The thirst for power!

I once taught a girl who told me about her first, terrifying, day at school. She was in the playground, huddled against the wall, trying to get used to the noise of the hordes of children rushing about everywhere and screaming with delight at the freedom of the playground, when a little boy came up to her. "How old are you?" he asked her. "Five," she answered, thinking she had made a friend among all these unfamiliar children. "Then you watch it, I'm six!" the young gallant answered sternly before whizzing off to join his pals in the Second Class Infants.

That's power! We start young, don't we? In fact, long before we reach the age of six. Have you ever seen a baby having a rattle taken from him (or her)? If it's another baby who wants it, watch out for the squalls, the red faces, the screaming! That's the exercise of power!

In my misspent youth, I was the proud owner of a brand new bicycle, complete with gears, a bell with a beautiful ringing tone, and all the latest accoutrements. We hadn't heard of mountain bikes at that time, but I was satisfied with what I had. I was the only one of my friends who owned such a machine - and did I make the most of it! It occurred to me that I had a business opportunity right under my nose - rides for a penny each or some such daring entrepreneurism! But of course, it didn't work - my parents found out! But I remember the feeling of power it gave me - heady stuff! Power is seductive isn't it? It goes to the head and makes us feel giddy - even a little bit of it.

We live in a world that puts power at the top of the agenda. There is always someone who is jostling for your position, trying to pull one over on you by fair means or foul, so that he (or she) can put you down. We see it in schools - the bullying that goes on is widespread, and can have very serious consequences in later life. I was bullied at school, now I come to think of it, and it made me very miserable for a long time. "You are so stupid, you even look stupid!" I used to hear that every day. I got into the habit of looking in the mirror to see why I looked stupid! All I could see was a woebegone face and two long plaits. I longed to have my long hair cut, so that I would look clever. I blamed the plaits. But, even after I had them cut off I still looked stupid. So my tormentor told me. What a waste of money having the hair trimmed! The woes of youth!!

We might laugh at that sort of thing now - after all, what does it matter if you look stupid! But that's a grown-up way of looking at it, the hurt goes deep when you are young and not very confident. It is a very common experience - no doubt most of you reading this can look back on similar trials at school or even much later. We need to teach young people how to use power wisely. That is where the teaching of the Church, if understood properly, comes in.

Christianity is based on humility, on sensitivity to the other's point of view, on love. Jesus built up the confidence of those with whom he came in contact. He made the blustering know-it-all Simon of Bethsaida into the gentle, wise leader of post-Resurrection times - he encouraged the shy and reclusive Nathaniel to go to the ends of the earth with the Gospel message - he even accepted Judas as a member of the apostolic group and treated him as a friend. His dealings with women, particularly, were ground-breaking. Mary of Magdala, the reputed sinner, becomes the one who draws all of us into the love and forgiveness of Christ. Our Founder, Mother Magdalen wrote a lovely hymn to her. The last verse has always entranced me. In it she says:

"There are thousands in all ages come to Christ because of you."

It was Jesus who encouraged her to understand the true meaning of love and forgiveness, and now we too, come to him because of what she teaches us.

He made the Samaritan woman an apostle just by talking to her at the well in a non-judgemental way. He gave us his mother, and we have never looked back. She was one of the anawhim, the little ones who put their trust in God and did not seek power for themselves.

 

 

The power we have now is the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the power of love. Pope Francis is teaching us that nowadays. He said:

"Only when the thirst for power is replaced by love, will true transformation take place."

Our world will never be changed by power-hungry people, or by those who seek to overthrow restrictive regimes by force. The only real transformation is brought about by love. The Pope of the poor knows that. We need to learn it too.

So we pray:

Glory to him, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus, for ever and ever. Amen.

Enjoy the rest of July. We'll be in touch next month.

 

 

 

To serve us all our days....

 I have, of course, changed a well-known title of a book about a dedicated teacher after the First World War which was written by R.F. Delderfield and published in 1972. It was a lovely story  which was so inspiring. It was called  "To serve them all my days."   You may have read it, if you haven't, it is worth looking at.

But the inspiration of the teacher's dedication to his pupils no matter what they achieved or failed to achieve must, ultimately, have come from the one who told us that "he came, not to be served but to serve."
 

This special week, which we call Holy Week, shows us what being a servant really means when Christ talks about it.

