The Real Me

Painting by Fr. Sieger Koder

There is a very colourful painting by the German priest-artist,  Fr Sieger Koder which depicts a clown putting on a mask. The mask is placed in such a way that it hides half the face of the person who holds it.   Koder called it “The Real Me.”

A clown of course is one of the oldest figures in the world. We love clowns, we laugh at their antics, we believe that they are real persons.  But they aren’t. Clowns are essentially tragic figures, or sad figures, or figures of derision.

Why is this, I wonder?  Probably because they hide the real person behind the mask.  They press down their worries, their fears their loneliness, their psychoses behind a funny, painted mask.  They spend their entire professional lives on stage, in circuses, in entertainment – yet they are rarely seen as they are.  They are poseurs.

Jesus once asked the apostles “Who do you think I am?”  The answers came out as “John the Baptist”, or “Elijah” or “one of the prophets.”   Only Peter said “You are the Christ.” 

And Jesus recognised that Peter could only have known who he was through the power of the Holy Spirit who guided him to the truth.  The others recognised Jesus in part, but the ideas that were current then about the Messiah dominated their thinking, and they wanted Jesus to be a conqueror, a success figure, a man of property with a court, where they of course would be leaders and men of success. That was Judas’s downfall. He really believed that Jesus was to be a human success, get rid of the Romans, make the Jews a nation which could conquer the world. And the reality was so different that he couldn’t take it. We all like to  be part of a success story, but perhaps we need to look more closely at what we mean by success!

But where does all this lead us? We were talking about being real.  In order to live a happy life – we might call it a successful life – we must recognise who we are, what our gifts are, how we can use them to help others, not just ourselves.  As we get older we tend to know ourselves more. Experience has taught us what makes for true happiness, or it should have done.  The world around us seems to be populated with so many who seek power, money and adulation of one kind or another.  We must belong to the A team, we must make a lot of money, we must be beautiful, chic, trend-setters etc.  But not all of us can do that, and we begin to think of ourselves as failures.  In Liverpool they call that being “not much kop!”

But Jesus told us that it is in our weakness that we are strong. He proved it on the Cross. It was in that hell-hole of pain, humiliation, derision, blasphemy and hatred that he won the battle for us – gave us life, hope and salvation through his Resurrection.

But to avail of this stupendous gift, won for us through the weakness, pain and humiliation of Jesus, we too, like him, have to learn to be real. When we come to eternity, we will know for certain whether or not we have become real, and have fought against the temptations to outward success, power, too much money and lust. Not necessarily in that order!

Have you ever read a child’s story called “The Velveteen Rabbit?” Like all tales supposedly told for children, it has an adult meaning. It is all about becoming real. Margery Williams tells the story through the eyes of a stuffed rabbit who finds out that to be real  you have to give and receive unconditional love. This is the conversation he has with the skin horse:

“What is REAL?” said the rabbit one day. “ Does it mean having things that buzz inside you, and have a stick-out handle?” “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the skin horse. “it’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time; not just to PLAY WITH. BUT REALLY LOVES YOU , you become REAL.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the rabbit. 

“Sometimes.” said the skin horse, for he was always truthful.

“When you are real. “ he added, “you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the skin horse. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be ‘carefully kept’. Generally, by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out,  and you get loose in the joints, and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because, once you are REAL you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

All reality has to do with love. Unconditional love. It is about learning to love others unconditionally, warts and all, and it is of course about accepting that we are loved unconditionally by an infinitely loving God.  It isn’t easy to do that, but, In the words of the skin horse, “when you are real, you don’t mind being hurt."

It’s what discipleship is all about.

Watch the Velveteen Rabbit as told by Meryl Streep

BEING EASTER PEOPLE

The lilies and daffodils gracing our Easter gardens  in our churches may be fading a little after a week, but Easter, with all its life and colour and hope is very much with us.

One of the Easter hymns I have always loved says trenchantly:

“We are Easter people, and alleluia is our song!” 

That’s a pretty strong statement, isn’t it.  The most important thing about us is that we are people of the Resurrection.  

Is that how you feel this morning?  It is dull outside, but, as I look at our little garden, I am filled with hope.  The Spring flowers know that they are things of beauty and colour.  They bloom happily and bravely in spite of our inconsistent weather. In fact, they use the winds and the rain to shine out and remind us that , underneath all the frustration, pain, loneliness and sickness that is part of every life, there is also the possibility of something better just around the corner. 

