Darkness descends on Hobart once again. It is not the darkness of the winter months, but a production of dark artistic works. It is the time of Dark Mofo once more. A decade on and, once again, it seeks to attack and ridicule sacred images and truths of Christianity. Its prominent promotion at Hobart Airport which declared, “Welcome to Hell”, was intentionally provocative and offensive and has since been removed after justifiable public protest. Hobart and Tasmania are not hell, even if satanic elements are being fostered in its program running in June for two weeks.

 

A glance at the program and the brief detail on their content reveal a singular preoccupation with what is demeaning of the sacred and of the human. God and goodness and beauty are attacked. Not only are things that are sacred to so many and are part of our received tradition belittled, the program of events, in many of its offerings, also desecrates the dignity of the human person.

Dark Mofo promotes neo paganism in events like the ritual burning of the effigy, Ogoh-ogoh, and its focus on the Winter Solstice. It is clearly seeking to fill a spiritual void in many people’s lives.

Dark Mofo offers a counterfeit spirit which, sadly, so many uncritically accept and celebrate because it is viewed as ‘cutting edge’ or ‘avant garde’.

In reality, all it is doing is drawing people away from Truth, Goodness and Beauty and undermining their human flourishing. It does harm to people’s spiritual and psychological well-being.

For the past decade Dark Mofo has deliberately sought to denigrate the faith of Christians. They have sought to appropriate deeply significant  religious terms and concepts and twisted them under the guise of art. There is no better example of this than the use of upside-down crosses. The cross is the most sacred of Christian symbols, reminding us of the ultimate sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ for the redemption of humanity.

In traditional Christian expression we would say that Dark Mofo is an exercise in blasphemy.

Blasphemy, by definition, is irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable. It is an act that insults or shows contempt towards God.

In the understanding of many religions, blasphemy is a sin of the highest order. In Christianity, it is a sin against the third Commandment: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”. It carries serious consequences of ultimate divine judgement. Public blasphemy, promoted widely in the community, is an even more serious matter as it impacts the culture.

From its very inception Christianity has been the subject of rejection and persecution. Over the centuries one aspect of this rejection has been various forms of blasphemy. Among Catholics, apart from calling out blasphemy, which is right and necessary, there is also a positive response which we can make. It is to offer acts of reparation. Reparation, as the word suggests, is to make right, to repair.

A person of faith wishes to do something to repair the damage done by blasphemy.

The ultimate act of reparation was when the innocent Christ bore the sins of humanity, suffering and dying in an act of atonement, restoring the relationship between God and humanity.

Reparation can be undertaken by prayer, by acts of sacrifice and the offering of the Mass. In the Church’s history numerous groups and confraternities have been established with the intention of offering reparation for sins committed against God Himself.

The Lord, when he appeared to St Margaret Mary and revealed His Sacred Heart, encouraged her to devote prayer and sacrifice in reparation for sins committed against the Blessed Sacrament. In the fourth apparition he said,

Behold this Heart, which has loved men so much that It has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify to them Its love; and in return I receive from the greater number nothing but ingratitude by reason of their irreverence and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt which they show me in this Sacrament of love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me that treat me thus. Therefore, I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honour My Heart, by communicating on that day and making reparation to It by a solemn act.

In the revelations to the children at Fatima Our Lady recommended attending Mass on the five first Saturdays of the month as an act of reparation for sins against her Immaculate Heart. To Sr Lucia Our Lady said,

Behold, my daughter, my Heart encircled with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce It at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Give me consolation, you, at least; and make known on my behalf that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all who on the First Saturday of five consecutive months confess their sins, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to my Immaculate Heart.

The positive Christian response to blasphemy is to carry out acts of reparation.

As Dark Mofo once again permeates the city of Hobart our response is to lift up our hearts in prayer of reparation. A prayer of reparation for sins against the Holy Name of Jesus begins with these words,

O Jesus, my Saviour and Redeemer, Son of the living God, behold, we kneel before you and offer you our reparation; we would make amends for all the blasphemies uttered against your Holy Name.

Please join with me this winter in making acts of private and public reparations for the many blasphemies which will be committed during this very disturbing event of darkness and let us pray for the conversion of all those involved, organisers, performers and those who attend.