Last Thursday we had the image of God in an apron, as one poem calls it.  Jesus took off his outer garments knelt down at the feet of his disciples, and washed their dirty feet! That was the work of a slave in those times.  No wonder Peter was horrified, and tried to stop Jesus from doing such a menial task.  But Jesus told Peter in no uncertain terms, that he could have no part in his mission if he didn't submit.  It was the living out of the mission statement he had offered to his own people in Nazareth, who rejected him.

"The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me", he cried out, "and he has anointed me to give good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, to give the blind new sight, to take away the chains of oppression, to proclaim a year of the Lord's favour!"   (Isaiah 61: 1- 2)

That is the mission statement of a servant of the people.  He was to be the Good Shepherd, giving his life for us, stupid sheep that we are, going the wrong way most of the time, but always being called back to his love, his forgiveness, his care.

Holy Week brings that forgiveness, that care, that love so close to us.  We see it each time with new eyes.  Didn't Jesus promise to give us new sight?  Well he does, all the time.  We are drawn inexorably into the horror, the wonder and the exultation of the Passion and the Resurrection.  The Servant God leading us once more into a realisation that we have to follow the same path - the path of love, the path of caring for others.  That is being Christ-like.  We are invited to do what he did, take the heavy burdens from the shoulders of others, give them hope and light in their darkness.  That sounds very noble, but in practice, in small ways we can all do it.  Smile at someone who looks downcast, say a little prayer for that person as we pass by - offer our friendeship and support to those suffering, put love at the heart of our Church and our world.  Love often comes in very small parcels, but without it, the world would be a grim place indeed.

Jesus, who is love, saw that.  He showed us the way of fidelity, the way of a servant. He served us all his days, and continues to do so now he is risen.  But he has no human hands, no human feet to walk among us now, he expects us to use ours. He has passed on his mission to us, and, for the time we are here, we have the obligation to bring the light of Christ which was dimmed temporarily on that first Good Friday, and obscured during Holy Saurday to that brightness which came with the first Easter Sunday morning.  How can we refuse to do that when he suffered so much for us?  Ours is really such a small return of love for such a total giving on the part of the Servant King.  We say, in faith, re-echoing the words of The Servant Song (click for music):

Will you let me be your servant,

let me be as Christ to you:

pray that I may have the grace

to let you be my servant too.

I will hold the Christ light for you

 in the night-time of your fear,

 I will hold my hand out to you

speak the peace you long to hear.

That is what we are called to do. If we fail to do this, then Christ's sacrifice on the Cross and his Resurrection from the dead will be, as far as we ae concerned, in vain.  And that would be terrible.

Let's pray that the Servant King may reach out, during this year of Faith to all those who need his love most. 

Have a lovely Easter.  We will pray for one another,  so that, like the first disciples, we may hear him say to us gently: "Peace be with you. Do not be afraid!"

THE LORD HAS RISEN , ALLELUIA!   HE HAS RISEN INDEED, ALLELUIA!

 

 

All photos and images owned by SMG. Drawings by P.Macauley. Copyright 2013. 

Leave the past in ashes!

The ashes have been given out in all the morning Masses around here, and we have been truly marked as disciples of Christ.  Ash Wednesday is upon us with all its newness and calls to repentence.  We are reminded that we are ambassadors for Christ - isn't that great.  But the Church doesn't have that view at all.  Look at the Scriptures - they are very positive and reassuring.  "Come back to me", the Lord pleads to us  "don't let fear keep us apart." How could we refuse such a plea?  So we'll put away our guilt and fear and turn to God who always forgives, always welcoms us back, always has a smile on his face and love in his heart.  Of course.  He is God.

Even the way he challenges us is positive. "I don't want sacrifices, but mercy!" he thunders.  "Don't put on a pious face and let people know you are fasting!"  "The sort of fast I want is to break unjust fetters, let the oppressed go free, share your bread with the hungry, and shelter the homeless poor. Clothe the one who has no suitable garments, and do not turn away from your own kin!!"   That is being a true Christian person. 

And our reply?  It has to be 

"Have mercy on me, O God in your kindness, in your compassion blot out my offence.  For in sacrifice you take no delight. My sacrifice is a contrite spirit because I know a humbled, contrite heart you well not spurn"  (cf Psalm 50)

He never spurns us - read the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) to see the sort of God he is.  As a Prodigal Daughter I am so grateful for that, and for the chances he gives us all the time.

