Brave New Year!

I wish each of you a very happy, hopeful and brave New Year!  Why do I add the word 'brave' to the list?  Well, it seems to me that we are on a new journey, and for that we need most of all, courage!  They say that even the longest journey starts with the first step, and it is that first, tentative step into the unknown that requires courage.  The second thing we need for our journey into 2013 is support - people around us whom we can trust, companions who will be there for us and see us through the bad times and laugh with us in the good times.  Together we can do great things.  I believe that, don't you? 

To be an optimist is not usually to be naive, although of course it may be, but essentially it is to look at the reality of our situation and find a path through it that is possible to traverse safely.  Optimists look at possibilities and take risks. Pessimists see only the negative side and are afraid to risk being wrong!

We need role models don't we, leaders who have the courage to take the first step on a new, untried road, and beckon us to follow. 

There are many role models we can take through this New Year, many saints, many people in our own lives, perhaps.  I'm going to ask you to take a fictional character, a figment of a gifted writer's imagination, if you like. And when I tell you who he is, don't say "But he isn't a real person!"  He is an intrinsic part of an allegory, and allegories are very important in showing us something about ourselves.  Jesus used that device in his teaching - we call them parables.



JRR Tolkien



Have you seen "The Hobbit"?  If you haven't, do try to do so  The film version of Tolkien's "Unexpected Journey" is really three stories intertwined and focuses on one character in its title, a hobbit.  Let me tell you how a genius's mind works.  This genius was a lecturer at Oxford.  He was correcting some student's essays. When he got to the last one in the pile, he found that  there was a blank page at the end of the examination paper, which this particular student had not filled in.  Absent-mindedly, Tolkien scribbled something on the paper.  When he looked at it, he realised that it had nothing whatever to do with the essay he was supposed to be marking.  He had written:

In the earth was a hole and a hobbit lived in it...

He looked at it,  bemused.  But, being Tolkien, he wondered "Hole?" "Where is it?"  And he proceeded to find out what a hobbit was, and where he lived. He peopled his world with amazing characters - dwarves, wizards, magicians, the stuff of fantasy.  But he gave us Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings, and now this Unexpected Journey we call The Hobbit for screen purposes. You may not like fantasy films, I don't think I like them usually, but this one, like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series, says something important, especially for us facing a new beginning, an adventure if you like.

The Hobbit

The main character is called Bilbo Baggins, who is the hobbit.  He lives in Bag End, and he loves nothing more than to sit by his fire quietly enjoying his solitude or entertaining his friends. He was shy and not very charismatic, if you know what I mean.  Then one night, he is visited by thirteen noisy and demanding dwarves, and Gandalf, who asks him to go on a journey with the dwarves to regain their lost kingdom.  He is an unexpected hero, yet the story is about his finding in himself the ability to lead and to find the lost home of the dwarves, and also to fight the dragon who guards it.  He is a hopeless fighter, and in the beginning has no confidence in himself. Yet he succeeds. One might say that he was naive.  Yes he was, but what he had was a sense of adventure and a growing belief in his mission. As well as that, he had unselfishness. After all, he had a home which he loved, and didn't want to leave, but he felt sorry for the dwarves who had lost theirs, and he wanted to help them to regain it. 

He also held on to his beliefs.  He arrived at the end, battered and bruised, almost dead, but he held on to the ring.  Maybe Tolkien saw that ring as not good.  I don't know.  But if we are looking for an allegorical meaning, then we can say that, to be faithful to what we believe in is good, and to hold on to what we have been given to guard is life-giving for us.  Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and he too believed that faith is very important, and without it we live a half-life.  Little Bilbo Baggins believed that someone was helping him to keep going on a journey that was well-nigh impossible, and he clutched the ring as a talisman. 

In our Congregation we have what we call our charism which is the spirit and values which our Founder, Mother Magdalen lived by and passed on to us.  We try to pass them on to others as Good News.  To be faithful to them is our challenge. We are Christ-bearers to the people of our time, being asked to bring Christ to every situation, especially where there is conflict or lack of forgiveness.  In his own way, little Bilbo did the same, although he would not realise what he was doing.

The Hobbit is also something of an allegory of leadership.  Perhaps we are reading too much into it, but I can see what people mean when they say that.  No one with any judgement would choose Bilbo Baggins as a leader, still less would they have confidence in his ability to lead others through hard times, and show them the way forward.  Yet he did it where others failed. 

So this New Year is about facing whatever comes with courage, even with a spirit of adventure, like Bilbo.  It is about helping others on the journey and finding enough courage within ourselves to pick ourselves up when things go wrong, and start again.  Those are New Year challenges!