And that we can find colour and beauty and hope if we look for it.  That is being an Easter person. It’s good to be wakened up by birdsong rather than by the inharmonious sound of the alarm clock these days isn’t it. Our migrant  birds are back with us, giving us flashes of their bright green, blue or multi-coloured coats as they go about their business of feeding the young,  bathing themselves in our tiny bird baths, pecking the seeds we put out for them, and of course filling our world with song.  The birds too know it is Resurrection time. If you don’t yet realise that the lovely sounds filling our skies and our gardens, hedgerows and lanes are the bird’s version of ALLELUIA then listen to their song more attentively! 

To be an Easter person does not mean going around with a silly grin on our faces, or by telling people in pain or trouble that “it will get better.” That’s putting us in danger of being at best, surface sort of people, and at worst,  hypocrites.

We don’t know whether this trouble will immediately fade away because of our prayer.  What we do know is that God will help this person to bear the pain. As Easter people, our task is to support, to be there in good times and bad, to reach out and just hold their trembling hands.  Sometimes that is all we can do.  Words can sometimes be meaningless but a gentle presence is comforting. Easter people know that.

I am still chuckling over something one of our Sisters gave to me recently. She puts up a “Thought for the Week” for the staff in her organisation. This is the one I am chuckling about just now:

Dear Lord,

So far today I’m doing alright.

I have not gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or self-indulgent.

I have not whined, complained, cursed or eaten any chocolate.

I have charged nothing to my credit card.

BUT

I will be getting out of bed in a minute, and I think I will really need your help then!

Wonderful, isn’t it. But, although we cannot hear it often within our lives, Alleluia is really our song because, although we know what our clay is made of, we also know that we need help.  We need the hope that living in the power of the Resurrection gives us.  We also need to give that hope to others in any way we can – the comfort of a nice cup of tea, the smile that says “I’m so glad to see you”, the ear that is bent  towads others, listening attentively to what they are saying to us, letting them feel that they are important, no matter how old, how sick, how difficult they are. 

As Easter people we have the opportunity to put in love where it doesn’t exist, to BE that love at the centre of our world.  

What an opportunity!  HAPPY EASTER TIDE TO YOU ALL.

Photos used with permission of artist copyright (C)2014 Poor Servants of the Mother of God

                                                                  

Our tainted nature’s solitary boast - William Wordsworth

This is the third line of The Ecclesiastical Poems written by Wordsworth in the early 1820’s. Although not known as a very religious man, Wordsworth wrote several religious poems in which he speaks of his emotion when looking at the world around him, which reminded him of a hidden deity whose hand was upon everything and who was behind the beauty and the life of our planet.  He was, of course, a worshipper of nature; he almost gives the impression in his poems of being pantheistic at times, but he has a genuine respect for Mary as a woman to be admired for her faith and her unique position as the one sinless creature in a world darkened by selfishness, greed and idolatry.

 

In the anticipation of the feast of the Annunciation on the 25^th March, we too reach out in love and in joy to her whose courageous “yes” brought Christ to our world as one of us and, in doing that, opened the way to salvation, to hope and to blessedness. When we remember that she was only a young teenager at the time, we can only think of her great trust in God, and her courage in facing an unknown future. As a young woman from a small, isolated village, she knew what would happen to her when her neighbours realised that she was pregnant before she married Joseph. She understood the pain of knowing that they could throw her out of the village, or even have her stoned to death.

For Joseph, it must have been a terrible time of shock and consternation. He would have to make the decision to deal with the situation as the law allowed.  He loved Mary and did not understand what had happened.  He must, at first, have thought that she had been unfaithful to him. What else could he think?

We have the benefit of hindsight, and we know what happened – the salutation of the angel, the “yes” of Mary which changed human history for all time, the embrace of the Holy Spirit which brought life to Mary’s youthful womb, the wonderful peace and joy that filled her whole being as a tiny, pulsating embryo within her  -  the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob – took up its earthly existence. It was the “still point of the turning world”, the moment when, for the first time, Heaven and earth were joined together in the flesh of a young girl from Nazareth, that most despised of villages. The time when the hearts of Jesus and Mary were joined together in a union that was never to be broken. A time of reprieve for us, of hope for every son and daughter of Eve, of freedom and saving grace for the whole of humanity and of the vast reaches of the created world. Its repercussions are still being felt, and will continue to do so for all time.