Have a good Lent, enjoy tomorrow, St. Valentine's Day, and show real Christian love, not the purple heart variety but the heart that is glowing with kindness and love of others.  You can do it!  We'll pray for each other.  

Thank you for your prayers which have helped me in my low moments.  God bless.  We'll meet again next week.

Forgiving those who have hurt us

In the Gospel today, we have heard all about forgiveness, determination, finding and losing.  It’s also about the joy of finding.  I know what that is because I’m always losing things, but this was much more than that.  It was about finding peace and joy through forgiveness; it was about repentant sinners coming back to God.  I loved it.

Let me tell you about one repentant sinner who came back to God. This took place many years ago when I was a child, and it actually happened through someone in our parish.

I wasn’t allowed at that time to read lurid headlines in the press, so this is secondhand knowledge. My mother believed that our minds should not be clogged up by bad things when we were too young to understand them.  St. Paul would have loved my mother. Remember, he told the Phillippians to fill their minds with everything that was good?  Well, that was my mother too. So when this terrible thing happened to one of our neighbours, and a friend of ours, I wasn’t aware of it  at first, even though I went to the shop for the Sunday paper and it was all on the front page!!

It gradually became a topic of conversation with the women around the district, and of course I picked it up!  It was terrible.  The eldest daughter of the family was murdered violently in London, and the police were seeking the murderer.  She was the housekeeper for an exiled European king, and moved in exalted circles. 

But there was political unrest and a man apparently broke into their quarters in Knightsbridge or somewhere like that, and shot this young woman dead in the general melee. Why,  I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. We didn’t know her as she was much older and had left home many years before. But she was local, and we all knew the family.  They were lovely, and it was a terrible sorrow for them. The whole area was agog with the horror of it.

Eventually someone was charged with her murder, tried and condemned to death.  In those days they still had the death penalty for murder.  Everyone breathed a sigh of relief that at least something had been done to find justice for Mary’s death. All that is, except one person – her mother.

 She was in her sixties,  I think. You aren’t good at ages when you’re young are you, but she must have been, because they had a large family; quite a few of them grown-up and independent of the family.  This woman who came from a small village in the North of Ireland, and had probably not moved out much from the big family house she had in Liverpool, decided she was going to visit her daughter’s murderer who was awaiting his execution in Pentonville prison. And that is what she did.

She had to fight her way through all the red tape to get there.  Eventually permission was granted, but of course she would have been closely guarded there in case she had come for her own version of justice!  But what she told this condemned man was that she and the family forgave him unreservedly for Mary’s death, that they did not hold it against him even though it was absolutely devastating for them, and that they would pray for him.. He wept and reputedly, so did she. 

 Before his death  I think he came back to God.  It took an elderly lady with no knowledge of London or the prison system of the time to bring that about.

She never got recognition for it, as far as I know, but she didn’t ask for it, or need it. 

She had God’s approval, and that is all that mattered.  When I saw those moving pictures of the late Pope with his would-be-murderer, I thought of that lady too. Aren’t we blessed with wonderful role models, in spite of all the bad things we hear.  Have a good week!

 

Holy Week

We are at the threshold of Holy Week, the most important week of the whole calender.  This week reminds us of how much we are loved.  It is the week of our salvation.  This is the time when, as Luke puts it, Jesus "set his face like a flint" as he journeyed to Jerusalem where, in the tradition of all the prophets, he would be slain.

There is one difference, however, between the death of the Old Testament prophets and that of Jesus.  This is the story of the unfolding of salvation history. The tragic events of which lead us through betrayal, injustice, envy, hatred, and indescribable torture to a humiliating and lonely death on a gibbet with a howling mob spitting, snarling and cursing below him.

Yet this death was to lead to the explosion of joy we know today as Resurrection.  It was to open up for us the possibility of living for all eternity in that same joy and blessedness. It was the gift of forgiveness for past sins, the breaking of the stranglehold of Satan over us, the forging of a chain of love that was to unite Heaven and earth, reaching out through time and space to all peoples throughout the world until the end of time.