I wish each of you once more a lovely 2013 and a special Year of Faith.  Think of Bilbo. He set out on a journey of adventure, probably found it terribly hard, but kept on, didn't turn back and came to the end of his journey stronger, more in tune with himself and others, and more at peace!  I wish the same for each one of you and for myself and each member of my Congregation.  See you next year!

(Photos courtesy of http://thehobbit.sqpn.com/, http://biographyonline.net)

(Photos/Graphics courtesy of Sr. Agnes Kavanagh and BMJL)

Holy Innocents Day

The Holy Innocents by Giotto di Bondone.

Today is the feast of the Holy Innocents - those babies murdered by order of King Herod when he was trying to locate where Jesus was so that he could destroy him as a king born in his territory would be a terrible threat to the power of Herod and his descendents. 

What a terrible day!  Little baby boys sought out, grabbed by the soldiers of the King, and heartlessly butchered. Imagine the fear and the pain of those poor mothers.  It is just too terrible to contemplate.  Yet it happened, and it is happening in different ways all over the world of today. Children being abused, children dying of malnutrition,  children being butchered to keep some dictator in power.  Let's rememer all those children today, and their parents, that the God who once said: "Let the children come to me, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven!" will put his arms around those suffering mites of our world, and heal and comfort their parents.  This is a prayer-poem about the Holy Innocents.  Perhaps you would like to pray it as you think of that blood-soaked day of long ago in Bethlehem:

O Bethehem! 'tis not the rosebud's time to open,

O Bethlehem!

Yet fallen petals haunt thy ways,

Deep desolation moans in Rama,

Rachel bewailing sons that are not,

Disconsolate O Bethlehem!

O Bethlehem!

Incarnadined in riven roses,

O Bethlehem!

Hadst thou no room at all for him?

So very small was royal Juda,

Now there is room in every cradle

and he is gone, O Bethlehem!

Author unknown.

One card

When I worked in the Clifton diocese, I had many wonderful experiences, some scary ones and many that, to this day, have made me think, especially at this time of year.

It was a week before Christmas, and of course we were very busy in school with plays, carol concerts, Advent  services,  the usual occurrences just before finishing the term for the Christmas holidays.  In the middle of it all, my parish priest telephoned and asked me to visit an old man, newly-arrived in the parish, who had broken his leg and therefore was housebound.

When my companion and I got to the house, we found that it was a two-roomed apartment in an area which was very run-down.  To our surprise, the man himself opened the door to us after some time of shuffling about and fumbling with locks.  I thought that he might have had a friend or a carer with him to help him, but he was completely alone.

His smile of welcome was heart-warming.  He had not seen either of us before, but it was obvious that we were an unexpected Christmas treat for him.  He sat us down with old-world courtesy, and offered us tea which he gave us in the manner of a butler in a large house serving refreshments to honoured guests, even though the tea was poured out in chipped mugs.

 I looked around the room.  It was sparsely furnished, but very clean and tidy.  His few possessions were lovingly cherished: he had two pictures which must have come from better days hung on the walls, and they brightened up the room, giving it a character it wouldn’t have otherwise possessed.  Then I saw a string tied around the mantelpiece.  On it was hung a large Christmas card.  This was displayed in the most eye-catching part of the room so that he could look at it often.  One card.  For something to say I said:”You’re putting up your cards, I see!”  His face broke into a smile. “Yes” he answered. “Isn’t this a wonderful time of the year? I love it!”  He then went on to tell us that this card had come from the St. Vincent de Paul Society in his last parish.  “They are so good!” he said.  They always came to see me, and gave me a present at Christmas!”  He got the card down and showed me.  It was thumbed, worn, often read.  I turned it over.  It was last year’s card.  With a smile I handed it back, making a resolution that he’d get a load more if I could help it.

One card.  Last year’s card.  Not chucked in the bin, not given to a charity for recycling, but loved, cherished, precious.  He talked with pride about his children.  His wife had died some years earlier, but he had three children, one a barrister, another a high-profile business man, and a third living abroad in a taxpayer’s haven.  All able to reach him.  All with the means to make his life more comfortable.  All too busy, or too involved with other concerns.  Yet he loved them and prayed for each of them at night.

I left that room a very changed person.  So did my companion.  We talked about it on the way home.  We had no idea how he came to be so poor when he obviously had seen better days, but the amazing thing was that he wasn’t bitter.  He was lovely.  I’ve always remembered him.  When I told a group of women who came to the Convent a little about him, without revealing who he was, they all said ”Oh can he come to my family for Christmas? We’d love to have him!”  Good, loving people.  I think he made friends, and received help.  But it would have been good if his family had remembered him. Loneliness is the disease of our times.  There are so many, and at Christmas it seems more poignant, doesn’t  it?

