Editorial by Patrick Jamieson, Victoria

What a tumultuous time we live in. First the maverick presi- dency of Donald Trump and then Covid 19 and now to top it off a nihilist American Presidency finale. Cer- tainly diabolical figure intent on causing everything of the old order into falling apart.

This is the much anticipated paradigm shift that seems to occur every four hundred years. How should we view it from the prophetic Christian perspective?

From a contemplative point of view, it is certainly a blessing. It has thrown us collectively back upon our deepest resources. A purification period if there ever was one.

In crass terms it seems to me that God has decided upon a reset.

Such a deep crisis. Both a judge- ment and an opportunity.

Certainly we have plenty of reflec- tive solitude; time for in-depth meditation, if we can keep our balance. We understand this prophetic dimension of our faith in the context of the hermetic life Covid 19 has forced upon us. Time to see things as they really are.

2. As Christians we are used to a waiting period. Advent time is a Christian habit just before the light reappears.

It’s an opportunity for that par excellence, even with the Sunday services not allowed.

It’s a time again for basic Christian community to rise up. We almost have no choice.

But there is always choice. Theo- logically there is no moral value without authentic choice.

It is clear that things in the world couldn’t go on as they were.

Something had to give but rather than give into dire forecasts, we have been given all we need to move ahead. Grace upon grace as Dorothy Day worded it. All is grace.

3. In this issue of the paper, we feature the remarkable figure of hermit Charles Brandt who lived out this paradigm par excellence. With his feet firmly rooted in the deepest and most radical tradition of his faith, he pointed out the way ahead with his historic environmental work.

This is in the context of the the pope’s new encyclical on social fraternity

Hermit Charles Brandt and what he stood for, a light to see by.

Sheila Munro has graced us with her exploratory contemporary discovery of the contemplative experience through the work of Cynthia Bourgeault and Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr and Thomas Merton among others.

Finally Walter Hughes third instalment of his outstanding power of analysis focussing on exonerating Jean Vanier from at least the limited poorly-calibrated report that served to frame him after death.

4. At this darkest time of the year, we fall back on our paradoxical Christian sense of things.

We enter joyfully into the Advent Mystery of: Christ has come, Christ will come and Christ sustains us in Hope at present.

5. The Symbolism of Masks

The ubiquitous presence of face masks during this pandemic evokes a deeper reflection on the traditional meaning of such practice. Symbolism dictionaries are full of levels and stories of such meaning. Some of it is pertinent to the huge transformation the world is going through today at the hands of covid 19.

Transformation, protection, identity and disguise are the immedi- ate processes tied up with mask usage. Cirlot typically phrases it well: “All transformations are invested with something at once of profound mystery and of the shameful, since anything that is so modified as to become ‘something else’ while still remaining the thing that it was, must inevitably be productive of ambiguity and equivocation.”

This applies to the huge global transformation of the pandemic. We are used to viruses but this one is ignored to your peril. We have reached a new moment in history. The Spanish flu of a hundred years ago, as any epidemiologist will tell you, was but a first warning of what was inevitably to come.

The spiritual transformation that is underway is millennial.

Tressida puts it this way: “The primary ancient symbolism of the mask is that it embodies a supernatu- ral force or even transformed its shaman wearer into the spirit depicted by the mask.” He goes on to say “primitive masks had totemic significance, identifying the tribe with a particular ancestral spirit whose power could then be used to protect the tribe….The Iroquois False Face Society were professional exorcists of disease demons, masked to symbolize the baleful brother of the creator god.” Our masks imbue the medical profession with this role but it is obvious that deeper forces are at play. Their advice is often unheeded. Their authority pales in the face of this power. Prevention seems the only real cure, but the waters have become tainted by the precedence of politics that always muddy waters.

“The mask, simply as a face, comes to express the solar and energetic aspects of the life process.”(Cirlot)

It must be clear that only spiritual leadership can take us through this massive desert experience. As our theme this edition illustrates we are pushed back onto the cosmic and fundamental – the contemplative.

As Bishop Remi De Roo expressed it when ordaining Father Charles Brandt to the contemplative life in 1966, “The hermit life is a unique, a select, a relatively rare vocation. Their life of concentrated prayer and contempla- tion is to fortify the entire Church, the communion of saints. Theirs is a silent witness, a witness of example, of conduct, of action more than words.

“The witness of those who testify that God alone is the centre of the universe. Hermits remind us by their lives of the ultimate meaning of human existence…we are not to establish a paradise here below, we are called to a higher destiny in the Kingdom of God.”

We are in a moment of clarifica- tion, of retreat and meditation, much reflection that is bringing about the masked transformation of our destiny, the emergence of a new aspect of our nature, one neglected until this collective clarion call. We are all being called into the next phase of the Kingdom.