 Calvary is the place of the skull, the place of death, but it is also the refuge of sinners, an inexhaustible well of healing, a centre of reconciliation and of love.  Every drop of blood that Jesus shed on that first Friday we call good, was redemptive.  Each pain-filled gasp of sound that issued from his parched and cracked lips was an appeal to our heart.  "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing!" he cried out on seeing the upraised fists, hearing the imprecations of hatred and envy below him, feeling the agony of pain as he tried to lift himself up on the nails in order to get breath in his lungs to speak because his whole body was contorted and out of sync. What a God! When the chips were down, and Jesus was dying in unspeakable pain as he writhed in agony on the Cross as the sky darkened around him and his eyes were blinded by blood and spittle, then his whole being shone out with love - a love that resounds today in us as we reflect on what he did for us. 

Let's remember to spend some time this week on staying close to him and to his Mother Mary, standing so bravely at the foot of the Cross as her lovely, innocent Son gasped out  his life for us.  Let's think of that poor man dying beside him who only asked for Jesus to remember him. Think of it - what a God!  No saying, "well, you've been a very naughty boy, so you'll have to suffer a lot in the next world!"  He saw that man's sorrow.  "This day you will be with me in Paradise!"  That is love, that is total forgiveness.  Two men dying together, one innocent, the Son of the Eternal God, the other a thief, who had led what we call a bad life, who, in his own words, deserved to die.  Play the Taize chant "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom" (click on title) and think of that scene.  Thank him for all the times you have received forgiveness and a chance to start again.  He is so close to us in Holy Week. Hold hands with Mary, and ask her to give you courage.  What a woman!  She knows what sorrow is, she will listen and heal and make you feel better.  She is, after all a mother, and that's what good mothers do.

Have a lovely Holy Week starting with the joy of Palm Sunday, and ending, or should we say beginning with Easter Sunday.  We shall be praying for you too. 

Tomorrow we will talk a little about the Eucharist and the Seder meal, the meal Jesus ate with his disciples before he went to Gethsemane. We call it the Last Supper.

God bless.

Prepare the way of the Lord!

John the Baptist was wonderful wasn't he? He never let anything come in the way of what he believed was what God wanted him to do.  He went straight for the jugular in a spiritual sense of course! Uncompromising? tough? serious? No holds barred?  A loner?  It's possible that he was all of those things, but the essential John has been captured by the readings for this second Sunday of Advent which are all about preparation, expectancy, forgiveness. John believed in preparation. "Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight!" he roared. Not a man to be ignored, I'd say, wouldn't you? He'd have made a good site manager on a modern building project.  No delays possible, no excuses, no procrastination - just get on with the job in hand - "This is what the Boss wants, let's do it for him."  You know, we like people like that - the ones who get things done, who make our lives peaceful and orderly, who help us to see where we should be going.  It makes for a stress-free existence.  But John meant a lot more than that.  He wanted us to repent!
Of what? We ask ourselves.  Well, for a start, our self-centredness, our cluttering up our lives with non-essentials, our forgetfulness of the need to pray. Advent is a lovely time. It is a time for that special peace which Jesus came to give us. It is a time for that quiet joy which is its hallmark.  Our Foundress told us:

"I want you all to be joyful at this time.  Why should we not be joyful to welcome him who comes to bring us joy?" No reason really, except the things we hold on to which block the way to God's peace - the worst one is unforgiveness. We are hurt, we smart, we get angry and want to hit back. We persuade ourselves that it isn't our fault = the other one owes us an apology!  And we refuse to be the first to reach out to reconcile our differences.  I was once at a funeral of a mother of a large family.  She had worked all her life for her children and then her grandchildren, but some sort of grievance broke out between some members of the family, and they stopped speaking to one another.  They visited the mother when she was dying on different days so that they could never meet.  She begged them to reconcile their differences but they refused.  At the  cemetery they took up their positions on either side of the open grave....  I have never forgotten that image - the mother who loved them all in the middle of two implacable enemies, both of whom wept for her.  John would say to us today:" Don't let the sun go down on your anger!"  It is good advice.  Advent is a time of mercy, of forgiveness, of peace.  "I will hear what the Lord God has to say, a voice that speaks of peace..." we read in the Psalm for the Second Sunday, and the response is: "Let us see O Lord your mercy, and give us your saving help!"  Well, how can we expect mercy when we refuse to give it to others? 

Let's try to make this Advent special by ridding ourselves of the things that make us and others unhappy. That's what John meant by preparing the way of the Lord.  Have a lovely Advent.  We will be praying for you all!