So let’s remember Jim – we’ll call him that. There are many Jim’s and Joan’s around us. Jesus came to offer love and friendship. He didn’t have much either, but he shared what he had.  In these days of recession, let’s do that too.  Have a lovely third week of Advent, and, like Jim, rejoice  because “Christmas is a wonderful time.”    So it is, for the generous of heart.

 

 

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light

                                                           

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light...

So Isaiah Chapter 9 starts.  Does that passage lift your heart?  If not, try again!!   Imagine a people, poor, lowly, dispirited, living in darkness – the darkness of fear, of bereavement, of lack of peace, and look around you.  Yes, we see these people all the time, every day at some time or other, and, unfortunately we get used to seeing them, used to their pain and hopelessness, so that we don’t try to do anything about it.  Isn’t that true?

This word-picture in Isaiah goes further.  Isaiah says that they “have seen a great light.”  Not a small, bobbing light that gives no relief from the surrounding darkness, but a great light , a light that will never go out, the light of the risen Christ shining on our shadowed world, lighting up the darkness, so that we can see clearly, reaching out to those still sitting in the darkness of despair, and lifting them out of it with our prayer.   This is an Advent experience.  Advent is all about hope.

“You have made their gladness greater” the prophet goes on to say, “you have made their joy increase”.   Advent is also about joy.

Yesterday morning at Mass in our local Church,  there was a chill in the air.  The Church wasn’t adequately heated, and it was very frosty and cold outside.  People were rubbing their hands and putting gloves back on, and shrugging into thick heavy coats.  Not at first a particularly joyful atmosphere for the first Sunday of Advent.  Then one of the altar servers, a young girl, picked up a taper, lighted it and went over to the newly-created Advent wreath.  She lighted the first candle and everyone in the Church craned their necks to have a look.  A flickering candle, getting stronger, the first of four lighting up the greenery around it, and picking out the purple, pink and white candles  still unlighted in the circle of time.   Most smiled.  The first Sunday of Advent!  A sign of hope.   A bit of warmth in a cold Church,  the beginning of a journey of faith – another Christmas on the way.  You could almost read the thoughts of the Congregation as they looked at that lone candle.  The symbol of hope, peace and gladness.  We all knew what it meant to us.

Advent is about a shared journey of faith which is lighted up by the light of Christ’s coming which started all those years ago in that little town of Bethlehem.

It demands something of us, as all journeys do.  What did Isaiah say as he continued the theme of his prophecy?

For (we) rejoice in his presence as people do at harvest time,  when they are happy  dividing the spoils.  For the yoke that was weighing on him,  the bar across his shoulders, the rod of his oppressor, these you break as on the day of Midian.

Why?

Advent is about laying down burdens,  and freedom from oppression because Jesus promised us that he had been anointed “to bring good news to the poor,  to bind up hearts that are broken, and to  proclaim liberty to captives and those burdened”  (Isaiah 61).  His mission was to give hope to those made poor.  It is our challenge now in this Advent.

Further, he challenges us:

For all the footgear of battle, every cloak rolled in blood is burnt  and consumed by fire.

Advent is about refraining from enmity, hatred, aggression.

Again, why?

"For there is a Child born to us, a Son given to us, and dominion is laid upon his shoulders,

And this is the name they will give him:

WONDER -  COUNSELLOR,  MIGHTY GOD,  ETERNAL FATHER, PRINCE OF PEACE.....”

Advent is about the coming of the eternal, co-existent,   all-powerful God who is “other” to our world in order to forge human and divine links which makes him one of us, imminent, enfleshed in our humanity, part of our pain and our joy.  It is about a love that will not let go, a love that invites us to hold on to those tiny hands that became the healing, out-reaching hands of the Man God of Nazareth.  It is an invitation to change our stony hearts to hearts of flesh so that he can love us the way he wants to love us.

Read the passage from Isaiah just quoted again and again, and make it your own this Advent.  It is beautiful, awe-inspiring and challenging, as are all the Advent readings.

Have a lovely Advent.  We will meet again next week, hopefully, when you have walked a few steps on the journey.  As a famous anthem of a Northern football team would sing:

When you walk through the dark, hold your head up high,

And don’t be afraid of the dark,

At the end of the road is a golden sun and the sweet-silver sound of the lark.

WALK ON, WALK ON WITH HOPE IN YOUR HEART AND YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE!

 

For we, the people who walked in darkness have seen a GREAT LIGHT.  Praise him!

 

Drawings courtesy of P Macaulay (c) 2012
Photos courtesy of BML and AK (c) 2012
Clip Art courtesy of BMcC