As you know, March 25^th is our special feast, celebrating as it does the birth of God’s greatest gift to us – his Son.  As Mary brought Christ to our world, so we perpetuate the Incarnation event by carrying Jesus spiritually to all those in need, all those who long for him, yet still sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

When we celebrate this feast, let us remember those who are living lives of pain and misery, those who don’t yet know Jesus or experience his great love, those who are ignored and given no part in other people’s lives; those who are lonely, bereaved or without hope.  Jesus came to our world to show us how much we are loved.  He came to give us dignity and worth, to make us feel good about being human. 

We can celebrate too by remembering to respect the dignity of others, especially those who are handicapped, old, vulnerable or poor. That way we can thank God and his Mother in the best way possible, by showing how much we appreciate the gift of the Incarnation.

Have a lovely feast. We will remember you all in our prayers.

 

THE SHORTEST MONTH IN THE YEAR

I came across my Mother’s diary today. I should say “one of her diaries” because she filled in several a year, not, as you can imagine, for dates and happenings, but to write in her favourite sayings.

She gathered these from all over the  place, favourite cuttings from newspapers, words of wisdom from current stars of radio, screen or stage, snatches of poetry remembered from childhood, quotations from her favourite playwrights, authors or even from people she knew.

To read one of her diaries, was to take a trip back in time, to see her again, in the mind’s eye, bent over this little book when the day’s work was done.  She loved it, and to read what she once wrote down so lovingly in days gone by, brought her close.

In my mind, I could hear her soft Irish voice as she read out bits to us, see her face crease up with laughter at some absurdity that she had captured when quoting from the words of some star of radio or television. I looked at her writing – no computers then – and I was filled with love and yes, wonder.  How did she manage to write all that? It was not an orderly account of anything, just random jottings that came to her as she sat by the fire in the evenings. But to read it now, brought back all the life, the vibrancy, the colour that was my mother.

To have had a mother like her was a gift I can never repay.  She was intelligent, funny, wise, sensitive and energetic with a mind that, like Autolycus in Shakespeare’s “Winter’s Tale”, made her “a snapper up of unconsidered trifles.”  She had an eye for kindness, for wisdom, for absurdity and for what I can only call faith. She never learned theology as such, but her love of the Scriptures shone out from her, and she always said to us, “Remember this saying: ‘Prayer is the golden chain that binds us to the feet of God’" -  I think that is Tennyson. She loved him. Prayer for her was just talking to God, inviting Our Lady to sit opposite her in a chair, and then having a loving conversation together.  Our Lady was her best friend. So often I see my mother’s hands slipping the beads through her fingers – she said all the mysteries of the Rosary each day.

And like the mother in “The Boree Log” every prayer she said was answered. You remember that old lady who came from Ireland to Australia in the beginning of the 20^th century? She prayed for “every hurted hand, and every hurted heart” (or words to that effect!) and everything came right. So did my mother’s prayers.

But I started this blog by calling it “The Shortest Month in the Year.”  That is, I think, February.  My mother loved February because it was the brink month, when Spring was waiting to burst out in all its splendour.

I once said to her “I hate November and February, they are so dull!” and she was so cross with me. “Never say any day or month is horrible, it is God’s gift to you," she replied. 

“No matter what it looks like, try to see the goodness in each day, and the promise in each month,” was her advice.  I couldn’t see it at the time, but now I can.  We have bad floods and terrible weather at the moment in many parts of this country, and throughout the world.  We can be tempted to be despairing, but, as my mother pointed out, there will be better times if we keep our hopes up.

History has largely proved her right.

February was one of my mother’s favourite months.  She loved the tiny lengthening
of the evenings, calling it “a cock’s step” of added light.  She could smell the earth quickening, and see, in her mind’s eye, the riot of Spring flowers that were soon to grace her little patch of garden.

