKenna and Ted Mason – Segment 4 [9m03s 2.07Mb]

“(Q. Why is it women?) …chuckles before responding… Men are too frightened (Q. You think?) Yes, that's my answer. (Q. What are they frightened of?) Men won't go inside — will not go and face the demon's inside. Women will. And women do it very effectively.”
…Ted Mason

The prayer life of the community at Shalom — centred on the Divine Office — how that came about.
Ted on the prayer life centred on the Divine Office: “Kevin Manning was then a priest of the diocese. He was advising (Bishop) A.R.E. Thomas on this carzy couple that wanted to open up this place. Kevin Manning took them to see a priest in Sydney, Tom White, about a prayer life for the community. He said to them 'you need a disciplined prayer life. Take the Office. It's got a rythmn. It's there for you morning, noon and night.' There's a wonderful rythmn in those psalms which I have grown to love.”

IF NO MEDIA CONTROLLER IS VISIBLE ABOVE USE THIS LINK: Conversation 02: Brian Coyne, Amanda McKenna and Ted Mason – Segment 5 [11m19s 2.59Mb]

“We're now part of the parish of Blayney. The actual Mass we only get in on the second and fifth Sundays — that's the formal eucharist for the village … on a good day there's a congregation of 25-30, which isn't bad for a little town like this. But again it's the older type — there's no kids there. Whenever we've got a priest in the place — and that's often. 'Cause you get a lot of priests who want to do private retreats here. There's no phones, no television, no one knows where they are. It's magic for them because they can just veg out for three or four days. So we have Mass then in the house on a fairly regular basis.” …Ted Mason

©2009 Ted Mason and Catholica Australia. Permission granted for republication provided attribution given to original source.

[Index to this series of conversations]

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