February, for her was “brink month, young month, which unlocks the gate to Spring. It is always on the brink of something wonderful.”  That is what I am reading in her diary just now. It was her philosophy. She believed that the shortest month of our year was indeed the threshold of “something wonderful.”  She died on the 15^th February, just as the flowers were beginning to poke up cautious green stalks through the as yet, unwarmed earth.  She knew she too was on the brink of something wonderful. That year, her Spring was with God, and I know she would have exclaimed with delight at the unbelievable colours of Heaven, and the “something wonderful” was life with him in his eternal Springtime.

“I will plant,” she said to me,   “Stocks, phlox, cosmos, nemesia, Sweet William, daffodils, wallflowers and pinks this February.  They will be lovely!”

Have a good brink month.  God bless each of you and may “something wonderful” be yours.

 

World Day for Consecrated Life

2^ndFebruary, which is the feast of the Purification or Candlemas as we used to call it, is a special day set apart to thank God for the gift of the Consecrated life.  That is the gift to the Church and the world of those people who vow to live their lives as Religious priests, brothers or sisters.
 

It was the late Pope John Paul II who started this special day of prayer, to celebrate the witness of those who have chosen to follow Christ by living a vowed life of poverty, chastity and obedience for the sake of Christ and his Church.

He wanted it to be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for what he called “this gift which enriches and gladdens the Christian community with its multiplicity of charisms and by the witness of so many lives given wholly to the cause of the kingdom of God.”

He goes on to say that this gift is at the heart of the Church, and it is that unselfish giving of their lives which gives that Church its vitality and richness. 

We are reminded by those words of the desire of St. Therese of Lisieux, a young Carmelite nun of the last century who wanted to be “the love at the heart of the Church.” It is that love that we are celebrating on February 2^nd.

February 14^th is of course, traditionally celebrated throughout the world as the day we put love at the centre of our thinking, but February 2^nd comes first, although few will recognise it as the celebration of love also.

To be a religious is to have answered the call to love.  I remember well the time I first got the call to do just that.  I was dancing at a formal ball, dressed in my first long evening gown – that is, not counting a bridesmaid’s dress – and feeling on top of the world.   Everything was all right in a wonderful world for me.  The music was superb, the partners charming, the feeling of being for once well-dressed and looking good put a smile on my face. I managed all the difficult steps too (bite the dust Strictly!).

And then it came -  that feeling that this wasn’t enough. It wasn’t for me.  I had experienced that kind of doubt before, and always managed to put it away from me, but this time I knew. It was, unmistakably, my call to leave one kind of love to follow another one.  I wasn’t ready, or equipped or holy enough, but I knew I had at least to try. So that is what I did, eventually.

I belong to a Congregation called the Poor Servants of the Mother of God – SMG’s for short.  Our Founder was Frances Taylor, who later became Mother Magdalen.  She was an Anglican convert who found her own vocation while nursing the soldiers in the Crimea. It was there that she became a Catholic after witnessing the faith and trust of the young Irish soldiers who died far from home, in inexpressible agony, yet with the trust that somehow this would be all right, and, as she looked at their cracked lips trying to articulate a prayer, she knew that her faith wasn’t enough, it was no longer for her.  What they had she needed.  The rest, as they say, is history.

She founded us, like St. Therese, to put love at the heart of the Church and of the world.  She wanted us to reach out in love to the poor, the lonely, the disenfranchised, the marginalised and to show them love, to respect their dignity, to make them feel better about themselves.  I loved that – it seemed to me to be what I had wanted that evening on the dance floor, although I couldn’t express it.

Now I know what drew me to this particular Congregation, and my years in it have been happy and fulfilled ones, thank God.

If you were to ask me nowadays why I answered that insistent call to love, and why I am still here, struggling of course, but still reaching out to that wonderful love which is still drawing me on, I would put it in the words of that lovely hymn “Will you come and follow me?” which of course wasn’t around when I entered religious life.  I can only quote the first verse here, as space is limited, but look it up and pray it.  It is a marvellous hymn:

 

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known.

Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

 

Put like that, I’d have to answer with a resounding “Yes” wouldn’t I? To do that, is to say “Yes” to putting love at the heart of the world.  That is what the Pope was talking about.  That is what I, with thousands and thousands of others, have found.

Please pray for all those wonderful Religious -  men and women who are carrying the Gospel message with so much love to the furthest corners of our world.  They are the real A-teams, the genuine stars.   They deserve our thanks and our prayers.  Let’s give them generously.
 

God bless each of you, and have a lovely Candlemas Day.